by: Kristy Duke
Daisy Duke
Walking into the small hospital room I silently close the door behind me before turning around to find both of my cousins asleep. I sigh with pained emotions that have swarmed over me since they had rolled my cousin into the emergency room, for both of my cousins. Silently I walk to the end of Bo’s stiff old hospital bed to watch Luke sleep against the hard wall in his stubbornness to not leave Bo’s side before I slowly turn my attention to Bo. Anger quickly knaws at my heart as I see his wounds as I do everyday, anger toward the men who had done this to him, and to Jesse. Though like always, my anger is taken over by great fear as I think of the men who had done this to him, of what they may be planning next. Fear for what they plan, not only to Hazzard, but to Bo when they find out they didn’t kill him as they most likely planned.
“I take it, your their other cousin,” says a thick male’s voice to send chills of fear and startlement rushing up and down my body. Slowly I turn to the window where the bright sun shines in to find a tall muscular man with thinly cut dark sandy blond hair with thin short side burns. I take in his built figure that is dressed in tight dark jeans, well worn white sneakers, and a un-tucked sports shirt. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I watch with cautious curiosity as he steps forward and I notice the odd color of blue his eyes are to gentleness of his eyes that only seem to be as flawed as the color. “Yeah…yeah I’m their other cousin,” I answer as he approaches me and he smiles a bright smile showing his smile wrinkles at his temples.
“Sergeant FBI Agent Frank Mills,” his smile slowly disappears as he lends out his right hand and as we shake hands I notice a thick long scar on his outer arm, “I am in charge of this case…well along side Sheriff Coltrane.”
I nod as I recall Luke telling me something about Rosco calling in the FBI from Atlanta. “Daisy,” I smile looking back down at Bo, “Daisy Duke.” It goes silent as my heart churns for my youngest cousin, “Sergeant, you have any leads on the men who did this to my cousin? Is he in any more danger?” He looks at me before staring at Bo and I see the hesitancy to tell me the truth, “Look sergeant, I want to hear the truth, I don’t want some sideways answer just cause I’m a girl and not no male…I can take it and do about anything any boy here can do!”
He grins thinly before he suddenly goes seriously and is replaced by a roughed up look that anyone would or should be afraid of. “Well Daisy, we are doing our best with what we got and with our inside help, we are in the process of making a plan as we speak,” he pauses longly as he stares at Bo, “though who knows how long it will take to get him, them…we just got here,” he pauses again as he continues to look at Bo before looking up at me, “and about if your cousin is in danger…well knowing Drake as I do, there is no doubt he is still in danger, I’m surprise he hasn’t tried anything as of yet. Look, Ol’ Drake he’s real dangerous, as dangerous as they come, and your cousin overheard a lot of info, and one thing about Drake is, he don’t appreciate anyone knowing any inside info.”
I feel my body begin to shake at hearing what he just informed me, even though I had fought to bare the answer. “So what do you plan to do about my cousin?” I ask fighting back the tears of fear, “You gonna post men out there for protection or something? You can’t expect Luke to fend them off for him, do you?”
“Boy a lot of questions there, huh?” he asks as he looks at Bo once again, “No we don’t expect him to do that…we are placing Deputy Strate there, he is coming to relieve me in a moment or two.”
“You can’t expect Strate to be able to deal with them if they do strike!” I exclaim thinking of the modest deputy, “He may be able to hand some ticket to someone who breaks a street law, but to be able to stop some men who come with the intent to kill? He isn’t equipped in dealing with that…we just small country folk down here sergeant!”
“You give your police force too little confidence, he’ll be able to do the job well, trust me, we wouldn’t place him here if we didn’t think that,” he sighs as he holds his scar, “look he’s all we got right now, I can’t spare any of my FBI men, they only gave me four and I need Sheriff Coltrane to help me know Hazzard. I’m sorry.”
