Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 23:26:42 -0800 From: Kevin Harness Subject: Save The Boy, Part 6 Once again, all the usual disclaimers hold true. If you are under 18 or think that you might be, you are not supposed to be reading this story per most of the laws and statutes that I'm aware of. Also, your local laws and / or statutes may not let you read this kind of a story at all: that of boylove, which is to say that even though all the actors playing these parts are over 18, there might be a character in the story who is below the age of 18 and who has sex. Yeah, I know. But oh well. Read on. =============================================================================== Chapt 6 Jeremy practically lived at the hospital where Desi was, having worked out being off from work a little more so that he could be with his friend. Donny too, whenever he could and also to give Jeremy rides, spent a great deal of time at the hospital. "How's our boy doing?" Donny asked. He was on the way home after work, making Monday a pretty long day. "Ok. Well, I don't know. Probably still very not-ok, as he hasn't come to yet," Jeremy replied, visibly worried. "Has the doctor given you any word as to what's happening?" Donny asked. "Not a word," Jeremy said, visibly disheartened. "Hmmm, ok. Be right back," and Donny walked off to the triage nurse's station down the hall. They were obviously busy, but Donny waited until one of them looked up at him. "Hi. Sorry. I'm Donny, an acquaintance of the boy, Desi, in intensive care. His friend Jeremy is just about camping out there waiting for any news whatsoever. Is there any way maybe one of you or a doc can come down and let him know what's up with his friend?" The standard answer, Donny knew, was no. "No" because they weren't family, and had no right to any medical information on Desi whatsoever. By law not much could be said beyond that. But the nurse looked up with an air of recognition into Donny's face, and had certainly seen Jeremy in Desi's room. "Sir, by law I can't tell you specifically anything," the nurse started, to which Donny almost responded, save she held her hand up so that she could finish. "But I know this boy doesn't have anyone else besides you two coming to see if he's going to be alright. I'll come down in a minute and talk to the other boy and you," she finished. "Thank you, thank you very much," Donny expressed. He turned on his heels and just about flew down the hallway back to Desi's room and Jeremy. "A nurse will be down to talk to us in a few minutes and tell us what she can. Which may not be a lot, but I think she'll try to give us a pretty accurate 'what's up' here," he said. "Thanks, Donny." Jeremy was just thinking. He'd been saying thanks an awful lot lately, mostly in one direction. It wasn't that he didn't have good manners otherwise, it just didn't come up before nearly as much as it had now. I mean, of course he said thanks to clerks and store workers when he bought something and they rang him up and gave him his change. Hell, that was just common sense. It was an irrevocable fact, however, that if Donny hadn't intervened and helped when he had with both Jeremy and Desi, they might not be here today in as good of shape as they were. He guessed that this was just Donny's sort of common sense and manners. Hmmm, that warrented some inspection. Kinda like they both had the same sort of tendancies, but they showed up differently in each of them. He smiled. In his brief mental analysis, it was almost like people were at the center of a circle, and had space around them, as far as their power and ability, and their goodness and badness. A very powerful, bad person would have his circle perimeter pretty far out from himself, affecting a lot of people in a bad way. Hmmm. So, then, let's say a person was a good person, but wasn't all that powerful or didn't acquire any skills or ability to have a large influence on others. Their circle perimeter wouldn't be too far out from themselves. Now, a good person, however, who had a great deal of ability and power, well, their circle would extend outward quite a ways and they would affect others dramatically in a good way. Wow. Was this the way things actually worked? He was almost light-headed on the whole thing. If this was how it was, it would explain a LOT! He could recall "feeling" people close to him, and when he looked up he could almost feel a "good" or a "bad" to it, like their "circles" or space had somehow intersected. He wondered if that was how some people could read minds, tell things about another without ever having known them. Kind like Donny had done with him that one day in the rain. He audibly gasped, and could only stare into the air for a second. The nurse Donny had been talking to walked in and shook Jeremy loose from his epiphany. "Hi, I'm the ER Station Nurse." "Hi," both Donny and Jeremy said nearly simultaneously. She explained some things that were obvious, and gave Donny and Jeremy possibilities for patients in this situation. "Why is he unconscious? Is he in a coma?" Jeremy asked. The nurse steeled herself up to the next conversation, and began. "Being unconscious or in a coma is usually pretty serious. The person and their body are not able to run around and do the things that they usually would do because of damage to the body. In Desi's case there is no evidence of head trauma, but there is external evidence of bruising so we can preliminarily assume there might be internal bleeding. That's a very common reason for the body shutting down to minimum operation." She paused for a moment, then continued, "And yes, it's pretty serious stuff. But, on the flip side, being a teenager is a plus as his body is used to growing, and the body's ability to repair itself it nearly at its best. So, that's a valuable ace he's got on his side of the table." "So, we wait?" Donny surmised. "We wait," the nurse agreed. The nurse put a hand on Jeremy's shoulder. "I believe, and it's only my belief now. I'm not trying to tell you something medically correct or whatever. But I believe that he knows that you're here, and that you care and are by his side to see him through this," she smiled at Jeremy. "That's another ace he's got." "Thanks," Jeremy somehow croaked past the lump in his throat, "thank you very much." He turned to Desi, "You hear that, Desi? I know you can hear me. So get well soon so we can go get this silly apartment. I'm not going to go rent one until you're up and out of that bed." He turned back to the nurse and Donny and did a sort of "so there!" nod of his head. Donny laughed slightly in spite of himself. Jeremy, with a smirk on his face said, "What are you laughing at? You've got to go get me a tent and sleeping bag and a little campfire stove so I can stay