by Mike Knowles
“Where are you?” I said.
No jokes this time. “On my way to where I am supposed to be going. You?”
“Give me a street.”
“Why? Where are you?”
I looked out the window. “Just passing Huron.”
“Wrong direction,” Miles said.
“No, it’s not. The cops are behind me, so it’s the perfect direction. I need you to meet up with me.”
There was a short pause. “No.”
I didn’t say anything back. I understood. I wouldn’t have gone back for him either. I ended the call and opened the first aid kit.
“Where am I going?” the woman behind the wheel asked.
“Just keep driving. There has been a change in plans. What’s your name?”
“Monica.”
“I’m sorry to put you out like this, Monica. Just keep driving and in a little while I will be gone.”
“You’re hurt,” Monica said.
She was right. My side was bleeding badly. The shoulder hurt more, but it leaked less. I touched around my side and then around the shoulder and confirmed what I thought. The bullet had gone through my side, but not the shoulder. The blood on my shirt was red, not black. Red was the best of a bad situation. I needed to stop the flow before I lost consciousness and then my ride. I shrugged out of the suit jacket and then the shirt. The movements were clumsy and the grunts loud. I ripped the undershirt off with my good arm and looked down at my stomach. An inch and a half to the right and the bullet would have missed me completely. The hole in the front was small — the one in back bigger. I opened the kit and saw a needle and thread, but it was missing another pair of hands. I shook the dizziness away and groped around the seat beside me. My hand closed around the cool cylinder of the flare and I brought the cap to my mouth. I closed my teeth around the plastic and pulled back on the end. The flare hissed to life and filled the car with light and smoke.
“Jesus!” Monica yelled. The car echoed her shock with a wild swerve.
“Roll down the windows,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“Just roll them down and keep the car moving. No matter what, you keep going.”
All four windows receded into their housing and I felt air rush in to combat the sweat beaded on my forehead. I put my head against the door and let the air blow against me. I took two deep breaths and then I turned my head so that I could see the hole six inches above my back pocket. I kept my eyes off the flare — looking at it was like staring into a small sun. I took another look at the wound and watched it belch another splash of blood onto my skin; then, I buried the flare into the hole.
I screamed out what was left in my lungs and then I passed out. When I woke a few seconds later, Monica was already pulling over. The gun came off my lap and sloppily parted the hair on the back of her head. “Keep driving.”
She signalled and pulled back into traffic.
The flare was on the floor and still burning. The interior of the car smelled like burnt carpet and barbeque. I swore as I bent for the flare. I grabbed the rod and took in two huge gulps of air. I made more noise when the flare went in the entry wound than I had for the exit wound — I passed out for a longer time too. When I came to, Monica was already on the side of the road, her hand was on the door handle, and her seat belt was on its way to being retracted. I managed to get a fistful of hair before she slid out.
“Hands at ten and two on the wheel.”
She sobbed, but did as she was told.
I reached over and took her purse off the passenger seat.
“Hey!”
“Drive,” I said.
She wiped at her face and then put the car in gear again.
I took my ripped T-shirt and wadded it up one-handed. I pushed the rag to my shoulder and moved my torso around just enough to inspect the burns. There was still a bit of leakage, but nothing like before. I grabbed some gauze and tape from the first aid kit and began to work on dressing the cauterized wounds. I was able to get a patch made up using my right hand and my thigh as a worktable. I eased the dressing on both sides of my body and then made a third patch for the shoulder. For the last dressing, I used the rest of the gauze and almost all of the tape. I needed the bandage to stay on, so I wound the white medical tape around my arm over and over again, creating a mummified appearance from bicep to collarbone. I shouldered the shirt back on and did up the buttons. The jacket went on next. It was wet with blood, but the dark colour made it harder to notice than the stained white shirt underneath. From a distance, a really far distance, the buttoned jacket did a good job of concealing the wounds.
I leafed through Monica’s purse and found a long pink leather wallet. Inside were pictures of two kids — boys, both of whom were high-school age. There was no evidence of a husband in the wallet, and no evidence of a wedding ring on the hand that was still at ten on the wheel. The two pictures had the same backdrop: a kitchen with windows showing a green backyard.
“Monica, I need you to take me to your house, and before you give me a reason why you can’t, remember that I now know where you live. If you say no, I will kill you and go there anyway. Imagine your boys coming home to just me.”
“Just let me call my kids and tell them to go to their dad’s.” There was less of a quaver in her voice when she spoke this time. The threat to her children had woken something inside, something primitive and maternal. The sound of her voice reminded me of a bear I had once seen at the zoo. The spectators crowded around her cub and the camera flashes invaded the space behind the bars. The old bear, rescued from a corrupt European circus, shook off years of abuse and injury and stood to her full height in front of her young. The people, all of whom were safe behind the bars, took steps back and groped for their young crying children. The woman driving the Subaru would do what she had to do. She would stand up for her cubs. No different than the bear.
