“Mr. Werth, my name is Sergeant Abbott with the Minneapolis Police Department. I’m sorry to infor—”
“Where is my wife? Tell me where she is!”
“Mr. Werth, there has been an accident.”
“No. No. Where is she? I need to talk with her.” Jack’s head felt like an overheated steam furnace. His heart pumped fear straight into his brain.
“The medics are with her right now, Mr. Werth,” Sergeant Abbott said. “It might be best if you came here to the scene—”
“Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Werth. The medical technicians and the doctors will have to make that determination…”
“Which hospital?”
“We have a lot of victims here, Mr. Werth,” the sergeant said. “It has not been determined yet—”
“Which fucking hospital?” Jack screamed. He ignored the stares and expressions of horror and detached interest.
“She is still at the scene, Mr. Werth.”
“Where? I’m leaving right now!”
The lights were getting dim and a rushing sound reverberated in his head. Vaguely, Jack heard someone speak.
“I’ll drive you.”
Minneapolis valets were neither common nor known for top notch service, but one of the two young attendants outside the Kirstwood Hotel’s lobby retrieved Derrick Branson’s late-model Chrysler in record time.
“Do you need me to sign anything?” Derrick asked the uniformed thirty-something who hustled around the car and handed him the keys.
“Just get him to wherever he needs to go,” the young man said.
Jack fought back tears as a movie of his life with Hannah played like an emotional whip in his mind. He could see her smile at the Brown campus where they met. She was still smiling when they moved into their first cockroach-infested apartment in Grand Rapids. He even remembered her laughing the day the doctors made him bring their first-born, Chet, home from the hospital without her. He slid into the passenger side of Derrick’s car and barely noticed the Burger King bag that Derrick snatched from the seat before he could sit on it.
Why did I let her leave without me? I should have—
He buried his face in his hands and fought the tidal wave of emotions that were swirling like hot lava though his mind.
I need you, Hannah. I need you to be okay. Please be okay!
“Seat belt, Jack,” Derrick said.
Jack looked up.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Absently, he pulled his belt around and locked it in place.
“The Nicollet Island bridges are still closed for construction,” Derrick said. “We’ll have to cross at North Plymouth. Sound alright?”
Jack nodded.
Derrick momentarily jerked to a stop at the entrance to 6th Street before the Chrysler’s tires squealed and jumped out into a stream of cars.
Jack willed cars to move, lanes to open, anything that would get them to Hannah’s side sooner. He was tempted to call the policeman back, what was his name…Sergeant Abbott? But he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. The man had refused to give him any information over the phone.
I need you, Hannah. The boys need you!
“I know you can’t help it, Jack,” Derrick said, jerking his car into the outside lane and passing a carful of teenage girls, all of whom seemed to be giving them the finger. The girls’ horn blared as Derrick’s Chrysler slid in front of them.
“Jack, let go!”
“What?”
“You need to let go of your keys. You’re bleeding.” Derrick reached behind the seat and pulled out a wrinkled fast food bag. With one hand, he somehow managed to pull out two napkins embossed with a large “M.” He passed them to Jack.
“Squeeze these instead.”
“Okay.” Jack did as he was told. He didn’t even remember pulling the keys from his pocket. He willed the blood to stop but like Kool-Aid on a white tablecloth, a red stain spread rapidly through the napkins.
Twice in one day. I definitely can’t tell Hannah.
He felt the same flood of shame as he had the day it all started, the day he had seen the surprised expression on his brother’s dead face. Jack didn’t remember much after that, but the doctors said he had nearly bitten through his own thumb by the time the ambulance arrived. Then, after several hours in surgery, he had been confined for two weeks to Ward Six for psychiatric patients.
Fourteen? I was only fourteen when Emil died.
He still regretted not being allowed to attend his brother’s funeral.
“Are you okay?” Derrick asked.
