I got it. You could have a lobotomy and still get it.
I looked up. Nothing was there, except a face. Not Rescue 911 or the chairs or the receptionist at a desk in the hallway. Just his face.
In life it was the face of a young boy, growing into a man. A boy with none of the glaring faults of a lout like Goofus, a boy with none of the bogus suburban qualities of Gallant. A boy who would have burst into laughter at the absurdity of Goofus and Gallant, even though he was a boy who rarely burst into laughter. Who would have learned nothing from this inane pair, and who could have taught them volumes. I threw the Highlights across the room, startling the receptionist.
LeVonne.
LeVonne had died at the hospital almost as soon as they wheeled him off the ambulance. Two bullets had torn through his chest, one shearing the aorta. If my father lived through his operation, the first thing he would do is ask about LeVonne. Then the news would kill him.
“Rita,” called a man’s voice.
I looked up. Herman Meyer was thundering into the waiting room, in madras shorts and a thin white T-shirt. A bewildered Uncle Sal scurried next to him, almost identically dressed, supported by Herman’s tanned arm. Cam Lopo was right behind them, holding a bouquet of sprayed mums. I got up to meet them and hugged Sal, whose bony back felt like a wren’s in my embrace.
“He’s gonna be all right, isn’t he?” Sal asked.
“What happened?” Herman said. “They operating?”
“What’d they say?” Cam asked.
I released Sal and regained my composure. It was almost worse, their being here. Seeing how upset they were, Uncle Sal especially. “I don’t know more than I told you on the phone. He got shot in the chest, it hit his pulmonary vein. They’re going to stitch him up.”
“You said nicked it, on the phone. Nicked it. That doesn’t sound too bad,” Sal said.
Jesus. How to prepare him? I couldn’t even prepare myself. “It’s a serious injury. He’d lost a lot of blood by the time they got him here.”
“All I know is, they better catch the guy who did this to him,” Cam said.
Sal blinked sadly. “He killed LeVonne. I can’t believe it.”
Herman shook his head. “The bastard. If the cops don’t get him, I will. I swear it.” They stood together, forming an aged phalanx of determination, but I didn’t want to think about retribution just yet.
“Let’s hope Dad gets better,” I said.
Herman nodded. “Right, first things first. Did you see the resident yet?”
“No.”
He scowled. “He shoulda been here. Or one of the fellows at least.”
“What fella?” Sal asked, looking up nervously at Herman.
Cam gave me a hug, the flowers went around my back. “Rita, honey. How you holdin’ up? We woulda been here before, but Herman wanted to get flowers. So stupid, flowers.” He stepped back and tossed the stiff bouquet onto the coffee table but it rolled off the edge and onto the rug.
“Camille, what are you doin’ throwin’ the flowers around?” Herman said. He bent over with a grunt and retrieved the bouquet.
“Since when you care so much about flowers?”
Herman brushed off the mums. “They’re Vito’s flowers, not yours. Don’t throw them on the ground.”
“Vito don’t even like flowers,” Cam said.
“Get outta here, look in the shop window.” Herman’s voice rose. “Vito, he’s got a plant, right there in the window. A green plant.”
“Where?”
“In the window, you seen it. Under the pig.”
“Which pig?”
“The pig, the pig-there’s only one pig.”
Cam stepped back. “Vito don’t have no plant in the window.”
“You wanna bet? He’s got a plant right there in the window.”
“What is it with you tonight? Flowers and plants. What is it with you?” Cam said, but I was coming to understand what was with them. If they were old women, they would have wept. But they were old men, so they bickered.
“Bet me, Camille,” Herman said. “I need the money. I wanna go to the Deauville this winter like my brother.” He turned to me. “Doesn’t he, Rita? Doesn’t your father keep a plant in the window?”
“I don’t remember.”
Herman stamped his orthopedic shoe. “You remember. The front window. Underneath the pig. With the tail goes like a curlicue.”
“No,” Uncle Sal said, sinking slowly into a chair. “No plant.”
“See? No plant!” Cam said.
Herman shook his head. “What’s Sal know? He don’t know.”
But I was watching my uncle, who was muttering to himself. Cam heard it, too, and we exchanged a look. “What’d you say, Sallie?” Cam asked, bending over and putting a knobby hand on Sal’s shoulder.
“No plant,” he said again.
Cam patted him. “Okay, Sal, we got it. No plant. If you say there’s no plant, there’s no plant.”
Uncle Sal didn’t seem to hear. “In the window Vito got a sign about the fresh sausage homemade daily,” he said, counting on spindly fingers. “Then he got a picture of Rita at her college graduation, then he got a little stand-up calendar from the insurance company, then he got a sign about WE ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS, then he got a donkey made out of straw with a hat on his head. The hat is straw, too.” He reached five fingers, then began knitting and reknitting his hands. “And there’s no flies in the window ‘cause Vito don’t like that, when they have flies in the windowsills. It shows it’s not a clean shop, Vito says.”
Cam sank slowly into the chair next to Sal and put his arm around him.
“Pop used to say the same thing,” Sal said. “No flies.”
I realized then that Uncle Sal would surely die if my father did, like a domino effect, starting with LeVonne. One after the other in tragic succession.
Only Herman had any heart left. “Still no resident? Who’s running this place, nuns?” He turned on his heel and locomoted to the receptionist in a wobbly beeline. The three of us watched numbly as he barked at her, then hustled back. “This place stinks,” he said, even before he reached us. “They don’t tell you nothing here. Now Hahnemann University, that’s a hospital. My nephew, Cheryl’s boy, he works there, in the OB. They shoulda brought him there.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Cam said, but Herman planted his hands on his black leather belt.
“I know that. You think I don’t know that?” Herman looked at me and clapped his rough hands together. “Now. Rita. Did you eat dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat something. I could get you from the cafeteria.”
“No thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“They must have a cafeteria in this dump.” Herman squinted around him as if a cafeteria would materialize. “They should have a sign. Right here, where you need it. At Hahnemann, they got signs everywhere.”
“It’s okay, I’m not hungry.”
“Everywhere you look, there’s signs. If you’re sittin’ in the waiting room and you decide you want a cup a’ coffee, you get up and go. For Essie’s gall bladder, we were in the cafeteria all the time.”
“She’s not hungry, Herm,” Cam said.
“The portions were big, too,” Herman continued. “They gave you a lot. This place is for the birds.” He took off toward the receptionist again.
Cam laughed softly. “She’s gonna kill him. Christ, I’m gonna kill him.”
I couldn’t laugh. I didn’t want to think about anybody killing anybody. I sat down on the other side of Uncle Sal and rubbed his back through his thin, short-sleeved shirt.
“Vito’s gonna be okay,” Sal said, still playing with his fingers. I watched him make a rickety church and steeple, then look inside.