Lousiana Hotshot

“Dad!” in wonderment.
    Jesus! Crazy fools was right. They were calling doctors and nurses. Now that he thought of it, this place was a hospital. He knew by the smell.
    The medical personnel were acting hysterical. They were doing things with instruments and firing staccato questions at the rest of them. “You sure he spoke?”
    “Well, some of us heard it.”
    Ms. Wallis said, “I didn’t.” Right. Way too busy listening to the sound of her own voice.
    “What did he say?”
    “It sounded like ‘racy bush.’”
    “No, boost.”
    “Foos. Like water racing. Racy foos.”
    “Foolish, maybe.”
    “Racy foolish?”
    He hadn’t said a
damn
thing. This was ridiculous, and not only that the crazy fools were talking too loud. He took the pillow and put it over his head. And still they wouldn’t shut up.
    “Hey, look, he’s trying to move his hands. Like a dog dreaming about running— look at his wrists.”
    * * *
    Talba called her mother as soon as she came back to herself, but it was too late. Miz Clara had already been besieged with calls from reporters and, hysterical, had called the police and been referred to Detective Skip Langdon. She’d just put down the phone when Talba herself called. By that time she not only knew her daughter was fine but had also realized that she was enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame. Further, that this was something she could piggyback onto. In the midst of their conversation, Miz Clara had to excuse herself because the evening news shows were coming on. Talba would have laughed if she’d felt up to it.
    She didn’t want to see anyone except Tony, to tell him how sorry she was that she’d sucked him into this, and to touch him, to reassure herself that he really was all right. But he was in his father’s room, and that meant braving Audrey and Angie and the gray, shrunken, pathetic Eddie, for whom she really wasn’t ready at this point. But she had to see him.
    Tony caught her in a bear hug that said it all. To her surprise, Audrey and Angie hugged her too, apparently hadn’t caught on that it was she who’d nearly gotten him killed.
    She stayed a few minutes to hear Tony’s story, and she was glad, because Eddie mumbled something, and that had to be a good sign.
    And then the cops took her away. They were there the whole time, hovering, awaiting their chance. She had had to insist, to threaten a scene, even to get the few minutes with Tony, because she knew it was going to be a long haul.
    When they finally let her go, Darryl was there for her. She hadn’t called him, but she knew he’d be there. She should have been happy about it. She was miserable. She didn’t want to be with anybody for a while. But home meant Miz Clara and a hundred reporters. She gratefully accepted his offer to stay at his house.
    She was surprised that she couldn’t talk to him. He wanted her to tell him everything, to fill him in, but she couldn’t. All she could do was lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. He was dying to watch the footage of the scene, but she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t even let him hold her.
    When he went to work the next morning, she found some bourbon and drank enough of that to put her out again, and she slept until he came home from school. He let her sleep until early evening, when he made her some spaghetti with red gravy— a known comfort food— and forced her to eat it.
    They talked small talk until he said, “Listen, you’ve really been through some shit.”
    It didn’t seem worth the effort to answer.
    “You want to talk about it?”
    “I can’t think about it.”
    It was a mistake to say that. He gave her a lot of guff about what was healthy and what wasn’t and how victims have to tell their stories, and that kind of crap.
    “No, you don’t get it. I
can’t
think about it.”
    “Listen, I think I should call Cindy Lou.”
    Cindy Lou. The damn police psychologist. The one who was with him the night they met. She was going to have to kill him.
    “Talba, you’re hurting yourself, just lying around like this. Your mother’s worried about you, your brother’s worried about you…”
    “You’ve been talking to them!”
    “Hey, don’t be mad. Be grateful. I’ve kept them away so far. You know
that
wasn’t easy.”
    “I’ve got to work this through on my own terms.”
    “All right. Okay.” He didn’t sounded surprised. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Look, would you like to be alone tonight? I could go