Chapter 2

The hospital room filled up quickly as doctors, nurses, technicians, cops, and others streamed to stare at me. That wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't needed to get up and go to the bathroom so badly. When I couldn't take it anymore, I whispered to the closest nurse that I wanted her to clear the room so I could get up before I wet the bed, she whispered back, "Go ahead. We put a catheter in, and you are hooked up to a collection bag." Her smile was beautiful and I found myself captivated by her.

As the throng surrounding me increased, I did as my Florence Nightingale suggested and ... it worked!

That crisis averted, I started to feel around my head to see what the damages were, but one of the doctors stopped me before I got too far. "Son, why don't you let us check you over and make certain you can't hurt anything, before you poke around that bullet wound?" He was young, fit, and vibrated with competence, and skill, so I relaxed and let him do the doctor thing.

He asked everybody to leave so he could examine me, and chatted while he did his thing. "Kevin, I am so pleased to meet you. I am Doctor Phaisal. When the ambulance brought you in last night I wouldn't have thought you would live a half hour. I would have bet my medical license, that if you did live beyond a few minutes that you would do so in a vegetative state. Your head injuries appeared to be quite fatal, but here you are sitting up, talking and making liars out of all the medical people who wrote you off because you were in such bad shape last night."

He did his thing and I contemplated the insanity of my new life.

This was the fourth time I inhabited the body of someone killed by way of a head injury. Each time the medical experts gave them up for dead, and when I was hijacked into their dying, or dead body, they recovered miraculously. The pattern was clear, the reasons were cloudy.

Lying still while the doctor removed my bandages and examined his work from the night before, I thought of my girls, and babies. Thinking happy thoughts distracted me from the pain the doctor was causing. Every little bit he would touch, brush, or just breathe on some part of my skull and it hurt like he touched a live blowtorch against me.

The second time I twitched from his touch he apologized, and said, "I was positive your bullet wound was fatal, Kevin. Your blood pressure was pretty much non-existent, and even though the bullet did not enter your brain, it cracked you skull, split the lining around your brain, did damage to the area that holds your memories, and that shattering shock wave that the bullet crashing into your skull set up, should have killed you. It would have killed nine-hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand people, if not nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine, out of a million. But you miraculously not only survive, but your recovery is amazing.

"The human brain isn't built to survive what happened to you, but here you are, nearly well enough to get up and walk out of here. I will be telling my medical students about you for the rest of my career, and damned glad to have had you as a patient, because you've restored my faith in medicine.

"Thank you for making a liar out of me and not dying."

He meant it.

"I'm pretty glad about it too, Sir," I said humbly.

When he was satisfied I asked. "How long will I be stuck in here?"

He smiled an indulgent smile and said, "You suffered a kill shot to the head. We need to be absolutely certain that there are no serious aftershocks coming, before I even think of releasing you, but I understand where you're coming from.

"There are some very serious gentlemen from the Federal Government outside dying for to tell them that you are up to being questioned. You are fragile from the shock of the impact, and brutal concussion you suffered, so let's give it until tomorrow and then those gentlemen I mentioned before will have their chance to ask you about last night, and I will still have enough control of the situation to toss them out if they stir you up too much.

"The other thing I need to know, Kevin, is who to call. We found no information in your wallet that pointed us to next of kin, or emergency contact, so no one has been notified that you are here. We did find your emancipation papers, and the lawyers felt that was more than enough to justify treating you without parental permission, but who should we be calling for you, son?"

And that was my big dilemma.

I thought about what Letterman said on the clip and replied, "I have no family. I'm here alone and take care of myself. When you let me out, I am fine to go home and go back to my life." I was very unsure and I guessed the doctor mistook that for sadness, and rather than rub salt in what he thought was an old wound, he let it go.

"That's fine, Kevin. You do know that you are a big time hero, now, right?"

I didn't and he could see the truth of that in my eyes.

"The news is all about the President being shot by the Speaker of the House, but the video of you slamming into that killer is on every channel, nonstop. I doubt things will be as calm and ordinary for you when we release you, so be prepared to have reporters drive you crazy trying to get an interview, or catch you kissing a girl."

He made a few notes, patted my leg, and left.

Less than one minute after he closed the door, it opened again, and two guys in black suits came in and sat on either side of my bed. The one on my right consulted his notepad and said, "Kevin, I am Special Agent Carlos Menendez, of the FBI. We are investigating the shootings last night and really need to ask you some questions..." He would have continued but Doctor Phaisal walked back in and threw a hissy fit. The two agents scurried out, not even pausing to threaten him with obstructing a federal investigation.

When they were gone, Doctor Phaisal looked at me and said, "The federal government will not harass patients in this hospital. You are sixteen, they can't interview you without a lawyer present, and they know it. Our staff attorneys will climb all over their bosses, and you won't be bothered again while you are my patient." He huffed out and gave the police officers guarding my door a piece of his mind, on the way to the desk to call the hospital administrators.