I sigh worriedly knowing that I have no reason to doubt him as lying to me about it as I watch Bo lie on the bed as he begins to move. Slowly I move to his right side across from Luke as Bo slowly awakens from his sleep. As he opens his baby blue eyes my heart tightens in fear and grief as I read the pain and fear that radiates in his blue eyes. “Hi Bo,” I fight to smile at him as he looks at me and his eyes seem to smile slightly at seeing me and my heart seems to melt within me. “How it feelin’ today?”
He shrugs and I help him grab the notebook and pen and watch him painfully write something down before he hands it to me. I read what he says, “My lungs don’t hurt as bad…I still hurt.”
“I guess that’s better than nothing,” I sigh optimistically and he only shrugs as he takes in Frank for awhile with interest in his eyes, “Hey that’s the man that is going to bring those -”
“We met,” Frank interrupts me, “he seemed to like my badge.”
“Sergeant Mills?” I look up to find Enos standing there holding his black hat to his chest, “I am here to sit guard for you.”
“OK deputy,” he smiles to me before he walks to Enos and leads him outside where I invision him putting a chair up for him to sit guard.
Luke Duke
Tiredness and stiffness streaks down my body as I hesitantly awake to find myself once again leaning against the wall. Angrily, I cuss myself under my breath for falling asleep once again on my cousin and for falling back to sleep against the wall as I have been. Wiping my eyes of the sleep that blurs my vision I look over at Bo to find him looking at some picture that he clings tightly onto with his left hand. Slowly I look up at Bo as I sit up to find tears in his eyes that he don’t even try to fight back, tears of clear sadness and more emotional pain than physical pain. I grasp as I see the shelled in look in his baby blue eyes, the shelled in look that has covered his eyes the past year since he found Jesse dead. Pain and fear streaks my body as I force myself to glance at the picture he is looking at to find it to be a picture Jesse with all of us, with Jesse in the middle with a proud and loving smile on his thick bearded face.
“Bo,” I hear myself whisper at him not knowing what else to say or what to do that will help my cousin. What I know is that I can’t let him to sink back into his depressed shell he was in before he was attacked, where it had distracted him from the deep shell he was in before. Slowly I reach across his bed as he don’t look at me or seem to acknowledge me and I take the picture from his hand. I sigh wearily seeing the angered look he shoots me as I place the picture back into my back pocket. “No, I ain’t about to loose you back to that shell of yours…that will only complicate things.” He continues to glare at me with his shelled eyes before a hint of an I-don’t-care attitude hits them and he fights to regain his emotions. “Dammit Bo! Can’t you see that I can’t loose you? This isn’t just about you, you know?! Dammit!”
Angrily I snap out of my chair, no longer to keep it in, and walk over to the small window to look out over the dust covered parking lot. My mind races from thought to thought sending different emotions raging through my body with different thoughts. Tears quickly sting my eyes as once again as so often plagues my nightmares lately, is an image of life without him in it.
I gasp as suddenly I hear the soft stiff wings of paper before there is a large thunk upon the floor a foot behind the heel of my boot. Slowly I look around to look at Bo who pleas me with his half shelled eyes before I slowly bend down to pick up the notebook that he had tossed at me. Standing back up I slowly read his messy handwriting that writes, “Please don’t be mad at me, Lukas.”
I take a long deep breath as I look at him as I let it out to find him glaring up at his monitors before staring at the off TV that is stationed across of his bed. “I ain’t mad at you, Bo,” I slowly say as I walk over to his bed and he glances at me as he wipes the tears with his left palm of his hand, “I have never been mad at you…look, I ain’t very good at telling how I feel, as you have noticed in the past couple of days, but I can’t afford to loose my little brother. I can’t afford to loose the little brother who had given me the courage to fight my way home from war, who gave me the courage to fight for my life after seeing all that I had seen and not give in to death. I know, I haven’t been around lately to show you that, or showed you that period since I got home, but things will change, Bo.”
He glares at me for a long moment with disbelief before he grabs the notebook out of my hand and I feel my heart pump with pride at the courage he has to even fight to make it this far. “Really?” I read as he hands me the notebook.
