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Each one of the policemen were aiming a gun at me, and they had the serious, hardened look of men whose job was to look serious and hardened and aim guns at people. Eight of them had moustaches; the other twelve didn't but looked like they should.
'Freeze!' said one. I froze.
'Put down the gun!' said one. I put down the gun.
Four of them came up to me, guns aimed carefully, eyes like tiny stones. I let go of Josh and Alex and they slumped carefully against the wall, then, slowly, I made a finger gun; with a sudden change of pace, I brought it up swiftly and aimed it at the nearest policeman.
'Freeze!' I said. He gave a short, quick efficient burst of laughter.
'That's not a real gun,' he said.
'Prove it,' I said.
'Of course it's not a real gun!' cried one of the policemen. 'You're just making it with your hand.'
'Prove it,' I said.
'It won't shoot! You've just put two fingers together and your thumb up.'
'Prove it,' I insisted.
'The proof is self-evident, you idiot!'
'He's mad!' said Nurse Hetty. 'He's a god-damn stark-raving madman.' I turned on her and aimed the finger gun at her heart, cocking my thumb like it was a hammer. She involuntarily pulled back from it.
I turned to Dave, who had brought his own finger gun up and was aiming it at the four closest policemen. They stayed in their place warily. It was like Schrodinger's Cat. You knew it wasn't a real gun, you knew it couldn't possibly hurt you . . . but you couldn't be sure, could you? Some bizarre coincidence could have happened, the Universe could have dealt you a wild card - anything could happen, really. There was no certainty that it was or wasn't a real gun until a bullet was propelled from it. Hell, there was no certainty in the world apart from a certainty that there was none.
'Dammit,' said one policeman. 'Just walk up and arrest them.'
'Oh, and get shot?' asked one.
'What's he going to shoot you with?' cried the policeman obstreperously. 'His finger gun?'
'What else is he going to shoot me with? Of course with his finger gun!'
Me and Dave turned our finger guns on the policeman who had told the four to walk up and arrest us, and he looked at us with sudden, debilitating fear.
'Drop your guns!' said Dave, and he said it with such convinction and shrieking determination that two of the four policemen in front of us lay down their guns.
'Now give us the guns,' I said.
'Don't give them the guns,' said Ogre-Sloth. 'Then they'll have real guns.'
'They already have real guns,' pointed out a policeman.
'They don't have real guns! They're just finger guns!'
'If they didn't have real guns, then how come those two lay down their arms, huh? It's not like they'd have laid down their arms if they were just finger guns.'
'The man has a point,' said Dave.
'You only say that because he has a point,' said Nurse Hetty. 'It's not like he has a point or anything.'
'Shut your mouth or I'll shoot you,' said Dave. 'You don't make sense.'
'You can't shoot me with your hand,' said Nurse Hetty. I turned on her with my finger gun and she told me flatly to shoot her with it.
'How the fuck could I shoot you with it?' I asked. 'It's my hand, you idiot.'
Ogre-Sloth leapt on this. 'You heard him!' she said feverishly to the police officers. 'It's just his hand!'
'He's just being humble, I reckon,' said one of them. 'I reckon he could shoot any of us if he wanted to.'
'You're an idiot! You're all idiots!'
The policemen turned to Ogre-Sloth together and stared at her. She shrunk back. 'You know,' said one, 'I think that could technically be considered assault, what you just did there.'
'Arrest me,' retorted Ogre-Sloth, 'and I'll report you.'
'To who?' asked one. 'The police?'
She fell silent.
'Look,' said Dave, 'can you guys just arrest her and get this over with? I didn't call you here for nothing.'
'Sorry, sir,' said the policeman who was apparently the leader. 'We'll get her out of here as soon as possible.'
'I called you in!' said Ogre-Sloth. 'To arrest him.'
'Now you're just making things up,' said Dave.
'She's making things up,' agreed Josh groggily.
'You see?' I said. 'He's got a concussion and even he knows you're making things up.'
'You can't argue with that, lady,' said the policeman, and they promptly cuffed her, said she was a dirty son of a bitch, and took her out of the hospital, the whole troupe of burly police officers following the arresting officer and her out like ducklings.
'She was a dirty son of a bitch, anyway,' said Nurse Hetty.
'She was stark-raving mad is what she was,' said Dave.
'I wouldn't call her stark raving mad,' said Nurse Hetty. 'Just a dirty son of a bitch.'
'She was both,' I said. I picked up my gun, then lifted up Alex from her position slumped against the wall. She had fallen asleep and came to slowly. She looked around herself, apparently decided she didn't like it, and went back to sleep.
'Pick her up,' said Dave.
'You pick her up,' I said.
'You're her boyfriend, dude. Pick her up.'
'I'm not her boyfriend,' I said.
'I'll agree to that if you agree that I'm not going to pick your girlfriend up.'
'I can agree to that,' I said. I picked Alex up. She wasn't heavy, but she wasn't light either. She was a reassuring weight that reminded me no matter how retarded things had been in the past few days . . . Alex was still there. Alex was still a solid shoulder to be mutually leaned on.
Josh stumbled up and Dave slung his arm around Josh's shoulders. The four of us walked outside. The broken Suncorp Tower told me it was flickery green line past another two flickery green lines.
'Well that was stupid,' said Dave. 'Where do you want to go, now we've got no car?'
'Let's shack up in some motel somewhere,' I said. 'I mean, unless you've got any other ideas.'
'I'm up for that,' said Dave. 'You up for that, Josh?'
But Josh wasn't listening and just made a small groan and hand movement that could have either been a recitation of the dread sigil odegra or approval of the motel idea.
'I just hope there's no dead bodies in the pool,' said Dave, and both of us laughed.
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