Keep the Ghost

20. Then you refuse to speak

Four AM, driving down a deserted street in Somewhere, USA. Streetlights rise and set across the night. Thick ferns cast diabolical silhouettes over flat, one-story industrial buildings—half of them corrugated steel, the other half, faded brick. We pass a bus stop; either a homeless man or a bundle of ragged clothes rests on the bench.

"Where the hell are we, anyway?" I'm stretched out across the back seat of Morgan's car as we head to the hospital.

"Louisiana," Morgan answers. "Lake Charles."

A name and a place that don't mean anything to me. This new travel is magic. Jump off a bridge, duck into a trunk, and wake up in a new land.

"Why don't we just get on a plane and go to another country?" Ireland sounds nice this time of year.

"I could," Morgan informs. "You and Jack need photo IDs. Can't fly without them."

Jack speaks: "If you're done telling us how to do what we do best, here's the plan: We're going to Dubois Hospital. Lake Charles Memorial is the best hospital in the area, and it's just a couple miles away. Not much traffic at Dubois, it's older. We'll get you in during the morning shift, we'll pull you out at the shift change that night. If I'm right and that's a dislocation, they aren't going to do too much cutting. You should be conscious within six or seven hours of the operation. Now, can you talk normal?" Jack turns around in the front seat to face me.

"I don't want to talk to you," I tell him. "Morgan, you tell me what to do. I don't want to hear anything out of Jack's mouth."

Jack feigns a hurt expression, leans back and slaps my bad foot. Barely a tap, but the pain is monumental; I inhale sharply, pull back.

"Cut it out, Jack," Morgan says.

He doesn't. "A smart person could see I'm trying to help you out here. You think I'm so bad for killing Kayla—you killed Sean Reilly, how do you feel about that?"

"Because I didn't actually kill anyone," I say. "I'm not really a murderer."

"You killed the shadow, and that's what people miss, that's what they owned. If you accept, like I do, that individual people don't matter much in the scheme of things—that scheme being chaotic in the first place—then we're pretty much equal. I made a lot of people sad someone is dead, and so did you."

I say nothing.

"Now, answer me—can you talk normal?"

"I do talk normal," I tell him.

"I mean, can you talk American." He draws out the word, makes his voice flat. "Without the accent."

I straighten my back, try it out: "Jack Vickery fondles dogs."

I can see Morgan smirk through the rearview mirror.

"It doesn't matter what breed of dog," I say, trying to straighten out my inflections, over-enunciate every syllable. "Big dog, small dog, don't let him near them."

"Please stop," Jack says. "You're going to need to keep your mouth shut while you're inside, hard as that might be. You still sound Irish."

"Why can't Ryan White have grown up in Ireland? Then I won't need to change my voice."

"Because that makes you a rarity; it makes you easy to remember. You need to learn how to think—let's say the police call around, looking to see if anyone with an Irish accent checked into a hospital with injuries like you might get from jumping off a bridge. And that clerk at the hospital says what? 'Oh yeah, I remember him, his name is Ryan White.' And you're still out here telling the world you're Ryan White. They'll find you in a week," Jack informs. "But, if you keep your mouth shut, or give them a fake name, they still have to treat you. It's the law."

"So I'm stealing? From doctors?" Jesus.

He turns and grins. "Yeah, you're stealing—get used to that. You opted out of the civilized world when you decided to shed your shadow. Didn't you read the fine print?"

I don't like that. However, I like the pain in my leg even less. Just want to stop feeling my knee cap roll around, really.

"So these are pointless?" I ask, pulling Ryan's social and birth certificate from the pocket of my jeans.

"Leave them in the car," Jack says. "If they find them, they'll know how to find you. The less record of this, the better. The less record you exist, the better. This world tracks you, it gets hooks in everywhere you go. Anything you buy, or sign. Your phone company, your doctor, the clerk in the hotel lobby—they are methods to find you. And you, more than anyone else, need to be careful. Your death was messy. Anyone with a brain is going to keep looking for you. You'll either learn how to confuse the trail, or you'll get caught."

I stuff Ryan White's identity into the pocket behind the driver's seat. The hospital comes into view, emergency room entrance adorned with red plastic crosses.

"And how do I get an operation without talking?"

We pull up to the entrance, underneath a two-lane cement awning.

Jack grins. "Have you ever heard the term aphasia voluntaria?"

*

Using the crutches is extremely painful, as my broken leg hangs uselessly, dragging along the floor. My shoelaces are untied, and make a soft scratching sound on the linoleum. I am a macabre installation.

I believe my dangling leg is the reason I'm approached by a nurse before I get halfway to the desk at the end of the emergency room. It is a Monday morning, and the room is empty.

"Let me get a wheelchair," she insists, waving at an orderly who hesitates at the opposite end of the room. "What happened?"

I point at my mouth, shake my head, then make a scribbling motion with my hand.

"You want paper?" she asks.

I nod in agreement. A Hispanic man in scrubs comes from behind with a wheelchair; I lean back in it, gently, letting my mangled leg rest on the ground.

She's back, pen and pad in hand. I take the cheap plastic pen and write on the pad:

I don't talk.

Then:

My knee is broken. I'm in pain.

The nurse leans down to my foot, begins gently rolling my jeans up my leg. Even this makes me recoil in pain, as the slightest touch feels like it shifts an ice pick that's jabbed deep in my bone.

"How did this happen?" she asks.

Fell off my motorcycle, I write.

She looks skeptical.

"You can't talk, or you won't talk?"

I place the tip of the pen on my first message, and make eye contact.

The nurse shakes her head. "We need to lift your foot into the stirrup, so we can wheel you into the operating room. Do you want to lift it, or me?"

I put both hands on the thigh of my injured leg, and lift from here. Lights flash in my eyes; the pain is a shrill ringing in my ears. The job is done.

"Are you allergic to any medication? Write it out," she says.

I'm not allergic to any medication.

"Do you have any identification? What's your name?"

No identification.

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