Quietly I nod as I am at a loss of words as I see great admiration in his baby blue eyes as he has removed his shell, the same great admiration that shone in them for me before I had left for war. “Yeah really,” I find my voice to say, “I am proud of you, Bo, and so is Jesse, and I know for a fact that Jesse wouldn’t allow you to give up as you were just thinkin’.”
He stares at the fresh paper as that I turned for him for a while before he winces in pain as he starts to write. “Yeah, Dukes never give up,” I smile reading his hand writing.
“That’s right, we don’t and neither will you,” I answer as the door opens and I watch as his older doctor walks in and watch him silently look over his chart and then back up at the monitors.
“Well well well, I see you’re a tough little guy, eh?” he asks smiling slightly at Bo and me before he goes serious, “You have gotten a lot better since my last visit. What would you think of getting that tube taken out of your mouth?”
Bo looks up at me and then back up at the doctor only giving a slight bit of excitement as he numbly nods his head. “OK, but I’ll need your help,” his doctor says untaping the section that is taped to his mouth, “I’ll need you to blow out when I count to three, can you do that?” Bo nods, “One. . .two. . .three…” I watch as Bo does as he is told to do showing visible pain as the tube is pulled out and he harshly begins coughing like in an attack.
“Doctor -”
“It’s all right Mr. Duke,” he says as I express my anxiety, “it is only natural…especially seeing how his asthma has worsen.”
“Worsened?” I ask, my heart almost stops and I watch the young nurse handing Bo his new inhaler and I watch him breathe in a couple of puffs to settle down before looking up at his doctor.
“Yes sir…but it is better than what his other consequence coulda been Mr. Duke,” he sighs and I nod in understanding, “look, he will be fine, I’ll prescribe him with new medication and we’ll watch it tighter than before.”
“Is he going to be OK?” I ask looking down at Bo who looks at me before his eye lids fall against his will to sleep.
His doctor smiles slightly looking up at me before saying, “It looks to be so…we’re giving him a couple more days here for observation and then he can go home.”
I can’t help but to smile in my happiness at hearing that and he nods at me before he gathers up his equipment and leaves with his nurse. Slowly I sit back down besides Bo as my mind goes back to racing from thought to thought.
Bo Duke
Anger rises within me as I glare angrily out through the dirt spotted windshield that sits ahead of me. Glaring ahead at the bumper of the rusty dark green truck that lies a couple of feet ahead of me, I feel the rage boil within me. My older cousin’s thick voice seems to echo in my head as his earlier actions react themselves clearly in my head. “Damn it Luke!” I yell aloud as I rub my right upper arm where he had grabbed me at to thrash me into tree, his harsh words that he had spoken rings clearly in my head. Anger seems to accelerate within me with each passing second as the fight we just had plays itself clearly within me with flashes of the past that seems like so long ago. The past being six years ago before Luke had boarded upon that awful train for war when he spent every spare second he had with me, where he loved me. Where as now where he comes up with any excuse he can think of to get away from me and is clearly and highly dislikes me. “Damn you Luke!” I yell aloud once again as I fight for answers to why he dislikes me so much now that he has returned home and answers on how to fix it.
Slight relief eases into my anger and frustration as the old farm house slowly comes into view. I watch the farm house as it slowly grows closer and closer by the second, taking in the chipped off white paint and the rotting wood of the house. I sigh thinking of how Luke and I should get down to painting it for Uncle Jesse and a new roofing job if and when we get the money for it.
Carefully I drive the car I share with my cousin into the farms dusty dirt drive way and park a foot away from my uncle’s dirty old white truck. Throwing my car into park I sit silently for a moment to take in his old truck as my mind races with memorable thoughts of my uncle and I am filled with love and affection for him. Quickly a deep fear strikes me as I glare at his old truck and I quickly pull myself out of the orange Chargers and race up the old wooden porch.
“Jesse!” I yell running into the kitchen to run into the corner of a forest green chair with hope to hear his response, “Uncle Jesse!”
