Warning: spoilers for Caffrey Conversation stories and for White Collar episode Vested Interest.
The Vested Interest episode in season 4 sends main characters Peter and Neal to an FBI conference, where they learn about an innovative new bulletproof vest. As they foil a plot to kidnap the inventor, Neal runs into gunfire and is hit. Fortunately Neal was wearing the vest at the time, although he complains that it didn’t feel like the gentle hug the inventor had described. Afterward Neal joins Mozzie in their scheme to find out who is hunting for Sam.
That episode was a mid-season finale in September, 2012, and the season didn’t resume until January, 2013, which meant we had a lot of time to ponder the episode. I know from reading fan fiction written during the hiatus that I wasn’t the only one wondering what might have happened if that vest hadn’t worked as well as advertised. In my own daydreams, I imagined a scenario where the vest tightened too much when Neal was shot, causing bruised or broken ribs, and thus leading to a trip to a hospital. Anxious to keep his commitment to meet with Mozzie and Sam later that day, the Neal of my imagination asks a friend who’s roughly his age and size to come to the hospital. This friend brings a dark suit and fedora, matching Neal's signature look. Then they lead Peter on a merry chase through the hospital. Using their cell phones, Neal and his accomplice keep each other updated and strategize their next moves so that Neal can sneak out of the hospital. Peter thinks he’s cornered Neal on the roof of the building, only to realize it isn’t Neal at all. Of course he’s curious to know who this imposter is, and how he and Neal have gotten to be so good at this game.
In this version of the Hospital Game, Neal’s motivation to escape the hospital is an obligation to be someplace else. It wasn't an obligation he could explain to his colleagues, because he didn’t want Peter to know what he had planned. His options were to lie or to sneak out.
That original daydream of a missing scene for Vested Interest then expanded into the classic fan fiction theme of hurt/comfort. I imagined scenarios where a hospitalized Neal wanted out of his room, leading to someone else finding him and making sure he was taken care of. In these cases I was thinking of Neal’s playful nature and intelligence. Confined to a hospital bed, he’d quickly become bored and want to explore, testing his ability to escape and to elude people. The opportunities for drama and humor were appealing; lost and loopy Neal, anyone? Sometimes I imagined Neal doing this as a child.
In fact, after I posted Caffrey Conversation and before I decided to continue the series, I started writing a story called Hide and Seek. My plan was to use the canon element of Peter damaging his rotator cuff in his minor league baseball career, setting his injury at a game in St. Louis. Suppose he goes to a hospital after the game to be diagnosed, and a small, laughing boy with a fresh cast on his arm runs into his room. At the same time Peter hears announcements over the PA system requesting help looking for a missing child. If I ever get around to finishing that story, it will feature a big-brother relationship between Peter and Neal, with instances of Neal hiding and Peter finding him over the years - in hospitals and other locations. At first Neal’s motivation to hide in the hospital is simply playing a game, but in later scenes he'll be in fear for his life.
That brings us to a revelation that popped into my mind as I wrote a scene between Neal and Henry in Caffrey Flashback. In the scene, Neal realizes he started playing the Hospital Game out of fear that his kidnapper would find him again if he didn’t hide. On later hospital visits he transformed it into a game for fun, forgetting its origins.
And now we’ve reached my own personal roots for the Hospital Game. A few weeks before Vested Interest aired, I accompanied my mother to the hospital for her mastectomy. We were told we had to be there by 6am, and after we checked in we were shown to a small, dark room where Mom donned a hospital gown. Then we sat in that room and waited, and waited. The area around us was so quiet it seemed deserted, and I wondered if we’d been forgotten. It was two hours later that someone finally came to take Mom’s blood pressure, and another hour after that before she was finally taken into surgery.
During that time, it became abundantly clear that I share Neal’s flight instinct. If I'd been in Mom’s place, I might have bolted before those three hours of waiting were up. Being alone with my thoughts so long in that dark, oppressive place while pondering the risks of surgery would have had me in a state of panic; being together and having a conversation helped both of us stay calm. However, I did find during Mom’s surgery (and again a year later when a family member spent a few days in the ER and ICU), that simply getting up and walking around helped. When the situation seemed overwhelming and I felt helpless, escaping to the airy waiting room or bustling cafeteria or toy-filled gift shop provided a sense of relief. I wasn’t aware of it when I invented the Hospital Game, but I was certainly motivated by my own desire to seek out happier spaces when I was visiting a hospital. Those spaces helped lift my spirits, so that I could be positive and cheerful for the people I was visiting.
Therefore when Neal plays the Hospital Game, he's reflecting my own need for cheer and hope when faced with boredom or fear.
As an author, I'm flattered that Silbrith has picked up the Hospital Game as an element in her stories, too. In fact, we'll see another reference to the game in an upcoming chapter of Raphael's Dragon, to be posted in a few weeks.
Intro to the Hospital Game in By the Book
Variation on the Hospital Game in Flashback
Intro to the Hospital Game in By the Book
Variation on the Hospital Game in Flashback
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