An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

by Hank Green

  “Oh. Well, hello, I’m April May, you may have seen me in such YouTube videos as ‘April May and New York Carl.’” Talking hurt, but not that much more than breathing did.

  “I figured as much.” I liked Jessica, with her big, thick-framed glasses and bright red lipstick. If I’d had to guess, I’d say she was maybe a couple of years older than me. She was checking my blood pressure and breathing constantly.

  “Am I going to be OK?”

  “Interestingly, that is another thing we’re not supposed to talk about. If I say you are, and then you aren’t, you could sue me.”

  “Oh. Well . . .” I thought for a second. “If a person were in your ambulance with exactly my symptoms, would you be concerned about their future ability to be alive?”

  She smiled. “I would not be.” The blood pressure cuff hissed out its air, but she left it velcroed on my arm.

  “That is pleasant to hear.”

  “Do you want anything for the pain?”

  “No, it hurts, but I’m OK. Actually, if you want to do me a favor, could you look in my blazer pocket and see if my phone is in there?”

  “Yeah, it was, I already got it. Do you want me to call someone?” she asked as she pulled it out. “Oh. Damn, girl, you have like eight billion text messages.”

  “So, checking the phones of the patients in your ambulance is not on the list of things you’re not supposed to do?”

  She made an endearing embarrassed face. “Now that you mention it . . .”

  “Don’t worry. Uh, can you just text Robin? Just tell him that I have very minor injuries and what hospital I’m going to and to spread the word to friends and family. And tell him to bring a laptop.”

  I gave her my passcode, and as she tapped out the text she said, “You’re going to Bellevue, by the way.”

  “Oh, neat!”

  “Neat?”

  “Yeah, it’s such a pretty building, I’ve always wanted to check it out. Though maybe I could have found a less painful way of getting there.”

  She finished the text, and I heard the little whoosh noise of it flying off to the nearest cell tower and relaxed a little.

  “Bad news, though, you’re going to the ugly building.”

  “Figures. I suppose now I should talk to my parents.”

  “I mean, I don’t mean to pry, but you’ve also got quite a few texts from a Maya who seems extremely concerned.”

  I let out a long, slow groan.

  “Never mind! Sorry. None of my business.”

  “No, it’s fine. Just text her that I’m fine, it looked worse than it was. Send the same to my parents, tell them I’m going to Bellevue.”

  Two more whooshes.

  I shifted slightly on my side. “Whoooooa,” I said, suddenly dizzy again.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t be having you talk so much,” she said as she started pumping up the blood pressure cuff again. “What are you feeling?”

  “Just dizzy. Also my mouth feels like it’s packed with dryer lint, I feel a little like I might puke, and I’m suddenly very sweaty. But that might just be being half naked in the back of a truck with a cute paramedic girl.”

  “Good lord, they’re going to put you on morphine just to keep you quiet. Your blood pressure is low, but not dangerously. The pain is probably what’s pushing you toward passing out. Do let me know if you’re really thinking about puking, though.”

  “It does hurt quite a lot. More when I breathe.”

  “Well, don’t stop breathing.”

  “I like you, Jessica.”

  “I like you too, April May. Now shut up.” She moved around to sit behind me, lifted up the blanket, and placed the cold circle of a stethoscope on the injured side of my back.

  After a few seconds she said, “The main concern is that your lung might be punctured, but I’m seeing no signs of that.”

  “What would that feel like?”

  “I have no idea, no one’s ever stabbed me in the back. Now seriously, be quiet.”

  I tried to work up some spit to lick my lips because they felt super dry. My tongue came away tasting sweet, like I’d been wearing grape-flavored lip gloss or something.

  “Can I have some water?”

  Jessica handed me a bottle, saying, “Go easy on it, you don’t want to start coughing right now.”

  New York ambulances can never really go very fast since there’s nowhere for the traffic in front to go. Luckily, you’re always pretty close to a hospital. The weirdest thing about being in the ambulance (aside from being half naked under the blanket and having just been stabbed) was the steadiness of the siren. You hear sirens all the time, but they’re always either coming or going—getting louder or quieter, and pitch-shifted by the Doppler effect. You never just hear a siren steadily for a long time. I guess Jessica and Mitty did, but it was one of those familiar but slightly off things that stuck in my head. That’s what I was thinking about when we took the last turn before we arrived at Bellevue and the siren turned off.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I suddenly asked.

  “Probably not.”

  Moving my arm as little as possible, I carefully reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the flash card. “This is extremely important. Can you take it to the check-in desk or whatever and tell them to hold it for Robin Vree?”

  There was a long pause. The ambulance was stopping in front of the ER and I could hear people talking outside. She grabbed it and tucked it into her uniform just as the ambulance doors opened, and she launched into a monologue, directed at the hospital doctors: “Twenty-three-year-old female, shallow stab wound to the left upper back between shoulder blade and spine, third and fourth ribs possibly fractured. No sign of spinal damage or lung puncture. Wound is packed but still bleeding. Blood pressure one twenty over eighty, cap refill good, no sign of internal bleeding . . .” It went on like that for a while. And then pretty immediately I was swooped into the system. X-rays, pain meds, shots, swabs, stitches.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A lot of people came to my hospital room over the next couple of days. The first (that I remember, at least—I was on pain meds for some of the time) were a couple of guys from the NYPD.

