The Education of Giacomo Jones Ch. 07

"This was a very serious wound. The knife nicked his hepatic vein and that is what caused the massive blood loss. Had the blade been longer or penetrated deeper, it would have severed the vein or maybe punctured his vena cava, and he would have died in minutes. It may be that the massive wall of abdominal muscle — I understand he's a football player? — prevented worse internal organ damage. What we don't yet know is whether he suffered any long-term damage to critical organs like his brain and kidneys when blood loss caused his blood pressure to drop to critically low levels. Sometimes, those organs shake it off, but occasionally ..."

"Working in his favor is he's young, he's very strong and in excellent health and I can tell he's fighting hard. We lost heartbeat twice during surgery because of the blood loss even with transfusions going in both arms simultaneously, but we were able to restart his pulse each time. That might not have been possible were he not so strong," the doctor said.

"The challenges ahead are, of course, the threat of infection and how well the sutures to the hepatic vein hold and the damaged portion of his liver heals," the doctor said.

Gia's legs began to falter, and Ed and Lorrie helped her back to her seat and sat down beside her. In a feat of intellect, she had willed herself to listen analytically to the doctor's words and understand through the prism of science what Dr. DeFusco was saying. And it worked for a while until it became empirically clear to her from what she had learned that her Rance might not make it. At that moment, her heart and soul took over and began to sap the physical strength and resolve she had used to face Rance's surgeon.

"Miss Goines," the doctor said, looking over his shoulder to the attendant at the desk behind him, "I think we need to get this young lady down to the ER. She seems faint and is showing signs of shock."

Gia was breathing through her mouth, her head tilted toward the floor and her eyes lacking focus. "Is she your daughter?" DeFusco asked Ed and Lorrie.

"No, but we hope someday ...," Lorrie said, catching herself and realizing the doctor doesn't need an account of the crazy past five months that just got crazier. "No, she's our son's ... the girl our son loves deeply."

The double doors behind them opened again, and an orderly backed through it, pulling a wheelchair along after him. He wheeled it over to Gia and the Martins and they helped her into it. The doctor held the main door open as the orderly guided Gia's wheelchair to a bank of elevators leading to the ER on the first floor.

"Dr. DeFusco ... when ... when can we see our son?" Ed Martin asked.

"It's going to be a while. There's more work to be done to insert drainage tubes, close him up and then probably an extensive stay in the recovery room before he's moved into the ICU," the doctor said. "My work on his damaged vein is done but there are two more doctors and a team of nurses I there finishing up and suturing the incisions."

Lorrie buried her face into the tweed of Ed's jacket, weeping softly.

"Are you here for the Sugar Bowl and when were you planning to depart New Orleans?" DeFusco asked.

"We are. Rance played for Fulbright last night and we were planning to check out of the Royal Sonesta today and return home to Chattanooga, but ...," Ed said. "I suppose we could ask to extend our reservations."

"If that's what you wish. If that's not possible, we have arrangements with several hotels nearby and a few extended-stay rooms here on the medical campus that you might use if they're available," the doctor said. "Miss Goines, can you check availability for the Martins right quick?"

Ed thanked the doctor and asked him whether he would be the chief attending doctor as Rance began his recovery. DeFusco said he would be one of them but there would be several: himself, an internal medicine doctor and a neurologist to assess how well Rance's brain and nervous system endured the sharp blood loss.

"I wish I had a more definitive prognosis for you right now," the surgeon said. "We just don't yet know what we don't know. For right now, I think it's important that you take care of yourselves so you can be strong for Rance. There's nothing you can do here for a while — several hours at a minimum — so I'd recommend you go take care of your lodging for the next few days, maybe a week, go get some food, take a nap if you can. Leave your cell numbers with Miss Goines and we will make sure it's at the fingertips of the duty station in the recovery room and the ICU so you can be called instantly as needs dictate."

"This isn't going to be easy, but we will do all that medicine can do to bring your son through this."

