Three days had passed since Charlie first came to the hospital. Slowly he started to remember the circumstances surrounding his arrival. He could remember the fights, the drinks, and reaching the hotel garage. Past that, the only other memory was vomiting on to the hospital floor and then the room turning to black. The nurses and doctors had told him the highlights – bus crash, hitting the pavement, broken leg, mild concussion, messed up shoulder, scraped face – but he wasn’t allowed to look in a mirror, and had only recently started taking walks around the hospital with a physical therapist.
The pain from the walking was fairly intense, and they told Charlie that feeling the pain was a good sign that things were working, nerve-wise. He had enough experience under his belt to tell him that it was only going to get harder and more painful
before he would be finished, healed, and back to some semblance of normal.
One day in the therapy gym, Charlie was using an arm-cranking type of machine, to limber-up his healthy arm. While using this equipment, an elderly man was assisted into the gym by a young male nurse. He walked with the help of a cane, and seemed to be physically capable of guiding himself into the room – Charlie didn’t know why a nurse needed to assist him, but figured it was hospital policy. The old man was eased into a stationary bike next to Charlie, and the nurse told him “Bob, this is Charlie. I want you to use the bike for about five minutes, ok?” Bob nodded at Charlie, then waved his hand to the nurse. “I’ll be right back, Bob. Five minutes,” and the nurse walked into a neighboring office.
The first few moments were silent as Bob worked up speed on his bike. Charlie was rotating the device with his hand and looking at his arm, when Bob spoke up. “What happened to you?”
“Oh,” Charlie was caught spacing out, and took a second to comprehend the question.
“Well, I was in a car accident. My arm is a mess, among other things.”
“That’s a common thing to happen in car accidents, becoming a mess,” Bob offered. “I’m here for my hip. Second time, got it replaced with titanium now.”
“Oh, how did you break your hip?” Charlie asked.
“You know,” Bob slapped his hand on his head. “Being blind ain’t a good thing when you get to be my age. Tripping and falling ain’t so harmless anymore, you know?”
Charlie nodded, then realized that Bob couldn’t see this gesture. “I see,” he said, feeling meek at the unfortunate pun. “I mean, I understand.”
Bob laughed. “How old are you?” Bob asked.
“I’m 42,” Charlie paused. “I guess I have to ask how old you are now.”
“You don’t have to, but it’d be fair,” Bob said with a grin. “I’m 78, going on 79 next month.”
“Do you remember how you tripped, Bob?”
“Well, Charlie – right? Charlie, this cane usually keeps me from tripping and making a klutz out of myself. But one day, I thought I could just make a trip to the can without it. I mean, as many times as I use the can I figured I should know how to make it there and back without the cane. I didn’t figure on the cat being in my way, damned animal.”
Charlie again nodded, but remembered to hum in agreement this time.
“So, with the cat there, I stepped right on her tail. She goes off in one direction, and boom I hit the floor. I knew right there, ‘there goes my hip,’ I said.”
“Is it painful?” Charlie asked. He could see how stilted Bob’s movement were on the bike; as he pedaled his leg went three-quarters of a rotation, then Bob had to push to make it all the way around.
“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t ask for this kind of pain. I’m just glad I don’t have any breathing problems. You know, it’s one thing to get into an accident like this, but when you have other problems that get, um,” Bob paused in thought, “exacerbated by these stupid accidents, well – that’s where the real problems start.”
Charlie meditated on this for a moment. “You mean, like other illnesses?”
“Like pneumonia, or diabetes. That’s how us old folks die. Not because our hips fracture or our knees go out. Nope. That’s just the beginning. You get laid up in bed for weeks or months at a time, your lungs get week and you die from a flu. Or your blood starts to clot, and you have a blood vessel break in your head. Sorry, son, too much for ya?”
Charlie was thrown back that Bob could pick up on the fact that these details were a little too harsh for him to hear this early in the morning. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh, your arm slowed down a bit there,” Bob answered. Bob’s nurse came out from the back office now and walked up to their bikes.
