My eyes open. I’m drenched in cold sweat. Giant leather belts cinch my ankles to a bed.

 

I shift and sit up just as a young female enters the room. She’s dressed in white from head to toe, pushing a silver trolley with squeaky wheels.

 

“How are you feeling, Mr. Bloggs?” she asks.

 

“Who are you? Where am I?”

 

“I’m Nurse Helen,” she replies, stopping the tray cart. “You’re in the hospital, sugar. Remember?”

 

“No. My brain feels… fuzzy.”

 

“That’s alright,” she says. “Didn’t expect you would.”

 

“What am I doing here?”

 

A voice calls out from behind the lady in white: “Hello again, Mr. Bloggs.”

 

A second nurse strides in, wearing navy blue and sporting a pair of thick Buddy Holly-style horn-rimmed spectacles. “Pupils finally look normal,” she says, her lined face only inches from mine.

 

“Nice frames,” I manage.

 

Her posture straightens. “I’m Una, the head nurse,” she says. “Is there anything you need today, Mr. Bloggs?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I could have Nurse Helen sneak in some cigarettes, perhaps. Are you a Chesterfield man?”

 

“Since when did they bring back smoking in hospitals? And where are all the beeps and wires?”

 

“The orderlies found a pack of Newports in your jacket when you arrived, Mr. Bloggs,” she says. “Never seen that brand.”

 

“Why do you keep calling me Bloggs?”

 

“When you came in, you said your name was Joe Bloggs.”

 

“I said that?”

 

“Your memory will take some time to fully come back,” she says. “Especially after what you’ve been through.”

 

“What I’ve been through?”

 

She adjusts her glasses further up the bridge of her long nose. “Don’t trouble yourself. A lot of men came back from the War missing more limbs than you, and they’ve made good in the years since.”

 

“War? What war?”

 

Nurse Una lifts my right arm from under the blanket. Where my hand used to be is a fingerless stump bound in gauze. The webbed haze over my memory tears free. I remember who I am.

 

The jump-module that was in my hand is gone.

 

So is my only way home.

 

I did this to myself.

 

A pinch bites my arm. I flinch too late.

 

Una slides a syringe into her apron pocket. "Time to rest,” she says.

 

“Hold on — did you just stick me with something?”

 

She turns away. “Good night, Mr. Bloggs.”

 

My vision begins to shrink.

 

“That’s... not my name...”

 

* * *

 

The lady in white is seated at the bedside, holding my right forearm with both hands.

 

“Good morning.” She smiles.

 

She rotates my arm, then begins unravelling the bandage, starting at the wrist. A shiver runs across the base of my spine, up my back, and then across my arms.

 

“Jesus H. Christ!”

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, nose crinkling. “But you really shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” She pulls loose the last of my wound’s dressing. “Oh, that’s better — it’s not looking nearly as angry today.”

 

“I'm feeling like Luke Skywalker,” I say, staring at the soft mound of red flesh.

 

She dips a new strip of dressing in a dark liquid. “This proflavine may sting a little, sweetie.”

 

“Smells like shit.”

 

“The odour’s coming from your wrist, I’m afraid.”

 

She finishes taping the dressing down, then uses a dry washcloth to dab the sweat from my forehead. “I’ve never gotten used to Florida summers either,” she says.

 

“You said we're in Florida?”

 

“Miami, Florida, to be exact,” she replies. “But we’ve talked about this before, Mr. Bloggs.”

 

“Look — I’m not Joe Bloggs, okay? My name's Dax. Daxton Faerwald.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Daxton," she says, smiling gorgeously from ear to ear. "I'm glad to see your head's clearing."

 

“Has anyone ever told you that you kinda look like—”

 

“Rita Hayworth?” she says, standing. “Boy, if I had a five-spot for every drugstore cowboy who threw that line at me.”

 

“Actually, I’d say you’re more of a... ‘Kim Basinger.’”

 

“Who’s that?” she asks vacantly, washing her hands in a sink mounted to the wall by the door.

 

“She was Vicki Vale. In Batman.”

 

“The Batman and Robin serials?”

 

I shake my head. “No — the Tim Burton film.”

 

“Honey, I haven’t been to a flick in months,” she replies, turning toward me with a pout. “Last thing I saw was Father of the Bride.” She dries her hands, then points to a white enamel jar lying on the bed between my legs. “Are you feeling well enough to use that on your own? I’ve got to scoot for a bit.”

 

“You... literally brought me a pot to piss in?”

 

“There’s no john in here, sugar,” she says, winking, hands on her hips.

 

“This place is severely underfunded,” I mutter.

 

Nurse Helen moves out of sight into the hall, and the clack of her heels fades quickly. Atop the cart near the bedside sits a folded newspaper and a bowl of something giving off steam. I tip it back and drink half of it in one go. Chicken broth.

 

I wipe my mouth with my left hand. The newspaper’s front-page headline catches my attention: NEWSMEN ARE ATTACKED AT REORGANIZATION OF KKK.

 

Below the headline is a grainy photograph of police breaking up a Klan meeting. Lower down, in smaller print: MIAMI SHORES COP ONE OF THE MOB MEMBERS.

 

The tiny printed date in the banner sets a lump the size of a fist in the back of my throat. According to this hot-off-the-press copy of the Miami Daily News, the date is May 18, 1950.

 

My father is supposed to be born in a Miami hospital today.

 

If he doesn’t draw his first breath, neither do I.