11 Grounded
Dinner at Louis Retaillou’s Bon Appetit was delightful. The restaurant took up the ground floor of an old Victorian house. The family, who all played a role in preparing and presenting the meal, lived upstairs. It was Thursday, a quiet night with only a few of the inlaid wooden tables filled, and Louis came out to talk to Bledsoe, who was a frequent guest. I had the best duckling I’ve ever eaten and we shared a respectable St. Estephe.
Bledsoe turned out to be an entertaining companion. Over champagne cocktails we became “Martin” and “Vic.” He regaled me with shipping stories, while I tried to pry discreetly into his past. I told him a bit about my childhood on Chicago’s South Side and some of Boom Boom’s and my adventures. He countered with stories of life on Cleveland’s waterfront. I talked about being an undergraduate during the turbulent Vietnam years and asked him about his education. He’d gone straight to work out of high school. With Grafalk Steamship? Yes, with Grafalk Steamship-which reminded him of the first time he’d been on a laker when a big storm came up. And so on.
It was ten-thirty when Bledsoe dropped me back at the
“Good thing you have a patrol on the boat-anyone could get past this fellow,” I commented.
Bledsoe nodded in agreement, his square face in shadow. “Ship,” he said absently. “A boat is something you haul aboard a ship.”
He walked over with me to my car-he was going back on board the
“Thanks for introducing me to a great new restaurant, Martin. I enjoyed it. Next time I’ll take you to an out-of- the-way Italian place on the West Side.”
“Thanks, Vic. I’d like to do that.” He squeezed my hand in the dark, started toward the ship, then leaned back into the car and kissed me. It was a good kiss, firm and not sloppy, and I gave it the attention it deserved. He mumbled something about calling when he got back to town and left.
I backed the Lynx out of the yard and onto 130th Street. Few cars were out and I had an easy time back to I- 94. The traffic there was heavier but flowing smoothly-trailer trucks moving their loads at seventy miles an hour under cover of darkness, and the restless flow of people always out on nameless errands in a great city.
The night was clear, as the forecast had promised Bemis, but the air was unseasonably cool. I kept the car windows rolled up as I drove north, passing slag heaps and mobile homes huddled together under the shadow of expressway and steel mills. At 103rd Street the highway merged with the Dan Ryan. I was back in the city now, the Dan Ryan el on my left and a steep grassy bank on my right. Perched on top were tiny bungalows and liquor stores. A peaceful urban sight, but not a place to stop in the middle of the night. A lot of unwary tourists have been mugged close to the Dan Ryan.
I was nearing the University of Chicago exit when I heard a tearing in the engine, a noise like a giant can opener peeling a strip off the engine block. I slammed on the brakes. The car didn’t slow. The brakes didn’t respond. I pushed again. Still nothing. The brakes had failed. I turned the wheel to move toward the exit. It spun loose in my hand. No steering. No brakes. In the rearview mirror I could see the lights of a semi bearing down on me. Another truck was boxing me in on the right.
Sweat came out on my forehead and the bottom fell out of my stomach. I pumped gently on the brakes and felt a little response. Gently, gently. Switched on the hazard indicator, put the car in neutral, leaned on the horn. The Lynx was veering to the right and I couldn’t stop it. I held my breath. The truck to my right pulled out of my way but the one behind me was moving fast and blaring on his horn.
“Goddamn you, move!” I screamed at him. My speedometer needle had inched down to thirty; he was going at least seventy. I was still sliding toward the right lane.
At the last second the semi behind me swerved to the left. I heard a horrible shattering of glass and metal on metal. A car spun into the lane in front of me.
I pumped the brakes but there was nothing left in them. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t do anything. In the last seconds as the car in front of me flipped over I hunched down and crossed my hands in front of my face.
Metal on metal. Wrenching jolts. Glass shattering on the street. A violent blow on my shoulder, a pool of wet warmth on my arm. Light and noise shattered inside my head and then quiet.
My head ached. My eyes would hurt terribly if I opened them. I had the measles. That was what Mama said. I would be well soon. I tried calling her name; a gurgling sound came out and her hand was on my wrist, dry and cool.
“She’s stirring.”
Not Gabriella’s voice. Of course, she was dead. If she was dead I couldn’t be eight and sick with the measles. It hurt my head to think.
“The steering,” I croaked, and forced my eyes open.
A blur of white figures hovered over me. The light stabbed my eyes. I shut them.
“Turn off the overhead lights.” That was a woman’s voice. I knew it and struggled to open my eyes again.
“Lotty?”
She leaned over me. “So,
“What happened?” I could hardly talk; the words choked in my throat.
“Soon I’ll tell you. Now I want you to sleep. You are in Billings Hospital.
The University of Chicago. I felt a small sting in my side and slept.
When I woke up again the room was empty. The pain in my head was still there but small and manageable. I tried to sit up. As I moved, the pain swept over me full force. I felt vilely ill and lay back down, panting. After an interval I opened my eyes again. My left arm was attached to the ceiling by a pulley. I stared at it dreamily. I moved my right fingers up the arm, encountering thick tape, then a cast. I poked the shoulder around the edges of the cast and gave a cry of unanticipated pain. My shoulder was either dislocated or broken.
What had I done to my shoulder? I frowned in concentration, making my headache worse. But I remembered. My car. The brakes failing. A sedan turning over in front of me? Yes. I couldn’t remember the rest. I must have plowed right into it, though. Lucky to have my shoulder belt on. Could anyone in the sedan have lived through that?
I started feeling very angry. I needed to see the police. I needed to talk to everyone. Phillips, Bledsoe, Bemis, the guard at the Tri-State elevator.
A nurse came crisply into the room. “Oh, you’re awake now. That’s good. We’ll take your temperature.”
“I don’t want my temperature taken. I want to see the police.”
She smiled brightly and ignored me. “Just stick this under your tongue.” She was poking a plastic-wrapped thermometer into my mouth.
My fury was mounting, fueled by the helplessness of lying there attached to the ceiling while being ignored.
“I can tell you what my temperature is: it’s rising by the second. Will you kindly get someone to call the police for me?”
“Now let’s calm down. You don’t want to get excited: you’ve had some concussion.” She forced the thermometer into my mouth and started counting my pulse. “Dr. Herschel will be by later and if she feels it’s wise for you to start talking to people she’ll let us know.”
“Were there any other survivors?” I asked her over the thermometer.
“Dr. Herschel will tell you what you need to know.”
I shut my eyes while she solemnly wrote my vital statistics into the chart. Patient continues to breathe. Heart operates. “What’s my temperature?”
She ignored me.
I opened my eyes.
“What’s my pulse?” No answer. “Come on, damn it, it’s my body-tell me what it’s doing.”
