Chapter 4: Waking Up

The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. I was still out of it a bit from pain medications, so it took me a few minutes to get my bearings. My mother jumped up from her seat by my bed and hugged me as tears ran down her face.

"Oh, Jeffrey you're awake. We have been so worried about you." In the background I could see my dad and sister were also there.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Woodmont Regional Hospital." She said.

"What happened?"

"You were stabbed and beaten pretty badly." She informed me. "The doctor said that you were lucky they didn't get any major arteries with the knife. They did surgery to repair some internal bleeding and they were able to repair all of the internal damage. You should be ok after some rest. Just take it easy for a while. You were beaten up pretty badly."

"Leslie? Did she get away?"

That brought a huge smile to my mother's face. "Yes dear. Thanks to you she is ok. She is very shaken up by the whole thing, but the police told us she is physically ok. She came by last night to check on you. She was worried about you. Today you got some flowers from her." She said gesturing over the corner where there were a bunch of vases full of flowers and some balloons as well.

My dad and my sister gathered around the bed and told me how proud they were of me as well.

"Jeffrey, what happened exactly?" Mom asked me.

"Actually I need to hear this as well," said a man in a police uniform that just happened to be walking in at that moment. "I am officer Carlson. Woodmont P.D." The police officer flipped open his badge to show us, then took out a pen and paper to take notes. He was a big man with sandy blond hair about six-two and two hundred fifty pounds of muscle.

"Ok," I said. "I was walking back from the football game to my car..."

After I finished telling the story through once, the officer Carlson asked me a few questions. "Why did you take on those guys instead of getting help?"

"I just started running over there when I heard a girl in trouble. I didn't even think about running away to get help. I guess I figured it would be too late by the time I got back with help." I told him.

The questions and clarifications went on for a while until eventually he was satisfied and told me that if I thought of anything else that I should call him.

"Actually, I have a question for you." I said.

"Go ahead."

"What happened after I blacked out? Who showed up?"

"It was your friends that showed up looking for you. Three cars full of guys pulled up and when they saw you in trouble they jumped in and finished the fight. They must have done a pretty thorough job of it too because the six guys that assaulted you and Leslie are all in pretty bad shape. I can't say anything more at this point because we are interviewing everyone involved and I don't want to say anything else until I have a clear picture of what I think actually happened after you blacked out. There will definitely be charges brought against the guys who attack you and the young lady."

He handed mom a card with his contact info on it and quietly left the room. He has told us that he would need me to come down to the station in a few days for an official statement and to see if I can identify the suspects. I told him that I would see him in a few days.

I found out that surgery was late into the night the night before and that I had been sleeping for a while after that. By the time I had woken up it was the afternoon after the incident.

A little while after the police officer left, Larry and Tom came by the hospital to see me. They were happy to see that I was awake when they walked in. They both had some very minor scratches and bruises on their faces from the fight, but overall they looked like always.

"Hey, look who's awake! It's Iron Jeff Tyson!" Larry playfully called out as they walked in. He was smiling when he said it and I knew he was just trying to make me laugh. That's a bad idea though because laughing really hurt at that point. Between the stab wound in my gut and my sore body in general, everything was going to be painful for a while.

"Man you look pretty rough." Tom said.

"I feel like I just got the crap kicked out of me. Oh, wait a minute. I did just get the crap kicked out of me." I replied. That made everyone laugh.

"Jeffrey! You know I don't like it when you use that word." My mom said with a smile on her face.

"Oh jeez mom. I can't even use the word crap without getting in trouble. It's not like I said I got the ever loving shit kicked out of me." I figured in my injured state I could push it a little with my mom and get away with it. She had this weird thing with the word crap. For some reason she really thought it was as bad as saying shit or fuck.

My dad was laughing at our little argument and jumped in at that point and said "Joan, just let it go. It's not that bad."

"That's easy for you to say." She replied. "Where do you think he gets the potty mouth from?"

