Free Bad Chili by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

the time I arrived at the hospital God’s heart had bled out, and all that was left was a dark stain, like blood drying on a brick.
    I was uncertain what I was supposed to do at the hospital, so I parked and went right up to my room. My name was still written on the paper in the slot outside the door.
    I peeked inside. It was dark in there. The bed next to where I had slept was still empty. My bed, where I had had such joyous moments watching pigeons, was also empty.
    I turned on the light, pulled back the closet door, and looked in there. My gown was dangling from a hanger. At least I assumed it was my gown. Same style. Same color. Plenty of room for my ass to hang out. I knew for a fact I’d had one just like it.
    I looked at my watch. I was a half hour early. I sat in the visitor’s chair beside the bed and wished I’d gone home first to get something to read. I looked out the window. It was dark, but I could make out the pigeon poop on the sill, the stuff I’d named Leonard.
    I turned on the TV and watched a news program.
    About eight-twenty Doc Sylvan came in. “Thanks for showing up. It’s nice of you. You know, I didn’t think you would. If you hadn’t, I’d have made sure the insurance didn’t cover shit.”
    I clicked the TV off. “I’m sorry, Doc. I wasn’t trying to give anyone a hard time. I really did have an emergency. I just can’t talk about it.”
    Doc Sylvan eyed me. “Yeah . . . Well, all right. Gown’s in the closet. Suit up.”
    He went out and shut the door. I put on the gown and stuffed my clothes in the closet. Sylvan came back after a while. I had crawled into bed and had the covers around my neck.
    “You stay here tonight and tomorrow night,” Sylvan said, “and we’ll be through with this insurance foolishness. You do that, I can make the insurance work. I think. You come to my office for the remaining shots.”
    “We could have done that in the first place.”
    “Insurance, Hap. Keep that in mind. Just keep telling yourself. Insurance. I’m tired of having to sound like a broken record.”
    “Yes, Yoda.”
    “You look like shit.”
    “I got a cold. I picked it up here.”
    “I don’t doubt that. I hate coming to the goddamn hospital to examine patients. They always give me something.”
    “You could let them die.”
    “Believe me, there’s some I wish would.”
    “My God, Doc, isn’t that against that Hippocratic oath?”
    “Hippocrates never had to deal with some of the assholes I deal with. He did, he’d have shoved that oath up their ass.”
    “Are you indicating any patient in particular?”
    “Could be,” Sylvan said. “Could be.”
    Sylvan got his stethoscope and checked me over. He used a tongue depressor on me. He clucked and clicked. “Upper respiratory. Bit of a sore throat. I’ll have them check you out. Give you something for the symptoms.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Hey, what else can I do for my favorite patient?”
    “Let me see . . .”
    “Hap, get out of this bed before day after tomorrow, I’ll kill you.”
    “Any news on the squirrel’s head?”
    “Other than the fact there are tire marks on it, not much. It’ll be a while before we hear. They got boxes of heads at the lab in Austin. We’ve had several rabid dogs and raccoons since you came into the office. Goddamn woods are full of them this year. It’s epidemic. I’m leavin’.”
    “Will you tuck me in before you go?”
    Sylvan grunted and left. I closed my eyes, was surprised to discover that so early into the night I was sleepy. I suppose it was the cold, or the medicine I had taken before I left the house. Don’t take cold medicine and drive. I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was I was doing. I drifted off.
    I came awake and checked my watch about eleven P.M. I was surprised. I felt as if I had been asleep for only moments. I used the bed-lift button, raised my back, turned the TV on again.
    The entire television industry hadn’t revamped itself