Revenge of the Rocket Gang

As Told By Hess, The Big Human · part six

…no one saw what I was seeing about George. The man wasn't well. When he said he'd be back in a few days, I knew he wasn't going somewhere on business. He was checking into the hospital for tests and shit.

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Six

The weeks before the concert became a quadfecta of bad juju. I remember waking up that Monday morning not feeling too rested. I was anxious, but not about anything I could think of, which made it worse. And like I’m some hippy fortune-teller, the first problem hit us Tuesday with George collapsing right on the restaurant patio. He was sweaty, white as bechamel. Maisie called an ambulance and off they went, even though it was only half an hour before lunch service. It took Kevin, Steve and Robbie to do what Maisie could do alone, but they held it together.

The next headache was an IMI raid. Not drones this time, but trussed-up fatheads looking for the Cracker House. They wanted to detain some Guatemalan woman who, according to them was working in the foundry illegally. I called Carmen M. and told them to lock down, then I called Perry, George’s lawyer, for instructions, and he filled me in. While I was on the phone, they had lined up everyone in the courtyard, even the customers, and taken everyone’s IDs. The lawyer told me they couldn’t do that, but at least it gave him time to get over here, which he did faster than the ambulance that took George to the hospital.

Turned out the woman had refugee status, and Perry sent them packing some dragged-out hours later, long enough to ruin everything. I had to comp everyone in the restaurant their lunches, which threw us back four thousand bucks. The lawyer asked me if I wanted to sue the government, and I told him to wait for Golly on that one. Fuck. Without George, we were so vulnerable. That was Thursday. I called the hospital, and they said George couldn’t take calls. My stomach knotting up was getting to be a regular thing.

Then I get a call from Carmen M. A dispute between Jaime and Joe and one of the welders. To retaliate, Jaime had set part of the foundry on fire. Carmen Pérez threw him out of the Cracker House, like, for good. As I was arriving, I passed the ladder truck headed back to the station and felt nauseated by the smell. Police cars and the fire command truck were still parked in front of the wrecked studio. The firefighters said they were lucky to have put it out before it reach the storage area where the solvents and other things that go boom were stacked to the ceiling. The Carmens were unharmed. Nobody else got hurt, but no one was okay. They were busy calculating the damage, something I’d have to call in to George as soon as he could come to the fucking phone. What to do about Jaime was an open question, but between Carmen P. and the police, I reckoned his best bet was some locale where no one would think of looking for him. Ulaanbaatar, for example.

I had dinner with Merida and Jilly that night. They were talking about the concert for a Saturday night in two weeks’ time. I just sat there, half listening to them while thinking of problems and threats and how I would deal with them. The Jaime thing had me a little spooked. We talked about Knox. He was going to premiere the new album, his first solo, and written entirely up on the seventh floor, twelve gorgeous tracks that we knew from the inside. We'd heard  these songs come together like zygotes swimming the ambient synth sounds that reverberated in the Hollis and Knox's imagination. Jilly was doing the cover, and she was talking about how she chose the colors, the symbolism of it, how she picked a certain orange over grey to communicate the weighlessness Knox's instruments made her feel. I asked if we could see, but she said it wasn’t back from the printer yet. I made a mental note to follow that up. 

The concert would be the biggest thing the Hollis had done up til then. I could count on anywhere from five hundred to a thousand, and only because it wasn’t being advertised. We didn’t know how to manage anything bigger. I needed Carmen P. and her people to do security. As for where, the seventh floor wasn’t big enough, the roof, while flat, wasn’t safe enough. This was what we were supposed to be talking about with George on Tuesday. Jilly asked Aaron if we could build a stage in the Hollis’s parking lot. He told her he and George had already decided that was the best place. I guess he forgot to tell me. I was going to organize the tents and porta-johns. Food and drink, first aid, and tickets, that much we’d planned out together. Knox was going to have to do a lot of extra stuff if he didn’t want to call it off.