“It's just a nervous reaction,” Jack assured him. He didn’t see any reason to reveal to his sales manager that he had to take two pills a day to keep his nerves under control. He smiled remembering Hannah’s first reaction when he had explained about the psyche drugs.
“I like that you were upfront about it,” she had told him. “At least your kind of crazy won’t surprise me.”
“Not unless you take away my pills,” he said.
“Guess I’ll just have to serve you personally each morning and night,” she had whispered before kissing his ear. And that’s the way it had been ever since. Twenty-two years, and she had never once missed giving him his two pills. Over the last few years, his therapist had suggested several times that he might be able to do without them, but Jack refused. He had promised never to be the kind of crazy that would surprise his wife—
Jack wiped the tears away and realized that his palm was still bleeding. The dark stain had soaked through the napkins and onto his pants.
“Do you have any more tissues or anything?”
Derrick pointed at his glove box.
“I don’t cook much at home,” the heavy man said defensively as he pulled the steering wheel and sent them bolting left onto 8th Avenue. A horn blared somewhere behind them. “And the fast food places usually give extra napkins.”
Any other day Jack would have been horrified at having one of his managers see him like this, but the glass dome was still muffling the outside world. He fished out several crumpled napkins. Derrick’s eyes shot to a few drops of blood on the leather seat. Jack wiped up the spots before pressing the napkins deep into his palm.
Though he missed his mother, he was glad she wouldn’t learn he had mutilated himself again. Just the thought of it had horrified her. Jack’s sister, Stacy, had insisted it was the main reason their mother started attending church again. He thought it was probably more because she had the hots for the parish minister, but he never said that to Stacy. Better she believe their mother was as pure as she pretended to be.
He watched cars, buildings and street lights on both sides of them replaced by a dark expanse of water. They passed over the Mississippi.
Hannah, please be okay!
Derrick turned south on Washington Avenue. The traffic was heavy but not nearly as bad as the thruways that time of night.
“Hennepin’s only a couple of blocks ahead,” Derrick said, but he need not have bothered because they could see flashing lights from two police cruisers that were allowing Washington Avenue traffic through but weren’t allowing anyone to turn right. Derrick maneuvered his full-size car to the right lane. When they got close enough, he unrolled the passenger side window and pulled up next to the policewoman on duty.
Jack wanted to speak, but the sight of the flashing lights had made him sick to his stomach. It was all he could do to keep the liquid contents of his stomach in place.
You have to be okay, Babe.
Derrick leaned toward the open window.
“My friend here, Jack Werth, received a call from Sergeant Abbott a few minutes ago. We understand Mrs. Werth was in the back of a cab that was in an accident.”
Jack recognized the instant look of pity on the policewoman’s face.
He wanted to reach out the window and punch her in the mouth. What did she know? Hannah was a strong woman. They had been through a lot together. Hannah had been through a
lot. This was nothing. Even if Jack had to stay home for a few weeks or a month to nurse a few broken—
A sob escaped his lips.
Derrick placed a thick hand across his forearm.
“Your hand again,” he said gently.
Jack looked down to see his fingers digging into the open wounds on his palm. Now aware, he could feel raw nerves screaming for him to stop.
Better me than her.
He nodded and pulled his fingernails away then reached into the glove compartment for more napkins. He pressed several against his palm and pushed the sticky red ones into a bag on the floor.
The policewoman grabbed her radio.
“I’m going to radio ahead and see if the emergency personnel can clear a lane for you. It’s quite a mess at the west end of the street, though, so you might have to walk the last block or two, depending on where she is.”
Jack forced himself to look at the woman. Twenty years earlier she might have been attractive, but too many seasons on the police force had left her with fifty pounds of extra donut weight and worry lines that came from years of navigating other people’s grief. He wiped away the tears and tried to formulate a smile but managed only a confused scowl.
“Hannah.” He took a breath and forced his mouth to say the words. “My wife, is she going to be all right?”
The police woman pursed her lips and stared at Jack for a few seconds before she looked in at Derrick.
