“Take one of the strips and tie it tightly around my thigh a few inches above the metal. Damn it! Christ! Not that tight.”
“Sorry! Sorry, is that better?” This is already hard. Harder than he made it sound, anyway.
“Yes, that’s fine. You just need to slow the blood flow,” he says, wiping the back of his forehead with his left hand. He’s sweating too, the droplets collecting in his stubble. “Think of the shrapnel like a compass, okay? I’ll give you directions that way, so north is toward my belt, south toward my feet. Got it?”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Got it?”
“Yes. Got it. Jesus, your legs are hairy. I can’t see a damn thing.”
“You’re going to insert the tip of the knife just to the east of the metal, touching it, okay? Then you’ll make a small incision, not too deep, and pull the knife east. East not south, never south, okay?”
“Sure,” I say, my voice trembling as I lift the knife. I’m waiting, waiting, hoping I won’t actually have to go through with it.
“Don’t worry, Allison, you’re doing fine.”
The knife goes in and it’s easy … Well, easyish, less resistant than I expected. I hold my breath, forcing my hand to stay steady. I do as he says, dragging the knife an inch or two. The blood comes to the surface at once, outlining the path of the blade. It makes my hand start to shake so I pull it away.
“That’s normal. That’s supposed to happen,” he says gently. “You’re doing great. Now you’ve got some wiggle room so grab the metal. Don’t yank, just pull in one smooth motion. Draw a line with your eyes from the end of the metal out and away and follow that line. Smooth, just pull, don’t struggle against it, just let the path decide itself.”
I pull firmly but slowly, taking great care to try and feel how the metal is lodged in his leg, what the shape of it is. He’s lucky because it’s almost completely straight, not bent or curved, just dented here and there. It’s not so bad except for the blood bubbling up around the metal and the bright sheen of red coating the shrapnel itself. That’s when I start to smell it, the strong, coppery odor of human blood and my stomach starts to go again.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re doing fine, you’re doing great,” he says, reading the pallor of my face. My lungs are starting to ache from holding my breath for so long but it helps to keep me steady. I can’t stop now, I have to just keep pulling, carefully, slowly, but with purpose. The metal seems to go on forever but then it comes free, the pointed end dripping a little as it comes away in my hand.
“You did it,” he says and we both breathe out at the same time.
“Fuck,” I say, dropping the shrapnel on one of the Ts. “Piece of cake.”
“That was just step one, sweetie. Now comes the real fun.”
Julian nods toward the iron, his blue-green eyes dancing with mischief.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yes, because I’m bleeding now so there’s no going back. Pick it up, Allison. You know what to do.”
I can feel the heat of the iron even around the handle. The flat bottom is smoking, red-hot. I go fast, with a quick, hard strike before the doubts can start to form.
Julian claps a hand over his mouth but I still hear “Gaaagh-haagggghwhyamInotdrunk!”
Julian’s muffled squeal quickly dies down to a long, drawn-out hiss. If he keeps that up the guards will be joining us for his recovery. I pull the iron away and the flesh is sealed and bright red, the wound closed, cauterized. His leg smokes, and the smell of his burnt leg hair stamps out the stink of the fuel. There’s a distinctive pointed shape to the closed wound, like a Star Trek insignia, but with a few decorative dots.
Julian’s eyes are watering but there’s a smile through the cascade of tears.
“You did it! You fucking did it,” he says, grabbing my shoulder and shaking. I put the hot iron aside, noticing the transfer of his skin. It looks like rubbery wax molded across the top of the iron.
“So,” I begin, sitting back and wiping at the sweat on my face and neck, “can you walk?”
“Patience!” he says, chuckling. “Can I have a second or two? You did just burn the living hell out of my thigh.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Heh, look at that, it’s still smoking.”
“Something tells me you liked doing that a little too much.”
He lets go of my shoulder and leans back with a great heaving sigh. We sit in silence for a moment but I can’t rest, can’t stop thinking about Ted and his shoulder. What if he’s already dead?
