About the only place I hated to be more than a courtroom with one of my ex-wives suing for more alimony was a hospital emergency room but I found myself walking through the doors of one tonight.  I’d been enjoying quite a nice evening with one of the new lab techs, Cindy.  Just as we were about to engage in some…extracurricular activities, the phone rang.  The statie on the other end informed me, as businesslike as he possibly could, that “Dr. Beckett has been involved in a motor vehicle accident and that he was taken to Sierra Vista Hospital in Truth or Consequences.”  So I bid the fair Cindy an early goodnight, got in my car and drove for over an hour to Truth or Consequences

What Sam possibly could have been doing down that way I had no idea.  The last he’d told me before he left the project grounds on Friday was that he was going to spend the weekend at his house in Socorro.  Driving down, I really didn’t care what he was up to.  The statie who’d called hadn’t been able to tell me how bad of an accident Sam had been in and I could only thing the worst.

When I arrived at the hospital, I marched up to the admittance desk and asked for Sam.  The nurse who was on duty there was, shall we say, less than accommodating.  Barely looking up from paperwork she was filling out she informed me in a very bored voice, “no Sam Beckett’s been admitted tonight.”

“You sure,” I asked her.  “I got a call from the state police earlier that he was in a car accident and he’d been brought here.  Can you check again?”  I was doing my best to contain my worry and fear but it wasn’t easy.

Nurse Kincaid, as I saw on her nametag, sighed and consulted a list of recently admitted patients again.  “Sorry, there’s no Sam Beckett.  Maybe you got the wrong hospital.”

“How many hospitals are there in this town?” I irritably asked.  I knew the answer to the question but couldn’t refrain from asking.  As small as Truth or Consequences was, it was a wonder they had a hospital at all.  “How about a Samuel Beckett?  Is there a Samuel Beckett on your list?”

Nurse Kincaid let out an aggravated sigh. “I told you, there’s no Sam Beckett and there’s no Samuel Beckett.  You got the wrong hospital.  Maybe you should try the morgue.”

That did it.  Her callous statement that I try the morgue was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Since I received the call I’d been imagining just that and this woman’s bored and irritated suggestion was like lighting a match to dry tinder.

“Maybe you need to check your list a little better.  The state police told me Sierra Vista Hospital and that’s where I am.  Now I want to know where Sam is and I want to know now.”  I knew the volume of my voice was rising and frankly, I just didn’t care.  I wanted to know where Sam was and what condition he was in and I wanted to know it now.  If they heard me in the waiting room across the hall, I didn’t care.

“And I told you,” Nurse Kincaid began but she was cut off by another voice behind me.

“He’s right here,” the voice said.  It was weary and pain-filled but I’d know it anywhere.  I whirled around to face Sam.

“What the hell happened,” I asked him loudly grabbing him by the shoulders and looking closely at him.  There was a bandage above his left eye and he seemed to be holding himself stiffly.  Aside from that, he looked like he hadn’t slept in about a week.  His face was snow-white and that only accented the shadows under his eyes giving him the appearance of a raccoon.  He was slumped against the wall behind him and I honestly thought it was the only thing holding him up.  Without meaning to, I gave his shoulders a shake as I asked again, “what the hell happened.”

Sam put a hand up against my chest to push me back but the push was weak.  None-the-less, I stepped back and let him go.  “I fell asleep driving and went off the road,” he explained.  He wasn’t looking me in the face but was studying the toes of his shoes.  “I’m ok but my jeep’s totaled.”

“You fell asleep driving?” I asked astounded.  I couldn’t understand how he could do such a damned fool thing.  First, though, I had to make sure he truly was all right.  After all, the statie had told me he’d been admitted here.  “Has a doctor seen you?  Should you be up walking around?”

He nodded wearily and finally looked up at me.  “They just let me go a couple of minutes before you barged in and started screaming.  I’m fine.  It’s just a bump on the head and some bruised ribs.  Nothing I won’t survive.”

“A bump?” I asked not completely believing him.  What I could see peeking out around the bandage looked like more than a bump.

He sighed but he answered me.  “There’s three stitches but that’s it.  There’s no concussion and I’m free to go.”  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded in fourths.  Unfolding it, he waved it under my nose while telling me that he was free to go.  I could only imagine it was discharge papers and snatched it from his hand wanting to see for myself that he really was ok enough to be leaving the hospital.

He was taken aback when I snatched the paper so quickly from his hand but said nothing.  Neither did I as I scanned the sheet of paper.  As he’d told me, it indicated that he had three stitches in a head laceration but that there was no indication of neurological trauma.  There was also a mention of the bruised ribs he’d told me about.

“If you’re satisfied that I’m not lying to you and I really am ok to leave here can we just get going?  I’m tired.”  He leaned even more heavily against the wall and scrubbed at his face with his hands.  Tired didn’t even begin to describe his state which seemed to come closer to exhaustion.  I hazarded a guess that even without a concussion he probably had a headache too.

“Sure, we can go.  Just as soon as you tell me what the hell happened?”  I realized I was still talking loudly and barking at him more than anything else but I’d spent the last hour and a half worried sick that he’d been killed in some car crash and I figured I had a right to know what had happened.

He winced and let out another sigh then returned to the study of his shoes.  “Do you mind not yelling?  My head’s pounding,” he softly confessed confirming my guess of a headache.  “Look, can we please just go and I’ll tell you everything.”

I took pity on him then.  Something was wrong beyond just the exhaustion I could see and the injuries from the car accident.  I nodded my head and grabbed him by the elbow to lead him out of the emergency room to my car.

“I appreciate you coming down here,” he said softly.  “I know it was a long drive and you probably had better things to do.”

Boy, he didn’t know the half of it.  With any luck, I’d be able to convince Cindy to try again on another night.  Right now, though, my friendship with Sam came first.  He didn’t look like he was in any condition to take care of himself so that left it to me to make sure he was taken care of.  The first thing he needed was to get home and go to bed.  The rest would come along after that.

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