Hometown Heartless

by Aarons, Carrie

  But Graden showed up shortly after my therapy session, ransacked my room, promised to pay for burritos, and basically did everything but give me a wedgie to get me up and out of bed. So here I am, dousing hot sauce on my free steak burrito and begrudgingly tolerating his conversation.

  Graden has been my best friend since we were kids. The amount of time we’ve been called to the principal’s office, served detention together, snuck out, partied too hard, won championship trophies … together, we’ve done it all.

  Well, almost everything. He opted for the college athlete route while I picked the military, so I guess he won the quality of life lottery on that deal. Somehow, fate knew he’d need to be home for this week, you know the week I came back from the dead. Although, I don’t really believe in fate, so we’ll blame the coincidence on his university’s pre-planned fall break.

  “So, can I see the tats?” Graden asks with a mouthful of spicy chorizo.

  I squint a not-impressed expression at him. “No.”

  “Come on, dude. You bragged about all the ink you were sporting in those letters right before …”

  He breaks off, and I know what he was about to say. Right before I was captured. Right before I got gone. Right before I became missing in action.

  What the people who silence themselves before they say that don’t know is what that really means. Right before a bunch of fucking sand ghosts took hammers and drills to my body. Right before they starved me and kept me up for hours on end with rambling music or water torture. Right before they filmed four different videos in which I thought they’d saw my head off in another minute.

  Shaking my head, I push the images into the dark box I’ve tried to secure them in at the back of my brain.

  “Whatever, dude. You’re not seeing them,” I answer sternly.

  Not only do I feel like an idiot for bragging about the full sleeves I had a military buddy ink my body with over there, but I don’t want Graden to see the scars. To see the arm-length silvery patch where one of the enemy soldiers dragged a machete down my arm.

  “Fine. Be that way. Hey, have you whined at your parents for the new Madden, yet? Bet you could ask for anything and they’d buy it.”

  He’s always been good at distracting me from anything of a serious nature. Not that he wasn’t a beast on the football field in high school; he wouldn’t be the starting wide receiver at a division one college if he wasn’t. But in terms of anything other than sports and training, you can count on Graden to be the quintessential class clown.

  “Dude, Madden has been the last thing on my mind.” But now that I think about it, video games might be a fun outlet, as long I don’t have to shoot anything. “But bring it over tomorrow and I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Oh, bro, don’t even start. You haven’t held a controller in a year, I’m going to wipe the fucking floor with you.” He snorts, giving me a cocky grin.

  This feels normal, the two of us shooting the shit. It almost makes me forget, for one second, how fucked up I am.

  When Graden insisted on eating at Ocean Taco, the only Mexican joint in Brentwick, I hesitated. It’s right on Dellan Drive, the main street in town, and anyone could see us. Or worse, we could run into a certain person I’ve been avoiding since I gave her verbal whiplash in my backyard.

  But he told me to stop being a pussy, and no one had talked back to me since I’d gotten home. It felt so good, that I relented and agreed to venture to the most public of streets in our hometown.

  “Hey, man!” Graden rises halfway out of his chair, waving someone over.

  When I turn, I notice Scott, a kid two years younger who played football with us back in high school, giving us the bro nod as he waits for change from the girl at the hostess stand.

  Scott approaches us, the new captain of the football team from everything I’ve read in the local paper since I’ve been back. When you can’t stand the white noise of a TV, too close to helicopter blades, and the frequency of the radio makes you jumpy, your last resort is old-fashioned reading.

  “Hey, man! I didn’t know you were home.”

  The two fist bump and do the half shoulder guy hug we’re all universally versed in. Then he turns to me.

  “Wow, Everett, great to see you, man.” He holds out a fist, and I weakly bump it.

  I’m having a problem with physical contact, no matter how much my brain rationally knows that these people aren’t going to hurt me.

  “Thanks. You too.” Is it, though?

