Painless

by S. A. Harazin

“I’ve never seen one,” I say. “My grandmother kept our landline, but I don’t know anybody else who has one.” I don’t know why I’m talking about phones. “We’re going to ride out the hurricane, and then everything will be fine. This house is actually pretty nice, and I wouldn’t mind staying here a while.”

  “You don’t understand, David. I have to go as soon as we can.”

  I turn my head toward her. “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “You’re a dreamer,” she says. “I am a realist.”

  “Realists don’t crash a wedding reception or sleep on a beach.”

  “That was my alter ego,” she says.

  I force a smile. “I am a dreamer. You’re meant for bigger things. You need to keep going to college and graduate. You’ll do something great one day.” I look down. Probably I’d die of loneliness if I stayed here. Probably by tomorrow everything that’s happened will seem like a dream. Probably Joe will invite me to dine with him on Thanksgiving and Christmas. He’ll probably give me a sweater or tie. I’ll wait for Spencer to come home on break from college. I’ll probably keep my dreams.

  “There’s something I should’ve told you right away,” Luna says.

  I stare at the fire, the wooden shelves becoming ashes. “I have bad breath?”

  “I have regrets.”

  I look over at her. “So, you’re afraid of the storm, and you’re afraid you’ll die having regrets?”

  “It’s more than that.”

  People who say I don’t understand pain are wrong. It’s written all over Luna’s face, the way she grimaces and shudders, the way she squeezes her eyes shut.

  No. No. No.

  “Tuesday morning I’m supposed to board a plane bound for Houston. When I arrive, I’ll be meeting my parents. They’ll drive me to the hospital. I’ll be admitted, and then I’ll start chemo.”

  I think I have pain written across my heart. I think it’s stopped beating. “You have cancer?”

  “I was in remission from leukemia. I’m not anymore. I suspected it the night the guy at the party grabbed my arm and left it bruised.” She pulls up her sleeve.

  I see a black and blue lump the size of a walnut I hadn’t noticed before. “I’ll get you back in time.” I look down. “You shouldn’t have waited.”

  “I wanted to dress up and pretend I was a princess. I wanted to do something illegal and sleep under the stars. I wanted to come with you.”

  “I’ll go with you to Houston,” I say.

  “I’ll go alone,” she says.

  A few hours later I awaken, still sitting on the sofa. Rain hammers the roof, and the wind shrieks. The room’s dark, but I can see Luna at the end of the sofa holding the flashlight as she pulls things out of her backpack.

  “Luna?” I say. “Did you lose something?”

  “I need something for pain,” she says. “But I forgot

  the pills.”

  “I may have something. You relax.”

  “Relax?” she says. “Relax? How can I relax?”

  “Try to calm down. It’ll help ease the pain.”

  “What the hell do you know about pain?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know anything about pain.”

  I think God was teaching me a lesson when he made me painless.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I head for the kitchen.

  I get my backpack and shine the light inside.

  I have a first aid kit. It contains Band-Aids, antibiotic ointment, Tylenol in case my temperature starts going up, and some Robitussin with codeine I got months ago when I had a bad cough and my throat itched so bad I couldn’t stop scratching. I had gone to the doctor. He did an x-ray, and I had a broken rib I didn’t even know about. He said it could have broken when I was coughing.

  I hold the bottle of Robitussin up to the candlelight. It’s expired. The Tylenol is okay, but I don’t think it will help severe pain.

  Then I pull out the bottle of Nana’s pain pills.

  I don’t know what made me grab them when I was packing. I put them in my backpack to make sure Ruby didn’t dispute the officer’s claim and say Veronica lied and could’ve placed any pills in a bottle.

  Ruby truly believes I should be punished over and

  over again.

  I take the flashlight into the bathroom to see what else I can find. The bathroom stinks, and my shoes stick to floor. I could step on a nail and not know it, but I can feel sticky and itchy. I fan the air with my hand and then sling open the door to the medicine cabinet. I should have taken her to the hospital before it was too late. She should’ve told me she was sick. I hate freakin’ secrets.

