SOLILOQUY (excerpt)

LAYING THERE ON HIS BACK STIFF AND UNMOVING no one would have known that he was expected to get up again. No one except the people who randomly visited his bedside. Bright lights overhead were turned on and off as though Jaylon would need to see anything. His eyes were taped over with gauze and surgical tape. A tube ran into his nostrils and one down his throat. Wire probes attached to his forehead and seemed to extend from every extremity and oriface except his ears. A woman in white edged toward him from down the hall, tablet in hand, talking under her breath to a man walking at her side, "He can be sent to," she glanced toward the ceiling to read metal placards with letters and numbers on them, "...he'll go to the North Wing, Level five... room 523. There should be a nurse ready to assist with transferring him to his permanent bed and finishing paperwork." The man next to her, a tall thin asian with clearcut features and dark tanned skin nodded briefly before speaking, "I will let the family know that he's a lucky man. We have pumped his stomache and are administering IV fluid to rebuild his body fluids to wash the drugs he's taken out of his system. If they'd waited minutes later, he'd be on the lower level right now, at the morgue. We could not have helped him. Now it's just a waiting game to have him want to come back this way fromthat heavy trip he's taken," Two male nurses appeared fromthe opposite end of the corridor, grasped the end of the gurney, raised the guardrails at each side and pulled him out into the long hall toward the elevators. The woman in white returned to the wide counterspace at the center of another corridor to pick up another file and clipboard. The handsome asian followed the other medical staff toward the elevator to escort Jaylon to his temporary home away from home.

Back at his family home, the second day of the family reunion went on without him. Couisins from across the country attended the forty seventh assembly of SANDERS/WITHERSPOON/JEMISON family gathering. While the preplanned tourist sights, mall and museums culled their increased incomes from the additional three hundred ninety five attending members, Jaylon lay in the hospital from an accidental overdose caused by the mixed qualude dropped into his drink and the cocaine frosting the rim of his glass. "It was a joke man... just a joke. He's always so stiff and proper acting. He just needs to relax a bit... loosen up and blend in." "All ya ha to do was give a Hennessy... on the rocks. He could slide through and out of that here at the party. He wasn't gonna be running off to work no time soon... just a regular drink coulda taken him down a notch. You didn't have to kill him!" Jimbo grappled with the idea of having killed his older brother. They were always such opposites in personality. While he took every initiative to live life to it's fullest... jitterbugging and sliding from set to set to catch the latest crowd heights at home and after reunions, his brother was forever laid back. Never had he seen his brother relax, and now this job took him into a category of what seemed to be untouchable. He'd gotten hired on as a G-man... CIA ten years after the military. Two years into the job he became scarce around family. He was in town now for the reunion only because some new family member had begged him as an escort in from his hometown in Canada. Turns out, the escort was not for him, but for his niece who had been in his home since early age at the death of her own dad. Until now she was in a "keep safe" condition, her status, family determined. With the aging of her uncle, it was time to meet the broader spectrum of family. Their's was by choice, a collective of "g men" and women, on the side of the law and politics. She had not met her escort or the most of family members, but was made mention by her uncle who had passed months before the annual reunion date. At 27, she was attending for the very first time, meeting family she had never considered knowing outside of immediate family members in and around her home in Kingston. With this sudden event, she was laid bare to the mercies of strangers... albeit, family, but strange none the less.

Jimbo approached her with his best presented caution expression, a whimsical half smile grimace that revealed broken teeth and the few others missing from his right upper dental plate, "Hey... cous, I guess that means you gonna crash with us til bro gets back up n walkin? He look like he's down for ... down for, well at least tomorrow. You can hitch a ride back with me... or." She cut him short on his tender approach at consoling her, " No... Jimbo, I got a room. I got a room at a hotel here in town. I will stay for the family event... after wll, it's why I came, why he came to bring me out here. I may as well meet everyone now. I may never get the chance again. I can get taxi and make my way back to the group for our scheduled events... right? Scheduled for tomorrow... the mix n meet, the town tour and dinner. There's a lounge at the hotel. I'm gonna sit in thee for a bit until I get my bearings for how to handle this. I was only in town for the reunion; now it may be longer. I didn't bring that much with me. I need to think this change of situation..." Another doctor entered the room, "Family? Family members and next of kin can stay for another half hour but we have to get him to another room... more permanent space. Once he's settled you... the designated responsible party, will be notified and we can take it from there. We need to get him situated, and I see thre's a not for security..? We need to address that issue. Othere than that, The rest of you will have to leave until we get that accomplished for him. Who has the mode of insurance coveage? That needs to be presented before you.. the responsible party, leaves for the day. I will stop back here within the hour with our recommendations for procedures... including "security" measures.

(excerpt)