The Substitution Order, page 7
“Can it happen again? Will it?”
“A good question,” Wallace declares. “We didn’t see this thrombus migrating from its pseudoaneurysm. But we hope not. We want you hellzy.” There’s considerably more oracular gibberish added to that, but only “conservative treatment” and “stay on blood thinners” have any value for my ears.
I kindly ask, and I’m told I can’t stand to piss, but the moment they leave and the door shuts, fuck that rule. I want to see how much my left leg has recovered, so I swim through the tangle of wires and IV lines and put my feet on the floor and ease off the edge of the bed and stretch for the urine jug, and my foot and ankle aren’t worth a damn. I spot myself in a mirror, and the area around my eye is swollen and discolored—blacks, blues, violets and crimsons—and blood has oozed outside a stitch hole and dried brownish red. The corner of my mouth is melted down toward my chin. I piss in the curved plastic bottle, and thank goodness that much goes well.
Almost as soon as I return to my bed, a young, perky woman—Amy—with a clipboard and a painted giraffe dangling from her necklace arrives to inquire about my “support system” and “care network.”
“Do you have somewhere to go once you’re discharged?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Do you have a caretaker? A person or persons to assist you with your medical needs and daily routines?”
“Well, uh…” I stop. “Not really.”
“Are you married?”
“Separated,” I answer. “So no.” I consider whether I should phone Ava, or perhaps ask Giraffe Amy to contact her for me, but I don’t see any gain there, no benefit for the remaining few hours of my marriage. I’m damaged goods, so who’d want to volunteer for that chore, and even if Ava did come to visit and tote my bedpan for a while, I’d simply be more of a millstone, a pity project at best. “Soon divorced,” I add, and a tear drips from my swollen eye, stinging as it leaves. “Damn. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize, Mr. Moore. This has to be hard for you, under any circumstances.” She sounds sincere. She waits a beat before asking the next question. “Are you afraid to return to your residence?”
“What?”
“It’s a standard question. We ask everyone.”
“I’ll be fine.” I wipe the tear and brush my bruised and damaged eye, and it hurts like the dickens. “I’m not afraid. I live by myself.” I point at her. “Oh. Oh! I need a drug test. Very important.”
“A drug test? Were you using some kind of drugs? Is that an issue? The doctors have to know if there are any drugs in your system.”
“No, I’m clean. No drugs.” I sigh. I don’t want to mention that I’m on probation and trying to fend off a felony conviction. “For workth. Work. Really need to get it done today. Was heading to the lab when I got sickth. Sick, I mean.”
“I’ll tell the nurse or your CNA,” she assures me.
“Please don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” She glances at her paperwork. “Is there someone who can drive you home and stay with you? A friend or relative?”
I think for a moment. My brain hurts. The words are becoming more difficult to locate and pronounce. “Yeah, my friend Dan. Minivan Dan.”
“Sorry? Mr. Vandam?”
“My best friend, Danth.” I close my eyes. “Can we please take a break? So tired.”
“Oh, sure. You get some rest. I apologize.”
My rest lasts fifteen minutes, until the “insurance specialist,” another zippy lady with a clipboard, wakes me to discuss “payment arrangements,” and when I explain there’s an insurance card in my wallet and invite her to take it out, the specialist declares that she’s already checked and my coverage ends today, June 30, at 11:59 p.m.
I stammer, “No. No. No. July. July thithteen. Sixteen.” I press the disaster around my eye with my thumb, provoking as much pain as possible. There’s a tiny chance this isn’t actually happening, and the hurt will jar me awake. The pain needles across my head toward my temple, but I remain there in the same room, hospitalized and hog-tied.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I hear her reply, “but it was canceled a few days ago, effective today.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I MET DAN DUGGAN the first day of my freshman year at Davidson College. A redheaded Irish Catholic with a soft spot for JFK, Dan was raised in Boston, and despite our several differences, we became fast friends. We finished college and both decided on law school at the University of Virginia, where we shared a small apartment until we graduated, bought Chek cola by the case, cooked pots of mushy, bland spaghetti nearly every week, and hoarded our quarters for the coin slide that operated the washer and dryer in the complex’s damp basement. In three years, we had only one knock-down, drag-out quarrel, a row we settled a few hours later and laughed about when he gave the best-man toast at my wedding.
