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Doesn’t that just figure? Zeke thought in disgust when the bullet sliced through his shoulder. The first two shots had whizzed by him, but he was pretty sure the third had struck home. He’d staggered, for starters, and then there was something warm and sticky dripping from his jacket.
He didn’t think they’d even been trying to hurt him, firing from the car as he ran the other direction. Zeke wasn’t important enough for them to want him dead; they just didn’t want to pay him for services rendered.
After the car had been out of sight for blocks and two corners, Zeke slowed down and pressed a tentative hand to his right shoulder. He winced as pain answered, and his hand came away bloody.
That’s just great, Zeke thought. I’m fucking shot, even as another part of him said, How long did you think you were going to make it in a life of petty crime and drug deals before this happened?
He paused to assess. He didn’t feel too bad, considering he was shot. It didn’t hurt as much as he would have expected. He was about a half mile from the motel he’d left Casey in, and his would-be killers didn’t know where he was staying. There was no reason he couldn’t walk back to the motel, assess the damage, and patch himself up.
Zeke winced again when he started walking, but no one on the dark streets of Pittsburgh paid any attention to the tall kid in the dark jacket walking stiffly along the sidewalk.
_____
He was feeling a little lightheaded by the time he reached the motel room, but he thought he was doing all right until he tried to take his keys out of his pocket and couldn’t make his fingers close around them. He clumsily tried to get into the pocket with his other hand, but that wasn’t working either, so he finally just banged on the door and said, “Casey! Case, it’s me, open the door, buddy.”
There was a long silence and then a soft shuffling that probably was Casey looking through the peephole. Zeke had trained Casey too well for him to just open the door up, and as the silence continued, Zeke began to worry that he’d trained Casey too well.
“C’mon, man, I’m not feeling good and I can’t get my keys,” he said. “It’s just me, Casey. Let me in.”
During the ensuing silence, Zeke leaned his head against the door and had just decided to try to get into his jeans pocket again when the door popped open and he stumbled into the dark room.
“Where’s your keys?” Casey asked suspiciously, and Zeke saw with something akin to pride that he was holding the nightstand lamp in one hand. Even as he watched, the lamp wavered in Casey’s unsteady grasp.
“Put that down before you break it,” Zeke said. “My keys are in my pocket, but I hurt my arm and couldn’t get them out.”
Wariness somehow chased away by the irritation in Zeke’s voice, Casey put the lamp down and shut and locked the door. “You’re hurt?” he asked, but Zeke was already in the bathroom, blinking in the sudden bright light as he flipped the switch.
“You’re hurt?” Casey repeated, following him into the room. “Zeke, you’re hurt?”
“Yeah,” Zeke said, and sat down tiredly on the closed toilet seat. His shoulder was starting to throb every time he moved. “I got shot.”
“You got shot?” Casey asked, his voice coming to a high pitch. “Shot with a gun?”
“Yeah, shot with a gun,” Zeke said. “Here, help me get my jacket and shirt off.”
Casey automatically obeyed, helping Zeke slide his arms out of the jacket. “Don’t you need, like, a hospital or something?” he asked, then jumped back in alarm when he saw the blood on Zeke’s T-shirt.
“No, I don’t think so,” Zeke said. “It’s OK, man, I’m just bleeding a little. Come help me get this off.”
Mute and wide-eyed, Casey helped Zeke get the shirt over his head and off. Zeke cried out once as he lifted his shoulder, and Casey squeaked, “Sorry sorry sorry, Zeke.”
“It’s all right,” Zeke gasped. “You didn’t shoot me.” He grabbed the closest towel and pressed it to the wound. “Wet one of these, would you?” he said to Casey, who grabbed another of the thin, cheap towels and ran it under the tap.
Zeke mopped up the worst of the blood with the first towel, then awkwardly cleaned the rest off with the wet one. As he did so, he tried to look at the wound. Just below the collarbone, through muscle and flesh but not bone. Twisting his neck and gritting his teeth, he confirmed a matching entrance wound on the back of his shoulder.
