Pacemaker
By tbottaro
- 162 reads
Was it worth it? That’s what they’ll think. That’s what I’m thinking now, lying here in my own blood.
‘Ma’am, Ma’am?’ A man is saying to me, tapping my face. I say ‘Yeah’ but the man doesn’t respond. He just keeps saying ma’am, ma’am, ma’am, over and over again. I wish he didn’t call me that. I’m only eighteen.
Eighteen. My mom says it’s about time I got myself a real job, or go back to school to make something of myself. She says this while smoking the weed I supply her with. What would she do, then, without her discount weed, I say, but she just laughs.
I can hear sirens echoing in the distance. They always trip me out, no matter how many times I hear them. They usually mean something shit, in one way or another. Someone gets taken off to jail. Someone gets beaten or wrongly accused. Someone dies.
The ambulance has turned up. The lights are flickering in my eyelids. It’s like when you’re a kid and you close your eyes and press on them really hard so you can see sparks and moving shapes. I miss those days sometimes – stupid shit like that could keep you entertained for hours.
Two doors slam, one after the other, and people are coming towards me. I can hear their feet crunching on the pavement so loudly, it’s like they’re gonna walk straight over me.
‘She’s been shot in the chest and not responding’, the man says.
I try to say something but can’t move my lips. I hope Jamal isn’t scared. I hope he doesn’t feel guilty either. I wish I could talk to him, tell him why I did it. I keep seeing his face changing from one sort of fear to another as I ran toward him, defeat, then panic. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do to get him involved in any of this, but if I didn’t, he would have been bullied or taken in by the Danzig crew.
There’s static now, followed by a beep.
‘Officer Dave Hall here. Calling up to report an incident at Morningside and Lawrence. Over,’ a new man says, which is followed by more static.
‘We’re ready. Over,’ a woman says over the crackle.
‘Woman shot in chest and in critical condition. Ambulance has arrived and suspects, witnesses, yadda, yadda, yadda are being taken in. No further back up needed. Over.’
‘Got it. Over,’ the woman says.
His ‘yadda yadda yadda’ rings in my head and I feel like smashing the motherfucker’s brains in. That’s all we are to those pigs – a bunch of unimportant, insignificant words.
The stretcher wheels hit the ground and squeak towards me. Hands slide under my legs, waist and shoulder and I’m lifted and placed on it. An oxygen mask is put over my mouth but it doesn’t make me breathe any better. It’s funny when you see these things happen – you believe they’re gonna be okay. An oxygen mask looks hopeful. Maybe that’s why they do it.
‘Can I come? Please can I come?’ I hear Jamal say. The man that sounds like the officer says no and something about a station.
So the fuckers are gonna take him in, are they? It wasn’t his fault. The cops have a real chip on their shoulder about us. Jamal did nothing wrong, well, nothing that made him deserve being shot at.
‘Her heart rate is going up,’ a woman says this time. We’re moving now. I can smell rubber and antiseptic. Something sharp pricks my wrist and tingles. The woman is still speaking but her words are a faint echo and not joined up. Woman, woman, woman… shot, shot, shot… heart, heart, heart, she says.
Heart. Jamal knew something about that. Imagine having sixteen heart operations and a pacemaker by the time you were thirteen. He was just recovering from his last one when he moved into the building. He was all scrawny and pale like you’ve never seen a black kid before. Everyone called him E.T, ‘cause of, you know, that scene where him and Elliot are about to die and E.T looks all pale and shit. It’s kinda funny, really. That’s what everyone calls him now, except for me.
Wound…blood… loss, the woman’s voice echoes. I’m lifted again, then the stretcher bangs down hard on the ground. We’re moving faster and there are more voices now. The voices become bodiless faces that swirl around in my mind – Jamal and his nervous, shifty eyes, my mom and her dismissive laughter, my dad and his droopy, indifferent face, his girlfriend and her insincere concern.
Running… out… time, the woman says.
The oxygen mask is snatched off my face and something else is placed over my nose and mouth. My eyes open but nobody notices. I try to blink to get someone’s attention but when I close my eyes, I can’t open them again.
Everything is getting dimmer now. The voices sound further and further away. The stretcher wheels aren’t bouncing on the floor anymore, it’s like I’m flying instead. I’m so tired.
I’m sitting in a sandbox, wearing that yellow dress my mom used to put on me all the time. I think I’m probably around three or four. I’m at home, but it’s not my house. This house is a mansion. I’m making mud-pies and am wondering what they taste like. I pick one up and take a bite. It tastes like chocolate.
‘You really shouldn’t have done that,’ a dog lying nearby says.
‘Why not?’ I ask.
‘’Cause you’ll get in trouble.’
‘Trouble? Why? Here – it tastes like chocolate,’ I say, offering it to the dog.
The dog sniffs it, takes a lick and backs away.
‘What’s wrong, Jamal?’ I ask.
‘Nothing. It’s just, I don’t want to get caught.’
‘You won’t, trust me.’ I say.
‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ the dog says, but it’s not a dog anymore, it’s Jamal.
‘You said that already. Why were you just a dog?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not good news.’ Jamal’s mouth is moving when he says this but it’s not his voice. It’s an older man’s voice, an articulate one.
‘What’s not good news? I don’t get it,’ I say.
‘No. It’s not fair. It was supposed to be me. She took the bullet for me,’ Jamal says, his voice trembling.
‘Please…please… is there anything you can do?’ This time, it’s my mom who says this. I can’t see her but I can tell she’s crying.
‘Mama? Where are you? Please don’t cry. I’m sorry I ate the mud.’
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