Читать книгу The Arsonist's Song Has Nothing to Do With Fire - Allison Titus - Страница 34

The ice storm lasted two days, and Ronny spent both with Viv, camped in the guest room. Ronny had returned to his father’s house once to rally groceries, and his father—Ronny guessed he was in the library upstairs, buried in the paper—did not stir. Undisturbed. Was that Ronny’s specialty, probably, being perpetually overlooked? Barely registering but in his wake: ashes, mud prints, discarded glove. Evidence of criminal intent. He was the kind of joker that summoned pity. What had Vivian said when he’d finished telling her? I’m sorry. He was at her mercy, which made him feel dumb and sort of miserable.

He lit a cigarette and tossed the lighter into the trash can. More evidence, he thought, as it clanked against the trash can’s metal lip. He leaned against the wall and smoked, waiting out the five minutes before he had to report for work. The new arrangement. Another sign he was a loser: his father had pulled strings to get him hired, calling it a step in the right direction, pleased Ronny would not be returning to Concrete Jungle. “You see how this goes, Son”—he’d said at breakfast, at the table that was sticky with juice that dried where it spilled—“and who knows, maybe you’ll study medicine yourself.” His father had talked to a friend, an old fraternity brother who worked as a physical therapist at the hospital. He’d told him everything, his father said—“cleaned the slate”—because Ronny wouldn’t have cleared security on his own.

All for a chance to sweep shit up. He took one more drag, picked a shred of tobacco from his bottom lip, and went inside.

He walked the busy halls looking for the elevator. People hustled in all directions, getting closer to getting things done. He rode up to the fifth floor with a group of silent nurses, wanting another cigarette immediately. He hadn’t been back to the hospital since the last time he’d gone to see Pete in the ICU. Problem was, the whole hospital looked and smelled the same—it had that pale green, clinical smell of fear and business. Whatever else was there, that hospital green was there beneath it, in the sheets on the bed and the tiles on the wall. The pale green of last hope, lukewarm meals in the cafeteria, and visiting hours ending.

He was going to have to knock this the fuck off.

The custodial office had told him where to go. Down the hall, fifth floor, east wing. Ronny knocked on the door while turning the doorknob and stepping into the room. An older man in a lab coat sat with his back to the door, hunched over something, studying something with a magnifying glass.

“I’ll be right with you,” the Doctor muttered in a graveled voice, marking something down, shaking his head about it, and marking again.

“Now—” the Doctor turned to Ronny at the door while shoveling his glasses back on his face, “You’re—Ron, is it?”

He shook Ronny’s hand firmly. No nonsense. The Doctor sized him up, and Ronny wondered what he knew, what preceded him. It couldn’t be good, because Ronny had a reputation. At best, he was considered a loner. Difficult was how they put it, meaning Not terribly ambitious. But he’d found out that what had happened to Pete gave him a free pass. He screwed up, and the neighborhood wives discussed it over coffee in well-appointed parlors, sharing news of his family’s latest grief, and came to the same conclusion: But his brother died, and then his mother left and his father is not quite right and what a terrible shame. They’d always agree, pleased their own sons and daughters were practicing law and lobbying for rain forest protection and joining the Peace Corps in Uganda or Siberia or Kazakhstan, thankful Ronny was not their son.

“They’ve told me you will be, custodially speaking, in charge of my lab. And we need to keep this lab running, tight as a ship,” the Doctor said. He shuffled to the back of the room, waving that Ronny should follow.

“So, Ron, this—” he handed over a key on a metal loop which he pulled from his pocket, and gestured to the shelves of cleaning supplies “—this is the broom closet.”