Slow Dance in Purgatory(72)

Gus had been released from the hospital after 24 hours of observation. Shad, who had suffered from heat stroke and some minor smoke inhalation, was released the day after that. The three of them, Shad, Irene and Gus, had kept vigil in the Intensive Care Unit’s waiting room for the last four days. Principal Bailey had found them there.

Gus was shocked by her drawn, colorless face. She wasn’t a pretty woman, but she kept herself neat and trim, and her face was intelligent and kind. Today she bore the look of someone who had suffered a terrible loss – or a terrible shock. Gus wondered if it was the destruction of the school that had so adversely affected her. Principal Bailey inquired after Maggie. Her sincerity and genuine concern for her student was evident, and Irene thanked her warmly.

Then Principal Bailey asked Gus if she could have a word with him privately. Gus nodded his consent and followed her from the waiting room. He was confused when she led him to a hospital room not far from Maggie’s. She got permission for them to enter, and when they did she closed the door firmly behind them. The curtain was partially pulled around the bed, and Gus couldn’t see who occupied it.

Jillian Bailey approached the patient and bid Gus to follow her. Gus did so hesitantly, uncomfortable about intruding into the sick room of someone he didn’t know. But that was where he was wrong, for he did know the person in the bed. He stared down at the flesh and blood body of a ghost he had seen off and on for fifty-three years. He had no doubt it was him. Johnny’s hair was brushed off his face and slightly mussed by his convalescence. He had more tubes and machines connected to his inert form then Maggie did. It looked as if he’d sustained some kind of wound to his chest though he seemed to be recovering well and breathing on his own.

“Do you know who he is, Mr. Jasper?” Jillian Bailey asked, her eyes locked on Johnny’s face. “You were the only one I thought might know.”

“What happened to him?” Gus whispered, stalling, unwilling to give her a response.

“He was shot.” Principal Bailey’s tone was brisk and harsh.

Gus staggered a little and clung to the rungs on the bottom of the bed.

“We found him at the school, lying in the debris. He wasn’t burned, and he doesn’t seem to have suffered from smoke inhalation.”

“Is he gonna make it?” Gus asked quietly.

“Yes. He is strong and ….young.” She tripped over the irony in her words. “He is pretty heavily medicated right now, but they were able to repair the damage. If this had happened fifty years ago…..he surely…would have died.”

Gus’s head snapped up, and their gazes locked. A pregnant pause followed. Jillian Bailey continued on, her deep agitation apparent in the lines on her face and the stiffness of her body.

“Nobody knows how he got there or when he got there. Nobody seems to know anything about him….so I’ll ask you again. Do you know who he is, Mr. Jasper?” Jillian Bailey folded her arms tightly around herself, waiting for his answer, watching his face.

Gus looked back at her for a moment – trying to determine whether she asked him because she didn’t know or because she did. He decided it was the later. Funny…he had forgotten all about her connection to Johnny Kinross. She had left Honeyville when she went to college over three decades ago. She’d had a long career in education and had only come home when her elderly parents, old Chief Bailey and his wife, Dolly Kinross Bailey, started ailing and needed her care. She had taken the job as Principal when it had become available about eight years ago. Her parents had died relatively close together soon after. Gus had noted their passing with sadness. Jillian Bailey had never married, but she had remained in Honeyville these last few years and seemed to love what she did. In Gus’s opinion, she was good at it.

His eyes met hers briefly. He was a simple man. He knew that life held mysteries and wonders that he would never understand or comprehend. He didn’t know how it was possible, yet he didn’t doubt the evidence before him. Gus nodded firmly, giving her what she desired. Jillian Bailey slumped as if the truth she sought had broken her back. After a moment, she nodded at him as well and moved to speak, but then bit back what she was going to say. He could tell from her conflicted expression that she needed to hear him say the words. She needed for someone to say, out loud, that the impossible, the unexplainable, was indeed reality. And so he did.

“That’s Johnny Kinross, Ms. Bailey. That boy is your brother.”

***

So now Gus was here, with Maggie, and he had something to tell her that might bring her back among the living. He had faith that she could hear him, and trusted that it would make all the difference.

“Miss Margaret….Can you hear me? I need you to listen now, honey. I saw him. They found him in the rubble. He’s here, Miss Margaret. Johnny is here – and he’s alive.” Gus squeezed her hand as hard as he could and repeated his words several more times, speaking slowly and clearly.

“He’s gonna need you now, Miss Margaret. He’s gonna need you real bad. He’s traveled through hell and back to be here with you. So you need to wake up. You gotta wake up now, Miss Margaret.”

From somewhere deep in the dark tunnel she was cowering in, Maggie heard the words. She thought for a moment it was her dad, calling her to come home with him and mom, telling her Johnny was waiting. That’s what she wanted. She just wanted to be with the people she loved and missed so desperately. Then the words came again. It was Gus -- Gus, whom she also loved and trusted; Gus said Johnny was alive. Gus said Johnny needed her. And she needed him. Her decision made, Maggie abandoned the heavy muddle she had been floating in. She leaned toward the light that grew steadily brighter and bigger as she approached. With supreme effort, she raised her heavy lids and looked into Gus’s triumphant face.