“OK, OK,” he wheezed. “That’s OK.”
Casey was backed nearly into the shower, pale and twitchy. Zeke nodded at him in what he hoped was reassurance. “It’s not so bad,” he said. “The bullet went through me, not in me, so that’s good. Means I don’t need a doctor.” Or a hack, he added to himself, trying not to think about getting a bullet pried out of his body in a filthy ghetto kitchen.
“You’re bleeding, Zeke,” Casey whispered.
“Yeah,” Zeke said. “Think you can come help me clean it and bandage it so I stop bleeding?”
Casey swallowed, and then nodded. “OK,” Zeke said. “Go get my bag for me, Casey, and then grab a couple of handtowels.”
While Casey looked for the bag, Zeke leaned his head back against the tile wall. He was cold, and tired, and his shoulder now not only throbbed, it was starting to burn. What he really wanted was to lie down in bed with a shitload of Vicodin in him and wake up healed in the morning, but somehow he didn’t see that in his future, especially because he knew the best he had in his pharmaceutical stash was a few Tylenol with codeine.
Casey came back with Zeke’s bag and two handtowels. Zeke jerked his head at the sink counter when Casey hesitantly handed out the towels, and Casey set them down.
“What’s in the bag?” Zeke asked, too tired and cold and foggy to remember himself. “To clean this with,” he added.
Casey fumbled around inside it, then pulled out Bactine and rubbing alcohol. Zeke eyed them both with grim displeasure. “What about my locked box?” he asked, and Casey gingerly retrieved the little metal box Zeke kept drugs in. A flimsy little combination locked secured it, but the only person Zeke wanted to keep out of it was Casey, and it served that purpose.
“Listen, Casey,” he said, still with his head against the cool tiles, “I’m gonna tell you the combination, and you’re going to open it. But you’re never, never going to take something out of that box unless I’ve told you to. Got it?”
“Never, never open the box,” Casey answered, and Zeke finished, “Unless I tell you to. And I’m telling you to now. First turn it to 18, then to 27, and then to 6.”
Casey knelt on the floor, twirled the combination, and then pulled fruitlessly at the lid. “Eighteen,” he said to himself, and Zeke finished, “Then 27, then 6.”
“Twenty-seven,” Casey said, tongue pointing out of the corner of his mouth as he turned the dial, “and then 6.”
The lid still did not open, and Zeke closed his eyes in frustration. “Eighteen,” he said again, and Casey answered, “Twenty-seven, six.”
This time, the box opened. Casey held it out to Zeke, who squinted into the contents. Three Tylenol with codeine, loose in the bottom. A bottle of aspirin, another of Extra-Strength Tylenol. A small unmarked bottle that he knew contained Ativan. Two bubble packs of cold-and-sinus medicine.
“Crap,” Zeke muttered. He’d already known what was in the box, but he was hoping he’d forgotten some decent painkiller or antibiotic. It wasn’t like he could send Casey out into the streets to pick something up for him, so it looked like he would just have to make do. He grabbed the Tylenol with codeine with his left hand and dry-swallowed them.
“All right, close that up,” Zeke said, “but don’t lock it. Did you see the Tylenol in there?” He waited for Casey to nod. “I want you to make sure I take three of those, every four hours, all right, buddy? Can you help me make sure I do that?”
“I can help, Zeke,” Casey said solemnly.
“Good deal, man,” Zeke said. “Now get that rubbing alcohol open.” Under Zeke’s direction, Casey liberally wet a washcloth with the rubbing alcohol, and handed Zeke a second, dry washcloth.
“Listen, Casey,” Zeke said. Now the shoulder throbbed so badly Zeke could feel it in his teeth, and he was having trouble focusing his eyes. “Listen, this is going to make me scream, but we need to make sure the wound is clean so it doesn’t get infected, because that’s what really gets you, is infection, not being shot itself. So you just let me scream, and keep cleaning it, front and back. Got it?”