  There’s nothing there. At home I have dozens of bottles of pills for just about anything.

  I guess if it’s needed, expired Robitussin with codeine is better than Tylenol, and the next choice would be Nana’s pain pills, but I won’t give her one unless I don’t have a choice.

  I return to the kitchen and get a cup of water.

  Back in the living room, Luna moans a couple of times. She’s shivering. I don’t think it’s cold in here. She’s probably got a fever. I kneel next to her and open the Tylenol. “Here,” I say.

  She takes the Tylenol with a sip of water.

  “Can you drink it all?” I say. “It will help lower your fever, and if your fever goes down, you’ll be more comfortable.”

  She drinks the water.

  “If that doesn’t help in about a half hour, you should take a tepid bath.”

  I show her the Robitussin with codeine and tell her it’s expired. “I’m not sure if it should be taken with the Tylenol,” I say.

  “It’s fine. Thank you,” she says.

  Then I sit on the sofa and massage her feet.

  Chapter 38

  The next morning I go outside to crank the car and recharge my cell phone. The car has been smashed into a metal pancake by an oak tree. We won’t be driving anywhere. I look up. The sky’s cloudy, but there’s not much wind or rain.

  I didn’t sleep at all. It’s my fault Luna’s here when she could’ve been safe in the hospital getting treatment.

  Around four a.m. I gave Luna Nana’s medicine because she said she was dying from pain. She was mad at me for waiting, and she said you should never wait too long to give pain medicine because it’s harder to make the pain go away. I was relieved when she finally fell asleep.

  I go inside and check my phone. It doesn’t have a signal. Neither does Luna’s. I don’t think any amount of charging would help.

  Nana taught me to always think about what I do before I do it. That mostly applied to chopping vegetables or touching something that could be hot. Now I’m thinking I better start walking and forget I’m lame and that the heat can do me in quickly. I may be able to get to where I have enough of a signal to send a text message. If not, I’ll have to find a landline or a pay phone.

  I wake Luna. She opens her eyes.

  “I’m going down the road to send a text,” I say. “The car has a tree on it.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “Sorry. You’ll slow me down.” That’s something I’ve never said in my whole life. I place her cell phone in her hand. “Sooner or later there should be a signal. Go ahead and call for help if you finally get one.” I pull the blanket over her shoulders.

  Luna pushes it off. “We stay together,” she says.

  I pack my backpack, and I make a backup plan just in case I don’t find a cell signal. I’m thinking it’s about thirty miles to town because it took around a half hour to get here. How long would it take me to walk thirty miles to town? It takes an hour for me to walk a mile, but that’s when I’m being careful.

  Thirty hours to walk to town would be too late. If I were the hero in a video game, I’d set out to find help. I could take a knife in case I meet a
bear, but then I doubt he’d run away if I showed it to him.

  A walk to the main highway where we could catch a ride or a find a house would take me two hours. That alone could be fatal, but I have to take a chance. I can’t let my condition stop me this time.

  I go into the bedroom, get the pictures, and stick them in my backpack. Then I pull out a pencil and paper, and I write.

  Dear Dad,

  Nana is buried at the Garden Cemetery in Waterly.

  I believe you did the best you could. I think you had to have been brave and strong. I hope I will be one day. I haven’t forgotten you. I never will.

  Thank you for taking me to Nana.

  David

  I go back to the living room.

  “David,” Luna says, “write your name on the wall.”

  I write my name next to her name.

  If things had been different, I probably wouldn’t have ever left Nana’s house or done anything. I would’ve been too scared. I’m still scared, but I’m getting over the fear because I don’t have a choice. “Ready?” I ask Luna.

  “Yes.”

  Luna and I step out the front door and make our way through the storm debris.

