You think the whole three blocks to your sister’s house how she said to not drive—Walk, don’t drive—and it’s not until you’re there, bathed in blue and red, that you understand she said that because the streets are blocked—not because the dying guy might recognize your car, or some cop might see a dent in your bumper, a tiny piece of fabric from the jogger’s sleek black stretchy pants hanging off a cracked piece of plastic. No one—save your kids— knows you hit that jogger, and your kids certainly haven’t called your sister or the cops to indict you. Not yet, you think, as you make your way around the back of your sister’s house, let yourself in, peek out her front window from behind the curtains, hoping you won’t get a view of a dying jogger—the man you may have killed—flatlining in the daffodil bed. Behind the curtains you’re shielded from anyone who might stop dying for a split-second to point you out, to gasp That’s him! before he expires.
When your sister puts her hand on your shoulder and you jump, you should act cool, right? And you’re supposed to say yes when she asks if you’ll go outside with her to see the guy, right? Or do you instead fake being traumatized at the sight of a man dying, tell her it reminds you of when Dad died, even though your father died on a golf course sixteen years ago and you’ve never, ever thought of what that looked like? You could do that, but you know better. Your sister has her own death issues to think about, that shit in Roger’s lungs moved on to his lymph nodes, which is why he’s not at the window, too, the poor, frail bastard unable to stand, let alone walk across the house. You know that, so you just say that you had some bad tuna and then try to look gray—do you know how to look gray?—and tell your sister that you have to get home, even when she cries and cries and begs you to go outside with her. You tell her that the kids have to eat, make a crack about how Pam can’t cook, maybe mention the warning ticket she got for running the yellow light, like you’re trying to bond, connect, because you have nothing—zero, zip, nil—to say about Roger, who used to wrestle with you in high school and was a big fucker who now looks like Ichabod Crane on heroin. What the fuck are you talking about? your sister might ask you, growing more and more hysterical, so you just leave, tell her to say hi to Roger for you, but there’s no way she heard you because you were on the back porch before his name ever came out of your mouth. Right? Right.
Because you have your own ass to look out for, you sneak around the side of your sister’s house, hop her chain-link, squat under the Roses of Sharon in the dark, just to see what’s going on. From there you can watch, without anyone seeing you, without your sister bugging you out. These paramedics, they’re like the guys on TV, aren’t they? The ones who miraculously save people, week after week, better at saving people than doctors are. They’re out in the trenches, no fancy equipment, no diplomas on the wall, just them, their gurneys, and their wits. They’ll pull out the shock paddles or the adrenaline shots or puncture the guy’s lung with a ballpoint pen, drain the fluid, let the air do its thing. So, when you watch the ring of people around the guy on the ground all stand up, one of the ambulance drivers draping a sheet over the guy, do you panic? No, of course not. Your sister’s out there, by herself, and she’s losing her cool for the both of you, some dead guy on her front lawn, every city employee traipsing through Roger’s beloved flowers. You even keep your composure when you think you hear Roger, from his window above you, mutter Is that you out there, Justin? in a voice so pathetic, he already sounds dead. Do you fall backward, onto your ass, into the neighbors’ rose bushes, thorning the shit out of your neck and arms when you hear this? No. Shit no! Do you get up and hop that fence again, cut through your sister’s yard, high-tail it down the alley—first toward your house, then double-back, past your sister’s yard again—toward where you don’t know, because you’re not ready to go home yet, face your kids, face Pam, face your car’s front bumper, which might be dented and have incontrovertible DNA evidence hiding in every crevice? That would be irresponsible. But you’re not ready to go home yet, so that’s what you do, head in the other direction.
I asked you how you are, didn’t I? Did you answer me or did I get started talking again? Sorry. How are you?