In the Night of the Heat by Blair Underwood Page A

fascinated by the sight of his face shaking, the skin quivering from his jaw. Dad had looked that way in his hospital room.
    BOOM-BOOM BOOM-BOOM BOOM-BOOM.
    I thought the sensation shaking the floor was an earthquake, but it was my heart. My wondering eyes made the life snap back into Perry’s haunted face, and his lips started moving. I couldn’t hear him, but his lips mouthed in eerie slo mo, clear as day:
    Somebody get a fucking doctor.

SEVEN
    TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21
    â€œMessed yourself up good this time, huh, Ten?”
    I didn’t need both ears to tell me what Reggie had said. Reggie, my doctor, has always been a smart-ass. He’s my second cousin from a family intersection on my mother’s side, and he used to treat me cheap. Now he was on staff at UCLA Medical School and working for the Lakers, so it’s almost as hard to get a meeting with Reggie as it is with my agent. But this was an emergency, and Reggie is the only doctor I trust. Besides, he’s family.
    â€œLooks that way,” I said.
    Reggie leaned closer, shining his otoscope into my ear, and I sat rock steady. I didn’t want Reggie to miss anything. Reggie’s proximity made the roar of silence deafening.
    Dad and Marcela watched from a corner of Reggie’s office, and the worry in Dad’s eyes was for me, for a change. I tried not to let myself see it. I was worried enough for all of us.
    â€œHow’d this happen?” Reggie’s voice sounded like it was at the end of a long tunnel.
    â€œSome asshole put blanks in a prop gun that was supposed to be empty. Got fired right up against my neck. That’s where that burn’s from. And now my head rings like hell, and I can’t hear shit out of that ear.”
    I used to quiz myself when I was a kid—which would you rather lose, your hearing or your sight? That’s a no-brainer. Hearing, hands down. Now that one of my ears had stopped working—and the other seemed anything but reliable—it felt like God had taken me up on my bargain.
    I felt Reggie’s sigh against my cheek. “Lucky you didn’t get killed, man.”
    â€œYou think I don’t know?”
    â€œ(Schibhiwkh).”
    I shook my head, and Reggie pulled the little cone-shaped black light out. Usually, I could hear at least faintly out of my right ear, but sometimes words were lost. Instead, there was only the ringing, like three loud bells tolling at once.
    â€œThere’s ringing. And I couldn’t make out the last thing you said.”
    â€œHold still, Ten. Relax. You’re gonna be fine.”
    â€œYou hope,” I corrected.
    â€œYeah. I hope.” Unfortunately, I heard that part fine.
    I wish Reggie had been older than two and out of diapers when my mother needed honesty from her doctor. Or that he’d been in the country when Dad had his heart attack. After Dad’s stroke, Reggie got me through the worst moments by being willing to pick up his phone any time of the day or night. I never ran out of questions. Reggie is the finest doctor there is.
    â€œHold still,” Reggie said again, gently. In my good ear, my right one.
    Marcela said something encouraging, but I couldn’t make it out.
    I shared a house with a man in a wheelchair, so I knew that life goes on after a disability. As long as I could work, I could handle hearing loss. I could manage a lifelong struggle to enjoy music again—even though so far, my jazz, blues, and funk collection was only a painful exercise in frustration. It didn’t sound the same. Too much was missing. Still, I’d be all right with that.
    But I couldn’t handle the ringing.
    They say Beethoven heard ringing while he was going deaf. And an artist, Goya, whose paintings I saw when I visited the Prado museum in Madrid with Alice during one of our vacations together. They say that the ringing in their ears drove both of them crazy. The madness in Goya’s work is hidden in plain