  “What are you guys up to?” He eyes me cautiously, as if he’s trying not to say the wrong thing or act like he hasn’t just glimpsed someone who came back from the dead.

  “Nothing, man. I’m home on fall break, just lying low with this guy. Had to come get some grub, it’s too good to stay away. How about you, how is the season going?”

  I tune them out as Scott regales Graden about the Brentwick football season, how they’ve won both games they’ve played, what the roster looks like. I focus on my burrito, cutting, forking, and chewing. Turning my hearing off is a new skill, one I’m glad to have mastered. Too much social interaction grates on my nerves these days.

  “So you talked to Kennedy?” Scott says, and I’m slammed right back into the current moment.

  I can tell he tried to bring it up organically, though his voice makes it sound anything but.

  That’s when I remember that he’s dating Rachel, one of the girl next door’s best friends.

  I wonder if she’s said something to her fucking cheerleading squad already. Probably whined about her crush snubbing her or some ridiculous shit that means nothing in the grand scheme of life. Why else would he be asking?

  “Oh, man, she got hot since you’ve been away. Didn’t you guys have some kind of fuck buddy pact if you ever came back?” Graden elbows me.

  My gut roils, and I shoot him a look. “No, we didn’t.”

  I don’t bother answering the rest of his question, or responding to his speculation about her looks. We all know how much of a fucking knockout Kennedy is, it doesn’t need to be said.

  Scott looks back and forth between Graden and I, an awkward silence falling over us. “All right. Well, there is a barn party tonight if you guys want to come. I know it’s just high school shit, but there will be kegs and weed.”

  He throws up a hand and departs as easily as he came.

  Graden turns to me. “Let’s go to that party.”

  “No.” I immediately shut it down.

  “Aw, come on, why not? Free beer, hot high school chicks, a little bit of fun. You remember fun, right?” His voice is a lesson in mocking.

  “Fuck off. I just don’t … I don’t want a crowd.”

  “Drink enough and you won’t notice them. We’re going.” Graden flips me off, and shoves a huge forkful of Mexican food mess into his mouth.

  And because drinking a vat of alcohol to numb my brain actually does sound like a good idea, I don’t argue.

  6

  Kennedy

  Pulling my jacket more firmly around my shoulders, I snuggle into whatever warmth I can get.

  “Can we please close the doors?” I whine again.

  Judy, the head EMT at the Brentwick Rescue Squad, turns her kind blue eyes on me. “No can do, lady. If we get a call, you know the drill. Out the door as fast as we can.”

  A gust of wind blows through the two large garage doors at the front of the rescue squad building, past the two shining ambulances parked inside, and into my bones where I sit on a stool.

  “I know, I know. It’s just so cold!”

  My EMT uniform is bulky and does insulate well, but it’s an unseasonably cold September night, and I’m cranky. I knew I’d be working a late shift, but didn’t realize it would be on the night that Rachel and Bianca wanted to throw the barn party. Now, I’d not only be late, but I’d be exhausted from however many emergency calls we’d make, and my hair would look like crap.

  “You better get used to it. This winter is supposed to
be brutal. Doesn’t mean lives won’t need saving in that frigid Jersey landscape.” Judy tips her chin at me. “I did put a kettle on, so there will be warm tea soon enough.”

  Judy has been my boss here since I started about a year and a half ago. I took the EMT courses and got licensed shortly after turning sixteen, not only because it would look great for medical school, but because I am genuinely interested. Working a job that allows me to gain medical training, check out some pretty gnarly injuries, and pays? Yeah, sign me up.

  Awaiting our tea, Judy sits on a stool next to me, listening to the scanner whistling and humming with different frequencies and talking on it. She’s both motherly and stern, the perfect combination for this job. Judy is also a whiz when it comes to assessing a situation, triaging it, and getting the patient safely to a hospital in as little time as possible. She’s been doing this for over twenty years, and I admire the crap out of her.

