My Seoul Man

Chapter 48

Took Blaine a little while to react to my voice. He looked 'way skinnier than I remembered from that first conversation, too. Like he'd shriveled up like a slice of bacon trying to walk a couple of miles in the merciless heat.

See, Arizona will put the fear of God into you right quick no matter what you thought you believed before you got here. Just let your car break down on one of those long, deserted stretches of road on a day when the temps are 'way up past 100º and you passed up a chance to get some water at that last gas station thinking you could make up some time.

Yeah, I tried changing a tire on a road like that once. Got bit by all these angry little ants and was scared to death that a rattler might slither up and bite me like the one that darted out from under a cousin's car one morning. And don't get me started about the minute I realized there was a little herd of tarantulas passing by and that they could jump, too.

Highway Patrol guy finally stopped and did it for me. But I had to listen to him lecture me about how many careless tourists he'd found half dead and dead dead out there the entire time. I didn't tell him I wasn't a tourist because I was afraid he might give me a ticket just for being the damndest fool he'd ever met or something.

That's another thing about Arizona. The cops can just make shit up and get away with it—"driving while Black/brown" ain't the only thing. They'll mess with anybody who ticks them off. And the judge'll go right along with it if you show up to protest or something. Waste of time.

So Blaine had survived the wrath of our particularly unforgiving God, but just barely, by the look of him.

I was relieved when he finally winced and turned his face toward me even though he didn't open his eyes. And then he had a coughing fit the minute he tried to speak.

So I held a cup of water to his chapped lips and said, "Just keep still and sip this, okay?" And he relaxed back down on the gurney and drifted off again, poor thing.

He was in the sad little prefab facility on a highway frontage road a few miles from Whitman that was on standby strictly for dire emergencies. Dropping like a rock in front of a convenience store on that same frontage road qualified him to be seen and stabilized there, though.

I was getting kind of nervous about how weak he looked when a young doctor—tag said "Marc Feld"--came in and started checking all the little monitors and things.

So, I said, "Was it the heat or...?"

"Mostly the heat," he said. With a nice smile that made me feel a little better. "We've pumped a lot of fluids into him, but his heart rate's still 'way lower than normal. Izzat something he's heard before?"

I said, "I can't...I don't recall him ever mentioning anything."

But he wouldn't have complained even if he had heard it before. He felt like he was out there swimming with sharks all the time. Where any sign of weakness would've been fatal.

And of course, he was the descendant of midwestern farmers who worked those fields even with broken arms and legs and hearts. Died under the wheels of tractors and things.

I still shudder at the gruesome "death by farm equipment" stories he'd told me. So he wasn't going to whine about his heart skipping a beat or having a little dizzy spell.

Dr. Feld nodded like he was adding up something in his head even though I hadn't given him anything to work with.

I was grateful for the nodding, though. We didn't get many thoughtful doctors out our way. They were usually disgruntled med students just trying to complete their medical program requirements 'way out where they wouldn't have a lot of pressure or competition.