THIRTY-ONE
I didn’t die if that’s what you think.
I gave everyone a good scare, though, because according to Dad, my seizure was worse than normal. I don’t remember a thing about it, except waking up and looking into the big brown Bambi eyes of Tiffany, my favorite nurse. It was sort of like waking up in the middle of a bunch of vestal virgins. Which, I should point out, is not all it’s cracked up to be, according to PBS and their great series on the Romans.
Tiffany totally ruined the fantasy by telling me I had a seizure and that yes, she was married and happily so. Man, give a guy a break! I’m going to demand only single nurses from here on out.
But here is the interesting part about my seizure—who do you think showed up with overnight kits for Dad and Luke? (Dad and Luke, by the way, clearly thought this was It, the big Swan Song, seeing as how they were both racked out in my room when Tiffany brought me back to the land of the living). Anyway, who showed up but Julie Daugherty! I was surprised, and I was super happy she didn’t bring The Stinker. She leaned over and whispered to Luke, and he sat up and said thanks, and then he looked at me. He said, “Leo,” in this cracking voice, and I said, “Oh man, don’t get all weepy eyed on me now, Luke.”
C’est la vie. There was a lot of carrying on about my not-so-miraculous recovery, and Dad got especially verklempt, and put his head on my leg and he cried, actually cried, and then everyone was talking and laughing nervously like, whew, it didn’t happen yet, and I was thinking, sheesh, tonight is the start of the new season of Survivor, so could we move this along a little?
The doctor came in and he said, “Well, I hate to tell you this, but Leo is going to be okay for now.” Everyone’s a comedian these days.
He said, “We’ve got a new seizure medicine that we think will work very well, given your symptoms. And we are also going to increase your intake of blah blah blah-di blah.” Because everyone knows I am not taking enough medicine, right? I didn’t really listen to much until he said, “But I think, if you remain stable, we can let you go home in twenty-four hours.”
I was hoping that balloons would drop out of the ceiling and a naked Tiffany would bust out of a cake, but of course that didn’t happen. But what did happen is that Dad asked if he could speak to the doctor outside, and Luke said, “Julie, can I talk to you?” And he put his hand on her elbow like they were a couple and led her out. And he didn’t come back for a really, really long time. So long that Dad finally agreed to go down and find me something to eat besides gruel, which is what they serve you in hospitals if they think you can’t swallow.
I was lying there, minding my own business, wishing Julie had brought “Hounds of Hell” because hospital TV is boring and here comes Luke, and I swear, he looked worse than me. I said, “So what’s going on? Are you and Julie getting together? Am I going to have to put up with The Stinker pulling out tubes and messing with my TV?”
Luke gave me one of those looks and said, “I guess the seizure made you completely crazy, and not just half-assed crazy. No, we are not going to be a couple. In fact, I just told her it wasn’t going to happen and to quit bugging me about it.” That’s not exactly what he said, but I reserve the right to paraphrase if necessary.
Anyway, bottom line is that he dumped her once and for all. Let me tell you, if I could sit up, I would have hugged him. But instead I said, “Oh, do tell.”
Luke said that he told her that he couldn’t go backward, he could only go forward, which of course I took to mean Blue Eyes, and I said so, but Luke shook his head and said, “Stay out of it, Leo. She’s got issues. Anyway, I need to get back to Denver. I mean, assuming you’re okay. I’ve got houses to finish.”
Between you and me, I would be the last person to tell Luke not to go back to Denver, because I mean, what’s worse than that, asking someone to stay behind because you can’t even pee by yourself, you know? Still, I was kind of hoping he’d stay. I like having him around. I know he and Dad argue a lot, but they argue about big important stuff, like what’s going to happen with the ranch. I know he’s got the house thing going, and he worked really hard to get his degree. So I said, “Great! Those houses won’t build themselves, you know.” Just like Dad.
And he said, “No, they won’t. I figure it’s even more important now, because the lawyer says that without some divine miracle or some great compassionate concession by the heirs, we can kiss Homecoming Ranch good-bye.”
He looked so sad about that, and I felt really bad for him, because I know Luke is the sentimental kind. He likes the idea of big fancy ranches and big families. That’s all I was thinking when I said, “Maybe you and Blue Eyes could work it out in the bedroom instead of the front yard.”
I meant that in the nicest possible way. I wouldn’t lie to you.
But Luke, he said, “You know, if you weren’t lying there like a sack of beans, I would knock your block off.”
And I said, “Go ahead, try it. I’ve still got some kick in me,” which reminded me of the NBA season a couple of years ago, and I said, “Do you remember that game between the Spurs and the Mavericks where there was that big throw-down and they were ejecting players left and right?” And we started laughing about that.
I never got to finish up with my critically acclaimed thinking about Blue Eyes.