  She’s also got a sarcastic sense of humor, so she’s my kind of people.

  “Did you watch the new Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?” I ask, knowing she’s just as much of a reality TV addict as I am.

  “Yes! Can you believe that Erika spent thirty thousand dollars on a bag? What must it be like to have that kind of money?” she muses.

  I chuckle. “You and I will never know.”

  “Don’t sound so much like a bitter old maid, that’s my job. But you’re right.” Judy grins and nods at me. “I just can’t believe that new one pushed what’s her name’s dog in the pool.”

  “They totally need to recast her. She and her husband are the worst. If I have to hear that fake British accent one more time—”

  I’m cut off by the whistling of the tea kettle, and about three seconds after that, a call comes in through the radio.

  “Reporting a twenty-nine-D-one about a mile north of Dellan Drive. Code one, with a twenty-two-D-one. Four victims in total, a priority two, two priority threes and a thirty-B-two priority one. All units dispatch.”

  In seconds flat, Judy and I, plus the two other men on shift tonight, begin zipping up our uniforms, grabbing our go-bags, and loading into the ambulance. The call that came in is for an urgent, all sirens needed, major motor vehicle accident with victims trapped inside one or more vehicles. Two of the victims are not seriously injured, another is in serious condition, but possibly not life threatening, and the last victim has a serious hemorrhage and remains either unconscious, or was dead on arrival.

  None of us talk to each other, the rhythm of our team a natural, practiced thing. We’ve all done this before, have worked in tandem, and know what needs to get put into that ambulance before we can go assess the damage. I grab my bag, a couple of IV bags that are meant to be refrigerated until use, a cooler full of blood bags, and then help James, one of the other EMTs, roll the traveling sonogram into the back of the vehicle. Having done my duties, I hop into the passenger seat and buckle up.

  The adrenaline begins pumping through my chest, but I inhale slowly through my nose as Judy hops into the driver’s seat beside me and cranks the lights and sirens on. Peeling out of the rescue squad building, we’re on the road and headed to the crash scene.

  No matter how many times I do this, there is always that initial moment of fear. I remember my first call, having Judy talk me through the gore and devastation I was about to see. She told me that as EMTs, we get one breath. One breath to inhale and exhale all the fear, nerves, doubts and jitters that would get in the way of our focus. Because once we’re on the scene, dealing with people’s lives, we don’t get the luxury of hesitating. That advice has always stayed with me, and so I give myself one breath, and then plunge into the protocol of it all.

  Judy’s voice is forceful, direct. “I’ll deal with the hemorrhage. James, I’ll need you with me. Nicholas, you take the priority threes, and make sure they get blankets, water, just keep them calm and comfortable because this will be a long night with the police for them. Kennedy, you’ll take the priority two.”

  Both James and Nicholas are older than me, have been doing this for longer. But Judy doesn’t believe in that kind of structure, in giving us easy training. I’ve had a couple of patients code under my hands, I’ve plugged an artery, I’ve held the neck of a toddler stable while waiting for a back brace. The number of life altering procedures or moments of intense decision making I’ve experienced on this job have only made me stronger, and proven that this is what I want to do with my life.

  We get to the scene in five minutes flat, the perks of being able to cut off anyone on the roads at this hour. From my vantage in the passenger seat. I can make out a car sitting on the side of the road with its flashers on, the guardrail next to it completely shredded to bits. I can’t see the front, but I’ll bet anything the entire hood is crunched in like a soda can.

  “Keep your heads. Do your jobs,” Judy instructs, and we all jump out, hauling medical supplies and our emergency bags.

  The police are already there, and they fill us in using codes and shorthand speech. Two passengers sit on the ground near one of the three cop cars, and when Nicholas makes his way over to them, I know they’re the priority threes. They wear shock and confusion on their faces, but neither looks injured beyond bumps and scrapes.

