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With that, she was gone.
Carlie gulped and picked up her cigarettes. “I’ll be out the back if anyone wants me.”
She made it out without crying. I’m glad no one took my bet. She was tougher than I’d thought.
“Why wouldn’t you sell Razer the guitar?” I asked Alex.
“Why should I? He’s got Violet. He can’t have everything he wants.”
“You bitter bastard.”
The bar seemed quieter without Violet, even though she was mostly in her office or up in the bar room when she’d been there. The whole time, I’d been thinking about Gina and the surgery.
I had to have that surgery if I wanted to be with Gina and, I wanted that like hell. Could I actually salvage something from this wretched life?
I couldn’t even explain why I hadn’t had the surgery before.
The night it happened, I don’t remember arriving at the hospital. I assume someone had called an ambulance. I woke up in that sterile room, everything white and clean. I knew I sure as hell wasn’t in any band room.
I’d been taken into the hospital a total mess. Not just my arm but my head too. Those last days with the band had been such fuck-ups. There was so much I couldn’t even remember. I’d burnt out and should’ve taken off, left everything behind for a while but we had commitments and we had shows to play. There was no time for being precious.
Things had gotten bad, like a poison running through the veins of the band. The fun had long since disappeared and we clung to the things that we thought were the signals of our success – drugs, groupies, money. We could get anything we wanted by snapping our fingers and, just to prove it was possible, we’d snap away, demanding things we didn’t want or need. It was all excess and greed covering up a lonely and meaningless life.
It’d all spiraled out of control. I’d wanted to make music, I’d never wanted fame or success. A bit of money was nice. Having fans was nice but there was no balance to it. At least, I’d been in the background. Famous enough to go for the ride but not that mobbed in the street kind of fame. I was more likely to be mobbed by guitar nerds wanting me to answer a thousand questions.
I’d sat up in that bed, confused and angry. It took me a long while to even remember why I was so angry. There were wires going into me and my arm felt dead. I raised my arm, wondering what the fuck was going. I tried flexing my fingers but they wouldn’t flex. I thought it was because of that damn splint they had on it.
“Please lay back down,” the nurse said.
It was only when I saw her uniform that my addled brain made the connection. I was in hospital. My arm was injured.
“What’s wrong with my arm?” I asked.
“We’re running tests,” she said.
She did something with the drip on my arm and I collapsed back into a heavy sleep. Or maybe a drugged sleep. I had no idea what they were doing with me.
The next time I woke up, my head was still groggy but I wanted answers. I tried to move my fingers again but nothing. I figured I’d remove the splint but, as I struggled to get it off one-handed, another nurse rushed over and stopped me. Damn women were too strong, or maybe I was weak.
“The doctor will be doing his rounds soon, just wait and he’ll explain everything.”
I grunted at her. She ignored that and handed me some water with a straw.
“Try to drink.”
What was the use of the woman? Just handing me water and not answering my questions.
“What about the show tonight? I need to get out of here so I can play.”
The look she had on her face when I said that was the first sign that things were not okay. I waited for that doctor. Soon, she’d said but it was a few hours of waiting with nothing to do but study my hand and wonder what the hell was going on. When the doctor finally arrived, I was at breaking point. I thought I’d prepared myself for the worst. I was so wrong.
The doctor walked in and c
hecked the charts, murmured a bit, then started to walk out.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I called. “What the hell is going on here?”
He turned back. “Your nerve has been severed.”