“Pull ahead and wait at the emergency barrier. I’ll have the officers move it so you can pass. Be careful. There are a lot of victims.”
She turned to Jack and gave him a weak smile.
He refused to interpret that look. Without voicing his anger, he rolled up the window and stared straight ahead. She didn’t know anything. None of them knew anything. Hannah was fine. Look what she’d been through with the seizures. Even the doctors said she was a walking miracle.
“Let’s go see my wife,” he snapped.
If the policewoman radioed ahead, you couldn’t have told by them. Derrick was forced to slalom around six different emergency barriers, and each time they had to stop so Derrick could explain why they were there. Jack refused to say anything and would have jumped out of the car and raced to the end of the stalled street, but given all the commotion the police would surely have stopped him. Besides, there was no way he could have gone through explanation after explanation, the way Derrick had been forced to. The man may have been a shitty boss, but Jack was thankful for his help.
Muting out the latest police conversation, Jack stared at the chaotic scene around them. Hennepin Avenue, normally bustling with evening restaurant goers, was filled with shivering gawkers lining either side of the avenue, all with eyes straining west to see what was going on. Dozens of police officers milled about, talking intermittently with passersby and directing official traffic past the barriers. Several emergency vehicles passed Derrick’s Chrysler and made their way west toward a cluster of emergency lights that flashed like an ever-repeating explosion a dozen blocks further down.
Derrick, make them hurry!
As though responding to his silent plea, Derrick opened the driver’s door and slid heavily into his seat. His eyes shot to Jack’s hand, which was still innocently gripping several napkins.
“How bad?” Jack managed to croak. Too quickly, he was coming down from his scotch mountain into a valley of horror and despair. His entire body trembled with fear.
Derrick shook his head, vigorously.
“I don’t know, Jack, but it doesn’t sound good. Someone said a bus hit a bunch of cars before flipping over. Maybe you should call some family.”
Jack squeezed the napkins and felt a tiny bit of calm flowing from the pain in his wound. Hannah was a strong woman, a superwoman. She would get through this. They both would. He shook his head.
Two blue-uniformed officers moved the wooden barrier out of their way. A third officer waved them through. Grimly, Derrick put his car in drive and crept down the road that was beginning to look like a scene from the Mad Max movie. The entire right half of the street seemed to have been sideswiped by a military tank. Hunks of glass, colored plastic and reflective stoplight lenses littered the street. Dozens of cars were etched with deep dents and creases that in many cases stripped the paint down to the sheet metal. Broken side mirrors and moldings hung like cracked branches from what used to be door panels all along the wreckage.
Jack urgently scanned the scene for some sign of a Yellow Cab but they hadn’t yet passed one. He fought the urge to dig his nails directly into his wound.
Please be okay. Please be okay.
“That bus driver must have passed out or something,” Derrick said then glanced toward his passenger and fell silent.
Jack couldn’t think logically. His mind was filled with terrible images of Hannah lying cut and broken someplace without him. He knew she would hang on; she would never leave the kids, him—but he couldn’t expect her to wait forever. She needed him. Now!
Derrick’s Chrysler jerked to a stop at yet another barrier.
Jack knew he couldn’t sit for another second. Before Derrick could say or do anything, he flew out of the car and started jogging toward the flashing lights that were still two blocks away.
“Jack, wait!” he heard Derrick yell, but that didn’t slow the sound of Jack’s dress shoes slapping the pavement. He leapt over an open briefcase and strewn papers. A short Latino cop tried to stop him, but Jack stepped easily to the right between two wrecked cars and sprinted along the crowded sidewalk. He had to squeeze past a cluster of people surrounding a man with a red-stained rag pressed to his head. A dozen cars past that, he saw a bloody child’s shoe on the roof of a green wreck. Thankfully, he didn’t see the flesh and blood victim.
Up ahead in the distance, he could see swatches of bright yellow.