  Chapter 39

  A blind person uses their other senses to get by. So does a deaf person.

  I figure I’m the same. I don’t feel pain, but my eyes and ears can feel the world. Sometimes I can taste it. All that stuff travels to my brain and to my heart. I feel pain that way.

  I need to find help before the rain quits and the sun gets hot. We start walking, and it isn’t long before the rain stops and the sun comes out. We keep going. It’s a quiet day without any wind or animal noises. Downed trees line the road.

  For some reason, I think about nursery rhymes so I don’t think about how long the road ahead is, and after a few minutes I can’t get “Humpty Dumpty” out of my head. I hate it when a tune won’t go away.

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

  All the King’s horses

  And all the King’s men

  Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

  I know what Humpty’s problem was. The king was an idiot. He asked the wrong people to put Humpty together again.

  Then the wind blows hard, and we hold on to each other to keep standing. The rain starts pouring. Luna says she’s freezing. I say I’d probably be freezing if I could feel. We keep going, and soon the road is muddy and we’re drenched. This is good for me. The rain will keep my body temperature from going up, but it could get the best of Luna.

  Hail hits me. I lean down and pick up a piece. It’s big enough to knock Humpty off his wall.

  After about a quarter of a mile and a thousand Humptys, I check my cell and have one bar. I tell Luna and make a quick decision. I text the radio station figuring everybody’s calling 911. I can’t afford to be placed on hold.

  Send help.

  I give the address. The DJ will remember us if he’s around. I bet he hasn’t gone anywhere.

  Then I text Joe.

  Walking to find help. Tree on car.

  No! Go back!

  Straight ahead in the distance a lightning bolt stabs the ground, and then I hear thunder. “Joe says to go back. He’ll send help.”

  We turn around. I can make it one step at a time. I’m not cold or hot or in pain, but Luna is moaning. To me, the hail is only one big raindrop or a concussion waiting to happen. We take more steps and more steps, and pretty soon it’s just us and the wind and the rain.

  The sky gets darker and darker until it’s a black hole. Then there’s a roaring in the distance like a freight train. I turn around and see a funnel cloud far away.

  “Oh my god,” Luna says.

  Then it touches the ground. It’s hypnotizing. I don’t move for a minute.

  Wow. I’ve never seen this kind of destruction in my life. I don’t ever want to see it again.

  “We are seeing something horribly spectacular,” Luna says, gasping.

  I still have one bar on my cell phone. I text Joe and the radio station again.

  Tornado on the ground.

  Maybe the radio station can alert people.

  “Run!” Luna cries.

  The tornado is tearing up the road. We run for our lives.

  But I can’t run so fast. “Go!” I yell to Luna. “I’ll catch up with you!”

  She looks at me.

  “I stay with you.”She touches my face.

  We make it to the house, wind whipping us

  forward, debris flying through the air. We get down on

  all fours and crawl into the crawl space. I can’t move

  my arm. I turn my head. It’s spurting blood. When I

  look at my arm, I see bone. “Are you okay?” I ask Luna, and she says yes. Then I tell her I need a tourniquet. She’s crying as she pulls off her T-shirt and ties it around

  my forearm.

  “I lied,” she said. “I never took a first aid course.” She rests her head on my chest, and the lights in my head go out.

  Chapter 40

  I blink my eyes several times. I’m hallucinating or else there really is a wicked witch on a broom in the sky.

  I’m sorry, Luna. I’m sorry I can’t get you home in time.

  I’ll pretend I’m somewhere else. After all, it’s my hallucination. I can do whatever I want to do. There’s a carnival. The lights are brighter than anything in the sky. I’m going to ride the roller coaster. I stuff my hands into my jeans pockets. I pass food counters, bumper cars, and a merry-go-round. The ground’s littered with dropped hot dogs, spilled drinks, and cigarette butts. I hold in the smell of popcorn and cotton candy.

