Terrible Accident

“911 Emergency Services, please state the nature of the emergency.”

“This 911?”

“Yes. Do you have an emergency? What is the location of the emergency?”

“Ok, I, I think I just saw a, uh, vehicular homicide.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“I, uh, his like liver was pasted to the windshield for a bit. I mean, I went to see if he had a pulse, but he kinda. He just came apart, man. Not that you sound like a man, I mean. You have a nice voice. But he just drove off. He's dead, and he just drove off.”

“Sir, you're in shock. You need to calm down. Clam down, and just answer my questions. Can you do that?”

“sure. Uh. Ok.”

“Good. Now, a man was hit by a car?”

“Right, yeah.”

“And killed.”

“Pretty damn killed. Very killed. All over the place. Man, I saw,”

“Thank you. and where are you?”

“By the bus stop...”

Kristie stopped the playback. “It gets pretty normal after that. Calm down, address, all that. That's all I heard; you were there, weren't you?”

“Yeah. Our van [ambulance] got there first. Normally cops do that, but we happened to be in route during the call. That would have been great, if there'd been someone to save. But it wasn't like that. You heard the guy, on the phone. The patient was torn in half by the car. Right at the L4 vertebrate. It was nasty.”

I paused. She nodded, wanted me to go on.

“It's a gross story. You really want to hear it?”

“I hear half the gross story all the time. I want to hear the rest, you know? Got to be better than what's running inside my head.”

I nodded. Not like I was squeamish to talk about what I did, I just didn't want to offend the lovely girl's delicate sensibilities. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

“When we got there, this guy who called, Daniel, was laying down on the curb with his feet up on the bus stop sign post. Just lying on his back. And we pulled up; I won the flip, so I got to go talk to him. But I saw the body. Or, the parts. His name was Thompson Cormic, lived a couple blocks away. Probably just came home from work or something. Didn't know that yet, though, and this guy, Daniel, had started calling him Joe. He was talking to him.

“It's too bad, Joe, that I didn't see it. It's the stupid goddam bus, man. Cars just driving right over us 'cause we take the goddamed bus and don't have no choice. Not like we can afford cars, and even if we couldn't we couldn't buy insurance or gas or shit. And even then, we'd just get smashed into by some fuck lawyer with a lawyer who can make the whole thing your fault....”

“Hey, hey,” I'm real articulate when I need to be. “You're in shock, man. You need to relax,” I said to Daniel.

“I know. That's what the girl said. So I put my feets up, see. And I'm all relaxed. Not as casual as Joe, though. He's out spilling his guts on the fuckin street and don't give a fuck. Don't care who sees, now, do you Joe?”

“So he told me his name. And I asked him what he saw, just to get talking. It was a lot like what he told you, I guess, but it was pretty horrible at the time. He'd puked at least once before we got there, but he still kinda retched after I helped him up and he looked at the street. He said he saw the car great, though. And then he just started walking up the street. I still had my trauma kit in my hands (so I felt silly doing it) but I couldn't just let him walk away.”

“Where ya going, man? You should sit down again. C'mon, you can sit in the truck or something. I won't make you ride with Joe.”

“Why wouldn't I want to ride with Joe? Hunh? He's a perfectly good guy with a minor liver-on-the-fucking-windshield problem, that's all. I'm O-K doc.

“No, you're not. And I'm not a doctor.”

“So then he turns to me, real hard, and looks at me. He says, “You're an EMT, right? Know how to give CPR, and a shot and set a bone? You know how to keep a wound clean and kill germs and stuff. Hell, you're a better doctor than the best in the goddammed world in 1860, and that's the truth.” And he just turns and looks at the ground, and walks down the street. He's following the blood, you know? And then it turns into this little alley that leads behind a bunch of apartments, and there's the car. Exactly what he described – an 80's looking car, brown, boxy, 4 doors – and there's a real normal-looking guy cleaning the windshield with a fat bottle of coke. Somewhere along the line, Daniel picked up a brick, one of those funny shaped ones they put around useless beds of decorator rock? And he, well, I don't know. I was pretty sure I could see what was going to happen, and I. I almost didn't care enough to do anything about it. I really just wanted to watch it happen. It would be justice, you know?

“But I didn't. Not exactly. So I went up to Daniel, and whispered, “Distract him, I'll get him,” and I pulled a shot of Vitamin H out of my kit. Little needles, right there on top, because sometimes a guy'll really hurt himself trying to move when he shouldn't. And the guy at the car, kinda old, kinda fat, bags under the eyes; not much of a serial killer type. But we didn't even talk to him. He just stared at us, and at me. My uniform, I guess. He was pleading with his eyes. But he didn't say anything, just stared. And I walked around behind him.

“Daniel hit him with the brick, right in the gut. Big, hard punch. The guy didn't even need haldol and he was down, but I grabbed his arm and gave him half a shot anyway. Because I wasn't even thinking yet. Just doing. And then Daniel was kicking him and screaming about Joe, and I stopped him even before I heard the siren.

“I didn't hear it until it turned off. You know how that is, the sound is noticeable for the first time when it suddenly stops. But it didn't stop down the street, like it should have, it stopped right behind us. At the entrance to the little alley. So I pulled Daniel away, and he calmed down really quick. He called me doc again, and thanked me.

“The cop – only one came to talk to us – wanted to know what happened. Daniel opened his mouth, but I put my hand down on his shoulder really hard, and he looked at me. So I told the cop, “I can witness that man cleaning blood off his car, and this guy just saw that car rip a guy in two.”

The cop stared. He had a thin mustache, like he was trying to grow a Magnum PI like it was some kind of cop trademark only it came out a Howard Hughes. He didn't say anything, I guess he was thinking. So I said, “And I don't know why he's on the ground like that. Good luck, right, that he didn't go anywhere?”

The cop just sent us away. I guess he'll catch flak from that, but he didn't even take a statement.”

Kristie just looked at me for a long time. She didn't say anything. I suppose she already knew all about the investigation and just wanted to hear my side of it. She just turned around, and clicked 'play,' and fast-forwarded a bit.

“...the car, sir?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. It was big, and boxy. Dark windows, green. Fuckin tank, huge. Like a suburban or something.”

There was silence there for a excruciating time. Then Kristie said, “They found blood in the alley, you know. Farther up it. Past the car.”

I quit that day. Applied for a job as an orderly; I was over-qualified, but I knew the woman who ran the department. Shortest interview ever – “you need to be out of the van for a while?” “Yeah.” “Ok, you'll start a 9.” Maybe the cops won't investigate too fully and the case will drop. Just be forgotten. Or maybe they're interview that guy with the pencil mustache.

He said “sedan.” I know, I'm certain. And “brown.” I was so sure. I was so sure.