We left Charlottesville in May of 1998, and the very next month Dan discovered a world-beating career: He married money. His wife, Nancy, was the only heir to her father’s mammoth Atlanta-based roofing company, and she was a natural at running the whole kit and caboodle, from managing accounts receivable to bidding shopping-center projects, even better than her daddy, no small accomplishment. She was rolling in cash by the age of thirty, rich enough that her name occasionally appeared on magazine lists ranking the South’s wealthiest people. As a bonus, she was a beautiful, engaging lady who—for whatever reason—adored Dan.
Immediately after graduating from law school, Dan became convinced there was a wide and untapped “sporty” minivan market, that the real buyers for these rolling, black-walled playpens were young men eager for a hopped-up version of the full-size vehicle. “This minivan is to the regular van as the MG or Porsche is to the Cadillac,” he’d inform anyone who’d listen. So my best friend, a man with two degrees and a Phi Beta Kappa key, supported by a stake from his wife, opened a custom minivan business, dropping monster engines and Jerico transmissions into Dodge Caravans, adding performance suspensions and low-profile tires to Voyagers, and tricking out fenders and sliding doors with audacious paint schemes: dragons, flames, sunsets, cheetahs, lightning bolts and buxom vampires.
Mini Thunder was no moneymaker, and that’s being charitable, but Dan never tossed in the towel, and for years discussed his business model with a stilted smile and a gentleman’s grace, claiming he was a pioneer in the market and was poised for when the sport minivan finally broke through—just a matter of timing, he’d remark and grin, and you never knew if he was joshing or if he still really believed in the wacky idea.
He was, however, a success as Nicholson Industrial Roofing’s informal legal counsel. He reviewed thousands of contracts—nothing sneaked by him—became a self-taught expert on workers’ compensation law, and learned how to comply with convoluted immigration rules so the company could keep crews of Mexicans stretching roof membrane all across the country. He joked that he was “indeed in-house counsel,” since he worked from his and Nancy’s Ansley Park mansion and took care of their daughter, Zoe, from diapers and doctors’ appointments to homework and school shuttles.
Dan picks me up from the hospital in Winston-Salem—after my five-night stay—and I fill him in on my various problems: a divorce, a fake failed drug test, no health insurance, the Caleb Opportunity complication and a bum left leg and ankle that cause me to hobble noticeably.
“An accumulation of unwelcome shit there,” Dan says, glancing at me and shifting with an elaborate chrome stick as we pull away from a stoplight. “But the insurance assholes can’t terminate you so quickly. Not under the law as I understand it.”
“There’s boilerplate in the policy stating that cancellations are effective the day the company actually receives the written notice, which they evidently got on June thirtieth. Of course, you can also include a specific termination date in the notice to them, and Ava picked the sixteenth and had already paid the premium, so I’m entitled to coverage until then.”
“Yep,” Dan confirms. “Pretty basic.”
“But according to some 1-800 claims flunky with a script, they were done with me on June thirtieth at midnight. We both understand their position’s pure horseshit, but I’ll have to push back and sue and wait a couple years while they file pointless discovery and ask for continuances. Typical insurance-company bluster and dishonesty, in the hope I’m some old, dying guy who won’t know any better.”
“Amen, Kevin. Nancy and I have to deal with them every day.” Dan accelerates and the vehicle’s stubby nose rises. We cross two lanes of traffic and dive-bomb onto an exit, the van sticking tight to the pavement through the ramp’s curve. “At least you have your clean test,” he says. “From a hospital, no less.”
“Unfortunately, it happened four days after the probation-office screen. Cocaine and meth disappear from your system in seventy-two hours, so it’s not exactly a home run. I feel lucky to have gotten it done at all. Talk about trying to turn a damn battleship on a dime—the hospital bureaucracy and Dr. Magic Eight Ball Wallace were a difficult combination. God only knows what’ll show up in the records because I requested it. I might’ve made my situation worse.”
