Sugar -- A Tale of the Runoffs(99)

I

wake connected at random to my body. I have known this feeling. The morphine is about to fade.
         Eyes shut, I clench my fingers slightly. Opiate or no, they feel stiff. I flex my toes and I feel the same halt in my tendons. I've been out a while. The plastic bulb taped to my left palm is a clicker, a morphine drip controller. How bad am I? I decide I am not ready to use the mercy button, yet.
         So, breathe. And listen. I hear the beeping of monitors, the clicking of mechanisms. I hear the hard-surface echoes of purposeful motion, terse conversation. I hear a ... a chirp -- and a rapid shoosh, now ...
         I turn my head, open my eyes to gauze whiteness. "Dammitall," I croak. I try to raise an arm, to clear my eyes.
         Rubber soles whisper over the tiles. Gentle hands seize my wrists. "They've got you plumbed like a still, okay?" Minerva's voice. "Let me do this."
         I relax. As Minerva pries the papery tape from my temples and lifts away the gauze patches, I narrow my lids against the stronger light. I don't want to close them and trap grit and gum against my sclera.
         "This is cee-em-cee sodium. We use it all the time." I can almost smell the mild solvent through my eyeballs as my lids cool.
         "Agua," I mutter. "Por el amor de Dios, agua."
         "Funny, very funny. Here you go." She shows me a cup, tilts it to my lips.
         "We brought you a visitor." Anne Q uses her cheery voice, to warn me that a child is present.
         "How --" I gag, clear my throat. "How did you get in?"
         "Thanks to Jabez Harshaw, of course." Small dark and round, the child on Anne's lap might be all of six years old. She peeks at me from under obsidian bangs. "As soon as he found out that you have no next-of-kin -- like, anywhere -- all we had to do was volunteer. 'You okay with that?"
         "Umm, I guess so." I'll think about that for a while. Groping for a change of subject, I nod at the child. "So, uh ..."
         "Say 'hello' to Mr. Meric, Siluria."
         "Hello, Mr. Meric." The child's voice is smaller than she is. "Are you Bagheera?"
         The question sets me floundering in the fading morphine haze. "Si ... luria? That's your name?"
         "Yes, sir."
         "Well, what makes ... how did ... Where did you get that question?"
         "Miz Anne said."
         "Said what?"
         "I'm sorry! I di'n't mean it! I'm sorry!" Siluria turns to bury her tears in Anne's shirtfront. "I'll go right to bed, I promise! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
         Anne Q eyes on me are hot and leaden. She murmurs to the child, stroking her trembling shoulders. "The girl goes to bed and lays awake. She wanted to meet you that bad. And then you --"
         "What did you say to her, Anne?"
         I get nothing back but the glare.
         "She was listening in," Minerva explains, "while I told Anne about ... the warehouse. Anne popped off and said sometimes you think you're Bagheera, or something."
         "'Never heard of her. But I get it." I decide to sit up, giving Minerva a silent growl when she tries to stop me.
Perched tailor-fashion, I call to the child. "Siluria? Siluria, please quit crying."
         Not good enough. "I'm not mad, Siluria. And you can ask me whatever you want, and I won't get mad."
         Siluria peeks at me with one eye, then up at Anne Q. Anne smooths her face and nods reassurance. "He didn't mean it, Siluria."
         "Why did he yell at me?"
         "Well, he didn't really yell, did he?"
         "Not really. I guess."
         "And we should make allowances for people when they're sick, or hurting."
         "'Low ... ances?"
         "Give them a break. Give Mr. Meric a break."
         "I'm scared."
         "We talked about this. Are you a gr-r-rl? For real?"
         "I am! I am a gr-r-rl, for real!"
         "Then go get what you want. Go get the answer to your question."
         "I'm gonna!" The child slides from Anne's lap in a blur, so I am still that drugged. She leaps halfway onto my gurney bed and I catch her up by a shoulder and a shin, plop her down in front of me. She arranges herself to mirror my tailor seat. For a moment, shyness pulls her brows down. She takes a breath, raises her head and gives me the straight eyes of a six-year-old. "Hello, Mr. Meric."
         "Hello, Siluria. You have a question for me."
         "I have a question for you. That was funny!" She giggles, and I can't help smiling.
         I nod. "Ask away."
         "Miz Anne says you're like Bagheera-the-black-panther."
         There is a question in there somewhere. I'd shrug, but she's only a child. "All I can say is, go look at The Lion King again. Decide for yourself."
         The opiate is weakening. I feel like a cartoon villain, Wile E. Coyote at the end of a day. I squeeze the mercy bulb.
         "It's not Lion King." I must be really dumb. "It's Jungle Book!"
         "Well, I never saw it. But that's not the point." I take her soft tiny hands in my free paw. "I'm just a guy, Siluria. I do dumb things, like picking fights with crazy people and standing in the middle of a building collapse."
         "Miz 'Nerva says you saved her."
         "Ms. Minerva saves somebody every day." The pain mounts, and I squeeze the button again.
         She pulls her hands from mine. She seizes my forearms, squeezing the muscles up to my elbows. "You're strong. Like Miz Anne, only stronger." She straightens, hands on her knees. "You're kinda like Bagheera. Okay."
         "Okay, well, I guess I'll have to watch this Jungle Book of yours."
         "But you don't watch it. It's a book."
         The morphine comes on as a cool rush in my blood. And I am falling. Sleep to heal.