“I am not a thing. I am a person. I get to decide.”
“No. You don’t.”
I was halfway down the stairs when he pushed me, trying to knock me down the stairs to the landing. Instead, I fell against the wall and caught the railing. Righting myself, I reached up and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him down the stairs. He wasn’t expecting it. He lost his footing. He seemed to recover for a moment, but it was gone quickly and he seemed to run, tripping, picking up speed and then turning to look at me, fell backward into the stained-glass window.
He hit it with a hard thud. The window bent. The lead strips looked like they might hold it together, but pieces began to pop out. Christ’s foot, a bit of his robe, the ground beneath the savior.
Dr. Harry seemed to relax. He must have thought he’d be able to untangle himself from the window when a ray of light emanating from Christ’s halo loosened itself and fell into Dr. Harry’s neck just between his collar and his beard. Nothing happened. A tiny bit of blood rose to the surface around the shard of glass.
I walked down the stairs and stood in front of him. Gingerly, he felt around his neck. He’d severed a major artery and the only reason he wasn’t spurting blood everywhere was that the glass kept that from happening.
I reached out to pull the glass from his neck.
“Please. Please don’t.”
“You’re going to die,” I told him. “You might as well get it over with.”
His eyes were wild. “No, no, I can’t. Give me Property Five. Then I can help you. I’ll help you give it to Goliath.”
“After everything you, everything you said, you want me to save you?”
“You need me, Jake. Please. I want to live.”
“So do I,” I said as I pulled the shard of glass out of his neck.
FIFTY-TWO
I wanted to live. Ironic, I know. I’d wanted to die and then I did. Now that I was dead, I wanted to live. I guess what they say is true. The grass is always greener. Of course, it would be nice if staying alive were as easy as growing grass.
When I went into the ward, I saw Goth in his bed, pale and struggling to breathe. I hurried over as best I could.
“I have it. Just hold on a second.”
“They stopped giving me antibiotics. Dr. Harry is letting me die. He called it benign neglect.”
“Dr. Harry is dead.”
“How—”
“I’ll tell you later” I said, setting the vial of Property Five on the nightstand. I opened the plastic seal on the needle kit and put the hypodermic together. Then I stuck the needle into the vial and turned the whole thing upside down, pulling back the plunger and filling the syringe with Property Five. Then, I looked for bubbles, flicking it with my finger to make one spring to the top. I’d seen nurses do that. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I thought the bubbles were a problem. I squirted a little bit of Property Five out and then I was ready.
I turned back to Goth. “I’m not sure if I can do this.”
“Heroin addicts do it. I think you can.” His breath was thick, raspy.
“Heroin addicts have had a lot more practice than I’ve had.”
But I had no choice. He wanted me to do it. Too late I realized I had no disinfectant. No cotton swab. I let the syringe hover over Goth’s arm but didn’t try to find a vein. Could I do this? Could really do this?
His arm was bruised from all the needle sticks he’d had in the past few weeks. And then there were the scars. Scars from years of being stuck.
“There’s a vein. Right here,” he said. “Near the surface.” He pointed to a particular spot well below his elbow. “I always tell the nurse. It usually works out. Just slap my arm.”
He didn’t wait for me to do it, though. He did it himself. Two times. Three times. The vein popped to the surface. I could see it.
“You’re sure. You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Yes. I want this,” he said, nearly out of breath. “Hurry.”
I took hold of his arm and aimed the needle at his vein. I concentrated on not going too deep, but going deep enough. Sliding in, what, an eighth of an inch? A sixteenth? I knew I was supposed to do something, like pull the plunger back and see if blood came into the syringe. But I didn’t. I just pressed the plunger down until all of the fluid had gone into Goth. All of the Property Five. It looked like I did it right. Nothing bad happened, anyway.
Goth slipped an arm around my neck and pulled me down to him.
“What happens next?”
“I think you’re going to die.”
“What? No. I’m going to—”
“You die and then you live. Like I did.”
He looked confused. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to understand what was happening for this to work. I slipped my arms around him as his breathing became more labored. His lips blue. His skin pale.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Goth’s eyes searched mine.
“Don’t be afraid,” I told him.
His eyes rolled back, and he took a few strangled breaths.
When he died, I laid him back on the bed and went to the exam room. I opened the cupboard where Dr. Harry kept the portable defibrillator I’d become so damn familiar with. I brought the defibrillator into the ward, spread gel onto the paddles, opened Goth’s pajamas and put the paddles onto his chest. Then I pressed the button that on the right-hand paddle.
Nothing happened.
I wondered if I should up the amount of electricity, but I wasn’t even sure how to do that. I decided to try just shocking him again. His chest bounced a bit this time. I placed my hand on his chest to see if I could feel his heart beating. As I did, he opened his eyes. He smiled at me and mumbled, “I’m here.”
“What happens next?” he asked me again.
This time I answered: “I don’t know.” I caressed his cheek with one hand. He was already cooling. That made me happier than I’d been in a very long time.
We’d figure it out. we were ready.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For their ongoing support and friendship, I would like to thank Jeanie Williams, Jennie Evenson, Randy and Valerie Trumble, Roberta Degnore, Danielle Wolff, and Joan Martinelli.
Never Rest Page 21