Andrew Vachss: Dead and Gone

A woman with a face that meanness made ugly asked me about health insurance. I told her I had a real good plan. Full coverage. From my job. I was an … I couldn’t remember, but I knew I had coverage. Her lizard lips told me the police said I was a man with a long criminal record and no known employment. I told her that was silly. She said they took my fingerprints. I told her that was silly, too. She was angry at something. Later, she brought me a bunch of papers to sign. I signed them all. With an “X,” like she said to.

It was a teaching hospital. That’s why they were always studying me, this one resident said. He was working on his skills just by talking to me, perfecting that superior-snotty-scary tone they all need to armor themselves against the world’s knowing that they don’t know much.

Early one morning, Morales showed up. I’d known him a long time. A cop. He’d never liked me, but I didn’t take it personally. Morales didn’t like anyone except his old partner MacGowan. And MacGowan was long gone—pulled the pin on himself rather than talk to IAD after Morales smoked a bad guy and then flaked him with the throwdown piece he always carried. Morales was an old-style street roller, not a trace of slickness in him. A pit bull—once he locked on, he’d die holding the bite. And if he owed you, he’d pay it off or die trying.

He owed me, heavy.

“What happened?” he asked, no preamble.

“Who’re you?”

“Gonna be like that, huh?”

“Like … what? Who are you?”

He pinned me with his black ball-bearing eyes, as communicative as mirrored sunglasses. I looked back at him, blankness burning through haze.

“You really don’t …?”

“You … you’re a cop, right?”

“How’d you guess, pal?”

“The only people who come to see me are cops. There’s two others. Blade and Weber, or something.”

“Baird and Wheelwright. They’re out of the Four-Four in the South Bronx.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. You don’t know me?”

“Was I … Am I a cop?”

His laugh was metallic. He reached down, took my hand. He turned it over, looked at the palm, as if he was going to tell my fortune. “You didn’t have a piece on you when they dumped you here,” he said. “That don’t mean nothing by itself. But the gauntlet came up clean. You passed the paraffin.”

I made a noise. Less than a grunt, just enough to let him know I was listening.

“Deal is, the hospital’s got to call us whenever there’s a gunshot wound. It’s the law, okay? There was no ID on you. Nothing. So they run your prints. That’s when they tested your hands for powder residue.”

I made another low noise.

Morales reached over and took my hand. “Give me your best,” he told me, squeezing slightly.

I squeezed back. With all I had.

“Not yet,” Morales said.

He dropped my hand, turned his back, and walked out of the room.

When you’re in solitary, either you spend all your time getting ready, or you go somewhere else … inside your head. But the ticket to that other place costs too much. And there’s no guarantee it’ll be a round-trip.

So you do push-ups. Start wherever you can. Maybe just five, before you fall on your face. Doesn’t matter. Nobody’s watching. Do more the next time. Every time.

Isometrics are good, too. Walls are perfect for that.

Then you work on your mind. Remembering. Trying for every tiny detail. Every ridge, warp, taste, and texture. You do replays. In slow motion. Paying attention to the women you’ve been with the way you never did when you were right next to them. No fantasies allowed. They’re dangerous … part of that ticket to somewhere else. Got to be real. Memories. Truth. Whatever happened. Whatever really happened—nothing else allowed.

You can’t force memories. What color were those striped pants Belle used to wear? Vertical stripes. Michelle told the big girl they were slimming. Remember those stripes. They climbed up her long legs nice and parallel, but when they got to her butt, they ran in opposite directions like they were scared of each other. Remember her grunting and tugging at them, trying to get them on. What color were they? Concentrate .

But don’t press. It’s there. It’s in there. It’s all in there.

And I was going to need every bit of it soon.

In solitary, you don’t tell time by the sun, or by a clock. You tell it by meals. No matter what they are, no matter how bad they taste, they mark the time. Sometimes you can get a trusty to talk to you. Sometimes even a guard. If you’re connected good enough, your people can get stuff to you, too. But you can’t count on any of that. Just the meals. And the getting ready.

I worked and I rested and I ate. That’s all I did. But I did it all as hard as I could, gave it everything I had. So I’d have more to give it the next time.

“The optic nerve was impacted,” one of the endless doctors told me. “The bullet also tore some of the muscles that keep the eyes operating binocularly.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, speaking slowly. Carefully, like I wasn’t used to it yet.

“There won’t be any need for a … prosthesis. The right eye won’t process images, and there may be some slight pigmentation shift, but it’s organically sound. It doesn’t have to be removed. It may, however … wander a bit.”

“Wander?”

“The two eyes will no longer work as one. You’ll still be able to read, drive a car, do everything you did before. Your depth perception will be affected, but that’s just a matter of acclimation—you won’t even notice it after a while.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you’re one lucky man; I can tell you that. If the bullet had been a fraction of a millimeter off its path, you’d be dead. Or severely brain-damaged, without question.”

“I can’t remember …”

“That’s really not my department,” he brushed me off. “My specialty is ophthalmological surgery. This consultation is about your vision. We wanted you to have a sense of the various … sensations you’ll be experiencing when we remove the bandaging.”

“When will you—?”

“In a week or two, perhaps,” he said dismissively. The three young residents didn’t say anything, watching him deal with the stupid bum who’d gotten himself beat up and shot in the head.

When he was done, they followed him out of the room, a small flock of white-coated sheep.

“The reason it hurts so much to swallow is that your sternum is cracked,” Rich said.

“Sternum?”

“The central bone in your chest. In fact, it’s the central bone in your entire body. All the other bones grow from that point.”

“Oh.”

“And, of course, your throat is significantly abraded. From when you ripped the tubes out.”

“I don’t …”

“Of course not. You were unconscious then. Or, at least, in some subconscious state. Anyway, there’s no permanent damage. Everything will heal. You’ll be the same as you were before.”

“What was I … before?”

“That will come, too,” Rich promised.

I would not think of Pansy. I would not do it. I knew what it would cost. I had to wait until I could make the payments.

“How’s your memory coming?” one of the cops asked me.

“I remember you,” I told him, trying for a proud tone in my voice, like a good kid who’d done all his chores. “You’re Detective Bond, right?”

“Baird.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” he said, shooting a look over at his partner. “Any of it coming back to you?”

“The accident …”

“Accident? No. You were shot. In the head. Didn’t they tell you?”