More inches.
Now I hear the low rattle of bass from the party speakers.
We’re still too far to hear voices.
I let myself smile. We’re going to make it.
Because fuck the odds, man.
There’s something to be said for the human spirit, and I’m almost laughing when—
An agonizing pain tears through my lower body.
My knee, calf, feet crash into something sharp and jagged; I feel blood leaving me.
C’mon, Jamal. Focus. Keep going, man. You can’t stop.
I say this to myself.
I imagine Q saying this to me.
I try to regain my form, recapture my rhythm, but it’s gone.
We’re barely moving.
No. No. C’mon, J. Not today. Not like this.
I kick, I pump, I paddle.
I thrash. I thrust. I flail.
But we’re sinking now.
And I can’t tell what I feel more: excruciating pain, or paralyzing dread.
I fight to keep Q’s head above water, even letting my own head submerge.
I cough and I tread until Q shifts, even heavier now, and his weight grapples me under the waves. Eyes wide, I lunge for the surface, but every second pushes it farther away.
I can’t breathe.
I try to push Q’s stomach upward, hoping to throw him into the current. But he barely budges, just falls down harder on me.
And I know this is the end, we’re sinking faster than I can paddle.
The moon shrinks to nothing.
And this is how it feels to exhale your last breath.
90
Eyes open or closed when I die?
Which would be better, when they find me?
If they find me.
Would they say, this guy fought to the end?
Does closing my eyes mean I give up?
Would it mean anything to Whit?
To Autumn?
Are her keys still in my pocket?
It’s her only set—I know because she’d recently locked them in the car.
Her locksmith cousin to the rescue, made her promise she’d make a spare, and I’d reminded her, but . . .
Isn’t that life?
You think there’s always tomorrow?
But then a column of lights injects into the water; there’s something rushing toward us. And my waist is lassoed, Q’s, too, and like a collapsing dream, we’re ripped from the deep.
89
I don’t realize it’s me screaming.
That when they say please, stop fighting us.
It’s me they’re talking to.
And I’m guessing PTSD isn’t a thing that happens literal seconds post-trauma, but.
I mean, who knows, maybe it’s all the water I inhaled—
I’m afraid to open my eyes because this doesn’t feel right.
I don’t feel right.
As if my head and body have parted ways.
And what if this is how you feel when you’re newly dead?
Someone’s repeating my name—“Jamal. Jamal.”—their voice drippy and hollow, like there’s a fishbowl over their head.
A hand touches my cheek like it knows me, and the voice is saying open your eyes, Jamal. Please, open your eyes.
And when I finally do, Autumn’s leaning over me, a terror in her face I hope she never feels again.
I try to smile but instead I throw up on the sand. Several minutes and I can’t stop throwing up, my body exorcising Lake Erie in violent heaves that feel like a giant’s kicking my kidneys.
Were this a cartoon, you’d pounce on my stomach and a fountain would spout from my lips, a distressed fish swimming atop.
“W-w-where’s Q?” I sputter. Every breath, a struggle. Like suddenly if I want my lungs and nose to work, I have to consciously tell them to.
“Where’s Q? Is Q okay? Where is he?”
Autumn’s disappeared, and no one else answers.
But then I see him. Q’s not five yards away, lying faceup atop a blanket, the large quilt barely long enough to keep half his body off the sand.
I start to stand but they pull me back.
“Just relax,” they say.
Except no one else is relaxed.
Kids I’ve known all my life semicircle around Q, hands covering their horror, hands gripping other hands, hands wringing, praying.
I jerk from their grasp, but I’m moving too fast, too soon.
And I nearly topple onto Q, crashing beside the woman now pumping Q’s chest.
And this isn’t TV CPR.
This is bones cracking, wrists popping.
This is watching life empty from someone you thought you’d know forever.
Watching them drain so fast, it’s like there’s a pump attached to their feet, sucking the life with such efficiency that you can actually see it receding, dropping from their head to their waist to their ankles, dipping lower and lower.
He’s still not breathing, she says to the man forcing air into Q’s lungs.
As if just now Q’s made a choice.
But they keep rotating—from his head to his chest, chest to his head—as if it might go on forever. And if it did, if they never stopped, then in a way, it would be like Q was still here.
I beg Q to wake up. I yell at him. I make him promises I can’t keep.
Why’s it so easy to die?
Each of us is a stupid fuse waiting to trip, with no one to flip us back on.
Moments ago, Q’s breaths were jagged and shallow, but they were breaths.
But now—I raise my hand to Q’s nose—and, nearly nothing.
I feel next to nothing.
88
There was this resuscitation scene in, I forget the movie, where the near-victim’s eyes spring open and she’s coughing, and all of the onlookers’ faces go from panicked to relieved because she’s gonna make it, and she even tries to sit up as if waking from a dream.
And I remember Q’s mom, Ms. Barrantes, shaking her head, rolling her eyes. It rarely happens that way, she said. Most of the time, you can’t save them.
So, when Q suddenly gasps for air, I’m happy but stunned.
Not that it should surprise me. Q, he’s always been the type of person who defies all odds.
