Helga remained silent. Her face revealed total shock, the harsh realization of the burden Jim had been carrying for a decade. The sights and sounds and smells that most Americans would never know. Jim felt strangely compassionate, but he needed to finish the story, to get it off his chest.
“I knew we needed to move around to the other side of the building to get to a safe zone. And I remember driving around the North Tower to West Street, and that’s when you started seeing stuff in the street that you never want to see. And I remember driving over it. I had to, I had no choice. Danny said to me, ‘Just go, Jim. Go!’ And so we literally drove over, people basically. And we got there and were standing in front of the American Express building, and that’s when the jumpers started.”
“Jim, please don’t feel like you need to—”
“And I remember there was a guy, a black kid, an EMT. He was looking at the jumping people, and he said, ‘These people are jumping. I’ve got to go catch them!’ And I remember we had to hold him down because he was literally trying to run to the front of the tower to catch these people. You know everybody just started to lose it at that point. And we actually sat there and counted people jumping, and we got into the twenties before we came back to our senses. And then they were calling us. They needed paramedics in the lobby of the tower to help treat the injured. Of course Danny and I volunteered, but as we were getting ready to walk over there people started running out. And once again I remember thinking, why the heck are they running? And that’s when the first tower started coming down.”
Jim paused to compose himself. Helga seemed frozen. Her lips trembled slightly and then she said, “You were there?”
Jim nodded. Emotion clouded his thoughts. He shook his head to force the developing images to sharpen then opened his eyes and continued.
“I was there, but I was lucky. I survived. Many of the guys we were working with at the AMEX building didn’t make it.”
“Oh, my Lord, Jim…hon, I’m so sorry.”
“No one in the lobby of the tower survived.”
“And your partner, Danny? Did he—”
“Danny’s fine.”
“My word, hon, I had no idea.”
“Most people don’t, Helga. How could they? The images on TV couldn’t prepare you for the sights and smells, or the nightmarish scene of the next few days. You remember the pile? At first I worked it like everyone else—searching for survivors, not finding any—but after days of watching the replay of events and working in the restricted zone, and dealing with the images and smells and reliving it in my mind, I just became numb. I could not volunteer to go back in. To this day I still consider myself pretty hardened by the day-to-day things I’ve seen in this job, but I just could not bring myself to go back to the pile. I guess it was partly psychological, and partly self-preservation, but it could be the reason I’m still here today instead of joining my friends and partners who died with respiratory illnesses and kidney failure.”
“Did you suffer any long term effects?”
“I’ve been fighting severe sinus infections for years. I have a lesion on each kidney, and my liver swelled up like a sponge at first. All the junk we inhaled that day…the concrete and smoke and people. But I’m still alive while lots of others aren’t. So anyway, I guess I’m lucky. And that’s my story. And I guess that’s why I drink so much now, and why I seem so angry all the time, and my mood swings—”
“Hon—”
“Valerie says I’m not bipolar, that it’s just post-traumatic stress, but sometimes I wonder. The doctor put me on antidepressants a few years back. I hate it, Helga, the way I feel most of the time, but that’s just the way it is. I suppose I’m better for it all in a strange kind of way, but I still haven’t figured out how. I lost a lot of friends. I don’t know why I’m here.”
Helga sniffled, blew her nose, and then picked up the plastic flask containing half a liter of clear yellow fluid. Jim felt a wave of embarrassment tinged with a healthy dose of disgust. He’d transported plenty of paraplegics and quads over the years and never had quite gotten use to the smell of their urine, or the idea that they were completely incapable of peeing for themselves. It humbled him beyond words to admit that he was now in their company, a group of extremely unfortunate people thrust into awfully humiliating situations.
“Well,” he said motioning toward the container, “at least my kidneys still work.” He lifted the bed sheet and looked toward his private parts. “Do you think maybe now you can pull out that nasty thing?”
“Nope. The Foley stays in.”
Jim moaned. “For how long?”
“Until you’re able to control your bladder again.”
“That could be never.”
“Could be, hon.”
“You make this sound so trivial.”
“Well what would you like for me to say? Everything’s fine? You’re going to be all right?”
“I wish you would.”
“I can’t do that. You would know I was lying anyway. We’re just going to have to wait.”
“Just what I need, a compassionate nurse.”
