“You bastard! They cut off my leg!”
“You’re making such a fuss about it. A word to the wise, Sam. No one likes a whiner.”
“Oh, like you wouldn’t complain?” Sam says. He grabs the sheet, throws it off of him. He wants me to see that his leg ends at the knee.
“Sam, your leg is fine.”
“What?”
“That’s not your leg.”
Sam looks down at the heavily-bandaged stump.
“Not my leg? Are you insane?”
He stares at Brightside. His head is moving very slightly, from side to side. He’s thinking of something. Or replaying something in his mind. Finally he says, “You gave me a clue.”
Brightside stands there quietly.
“Your father,” Sam says.
“What about him?”
“First time we met. You said they named the hospital after him.”
“So?”
Sam laughs a derisive laugh. “You dumb fuck. You don’t even know.”
“Know what?” Brightside says.
“The script Creed gave you. You didn’t even get it. That’s why I didn’t pick up on it.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The script called for you to say your father’s name was Robin Brightside.”
“So?”
“So you’re Robin’s son. And he’s Caruso. Robinson Caruso.” Sam shakes his head. “And I got snake bit on Friday, no less. I’m a moron.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I say. “You were bitten by a water moccasin, after all.”
“Twice.”
“No, just once. On the ass.”
Sam gestures to his stump.
I nod to Caruso. He holds the hand mirror away from the bed, so Sam can see how his leg is hanging down under it.
“They never cut your leg off,” I say.
I rip the bandages off the end of his knee, where he thought his leg ended.
“There’s a hole in your bed. I had them numb the bottom half of your leg. It’s propped on a foot stool beneath your bed. Your leg is fine. You just can’t feel it. Now help me find Rachel.”
Sam is so relieved he doesn’t know what to do. But what he says is, “How do I know that’s my leg? Maybe it’s my leg, but it’s not attached. You could’ve done anything to me.”
“We could’ve avoided all this if you’d cooperated with me in the first place.”
“You went to this much trouble?” Sam said.
“Rachel means the world to me.”
“Who was the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The one who looked like Rachel. The one who came in my room.”
“You must have dreamt that part.”
“Get Dr. Drake. He’ll tell me the truth.”
“There is no Drake. He had to leave. He’s performing On the Waterfront tonight at the little theater.”
Caruso yells, “Stella! Stella!”
Sam says, “Where am I?”
“I can’t disclose that.”
“Give me a hint.”
“When we put you under, it will require a plane flight to get you back to Louisville.”
“How long a flight?”
“Don’t even think I would tell you that.”
“No problem. I’ll just look up every town in America that has a little theater and narrow it down by the shows they’re putting on.”
“Sounds like a great project.”
Sam looks at me. “You lied about the little theater.”
“It was a figure of speech. I just meant he was an actor.”
“Is he here or not?”
“Not.”
Sam says, “Fine. I give up. Go save Rachel, if you can. You’ll probably die trying, and I’m fine with that.”
“On the other hand, if I fail, you’ll never see her again.”
“She doesn’t want to see me anyway.”
“True. But if I bring her back, you’ll still have hope.”
Sam shrugs. Then says, “If you can prove that’s my leg under the bed, and if it’s attached to my knee, and if it works, and if you promise to let me go…I’ll tell you what I know.”
24.
We’re in Sam’s hospital room. I’m standing bedside, Lou’s sitting on the hard-back chair, taking notes. Sam’s sitting on a hospital bed that has no hole in it. His leg is propped up, and he’s beginning to get some feeling below the knee, which causes his upper thigh to twitch.
Addressing me like a high school professor lectures his students, Sam says, “What’s the greatest threat to the world?”
I answer, “Nuclear weapons?”
“No.”
“Terrorism?”
“No.”
“Religious fanatics?”
“No.”
“Politicians? Saturated fat? Oprah Winfrey?”
“Pandemic Flu,” Sam says.
“Do tell,” I say.
“In 1918, in the space of three months, more than 40 million people died from the Spanish Flu. But it was a misnomer.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“Because it started in Kansas.”
“People die every year from the flu.”
“Not this type. It never happened before, never happened since. It was, quite simply, the worst plague in the history of the world.”
“Never heard of it,” I said.
“Then you’re a moron,” Sam says.
I shrug. “At least I’ve got eyebrows.”
Sam sighs. “Some of your stunts are so juvenile, I’m surprised you didn’t put a tack in my chair.”
“What made the flu of 1918 so bad?” I say.
Sam frowns. “Do you even know how the flu gets started each year?”
“In cold weather, people start coughing on each other and spread their colds. As more people get sick, the cold virus mutates into the flu, right?”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. Are you that stupid?”
“Pretend I am,” I say, “and answer the question. Or I’ll hit you with a spitball.”
Sam shakes his head in disgust. He’s convinced I’m completely beneath him intellectually. Since everyone else in the world shares that position, I could care less. I just want to find Rachel. He says, “The short answer why it was so bad: this is the only virus in history that killed the youngest and strongest people. It was also the most contagious. From start to finish, it lasted twenty-seven months. During that time one out of every three people in the world caught it, and 100 million of them died. As for how it started,” Sam says, “I’ll have to give you a simplified explanation. I’ll be sure to use small words so you can keep up.”
“You’re very considerate. I’ve always said that about you.”
Ignoring me, Sam continues: “Most animals that get the flu, get it from birds.”
“Birds.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’ve heard of bird flu,” I say.
“Humans rarely catch flu directly from birds,” Sam says. “The birds infect pigs, and pigs infect people.”
“I’ve heard of swine flu, also.”
“You and every third grader. Look, do you want this explanation or not?”
“Me want!”
He says, “Every year, wild ducks migrate south for the winter.”
“So?”
“One out of every three have the flu. Their droppings land in fields, streams, and lakes. They pass the flu on to pigs, and the farmers catch it. This happens all over the world around the same time each year. It also happens in Asia, where millions of chickens pass the flu on to pigs, who pass it on to humans. When people are infected with the flu virus, it spreads as they come into contact with other people.”
“If this happens every year, why was 1918 worse?”
“Pigs have both avian and human flu receptors, so they can catch the flu from birds and people. Scientists believe that in the spring of 1918, a pig caught a human strain of flu from a person, then caught an avian strain from a wild duck. Every known flu virus is made up of eight gene segments. But the 1918 strain was a mix of eight from the human, eight from the bird, and eight from the pig, creating a lethal hybrid the world had never seen. As it spread, it continued to mutate, becoming more and more lethal. It was wartime, and infected soldiers from Kansas were deployed to bases and battlefields all over the world. As the Kansas flu strain mixed with the flu strains from other countries, the virus continued to mutate exponentially. By the time it hit Spain it was so deadly they called it the Spanish Flu. And it’s been called that, ever since.”