by Mike Ramon
couldn’t see anything on the road behind me. I got out of the car and looked around. I found her by the side of the road. There was blood coming out of her mouth. She was still alive. When she looked at me…it was horrible. There was so much pain and fear in her eyes. She tried to speak, but starting coughing instead. She was coughing up blood.”
“What happened next?”
“I told her she was gonna be all right. I lied to her. She reached out and grabbed my hand, and she held it like that until she....”
“Until she…what?”
“Until she died.”
“And I suppose that was when you called nine-one-one, right?’
George didn’t answer him.
“George?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I…I had stopped at a bar after I left work. I had a couple drinks. I wasn’t drunk, but….”
“Go on,” Ben prompted him.
“I didn’t think I was drunk, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I was afraid that if they made me blow into one of those machines…that it would show that I was drunk.”
“So what did you do?”
“I dragged her away from the road, into some tall grass, so she couldn’t be seen from the road.”
“Mm-hmm. Then?”
“I got back in my car.”
Ben nodded for him to continue.
“I drove away.”
This last bit came out in a whisper.
“Did you ever tell anyone?” Ben asked. “Your wife? A priest?”
“No, I never told anyone.”
George sat quietly, his chest slick from the blood still dripping from his lip, as well as the first wound on his stomach. A few tears traced their way down his cheeks. Ben stood up. He dropped the pliers to the carpet.
“And now I know,” he said.
Ben turned and headed toward the door.
“Who are you?” George asked; his voice sounded weak.
Ben turned back.
“You don’t know?”
“No,” George said.
“Well, then…you never will.”
Ben opened the door and stepped out, then shut the door softly. George stared at the door for some time, half expecting it to open again, for Ben to come back and pick up the pliers, to finish what he had started. But Ben did not come back; he kept his word.
The tears came pouring forth then. George cried until he forgot why he was crying. He cried until there were no more tears left. At some point he fell asleep in the chair; if he dreamt while asleep, he did not remember upon waking. The sun came up, and traffic passed back and forth outside as people went about their day. At nine-thirty in the morning George heard a car pull into the driveway. Shortly after that he heard voices on the other side of the door. A key was slipped into the lock and turned, although the door was already unlocked. The door swung open and George caught his wife’s eye as soon as she entered. She stood there like a statue, a look of unbelief tattooed on her face. It was Ryan, the older boy, who broke the silence.
“Oh my God. Dad, what happened to you?”
“Ryan, take your brother outside,” George said; his lips were caked with dried blood.
“But---”
“Just do it!” George commanded.
Ryan obeyed, and hustled his little brother out just as the younger boy’s face started to crumple in tears.
“Shut the door,” George instructed his wife.
She did what he asked before hurrying over to him. She untied the rope as quick as she could, her fingers fumbling only slightly.
“Help me,” George said.
She helped him to his feet, and he saw that she was crying quietly.
“George, what happened?”
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s over.”
He hugged her, and she returned the embrace. Miraculously he found that he still had some tears left, and he shuddered against her as he wept. In spite of everything, what he had done and what had been done to him, he was alive. It was a cold November morning, and he was alive.