“Don’t be a smart-ass, you know what I mean.” He shifted positions and grimaced. “Tell them you’re my grandson at the hospital, and weasel your way into the ICU. You’re good at weaseling.”

“Thanks, I think.”

The paramedic checking Crawley’s blood pressure threw me a quick glance, but didn’t say anything. I guess whatever went on at the hospital wasn’t his business.

Then, when the ambulance pulled to a stop at the emergency room, Crawley grabbed my arm again. His nails dug into my forearm, although I don’t think he did it to hurt me, and he said: “Don’t let them leave me alone.”

I sat beside him in a little curtained emergency-room cubicle, listening to him complain about everything from the antiseptic smell to the flickering fluorescent lights that “could send someone into a seizure.” Everything in the hospital was a lawsuit waiting to happen, and he was prepared to bring in his lawyers at any moment.

I called my parents to tell them where I was. Never open up a conversation with your mother with the words, “I’m at the hospital.”

“Oh, my God! Did you get hit by a car? Oh, my God! Is anything broken? Oh, my God, Antsy, oh, my God!”

She was so loud, I had to pull the phone away from my ear, and Crawley could hear every word. It was actually a comfort to hear my mother showing concern, so I let it go on for a moment before I stopped her and told why I was at the hospital.

“Mr. Crawley’s really shaken up. I guess I’ll be here for a while.”

“Is he okay?” Mom asked. “Is he gonna live?”

“Not if I can help it.”

Crawley let out a single loud guffaw at that. It was the first time I had ever made him laugh.

“Call when you need a ride home,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get a cab.”

At the mention of that, Crawley’s eyes got a little wider, and his lips pursed a little tighter. After I hung up he said, “You leave when I tell you to leave. I’ll pay you time-and-a-half for overtime.”

“Not everyone in the world does things for money, okay?”

“You do.”

“Well, not all the time.”

“Good. Then I won’t pay you.”

“Okay, I’m leaving.”

“Aha!” he said, pointing his finger at me.

Now it was my turn to laugh.

Crawley glanced out the little opening in the curtain. Doctors and nurses whooshed past every minute or so, but never whooshed in. “Hospitals are the greatest failure of civilization,” Crawley proclaimed.

“You’re not the only patient. They’ll get to you eventually.”

“So will the coroner.”