My heart races in anxiety and fear as I am answered with an eerie silence and I quickly run into the family room. As I reach the metal desk that sits against the yellowish wall that separates the two hall ways, I can’t help but to scream out in fear as I find him lying face down in front of the back door. I stand silently still for a long moment as my heart pounds tightly within me as I spot the thick blood soaked into the back of his thick denim overalls. “Uncle Jesse!” I scream out as I race to him where I drop to my knees besides him to gently roll him over to find him gripping tightly onto the shot gun with his right hand. “No!” I scream aloud in disbelief as I spot a thick bullet wound in his chest forcing his overalls to be soaked in his thick red blood. “No…no…no. Uncle Jesse.” I bet as tears quickly begin to roll down my cold cheeks as I stare down at my uncle who glares wild eyed up at me. Chills race quickly up and down my body as I look into his blue eyes and I slowly notice them to be a darker shade of blue than I have ever seen them to be before. “No…please Uncle Jesse!” I yell out as I grip onto his icy cold hand to notice the pool of blood on the floor.
“Uncle Jesse,” I finally say as I fight for air while I notice a tear roll off my chin and onto his overalls, “Please…no…no. I love you Uncle Jesse!”
“I love you Uncle Jesse!” I yell in a husky choked voice as I awaken from the pain rippling down my throat from where the tube once was.
“Shhhh,” I hear the soft caring voice say as I feel a hand running through my thick hair. Slowly I glance over to find Luke sitting besides me holding my left and uncasted arm.
“Luke?” I question for a second as my nightmare runs quickly through my head clearly, the voices echoing through my head, “He was there…on-”
“I know buddy, I know,” he says fighting back his own tears that build up in his sky blue eyes, something I seldom ever seen, “It’ll be OK…it all will be OK Bo.”
“Not without him,” I finally respond as I glare up at the monitors before looking back at Luke, “not without Uncle Jesse.”
“I know how you feel, Bo,” Luke finally says and I notice his eyes cloud up more so before he wipes at his eyes, “I know it is hard, but we all need to move on in our lives, we all do, that is what Uncle Jesse would want…what he would demand of us to do. You know that.”
Slowly I nod as I feel the pain soar within my beaten up body as I once again think of the image I had the other day of Jesse that showed up so clear, as clear as if he were sitting in the room with me. Regretfully I force myself to think of the Jesse I saw on the living room floor with his pool of blood, his dark blue eyes. Thinking of the odd dark blue eyes that stared up at me that was filled with more evil than fear, more surprise than fear that stared up at me and an strong realization hits me. “He ain’t dead,” I finally whisper.
“What?” Luke questions in surprise, “Look Bo you found him and you were there at his funeral! I am as upset by his death as you are Bo, but we have to accept what is.”
“You don’t understand…you didn’t see his eyes, the funeral people closed them when they arrived,” I finally brave to say, “they weren’t Uncle Jesse’s! I didn’t say anything before, because I tried to block his image. When I saw him there, when I turned him over, I noticed they were different shade of blue, they were dark dark blue! You know how his eyes were like! But now that I think of it, as I had forced myself to see him again, they weren’t filled with fear, but filled with great evil and surprise, but not fear!”
He stares at me silently for a long moment as I think of the clear image I had of Uncle Jesse, wondering what all this means. “Maybe they just seemed different,” Luke says slowly gripping my hand, “I have seen a lot of good men die over at war, Bo, and seeing them dead, I have seen a lot of different expressions in their face, in their eyes. It is just how people are when they are faced with life and death, they go through different expressions, making them look different. That and you’re own wishful thinking…not that I don’t wish that, but -”
“Look, you don’t have to believe me, but he is out there somewhere!” I yell as I allow my tears to trail down my cheeks, “I know feelings don’t count, but I have a strong feeling that this …that this is just some mistake or something. I don’t know, but I know he ain’t dead! Please Luke,” I plea with him, “please believe me…I saw him, I can feel him, and have a strong feeling that he isn’t dead!”
