going to the hospital.
Cause you’re a hero, says Fox.
Indeed, says Strabo. A veritable Hercules or Adonis.
The paramedics strap him on a gurney and are ready to wheel him into the ambulance when another cop comes up, one who doesn’t look like anybody.
Jesus, Petey, is that you?
You know him? asks Cosby.
Yeah. I do security shifts at the clinic downtown. He used to be a regular. Remember me, Petey? Officer Lazenby.
He shakes his head.
You went off your meds, didn’t you, pal?
Had to. My friends didn’t like them.
What friends?
Fox and Strabo.
They aren’t your friends, pal. They’re just voices in your head. You don’t have any friends.
Thanks a lot.
I didn’t mean it like that, says Lazenby. Oh, Jesus.
Should we notify anybody? asks the ambulance guy.
About what?
Tell ’em you’ll be in the hospital.
No. There’s nobody.
What about your ex-wife? asks Cosby.
Ex-wife, Lazenby repeats.
He said her name was Abby.
Jesus. Lazenby shakes his head. Abby wasn’t his wife. She was just a nice barista who used to sneak free coffee to the homeless people. When she quit and moved away, Petey went on a one-man WTO against Starbucks. He got locked up for a while for throwing rocks through their windows. Didn’t you, pal?
They took her away from me.
Lazenby pats his arm, the one that isn’t cut. It’s gonna be okay, pal. The drugs keep improving. You just listen to the docs and pretty soon you’ll be back in the real world.
What else’ve you got? asks Petey.
PART II.
BLUE SUNDAYBY KATHLEEN ALCALA
It was a blue night, a blue car, and Danny was full of shots of blue tequila.
“Slow down, man. Aren’t you going too fast?”
“Can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.”
“Shit, man, I thought I was the crazy one. Just get me back to my old lady in one piece.”
“No problem, bro. How’s she doing, anyway?”
“Good. She’s happy to see me alive.”
Chucho gunned it to make a light. That’s when a cop car came out of the parking lot and the sirens started.
When Danny came to, he was lying on the ground.
“Get up… I said get up!”
A foot prodded him.
“Okay, okay,” said Danny.
Danny was on his back. He slowly rolled over and got to his hands and knees. Chucho’s car was nearby, the passenger door open next to Danny. He vaguely recalled Chucho’s nervous laughter as they had careened past the fancy new condos on 23rd, past Garfield and the fire station to Jackson. The Seven Star Mini Mart was still open. Chucho made a bat turn left onto MLK in front of half a dozen cars and flew past the playground to Cherry.
Danny wondered where his cell phone had gone. The last he remembered was Catfish Corner.
“Get up!” the policeman shouted again.
“Okay, I’m getting up now,” said Danny as he began to rise. “I’m going to get up.”
The policeman fired three shots into him.
“Shut the fuck up!” the cop shouted. “Shut the fuck up!”
Dying had seemed easy in Iraq-people did it every day. And when people were not dying in front of you, your buddies, the cooks, the officers, or the civilians who brought in supplies, they were telling you stories about people dying. About how they died, how long it took them, and what it looked like afterwards. Who killed them, or who might have killed them.
There was no death with dignity, only death. Danny spent most of his free time pretending he was someplace else. He plugged his iPod into his head, turned on some tunes, and tried to think about Aimee and the kid they were expecting early next year. Would it be a boy or a girl? It was too soon to tell, but when he went home on leave, they would visit the doctor, and maybe have an ultrasound done. Danny was ready to think about a little life-a little life after Iraq, if that was possible.
The next thing that woke Danny was sirens. A lot of them.
I ain’t dead yet, he thought. A collar was clamped around his neck, and he was rolled onto a stretcher. “Hustle! Hustle! Hustle!” yelled a woman. “I need an IV here, as soon as he’s in!”
Some more jostling, then a sharp pain in his arm.
“Go!” screamed another voice.
The ambulance, because he must be in an ambulance, started up, the siren more muted from inside, and they flew. It reminded him of the cab to the airport in Iraq, but with fewer potholes. He wondered if Chucho was okay.
Danny wakes in a bright, noisy room. People keep leaning over him and yelling in his face.
“I’m not deaf, you know,” he finally says.
“Oh good, he’s conscious. We thought we were losing you there,” a male voice barks at Danny. “Just keep talking to us.”
Danny is in a curtained-off area, and he can hear people near him yelling. Triage.
“Uh, what do you want me to say?”
A bright light is shined in one eye, then the other. “No concussion. Let’s give him some fluids… Are you in pain?” the man asks in that voice you use for the deaf, elderly, and foreign born. Danny recognizes it as the way he spoke to the Iraqis, as though it would somehow bridge the gap between his English and their understanding.
Danny has to think about this. “Actually, I’m kind of numb on one side.”
“Not good,” says the man.
Danny decides to pretend this man is a doctor.
“Can you feel this?… This?” The doctor pricks him with a pencil tip from his shoulder down his right side.
“It’s my arm. I can’t feel my arm,” says Danny. Damn, he thinks. Back from Iraq just in time to die in Harborview. The room grows dark again.
Danny could say “stop” and “open” in Arabic. And, of course,
