“Close the blinds. He’s waking up.”

I opened my eyes again, blinking against the light, less bright now.

A TV mounted on the wall in front of me was tuned to CNN.

I lifted my right hand. Something was attached to my forefinger. I tried to remove it, but a hand descended and prevented me.

My eyes followed the hand up the arm to the body to which it was attached. It was a beautiful goddess with large brown eyes and long brown hair. Beside her was another one.

Anna and Laura.

A voice from the other side of the bed said something I didn’t catch. I turned toward it to see Merrill standing there with a wide grin on his face.

“How do you feel?” one of the ladies asked.

I turned in that direction again, which didn’t take any more than five minutes.

“Like I just went fifteen rounds with Foreman,” I said.

“Look it, too,” Merrill said. “If big George was fighting with a tire iron.”

“Anna, Merrill, this is Laura Matthers. Laura, this is Anna and Merrill.”

They all laughed. “We know each other pretty well by now,” Anna said.

“We’ve been in here all up in each other’s business for three days,” Merrill said.

“I don’t remember.”

“You’ve been resting,” Laura said.

I was puzzled, which must have registered on my face.

“You been out cold, man,” Merrill said.

“What? For three days?”

They all nodded.

Something was on my nose. I reached up to touch it. Some sort of plastic device was taped to it.

I could tell that both of my eyes were black and that various bandages covered various abrasions on my face. The underside of my chin was split open pretty bad, but there didn’t seem to be any stitches, just butterfly Band-Aids.

“Why didn’t they kill me?”

“Some badass Negro in a big-ass pimpmobile-looking car scared ’em off.”

“What were you doing driving Uncle Tyrone’s car?” I asked.

“He needed my truck to haul his old lady’s dresser. She leavin’ again. Twice every year he has to borrow that shit to move her shit, then borrow it again to move her ass back in. Anna told me what happened. I went out lookin’ for you. I made a lot of noise coming in—horn honking, firing a gun. They took off.”

“White flight,” I said.

He smiled.

“You see who it was?”

“Affirmative. They sittin’ up in your daddy’s jail right now—well, all but Skipper. He came up with an ironclad alibi and none of his helpers gonna roll over on him—even though they may be some police brutality goin’ on up in there.”

“Mom,” I whispered when I had rolled up beside her bed.

It was late the next night. I was in a wheelchair in my mom’s room on the next floor down.

She didn’t respond.