“Got it,” Casey whispered, his eyes enormous and his face dead white. Zeke nodded to him and put the dry washcloth between his teeth.
Not only did he scream, his legs jerked violently, nearly knocking Casey over. “I’m sorry, Zeke, sorry sorry sorry,” Casey whispered, and then resumed cleaning the wound until his washcloth was red with blood and Zeke fastened his good hand around Casey’s wrist to stop him.
“That was good?” Casey asked anxiously, and Zeke nodded, washcloth clenched between his teeth and eyes watering. Casey placed the soaked washcloth in the sink with trembling hands and watched as Zeke managed to spit his washcloth out.
“You’re something else, Casey,” Zeke gasped, and he meant it. Two weeks before, they’d been in Virginia during a violent spring storm and the power had gone out. Casey had thrown a screaming fit of rare proportions, until he finally reached a point of such terror that he couldn’t scream. They’d spent the night sitting on the floor, Zeke holding Casey still with his limbs locked around Casey’s. From a power outage. And here Casey was, cleaning Zeke’s gunshot wound like a trouper, no hysterics in sight.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Casey said, his voice cracking.
“Needed to be done,” Zeke said. “You’re doing great. Think you can help me bandage this up?”
Somehow, the two of them got the handtowels tied and fastened around Zeke’s shoulder, covering the wounds and absorbing the blood. Then Casey let Zeke lean on him, and the two of them wove a shaky path to the bed.
“Now I just gotta sleep,” Zeke gasped as he finally lay down. “Just sleep it off and it’ll be OK. Just . . . I’m gonna need more Tylenol later.”
“Three pills in four hours,” Casey said.
“But you stay out of that box otherwise,” Zeke muttered, and fell into a troubled, pained sleep.
_____
Zeke woke several hours later to Casey shaking his good shoulder and calling his name. He was drenched in sweat, and he could smell the blood that had soaked through the towels bandaged around his wound.
“Zeke, your medicine,” Casey said insistently, and shoved four Tylenol under his nose.
“Yeah,” Zeke croaked, and opened his mouth so Casey could drop them in.
“Water,” Casey said. “You said to make you drink water,” and he shoved a bottle into Zeke’s hand.
“Yeah,” Zeke said again, and managed to bring it to his mouth. He drank greedily, some of it dribbling down his chin. “That’s great, buddy.”
“Do you feel better?” Casey asked anxiously. “Now that you’ve slept?”
“Yeah,” Zeke said. “I just need some more sleep. Then I’ll be better.” He finished off the water and let Casey take the bottle from his hand and fell promptly back into a black well of sleep.
_____
Zeke, Zeke, Zeke, he heard in his sleep, and he didn’t know if it was in his dreams, or if it was Casey calling anxiously to him. It didn’t matter -- he was too tired to answer either way.
“Zeke, Zeke, what do I do?” he heard, and that was clear, that was Casey, but he couldn’t make his mouth form a response before he sank back into darkness.
_____
Zeke slept and slept and Casey concentrated on being quiet, so that Zeke could sleep and get better. The towels bandaging his shoulder had soaked through with blood, which didn’t seem good to Casey, but Zeke had said all he needed was the medicine and water and sleep and he would be better, and Zeke knew about these things, all these things that Casey didn’t know about and never knew what to do about. Zeke always knew what to do, and he was always right about these things, so Casey knew that if he was just quiet and let Zeke sleep and remembered to give him his medicine, he’d wake up later and be all right.
He’d turned the television on but muted it after a long internal debate about if the television would wake Zeke up or not. Now he sat beside Zeke on the bed and ate cold, leftover pizza and watched the light from the television flicker across the room. Eventually, he went into the bathroom and threw all the dirty towels into the tub and took the stuff from Zeke’s bag and the medicine box out and sat on the bed with them.