“Fair enough,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The kitchen table was scarred and battered. It was the kind of table that had seen thousands of dinners, hundreds of arguments, homework, birthdays, and holidays. I had never owned a table like that, not once in my life. I should have felt sad adding a foreign memory to the wood. My presence was something that would infect the cultured surface like a virus. The blood staining the tabletop would come off, but not really. It would stain deeper than the surface; it would stain the memories. Monica would scrub it clean again and again in the coming weeks, but it would be pointless — the virus was terminal. The table would be out on the curb before the end of the month.
Monica’s hair was wet with sweat. I needed things from her medicine cabinet, and there was no way she was going up alone. I had made her shoulder me up the stairs and then down again. Beyond the sweat stains, Monica looked terrible. The adrenalin spike she had been riding from the carjacking was starting to ebb and exhaustion was settling in. But as bad as she looked, I looked worse. I caught a flash of my reflection in the bathroom mirror and saw a face that resembled mine, but could have easily belonged to someone else. My skin was pale and ashen like new concrete and I somehow looked ten pounds underweight. I thought I had done a good job keeping the blood in my body, but all of a sudden I started to wonder.
Downstairs, I sat at the head of the kitchen table with a feast of household wares stationed around me.
“Sit down, please,” I said.
Monica laughed and pushed a wet strand of hair back on her head. “Men with guns don’t say please.”
“Have you been around many men with guns?”
She looked right at me without blinking. “Yes.”
“Then you should know that pleases work better than threats.”
“The men I knew didn’t threaten.”
“Maybe we knew some of the same people,” I said. “Please, sit down.”
Monica
sat.
“Closer,” I said.
She inched the chair closer.
“Closer.”
She did it again.
“Closer.”
Fed up with the word, Monica moved the chair forward with a hard shove. She was no longer shocked at her situation, and her hard disposition made me think that she wasn’t lying about having been around men with guns. Her confession made what I had to do even more necessary. I opened my legs and inched closer until the wood of my chair touched her knees. Monica, obviously uncomfortable being so close to me, turned her face away to study the pictures on the fridge door. The gun was resting on my left thigh. I couldn’t raise it high with my damaged arm, but I could hit the woman in front of me without even trying to aim. With my right hand, I began to wind the duct tape I had found in a drawer around the barrel of the revolver. After three rotations, I wound it around my hand several times. I let the roll of tape hang off my wrist and pushed the gun deep into Monica’s side. She gasped at the invasion of her personal space, then recoiled. The gun stayed against her.
“Take the tape and wrap it around your waist.”
She started to protest so I repeated myself and inserted the word “Please.”
Monica did as she was told. The tape belched loudly as it came off the roll, wound around her body, hooked around my thumb, and started another rotation. After seven revolutions, I told Monica to stop. She ripped the tape from the roll and I smoothed the raised lip down.
“Good,” I said. “Now take the scissors and cut my shirt off. Do I need to tell you what will happen if you get cute with the pointy ends?”
Monica looked down at her waist and squirmed a little in her chair. “You’ll shoot me.”
“I’ll spasm involuntarily and the gun will go off. You’ll be an active participant in your own murder. If I pass out, the same thing will happen if you try to get up from that chair.”
“What happened to words working better than threats?”
“I’ll still ask you nicely,” I said. “The gun is just to make sure that you listen.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m out of options. Now, cut off the shirt, please.”
Monica did as she was told. “Now what?”
“Hit the wound with the alcohol and then use the paring knife in the bowl to probe around for the bullet. There is going to be blood so have the paper towels ready to soak it up. When you find the bullet, take the needle-nose pliers out of the bowl and pull it out.”
“Your hand will move. You’ll shoot me.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Yes you will. Take your finger off the trigger.”
I shook my head. “This is the way it is. Take the bullet out or I wait for your kids to come home and I make one of them do it while the other one sits in a chair taped to a gunman.”
Monica’s eyes welled up. “Goddamn you.”
I picked up the belt I had taken off just before I sat and put the strap between my teeth. I spoke over the leather. “Do it.”
The air went in through my nose and out around the belt. The breaths started smooth and even, but the first probe of the knife changed the rhythm. I focused on my breath — on getting it into my body and letting it out. I had come across books on meditation when I was a kid. I didn’t view the texts as a means of finding myself, or God; it, like everything else, was for something more important than that. Everything I had ever learned about meditation I had bastardized for the job. The calm and focus that came from the practice of following the ebb and flow of my breaths became a tool for theft instead of a practice on a cushion. After a time, I could slow my breathing and wait for hours, even days, on a job. I was able to operate detached from everything and was undisturbed by the changes around me — a sort of Zen and the art of breaking the seventh commandment. But I had never come across a book about using deep breathing to handle battlefield-condition surgery.