  I can’t tell what happened, how the crash occurred, but I know that my victim is somewhere down the ravine, trapped in the car. I’m going to have to get down there, but the police will have to consult me on how they’re planning to make that happen. In this kind of situation, we want to get to the injured person as soon as possible, but it does no good to rush and risk injury to ourselves or someone else.

  It’s then that my eyes follow the direction everyone else seems to be looking.

  A body lays haphazardly on the ground, probably thrown from the vehicle that went through the guardrail. The limbs are arranged in an unnatural fashion, broken in positions that couldn’t possibly allow for a human being to be so quiet. Whoever this is, they lie face down on the dark gravel, and I can make out the pool of blood trickling from their abdomen.

  Slowly, calmly, Judy walks toward her patient, the code one with a possible hemorrhage. She bends down, presses two fingers to the victim’s neck, and then removes them.

  “DOA,” Judy announces, her expression one of practiced professionalism tinged with solemnness.

  I blow out a breath, trying to tighten every muscle in my abdomen against the flood of nausea that sweeps through my stomach. There is one part of this job that will never become old hat, that my heart will never become accustomed to.

  Seeing life leave another person’s body, watching them die or bleed out, unable to save them … it steals a piece of my soul each time I watch it happen. I have no idea how Judy and my coworkers go back to normal life after this, as if it’s just a job requirement to watch a human being expire.

  Whenever I work a shift at the rescue squad, I know it will be a challenging, long night. But these are the kind that extinguish one of the finite rays of hope inside me.

  7

  Everett

  Jesus Christ, someone rewound my life and dropped me right back into high school.

  At least, that’s how I feel standing in the middle of the Johnstones field, next to their quintessential red barn, as hundreds of teenagers drink themselves stupid on shitty keg beer.

  This was my stomping ground, back in the day, and I’m not surprised to see that it’s lived on in our absence after we graduated. Kids were doing it before us, kids are doing it after us, and long after these drunk morons go off into the real world, some other teenagers will pick up the torch and run with it.

  The Johnstones are one of the oldest families in Brentwick, the original nuclear family boasting nine children. The branches of the family down through the years have seen dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandkids take up residence in the town. I went to high school with approximately fifteen Johnstones, and I know there are more in the grades below me. The barn parties, like I said, started before
I ever took my first sip of beer at fifteen, but they’ve always been located in the same place. The Johnstone’s own many businesses, one being a fifty-acre farm on the outskirts of town. This barn has been abandoned since I don’t know when, and it’s common knowledge by both parents and cops that kids party here every Friday and Saturday night. The adults have always looked the other way.

  Graden drags me out around eleven, well into the partying hour for these amateurs, all of whom probably have midnight curfews or are lying to their parents and claiming to be sleeping at a friend’s house. So, when we arrive, the bonfire is roaring, the air stinks of marijuana, and a hundred or more drunk as fuck high school kids are making out, laughing their heads off, or singing to country music like they’ll die tomorrow.

  After grabbing two cups of mostly foam and a smidge of shit beer, I follow my best friend as he walks around fist bumping and dabbing people. A couple of the onlookers give me the once-over, and I know they know who I am. No one is going to broach the subject, or maybe someone drunk enough actually will.

  “Let’s get you laid tonight, brother. You need to let off some steam.” Graden rubs his hands together, scoping out the party like a lion searching for the ripest kill.

  “Let’s not,” I grumble, taking a swig of shitty keg beer.

  I’d love to take a puff off the joint I smell so strongly in the air, but that would require chatting up a group and getting in on it, and I have no desire to talk to anyone else at this party.

  “Come on, look at all of this available pussy. As long as they’re eighteen, wrap it up and go to town.” He pretends to smack a fake ass in front of his crotch.

  “Smooth.” I roll my eyes.

  “You don’t still have that card you took with you to Iraq, do you?” Graden eyes me curiously.

  I turn my head, sipping my beer to avoid him.

  “Holy fuck, you do. You’ve never gotten your dick wet, still to this day.”