An aide showed Ed and Lorrie to the elevators and escorted them to the Emergency Room waiting area. Half an hour later, another orderly pushed Gia in a wheelchair out to where Ed and Lorrie sat. Gia said the nurse practitioner who examined her found that a combination of dehydration and physical exhaustion from nearly 24 unbroken hours without sleep that included triumphant highs and crushing mental trauma likely caused her near-fainting spell. She was given an electrolytic intravenous drip and a sedative that had flattened her speech so that she sounded almost like an automaton.

They hugged her as she stood, and they remained there, in one another's arms in the middle of the Tulane Medical School ER/Trauma Center, for several long minutes before they walked outside, hailed a taxi and rode away in the hazy, early morning sunlight of New Year's Day.

●●●

True to Dr. DeFusco's word, Rance's battle would be long, laborious and uncertain from the start. It was mid-afternoon, more than a dozen hours since surgery commenced, before Rance was moved to the ICU from the recovery room where he had been for five hours after leaving surgery.

During that time, Ed and Lorrie Martin and Gia, for the sake of convenience, had booked into a two-bedroom suite at the Sonesta ES Suites just a block away from the hospital. They had arranged for Renee to fly back to Chattanooga and for her grandparents to pick her up there and for her to stay with them.

They had taken Gia to the team hotel where they found Perry Hemphill surrounded by his players in the lobby, attempting as best he could to tell his players what little he had learned about the unprovoked attack and grave injury to Rance. Buses had just arrived to take the team to the airport for the flight back to Charlotte and the bus ride back to Fallstrom where plans for a celebratory parade had been scrapped when cable news outlets reported that Rance was clinging to life in a New Orleans hospital.

When they saw Gia enter the lobby with Rance's parents, Art and Vangie Overshaw went directly to them and wrapped their arms around them. Within moments, the team, coaches and staff had surrounded them, many weeping.

Ed Martin, in a halting voice, explained what he knew from his most recent hourly call to the Tulane University Medical Center — that Rance was still in the recovery room, listed in critical condition with injuries to his internal organs. Gia informed the team that she would remain in New Orleans with the Martins while Rance fought to recover and that her mother was en route. She had no timetable for when or even whether she could rejoin the team.

"My life is like shattered glass on the pavement right now and I don't yet know how I pick up all the pieces, much less put them back together," she said.

They learned from Perry Hemphill that police told him that the alleged assailant, a 24-year-old petty hoodlum named Duarte Mélancon with a rap sheet that included burglary, robbery and aggravated assault, was not expected to survive a serious brain injury he suffered when he was captured moments after Rance's attack. Police said Mélancon had yanked a purse from a young woman's shoulder and tried to run away, but a large man who had also played in the Sugar Bowl as Notre Dame's second-team defensive end caught Mélancon by the throat, lifted him off the ground and slammed him backward into the pavement of Bourbon Street, shattering the back of his skull in the process. In a pocket of Mélancon's pants police found a butterfly knife with fresh blood. Detectives quickly determined he had been Rance's attacker when the unconscious man was a perfect match to the person shown on security camera footage from the Royal Sonesta grand entrance approaching and stabbing Rance. Police were confident that tests on the blood on the blade would prove that it was Rance's. Police had detained the Notre Dame player for questioning but released him to the team in the late morning for the flight back to South Bend. He had grabbed Mélancon utterly unaware that the Fulbright offensive lineman he had battled in the Sugar Bowl a few hours earlier had just been stabbed or that this was his suspected assailant.

"He needs killin'," Mojo Hale said. "Tell me where the muh-fucka at and I'll go finish him off."

Gia interjected and addressed the team.

"Mojo, I appreciate the sentiment but that's not what we need right now," she said. "Nobody knows whether Rance is going to make it. He's in real trouble, fighting through some very serious damage. Whoever did this to him, I don't have the time or energy to hate or even care. What I do need — what we all need — is help from God, and your prayers that right now ... because right now is all we've got."

That was as much as she could say. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. The team rose and closed ranks around her.

From a distance, the hotel's valet called out, "Coach, your buses are ready to board."

Art Overshaw walked quickly over to the valet and, with one arm around his shoulders and in hushed but emphatic words, the university president asked him to inform the drivers that he's paying for the goddamn buses and that the team would board them after some very important business is finished, and that the university would cover the costs of any delays.

