A Vagrant Story (42 page)

“Now’s not the time for this, Rum,” Sierra pleaded.

“Leave him to it. Wouldn’t feel right without it.”

“I hate when you just take it like that. Acceptance. I hate acceptance.”

“Only because you want me to fight back. You can’t live without trouble.”

“Neither of you can,” Sierra said.

An announcing cough sounded from the door bringing the matter to a close. A blonde doctor in white coat entered with notepad in hand. He walked past the visitors to join his patient at bedside.

“If the inquisitions are over, I think my patient would like to rest. I‘m his attending, doctor Franklin. Call me Adam.”

“It’s no problem,” Alex said.

Doctor Adam touched Alex on the forehead and set about scribbling on his notepad. “Not for you, but we have waiting rooms for a reason. We can’t have visitors wandering around the corridors.”

“Just sitting in them,“ Rum stated.

“I apologise for how the waiting areas are set up. I’m afraid we had to reserve the real waiting rooms to hold the overflow.”

“Looks pretty quiet tonight.”

“It is … at least for the moment.

“Then why not open them back up?”

“I’m afraid we can’t get the doors open. The waiting room doors are electronically locked, you see. Most doors in here are. We hadn‘t counted on this power outage.”

“Maybe you should have just cut back on the amenities and focussed on the patients. You go all high tech now you haven‘t the power to run the damn place.”

“It could have been worse. At least no one’s dying tonight.”

“You actually have enough power for the patients?”

“We’ve managed to reserve enough power to take care of them, fortunately. Certain ‘amenities’ had to be cut, however.”

“Like the electronic doors? What else you cut?”

“Televisions, rest rooms, electrical security systems and … lighting.”

“Security and lighting … those are some amenities.”

“They aren’t necessary for the time being. We’re focusing on keeping what our patients need to survive.”

“That’s good to hear, at least. Good to know this place isn’t all bad.”

“It might surprise you to know that not all the people remaining here are totally incompetent. I do what I can, that’s all I can do.”

Sierra leaned toward the doctor. “But what kind of hospital runs out of power anyway? It’s good you’re doing your best but come on, this isn’t the dark ages, doc.”

“It’s a poor hospital being exploited by a company that doesn‘t know when to quit.”

“Sorry,” Rum said.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry for your troubles.”

The doctor nodded. “We’re not really sure what happened to the generator. It’s frozen, old, rusted so take your pick. The engineers are on their way now, but the roads out there are … so they might be a while.”

The doctor placed his notepad under arm and moved away from Alex. “Well, it looks like you’ve stabilised, for the moment at least. We’ll keep you topped with medication until you recuperate fully.“

“Thanks doc.”

“I have to run my rounds over the rest of this floor so I probably won’t see you for a while. Talk to the nurse if you need anything.”

“You work this whole floor?” Alex asked.

“Most of the staff are handling the lower floors right now. At night I work the top floor with my brother. He’s a doctor here too.”

“The two of you must be good.”

“How do you figure?”

“You said all the serious patients are on the top floor. They must trust the two of you to handle them.”

The doctor smiled. “That’s a good ear you got there.”

“Hey doc, one more thing…”

“Yes?”

“How do I call the nurse?”

“Well you just press the alarm button beside…” He paused. “Well, not at the moment anyway.”

“Would that be one of those amenities too?”

The doctor bowed in his slow retreat from the room. “Sorry. I’ll see you again.”

Conversation resumed when the doctor left.

“You think he has a problem with us being here?” Sierra asked.

“His problem’s with our questions,” Rum replied.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Alex said. “He’s a really good doctor - not like the others at all.”

“He might be the best doctor in this place, that don’t mean he’s any good.”

“You seemed pretty impressed last time you saw him in action.”

Rum stared the tall man down. “Am I supposed to ask what that means now?”

“Of course, you wouldn’t remember. He’s the same doctor who helped that pregnant woman after she crashed her car.”

“You mean after we first left the hospital. You can remember his face?”

Alex raised an eye.

“Of course you do.”

Henry stepped out from the shadows, where he so often found himself residing. “It is him. I recognise the face.”

“You should have said something,” Sierra said.

“What good would it do?”

“We could get first preference. I mean, if you hadn’t given him those pills he never would stopped the pregnant woman from kicking. He owes you.”

“That’s sort of why I stayed quiet. Thing is, you see, I wasn’t really supposed to have those pills in the first place. Back at the crash he seemed really surprised I had them. He actually told me to go back to the hospital.”

“It’s probably for the best he didn’t recognise you then.”

“I just don’t want him to start asking me questions. That’s all.”

Chapter 31

It would be midnight soon. Contrary to their expectations the hospital remained relatively empty, save the occasional nurse wandering like a ghost amidst candlelight. The quiet proved to their advantage. With Alex fast asleep the three bums were left with little else to do bar skulk around in the halls, not that the staff would bother stopping them in the first place.

Sierra left Rum to his own devices. Not that it was her choice, the man just fell asleep in one of the waiting areas. As for Henry, she hadn‘t seen him since visiting Alex. She left it that way. Truth be told she thought he might need some time to himself, like herself. Right now Alex wasn’t the only one in need of a break.

