Running From The Law

Right this way,” said a woman cop, as she led me down a corridor in the basement of the hospital.

I felt drained. I had cried all the tears I could cry. My head was pounding. The only way to get through it was not to experience it. Keep it at a distance. And my emotions, too.

“You okay, Rita?” the cop asked, turning back as she walked. She had short brown hair, tight features, and no makeup. A hard face but for the kindness in her expression.

“Fine.”

“It’ll be over soon.”

She picked up the pace and I followed. The floor slanted down, like a ramp. Down, then doubling back, and going farther down. We reached the very bottom of the hospital and passed through a wide brown door that swung shut behind us. morgue, said a sign on the door.

“Hey, Jim,” the cop said to a man in a white coat like a butcher’s. “You ready for us?”

I stood behind the cop to shield myself from the room. A formaldehyde stink filled my nose. The air was chilled. A chalkboard hung on the wall and it read, inexplicably: HEART, RT. LUNG, LT. LUNG, LIVER, SPLEEN, RT. KIDNEY, LT. KIDNEY, BRAIN, PANCREAS, SPLEEN, THYROID.

“All set,” said the man, who stood beside a long table made of dull stainless steel. The table had slats across the bottom and a large round drain peeked from underneath them. I didn’t want to think about what went down the drain. Next to the table was a scale with a steel tray hanging underneath its clocklike face. A butcher’s scale.

“Cold in here,” the cop said.

The man in white wanted to reply but thought better of it. He punched up his steel glasses with a deft movement, his arm a clinical blur of white.

“You want another Coke, Rita?” asked the cop.

I shook my head. No. This wasn’t happening. None of it was happening. The man left for the adjoining room. There was the sound of a door being unlatched, a metallic ca- chunk, then a heavy slam as it sealed shut. I knew those noises from the shop. It was a freezer.

The man reappeared pushing a gurney. A steel bar surrounded the gurney and a black tarp was slung between the bars. On the tarp rested a white nylon bag with a zipper down the middle. The white bag was lumpy and formless. Smaller than I expected. I hadn’t realized he was so short. Oh God.

“Why do I have to do this?” I asked them, fighting not to cry. “We know it’s him. It has to be him. They saw.”

The cop touched my shoulder. “It’s procedure,” she said.

“Actually, it’s state law,” said the man in white. He began to unzip the bag with a care that suggested he feared something would catch on the inside.

I covered my mouth and turned away. Behind me was a black counter and underneath it a bank of ugly green cabinets. The zippering sound reverberated off the cold walls. Then the noise stopped suddenly and there was silence.

“Miss?” said a professional voice. The man in white.

I wondered how many times he’d said this, and to whom. To mothers and fathers and daughters and friends. Miss? Look at the body of someone you loved. Or someone you know. Or someone you hardly knew but who has no one else to mourn him, or even to identify his remains. Miss?

“Is this him, Miss?”

I made myself turn back.

It was a dark face that shone under the harsh white light, framed by the white body bag. He looked like a black child, sleeping in a snowy receiving blanket. He was a black child.

“Is this LeVonne Jenkins?” the man asked.

No, it’s not LeVonne. LeVonne was only in tenth grade, so it can’t be him. It shouldn’t be him. I nodded, yes.

And began to cry.

Later, I waited in the ultramodern waiting room with my head against the cold glass wall, slouching in a mauve chair that promised more comfort than it gave. The waiting room was empty except for a TV, and Rescue 911 was returning from commercial. A woman, drowning, screamed for help. I felt raw inside, exhausted. I drew my jacket closer around my shoulders.

The operation had started an hour ago, and they told me it would be a long one. Difficult. A surgeon gave me the odds, like a gambler, and they weren’t good. I picked up a battered magazine from the glass coffee table, looking for distraction. Highlights, a children’s magazine. Hippos wearing Hawaiian leis danced across the cover, at an animal luau. I opened the magazine.

At midpage was a comic strip. GOOFUS AND GALLANT, said the title. In the panel, a young boy climbed a set of porch steps. In the middle of the steps was a roller skate. Goofus leaves his toys on the step, said the caption. The next panel showed another young boy rolling a bike down the sidewalk, heading for the garage. Gallant puts his bicycle away, so no one trips over it.

I got it. You could have a lobotomy and still get it.

I looked up. Nothing was there, except a face. Not Rescue 911 or the chairs or the receptionist at a desk in the hallway. Just his face.

In life it was the face of a young boy, growing into a man. A boy with none of the glaring faults of a lout like Goofus, a boy with none of the bogus suburban qualities of Gallant. A boy who would have burst into laughter at the absurdity of Goofus and Gallant, even though he was a boy who rarely burst into laughter. Who would have learned nothing from this inane pair, and who could have taught them volumes. I threw the Highlights across the room, startling the receptionist.

LeVonne.

LeVonne had died at the hospital almost as soon as they wheeled him off the ambulance. Two bullets had torn through his chest, one shearing the aorta. If my father lived through his operation, the first thing he would do is ask about LeVonne. Then the news would kill him.

“Rita,” called a man’s voice.

I looked up. Herman Meyer was thundering into the waiting room, in madras shorts and a thin white T-shirt. A bewildered Uncle Sal scurried next to him, almost identically dressed, supported by Herman’s tanned arm. Cam Lopo was right behind them, holding a bouquet of sprayed mums. I got up to meet them and hugged Sal, whose bony back felt like a wren’s in my embrace.

“He’s gonna be all right, isn’t he?” Sal asked.

“What happened?” Herman said. “They operating?”

“What’d they say?” Cam asked.

I released Sal and regained my composure. It was almost worse, their being here. Seeing how upset they were, Uncle Sal especially. “I don’t know more than I told you on the phone. He got shot in the chest, it hit his pulmonary vein. They’re going to stitch him up.”

“You said nicked it, on the phone. Nicked it. That doesn’t sound too bad,” Sal said.

Jesus. How to prepare him? I couldn’t even prepare myself. “It’s a serious injury. He’d lost a lot of blood by the time they got him here.”

“All I know is, they better catch the guy who did this to him,” Cam said.

Sal blinked sadly. “He killed LeVonne. I can’t believe it.”

Herman shook his head. “The bastard. If the cops don’t get him, I will. I swear it.” They stood together, forming an aged phalanx of determination, but I didn’t want to think about retribution just yet.

“Let’s hope Dad gets better,” I said.

Herman nodded. “Right, first things first. Did you see the resident yet?”