It took another 40 minutes for Gia and the team to compose themselves, say goodbyes and go their separate ways. Now, in the middle of the afternoon, she stood there with the Martins in a lobby suddenly empty of the friendly faces that had abounded there for days. They decided to return downtown, eat an early dinner, then return to their room and await word from the hospital on ... whatever.

"This is the really long, hard part ahead, isn't it," Lorrie said from the rear seat of the Uber carrying them and Gia's luggage from her room in the team hotel back to their new quarters of indeterminate duration.

"I suppose so, honey," Ed replied. "Wish I could say for sure but I have no experience with this."

●●●

Before Gia was a brilliant strand of pure, white sand and beyond that was an azure and turquoise sea, all pervaded by a pure, brilliant light. From everywhere and nowhere all came a voice — Rance's voice — in a calm, even tone.

"It's me, Gia," it said.

"Where? I hear you and I can sense you near but I can't see you?"

I am all around you. Even in you. I am in the light that flows through you now. Don't be afraid, baby.

"How can I not be afraid, Rance? I don't have you. I can't see you, much less touch you, hold you."

I am where I have to be right now. I wish I could explain in terms you can grasp, but I don't understand it all myself. I ... you ... we ... just have to ... trust, for lack of a better term.

"Trust what? Who?"

The Plan. The Planner. That which created us, gave us life and each other. If I knew more, I'd tell you, but that's where I am now. They're taking care of me.

"Baby, you're in the ICU at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. I left your bedside not two hours ago. Your mom and dad and I were there. We could only go in one at a time. You're unconscious. I don't know if you could hear or feel us when we held your hand or not. We'll be there as long as it takes, baby."

Yes, I am there and I can hear faintly, as if from a distance. But I am not confined there. Where you see me now has no physical coodinate. We meet for now in a psychic or spiritual dimension that those who exist in time rarely glimpse. They want me to let you know and to tell you that I am at peace no matter how this turns out.

"So you don't know how ... whether you will recover?"

They know over there, in the light beyond the blue, in the realm the living, those who exist in time, may never trespass. I know that they know, but I don't know how. I've tried to approach their realm because I sense so much joy and peace over there, but the more I push toward it, the farther away it gets. I ask why I can't come see for myself and they tell me because I still exist ... in time.

"This isn't making sense, Rance."

Time is a construct of the physical realm — the elements of matter, energy and distance. Time is how we perceive the process of those elements interacting and affecting our physical existence. Those elements don't exist in the realm I speak to you from, so time doesn't exist. Tomorrow and yesterday, last year and next year, the beginning and end — they are all just the great, everlasting singularity of now.

"Rance, take me there with you. I don't want you to be alone, and I want to be where you are."

That's not possible, baby. And I am not alone. Others come here. Some stay a while and go back into time. Others pass over beyond the blue. Nobody knows how long they will be where I am, but everyone will either go back into time or pass over into the light and beyond the blue. We have no control over it. Only the Planner does. And you have to trust, honey.

"If you say trust, I will because you're all I have and if that's what it takes to hold on, even to this ... thing ... this vision or whatever it is, then I will, but you've got to do everything you can to come back to me."

Gia began to cry.

"Deal baby?"

Deal.

In that instant, Gia felt a reassuring warmth surround her, the kind of feeling she got when Rance pulled her nakedness against his as they drifted off to sleep. The bright light and the blue waters receded from her and she descended deeper into a dreamless, less troubled sleep.

●●●

By Monday, news or Rance's stabbing and his struggle for life in a New Orleans hospital was among the top, trending stories. All three broadcast networks, the cable news outlets, ESPN and a battery of reporters from newspapers as varied as the New York Times and The State in Columbia, South Carolina, were encamped near or in the lobby for regular briefings from the medical staff attending Rance. This development along with the Geno Millions horror that had befallen Gia and him in October gave the story international reach.

Rather than walk the block from the Sonesta ES Suites to the hospital entrance two or three times a day to get swarmed each occasion by the paparazzi, they had developed a pattern of entering in the morning, remaining within the hospital throughout the day and into the evening to keep watch over Rance's unconscious form when visitors were allowed.