“Hey, man,” I say to him. But he doesn’t talk back. He just stares at me a beat, before his eyes snap shut again. “He’s okay, right?” I tap his shoulder. “He’s just resting, right?” I ask.
But if anyone knows the answer, they’re not saying.
And by the time they slide Q into the ambulance, he’s fading again.
I pull myself up, curse when my newly bandaged leg bangs into the rear bumper.
“Whoa.” The tall paramedic’s face scrunches. “You family?”
“We’re brothers,” I lie.
“Call your parents. Tell them to meet us at . . .”
Autumn approaches and I’m distracted.
She makes a gesture with her hand that I don’t understand.
“My keys,” she says. “Sorry. Just . . . if you have them . . .”
I fish them from my pocket, surprised they’re still there.
“Thanks,” she says.
And it’s possible her fingers linger in mine a second longer than necessary.
It’s confusing—how your heart holds your love and your hurt in the same chamber.
“I’m glad he has you right now,” she says.
I am, too, but I don’t want to leave her here, even though an hour ago I’d done just that.
And the way she‘s looking at me before turning to look back at her friends, like she can’t hold my eyes for too long, she feels it, too.
A few days after my parents died, I struggled to see out of my right eye. There’d been warning signs that I’d ignored: floaters and everything blurred, like the world was suddenly covered in plastic. I had a detached retina, from the accident. You were a day or two away from permanently losing your vision, the s
urgeon chided me.
That’s how things feel with Autumn.
Like we’re being pulled apart in ways that appear small.
We could ignore it. Convince ourselves we could go on like this.
Except if we don’t fix it, today or tomorrow, we’ll lose it forever.
“Do you want me to—“
“No,” she interrupts. “You’re where you should be.”
I nod, promise to text when I know something.
I look out both small windows, each round like a porthole, and it’s like that machine the eye doctor pulls down in front of you—do you see better here or here? And it’s like we’re standing still, the beach pulling away from us. Autumn steadily gliding away from me, like she’s on a conveyor belt.
Ahead: our sirens scream movemovemove.
Behind: our flashing lights illuminating two dozen terrified faces, like jack-o’-lanterns.
I try to calculate how far we are from the hospital, but my brain’s mush.
The paramedic radios the ER—we’ve got a sixteen-year-old male with—she rattles off Q’s stats like he’s a baseball card. I catch pieces.
His lungs sound wet.
Pulse ox’s shit.
“Don’t worry, he’s still in there,” the tall paramedic assures me. “He’s a fighter.”
I resist asking how many times she’s said that and been wrong.
An hour ago, our hands were fists.
And now, I grip his fingers in mine.
His eyes flicker.
He tries to pull the oxygen from his mouth, but the paramedic holds it in place.
“Quincy, I need you to control your breathing, okay?”
But Q’s squirming now, trying to wiggle himself free.
His eyes bulge as he squeezes my hand.
“I think he’s trying to say something,” I tell the paramedic. She moves the mask aside and I lean toward Q’s face.
“You should save your strength, man.”
But Q’s shaking. “J, is . . .”—his voice drops a word—“. . . okay?”
“Is who okay, Q?”
“The girl . . . is she okay?”
The paramedic and I exchange glances. I have no idea who he’s talking about but now’s not the time for bad news.
“Everyone’s okay. Everything’s fine,” I say.
“She made it,” he whispers, shutting his eyes. “She made it,” he repeats. Tears roll down both cheeks.
87
The sirens snap off.
Then they’re pulling Q out, racing him inside, gurney wheels twitching on concrete, then linoleum. I run behind them.
In stride, the tall paramedic points to a counter enclosed in thick glass, like at a bank. “Here,” she yells. “Check in.”
And maybe it’s the ER docs’ superintense faces, or how fast they’re pushing Q through the foyer, down the hall, but I am suddenly back in that water.
All of me submerged.
Dread crashing into me, spinning me every way but up.
Because what if this is it? The last time I see Q.
What if the way things are now is the way things are left forever?
“Wait,” I hear myself say. “Just wait.”
And the tall paramedic glances over her shoulder, but they don’t slow.
“There’s something . . . I need to tell him . . .”
But they’re exploding through the double doors.
“He needs to know that I’m . . .”
But they’re already shrinking down the dim corridor.
I start after them, my palms pressed against either Authorized Personnel Only door just before they close, but the receptionist, a smiling lady with purple highlights, reads my mind. Waves me over.
“That your brother?”
“No.” I don’t say: he used to be. “He’s my friend.” I don’t say: best. I don’t caveat: former.
“Well, he’s in good hands.”
She presses a restaurant-style pager into my palm, says, “It’ll buzz when there’s an update,” says, “sit anywhere you’d like.” As if she’s the hostess and I’m here for an ice cream float.
And being out here, in this waiting area the size of my living room, with its balding blue carpet and plastic chairs the curve and color of orange peels, feels as far away as I’ve ever been from Q.
I find the least vandalized chair, de-pocket my phone.
To Autumn: We made it to the hospital. They say he’s fighting. They took him to the back. Just waiting. More when I know.