here 24/7." The nurse said, "I'll tell you what. We're on 12-hour shifts here, and I'll tell the night nurse to call you if anything happens, at all, if you're not here. You have to be gone after the visiting hours, and it's stricter for the ER patients, but I'll help you any way I can." "Cool, thanks," Jeremy said. Donny gave the nurse his cell and home numbers and Jeremy gave her his work number. As she left, Jeremy fell into Donny's arms and hugged him tight. "He got more ace's than I think anyone would've imagined," he said. "Yeah, and you count for at least two," Donny commented. "So do you, Donny." "Well, based on those figures, that's 5 aces. Best damned hand you can have," Donny smiled. Jeremy leaned back and smiled at Donny. Once again, time stood still until one of them spoke. "Hungry?" Donny asked. "Aren't you going to go work out?" Jeremy asked back. "Nah, I'm so hungry I'd probably end up eating the seats off one of those work-out machines, and despite how funny that sounds, I don't think the management would appreciate the vandalism." "Yeah, plus you're not into leather," Jeremy ribbed. Donny laughed out loud without even being able to contain himself. ========================= It was the same for two more days, when on Wednesday Donny got an excited call from Jeremy that Desi had begun mumbling. No words yet, but not just laying there inert anymore, either. "That's great news!" Donny exclaimed. "Should I come now? What do you think?" It was curious, he told himself, as he did about 18-20 seconds of introspection and analyzing during the next second or so. He normally would not have trusted anyone to assess whether or not he should be somewhere. He just would've excused himself and gone, especially with a boy's life hanging in the balance. Jeremy knew Desi about as well as anyone, and although he was not the nurse or the intern over his friend, his intuitive nature was one that people just somehow trusted, and liked. The customers at Art and Gerdie's store. Art and Gerdie. Desi. His co-workers at the theater. Everybody. And, it seemed, Donny too. "Nah, not yet. If it looks like he's going to come around, I'll give you a call. Is that ok? I mean you can come if you want, but you've already taken a lot of time off for me, and for Desi. I mean, it's ok either way........" "Ok, I'll jet out of here as soon as it looks like he's going to wake up. I'd like to be there for that, I guess. So, just let me know, ok? At this time of the day I could be there in about 15 minutes, plus or minus a couple," Donny said. Jeremy thought about that. Although he was being delegated or trusted with a decision based on his gut feeling or best guess, he was used to that. Well, at least as far as for himself, anyway. "Cool. I'll call you with any news. C'ya Donny." "Thanks for calling, talk to you in a while," and Donny closed his cell phone, pausing just momentarily before resuming his last work task. They probably paused at the same time, for when Jeremy hung up the pay phone, he more or less went blank for a second, almost like time suspended for a small duration. In the computer world, there was a direct analogy to their individual, yet mutually experienced occurances. It's like when you click to the next program or icon. The little hourglass comes up for a moment to let you know you've got to wait, things are organizing themselves, data is being filed, and conclusions are being drawn in direct relation to what button or icon was chosen. Jeremy walked down the hall back to the Intensive Care Unit, and put both hands on the left and right door jambs as he stopped for a second before entering Desi's room. Hard times, emergencies, near-death experiences really taxed the hell out of people, and you could pretty quickly see kind of people they were. Friends. Enemies. Acquaintances. The guy who'd left Desi on the ground for dead. Jeremy's own aunt who'd sold him out because he was not a standard sexual orientation (whatever in the hell that was, Jeremy thought). The staff at the home where he'd been. Art and Gerdie. Desi. Donny. Funny, the thoughts you have when there's actually time to think. He walked into the room and said, "Hey buddy. Almost time to wake up, 'k?" And he put his hand around the wad of bills that he still carried in his pocket for Desi. Desi stirred ever so slightly, almost responding and trying to talk on some low level, to what Jeremy had said. "Sleep for a bit longer, Desi. S'ok," and he patted his friend lightly on his thigh. "You rest for a bit longer. Then I'll call Jeremy and you can wake up and we'll all give each other a big hug." Again, a slight stirring. He gave Desi a kiss on his forehead, and walked out of the room to take a walk and think a bit. Donny, too, knew it was almost time. He began to close out his work for the day, put things away, organize things for tomorrow, and gather his keyes and jacket for the short trip to the hospital. Desi mind had been playing over and over the events leading up to and including the brutalizing of his body. It was like an unending movie loop that he was helpless to turn off or avert his eyes from. Suddenly, his attention shifted, and the mental television miraculously changed channels. He could see Jeremy and Donny, in a boat. A rowboat. Donny had his back to the helm of the boat and was rowing, and Jeremy was facing Donny, two seats away at the rear of the boat. Desi somehow could see it all, although there appeared to be a sort of fog or haze. Donny, nonetheless, was rowing slowly but steadily toward what could now be made out to be a shore. All at once, Desi found himself on the seat between Donny and Jeremy, Donny rowing ever steadily toward the shore. There were no sounds. Only fleeting mental thoughts of what was, why it was, and... Donny was about 5 minutes into his trip to the hospital, waiting at the on-ramp red light as his cell phone went off. He had it on the seat next to him instead of his pocket, like some deja vu story yet untold but whose events are somehow known. "Hello?" "Hi, Donny. Jeremy." He could hear the traffic sounds in the background. "Desi's stirring pretty steadily. The nurse seems to think it might not be too long until he wakes up." "Cool, on my way. Thanks," Donny said, as he signaled left and pulled onto the on-ramp. "No probs, Donny. C'ya in a few." "Yup, talk to ya shortly," and Donny flipped the phone shut and accelerated down the onto the highway. Amazing, really, how people can interact, Donny thought, almost like well-oiled gears in a machine. He smiled. It wasn't long until was walking through the ER Admissions door, and greeting Jeremy. They gave each other a hug like two friends reunited after two years apart in battle. "How are we doing?" Donny asked. "Let's go," Jeremy said, "we haven't much time."