Everyone in the room was really laughing now. My dad had masterfully taken the heat off of me and put it on himself. They eventually agreed to let it go, since I was "injured". I think the whole thing was really just my mom showing her frustration over having to watch her son get badly hurt. It was a kind of comic relief.

Larry and Tom filled me in what they had seen. Larry said that I had actually completely taken one guy out of the fight when I broke his nose and a second was pretty much done also because he had taken a few hits to the face as well. The rest of the guys jumped in and started whaling on me. I got stabbed in the stomach area, punched in the face, stomach and kidneys. Then I went down and they were kicking me in the ribs and face. To summarize, I was a mess. The pain killers were definitely helping, because I would really start hurting later when they started to wear off.

When they pulled up their cars, they all jumped in and took on the four guys that were still kicking me. Some of my friends actually had to restrain the others eventually because it ended up being about ten against four once everyone got out of their cars and into the fight. All in all Larry and Tom thought I had acquitted myself pretty well all things considered. My mom told them not to encourage me to fight, but she seemed happy that I had done it to protect a girl that was being attacked.

After another day of visitors and hospital food, I was dying to get out of there. Did I ever mention that I hate hospital food? You would think they are trying to kill you with that stuff, not help you get better. I think they make it bad so you want to leave and they can get the bed back for someone else to use. It's just a little theory that I came up with while I was laying there.

The doctor did eventually sign off on my release from the hospital and I went home to try to finish healing up. I was going to have to come back in a few weeks and get the stitches taken out from the stab wound, but as long as I got to leave there at that moment I was happy.

The second day that I was home I got lots of calls from friends checking on me and giving me their version of the story. I think the whole thing was getting bigger by the minute. Every time someone told the story it got a little more interesting. I could see that this was going to get out of hand and pretty soon everyone had taken on seven guys themselves just to try to get to me. I was happy that people cared though.

That same day Leslie came to see me. She was very happy to see me and even tried to give me a hug when she came in. When I winced at the contact she backed off and blushed shyly with a little, "sorry".

"Are you going to be ok?" She asked.

"Yeah, I think so." I told her. "The doctor said I just had to take it easy for a while and everything should be ok. I'll probably miss a week of school at least. How about you? Are you ok?"

She looked down when she quietly answered, "I think I will be. I don't know. I'm not hurt or anything."

"But?" I asked.

I saw a tear go down her cheek as she answered me. "It's just that I'm really scared all the time now. I'm always looking over my shoulder. I can't seem to trust any guys. I know it sounds crazy, but I just can't shake the feeling." She was sniffing now and I could tell that she was ready to really start crying.

"I don't blame you." I told her. "I can't even imagine what you must have felt like with those redneck assholes trying to rape you. Maybe you should go and talk to somebody about it. It might make you feel better."

"I am talking to somebody." She said with a sniffle that turned into a giggle.

"I mean a professional, someone who can actually help you."

"Talking to you is helping, I think." She said. When she said that her head was looking down and she looked up at me shyly through her eye lashes. Oh boy, I thought, I hope she doesn't have some kind of hero crush thing going on. I really didn't feel that way about her. I did like her, but I didn't have any romantic notions about her. I didn't even want to address that as a possibility, so I changed the subject a bit.

"How are your parents taking all of this?" I asked.

"They are ok, I guess. They are very protective now. I'm lucky they even let me come over here without and armed escort. I probably won't be able to go out with a guy alone until I am in college. I think my dad wanted to go to the hospital and finish off what your friends started when they showed up at the parking lot the other night. You'll have to thank them for me. I'm not sure if I would have gotten away even with your help if they hadn't come along when they did."

"I'll tell them you said that. They are good guys. They would do anything for a friend," I told her.

"Well, thank them for me. I need to get home soon. I'm sure my dad will call the police if I'm not there by dinner. Let me know if you need me to bring over your homework for multimedia class."