“Well if he ain’t dead, then where is he Bo?” Luke asks impatiently glaring concernly down at me.
“I don’t know…but I ain’t crazy either,” I defend myself as I fight for answers, “all I know we all were mistaken taking him as being Uncle Jesse, that’s all I know. I will go out and find the answers by myself if I have to!”
“You will not! You aren’t leaving here til they permit you to do so and you will not go out there and try to be a detective to prove what you are saying!” he yells at me, “Sorry. Look, I don’t know what you feel, it could be just you wanting to believe he ain’t dead, but you are right I didn’t see his eyes. He looked pretty much like Uncle Jesse at the morgue to me. . .I don’t know what you are talking about, Bo. But I will bring them down for you and for Uncle Jesse.”
“With me?” I question and he smiles patiently down at me before he nods, “Thank-you Luke.”
“You rest now, you need your rest…and perhaps Daisy will be here when you awake,” he smiles sadly down at me, “but I suggest you not to mention your crazy idea to her, she’s upset enough about you as it is, and would kill me if she heard that I agreed to go after those guys to search for your crazy idea!”
“Yes sir,” I smile at him as I feel the tiredness creep back into me that I fight to fight off in fear of having the nightmare again, “but what if I have that dream again…the one I’ve been havin’ since…well you know.”
“Well first of all, it is just a dream, second of all it is all over and done with, and third of all, I am and will be here for you as I will be from this day on out,” he smiles caringly at me, “Now you rest before they charge me with disturbing your rest!”
I laugh tiredly as I hug him tightly before I let go to lie down upon my soft pillow and sleep quickly takes me in.
~Frank Mills~
Anger and resentment quickly resides within me toward Drake as I listen to the young blond hair Duke boy tiredly and weakly slowly finishes his story. A story he had started with the day over a year ago when he had found Jesse dead in their living room to him dropping upon the Duke farm’s front lawn after being shot and beaten up so badly the other day. The other day? I have been in Hazzard only a couple days now and yet it seems as if I have been here close to an eternity searching for a mad man that has seemed to drop off the edge of the earth. He has to be in Hazzard only because the sheriff told me the other day that the commissioner is still doing some sort of business with him, but what? And where?
I sigh wearily as I watch my left hand numbly and subconsciously trace the length of my wide scar that is tightly etched upon my right outer lower arm. Gradually I force myself to look up at the young Duke boy that lies tiredly, but awake, in the old style hospital bed as he looks up at his older cousin, Luke, for some sort of approval. Chills race up and down my back as Bo glares over at me for a short moment to see his baby blue eyes haughted with a terrified look of fear mixed with great pain. Guilt quickly settles in with my anger toward the men responsible, guilt for me asking him the questions I needed to ask to hear his story, to force him to think about it once again and to talk about it.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” I stutter as I slowly stand up to shove my small notebook into my back pocket and both boys look up at me and I notice the protectiveness and concern in Luke’s eyes for his cousin.
“Don’t worry ’bout it Sergeant,” Luke says patting Bo on the shoulder who glares back at him, “if talkin’ what you need him to do to catch those…those jackasses, he’ll talk. I’ll make sure of it…he’ll be fine, he’s a Duke and Dukes’ are strong.”
I smile thinly at him as the door is swung open to catch all our attention to see a male nurse walking in pushing a silver car, half of his mouth remains covered by a mask but his haunting dark brown eyes sends shivers of fear through me. “It isn’t time for any more medication,” Luke speaks up confidently, “Or for his IV bags to get refilled, nurse, his normal on-call nurse did all of it for him little less than an hour ago.”
I watch as the nurse quickly glares at Luke who refuses to budge to the evillness that lurks in his dark brown eyes. “I know what I’m doin’ Mr. Duke,” he says in a thick southern accent, “now let me get this done, what I need to do, as his doctor tol’ me to do, so I can get out of y’all’s way.”