Casey opened the medicine box and looked inside curiously. Zeke never let him touch this box, because Casey got confused about when to take things and what medicines were good for what and how much to take.
“Four,” he said to himself, touching the Tylenol bottle. “Four every four hours.” Then he looked at the clock and furrowed his brow. Casey wasn’t really sure when Zeke had taken the other medicine, so he didn’t know when four hours was going to be. The clock said 2:18 a.m. Casey decided 4 a.m. would be four hours, because the fours matched.
He touched each of the other pills in the box reverently, then closed the lid and put it on the table. Casey didn’t often get the chance to do something for Zeke. He was going to do it right.
_____
At 4 a.m., Casey gave Zeke his pills and water, and then Zeke went back to sleep. Casey turned off the television, curled up beside Zeke, pulling the blankets up over both of them, and went to sleep himself.
At 10 a.m., Casey woke up and gave Zeke more pills and water. Zeke blinked blearily at him and muttered, “Thanks,” before going back to sleep. Casey forgot about being quiet and watched cartoons with the sound on and laughed at the funny parts, but Zeke didn’t wake up, so Casey figured it was all right once he remembered about being quiet.
At noon, Casey was hungry and ate a Snickers bar out of their bags.
At 3 p.m., Casey gave Zeke more pills and water, and this time Zeke had him help him to the bathroom so he could pee. Zeke swayed on his feet and leaned on Casey, which was strange, because Zeke was strong and usually could pick Casey up without any effort. Zeke was big and heavy leaning on Casey. He went right back to sleep after using the bathroom.
At 6 p.m., Casey was hungry again, but there was no more food in the room, so he shook Zeke and called his name until Zeke opened bloodshot eyes and croaked, “What?”
“I’m hungry,” Casey said. “Aren’t you hungry, Zeke? Aren’t we going to eat?”
“Order pizza,” Zeke muttered. “Take money out of my jacket.”
“Order pizza on the phone?” Casey asked doubtfully. He couldn’t remember ever having used a phone himself, though he knew he had done these things once, when he lived at home in his own room, with a mom who made hot chocolate and a dad with a big voice. Casey had vague memories and ideas about that time, before Zeke took care of him, but he could only ever remember those things when he wasn’t trying to.
“Yes,” Zeke said, and his eyes slid shut again. “Look on the box from the old pizza. There should be a phone number.”
There was (of course, because Zeke knew about these things), and Casey carefully read the instructions on the motel phone before dialing with the seriousness of a surgeon. He ordered a large pizza with pepperoni because that’s what Zeke liked, but then the pizza man asked where to deliver it, and Casey didn’t know what to tell him.
“Zeke,” he said, and poked at Zeke’s side. “Zeke, where do they bring the pizza to?”
“Jesus, Casey,” Zeke muttered, and held out his hand for the phone. “It’s the Bell Motel right off I-79,” he said into the receiver. “Room 105. Yeah. Right. Thanks,” and he handed the phone back to Casey to hang up.
“Sorry, Zeke,” Casey said, chewing at his lower lip.
“It’s all right, buddy,” Zeke muttered. “Can you get me some more pills?”
Casey didn’t know if it had been four hours, but Zeke was asking for them, so it was okay. He gave Zeke more pills and water, and watched as Zeke fell back asleep. He didn’t wake when the pizza came, or when Casey tried to rouse him to eat something, so Casey left him alone and went back to concentrating on being quiet.
At 11 p.m., Casey tried to wake Zeke for more pills and water, only Zeke wouldn’t wake up. He was hot to touch, and his clothes were damp with sweat. “Zeke, you have to take your pills,” Casey said more insistently, and tried to put the pills into Zeke’s slack mouth. They fell back out and landed on Zeke’s shirt. Casey removed them with shaking hands.