The last thing to come crashing down on us was a man who walked into the Hollis compound asking for George. Said his name was Rich Mackenzie, and that he knew Golly from Tennessee. Right away I didn’t like this dude, not to look at or listen to. I decided on the spot to tell him Golly was out of town and wouldn’t be back for at least two weeks. He got annoyed. I asked him if George had his number, and he gave me one written on the back of a receipt. I told him Golly would call him as soon as he was able. Said he’d be at the hotel. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Scottsville had a small hotel now.

I called the hospital and was told George could receive visitors, so I hopped in the truck. Got there just as he was waking from a nap. He didn’t look good at all. Cold-press fear is what that provoked—the anxiety in me dialed itself up to eleven.

I dragged a chair over to the bed and fell into it heavily. He opened his eyes a crack.

“George...” I waited for him to collect himself.

“Hey, Hess. Glad you could make it.” He said this as if he’d invited me over.

“How you feeling, man?”

George wet his lips and smiled wanly. “I’m okay. Just a little electrolyte imbalance. Blood pressure thing, you know. Nothing serious.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

He was bullshitting me. I talked for twenty minutes with the attending doctor before looking for his room. Said I was his son. He wasn't end-stage yet, but close. They said these crises would get worse, and that another round of chemo wasn't the way to go. I didn’t let on I knew all that.

“I came to fill you in, man.”

“Oh, I appreciate that.” George roused himself as best he could. “Tell me everything.”

I started with the raid, and he told me what to do. Made me write it all down in my phone. Told me where the files were kept. Said to get the news to the governor, and if that didn’t do anything, he’d try to call himself when he could. I told him about the fire and a lot of other stuff and was starting to feel calmer now. Every issue had its solution. I took it all down. Golly might have been sick in body, but his head was okay. I kept the Mackenzie thing for last.

His reaction got my stomach acids churning again.

“Mackenzie? Rich Mackenzie?”

“Yep. He’s staying at the Western. I told him you were away for two weeks.”

George didn’t say anything. He lay back and stared at the ceiling.

“George, who is he?”

He didn’t say anything.

“George, you’re scaring me. Who is this guy and why is he looking for you?”

“Two weeks…that was quick thinking, boy. It buys me time.”

“Time for what? What does he want?”

George hoisted himself up by the guardrails and swung to the side of the bed where the monitor was. He switched it off and started taking the IVs out of his arm.

“Get me my clothes out of that closet over there. Help me get dressed.”

“Oh man, George, what is this? A cowboy discharge?”

“No time to explain. Mackenzie is dangerous, Hess. He’s here to meddle in my business, and right now, I can guess but can’t be sure how big a threat he poses. Hand me my phone.” He punched in some stuff and said, “Drive me to the airport.”

My hand brushed his arm when I passed him the phone. It was hot like he was burning up with fever. I wanted to say something, but I knew there was no point.

“Lemme come with you. You’re going to need me.”

George shot me a square look, but again, the words he wanted to say didn’t clear the gate. “Call Jilly. She’ll have to take over for both of us.”

“Okay.” I turned as George took off the hospital gown and put on his pants.

“Where’re we going, George?”

“Memphis.”

The discharge was recorded as AMA, 'against medical advice'. He pitched it as a family emergency, which was not that far from the truth, George being our big daddy.
He promised to readmit himself in Memphis and they stocked him up with scripts. I filled them while he stayed at the gate, waiting for boarding to begin. I bought him a travel blanket. 

"George, if you're not going to tell me what's going on, you should at least tell your homegirl, Jilly. Someone over there has to have the facts, so they can take precautions and shit."

He stood there, more subdued than I'd ever seen him, mulling over what I’d just said and ignoring the sulky tone I'd taken, but maybe not because when he spoke again, he said, "You're right, Hess. And I've been right about you since day one. The gal at the hospital was right, too. As soon as we land, you get us a cab. We'll go straight to the office and then to Le Bonheur. They’ve got all my treatment files."

I confessed to him then that I wasn't in the dark about his condition, and he confessed to me that he didn’t feel up to dealing with Mackenzie, not that he had any choice.

❈

Part seven drops July 23