Authors: Susan Sey
From the waiting room came a single, muttered, “Amen.”
Nixie clicked open her pen. “Name?”
The woman
opened one eye
.
“Regina
Wilks
, baby.”
“Have you been here before, Regina?”
“No. But I
ain’t
never been dying before
neither
. Oh,
lordy
, it’s getting worse. I’m all cold now.” Sweat beaded on the woman’s forehead. She crossed herself and started to hum Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.
“Any insurance?”
Regina groaned and lifted one butt cheek. She
squeaked off a delicate fart. Nixie took that as a no.
“When did your symptoms start?” Nixie looked up from the form. The woman was staring at her, but the focus was clearly internal. Uh oh. Nixie scrambled for a pink bucket but it was too late. Regina leaned over and barfed between her knees onto the floor.
Nixie sighed, then hauled herself out of the chair and dropped the registration form into the box labeled
Diseased
.
Regina sat up and wiped at the corners of her mouth with the hem of her shirt. “Well what do you know? I feel better. Thank you, Merciful Jesus!”
“Praise be,” Nixie said. She grabbed a pink bucket and let herself into the waiting room. “Okay, let’s get you comfortable, Ms.
Wilks
.”
She planted the woman in the row of chairs she’d mentally designated Upchuck Alley, handed her the bucket and a Dixie cup of water. She was filling the mop pail when Erik came into the reception area and fished a form out of the pending files. He got halfway to the door before his nos
e twitched and his eyes went
unfocused
.
“Whoa, that’s ripe. One got away from you, huh, princess?”
“Princess?”
“You said I couldn’t speak of you in the third person anymore.”
“So I get a patronizing nickname?”
“Until you start catching the
pukers
ahead of time, yeah.”
Nixie shrugged. “Beware the sudden blank look.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He held open the door and she aimed the mop bucket and its three functional wheels toward it. “How do you like the
job
so far?”
She thought of Regina
Wilks
humming Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and imploring the good lord for release from gastrointestinal distress. “It has its moments.”
Erik shook his head and called his patient. Nixie attacked the remains of Regina’s last meal with a stringy mop, but stopped when a car
jammed on its brakes
in the street outside. She saw it through the glass front doors, something from the bygone era of vehicles th
e size of ocean liners. It
laid waste to a stubby tree and landed on the sidewalk, two wheels on the curb, two in the street. The back door opened and two bodies bounced onto the sidewalk. The car fish-tailed away from the curb before they’d even stopped rolling.
“Oh Christ,” she heard Erik say. “Not another one.” He flew past her, and Nixie followed without thought. A wail rose on the cold night air, brittle with grief and rage. Nixie had heard women make
that
cry over their wounded men in more countries and more languages than she’d care to count. It always sounded exactly the same.
She shoved throug
h the doors. A woman was on her knees on the pavement,
struggling to pull a man into her lap. It was hard to tell at first who was bleeding
. B
lood was everywhere,
a bright, vivid red against their white t-shirts,
the metallic scent of it
heavy on air already laced with panic. The woman rocked on her knees. The man’s arms dangled limply to the bloody concrete.
“What happened?” Erik asked, his voice brisk and utterly calm as he plucked the man from the girl’s arms and laid him out on the sidewalk.
“He’s shot, oh my
God
, oh my
God
, he’s shot!” The woman lunged for the man again, tried to drag him back into her arms. Nixie hooked both hands through the woman’s elbow and yanked back hard. They both went down on their butts on the frozen sidewalk.
“Let the doctor work,
okay?
” Nixie said, wrapping both arms around the woman. The girl, really. She couldn’t be more than sixteen, Nixie thought as she rocked her, the embrace as much about restraint as comfort. The girl thrashed for a moment or two, then crumpled into Nixie’s arms.
Erik took the man’s blood-soaked t-shirt in both hands and ripped it in two right down the center. The girl made a low, keening cry at the sight of two ugly holes in her boyfriend’s chest, each pulsing a dark rivulet of blood down his ribs. Snow floated down, touched the man’s face, his hands
“What happened, honey?” Nixie asked her.
“He’s fucking shot is what happened!” She rocked back and forth in Nixie’s arms, shaking so hard Nixie could feel it in her teeth. “They just drove around and around, waiting for him to fucking die. They finally shoved us out here. Oh
God
, oh
God
, is
he
dead?”
“No.” Erik rolled the man carefully to his side. “No exit wounds,” he said, his face grim. He tore the T-shirt into two pieces, fashioned them into pads and pressed them hard against the bullet holes.