The second probe of the knife was deeper and more painful than the first. I focused again on the air moving into my nose. The breath came and went, taking none of the pain with it. I bit the belt, tasted leather, and forced myself to take in another breath. The third invasive surgery attempt caused the pain to uncoil like a snake; the phantom serpent began to wrap itself in wider arcs around my body. The noise that left my lips interrupted the ebb and flow of air into my body. I let the guttural yell go until it bottomed out, and then I pulled another slow breath in and found the rhythm again. This time I didn’t try to fight the pain — I felt every bit of it as I focused on staying conscious and alive. My heart rate slowed from a sprint to a run and my finger strained, but it didn’t compress the trigger.
Monica operated without any consideration for me. Every deep probe that elicited a muffled scream brought her eyes to the gun at her side, not my face. I liked that — she wanted to live and that meant she would do what she had to, and that meant keeping me alive.
“How will I know when I find it?” she asked.
I spoke over the belt. “You will feel something before you see it. You feel anything out of place, open the wound with the pliers and look.”
Monica laughed a little, and then she imitated my voice through the belt. “Anything out of place. It’s inside your shoulder, not under the couch.” She kept working the knife and my teeth slowly worked their way through the thick leather belt.
After a minute, she said, “There.”
I grunted, “Pliers.”
Monica had no choice but to hold the wound open with her fingers while she went after the slug.
There was an agonizing pull before the pliers flew back with only a piece of tissue to show for all of the work.
“Fuck,” she said.
Sweat burned my eyes. “Again,” I said. The belt was still in my mouth, but my teeth were together in some places.
Monica tried four more times. It was during the fourth that I lost consciousness. I came to in the middle of a fight. I was losing. My head rocked left and I tasted blood. The next blow turned my face hard to the right. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”
I opened my eyes and saw that Monica was crying.
“You were falling out of the chair.”
I nodded and then swung my chin towards my shoulder. “You done?”
She shook her head and gave the gun another look. “Maybe you should take the gun away. I’ll keep trying, I will, but if you pass out again, we’re both going to die.”
I shook my head. “Again.” The belt tasted bitter in my mouth as I shifted it left and bit down into a fresh spot.
The fifth attempt was no better than the previous four, but the sixth was as textbook as home surgery with household items could be. The bullet came loose with a sound like a boot coming out of a deep mud puddle.
“Oh thank God,” Monica said.
“Disinfect and then put a few layers of gauze on it,” I said.
Monica did as she was told. Then, she went for a bandage.
“No,” I said. “The first aid kit has a needle and thread. Stitch it up.”
Monica pulled the kit closer and found the needle and thread without comment.
“Can you sew?”
“Better than I can dig a bullet out of a carjacker’s shoulder,” she said.
Monica threaded the needle and went to work closing the shoulder. Five minutes later, both of us were staring at each other. Blood covered everything on the table.
“What now?” Monica asked. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want you dead. I want you to take your clothes off.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Everything we wore went into the garbage bag; so did everything we used in our DIY surgery.
Monica and I were both naked as she helped me up the stairs. From the hallway, I watched as she pulled clothes for me from her e
ldest son’s room. I put on what I could and got help with the rest after Monica got dressed.
Back downstairs, I doused the table with bleach from the laundry room and then I made Monica take the garbage bag out into the backyard. The barbeque I had seen in the pictures in her wallet was exactly where it had been when the snapshots were taken. The grill was large and the tank was half-full. I had Monica turn on the gas before I turned all of the dials to high and clicked the starter. We waited, standing wordless, until the thermometer was redlining. I opened the lid with the tip of the revolver and then took a step back from the heat. I gestured at the bag with the gun and then swung the barrel in the direction of the grill. Monica understood and grumbled something under her breath while she stooped to pick up the bag. It was hard to get the lid down over the bag at first, but the heat had a way of sucking the life out of everything it touched and eventually the bag shrivelled enough for the lid to close.
Monica fanned the smoke away from her face while I chewed another painkiller I had found in the en-suite medicine cabinet. The bottle had expired, but the pain hadn’t.
“You know I’m going to take your car, right?”
Monica didn’t take her eyes off the barbeque. A change had occurred inside and now black smoke was marching like army ants from all of the spaces in the structure. “I know what you’re going to do.”
Tears welled up in Monica’s eyes — she closed them, took in a long shaky breath, and held it.
“Take six of these,” I said.
The breath came out and the eyelids raised. “What?”
“Take six of these.”
Monica looked at the pill bottle in my hand. I had taken the sleeping pills along with the old bottle of painkillers when I had raided her medicine cabinet.
“I thought —”
“That I was going to kill you.”
She nodded.
“No.”
“Kindness works best,” she said. The small smile on her face looked ridiculous.
“Nope. If your kids came home early and found your body, it would put the police on my trail faster than I am prepared for. But if they find you sleeping upstairs, they will at least give you the night before they worry about you. The night is more time than I’ll need.”