“Yeah, man, you need an occasional declarative sentence from your physician. I didn’t have a stroke, and that jackass is incomprehensible. Spending a quarter for a Zoltar fortune would’ve been a better medical investment.”
“No shit.”
“So, I’ve got at least a week to straighten you out,” Dan says. “I’ll set up a command post at your house and have you healthy in no time.” We’re beside a small red car on the divided highway, and the driver, probably a high-schooler, blows the horn and shows us a thumbs-up. “Truth, brother,” Dan exclaims, and nods sharply.
It’s July 5, the middle of the morning, when we arrive at the homeplace, Minivan Dan babying the custom T&C on the gravel driveway, frowning, his forehead cut with worry wrinkles. “Damn, Kevin,” he says when we finally park out front, “this is spectacular. What a beautiful place. You’ve landed well.”
“It is nice,” I agree. “Also, it’s ten degrees cooler here in the summer. I won’t roast for the next two months.”
Dan opens my door and grips my elbow to steady me, and I gimp up the stairs to the porch, stagger into the den and spill onto the sofa. I’m tired and dizzy, my eye and face aching. Dan tells me to get some rest, and I pull a blanket over me and fall asleep while he’s still talking, something about feeding the horses and whether it’s safe to go inside the fence with them…
* * *
Next thing I know, Dan is shaking me, and it takes a moment to lock into my surroundings—I’m not at my house in Roanoke, not in the hospital room—and he’s very animated, and he’s telling me to wake up, wake up, his tone urgent, and I notice a burning smell and wonder if the house is on fire.
“You okay, Kevin? Come on. Sorry. There’s a cop coming, and we don’t want him in here.” The ancient oscillating fan is set to high, and Dan’s waving a hand back and forth as he speaks. “Let’s meet him outside.”
The room smells like pot, or something close to it, but only a hint, weak and diluted. Dan helps me stand, and I hobble to the door with him, shut it behind us and wait on the porch. It’s Darrell Pruitt again. “Hello, Officer,” I greet him. I ease toward the steps, and Dan does the same.
“Evening, Mr. Moore. Sorry to be botherin’ you again. I came by yesterday, but you weren’t here. I saw Jacob Shelor at the café, and he told me you’d had a health issue. Hope that’s behind you.”
“I had a stroke,” I say. I shift my weight onto my right leg. “The hospital discharged me a few hours ago. This is my friend, Dan. He’s a lawyer in Atlanta. He’ll be here taking care of me for a while.”
“Nice to meet you,” Dan says to Pruitt. “Beautiful county you folks have.” He sounds normal and composed, though his Boston accent still dominates every syllable.
“ ’Preciate it,” Pruitt replies, then looks at the papers in his hand. “I got some more court stuff for you, sir. I’m sorry to be bringin’ it so close to your stroke. Hope you understand I’m only doin’ my job.”
“Not your fault,” I say.
“No worries,” Dan remarks.
I reach down, and Pruitt, who’s standing on the bottom step, hands me a show-cause summons for violation of probation. He waits for me to study the details before speaking again. I’m surprised as hell but keep my lawyer’s nonchalant expression. “And this,” he adds, “is a civil suit, from Patrick County. The circuit court here. You have twenty-one days to respond.”
“Okay,” I say. I fold the papers in half. Melanie Culp’s civil claim is thick and won’t completely close at the spine. I try to flatten the pages by running my thumb and index finger up and down the crease, pressing the gap together, and I keep doing it until I realize that the needless repetition makes me appear nervous and guilty.
“Make no mistake,” Dan announces, “we’ll be vigorously contesting both.” He sounds corny and silly, stands a little too erect, forms the words too deep in his throat.
“Well, you gentlemen have a good day,” Pruitt says quietly. He turns and walks to his car, never checks over his shoulder or acknowledges us again before driving away.
I flip through the papers. “An even five million, that’s what she’s suing me for. Unbelievable.”