“Zeke,” Casey whispered. “Zeke Zeke ZekeZekeZeke.” He backed away from the bed until his back hit the wall; then he slid down it and curled his knees to his chest. Casey rocked slightly, rhythmically, one hand around his knees, the other tugging hard at a clump of hair.
Casey could not recall ever having tried to wake Zeke before and Zeke not waking up. There was a big pain in Casey’s chest that he thought meant Zeke was very sick, so sick that Zeke didn’t know what to do about it.
And if Zeke didn’t know what to do about it, how was Casey supposed to know? He stopped tugging at his hair and pressed the palm of his hand hard against his forehead. He used to know how to think. Casey knew this. He could remember classrooms and books. Casey thought that once he had been smart, he had known how to figure things out, before Zeke, before That Place, before something bad that had happened to him that he only recalled in his dreams.
Casey bit down on his lip until he tasted blood, and sped his rhythm up until he was solidly hitting the wall with a “thump” every few seconds. When Casey was sick, sometimes Zeke took him to a doctor. Once he had even taken him to a hospital, when Casey had hurt his fingers so bad, but they hadn’t fixed him at the hospital and Zeke had taken them to Stokely’s, and Stokely had taken them to a different hospital where --
“Oh!” Casey said, and tried to scramble to his feet, stumbling sideways in his hurry. Once he was upright, he fumbled about the mess in the room until he found his jacket. There it was, inside the cheap nylon wallet -- an index card with Zeke’s neat, block writing on it.
“STOKELY ROSADO,” it said. “312-563-1139. CALL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.”
Casey started giggling, in relief and because this made him think of fire axes and hoses behind glass that read, “Break glass in case of emergency,” and it was like Stokely was behind glass he was about to break for an emergency.
The phone was still on the nightstand, where it had been when Casey had called the pizza guy. He reread the instructions and dialed, but a recording came on that said, “You cannot complete this call as dialed.” He tried twice more with the same result.
Casey wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans and studied the instructions on the phone again. It had worked for the pizza guy -- why not for Stokely? At the bottom of the instructions, it said, “Press ‘0’ for assistance.” Casey pressed ‘0’.
“This is the operator, may I help you?” a voice said.
“I need to call this number,” Casey said, and carefully read the number off the card.
“You don’t have long-distance service on your telephone, sir,” the voice said. “You can place that call using a credit card or a calling card.”
The pain in Casey’s chest, which had dissipated when he took out the index card bearing Stokely’s name, came back suddenly and clenched at him. “I don’t have those things,” he said.
“You could call collect, sir,” the voice said.
“How do I do that?” Casey asked. He could feel sweat beading his forehead.
“I need your name, sir,” the voice said, and now the pain in his chest was coupled with a frantically pounding heart because Zeke never liked giving anyone their names and Casey wasn’t supposed to tell people who they were because They were always out there and --
“Your first name is fine, sir,” the voice said, and Casey squeaked out, “Casey.”
“One moment, please,” the voice said, and then there was silence and a few clicking noises. Casey’s hand began to cramp, clutching the receiver, and he started to shake.
“Casey!” It wasn’t Stokely, but Stan, and Casey’s breath came out in a huge whoosh that was nearly a sob.
“Stan,” Casey said. “Stan, Stan, Zeke got shot and now he won’t wake up.”
“Zeke got what?” Stan asked. He was loud and urgent and both scary and scared, and it made Casey’s voice shake and his teeth chatter.
“Zeke got shot,” he repeated. “He said to give him four pills every four hours and I did, that’s what I’ve been doing, but now he won’t wake up and I shook him and shook him and I don’t know what to do.”
“Jesus!” Stan said, and then Casey heard him say, faraway and tinny, “He says Zeke got shot and won’t wake up.”
“Casey?” Now it was Stokely, and the sound of her voice made Casey start to cry. “Casey, is Zeke breathing?”
Casey took several gulping breaths before he could answer, “Y-yes.”