“How’s it going, Bob? Get your joints loosened up? Ready to try some work on the rubber bands now?” he asked.
“Hell, what else have I got to do? Right Charlie?”
“Yeah, you said it Bob,” Charlie replied.
The nurse rolled his eyes while he looked at a chart he was holding. “Ok, Bob, let’s go now.” He held his arm out for Bob to grab on to, and Bob raised himself up from the bike with some difficulty, using his cane for another source of leverage.
“See ya later, Charlie. Nice talking to you.”
“You too Bob. Don’t let these nurses bore you too much,” he said to Bob as he walked away. “Fucking bastards,” Charlie thought. “Just give the old man a swim in a nice warm pool and let him be. Stupid chimps with clipboards.” Charlie imagined Chad walking in from the gym office, with his clipboard, and telling Charlie to get ready to go work on his strength training. He scoffed at the idea.
After his work in the gym, Charlie was met in his room by Sheila. She had heard about the band’s decision to go on without Charlie, indefinitely. However, she and Frank had decided that the stress that Terry caused Charlie in the beginning of this ordeal was enough for now, that it would be better to let Charlie know about his decision after his release. What she couldn’t count on was Charlie’s reaction, and the fear of him being devastated again was something she couldn’t bear.
Instead, she had decided to work on building up Charlie’s confidence as much as possible before he found out, selling him on the idea of building a solo career for himself. “You’re still pretty young, you know,” she would tell him. “You’re still a draw out there for the crowds, people love you and your personality on stage. Maybe you should think about touring with your own band, not Accelerator. Switch it up.
Being off the radar screen for the time being, you can emerge and do something completely different if you wanted to.”
These conversations weren’t long lasting, as Charlie would flip on the television, or tell Sheila that he had to pee, or that he was hungry. He didn’t want to think about work, the stage, touring, getting back on a crappy bus for months and months. Today, she new, he would know why she was feeding him these thoughts. He was going home to complete his recovery.
“I have a surprise for you, Charlie!” she said as he walked into the room, using the crutch she had fitted with a fuzzy pad for his armpit. “Here, set down the fuzzy crutch and let’s talk.”
“You’re not going to tell me you’re pregnant, are you? Cause I don’t think I could handle another big scare right now.” Charlie’s humor, though dark, was an offering to Sheila, in appreciation of her good humor and mood.
“No, I’m not pregnant, my god,” she said.
“Oh, well, I’m not pregnant, am I?” Charlie retorted.
“Well, looking at the belly you’ve got under that robe, you could have fooled me.” The joke was getting on Sheila’s nerves, so she jumped into her announcement. “You are going home today, you old goat.”
Charlie did not have the reaction she had imagined. He leaned over from his bed to the nightstand and grabbed the television remote control. He turned on the set, and laid back into the bed. “Great,” he finally said, “what time do we leave?”
She crossed her arms and looked at her feet. “Well, don’t jump up and down. You’ve only been in this place for the three days - I guess you don’t want to come home? Want to spend some more time eating the great hospital food, do you?”
“Oh, don’t be a drama queen, alright?” Charlie said. “I want to go home, but how am I gonna do my exercises?”
“We’re getting the arm crank, and some strength training machines installed at the house right now. You’ll recover at home.”
Charlie turned off the set, and looked at Sheila. “Who is going to help me? I can’t just figure out what I’m doing on my own, She.”
“Charlie, we’ve got your physical therapist to recommend someone in the area who will do house visits for you. This isn’t a big deal, darling. I’ve got it all figured out, ok?”
“What time do we leave?”
“Any time you want,” she deadpanned back to him. Sheila picked up her purse and walked to the door. “I’m going to see the doctor to tell her we’ll leave in an hour, alright?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, and left the room with the door opened, something Charlie couldn’t stand.
