28
EVENTUALLY, ROBINSON WAS admitted to the La Junta hospital, and a nurse took us to a private room. She helped him into a bed, and I hopped up on the empty one beside him.
“Are you going to write this down?” Robinson wondered aloud. “In your journal?”
“I only write down the good parts of our adventures,” I said.
Robinson snorted. “You can’t write a book without a conflict.”
I said, “Who said anything about a book? This is my journal. It’s a pink notebook I got at Walgreens for two ninety-nine.”
Robinson shrugged. “You never know …”
For some reason, this made me laugh. “Sure, I’ll write a book,” I told him, “as long as you promise to actually read it.”
He held up his little finger. “Pinkie swear.”
But before I could lean toward him, a voice boomed from the doorway. “So—just what do we have here?” We looked up to see a bearded giant wearing a lab coat and staring at us.
He introduced himself as Dr. Ellsworth, and he hadn’t even asked Robinson’s last name before he launched into a list of questions. Did Robinson use drugs? Alcohol? Had he traveled internationally recently? Had he ever had an ulcer? Was he allergic to any foods? Had he eaten any spinach during last month’s E. coli outbreak?
Robinson shuddered at the thought of spinach. He answered no to everything.
I was still amazed by the doctor’s size. He could have been a circus strongman, but now he was bending over Robinson’s chest, listening to his heart and lungs.
He was frowning.
He palpated Robinson’s stomach, and Robinson inhaled sharply, wincing. I had to look away then. I couldn’t bear to see him in pain.
After several minutes, Dr. Ellsworth spoke. “I’m going to send you to get a CT scan and an X-ray. There are … abnormalities.”
Just because I was expecting to hear something like this didn’t mean it didn’t knock the wind out of me. I drew in a wobbly breath as Robinson said, “Actually, if it’s all the same to you, Doctor, I’d rather not have those things.”
“You might be a very ill young man,” the doctor said.
Robinson watched him, blinking his dark eyes. “Might,” he allowed. “But let’s just leave it at that. No news is good news, right? In the meantime, I do think I have a touch of the flu or something.” He offered the best rakish grin he could muster, which, considering the situation, was pretty impressive.
“You have walking pneumonia,” Dr. Ellsworth said. “And pleurisy is likely. I can tell you that right now.”
“Please let that be all he has,” I whispered. I suddenly thought of the orb Robinson had bought me in Mount Shasta, and I reached for it at the bottom of my backpack. I ran my fingers over its smooth surface. It was both a worry stone and a good-luck charm.
The doctor turned to me. “And you?” he asked. “Are you in need of any medical care you’d like to refuse?”
I shook my head. “I’m just here for moral support,” I said.
Dr. Ellsworth walked over to the side of the bed I was borrowing and touched my neck. His fingers were cool. “I see the scar right here,” he said. “It’s from a radiation burn, isn’t it?”
I moved away from his touch, saying nothing. I wasn’t a patient here, and I didn’t have to answer. It didn’t matter what I’d had. I was clear. In remission.
Although, as my dad’s friend Critter used to say, Just because it’s sunny today don’t mean the shitstorm ain’t comin’.
Dr. Ellsworth crossed his arms over his massive chest. “What’s going on with you two?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”
Robinson and I looked at each other. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
I spoke for us. “We can’t say at the moment.”
Dr. Ellsworth gave us both sharp looks. “This is not a game. It is my belief that this young man here has a mass in his abdomen. A tumor. Do you comprehend the seriousness of that?”
Robinson tried to sit up. “Hey, Axi. What’s the difference between a doctor and a lawyer?”
I knew this joke—it was one of Robinson’s standards. And I was only half-surprised he was trotting it out now. Playing along, I said, “I don’t know. What?”
“A lawyer will rob you; a doctor will rob you and kill you, too.”
Dr. Ellsworth made a sound in his throat—a choked-back laugh? A grunt of annoyance? “I’m trying to help,” he said.
“Then bring in a TV,” Robinson quipped. “Preferably one with cable.”
The truth was, Robinson and I had a routine down. We’d perfected it in the halls of the Portland cancer ward. The nurses loved us. We were the Abbott and Costello of cancer. “Hey, Robinson,” I said. “What do you call a person who keeps getting lymphoma over and over again?”
“I don’t know—what?” But he was already laughing.
“A lymphomaniac!” I cried.
Robinson whooped and pretended to slap his thigh. “Oooh, that was a good one,” he said.
Dr. Ellsworth sighed. “If there were a drug to prevent gallows humor, I’d prescribe it for both of you.” But I could tell that he thought we were just a tiny bit funny.
He stepped toward the door. “I’m going to give you some intravenous antibiotics, and I’m going to encourage you to think very hard about those tests I mentioned.”
“I don’t like tests,” Robinson said. “I always fail them.”
“Where are your parents, young man?”
I glanced at Robinson. That was a question whose answer I didn’t know, either.
Robinson turned away. “I’m a legal adult,” he said. “Do you want to check my ID?”
Dr. Ellsworth gave Robinson one more long look, then shook his head and left the room.
Robinson closed his eyes. “I’m just going to take a little nap,” he said. “If you can stand to be without my company for a while.”
I got up and pulled the thin blanket over him. I didn’t want him to leave me, not even for a minute. “I think I can manage,” I said softly.
He said, “You should close your eyes, too.”
“I’m not tired,” I said, lying again. But I knew I couldn’t sleep, anyway; I needed to watch him. To make sure he didn’t start coughing again. To make sure the blood stayed inside him, where it was supposed to be. To watch his chest rise and fall, rise and fall.
I sat down by his bedside. I hoped the antibiotics would work their invisible cellular magic, and quickly. And I wished that what Robinson needed was only—to use his terminology—a little tune-up. Because we weren’t going to stick around to get six weeks of chemo in La Junta. That wasn’t in the plan.
A few minutes later, I looked up to see that Dr. Ellsworth had returned. “We’re moving you to a different room,” he said. “I don’t want you too far from a ventilator. Or the nurses’ station.”
Robinson looked over at me and offered a faint, sleepy smile. “Precautionary, of course,” he said.
“Of course,” I repeated. “You just have a touch of whatever’s been going around.” Like cancer was contagious, the way doctors once thought it was. Like it was no more serious than the common cold.
I didn’t dare look at Dr. Ellsworth. He was going to add crazy to Robinson’s list of diagnoses, I could already tell. And that was just fine with me.
Because as far as I knew, nobody ever died of crazy.