My Name is Joe LaVoie by W.A. Winter

Author:W.A. Winter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781645060697
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Published: 2022-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

FIVE

“Joe?”

Silence.

“Jojo? Are you all right?”

I open my eyes, but can’t see a thing. A cold finger runs down my back, and for a moment I’m thinking I’ve drunk myself blind. Then my eyes are filled with light, not bright light but light, a blurry vision, and I remember the wash rag that someone laid across my face and that someone has now taken away.

I’m aware that I’m shivering like a freezing dog under the afghan, and when I touch my skin where my shirt opens at the collar the skin is clammy. My right arm, which I’m lying on, is asleep, which means that what little of me there is left with some feeling is not feeling so good.

“Jojo! You okay, honey?”

The voice, of course, is Ronnie’s, and it strikes me that she doesn’t sound as drunk as she did the last time I heard her, though who knows how long ago that was. For all I know, it’s tomorrow morning.

“What time is it?” I ask her, not really caring, but curious.

“Almost a quarter past five,” she says. She’s smoking a cigarette, I can tell by the way she says it. “Are you okay, hon?”

I tell her I don’t know, and that’s the truth. I’m hurting much more than I’m willing to let on, and I would love a drink of anything, even water. I also feel, I don’t know, like something’s changed, that something’s not right about the situation I’m in, like I just woke up and someone’s rearranged the furniture. Disoriented, Meslow might say.

“You don’t look so good, hon,” I hear Ronnie saying, like she was reading my mind, answering my unasked question as to how, at that moment, do I look? “You’re awfully pale. White as a ghost. You aren’t on some medication we don’t know about, are you? Extra pain pills or something?”

I can’t help but laugh.

“You don’t feel no pain, you don’t need no pain pills,” I tell her, misleadingly. Ronnie laughs a little too. We both know I’ve taken enough aspirin over the years to kill a horse or at least tear up my stomach.

“What can I get you? Armand’s got some Bromo-Seltzer, if you want it.”

I’m okay, I think I tell her. Now I feel like I’m floating, like I’m in some halfway situation where I’m not sure what exactly is going on. I think I’m talking to her, for instance, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.

“I’m okay,” I say, louder, and this time I’m pretty sure I really said it.

“Adriana and her kids had to go,” Ronnie says. “They wanted to say goodbye, but they didn’t think they should wake you. They said how glad they were to have the chance to see you.”

“I’ll bet,” I think I say.

“Oh no, hon,” she says. “They meant it. You’re someone people are happy to see.”

I laugh again—I’m pretty sure I do. I’m someone people are surprised to see. Then I feel a stab of sadness that I didn’t get to see the twins again, Richard and Isabel.

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