Mary Jane crashed through the door and
stopped short.
“What happened?”
“Homeboy ambulance,” Erik said.
“911?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Erik replied.
“I’ll do it.”
“Double GSW to the chest,” he told her. “No exit wounds,
thready
pulse. Lost a lot of blood.” He glanced at the pad of t-shirt under his hand. It was already black with blood. “Damn it. Bring me a pressure wrap and a shitload of five by nines when you come back.”
“Right.” She disappeared into the clinic.
“What’s his name
?” Nixie asked the girl in her arms.
“
DeShawn
.” She wiped a sleeve across her face, smearing away the blood and tears and snot.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“Yeah. We’re having a baby.”
Nixie’s heart didn’t break. She’d heard this story too many times for that. It took a hard hit, though.
Nice dent
. “Congratulations. When?”
“Summer, I think.”
“You’ll want to be seen by the doctors here as soon as you can,” Nixie said. “Find out for sure.”
The young man’s eyelids twitched and he coughed up some pink foam.
“Oh my
God
, oh Jesus, is he
dying
?” The girl shrank against Nixie’s chest and they both held their breath. Mary Jane and one of the nurses burst through the door. The nurse flapped open a blanket over the man’s legs while Mary Jane snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. She handed a second pair to Erik and went to her knees beside the bleeding man. “CPR?”
He shook his head once. The look he gave Mary Jane said
don’t bother
. “Still breathing on his own for the moment.”
The girl shuddered in Nixie’s arms. “Is he going to die?” she whispered.
“I don’t know, honey.” Nixie held the girl tighter. She strained her ears for the wail of a siren, heard nothing but the whisper of falling snow.
Erik accepted a wad of gauze from the nurse. He laid it on top of the soaked t-shirt bandage and pressed hard. The bleeding man coughed again, bringing up more pink foam. This time his eyelids cracked open and he said, “
Jass
.”
The girl shrank against Nixie. “Oh
God
oh
God
oh
God
,” she said.
“
Jass
?” One hand twitched, seeking.
“Is that you?” Nixie asked the girl. “You’re
Jass
?”
She nodded, but pushed her heels against the sidewalk to put more distance between herself and death. Nixie had seen that before, too.
If I don’t look, it’s not happening. If I don’t see it, it can’t be real, right?
Nixie grabbed a handful of
Jass
’ collar and hauled her to the man’s side. “She’s here,
DeShawn
.
Jass
is right here.”
She took his hand and put it in
Jass
’.
Jass
tried to pull away, her eyes rolling with terror. Nixie took the girl’s face in both hands and brought it to hers. She didn’t want her to see the blood, the doctors, the limp hand searching for her own. She wanted
Jass
to look only at her.
“Listen to me,” she said, her voice fierce. “Listen, right now. Are you
listening
?”
Jass
blinked, focused.
“
Tell him you love him
,” Nixie told her.
“Tell him he’s fine.”
“He is
?”
“No. He’s dying.”
Jass
jerke
d as if Nixie had slapped her.
Her hands came up to claw at Nixie’s, but Nixie wouldn’t let go. She kept
Jass
’ face between her bloody hands and kept talking.
“Tell him you love him. Tell him it’s all going to be all right. You tell him everything he needs to know if you never talk to him again, you understand? Right now. Do this now or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. This is the father of your baby. If you love him, tell him.”
Jass
stared at her, her cheeks wet. She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered.
“Tell him!” Nixie
roared the words and it seemed to shatter
Jass
’ paralysis. She bobbed her head and didn’t resist when Nixie turned her toward her dying boyfriend and put his weakly seeking hand in hers. This time, the girl gripped it hard in both her own and brought it to her cheek.
“
DeShawn
, baby, I love you. You’re going to be okay. The doctors are taking care of you. It’s all going to be okay.”
Nixie sat back on her heels behind the girl, her dirty hands splayed on the knees of her jeans.
DeShawn
tried to smile, but it wavered and became a choked sob.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered. “So sorry.” His eyes closed, two tears slipped down cheeks that were still so young and soft that Nixie’s heart took another dent.
“Don’t you leave me,”
Jass
said, bending to put her face against his. “Don’t you
dare die
. I need you. I can’t do this. Not without you. Come on, baby.” She was sobbing, great, wracking, open-mouthed sobs, but
DeShawn
didn’t open his eyes again.