Gus Clark (Ch. 3 + 4)

Chapter 3

When Gus awoke, he was in a recovery room wearing nothing but a hospital gown. The stiffness in his joints let him know that he had been there for at least a few hours, unmoving. Beginning to get his bearings, he looked himself over. He followed the IV line from the back of his left hand up to its source. A pair of bags hung from the stainless steel pole that stood just behind his left ear. The larger of the two was filled with a clear liquid that strongly resembled urine, the other a smaller bag of clear liquid. He had just begun squinting to read the text on smaller of the two bags when the assigned nurse walked in.

“Evening, Mr. Clark!” he said, brightly. Gus jumped at the unexpected entrance. “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s just some IV stuff to bring your–“

“Banana bag with some kind of antibiotic piggyback. Small writing, though…can’t really see from here. Amoxicillin?”

The nurse’s eyebrows rose and a one side of his mouth rose in a smile. “You know your stuff, chief.”

“Stint as a combat medic overseas and used it for credits for a BSN, though not actively practicing now,” Gus said.

“Good enough. It’s Pen. G, though. Given what happened, the doc just wanted to be sure. She’ll be in momentarily to bring you up to speed,” the young nurse said. Couldn’t be more than 22 or 23, Gus thought. He was tall with short, light brown hair and a sparse, well-sculpted beard. He was well built, which is always a good thing when dealing with unruly patients. He had the sort of effortless attractiveness that normally would have caused Gus to assume he was all show, no personality, but he seemed alright. He’d even be cute, if he were into that sort of thing. Maybe a guy he could get a beer with. He shrugged inwardly.

The nurse turned just before exiting his suite. “Oh, and thank you for serving.” Gus noticed that he was completely sincere, something usually lacking when random people thanked him for his service. “My dad was career and served in the Gulf War.”
Gus smiled. “Thanks, uhh…”

“Mike.”

“Thanks, Mike. Gus.”

“See you around, chief,” he said, smiling, as he walked out.

“Yep…definitely owe him a beer if I see him,” Gus thought to himself.

Gus settled back into the elevated back of the hospital bed. He could still feel the last remnants of the adrenaline from being startled making their way through his system. The sudden spike in blood pressure, increased heart rate, and muscles involuntarily tensing, all preparing the body for the primal "fight or flight" reaction. He closed his eyes and forced his breathing back into rhythm. One of the beneficial effects of adrenaline is mental clarity, giving one the extra boost of brain power to figure out where the danger is and how it should be dealt with. Gus found that this was a tool to be used, whether in battle or in any situation, and did not waste the opportunity.

His training as a battlefield medic automatically kicked in, assessing himself as the casualty. He quickly put mental check marks in for the obvious first couple steps: Responsiveness and Breathing. He was doing both of those. The next step is to check for bleeding. Gus began to assess himself from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He obviously knew his trouble spots, but checking top to bottom was standard practice, as an injury that could be even more pressing could be missed if parts of the triage are skipped. Once he arrived at his ribs, he gingerly raised his gown to gaze at the damage. A large bruise ran diagonally across his side, but when he felt the affected area, there did not seem to be any breaks or cracks. The edges of the bruise already seemed to be going from a blackish-purple to a greenish-yellow, which seemed to be a bit odd, but it just must not have been that bad of a hit.

His gaze fell upon the now bandaged area just above his left hip. The pain was more than he would have thought from a slice from some plastic with some debris in the wound. He used his fingernail to carefully lift up the clear medical tape that edged the sides of the bandage. Carefully he peeled back the gauze to view the damage. He stared at the neatly stitched wound that curved slightly at that top. It was nearly the length of his pinkie finger, but didn't show any signs of infection.

"Why does this hurt so much, then?" Gus muttered to himself.

"Because, first it lacerated, and then it went deep."

Gus jumped again, his body releasing another rush of adrenaline. He slapped down the wound dressing like a boy who had been caught with an adult magazine, trying to hide what he was looking at. Even with the hormone coursing through his veins, his face involuntarily screwed up in pain.

A young woman with a bemused look on her face stood in the doorway, wearing the telltale white coat of her profession. She looked at him softly with a raised eyebrow.

"I was just trying to...uhh..see how bad it was..." Gus stammered.

The doctor turned and closed the door quietly, pausing, and rested her head against the door. After a moment, she spoke, barely above a whisper.

"Just what in the hell were you thinking?" she said. The anger in her voice caused it to quiver slightly.
 

Chapter 4

"May...I..." Gus tried to begin.

"No! Don't even!" she said, as she whipped around. Her eyes were brimmed with tears. "With all of your training...all of your field experience...the lives you've saved...why did you do it? You should have known better!"

