idioms...saying understood by native speakers part forty two

Larry lay in his bed watching the nurse wheel in Miguel. The kid looked so young, he thought as she lifted him from the chair to the bed using a strange machine with two arms and a sling that went under his shoulders. His knees were made to rest on a strange cushioned bar with his feet on a platform. He came to a standing position and then she unlocked the thing and moved him to the bed, slowly placing him into a sitting position. She called to a co worker who supported his back. She then removed the sling and the device and rolled it out of the way. He used his arms to move a little further back into the bed. The nurse then grabbed his legs and laid them in the bed, while the other coworker pushed his top half around so he was laying in bed.

"Remember, Miguel. You have to turn your self every two hours." She set the alarm on a clock beside his bed. "You don't want bed sores."

"Nurse? Do..do people like me have kidney problems?"

"Miguel. You are a low quadriplegic. You do have some use of your arms. I expect you to use them."

"But, nurse, you did not answer my question?"

"Well what did the doctor say?"

"He said that one of my kidneys has stopped functioning.... I might need to have an operation to remove it."

The nurse looked a little confused by that response. Her co worker spoke up.

"Miguel, you are confusing her. She is a new hire. Come on, Stacy, we have others to attend to."

Stacy looked at the boy who was staring at her, pleading for information.

"Tell you what, Miguel... I will talk to your doctor and see what is going on. Okay?" She gave him a reassuring pat on his shoulder. "Let me cover you up, you can get cold easily and not know it."

She left the room.

---

Carl sat in the driver's seat of his SUV. He stared at the big cold beautiful mansion for a full minute.

Jenny cleared her throat. "Carl?" She reached out and touched his arm. "Are you all right?"

"Sure." he said in a quiet voice, then murmured, "Why is everyone so concerned if I am all right today?"

"Because, silly, you are important to me."

Carl broke out of his thoughts and looked at the girl. "What did you just say?"

"Come on we have to go and pick up my car at Lynn's house and it is almost seven thirty. Did you forget that you have to work to day?"

"Jenny, let's get married."

"What?"

"I like you. I think you like me."

"As if."

"What?"

"Carl, you are just overreacting to what happened. Do you think if I marry a Matthews, the family will stop harassing me?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But at least they will keep the police away."

"You think?" She paused. "Are you that naive? Do you want to be disowned?"

"I can live without the Matthews money. Can you?"

"You are talking to a girl who has lost a substantial amount of income to those people."

"We can leave here. Make a new start."

"You're right, Carl. But if I haven't learned anything in twenty eight years, I have learned the past will catch up to you if you ignore it. Or do you think I am going to counseling with your friend for the fun of it. I can trust that you won't beat me. It frightens me more at the thought that I could become an abuser... "

Carl sighed, "As if."

Jenny gave him a slight punch in the shoulder. "It is going to be all right."

Carl turned and looked at her. He took her fist and opened it, then placed her hand to his bruised face. "You know, I had very dark thoughts when I saw that SOB frisking you."

Jenny looked at the serious face of her... what should I call you? she thought. Soul mate was the only thing that entered her mind. She sighed, "Carl, I am glad you kept a cool head. And I am grateful for those handcuffs in a way. When I saw him pull his gun on you, I wanted to punch him so hard, that Rick's railing would have been nothing more than child's play."

---

Scott looked over the information that the Hudson brothers had collected. He frowned. "All of this is just circumstantial evidence. Do you think that hacker would press charges? How is he owned by the Matthews?"

"He started to work for Mildred and Oscar Johanson last year. Mildred is the youngest of the Matthews family. His mom worked in the kitchen of the main house for years. One day, ChuckE went home and found his mother in a catatonic state. She has been an inpatient at the local hospital for almost a year now. Being a private hospital, it costs a lot of money. Apparently someone is paying the bills for him as long as he cooperates. It is all innuendo and subtle. Hints like you can live with only one kidney, or some bone marrow or part of a liver or lung. Right now he is earning his way by keeping an eye on Mildred and Oscar. Our boy is smart. He wouldn't say much to us except that we needed to look at the town."

"And the hack job on the print shop?"

"Just one of the many services, he was expected to provide."

"Fine. Okay." Scott looked at the two detectives. A lot of time had passed since the last time they had been forced to work together to bring a local politician down. That time almost cost the Hudsons their business and him, his job.

"We need to find the bodies. Exhume them and perform autopseys to see if they are missing any organs. Then we need to see if the state organ procurement association has any record of their donation."

"Organ procurement association?"

"Every state has one. They are regulated and mandated. They have to be above board and they are the only ones with the legal power that can perform organ procurement. If the organs are missing, and they did not do it, then we need to figure out what happened to the missing organs."

