Colored Heat-Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

                Ransom Memorial Hospital was a large, modern building, set on the western edge of town, near the place where Third Street turns into County Road 421.  It had been built in the late 1970s by local money with help from the state of Texas, and it was the largest medical center on the interstate between Dallas and Houston.  I had never been there before, but I knew my grandmother had.

                The ambulance went straight to the emergency entrance, but I had to park in the visitors’ lot.  I ran through the front door of the hospital and got the wizened man behind the information desk to direct me to the emergency room.  Once I was there, I found out that Mary Lovett, my grandmother, was being seen by doctors, and I couldn’t see her yet.  They had no report on her condition.

                The waiting room was sunny but depressing.  A television was tuned to a soap opera, and several people sat in semi-comfortable chairs either watching the show or looking out the window.  I sat down next to a large black woman and said hello.

                “My grandmother’s in there,” I told her.  “It’s the heat.”

        “Sho’ is bad today,” she remarked, and kept watching TV.

                There was no clock in the waiting room and I didn’t have a watch, so I had to judge time by the commercials on TV and by when the programs started and ended.  After what I figured must have been about an hour, I went back out to the emergency room desk to inquire about my grandmother’s condition.

                “They’ll be taking her up to intensive care in a minute, hon’,” said the nurse behind the desk.  She was middle-aged and had a kind, patient face.  “I can let you know when she’s up there if you like.  Will you be in the waiting room?”

                I told her that I would and, about  half an hour later, she put her head in the door and said, “Mr.  Lovett?”

                “Yes?”  I got up and put down the magazine I had been reading.

                “Your grandmother has been moved to the ICU on the second floor.  You can go on up now.”  I thanked her and went on up.  I entered the ICU by passing through a set of double doors, and there were nurses and doctors walking back and forth in the hall, but no central desk as there had been in the emergency room.

                I walked in among the beds and saw my grandmother.  She looked tiny and frail, with just a sheet pulled over her ravaged body.  She had a small tube in her nose and a large one in her mouth.  She was asleep and did not know I was there.  I stood there watching her for a moment, until a nurse approached me and asked me to leave, directing me to the ICU waiting room.

                It was another waiting room, much like the other one, with several people sitting in fairly uncomfortable chairs, half watching daytime television, half watching the door for news of husbands, mothers, grandparents.

I sat there absentmindedly for awhile before it occurred to me to call Sally Ann.  I didn’t have the number for the store, but I was able to find a pay phone down the hall and get the number from the operator.

                Sally Ann answered the phone.  “It’s me,” I told her, and she sounded surprised to hear from me.  “I’m at the hospital.”

        “What happened?” she asked, suddenly concerned.

                I explained that I had gone back to my grandmother’s apartment and found her in bad shape.  I told her about coming to the hospital and what had happened since I got there.  “I’m really tired,” I told her, “but I can’t leave.”

                “I understand,” she told me.  “Let me bring you something to eat.  You did skip lunch, you know,” she laughed.

        “I guess I did,” I replied with a weary chuckle.

                “I get off at six.  I’ll go home and change clothes; then I’ll get some food and bring it over.  You’re where?”  I told her where I was and hung up.  I felt better, knowing someone cared about what happened to me.

                I went back to the waiting room and sat there watching TV for awhile.  I saw a talk show with lots of audience participation.  There were two black teenagers in chairs on stage who were answering questions about their sex lives.  The girls looked to be about fourteen years old, and they were trying to top each other with stories of the boys they had seduced.  The audience was hooting and hollering with delight as each girl revealed more intimate details about her life.  I thought the whole thing was sad.  I wondered if Lulabelle Mackenzie had been like these girls, if she would have liked to be on TV, too.

                Then I thought about my sister, and wondered if the girls were telling the truth or if they were just making up stories to attract attention.  I decided on the latter, then wondered if Lulabelle would have done the same.