Sitting in the bed, with the sounds of the busy hospital coming into his room, Charlie suddenly felt ready to bolt out of there. He sat up, looked at his mangled clothes on his weakened and stitched up body, and headed to the bathroom. Standing at the sink, he stared at the wall in front of him. He could feel the bristles of a beard starting to form on his face. He touched his hair and could feel the bandages taped to his forehead and wanted to see what was under them. “This is ridiculous,” he said out loud to himself. He pushed the call button next to the toilet for the nurse. Several moments later, the nurse entered his room.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Clark?”
“Get me a mirror, please. And do I need to shave?”
“Hang on a sec, ok?” she said, and turned to go to the central nurses station. Charlie followed her to the door and watched as she walked up to a senior looking nurse, said some words, and saw as they both looked back at him. The senior nurse handed the other a hand mirror from some cart, and the nurse headed back into the room.
“Here you go, Mr. Clark,” she said as she handed the mirror to him.
“Am I some sort of freak? What’s the big deal about giving me a mirror?” he asked exasperatedly.
“Oh no, Mr. Clark, it’s nothing like that,” she immediately answered back. “I’m sorry if you got that impression. You have some large scrapes on your face. Your family was worried that you may feel discouraged about the healing process if you saw them, and the stitches on your face, so we didn’t want to offer you a mirror.”
Charlie held the mirror to his face and adjusted it so he could take in the whole visage at once. He looked ruddy and pale, as he had imagined. He slowly lifted the tape off of his cheek and peeled it off his skin. “Is it ok to do this?” he asked the nurse.
“Oh, that’s fine – I have to change your bandage today, anyways. Need some help?” She leaned over his face and slowly worked to remove the rest of the tape and gauze. She stood back and said, “There you go.”
Charlie took a breath and brought the mirror up to his face again. There was a large, dark scab on the left side of his face, and several stitches near his left eye.
“There, nothing terrible at all, like I said” the nurse offered to him as he examined his face. “You should heal up very nicely, Mr. Clark. Dr. Heter had a facial surgeon do your stitches, and the scab will probably be gone in a month or so.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said. He was distracted by his image in the mirror, and couldn’t imagine a scab the size of a dollar bill healing up in just four or five weeks. “It’s been how long? Just a couple of days, right?” The nurse nodded in agreement. “I barely recognize myself.”
It wasn’t true, but he thought she needed to hear it so she would leave him alone with himself. She walked out and closed the door.
Charlie walked back into the restroom and stood over the sink, underneath the light bulb, to better examine his face. He traced the lines of age around his eyes and his mouth, getting reacquainted with the marks and smudges. He touched the stitches, giving his skin a pull and a tug with one finger. He expected it to hurt, since he hadn’t touched it before, but there was no special feeling to it at all. Smiling and making faces at himself, he noticed the poor sight of his hair. He touched his head and messed his hair up with his fingers. This motion sent a pang of pain down his shoulder and into his hand. “Shit,” he said as he winced and dropped his arm. It was the shoulder that was injured in the accident, and for the moment he had forgotten about his injuries and lifted up his arm. Suddenly he felt angry at Sheila for keeping mirrors away from him.
What was the point of sheltering him from himself? Why shouldn’t he be able to see the scabs, the stitches? He wasn’t going to go ballistic and damage his face anymore than it already was. Now he was acting like some sheltered, wild person who had never seen their reflection in a mirror. He felt humiliated at the idea of being fascinated with his reflection, and upset that his hair and face should be so unkempt. He tossed the mirror on to the bed, and called the nurse in again. He told her that he wanted a hair cut before he left, and asked her to use the clippers to shave it all off.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Definitely,” he answered. “And do it before my wife comes back, hurry!”
