Page 43 of Dear Mr. Vampire

I sped through traffic, rushing to the hospital. I tried to control my panic. Something happened to Chanel and the fear of losing her entered my veins like pure heroin. I had little informationfrom the voicemail and I had to fill in the blanks. The blanks were violent. The blanks had my mind thinking of the worse case scenario.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot and started looking for a parking space. I drove around longer than I should have. I made sure to suppress my anger before stepping out of my car.

The emergency room information desk was buzzing with people, sound, and action. It seemed the entire family of a nineteen-year-old Black man was grieving. What my eavesdropping gathered was he’d been shot four times in the Lawndale area. This was, I dare to say, typical for young Black men in Chicago. It was a normal day of death in the inner city.

The chorus of sobs was commendable. This young man was loved. I wondered if I would be missed so profoundly as Donte— I heard someone wail, “Why they have to get Donte?” A good question, but not one for me to answer and one I was sure CPD would be looking into as soon as the storm settled.

There was a huge police presence in the emergency room. I’ve seen death so many times I should be numb to it, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know this young man’s story. I didn’t know if he was a good person or a bad person, a gangbanger or a junior pastor at some Baptist Church. I knew there was a thin line between the two. I would never judge his choices or the path that led him to death. I had been considered a bad man. Now I lived to change my past and leave it behind. But sometimes the past had a way of catching up to you. It even had a way of showing up in an alley at your place of business.

The receptionist that looked up Chanel’s room number was clearly overworked. She needed a vacation to a tropical paradise and a few hits of Botox around her weary eyes. I could read all of this in her face, body language, and demeanor. She was on the precipice of rudeness. I couldn’t fault her. How many dead bodies and bodies on the fringes of death had she seen since working behind this desk.

I learned Chanel was no longer in the emergency wing. Shehad been moved to a room. I was allowed to go up with a sticker for a visitors’ pass and with leaving my driver’s license at the desk. I took the sticker from the scowling lady.

“You better put that on your clothes.” She barked.

I looked at her, and she glared at me. I slapped the stupid sticker on my leather jacket and scoffed at her. I guess my White privilege meant nothing to her. I noticed early on that I was one of two colorless people in the emergency not counting the Chicago police officers mulling around Donte’s family.

I needed to hear what happened to Chanel. I refused to jump to conclusions.

I had to show my sticker pass to another desk to get into her room. She was in a private part of the hospital and I had little to no information. When I entered her open hospital door, relief hit me. I had the confirmation that she was alive and breathing air. It seemed silly, but I’d seen death. I had been tricked by death and I had a love hate relationship with death.

I sat in the chair by her bed and watched her sleep. I removed my jacket and walked over to the whiteboard across the room. I grabbed the clipboard and read her chart. After putting it back I went back to the chair and leaned back.

Chanel was out. I’d read the meds they administered, hydrocodone and acetaminophen. There was no way I would wake her. She looked like Chanel, but the version of her that was an extra in the Netflix movie Bruised.

It took a few minutes before she opened her eyes. I leapt from the chair and dashed over to her bedside. It was only a few steps, but it seemed like the longest distance.

“Hey, doll.”

“Zand.” I leaned over to Chanel and planted a kiss on her one uninjured cheek.

“Oh, babe. I got here as soon as I heard.”

“I didn’t know who else to call. Well, the nurse called. I, I, had to get X-rays and scans and tests and—.” Chanel cleared her throat. “Oh, the pain was, they had to give me something, and Iwas out before I could call you myself. I wasn’t trying to worry you. I didn’t have my cell phone or my purse.”

“No, you were supposed to call me. You can always call me.”

I took another look at the plum-colored bruises on her face. The black eye, the swollen lip and the black stitches that lined her forehead.

“Babe, tell me what happened?”

“Someone attacked me while I was emptying the garbage.”

“At the apartment?” I needed details.

“Yeah.”

I was confused. I saw her leave my apartment for work this morning. She was dressed in scrubs. “The garbage?”

“I left you and went upstairs to my place. I forgot my work I.D. I had time to make me a cup of coffee. While it was brewing, I grabbed the garbage. I was going to dump my garbage, come back upstairs and get my bag and my coffee and then get in my car and head to work. I just remember having garbage in my hand and being at the dumpster. Then I got hit from behind. I tried to fight, but they beat me until I was unconscious. I don’t know how long I was out. Miss Hampton from apartment 1B found me when she took her dog out?—”

I was listening to her words and trying to keep my temper at bay. My anger sent my brain to another place. I missed a few of her words as she continued to speak. There were some parts I missed and I only heard the words— “The police.”

“What happened with the police?” I asked, willing myself to calm down and listen intensely. My blood was boiling. I wanted to kill the man that put his hands on her. I was doing a good job of concealing my anger. Chanel hadn’t noticed my rage and continued on.

“The police, they came to the hospital and questioned me about the attack but I didn’t have anything on me, no purse, no cell phone. There wasn’t anything to steal. The police couldn’t classify it as a robbery. I was just emptying the garbage and got jumped. They were just hitting me. There were punches comingfrom everywhere. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know if it was random.”

They, she said they, more than one? The worse thing came to my mind and my hands shuddered. “Did they?—?”

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