The room goes silent except for the loud annoying beeps from his monitors as the nurse moves directly in front of me and I quickly move out of his way. Panic of an unknown source creeps in as he yanks at Bo’s left arm to wash it with a wet cloth and Bo watches him in fear as he does so. “It’s him,” Bo slowly says fighting to regain his arm back from the nurse.
“Who’s him, Bo?” Luke asks shooting accusatory glares at the nurse who pulls harder on Bo’s unharmed arm making Bo yell out in pain, “Watch what you doin’!”
“The other guy with…Drake,” Bo gasps painfully, his chest heaving painfully in and out with fear, “That was beatin’ that other guy…it’s him!”
“That’s crazy,” the nurse says and I watch his hand tighten around Bo’s arm as he grips a full needle and thoughts race through me of what he is saying.
“Hand it over, mister,” I demand as I display my badge to him and I yell out in pain as he elbows me in the stomach before I quickly pull forcefully on his gurney to jerk him in to the wall. I jump as his needle lands unbrokenly upon my chair where I was sitting before and I quickly yank the mask off his face. “Jay Braden,” I softly say and he grins crazily at me before spitting in my face and I quickly shove him in to the wall as I pull out my hand cuffs, “you are under arrest Jay…again, why does this surpise me! I guess you get to visit your jail bird friends once again behind bars.”
“I missed you Frank,” he grins, “where you been hidin’?”
“Somewhere where it don’t require me doin’ somethin’ illegal like you always are in,” I answer before I read him his rights and call in an officer who takes him away. Slowly I turn around to face the two Duke cousins to explain, “that is one of Drake’s main partners in crime, you hardly see one without the other which means Jay won’t say nothin’ as always. But we can always try.” Luke nod sullenly as I pick up the needle with a Kleenex as Bo’s doctor walks in and I hand it to him by the Kleenex, “Please run a test to see what this is and tell me as soon as possible what it is.”
“Yes sir,” he says softly before disappearing again.
Slowly I glare around at Bo and Luke who look at me questionably before back at one another. “I am going to let your deputy know what to look for, to not to trust every nurse or doctor that looks to be one,” I sigh thinking how to do this, “it will be hard, but he should just have a certain few doctors and nurses and to only let them in…and of course family. . . I ain’t gonna lie, it is mostly something that coulda and woulda killed him. Drake don’t want him by alive now that Bo knows or heard his plans and will try anything to force him to be quiet…it is too late for that. But we will do our best -”
“It better be more than your best, sergeant!” Luke snaps hastily, “We already lost our uncle to this man and I ain’t about to loose my cousin to him either! Your best may not do it and I won’t allow him to get hurt worse than he already has, I’ll go after him if that is what is needed! You understand?”
“Yes sir. But I highly despise you from going after him yourselves, you know what they are capable of doing,” I warn them.
“I know, but as I said, I ain’t about to lay low and watch them or allow them to kill my cousin without a fight from me! He means the world to me and I ain’t about to loose him!” Luke yells angrily as he rubs his face for a moment to regain himself, “I’m sorry sergeant, you just have to understand that Bo and Daisy is all I got and I ain’t about to loose either of them to them! Bo is more than a cousin to me, he’s my brother, my best friend, and I ain’t gonna loose him…I refuse to!”
“Yes sir, I understand,” I sigh numbly, “we’ll stop them Luke, Bo, we will and we will put an end to this…to them.”
He nods sadly as he gives in to his emotions. “I know…the best is what y’all can give and I respect that,” he sighs looking down at Bo who has fallen back asleep, “I just don’t want to loose him.”
“I know Luke, I know,” I smile thinly at him, “I know how you feel whether you want to believe that or not, I do. I will catch Drake if it is the last thing I do and I can promise you that…your cousin has guts, you both do. I’ll catch back with you tonight to get the answer to the test and to relay any news if any. It’ll be ok, Luke…I’ll fight to make sure of that.”
“Thanks,” he smiles weakly at me as he sits back down besides Bo and runs his hand through Bo’s blond hair above the bandage and I slowly walk to the door. “And Frank.”