“Okay,” Stokely said. “Where did he get shot?”
“In the shoulder,” Casey said, and sniffled. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and wondered why he was crying now that he had someone to help on the telephone. He hadn’t cried before, when he was all alone with Zeke.
“Is he bleeding a lot?” Stokely said, and then seemed to know that Casey wouldn’t be able to answer that question. “Is there a bandage on the wound? Did he see a doctor?”
“I helped him bandage it,” Casey said. “He said he didn’t need a doctor. He said he needed to sleep and drink lots of water and take four pills every four hours and he would be okay.”
“What kind of pills?” Stokely asked. “Do you know?”
“Yellow and red,” Casey said promptly, and there was a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Casey, where are you?” Stokely asked finally.
“The Bell Motor,” Casey said promptly, because that’s what Zeke had told the pizza guy. “Room 105.”
“Do you know what city?” Stokely asked, and Casey had to press his hand to his forehead again, because he’d known, Zeke had told him this when they’d driven into town, if he should be able to remember --
“Casey, are there any matchbooks from the motel around?” Stokely asked, and Casey knew there were, in the nightstand drawer, because he’d used them to light a cigarette, before Zeke had been shot, and the matchbook said, “THE BELL MOTOR, Just off I-79, Pittsburgh, Pa.” He read it carefully to Stokely.
“Okay, Casey,” Stokely said, and she let out a deep breath, like she’d been holding it. “Okay. We’re coming to get you. We’ll be there as fast as we can. Try to wake Zeke up again and give him his pills, make him drink his water. If you can’t get him to wake up, try again after a little while. And just hang in there, okay? Casey?”
“Okay,” Casey whispered.
“I’ll see you soon,” Stokely said, and her voice was firm and steady, the way Zeke’s was when he promised Casey something.
“Okay,” Casey whispered again, and then there was a click on the other end of the line.
“Stokely, please come quick,” Casey said, because the pain was back in his chest, and he thought it meant that he was afraid Zeke would leave him here all alone.
_____
“Zeke,” someone said, clear and calm and commanding. “Here, drink this,” and then an awful, chalky liquid was being drizzled down his throat. Zeke’s mouth objected and his throat gurgled.
There was a cool cloth on his forehead, and that felt great, felt like the best thing in the world, but then someone was prodding at his shoulder and that felt awful, felt like the worst thing in the world, and if Zeke could have lifted his arm, he would have punched the prodder right in the face, but his arms were leaden and immovable, so he just laid there and tried not to whimper.
“We’re out of our minds for not taking him to the hospital,” another voice said. “You know that, right?”
“Shh,” the first voice said, but if it was to Zeke or the second voice, he didn’t know. The prodding has stopped, leaving his shoulder a throbbing heat.
“Casey,” he muttered, and the first voice answered, “He’s fine. Go to sleep,” so he obeyed.
_____
When Zeke woke up again, he was acutely aware of the deep, heated pulse in his shoulder, but he guessed it was better than before, because he was first aware of his own stench. He was still on the motel bed, stripped to the waist, on reeking, bloody sheets.
“Ugh,” he said, and to his surprise, someone answered, “Hey, man,” and Zeke squinted up in the dim light.
“Stan?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah,” Stan said shortly. “Want some water?”
Zeke took the bottle gratefully, then let Stan help him sit up against the headboard. The heavy curtains held out daylight and the room was quiet.
“Where’s Casey?” Zeke asked.
“Stokely took him to eat,” Stan said. He was counting out pills from a bottle on the beside table. “Here,” and he held out a handful.
Zeke took them, but asked before he washed them down with the rest of the water. “What are they?”
“Penicillin and codeine,” Stan said.
Zeke swallowed willingly, then squinted at Stan. “Where the hell did you get them?”
Stan shrugged. “Bought them off some bum coming out of the free clinic.” He sounded nonchalant, like he bought prescriptions off of bums every day.