The anger was barely contained in the voice of Dr. Mariette Renée Menard. Her hands were balled up into fists at her side so tightly that they were turning white, and the muscles in her forearms were cording up, rippling under her caramel colored skin. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to relax. With one hand, she wiped away a stray tear. The other reached into her coat pocket. She extracted something and tossed it at Gus. When it finally rolled to a stop on his lap, he stared at the contents of the clear vial.

A long piece of plastic, measuring just over three inches, and resembling a small, black dagger blade, stared back at him.

"You should have called an ambulance." May stated, as she brushed a curly brown lock behind her ear. She walked over to the hospital bed and sat down.

"It...didn't look that bad," Gus said.

"Maybe, but did you know something was in there?" May fired back.

"Kind...of? I thought I might found of something when I was brushing the sand off, but I thought it was nothing," he lied, remembering the shock of pain when he touched it.

"That's bull, and you know it. It just made it worse by moving around as much as you did. Just stick that knife in and start sawing around until you hit the jackpot. An ambulance could have had you stabilized and transported under care. Did you know you hit an artery?" Her voice raised slightly on the last sentence.

Gus shrank back slightly. "May, it wasn't bleeding that bad."

"Maybe not out of the wound," she said, "but internally, pretty excessively. You are damned lucky you made it here and they had a bay open. Not only that, you nicked an intestine. Thankfully, it didn't go all the way through, but you know how bad that could have been."

Gus felt the blood drain from his face. He knew too well what a bad gut wound could do. He had lucked out. An awkward silence filled the room.

"Well, thanks for patching me up, Doc," he said sheepishly. "Quick in and out. Oh! And I finally got it! Wait until I show--"

"Three days," she said softly.

"What?" Gus cocked his head like a confused puppy.

"You were unconscious for three days. Gus...you lost a lot of blood. Yeah, technically most of it was still inside you, but you were not doing well. If they hadn't gotten you into surgery..." she trailed off.

"May...I'm sorry..."

"I didn't even know you were here until you were in the recovery ward. Your name is kind of hard to miss, Augustus." May pronounced his full name very formally, as if he were being introduced to the Queen of England. She quirked a half smile and let out a small laugh. "You were borderline for the ICU, but seemed stable enough," she continued. "I picked up what extra shifts I could, so I could keep an eye on you. Hope you don't mind, but I crashed at your place during what little time I had off. Saved me from driving back to my place, and someone needed to feed Q anyway. Also helps that you always keep the kitchen and liquor cabinet stocked so well..."

Gus smiled. He and May had known each other since 2nd grade, where they had been assigned seats next to one another in class. When they had first met, Gus wasn't able to pronounce her full, French name correctly after multiple attempts, so they just settled on 'May' as an alternative. Most people on a first name basis with her called her Mariette, or Mary, but Gus was the only person to call her May. The spunky 7-year-old punched him in the shoulder on the playground as a way to seal the deal.

They had been best friends ever since. They were in most of the same classes growing up, and hung out constantly. They even dated briefly, but amicably broke it off, when they saw it was beginning to change their friendship. Gus had given up one of the spare rooms in the house as "her room", where she would sometimes stay after a long shift, so she didn't have to drive the half an hour to her apartment when she was already bone tired.

May was born in Miami, Florida. Her mother, who had come from a French-Canadian family, served as a translator for immigration office in Miami, where her bilingual upbringing, as well as a knack for picking up accents and dialects, allowed her to adapt quickly to the Haitian French, even picking up some of the Creole. She met May's father as he sought asylum from the terrible situation in Haiti created by the dictatorship of "Baby Doc" Chevalier. They fell in love, and eventually got married. However, the trouble between the government and the drug cartels, as well as the gang wars raging around the city, the Menard family decided to move back up to the Northeastern part of the United States, where her mother's family had settled. May's father wanted his new family to be as far away from the violence as possible.

"You scared me, Gus," May said, with a serious tone. "Don't be a hero, next time. You know full well that the real heroes, not the ones in the stories, often don't survive." She quickly hugged him, possibly a little too hard as a lesson to him, pecked him on his forehead, and began making her way out of the room. She looked at his chart on the way out. "Looks like your levels are back up, and we haven't seen any signs of infection around the wound, so you should be good to go. I'll fast track your paperwork and get you the hell out of Dodge."

"May..." Gus said.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For everything."

"Oh, don't you think this was free," May said, coyly, narrowing her eyes. "You owe me big time, brother. And you can start with a big slab of Kobe on a plate when I get out at 8."

"You got it," Gus replied with a laugh, instantly regretting it with his bruised ribs.

"And Gus..." May said, after poking her head back into the room. "Medium Rare."