On The Lam

I glare at the mirror, barely recognising my own features. I’m looking at a dead man standing in an austere hospital room.

‘Be seeing you soon, Bets.’ I mutter. My voice is a thick, wet rasp, pitifully weak. Speaking feels like I’m fighting against tar trying to sink through packed gravel. ‘Real soon.’ The smile I see in the bright reflection is one of grim amusement. Sunken cheeks, hidden by an unkempt grey beard. Pallid skin concealed in the shade of a faded Jets cap. Lies of good health I desperately exclaim to the world. Pitiful and transparent.

Pacemakers failing, the docs said. And I’m too old and too risky for the surgery. Somewhere in this hospital is a smug surgeon whose kept the sheen on his stats at the cost of my life.

‘That oath means shit, huh?’ I say, talking to Betsy in an empty room. ‘Buncha pansies.’ I drawl, knowing deep in my marrow that she’s watching from on high and tutting at my language. The thought draws a more honest smile to my haggard face, even a rare sniff of amusement. It’s the darndest thing. Never prayed once in my life. Even under fire in Korea, I never wailed to the good Lord to save me. Then cancer came and snatched up my wife, and I’ve been hoping there’s a heaven every day since.

A day or two. Three at the outside. Kinda shit is that? I worked every day of my life. Fought for the flag when called. Obeyed the law, paid my tax to whichever leech was asking at the time. Scrimped and saved for a good retirement. And I’ll be long gone before I even see three years of pension. Enough to make you spit.

‘Well the hell with that.’ No hospital gown today. I was up and dressed in my own clothes for the first time since they given me the good news. Blue pressed shirt, tan pressed pants and my raggedy white gardening sneakers. Screw it. When you’re dying you choose comfort over appearances every time. Yesterday nurse Ortiz had ruled the ward. Ortiz with her well-meaning mollycoddling. Ortiz poking her bright smile round the corner every fifth second to check in. Pretty, funny, always ready with an adorable story of her kid Marco’s latest chicanery. Exactly the nurse I wished Bets had had at the end. Exactly what I didn’t want right now. Nurse Lewis’ shift had started twenty minutes ago. She didn’t give one shit for the job, bless her. She’d be dozing with headphones on by now. It was time to make a move.

I’m eager as all hell and trying not to show it. Leaning on the uncomfortable frame of my room’s door, grateful for the support. Going to need all my energy for this dance. I casually cast my eye over the nurse’s station and wrestle down a grin at the singularly elegant sight of nurse Lewis slumped over her desk. Propped on an elbow over some paperwork, looking diligent and focused as you like. I’d be her number one fan if I hadn’t just received the first hospital bill of my sudden stay here. ‘Forgive you this once, lazy cow.’ Always hated my dad’s muttered grumbles of passive aggression. Kinda getting a taste for it in my own dotage… ‘You were onto something there, pop.’ This time I fail to stop the smirk from spreading over my tired features.

Near the elevator Doc Krasinski and his gaggle of interns pile into Mrs Gershwin’s room. She’d be a while listing her screed of symptoms. This aches and that itches. Shouldn’ta got so fat then, should you? Could be blowing this dump alongside me. I start my subtle sidling down the corridor, still wary. The main obstacles are off the board, but there are still plenty of other staff to give the slip. I’m breathing hard, halfway to the elevator. Every step is an effort.

‘Sack up, marine.’ Looking down at my arm clutching the cane I can see the play of tough old muscle under the looseness of slack skin. ‘Lookit all that jerky, old man. Still got something to work with.’

20 meters of shuffling becomes 10 as I feel my heart stuttering into what passes for steady rhythm these days. 10 meters become 5 as I nearly burst out laughing at the sheer idiocy of dying here and now, heart bursting as I make my pointless great escape. And then I’m there. Thumbing the button. Stood out in the open, sweating until I hear the ding and close to falling into the grey cube of a getaway car. As the shining doors slide shut, I see nurse Lewis sneeze herself awake, actually shaking her headphones out with the force. Alone in the descending elevator I near enough kill myself laughing.

I barely have a handle on the weightless humour bubbling in me as I get out to the already warm pre-dawn air. Everything is passing like a blur. Outside the rental place I have to stop and lean on a lamppost, gather myself. I unzip the fanny-pack under my shirt, thumbing through the legions of green paper rowed against my hip. ‘Still plenty.’ I grin, safely stowing all my earthly wealth and spinning the keys around my finger.

The car is bright red beast, low to the ground and muscular. A Mustang Coupe, top already down. I settle into fine leather, turn the key, rev the throaty roar of the engine, and grip the wheel in rapture. ‘Beats a kicked-to-shit pick-up that’s for damn sure.’ The vibrations shiver up my arms, as if the vehicle is as impatient as I am to be off. My situation being what it is, I don’t need telling twice.

I race through near-empty streets, setting the tyres squealing at every corner. I laugh, long and wild, at the thought of being stopped for speeding. A ticket? Sure. I’ll pay that as soon as can, officer… Then it’s the on-ramp for the freeway. Three-hour drive to En-Why-Cee. There’s near enough six grand in a frayed fanny pack in the glove-box. A man can live like a king for a few days on that kinda cash.

Wind whips at the thinning hair poking from under my cap as my mind whirls with the possibilities of my last days on earth. It had been a damn fine life, now all it needed was the cherry on top. What would I do first? Buy a fuck-off steak with all the sides at a restaurant I could never dream of affording? Get Knicks tickets from a scalper for the price of a small republic’s deficit? Get bombed on scotch I’d never shell out for otherwise? Take a helicopter ride? Always wanted to see the city from up high.

All that and more. But first the old V.A. bar. Leave a fat stack on the counter. ‘Make sure they drink that down to the last drop,’ I’ll tell the bartender. ‘I know I’m gunna.’

As the first faint fingers of sunlight clear the horizon I can barely remember how old and tired I’m supposed to be. I crank the volume high, find a rock station. ‘…pure hair metal excess all morning here with us on KTW radioooo…’

Perfect. Couldn’t have planned it better. I smile a sadder, smaller smile than the ones which had come before. ‘Be seeing you soon, Bets. Real soon. But not just yet…’