💾 Archived View for hankprince.smol.pub › 4_hospital captured on 2022-06-11 at 21:53:27. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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B2B4

"Doctor West. The patient's awake."

Ronald's vision was a blur. The lights were bright, and he could feel tubes in his arm. He hadn't been in a hospital in years. His back felt soft and clean, too. No squeaking of rodents, no buzzing of insects, no cars rushing by... How much money was this going to cost?

"Ahdonedyerchrty." That was strange. Ronald had tried to let them know that he didn't need their charity, but the words were all mixed together, a slurry of language.

"Please don't exert yourself, Mister Freeweeber. You have just awakened from a coma."

"Mizzerfreeweeb'r'smuhpaw. Name'sRawnaldbuhyekencallmeRawknee."

"Your cognitive and motor functions will be restored in time, Ronnie. Just rest for now."

Ronald's eyelids felt heavy, and his head sank into the pillow. He felt clean for the first time in years.

---

After a week of bed rest, Ronald had a visitor. It was a man he hoped he would never see again: his father, Ike Freeweeber.

"The folks here tell me that you're my long-lost son."

Ronald hadn't heard his father's voice in years. Barely above a whisper yet deep like a cavern, memories long buried by years of shame and abuse floated to the surface. Freeweeber family dinners. Ronald's wedding. Birthday parties at Coney Island. Ronald's graduation from NYU...

"If you're really my son, tell me something only he would know. I just... I take one look at the man lying on the bed before me -- face sunken in, scraggly beard, missing teeth. It's hard for me to connect the boy I raised with the man before me now."

Ronald spoke slowly and carefully.

“The legend, as it was told to me by grampy Delano Freeweeber, is that the patriarch of the Freeweeber family, George Freeweeber, found passage on the Mayflower by promising to labor for ten years."

Ike's breathing stopped for a moment. Ronald, who could feel his own heart beating faster and faster, continued.

"I learned later at Douglas MacArthur Middle School that this was called ‘indentured servitude’. George Freeweeber found a way out of his contract by joining Continental Marines against the Redcoats. The Freeweeber family has always had one hand on the sword since then. George Freeweeber was one of the guards standing outside Independence Hall on August 2nd, 1776. The place and time the Declaration of Independence was signed. He met a seamstress named Martha and wooed her with the tales of his revolutionary exploits. The first family of America, George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, was so mirrored in George and Martha Freeweeber. The two decided that all children born from Freeweeber loins would henceforth be named after the First Family in the White House.”

The story, long buried beneath years of shame and misery, came out, word by word, tale by tale, Freeweeber by Freeweeber. James Freeweeber and his attempt at defending the White House in 1812. Zachary Freeweeber and his twin brother Millard Freeweeber, caught on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Grover Freeweeber standing next to the mountain of corpses in the Spanish-American War that the future President, Theodore Roosevelt, also stood next to.

Andrew Freeweeber, the first of the family to learn how to read. Ted Freeweeber, the first in the family to establish the Freeweeber Trading Company, which flourishes to this day and was recently acquired by Valvazon. Calvin Freeweeber, the first to graduate from West Point.

Ike, astonished by Ronald's recall of the family legend, no longer held any doubt that the man before him was his own flesh and blood. “Son! It really is you! How could a child of the Freeweeber family end up in such a state?”

Ronald’s eyes burned and his face felt wet. His eyes, previously too ashamed to look his father in the eye, could turn themselves towards him now, with bleary and painful vision. His father’s arms crushed his shoulders together and squeezed hard.

“Dad, I can talk about it later. Right now, I’m just happy to be here.” His words came out in between shuddering sobs.

“We thought you’d disappeared after 9/11.”

“Oh, sometimes I wish I did!”

“Don’t say that, son!”

“Nancy and Hilly, sometimes I still think about them. When I’ve got the Henny in my belly, I see them in heaven, winged, forgiving me of my sins, shame and cowardice. But when I don’t feel so good, when I’m sniffing aerosols or sipping on rubbing alcohol, I can see their final moments on Earth. Crushed under all that rubble. Trying to breathe, but only inhaling dust — their instincts for survival betraying them.”

“We all lost something that day, Ronnie.” Ike Freeweeber paused. “The nation ain’t been the same since. I’ve lost so many grandchildren to the wars that ensued after that day, and I remember all their names. All the times I bounced ‘em on my knee.” Ike folds his hands and begins murmuring. Ronald does the same.

“Heavenly Father, my wayward son and I are rejoined once again.” Ike takes a deep breath in between each sentence. “You’ve led him back to us after he was rudderless in this world.” Ronald takes a deep breath with Ike. “We’re all like him. Directionless and confused as calamities fall upon us, one after another. Freeweebers are misled into lives of sinfulness by the Internet. Freeweebers are forced out of their homes by floods and fires.” Ronald’s eyes begin drying up. “But your blessing of prosperity endures. As it says in your word, in the Book of Matthew, Chapter 18, the man who owns a hundred sheep is happy to find the one which strayed away.”

Ronald’s face was out of tears. His eyes were shut. For the first time in years, he felt a sense of relief. His feet still hurt, but his heart was healing.