The nurse obliged, and after she stepped out to retrieve some clippers and a comb, she returned and set to work. In a matter of seconds half of his head was shaved like a peach’s skin. “You have a nice shape to your skull, sir,” she commented. “No big bumps or strange marks, you know?” Charlie sat silently through the process. This was a re-birth to him, coming out of the cocoon of the hospital and emerging back into the real world, free of the history that had followed him into this place.
“There,” the nurse finally said, “all gone – I mean, all done!” She handed him the same mirror from before, and he took a look at her work.
“Nice job, ma’am,” he said to her. “I usually get some frou-frou guy in a leather jacket to cut my hair, but you do a nice job too!”
She smiled and left the room, returning with a brush to sweep the hair off of his shirt, and another nurse came in to sweep the floor. She said, “I could sell this hair on the street to some of your fans, you know!”
“Oh, yeah? What would the going rate be nowadays?” he asked.
“Well, since your all finished with Accelerator now,” she said, “I would assume quite a bit, right? For the nostalgia factor.”
Charlie was silent. “Finished with what? What did you say?”
“Oh, you know, when they announced you were quitting Accelerator, everybody went nuts – buying up all the albums and posters and stuff. It was crazy. It was all over the news, but you probably new that.”
“Oh, yeah,” was all he could say. “Yeah.”
The nurses left, and Charlie sat in the chair beside his bed. He sat, and waited for Sheila to reappear. He ran through his thoughts, thinking about the nurse. Could she be trusted? Perhaps she misunderstood what had happened – sure, the tour was probably canceled and the new album talk that had been circulating was probably cut off completely. But, leaving Accelerator? The idea of it happening without his knowledge was ludicrous. He wanted to give doubt to the nurse’s story, and yet he couldn’t help but think it was probably true. Why would she say something like that if it wasn’t true? Would Sheila really keep this a secret, too?
Sheila walked in to see Charlie standing up from the chair. “Oh my god, your hair! What happened? Are they giving you chemo now?” She was smiling, but ingenuinely. He knew the drastic change was probably hitting her like a brick.
“No, not chemo. They gave me a mirror and I could see what a mess my hair was. I looked like a homeless bum. I can’t believe you let me look like that.”
“Oh, you did not look like a bum,” she said. “It was more of a rugged look, sure. But not terrible.” She walked up to him to touch his shorn head.
“I see they took your bandages off, too?”
“Yeah – are you surprised?”
“No, not unless you did it yourself – they said it was ok, right?”
“The nurse said they needed to be changed anyways, so she did it for me so I could see what was going on under there,” he pointed to his cheek. He paused and stared at her, waiting for her to say something, almost wishing she would just come out with the truth instead of making him have to ask her about the rumors he’d just heard. But she didn’t say a word. Instead, she started to pack up his things and made small talk.
“I got a prescription for some ointment, you know – for your face? And we’ll have to stock up on some pain medicine for your leg and shoulder,” she was folding up some of his clothes. “Chad’s been making arrangements for your therapy at home to continue, and I think they’re giving us a wheelchair to use for you at home so you don’t put too much pressure on your leg.”
Charlie was too blown away from the odd news the nurse delivered to him, and too wiped out from the pain of his shoulder and leg, to start in with a line of questions for Sheila. He thought, “I’ll wait and see how long she’ll keep this from me. What is it going to take for her to level with me?”
As they left the hospital, Charlie wore his fresh bandages and sunglasses, but covered his head with a hooded sweatshirt. Sheila walked next to him as Chad wheeled Charlie around the hospital corridors and to their waiting car. Nurses waved goodbye, and his doctor gave Sheila some notes about his care. No fanfare waited for them outside, and the ride home was quiet enough for Charlie to nap all the way there.
Two days had come and gone since Charlie learned the truth behind Sheila’s pep talks surrounding a solo career. No mention of the truth came from Sheila’s mouth, and Charlie was tired of waiting. After finishing his breakfast in the dining room of their home, he turned to her. She was seated next to him at the table, reading a romance novel that she picked up in the hospital gift shop. He cleared his throat to grab her attention, but it didn’t work. He sighed, and she finally looked up.