On Monday, Gia was sitting with Rance holding his hand when her phone buzzed and the name CAROLINE AGOSTINELLI appeared on the screen. She answered on the second ring.

"Hi Caroline," she said.

"Oh my God, Gia, I was on a plane all day yesterday and just saw the news late last night after we landed. How are you holding up? What can I do to help you," she asked.

"Pray, Caroline. That's all any of us can do right now," Gia said.

"Already ahead of you,. Stopped by my parish this morning on the way to work, said six Hail Marys and lit a candle for Rance. I cried all the way here from the church," she said.

"Thank you, Caroline," Gia said. "What about the segment? Wasn't it supposed to air soon? What do you do now? Hold it? Toss it? Rewrite it? I guess it pretty substantially changes the story, huh?"

"To say the least. We thought about airing it this weekend with a reference to the stabbing in the setup, but nobody liked that idea. Seemed wholly inadequate. At a minimum, we have to re-report and recut the whole segment. But a lot of that depends on you and Rance and how things turn out over the next few days, right? So I see no realistic way we can slot this for Sunday."

"You can imagine how your colleagues are swarming this place, jamming cameras and mics in our faces every time we enter and leave the hospital," Gia said.

"I don't think of most of that swarm as colleagues or even journalists. They're filthy scavengers there to bite off a piece of your identity and feed themselves on your pain. They don't give a damn how people in circumstances like yours feel or what they're dealing with. They just want tears or anger or something visceral they can feed their voyeuristic, moron followers," Caroline said.

Gia fell silent in thought for a moment. Caroline Agostinelli worried that the call may have disconnected.

"Gia, you there?"

"Yeah, what you just said made me think. Rance and I chose '60 Minutes' and Whitaker first, then you because we wanted the story told well and responsibly and to take away the demand from the horde like those now outside this hospital. Because nobody wants to be second, right?" Gia said.

"Well, yeah. There's some validity to that," Caroline said.

"I was just wondering what it would take from me and maybe Rance's parents for your team to have what it needs to recut this story and put it on the air, maybe not this Sunday but the Sunday after?"

Caroline clearly was not expecting that response. "Uuuuh, well ... I suppose we could have a sit-down with you, maybe Rance's parents. I mean you've gone through so much already, what I would want to know is how you've found the strength to hold up through it all and still excel, graduating as Fulbright valedictorian and celebrating a Sugar Bowl only to have this happen a couple of hours later."

"Also, even if we do that, Gia — and forgive me, but this is a huge point we'd have to consider. What if we shoot new footage, recut the piece, get it ready for air and ... well, he doesn't make it?"

"I won't allow myself to think like that, Caroline. Call me back in an hour. Give me a minute to talk to Ed and Lorrie Martin to see if they're amenable to this," Gia said, her fierce resolve overcoming the instinct to dissolve in tears. "If I give up, what's to keep Rance from giving up?"

Ed and Lorrie had grown increasingly resentful of the media crush. Unlike Gia, they had been spared the spotlight during the Geno Millions horror. Now, they were in the midst of it, though they had refused to say even a word as they pushed their way through the rabble at least twice a day. They had been rendered virtual prisoners within the confines of their hotel and the hospital. But they were cool toward Gia's inquiry about going on-camera with Caroline Agostinelli and "60 Minutes" to revise the upcoming segment.

They sat around a table in the corner of the Tulane Medical Center commissary discussing the idea when Gia asked them to wait a second while she dialed Mitch Glazer's cellphone. He answered almost immediately.

"Mitch I am with Rance's mom and dad. Caroline Agostinelli called this morning to see how I was doing and said they'd be holding the segment we taped earlier, which is understandable given this. Well, long-story-short, we're being swamped here by a mass of media that dwarfs what we saw in October and we're trapped. I remembered your strategy was to defeat the press pack by picking a trusted outlet for an exclusive and you recommended '60 Minutes' and your old buddy Mr. Whitaker," she said.

"That's right. Everyone wants the scoop, and if that's gone, being second or third or ... whatever ... is not worth hanging around for," he said. "So what's going on?"