“Wow.”
Dan grips my biceps, and I tell him—not because I’m angry or being pissy—that I need to walk on my own, need to start taking care of myself, and he opens the front door and I wobble through, return to the den and frantic fan.
“Lord, Minivan,” I say, laughing, “were you getting high? Seriously?”
“Well, yeah, sorry.”
“That’s a new talent in your game. Didn’t realize you’d become a stoner, or is this some kind of lifestyle accommodation for the miniature-van racket? You and Scooby hittin’ the bong and cruising in the tiny Mystery Machine, digging the eight-track?”
“As you know better than anybody, Kevin, I live a healthy and very temperate life, especially for an Irishman. I haven’t been drunk in years. Years. A Guinness or two and a shot of Powers Gold is a swell party for me. I go to the gym nearly every day. Run a nine-minute mile.”
“And what, sneak a joint in your basement when Nancy’s asleep? Make sure you cue the Pink Floyd just right, so the music starts after the lion roars the third time?”
“I tried it about two years ago when we were skiing in Colorado, okay? I’ve smoked maybe three times in the last nine months, including today. When exactly would I have the chance to fucking do it, what with a third-grader in dance and soccer and an average of fifteen new contracts to review every day? Don’t be such a scold. Pot’s legal in many places. The people have spoken. It’s a treat and rare reward and probably better for me than a beer.”
“Jeez,” I tell him, “you don’t have to have a hissy fit about it. I couldn’t care less.” I can’t help but laugh again. “And I’m not the guy to lecture anybody about drugs, now am I?” I’m seated on the sofa. I lace my fingers and rest my hands in my lap. “I advise being careful, though. I mean, hell, I went straight to the bottom in four months. Crazy. The party life doesn’t suit some people.”
“I think I have it well under control. I took three draws. But I do apologize for the scare and alarm and for smoking around you. I realize I don’t need to tempt you or trigger anything. Sorry. I stood next to the window. You were asleep, crashed. I took the edge off and turned up the dial on my colors a notch or two. Didn’t expect the cop, not out here in the middle of nowhere. As you can plainly see, I’m fine.”
“I barely noticed anything, and it wasn’t exactly a pot smell.”
“Vaporizer,” Dan says. “You heat the pot and smoke the vapor. Better for your lungs and far less smell. Hardly any, in fact.”
“Oh,” I say. “And believe me, I’m not tempted. Don’t you worry. I made it nearly forty-two years without booze and coke, and I have nothing but vile recollections from my collapse. Listen: Three trips to AA cured my ass. Fellowship-hall coffee in foam cups and stratocumulus cigarette smoke and hoarse old broads who look like wizened Rod Stewarts telling tales about shoplifting vodka and passing out naked in a gas-station toilet—that glimpse into the future sobered me right up, times ten. Forever.”
Dan takes a seat in a leather recliner. “So, while you were sleeping for three hours, I called your insurer and told them I was you and dropped the law-degree hammer on them and mentioned punitive damages and bad faith, and the entry-level flunky transferred me to a supervisor, but of course I went straight into voicemail, and we’re waiting for a return call that’ll never come. I will ride herd on this. I will hound these assholes. I have the supervisor’s name from her voicemail.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m not sure I have the stamina or the clarity to deal with all this myself right now.”
“That’s why I’m here. Your concierge.” Dan smiles. “I’ll give Mr. Opportunity’s suit a read too.”
“Okay. I’m in your debt, my friend. Thanks again.”
“I window-shopped some Obama plans for you,” he adds. “I can’t commit until I know exactly what you’re earning these days. There’s also the COBRA option if we can ever cut through the red tape, though it’ll cost you out the wazoo. Thousands a month, I’m guessing.”
“Most of the Obama plans have such high fucking deductibles that they’re worthless.”
“Assuming you make under thirty thousand dollars or thereabouts, we can get you a gold policy with a two-thousand deductible for three hundred and change a month. And we can start it right away, even with your stroke.”
“We’ll give it a try, then. I have to do something.”