His heart pounding with fear, Jack ran faster and wished he hadn’t been wearing his monkey suit. With his Nike Free Runs instead of leather dress shoes, he would already have been there. He passed a cluster of six ambulances in the street. Each had one or more victims on rolling stretchers. He scanned for blond hair. Hannah wasn’t there. Judging from several of the EMT’s frantic motions, things weren’t going too well for a number of the victims. Suddenly, a group of four police officers converged on the sidewalk ahead of him. Jack would have darted left, back into the street, but a massive tour bus lay on its side across the entirety of the four-lane road.
As Jack came to a stop, his eyes shot past the policemen to see an upended Yellow Cab half a block ahead. Two ambulances partially blocked his view but he could see one of the front doors had been torn off. It lay on the sidewalk several feet away.
“No!” Jack screamed.
Several pairs of hands grabbed his arms and shoulders.
“We can’t let you pass,” the tallest of the policemen said. His deep voice and craggy face were reminiscent of Morgan Freeman.
Jack couldn’t take his eyes off the cab wreckage. Two EMTs were reaching into the back through broken windows. There was a small lump of hair near the torn-off front door opening. Since Hannah never wore fur, it seemed likely that the cabby had worn a wig or maybe that a small animal had been caught up in the collision. Jack saw several dark pools on the sidewalk and immediately had a bad feeling about the driver, but he refused to believe Hannah—
“I’m coming, baby!”
His chest pumping like a bellows, he tried to push past the human police barrier. Every cell in his body needed to get to Hannah.
Please be okay!
“I’m sorry,” the deep-voiced policeman said. “We can’t allow the public any closer. Do you live in the area?”
“My wife is in that cab!” Jack screamed. His eyes were glued to the emergency technician who frantically darted to the nearest ambulance to fetch an armload of supplies before running back to the cab.
A cavernous maw of realization began to push its way to the forefront of his thoughts.
“
Hannah!”
“Sir, how do you know your wife was involved in the scene?”
Jack shook his head as one of the EMTs drew what he recognized as Hannah’s sweater from the back window of the cab. The white material was now mostly stained dark maroon. Suddenly, no words seemed adequate. He had to see, to get to her. He had to—
“We-we got a call from….”
Jack glanced back to see Derrick’s bulk surging up to them. Though the temperature was barely above fifty degrees, Derrick was drenched in sweat. His triple chins jiggled as he stomped and coughed to catch his breath. A siren went off as one of the many ambulances pulled away from the overturned bus beside them.
“…from Sergeant Abbott,” Derrick finished. “He asked Jack Werth to meet him here. His wife…Hannah Werth…was involved in this accident.”
The deep-voiced man reached for the microphone that hung like a child’s toy from his massive shoulder.
“Sergeant Abbott. We’ve got a Jack Werth here, says he was supposed to meet you.”
Jack tried again to push past the policemen. His eyes were glued to the overturned cab. The EMT’s were still working through the rear and back windows but seemed somehow less urgent.
Save her, goddamn it. Save her!
The radio crackled.
“This is Sergeant Abbott. Please escort Mr. Werth to the Yellow Cab on the corner of 8th. The emergency techs have been unable to extricate his wife as of yet.”
“Copy that,” the deep-voiced policeman said.
All sound stopped for Jack when one of the EMTs pulled away from the cab, yanked off his helmet and threw it onto the sidewalk.
“No!” Jack screamed.
* * *
Bright light ripped a slash across the gray sky, and through that opening hurled a flailing female figure.
“Jack!” came the shriek as the body arced and fell to the ashen ground with a thump. The impact sent a plume of gray dust spewing thirty feet into the air. The gash in the sky had not even started to shrink when the man leapt up from his deck chair and hopped over the railing. He could hear the woman’s muffled screams and strode toward the new columns of gray haze that rose as she struggled to climb out of the shallow grave her fall had created.
The Dislocated Man, Part One Page 2