“What’s the matter? Didn’t like the omelet?” She asked.
“It’s was delicious, but that isn’t what has my stomach upset.” She put the book down and stared at his face.
“Are you feeling ill? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, stop it,” he said, and threw his napkin off his lap and on to the table. “You know what’s the matter, you liar.”
Her mouth opened a little, and the color rushed from her face. “What are you talking about, Charles?”
“And don’t start taking that tone with me, ‘Charles,’ I won’t have it anymore.” He stood up, grabbing the table for support, and she stood up to try and help him. “Don’t you touch me! How long were you going to wait, Shelia? A month? Were you thinking you could just fix me up only to hit me with it when I started feeling better?”
“Honestly, Charlie – what are you talking about?”
“God, you can’t even act dumb. Stop it! I’m talking about the band!”
She froze, and found her way back to her chair. “Charlie.”
“The nurse said to me that day I left that I had decided to quit Accelerator. She even made a joke about how she could sell off my hair because of it.”
Sheila grabbed the edge of the table, as if she had let go she would start spinning into orbit around the room. “I’m sorry, Charlie,” she said meekly.
“Sorry? Is that all? What, did you think it would make me heal faster if I went on thinking that being a solo act was my idea? If I didn’t know that I was pushed out of the band for being in an accident it would make it easier to swallow? How was I supposed to learn about this? Over tea with Frank and the boys?”
“I don’t know how you were supposed to learn about it, Charlie,” she looked up to his face and tears started to flow down her cheeks. “I didn’t think about telling you, I just,” she swallowed hard, “I just wanted to get you home and to keep you from thinking about it. We’ve fought so much over the band, how they treat you, mistreated you, I thought it was best to not get into this with you until you were back on your feet.”
“Right – doing this for my benefit. I see.” He was still raving mad, face bright red, standing behind his chair holding on to it’s back to remain stable. “You’re a piece of work, Sheila. I should have known this was going on from the start! Whose idea was it then, to pull me out of the band? Was it you?”
“Charlie,” she started to say that it was the band’s decision, but couldn’t think of how he would react to that news. She continued, saying “I think it was a decision that your doctor said would be best for you. You shouldn’t be on the road after a concussion, and everything else!” She felt relieved, thinking that it was all over. Doctor’s orders, and that’s final. He would surely go for that.
“Are you kidding me? Sheila, the money-hungry manager of all time, letting a doctor tell her that her meal ticket doesn’t have a job anymore because of a minor accident? Bullshit, Sheila – more bullshit.”
He started to hobble away from the table, and Sheila jumped out of her chair and ran to stand in front of him. It was pointless, she decided, and now he needed to hear everything.
“You want to know the truth? You stupid bastard, you want to know what I couldn’t tell you? Fine, here it is! And you can call Frank, Terry, all those assholes up to confirm it since you don’t believe a word I say anymore.”
She stopped, stood in front of him breathing hard. “Well, go on! Say it!” He shouted this while leaning in to her face.
“They didn’t want you anymore!” She was sobbing, stilting the words as they came out of her mouth. “They didn’t want me, and that meant they didn’t want you anymore either. Terry said you were causing all sorts of problems by keeping me around, and got everyone to figure that ditching you and finishing up the tour would keep them paid and keep me out of their pockets!”
Charlie shook his head, “Unbelievable, Sheila. That’s not true. Frank wouldn’t agree to keep the band going without me.”
Sheila just nodded her head at Charlie, while her mascara began to stream down her face again. “It’s true,” she repeated, “it’s true.” Charlie tried to push her out of the way from the door, and she hollered at him “You think I would make up a story about how I got you out of the band? You think I would make this up, shame myself like this in front of you?” Charlie stopped in his tracks. He turned to face her again.
“Think about it Charlie – I’m the other crutch in your life now.”
He walked out of the dining room and locked himself in the library.
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