“All right, let’s go,” Julian says, staring at me.
“Hmm?”
“Your friend, let’s go help him.”
“And how do you know it’s a him?” I ask. I get to my feet and extend a hand. It takes a moment or two of wrestling to get Julian up on his feet. He inhales sharply through his teeth, bouncing a little on his left foot as he feels the pain of the surgery. With his left hand he steadies himself, using my shoulder for balance. He’s tall, which wasn’t easy to tell when he was sprawled out on the floor.
“Honey, I know,” he says, “because I have eyes and because you walked your crazy ass in here to get me, a doctor.”
“It’s not like that, he’s just a good friend.”
“Well well well then … My day just gets better and better.”
“Just … No. Gross,” I say, shaking my head. “We’re leaving.”
“Lead the way, baby.”
COMMENTS
Isaac says:
November 1, 2009 at 12:03 am
You’re updating, which means you made it out. That’s a relief. And leg surgery? Well I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m sure as hell impressed!
November 2, 2009—The Comfort of Strangers
I have seen inside Ted.
“A toast!”
I turn, startled out of my thoughts. It’s Julian and he’s brought a bottle, hobbling up to me, the pain flickering in his face, in the tension of his body, but not in his voice. I’ve offered to keep the first watch, and maybe all the watches, since I can’t fathom resting until I know Ted is safely out of danger. Renny is with him and has promised to let me know as soon as he’s awake.
She was kind enough to let me know there’s a glimmer of wireless about twenty yards southeast of the camp.
“A toast?” I ask, turning to face Julian. “To what?” He joins me on the low concrete retaining wall at the north end of the encampment. He still smells of the hydrogen peroxide, of the rubbing alcohol, and I do too.
“To you, of course,” he says. “Or to us! Or—no—to something better: to potential! God knows you’ve got it.” He takes a big swig from the bottle and as he raises it to his lips I see the Johnnie Walker label wink in and out of view.
“Where the hell did you find that?” I ask, enthusiastically taking the slender bottle from him. I absolutely need a drink.
“Stole it from Sam,” he says. “Fuck, sorry, I mean Dobbs.” He scoffs, taking the whiskey back from me. His faces scrunches up as he swallows and his lips smack together with supreme satisfaction. I have to admit, I feel the same. I haven’t had booze this good since … Since sharing a drink with Collin.
Fuck.
“Won’t he be pissed?”
“Sure, but I’m his big brother. That’s what I’m for!”
The biceps tendon adheres the biceps muscle to the shoulder and stabilizes the joint. Four separate muscles originate on the scapula and pass out and around the shoulder where the tendons unite together to make up the rotator cuff …
“Hello? Allison?” he says, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Jesus. I didn’t know.… I guess I’m so used to it, to surgery. Never shakes me up anymore.”
“I thought I was going to kill him. I think I held onto the same breath the whole time.” I can’t stop looking at my hands, at the blood still wedged in the cracks. Ted’s blood.
“Heads up.”
I follow Julian’s h
and and see the decomposing Groaner shuffling toward us. He’s all but trumpeted his arrival, letting out one long depressed grunt. It’s as if he already knows we’re armed and ready. I pull the pistol out of my back waistband and drop him with three shots to the head. I might have done better but my hands won’t stop shaking.
“Nice,” Julian says, beaming at me. The man has no levels, there is only one. Big, white teeth glaring at you like the broadside of Moby Dick’s ass. Tail. Fin. Whatever. “I can see we’re in good hands.”
My hands are starting to steady and they look beautiful almost, perched on the tops of my thighs like two weary doves resting after a long flight. I can still see the muscles parting under the knife, the tissue, the blood …
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“For what? You did it all, sweetheart.”
“Stop calling me that. And no, I didn’t do it all. I couldn’t have done that without you, not in a million years. So … thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, handing me the bottle.