The six o’clock news came next.  I still heard nothing about my grandmother.  The news was out of Dallas, and I wasn’t surprised to see that there was nothing about Lulabelle Mackenzie or the Ransom Juneteenth parade.  I thought of Brueghel’s painting of  “The Fall of Icarus,” where farmers till their fields and don’t even notice the boy falling from the sky into the sea.  It’s funny how things that seem so important are really so small in the grand scheme of things.  Yet it is their very sense of importance that keeps us alive and hopeful.  I knew then that my search for Lulabelle’s killer would be a success.  I knew that, whatever happened to my grandmother, I would be by her side when she needed me.  The one thing I wasn’t sure about was Sally Ann, who picked that moment to walk through the door.

                I stood up and she came over and embraced me.  She had brought me a bag from a local restaurant, with a hamburger, fries, and a Coke.

                “Sit down and eat,” she told me, “then we can talk.” I took her advice, and the food sure tasted good.  Then her father walked through the door.

                “Hello, Carey,” he said, and shook my hand.  “Sally called me and asked me to come by.”  I looked at Sally, and she grinned sheepishly.

                “I didn’t know what happened,” she explained.  “It seemed like a good idea.”

                “Thanks for coming,” I said to the sheriff.  “I’m glad you’re here.  It’s kind of strange what happened.”  We sat down, and I leaned forward in my chair to explain.  “When I got home to her apartment, I noticed the air conditioner was off.  When I went in, it was real hot, and she was asleep.  I tried to wake her and saw that her oxygen tube was dislodged and the valve had been shut off.  It didn’t make much sense.”

        “Was the door locked?” Sheriff Martin asked me.

        “I think so . . . yes.  I had to use my key.”

        “How about the windows?”

                “She always leaves them locked, since the air conditioners are on most of the time.  You know, nothing looked very strange at all in there, though I wasn’t paying much attention to anything but her.”

        “Of course,” he said.

        “Does anyone else have a key?” Sally Ann asked.

                “I really don’t know,” I told her.  “I’m just down here for the summer.  I imagine someone does, probably her cousin, but she’s older than my grandmother, and besides there’s no reason she would want to hurt her.”

                “I think it’s safe to assume someone did this on purpose,” Sheriff Martin said.  “Probably they came in while she was asleep, turned off the air and oxygen, and left.  The tube probably got dislodged in her sleep.  She’s lucky you got there when you did,” Sally’s dad told me.

                “If only I’d gotten there sooner,” I said, and looked at Sally.  She looked down, ashamed of what we were both thinking.

        A nurse came through the door of the waiting room.

                “Mr. Lovett?” she announced, and I stood up.  “Dr.  Barnaby is here if you’d like to speak with him.”  I excused myself and went out into the hallway.  Dr.  Barnaby was in his mid-sixties, with a full head of white hair.  He wore a lab coat and brown cowboy boots, and he had bright blue eyes set close together in his leathery face.

        “How is she, doctor?” I asked.

                “Well, son, she could be better, could be worse.  She’s had a bit of a shock and she needs to stay sedated at least till morning.  You might be able to talk to her then.”

        “Will she be okay?” I wanted to know.

                “Don’t know.  It’s too early to tell.  She was pretty weak to begin with, and we’ll have to see if she can recover her strength.  Even if she does bounce back, she may not be able to live on her own.  That’s something you should start to think about.”

                “Thank you, doctor.”

                “We’ll take good care of her, son,” he said, and walked off down the hall.

                I went back in the waiting room.  Sheriff Martin was talking to the nurse who had spoken to me.  I overheard part of their conversation.

        “So she hasn’t heard from him all day?” he said.

                “No, and she’s worried sick.  She tried to get over there but we’ve been so busy . . .” the nurse replied.

                “I’ll check it out for you on my way home and call you when I’m home, okay?” he told her.

        “Thanks, Jimmy,” the nurse said, and clasped his hand.

                Sheriff Martin turned to me as she left.  “How is she, Carey?” he asked.  I told him what Dr. Barnaby had said, and he suggested I come home with him and stay at their house for the night.  I looked at Sally, and when she smiled I agreed.

                “I have to check out a house on my way home,” the sheriff said.  “Want to come along?”  I decided it might

be a good way to get my mind off my grandmother for a few minutes, so I agreed.  He told me it was okay to leave my car in the hospital lot, so he, Sally, and I got in his police cruiser and we headed back towards the center of town.