  I get on the roller coaster, and it comes to life. It begins rolling and clanking and speeding up. It slings me from side to side as it rounds the curves. Hang on, hang on, I scream inside. The car ascends the steep incline. My heart thuds in my ears.

  This is great. I’m not going to waste a second of this ride.

  The car stops at the top. I see stars like fireworks exploding. If I could be here in a billion years and look up, I’d see nothing but black. The universe is speeding up; life is moving faster. One day there’ll be a flicker and the universe will be gone. Everything goes to nothing. That’s all there is. The car plunges. Taking a deep breath, I stretch my arms high into the air and feel the beautiful horror of the fall. I can feel.

  Then in a flicker, the ride skids to a stop.

  I cry raindrops. My heart’s beating harder and harder inside my throat.

  I get off. The roller coaster starts again and people pass, laughing and talking. The Ferris wheel moves gracefully toward the sky, and music from the merry-go-round plays on. I turn and watch the roller coaster ascend without me.

  Nana was wrong, I think. When you die, you don’t buy the farm. You go to a carnival and ride a roller coaster.

  I can hear my heart slowing. Then I can hear it not beating. My brain’s as alive as ever, at least for three to seven minutes after my heart quits.

  “We’re losing him,” somebody says.

  Emergency, emergency, my brain screams. Where’s the adrenaline that’s supposed to kick in?

  I’m drifting down a river with Spencer and Cassandra singing “Somethin’ Stupid.” Rachel, Tyler, and I are playing hide-and-seek and laughing. Grandpa’s reading Goodnight Moon. Nana is teaching me to swim. After I finish playing a song on the piano, Nana, Grandpa, and Joe applaud. Dressed in a Spider-Man costume Nana handmade, I win the contest for cutest, and Nana and Grandpa cry. Spencer and I are celebrating jumping off the bridge. I’m teaching a dog how to swim, but he’s drowning. I’m dancing with Luna, and it’s beautiful the way we move together. Spencer and Cassandra stop singing.

  I hear a snap, and I think it’s the sound of my heart
breaking.

  “Yes! We’ve got him back,” somebody says. “He has

  a pulse.”

  Flat in a hospital bed, I hear voices and find out I’m hypothermic and have broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a compound fracture of my left arm.

  Luna, where are you?

  I have a tube in my mouth that goes to the breathing machine. The tube’s like an umbilical cord to a mother, the breathing machine. The nurse says to stop fighting the machine. I have to cooperate. She’s giving me drugs to sedate and paralyze me. That way the breathing machine can help me live.

  Luna?

  The door to my hospital room opens, and I hear footsteps coming toward my bed. The breathing machine pushes air into me, and the heart monitor instantly beeps faster than ever.

  I’m unable to open my eyes, but I can hear the rattle of the curtain as it’s pulled from around my bed. The person’s standing next to my bed now, and I can feel eyes glaring down at me. To anybody who didn’t know, I would appear unconscious.

  Somebody touches my skin. “You’re so cold,” my mother says, pulling the covers over my shoulders.

  I stare back with clouds in my eyes. I can’t talk. I can’t move. There are noises.

  Beep.

  Click.

  I love to hear noise. It means I’m alive.

  “Can you hear me?”

  I can’t move or anything.

  I hear her sigh. “I have made mistakes. I have regretted much of my life. Just know, your dad and I tried. We believed your grandparents were the only ones who could give you the best life possible. I have always felt guilty and ashamed,” she says. “I’m sorry.” She kisses my forehead and goes. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again.

  I think suffering has been a good teacher.

  Chapter 41

  I’m back from the dead. I don’t know when it happened.

  “Can you hear me, David? It’s Joe. You’re going to make it, and you’re safe now.”

  It can’t be Joe. He wouldn’t ever cry.

  “Luna,” I mouth around the tube.

  “She made it.” He’s holding my hand. “I’ve made sure she’s getting the best of care.”