  “Ms. May, I’m Officer Barkley, this is Officer Barrett, we need to ask you some questions about your attack.”

  “I don’t actually know that much, but I’ll do my best.”

  “What were you doing when you were attacked?”

  This didn’t seem particularly relevant, but they were police, so I just told the truth. I was there shooting a video about the July 13 attacks and also about the demonstration going on on 23rd. Did I think it was a dangerous thing to do? Yes, but I wanted to do it anyway.

  We went through the details of the actual event: the thousand-pound fist of the knife going into me; the body collapsing on me; the weird, disgusting, formless body dead on the ground.

  “Do you know what happened to your attacker?”

  I was talking softly, unusual for me, but taking deep breaths felt like being stabbed all over again. “Something very odd. I know Andy didn’t kill him, though I think he would have been happy to. Whatever happened to that guy was not normal.”

  “Your friend Andy. His camera was missing its memory card.”

  “Oh god!” I said. “That’s awful news!” And now I’m lying to the police. To my ear, it sounded not at all convincing. “It must have been in there when he was filming, he’s not an amateur.”

  “You don’t think it’s possible that there was never a card in the camera?”

  I felt like I was on treacherous ground here. I decided to keep all the doors open.

  “It doesn’t seem like the kind of mistake Andy would make, but maybe. Sometimes when a DSLR gets jolted, the card slot can open and the card can fall out.” And then, for good measure, I added, “We need to f
ind that card! It’s not like we can reshoot that video! That was a once-in-a-lifetime chance!” I’m talking louder now, the pain suppressed by the adrenaline of lying. It was absolutely terrifying.

  “Ms. May, given the circumstances, aren’t there more pressing concerns than your video?”

  “You have your jobs, I have mine.”

  They went over the whole thing with me again and told me that I was going to have to write a witness statement as soon as I was feeling up to it.

  “Considering the circumstances, we’re posting a uniformed officer at your door.”

  That gave me something to think about—two murder attempts in less than twenty-four hours, and the police only knew about one of them. I got to think about that, and how Carl had saved me, and how he hadn’t saved a bunch of other people. I got to think about those things all by myself and for maybe just a little too long.

  * * *

  —

  I haven’t told you a ton about my parents. It’s not that I don’t like them. The opposite, actually, they are just massively supportive, sweet people. It was almost a cliché at the School of Visual Arts (where Andy and Maya and I went) that no one’s parents wanted them to be there. It’s a ridiculously expensive school, so a lot of the students are children of doctors and lawyers and investment bankers, and not many of those parents see art school as the best path to long-term success. But when my classmates swapped horror stories about the battles they had to fight to get their parents to shell out for school, or just simply allow them to pay their own way, I really didn’t have much to contribute.

  My parents saw I was passionate about something and did what they could to help me get it. I mentioned before that my parents own a company that manufactures and sells machines that milk cows. They fell into this after spending a summer interning on a small dairy farm after they graduated from school with degrees in political science. They thought the systems the farms used looked impractical and inefficient, and five years later, their company was supplying half of Northern California’s small-scale dairy farms with upgraded systems. By the time I went to college they were selling to most of the northwest US and had a warehouse filled with equipment tailored for small dairies that they sent all over the world. They’d hired people to do the day-to-day work and were semiretired.

  I think, since they didn’t really know how they had become successful, and it certainly didn’t have a ton to do with their education, they figured I should just do whatever. It had worked for them. They still owned the business, and I guess they “ran” it or whatever, but most of their time since I went to school was spent helping to run local nonprofits and traveling around to see bands they were into. Some parents worried about their children squandering their inheritance. I worried about my parents squandering it before it got to me.

  They were just very happy people. Maybe I’m so snarky because I was just bored with how pleased they always seemed to be. Though not bored enough to ever actually do anything traditionally rebellious.

  Here’s an example of how supportive they were: When I called them from the hospital, they did not immediately fret or cry or ask me how I could have put myself in such danger, which would have been the normal response. We got through the initial report of what the doctors said (I was fine, though a couple of my ribs were cracked), they said their “We’re so glad you’re OKs,” and then . . .

  “Robin says he got your note and everything’s being taken care of.” This was my mom.

  “My note?” I was confused.

  “The note you left at the hospital reception desk.”

  I hadn’t left a note; I’d left a memory card. My dad picked up the conversation, not giving me a chance to figure it out.

  “He also says not to call or text anyone about that stuff. You shouldn’t be stressing right now.”

  “Um, OK?” Why on earth had Robin gone through my parents?

  Mom started again: “He was very adamant. He says it’s being taken care of and he’ll see you soon. So you won’t call or text anyone?”