Slowly I stop at the door before opening the door to turn to him and ask, “Yeah?”
“I believe you,” he answers and I nod before I exit the hospital room
~Luke Duke~
Tiredly I glare out through the old hospital window as a few old vehicles pass by every so often upon the sun spewed muddy dirt road that lies a few feet below. Behind me, I listen to the weak monitors beeping more strongly and more rhythmaticly than before. I sigh thankfully at seeing him slowly recover over the past day or so since they had taken the tube out of his mouth. Silently, I say a soft prayer for my cousin to be able to walk out of here safely and healthy, as his doctor’s husky voice echoes within me of him telling us how his asthma has worsened. Worsened? How could it get any worse than what it had been? It has been steadily getting worse since Jesse’s death, with each nightmare that awakens him, with each episode he faces. How can it get worse?
Sadness and worry quickly creeps into me at the thought of his asthma worsening worse than what it already was before he ran off that horrid night. Thoughts of the past year and a few months race through my head, of how I have been treating him, to the shell he has or had hidden himself in, to the several asthma attacks he had. And now it is worse? Now he has the men that killed Jesse after him? Why? Because I had to yell at him, to make him upset, saying what I had to make him upset. If I had kept my mouth shut I wouldn’t be here staring through my reflection in the window over the empty field that lies across the street. “Damn it,” I finally say in a harsh whisper in my own guilt that weaves in and out of frustration and anger.
Wearily I sigh as I hear my cousin’s wheezing as he sleeps upon the old hospital bed between his moans and groans that signals another nightmare, most likely of Jesse. If only I had gone to check on Jesse that day, it would have cut down the pain and frustration that the past year have evolved in. Tears build up in my eyes as I think of what he must have seen, what he must of felt like that day to how he feels now. If only I hadn’t been so self centered as I had been, I would have gone and I would have seen and felt the way he had that day. I’ve seen death, looked death in the eye, all those years at war, I would have been pained at see my uncle like all them soldiers I had seen on the war field, but at least I’ve known it, known how to act to it. Bo doesn’t and most likely never will.
Abruptly I am thrown out of my thoughts as Bo quickly starts yelling out in fear, in his pain before his yelling quickly turns into harsh chronic coughing in another attack. “Damn,” I say silently as his eyes quickly open to display the fear and pain in them, more emotional pain than physical. “Bo?” I ask stepping forward to his bed as I see him clenching tightly onto his inhaler but not moving it to help ease his pain and through his pained baby blue eyes I see the shell that he had wrapped himself in the past year or so in slowly returning in them. “No Bo…no. Use your inhaler, you know what to do.”
Angrily he glares up at me as he fights for air and through coughs he gathers enough strength to yell, “Damn you Luke!” Confusion and worry run through my body as he harshly throws his inhaler and I watch it hit the wall near the window.
Glaring sternly at him I fight for my patience as I quickly walk over and pick up his inhaler and as I walk back to him I see the hurt in his eyes as the shell slowly continues to work it’s way through to him. Patiently I move to help spray it in his mouth only for him to hit my arm away as he fights back my help I offer. “C’mon Bo!” I yell at him as I fight for answers of what next to do, “This will help you and you need it to help you.”
“How you…know…what…I,” he fights to say before coughing chronically, “need, Luke?!”
Quickly I take a deep breath before I attempt to shove it into his mouth once again only for him to hit my arm with his cast and I have to reach down and pick it back up. “Bo,” I finally say as his doctor walks in and looks at me to him, “he won’t use it on his own and he refuses for me to help him use it,” I explain to him and he glares angrily at Bo.
“You want me to put that tube back in your throat?” he asks sternly and as Bo glares up at him, I am certain that his shell is back to stay this time.
“I . . .don’t…care,” Bo says though his voice says differently and I look up at his doctor who shrugs.
“If he won’t use the inhaler we will have to admit the tube back in which means the longer his stay will be,” he says defiantly, “I will hold his arms down and you trigger it. OK Luke?”
