Нил Шустерман - The Schwa Was Here

I wasn’t so lucky.

A week after being replaced by the Schwa as her official es­cort, Lexie herself came to answer the door. She pulled it open wide, letting out four dogs, three of which nuzzled me for affec­tion, but the fourth one, Prudence—who was always a loose cannon—bolted, and headed straight down the stairs. Not the back stairs we always take to get out, the grand staircase that led right down to the middle of the restaurant, where people were eating an early dinner.

“Great,” I said. “She’ll probably pull a lobster right off of someone’s plate.”

“I need your help,” Lexie said. At first I thought she meant to get the dog, but then I heard Crawley shouting and groaning from inside the apartment, over the sound of barking. Lexie’s voice was all warbly, and I could tell she was panicked. “He fell in the shower,” she said. “I think he might have broken his hip again.”

I stepped in, closing the door behind me. Let the waiters deal with Prudence, they were probably used to it. “Did you call 911?”

“They’re sending an ambulance, but he won’t let me near him. He won’t tell me anything. I don’t know what to do.”

I tried to hurry back to the master bathroom with her, but she couldn’t hurry. She moved slowly, and methodically, never bumping into anything, but never quickening her pace. It was the first time I’d ever seen her handicap be a hindrance.

Crawley was sprawled on the shower floor, clutching a towel over himself.

“Get out!” he said when he saw me.

“There’s an ambulance on its way,” I told him.

“I don’t need an ambulance. Just leave me alone.”

It was terrible to see him like this. He had always been such a powerful presence, even in his wheelchair. Kind of like Roo­sevelt, you know? But lying there on the floor, twisted in that awkward position, he seemed frail and helpless. I reached over to help him shift into a more comfortable position, but he swatted my hand away. “Get your lousy hands away from me, you dumb guinea!”

Whoa.

He had called me lots of things, but never the G-word. I didn’t know what to make of it, but now wasn’t a time I could really get angry. He tried to move by himself, and yowled in pain, letting loose a whole dictionary of cusswords.

Lexie, standing at the door, grimaced. “What happened? Did he fall again? Tell me, Anthony! Tell me everything that’s hap­pening.”

“Nothing’s happening. He tried to move, but couldn’t.”

“Is he bleeding?”

“No.”

Then she hit her eyes with her palms and grunted. It was weird, but I knew exactly why she did it. It was frustration at her own blindness. She was smooth and confident when the world cooperated, but accidents were almost as uncooperative as her grandfather. “Isn’t there something we can do?”

Yes, there was. I went over to the medicine chest and opened it to reveal a whole pharmacy of medication. I quickly scanned the labels.

“What are you doing now?” Crawley asked.

“You need something for pain, and an anti-inflamatory,” I told him. I knew about that from the injuries we’ve had in my own family.

“So you’re my doctor now?”

“Yeah, Dr. DumGuinea, and I’m sending you one helluva bill.” I found what I was looking for, checked the labels for dosage and expiration date, and pulled out a pill from two different vials. Then I filled a glass with water from the sink and cautiously ap­proached Crawley.

“What’s that?”

“Lodine and Vicodin,” I told him. “They prescribed these for you when you first broke your hip, right?”

“I don’t need it!” He pushed the glass away, spilling half the water on my shirtsleeve.

“Fine. Suit yourself.” I put the glass down on the counter with the pills, making sure he could see them. If he looked at them long enough, maybe he’d change his mind.

“They’re coming!” Lexie said. She heard the sirens long be­fore I did. The last time I heard sirens here, it was the police coming for the Schwa and me.

When Crawley heard the approaching sirens, he groaned. “I don’t need this today!”

There was a knock at the door, and I hurried off to let in the paramedics. Instead, it was the Schwa, with an out-of-breath waiter holding Prudence by the collar.

“Hi, Antsy!” the Schwa said brightly, like this was the happi­est place on Earth. “What’s up?”

“Don’t ask.”

I ran back to the bathroom, where Lexie still stood by the threshold, her grandfather yelling at her every time she tried to get closer.

“Anthony! Make her get out of here!”

“Lexie, maybe you should just go sit down—at least until he calms down.”

Exasperated, Lexie left for the living room.

“He’s lying on the floor,” the Schwa said, like I didn’t know.

“I’ll have those pills now,” Crawley said.

I handed him the pills and glass. “Careful, that Vicodin can be habit-forming.”

He gave me a nasty glare and took them.

The Schwa was trying to get up to speed, but not quite mak­ing it. “Uh—shouldn’t someone help him up?”

As if things weren’t crazy enough, when Lexie let the para­medics in, Prudence bolted again, followed by at least three other dogs.

The paramedics freaked and put their hands in the air, which is the worst thing to do around an excited dog, because it thinks, in its pint-size dog brain, that you have a treat in your hand, and so up the dog goes, planting its paws on your chest. Now imagine that multiplied by ten.

“He’s this way—in the bathroom,” I told them, but they were cornered by the sins and virtues and weren’t going anywhere. “C’mon, haven’t you ever seen Afghans before?” I had to use the old man’s trick of throwing a handful of treats clear across the room to free the paramedics.

When medical professionals took over the situation, I thought I could be out of this little drama. I figured Crawley would go off, complaining all the way, with Lexie in tow, and Schwa and I would be left to walk the dogs. Crawley, however, threw a curveball.

The paramedics got him up onto the gurney, and as they were wheeling him out, he grabbed my arm. “Anthony, you come with me.”

“What, me?”

“Is there another Anthony here?”

“I’ll come, Grandpa,” said Lexie, already getting Moxie ready for the journey.

“No. You will stay here with Calvin and walk the dogs.”

“I want to come with you!”

The paramedics rammed right into the Schwa, knocking him flat on his butt. The dogs, who had been calming down, began barking again.

“Sorry, kid, we didn’t see you.”

“Anthony—come!” said Crawley.

I turned to the Schwa and Lexie, holding back the dogs as they wheeled Crawley out. “I think my job description just changed again.”

They let me ride in the back of the ambulance with him as they ran red lights and took the wrong side of the road halfway to Coney Island Hospital.

“Why did you want me to come?” I asked Crawley. “Why not Lexie?”

“I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“She can’t.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass, you know what I mean.” He shifted positions and grimaced. “Tell them you’re my grandson at the hospital, and weasel your way into the ICU. You’re good at weaseling.”

“Thanks, I think.”

The paramedic checking Crawley’s blood pressure threw me a quick glance, but didn’t say anything. I guess whatever went on at the hospital wasn’t his business.

Then, when the ambulance pulled to a stop at the emergency room, Crawley grabbed my arm again. His nails dug into my forearm, although I don’t think he did it to hurt me, and he said: “Don’t let them leave me alone.”