The Sound of Broken Ribs(14)
“You’re finally awake.” The nurse said this with a smile that seemed real enough, and Lei, out of habit, tried to return the smile. Her face lit up with hellfire. Her eyes popped wide, and she made a small sound in the back of her throat that might have been a scream, had she been able to open her mouth.
“Don’t move your face. I know that sounds funny, but don’t try. Okay? Your jaw has been wired shut. The rest of you, in case you’re wondering, is bolted together. You’re more metal than flesh and bone at this point.”
Lei wanted to thank the nurse for her honesty, but she took the lady’s advice instead and kept her face as still as possible. But, now that the woman had mentioned it, Lei noticed how heavy her face was. There must have been ten pounds of wire holding her together.
“My names Hilda. I know, right? What a name.” Her smile widened and Lei fell in love with this beefy lady in the too-small scrubs. Horrible lipstick-applying skills aside, she seemed like a true sweetheart. “Now, Lei, we’re going to have a rough time communicating. Not only is your mouth wired shut, but you have a shattered shoulder and wrist on the right side.”
Lei wanted to tell Hilda that she was left handed, but Hilda had yet to drop the biggest bomb of all.
“And, I hate to have to tell you this,” Hilda’s face drew up in an ugly frown, which did not become her whatsoever, and was made even uglier by the audacity of her hideous lipstick, “but you lost the left arm. It was too badly damaged in the accident. They had to amputate. I’m so sorry. You also suffered seven broken ribs, and a collapsed lung. EMTs on the scene were able to get you breathing again, but you were dead for a minute or two. Again, I’m sorry, Lei.”
Not as sorry as she is.
A flicker of movement behind Hilda’s ear as something snatched itself from site: black lips and yellow teeth. Lei watched in stunned horror as Hilda’s hair fell back into place, hiding the thing’s retreat.
“You’ll likely feel what they call phantom pains. That’s when appendages you no longer have hurt in such a way as to cause discomfort.” Hilda spoke as if reading off a script.
Lei tried nodding. The move was a mistake. Lightning arced back and forth across her mandible. Her teeth, every single one of them, seemed to explode and shower acid across her tongue.
Hilda leaned over her and brushed some hair from Lei’s forehead. “Stop—Moving. You’re only hurting yourself. I’ll be in every hour on the hour to press your pain pump button for you. Wish it could be more, but doctor’s orders. I will warn you now. You’re nowhere near in as much pain as what’s coming. Right now, the anesthesia from surgery is still hanging around in your veins. Once that’s gone—you’re on your own. The Dilaudid they have in your pump likely won’t help a lick. But, remember—you have to remember this simple truth—this is only temporary. The pain will end. This agony will not be your life. Do I make myself clear?”
Lei wanted to hug Hilda and thank her for her honesty and support. Such things were horribly rare in this passive-aggressive world full of people who usually said everything besides what they truly wanted to say.
Hilda rounded the bed, grabbed what looked to be a clicker for a projector from where it dangled next to a device on one of the three poles at her bedside, and pressed her thumb into the button. The device beeped and Lei could hear what sounded like the cogs of a clock cycling.
Warmth flooded her veins. But, oddly, the warm sensation didn’t start at the injection site, which she assumed to be her arm, but in her feet. Lei felt as if someone were slowly lowering her into a Jacuzzi. Soon she was floating… floating… gone.
*
When the trucks started arriving, Belinda became anxious. Tony had told her that “the boys” were coming over to play poker, but obviously what he meant by that had not truly set in. He informed her that tonight’s shenanigans could not be put off, that if he cancelled, “the boys will kick my ass and call me a pussy.”
Boys would be boys.
The first of The Boys to arrive was a black man that defied description. He was so large that Belinda thought, given a different day and age, he would’ve been on display in a carnival freak show. The man accompanying him was thin and redheaded, like a struck match. Together they brought to mind the old duo of Lemmon and Matthau—everybody’s favorite odd couple. Both men wore the same city jumpsuit, and Belinda thought maybe she’d seen their uniforms before. Garbage men? she wondered. The closer to the porch they came, the more she could smell how right she was.
The black guy’s name was Carl and the small ginger was Frank. They both shook her hand, but Frank’s grip was far more feminine than she’d expected. After their introduction, Carl threw his arm around Frank’s shoulder and both men walked into the house.
The next truck—a Ford F-150 held together with duct tape, primer, and prayer—held the scariest man Belinda had ever met. He was immediately intimidating, from the way he jumped out of his hopped-up pickup to the way he walked toward the porch. His left eye stared perpetually at the bridge of his nose, and his hair was missing in places. He wasn’t bald all over, but randomly, in patches, as if someone with a nervous system disorder had went all helter skelter with a pair of clippers. When he got close enough for Belinda to see the color of his eyes, she realized that the lazy one was a different color than the good one. The eye that met her gaze was a chestnut brown while the other was as blue as a cloudless sky.