I nod as I watch him lean over Bo who fight to fight back his grab the doctor has on his arms only for his arms to be slammed back down upon the bed. I sigh tiredly, wishing there was some way to get to my cousin, to get him to care about life once again as he had before Jesse had died. Looking at his doctor I quickly reach over and force the inhaler into his mouth as he coughs wheezily and forcefully and spray a few sprays into his mouth before it starts to settle back down.
“OK,” his doctor sighs before letting go to look sternly at Bo, “Next time I will handcuff you to the bars if that is what is needed for Luke to help you with your attacks. I don’t think you really want that, now do you? I don’t want that and neither does Luke.”
“He don’t care,” Bo says and I quickly look down at him in surprise, “he never has.”
“That ain’t true and you know it, Bo. I do care and I have always have cared,” I respond to him as his doctor nods sadly at me before exiting the room, “I don’t know where you are getting that from…we have talked and I have told you I have changed. If I didn’t care about you or what happened to you, I wouldn’t have spent every second in this room with you for the past week. I told you I wouldn’t leave you and I won’t! Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I treated you poorly and I am sorry, things have changed and will change. You are my best friend, Bo. Please don’t do this.”
“Do what?” he asks softly.
“This…don’t do this, you know what I am talking about,” I sigh as I take a deep breath, “Look you have came a long way this past week, more than you have the whole year and a half. You have gone too far to return to that shell again. We all care about you, we all are here for you, we all will be glad to listen, and we all will do anything to help you…you know that.”
“Not everyone and you know that,” he shoots back at me, “Jesse ain’t -”
“Jesse wouldn’t want to see you walkin’ around in this shell of yours either and once again, you know that. He wants you to be happy, he always did,” I say softly as I slowly remember the past to when we all were growing up with Jesse, “we all miss him Bo, we all do, but death is a part of life, hard yes, but we have to move on…we all do. Jesse wants us to so are you going to not to listen to Jesse or do what he would wish?”
He glares up at me with teared blue eyes and for a moment I see his struggle against the shell he had wrapped himself in only to loose. Slowly he shrugs before he looks away from me to say, “I wanna go home.”
Silence quickly interrupts our conversation as his last sentence eats at my soul, echoing through my head with his tear filled words. Slowly I sit down and I run my hand through his thick blond hair and glare at the large bruise that lies under his bangs with a thick and ugly stitched up cut. “I know buddy, I know,” I finally answer fighting back to hide my tears, “it won’t be long, I promise, they just makin’ sure you are well enough now. OK? It won’t be long before you will be able to sleep in your own bed and eat at our table and -”
“I ain’t hungry,” he says stubbornly and I recall the struggle it had been to get him to eat anything in the past year, “I wanna go home…and find who did this to Jesse.”
“And to you? You forget that part? Or the part with that man dressed as a nurse walkin’ in here with that needle?” I ask thinking of the drugs they had found in the needle, “Look Bo, I want those men put away as badly as you do, but you goin’ out there and lookin’ your self isn’t the smartest idea either! They are after you…after you to shut you up, I am not going to loose you Bo…not after this or Jesse!”
He glares angrily at me before the tears quickly run down his cheeks and the fear seeps through his shell. “I’m scared, Lukas, and it all hurts, bad,” he finally says as he allows his salty tears to roll down his pale cheeks.
“I know…so am I buddy,” I smile wearily at him as I wipe his cheek of his tears, “but look, I will make sure they won’t hurt you again, I promise. You understand?”
Slowly he nods tiredly up at me before he wipes his face again of his tears. “Thank-you Lukas,” he finally says fighting the shell that remains, “for being here and all.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, cuz,” I smile reassuringly down at him, “now get some rest, I’ll be right here.”
“OK,” he smiles wearily at me before he caves into his sleep and I am taken over by his fear, his anxiety with hope that he will be ok, and be able to live a normal like he had before he walked in to find Jesse dead.