stomped and echoed after me.
“Hold up!” he kept saying, “Hold up, kid!”
The hospital was only three stories. I came out in the lobby. A woman at the admissions desk looked my way but didn’t say anything. She had been talking to a guy in a charcoal suit and black tie. I hesitated then broke for the door under the green EXIT sign, hit the crash-bar, and was out .
There weren’t any guard towers or search lights. Machine gun fire did not strafe at my heels. A sweep of grass bordered by a low wrought iron fence lay before me. The fence lacked even a token coil of razor wire.
I vaulted the fence and crossed the road into pine woods. They’d brought me here in a private ambulance, a long morphine-saturated ride. I recalled sitting up as we passed through a small town shortly before arriving at the hospital. So that nameless town was my goal.
I tramped along, paralleling the road, and I felt every pebble, root and twig through the soles of the cotton slippers. Behind me voices suddenly rose. My breath and I halted. Three flashlight beams crossed and jiggled in the wooded distance. No bloodhounds, though.
I moved farther away from the road, found some dense brush, and balled myself up in it, white face hidden behind my arms. The hospital clothes were dark green. I waited and hoped for the best.
A man passed within a dozen yards of where I hid. I risked a peek. A flashlight beam swung and bobbed, seeking, but it never touched me. I remained in my hiding spot a long time. There were no more voices or flashlights.
I called Nichole collect from a payphone outside a 7-11 store in Shelton. It had taken me forever to get there and it was almost morning. I had no idea what day of the week it was. All I was counting on was that Nichole’s father would be passed out on the sofa, that he wouldn’t answer the phone.
Nichole picked up on the fourth ring and accepted the charges. She sounded wide awake.
“When the phone rang,” she said, “ I just knew it was going to be you. Isn’t that weird?”
“Yeah.”
“So where are you, and how are you, and why didn’t you ever call me before now?”
“I’m in Shelton,” I said. “I need you. And Nichole? I need some clothes, too. Any kind of clothes.”
“I’m there,” she said. No hesitation. “I got a nine a.m. class,” she said, a couple of hours later when she picked me up in her dad’s Mercury. I’d been waiting for her in a park. A police cruiser had passed through the park once, but that was it. Otherwise it had been me and the jungle gym, and now I was grateful to be sitting in a comfortable car with the radio playing and a beautiful girl in the driver’s seat. My girl.
“You’re in college, huh?” I said.
“Not really.” She lit a Winston with the dash lighter. “It’s just community college. Killing time college. Fuck it. You look like an escaped mental patient. How’s your hand? I can’t believe what happened.”
I showed her the hand, and she looked a little disappointed.
“I thought there would be, like, Frankenstein stitches and all.”
“There were but the scars faded.”
She looked more closely. “But there’s no scar.”
“I know. It’s weird. I think that’s why they had me in that hospital. That and the finger.”
“What finger?”
I told her about the pinky. “Holy shit,” she remarked. Then: “Are you going to be in trouble?”
I shrugged. “My dad signed some papers, but they can’t force me to stay. Nichole? Thanks for coming.”
“Jesus, no problem. What else was I doing? Hey, your stuff’s in the back.”
I twisted around to look. My brother’s duffel coat was neatly folded on the back seat. There was also a blue sweatshirt and a pair of beat up Nikes. I teared up at the sight of the coat. “How’d you get this?” I said, grabbing it.
“Your dad doesn’t always lock all the windows when he goes out. I should have snatched some jeans, too, but I got scared.”
“You’re the greatest. Don’t
Lynsay Sands, Hannah Howell