"Maybe we can just look up on existing autopsy reports." Deshaun remembered something. He hit the keys on his computer. "I pulled this information for a friend of ours on a guy who committed suicide some ten years ago." He scanned over the report and then said, "Check this out. We may not have to exhume any bodies."

"Deshaun."

"What, brother?" He looked over at his twin, who was turning a little grey.

"Remember? Remember when we had to plan mom's funeral?"

"Why are you thinking of that now, De?"

"The funeral home kept pushing cremation. The price, keeping the ashes, everything...remember?"

"Yeah, we had to almost force them to give a plot to bury her in."

Scott threw down his glasses on the table. He rubbed his tired eyes.

"Deshaun, let me use your computer." He typed in cremation percentage for the nation. Then he typed in highest percentage of cremation across the US. He leaned back in his chair. "Well, that cuts it."

Deshaun and Dejuan looked at the stats. "How can we be number one?"

---

Lynn saw Charlie standing at the door holding his teddy bear.

"Charlie? Come here, it is all better now." holding her hand up to him to show him the bandage. "Oh, you found your teddy bear."

He came forward with a troubled look on his face.

"What, buddy? Are you okay?" Rick asked quickly. He watched the face of the man scrunched up as if trying to understand something.

Charlie came over to his Li Li. "How come? How come that Chair Man wants Li LI to be nice to him?"

Lynn's eyes flew open wide. "Er, um."

"Charlie. he likes Li Li but she does not like him." Rick spoke very carefully.

"Oh, so he wants Li Li to kiss him?"

Lynn gasped a little.

"Sort of. But no one has that right if the other person does not want to. Do you understand?"

"The bullies wanted me to eat dirt." Charlie thought and thought. "Charlie did not want to."

"That's right. The Chair Man wanted to..." he paused, again trying to think up words.

"But Li Li doesn't want to kiss the Chair Man. She only wants to kiss Charlie and Wick."

Rick simply nodded. Then said, "Oh, you found your Teddy Bear. Are you ready to go to work now?"

"Sure. Um, but, Li Li, this is for you. It will make you feel better."

Lynn teared up a little. This morning really was almost too much and now... she sniffed, took a deep breath and sighed. "Yeah, buddy. I think I really need to hug your bear for a while. Is that okay?"

"Yep." He smiled. "Don't worry, Li LI. Charlie won't leave your side if Chair Man is around." As he came over to hand her a bear, she stood up suddenly and pulled him into a hug.

"I love my brother." and kissed him on the cheek. "No matter what, though. You will listen to me when it comes to...." she smiled thinking of Cherry Man. "that guy, that Chair Man. Okay?"

"Yep. Li Li is smart. Wick is smart."

Rick stood up. "Charlie is smart in his own way, too." He grabbed the keys off the table. "Come on, daylight... I mean we gotta go."

---

Jenny got out to get in her car. Carl got out all of a sudden and ran up to her.

"Jenny, wait."

As she turned he gathered her up and held her.

"Listen, I am serious. About everything. You understand that? Right?" He whispered to her.

"I know, bucko."

He pulled away. "You know about my brother right?"

"A little why?"

"The only word he ever said was that. He only used it when I was in the room with him." He paused.

"Jenny, life is cruel and short. I don't want to lose you, too."

Jenny reached up and ran her fingers through those long unruly bangs of his. "I think you need a hair cut."

"What?"

She grabbed his tie and straightened it. "I don't know what to say right now. Everything seems so hard. But," she squared her shoulders and stepped away from him. "If Mr. Nice Guy is serious, then he will have to ask permission of my family." she paused. "Come with me today to the rehab center where Larry and Joey are and ask my menfolk permission." She laughed, and said, "And then, you need to ask Lynn and Charlie."

"What? Is that all?" he smiled. "Sure, no problem. Um, I might be able to get off of work when Lynn and Charlie are ready to leave... will that work?"

"Yeah. Oh, by the way, Lynn called me. Apparently your Uncle attempted to hold her hand."

"What?"

"Yeah. Charlie made that guy kiss the ground, so to speak. So when you ask him, you had better be on your best behavior."

"Ah, er, Okay." He then took her hand and placed his car keys in them. "We are trading cars. They are looking for a little red Honda, you know. Of course, I pray that there is no little old lady with platinum blond hair who owns one around here, but who knows."

Jenny looked at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Meet me at the warehouse at noon. Here is the address." He grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from his notebook. "See you then." He grabbed her and planted a quick kiss. "Bye." As he opened her car door, he hopped in the driver's seat and almost took off his head when he climbed in.

Jenny shook her head and laughed all the way to the SUV. She hopped in and could not reach the pedals. She giggled as she adjusted the seat, she headed off towards Sal's office. She couldn't stop smiling.

to be continued.