I scroll a couple threads down.
To Whit: Hey, don’t freak out, but there’s been a . . .
A what?
An accident? But had it been?
An incident? No. Too weak.
What will freak her out the least? I picture Whit’s OB, Dr. Stokes, studying me from the swivel stool, then turning back to Whit. “No unnecessary stress,” he’d made us promise.
I type hey just checking in, but I leave it unsent. I call her instead, but it rings until her voice mail picks up. Somehow, I manage to leave her a short—yet rambling—message.
In my limited hospital waiting room experience, one of two channels is always playing on the mounted TV: a cooking show, probably because they’re hoping it makes you hungry enough to risk the hospital cafeteria.
Or, it’s the local news.
Right now, there’s a tightrope-walking squirrel—OMG, look at Solomon Squirrel gooooo. Wow, he’s really moving!—which, I’m definitely not a nature expert, but squirrels scurrying across wires is pretty normal, no? But then, boom, the big reveal: this squirrel actually walks the rope STANDING UP.
The man beside me has been chuckling the entire segment, but now he nudges me, still chuckling. “A tightroping squirrel. Now I done seen everything.”
I nod, but truthfully, I’m worried for this nice man, because if this—a squirrel on a rope—is the final feather in your what crazy thing will they come up with next cap, I don’t know, it just seems like a pretty thin feather.
But I force a smile, muster a laugh, because like I said, he’s nice.
Also, I believe in karma, or at least that whatever energy you fling into the Universe boomerangs back, and I don’t know, since energy’s transferable, maybe if I cast out enough good vibes, they might find Q, find the doctors and nurses trying to save him.
“Jamal! Jamal, where is he? Where’s Q?” I know Q’s mom’s voice the way I still know my mom’s. I pop up without thinking as she bursts into the room.
What was I expecting? A hug?
This isn’t a reunion.
“He’s in the trauma center. I think. They rushed him back.” I hold up the pager. “She said this will buzz when we can talk t—”
But she’s already rocketing toward the desk.
That’s when it dawns on me: not only is Ms. Barrantes a nurse, she works here. She probably has special access, can find out things you normally couldn’t.
Except the purple-haired lady is suddenly standing, motioning for Ms. Barrantes to lower her voice. “Simone, please. Simone, listen to me. I understand you’re upset. I do. But just because you work here doesn’t mean you can . . . look, I promise you, I promise you, that as soon as I know something about Q, anything, I will walk right over to you personally and I will—”
My lap vibrates.
I call out, “Ms. Barrantes!”
I hold up the pager, a beacon of quivering red light.
86
The walk to conference room C is the longest, but Ms. B’s on a mission to break the world record for arrival time. I jog to keep up.
The hallway walls are lined with charts of our body systems—the skin cross-sectioned and layered. And it hits me—I’m just skin draped over bones.
I mean, I knew that, but.
It’s weird because when our bodies, our organs, are working, we think about them nearly never percent of the time.
Ms. B sets down her phone, turns to me.
“I’m happy yo
u’re here,” she says while we wait for the doctor. “Surprised. But happy. He misses you, Jamal. When you two stopped hanging out, he wouldn’t talk about it, but he took it hard. And then his dad decided to be an asshole and get cancer . . .”
I frown. “Huh?”
A small smile. “Just a dumb joke Mr. B used to make.” She shrugs. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Jamal. Figured we could use some levity, you know?”
“Levity’s cool,” I say. Because I want Ms. Barrantes to have everything she needs: her son, levity, not-so-funny jokes, peace.
Ms. Barrantes nods. “I didn’t know you two were hanging out again.”
“Yeah,” I say, because correcting her right now seems stupid, selfish.
“No wonder he was so excited for this party. I know . . . I know my son isn’t the most social. I try not to push him, but . . . I just want him to be a kid. To have fun. And he tries . . . he tries . . . so hard.”
“He’s an awesome kid. An awesome human.”
She swipes at her tears. “He really is.”
And then footsteps louder, louder, until they stop outside the door.
Someone just standing there, waiting.
Which makes me think it’s bad.
Because you don’t wait for good news, right?
You race in, you explode in, because there’s almost no bad way to deliver good news.
Ms. Barrantes doesn’t seem to notice. “You sure you feel okay, Jamal? You call your sister?”
“I left her a message.”
“Try her again.”
“Okay, I will.”
“You don’t have to wait here with me. You can go. I can call you with news.”
I shake my head. “Thanks, but if it’s okay with you, I wanna stick around.”
She squeezes my hand. “Yeah, well, I appreciate the company.”
Ms. B’s standing, stretching, when the conference room door swings open.
And before the doctor says one word, Ms. B’s wagging her head.
“Dr. Rodriguez, no. No,” she says, firmly. “Nuh-uh. Not my son.”
“Simone . . .”
“Not my Quincy. You better go somewhere else with that. You hear me?”
“Simone, I’m so . . .”
“You take that somewhere else, Kevin! I don’t want it! Please! Please. I don’t want it.”
Early Departures Page 4