Sierra wrapped her scarf tighter and breathed a warm breath, the greatest warmth in this place. Despite the odd candle the corridors were shaded with a grim tone of darkness. One that did little to conceal faded wall paint and cracked tiled flooring. It looked like an abandoned warehouse. An odd wonder she didn’t find herself confronted with roaming crack addicts.

A horrible groaning snagged her to a halt. It came from a stairwell and seemed to be coming up. It stumbled over the top step then stared at her through thick glasses. Its name was Henry, and he appeared to be sweating.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Sierra, I was … I got lost.”

“Why are you sweating?”

“I got a little frustrated so … I started running.”

“And how would that … Never mind. What are you doing now? You want to come with me?”

Henry propped up with surprise. “You want me to go with you? Why? I mean, where?”

“To the roof. I want to see what the view is like.”

No one was around to stop them. And even if they didn’t need to hurry up the stairwell Henry still found himself fatigued upon arrival at the top. None the less he did open the roof access door in a genteel manner for Sierra, assuming it wouldn‘t be a draining task. He hadn’t foreseen the foot or so of snow on the other side.

Door open, and Henry again humbled to a panting state, Sierra skipped over the threshold into a blinding force of cold. “Thank you.” She sighed. “I didn’t think it’d be so cold.”

Henry shivered more dramatically than Sierra. “W-well, we are p-pretty high up. We c-can stay warm if we stay near those things.” He pointed toward some tin ventilation pipes leaking trace amounts of steam, no doubt intended to melt the snow to a safe level.

Sierra nodded, walking over to one near the building’s edge. She stopped to acknowledge two supply crates placed near the parapet. Both had been lazily covered with a blue sheet, almost like a bed sheet.

“Stupid bastards. What kind of idiot hospital staff would leave two supply crates in a place like this?”

“They probably ran out of storage space inside.”

“Whatever happened it looks like they’ve been forgotten which means someone lost out on medication. Hope nobody died.”

The girl shrugged it off, turning to lean on the parapet. She gazed out through the night toward Middle Park. “We won’t stay here long. I can’t see anything with this weather.”

A light wind blew, and in its hale a flurry of snow washed over the buildings in view. It pulled with it a sudden quiet, and for this moment she and Henry could have been the only people in this city. At the very least this view would be for their eyes only.

“Lazy bastard,” Sierra mumbled.

Still panting slightly Henry approached her side. “What did I do?”

“Not you - Rum. He fell asleep and left me on my own. He knows I’d be bored without him.”

“I see now.”

“You see what?”

“That’s why you asked me up here, because no one else was around.”

“Yeah, that’s the reason.”

“I thought so.”

“It was a joke. Come on Henry, relax a little.”

“It wasn’t a joke. You never talk to me.”

“We talk all the time.”

“No, you talk to Rum. You talk to Alex.”

“That’s because Rum picks on you all the time. Anything I say to you would just set him rabid on you. I know the two of you have those … issues with each other, so I try spare you the hassle. I know you stay quiet because of the way he treats you.”

“At least Rum speaks to me. Yeah, he acts like a … he acts like a … But yeah, at least he acknowledges me. I feel like furniture when you’re around. Maybe … I don’t stay quiet when Rum is around, maybe I stay quiet because you’re around. Both of you just happen to be a package.”

“A package?“ Sierra gritted teeth a moment. “What’s gotten into you? You don’t normally act like this.”

“How would you even know?”

Sierra turned away from the parapet, and Henry. “Okay, maybe I don’t talk to you as much as the others. So what?”

“So what? What do you mean so what?”

“I mean, so what? It still doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”

“What else could it mean?”

“Look … it’s really not your problem. It’s mine.”

“You mean, ‘it’s not you it’s me.‘”

“It is me!”

Henry backed down till her furious breathing faded. “Yeah, it’s always the other person with the problem. Nobody ever wants to come out and tell me my problem. If you ever bothered listening to me, you’d know that a lot of people tend to have problems with themselves whenever I’m around.”

Sierra faced him, grimacing slightly. “You idiot, of course I listen to you. It’s because I listen to you that I can’t talk to you.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean?”

“It means … I mean … it’s just … It’s difficult to talk to someone when they lie as much as you do.”

Henry shivered slightly. With it came a short pause. “I … don’t … I didn’t lie. When did I lie?”

“Come on Henry, own up. You’ve been with us all this time and you still won’t tell us about your past.”

“I-I told you … I owned a shop and it … burned down. I couldn’t afford to…”

“Stop lying. I’m so sick of everyone lying to me. First Alex lies about being sick and now you’re going to lie to me on the same night. Nobody believes that little story of yours, Henry. Hate to break it to you, but you don’t seem like the kind of guy who could run his own business. Into the ground, sure, but that’d happen long before a random fire got its chance.”

Henry hung his head low, expression speaking more truth than words could say. “I-I’m sorry. Y-you know, Alex said the same as you. I guess that‘s … good, right? I look and act like a failure … That‘s good right?”

“That’s not it. You’ve been with us for a long time now. You said that you went bankrupt, and that’s how you became homeless. You made it sound like you didn’t need to be homeless.”

“Why should I?”

“If you didn’t need to be here you would have left by now. Any one of us can get some crummy little job somewhere and work our way back up, but we stay here because … this is where we chose to end up. Nobody who lives in the gutter has to. Everyone who stays, stays because they’ve no place else to go.”