“And thank you,” I continue, “for being nice.”
“I could be a lot nicer.”
I toss him a sideways glance to see if he’s kidding. He isn’t. And so, “Forget it,” I say, shaking my head.
“Roll those eyes any harder and you’ll be picking your corneas up out of the dirt.”
“Do you ever stop? I mean … ever?”
“Nope.”
The whiskey is a good, burning mouthful of honeyed smoke. I can feel the clear path it marks down my throat, warming as it goes. We sit in silence for a moment, the colorless, gray world stretched out in front of us, riddled with pain, riddled with danger. I wonder how many are coming toward us right now, how many are hobbling on broken legs, torn limbs, and all to get to us. What must their pain be? I hope they don’t suffer. I hope their existence is numb.
“If it’s not Ted, then who is it?”
Julian pries the bottle out of my hand and pauses with it halfway to his lips, waiting for my answer. For a total gimp he sure doesn’t seem too hindered, in the physical sense anyway.
“Oh Jesus, I can’t just turn you down because—shock and horror—I don’t find you attractive? I know that, being a doctor, you’re probably used to chicks throwing themselves at you or whatever but that’s not for me.”
“Okeydoke,” Julian says, shrugging his shoulder and nodding toward the field in front of us. Another Groaner limps toward us and I take aim. “But who is he?”
“He’s just … a guy. A married guy. A dumb married guy that I’ll never see again. Satisfied?”
“Not really,” he says, sipping the whiskey. “But it’s a start. I take it that against all fucking odds the wife’s still in the picture?”
“Yup.” The gun fires, hitting the Groaner square in the forehead.
“Ah-haaa. And you don’t much care for her?”
“Nope.”
“You tell him that?”
“Aren’t you a fucking doctor? Where the hell is your bedside manner? What kind of doctor are you anyway? No, wait, let me guess—OB/GYN?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I already offered to show you my bedside manner and, if memory serves—and it does—you turned me down.” He stops, hesitating for a moment before taking another swig of whiskey. Then, squinting away from me and into the distance he says, “I was a pediatrician.”
“Wow. Kids?”
“Kids.”
“That’s gotta be tough.”
“It is.” His voice is already deep and low, but it drops another register before he says, “But when things go right it’s just exactly where you wanna be.”
“See, that’s nice. That’s a nice change for you. I like you better when you’re being, you know, not a dick.”
For a moment I’m sure he’s going to retort, but he’s quiet, rubbing the edge of his jaw thoughtfully. The light is so strange here, so purely dark and yet glittering with stars. Without the lights of Iowa City to bleach out the moon and stars the glow from the sky is hypnotizing. I think about pointing this out but keep it to myself. Julian has changed his pants, abandoning the one-legged trouser look for a scuffed pair of dark khaki dungarees. He dresses like an Australian cattle herder, a roughneck, and yet it’s not quite a stretch to imagine him in a doctor’s coat.
“So,” he says after the long silence, “does Married Guy actually know that you’re torn up about this?”
“None of your business, really.”
“You got somewhere pressing to be? No? Didn’t think so.”
“You’re a man,” I say, humoring him. He hands me the whiskey bottle. “Would you know?”
“Phew, that’s loaded. But,” he says, gesturing with a little bow and a hand pointed to his chest, “if it were me, maybe I’d want someone to just smack me over the head and say, ‘Hey moron, your wife’s a bloodsucking harpy.’ ”
“That’s not my job. That’s not even my place.…” I should stop there, but the whiskey is starting to work and when that happens I feel like talking. And I have to admit that, unfortunately, talking helps. “A friend of mine used to say that, you know, if you like a guy who has a girlfriend then it’s fair game to tell him so. If he likes you better than her then there you go; if not, then at least you tried. But with married people it’s not fair to even plant that seed, you know? It’s just … destructive.”
“Maybe that’s what he needs,” Julian says brightly. “A little destruction.”