  “I mean, I might.” Lying to the police was one thing; my parents were too sweet for duplicity.

  My dad: “Robin said he needed you to confirm verbally that you would not call or text anyone but us.”

  “This is very weird.”

  “We trust him, though, right?” my dad said.

  “He seems like a very nice boy,” followed my mom.

  “He is indeed, and no, we’re not dating.”

  “So?” my dad again.

  “OK, I won’t call or text anybody.”

  We talked for another twenty minutes, and they barely even brought it back around to how I had been stabbed in the back due to my own stupidity.

  “Concentrate on getting well, we’ll be there in the morning,” Mom said. They were cutting their vacation short.

  “I love you guys.”

  “We love you too,” they said simultaneously, and then we hung up.

  I was a little shocked that I hadn’t seen Andy or Robin yet. I kept expecting them to walk in the room and it kept not happening. What I learned later was that as I lay there in bed, there had been a mad rush to keep our footage safe and secret while both the NYPD and the FBI attempted to find and control it.

  Andy had gone back to his apartment, where he had seen a succession of uniforms asking him where his footage was. They couldn’t legally search his apartment, but apparently there was a pretty good chance they were listening in on our phone conversations and text messages. Of course, Andy didn’t have the footage, Robin did, and thus far, Robin hadn’t been a person of interest.

  I knew none of this. I knew that what had happened to Martin Bellacourt was horrifying and impossible, but I wasn’t processing it as newly weird. Carl was a space alien, so weird was done with. As far as I was concerned, we were already at peak weird.

  Hundreds of people had been killed in terrorist attacks, so while I assumed the fact that someone had tried to kill me was going to be in the news, I didn’t think it was going to be front page.

  And I thought that as the day stretched into evening and I started to wonder why no one had come in to tell me I was being discharged. And then a tall guy walked into the room with an earpiece and an intensity of awareness and readiness that I had never seen before. After taking in the room, he came up to me and said, “Ms. May, I’m Agent Thorne, and the president will be here shortly.”

  That was all the preparation I got. About five seconds later, another agent walked in, followed promptly by the president, a third agent, and a young woman in a suit. The president was wearing a blue blazer and white silk blouse. Her gray hair swept over her shoulders casually.

  It was intensely surreal. There was a bit of that “Oh my god, they’ve got three dimensions and a size and a shape and I’m seeing a person with my own eyes that I have previously only seen through the eyes of cameras” feeling that you get with any famous person. That’s a weird thing, and it’s a very interesting and complex experience.

  I had had that several times in my life by this point. But there was something much more impressive about the president. I mean, I was a big fan of hers, so there’s that. She and I shared a lot of values and goals, and she had done so many things that I respected and was amazed by. My appreciation for her was and remains very deep, and while I could hang with any Hollywood celebrity and not be intimidated by their status, this was a very different thing. I was intensely intimidated, and yet, at the same time, there was a frailness to her.

  I don’t mean any particular physical frailty, of course. I simply mean that she was very much a human. Just bones and organs and stuff, like the rest of us. That became very real as she moved in to shake my hand. Firm, practiced, her skin rougher than I expected.

  “April, it’s wonderful to finally meet you, I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances. How are you doing?”
/>   I wanted to ask her why she was here, but that seemed rude, so I just answered her question: “I’m fine. They say I can go home tomorrow, really just a scratch and some broken ribs. I’m more emotionally messed up than anything, to be honest.”

  “You’re wondering why I’m here. Well, April, first, where is the footage from your attack? Everyone seems quite certain that it exists, and yet lots of people have failed in trying to find it.”

  “You’re here for . . . my footage?” I was astounded.

  “Among other reasons, yes. As I said, you have a way of being at the center of things, April. I am not holding that against you, and I hope it’s clear that we are friends, but there are a number of fast-moving parts right now that need to be either slowed or harnessed, and there is a lot of concern that the footage that was on that camera is one of them.” She was efficient as ever.

  “You aren’t making a ton of sense to me,” I said.

  “Be that as it may, I need your footage.”

  I was caught off guard and did not really know how to handle it, so I stalled.

  “It’s starting to feel a little bit like I need to know what will happen to me if I don’t get you the footage.” I said “get” instead of “give” to make it clear that I didn’t have it.

  “Nothing, April. To me, you, whether you like it or not, are a member of the press. It would be an extraordinary step for me to take information away from you or bar it from being broadcast. That would be the sort of thing that requires lawyers and judges, and I have neither the time nor the desire to go that route. But I can, as the president of the United States, ask you to do me a favor.”

  “Oh, maybe it would be better if I understood why?”

  She seemed to think about this very hard for several seconds before she launched in on me. Her face got hard; her voice became darts.

  “April, we are aware that someone tried to kill you last night. We believe it was the same man who tried to kill you this afternoon. Whatever possessed you to not report the shooting and then to walk out of your building unguarded, I’m. Not. Asking. Maybe it was the foolishness of youth, maybe it was more than that. But when you walked out of that building, you created a new history that we have to live in now.”