Zeke grinned. “Can’t picture that.”
Stan didn’t look amused. “She wouldn’t let me take you to a hospital,” he said shortly. “And I wasn’t letting her hang around outside that place, trying to score.” He paused. “You owe me a shitload of money.”
“Screw you,” Zeke said amiably, then tried to get off the bed.
“What are you doing, asshole?” Stan said, but there was no heat to it and then he not only helped Zeke to the bathroom, he helped him into the shower, propping him against the wall and turning on the water.
“I’m not washing you,” he said, and left Zeke there under the pounding lukewarm water which was the most blessed thing Zeke could imagine right then.
By the time he shut off the water and carefully got out of the shower and into the clean clothes Stan had left on the sink, Zeke could hear more voices in the other room. He exited to find Stan eating McDonald’s at the tiny table, Stokely across from them, and Casey on the floor watching cartoons. He jumped up as soon as he saw Zeke.
“Zeke!” and Casey had him in a painful hug.
“Careful, buddy,” Zeke said, but squeezed back. “Shoulder’s still sore.”
“You’re way better, though, right, Zeke?” Casey asked, and Zeke could hear the strain in his voice. “I called Stokely. On the phone. Was that okay, Zeke?”
“Yeah, man. Guess I was sicker than I thought,” Zeke said, and lowered himself carefully to the edge of the bed. “Hey, Stokes,” he added.
“Nice digs, Zeke,” Stokely answered, sipping at a coffee.
“I splurged,” Zeke said, wearily, and reached for her coffee. She handed him another water instead. He downed it, then eyed them warily.
“What?” Stokely said. “What day is it? Where’d we come from? Cops been looking for you? Anyone else shot? Are we having a good time in Pittsburgh?”
“Got your bitch on, Stokely?” Zeke asked, then added, “Thanks for coming.”
Stan and Stokely glanced at each other, and Zeke decided to ignore their little marital nonverbal discussion. Instead he looked up at Casey, standing expectantly at Zeke’s knee, and asked, “Been keeping yourself busy, Case?” and then listened intently to a long description of pizza delivery and the phone operator and cartoons and being quiet and four pills every four hours.
Casey finally quieted down, slumped into the sole armchair and went to sleep, apparently worn out by McDonald’s and Zeke’s return to the waking world. Zeke rubbed his hand wearily over his face and looked up to find Stan and Stokely eyeballing him.
“I feel like crap,” he said.
“You got shot,” Stan said.
“Yeah, it happens,” Zeke said, and could just see Stan’s blood pressure rising.
“Really, Zeke? ‘Cause I manage to get around every day without getting holes plugged into me,” he said, and Zeke sighed. Stokely shot Stan a sharp look and he subsided.
“Zeke, we’ve been talking,” Stokely said, and leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“No,” Zeke said, and stood up.
“Zeke, just –“ Stokely tried again.
“No,” Zeke repeated. “You had your chance and you two wanted to go to college and play house and go to prom and graduation. This –“ he waved to the crappy, stinking motel room, “is what I got, and I’m keeping it.”
“You can’t keep this up forever, man,” Stan said, and Zeke could hear so many other people in his head, telling him the same thing.
“Screw that,” Zeke said, to Stan, and to the echoes in his head. “Besides, what are you going to do, Stan? Quit your job and stay home all day with Casey? Gonna drop out of college, Stokely? Let them take him when they come? Send him back to get his head screwed with some more?”
Stan looked away, but Stokely held his gaze. “What are you going to do, Zeke?” she asked. “Let Casey watch you bleed out in some shithole motel? What’s going to happen to him then?”
Zeke reached around her, took her coffee off the table, finished it off, holding her gaze until she sighed.
“We are all so screwed,” she said tiredly, and Zeke laughed humorlessly.
“What’s new?” he asked, and sat back down on the bed. “They win, we lose, right?”
No one answered him.