“No. The landscape is different now. He should hold onto her, she’s part of his other life, his normal life. And relationships … It’s all new. Friendships are made so fast that you can’t dwell, no, you have to just move on. How many people have I met recently that I liked, really liked, and then lost? How many people have tricked me? Lied to me? I need to keep focused, keep focused on just staying alive and getting to my mom. It’s not worth it to dwell, not when our expiration dates are so—”
“Unpredictable?”
“Exactly.”
“You know, there’s a Latin phrase for this.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Yes there is,” he insists.
I’m getting drunk. That is the only explanation for why I’m even indulging in this conversation. It’s like I can see the path in front of me, see exactly where the edge of the cliff is and when I’ll tumble over it but somehow, somehow, my feet just keep on moving. You and me, Johnnie Walker, you and me are quits.
“Fuck. Fine. Let’s have it then,” I say, throwing up my hands.
“Carpe connubium.”
“You’d almost be charming if you weren’t a complete man-child.”
“Trouble, one o’clock,” he says, suddenly serious. There are two of them, quieter than the others. The smell drifts all the way over to us from their rotting bodies. You can never forget that smell. I take care of them, checking the clip to make sure I’m okay on bullets. I’m running low. I need to conserve.
“Is this just about sex? I get it, Julian. You’re horny. There isn’t exactly a romantic vibe going around.”
“No,” Julian says, and for once the white whale smile is gone. He goes on, rambling, saying things like, “This is about you rescuing my ass from that redneck hellhole. It’s about you saying ‘Not me, never, I’m bad with blood’ and then performing a fucking medieval surgery on my leg. It’s about you, cool and collected under pressure, saving your friend’s life. And it’s about you and me having a drink while you shoot zombies in the head. I mean, you’re kinda scary, but no one’s perfect.”
“I think it’s time we said good night.”
“It’s early yet.”
“You should get some rest. You’ve had a big day,” I say, making sure he has the whiskey. I can’t be left alone with it. “I can take the watch from here.”
“Allison…”
“Good night, Julian.”
I should follow my own advice and ask for someone to cover the watch. But there’s nothing appealing about
sleeping on the hard ground under a torn tarp, or in a car stained with blood. It’s not insomnia, just my preference for being awake to face the demons. In sleep they have more power; in sleep there’s no way to turn away from what’s coming for you.
Half an hour later Renny comes looking for me. Ted is sound asleep and, she thinks, out of danger. It takes her all of two seconds to smell the whiskey on my breath.
“Caveman getting you drunk?” she asks. She’s wide awake for this time of night, her dark eyes gleaming like ancient jewels. “Bold move.”
“I’m not interested.”
“No? You sure? Man is in the middle of surgery and he still can’t keep his eyes off you.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, wishing that I hadn’t been so hasty about letting that whiskey go.
“I would say he’s smitten, but I’m gonna go ahead and keep my mouth shut. I’m just looking out for you. He’s hungry for it, is all I’m saying.”
“I know that, Renny. Seriously. I know. He’s not exactly the king of subtlety.”
“I wouldn’t ordinarily advocate running away from a potential lay, that’s not my style, but I feel—as your friend—that I have an obligation to point out that Julian is, in all likelihood, a slimeball,” she says. “And I don’t give a fuck if he’s a doctor or an astronaut or whatever. I think you should steer clear.”
“You’re right,” I say, permitting myself a smile. “And coincidentally I’m writing the inspirational poster in my head right now. ‘Abstinence: Hey, motherfuckers, don’t knock it till you try it.’ Times New Roman. All caps. And it’ll be right below a big ol’ picture of an industrial-grade chastity belt.”
“Don’t you mean a big, sloppy red heart?” Renny asks. She isn’t moved by my stony look. “Don’t be shy. You can’t fool me when it comes to this shit.”
“Apparently nobody’s fooled. So okay, Miss Marple, it’s got nothing to do with the boneage. Happy?”
Allison Hewitt Is Trapped Page 25