“You know, most paralysis victims go through a longer period of denial before becoming so bitter.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Helga shrugged.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me next I should be thankful to be alive. Forget the apology,” Jim spat. “I take it back. You’re as cold as a chunk of ice.”
“Your whining, sir, is beginning to get on my nerves.”
“You’ve got morphine. Put me out of my misery.”
“You are becoming meaner by the moment.”
“Well thanks, Helga! Do you have to be so brutally honest all the time?”
“Offering sympathy is not my style, Mr. Stockbridge. I’m an ICU nurse, not your grandmother. My job is to get you stable enough to move out of here into a regular bed, and coddling you isn’t going to get that done. So if you’re looking for sympathy you can go somewhere else.”
“I wish I could.”
Jim felt his face redden. He would have given anything to stand up and tear the place apart, but the best he could do was just lie there and scream internally until his emotions were spent. And it didn’t take long. He eased off and sank back into his pillow. Exhausted.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man, I can’t believe this. All right then.” Jim cursed under his breath. “Give it to me straight, Helga. How bad is it?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I do.”
“All right.” Helga sighed. One eyebrow rose. “The bullet went through your right arm. It bounced off your humerus, breaking the bone mid-shaft then severing your brachial artery and coming out the other side. Then it punched though your ribcage and entered your chest. Once inside it perforated the lung, punctured your diaphragm, and then ricocheted off your vertebrae.”
“Which ones?”
“L1, maybe L2. Fortunately it didn’t sever your spine.”
“Where’d it stop?”
“Your liver.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Oh, and I forgot to mention, it perforated your transverse colon. The surgeons removed a portion of it. You lost a lot of blood too. They had to give you over fifteen units just to get you stabilized. More during surgery.”
“They removed part of my colon? Will I need a—”
“Hon, just an inch or so. No colostomy.”
Jim nodded and tried to visualize his own injuries, trying to think like a medical professional instead of a victim.
“What kind of steroids am I getting?”
“You’re not.”
“No steroids?”
“Nope. The doctor was afraid that steroids would lower your immune response too much, and allow the colon to get infected.”
“Helga!” Jim all but jumped out of bed with excitement. “Without steroids the inflammation would—”
“Last longer.”
> “Without steroids the swelling—”
“Will last longer than usual.”
“It’s still putting pressure on my spine. It will eventually go down, and when it does—”
“All functions could be restored. Hon, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you. There is still hope. But you still need to accept the fact that, well, sir, you may never walk again.”
Jim felt his sudden elation disappear.
“Hon,” Helga continued, “listen to me. You seem like a tough guy. Fight this thing. Trust God to give you strength. You might be surprised what happens.”
“God?” Jim found a spot on the ceiling and stared at it. “You know, Sid once told me God works in strange ways. I guess this would qualify as strange, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Helga said. “I suppose it would.”
“I wouldn’t tell just anybody this, Rico would think I’m crazy, but I think you’ll understand. When I was shot, lying out there on the ground, Sharon screaming and Rico fighting, things blowing up, I had the weirdest dream that I was dying. Walking toward a light. I mean, I know what you’re thinking, they always say they see a light, right? But I really did. It was like the sun, piercing white, brilliant white, but not like the sun at all really, because I remember I could look at it without burning my eyes. It was so beautiful, Helga. I walked toward it. I felt no fear. No pain. There was no sense of loss or remorse, just this intense desire to get closer to the light. But I kept hearing this voice in my head calling me back, saying, ‘I’m not finished with you.’ And ‘walk through this fire and you won’t get burned.’ I remember turning around and walking back. And waking up here. And seeing you. And realizing I may never again walk. And, Helga, the dream was so real. In a funny kind of way I wish I could have kept walking and never come back here. It was so incredibly peaceful. What did it mean? I wish I knew what it meant.”
“Hon, I’m not sure what it meant. Maybe God gave you a glimpse of what’s to come. From what I understand, Heaven will be a wonderful place. So, I don’t know, I don’t know. But I do know this—you just quoted scripture.”
Silence.
“What you just said came right out of the Old Testament. I don’t remember which book, without searching, but I do remember the verse. I had to memorize it as a child, back in Sunday school at First Presbyterian Church. It goes like this: ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.’”
“What does it mean?”
“It means,” Helga said, one eyebrow raised, “that God allowed all this to happen for a reason. He must have some kind of special plan for you, hon. I don’t believe he’s finished with you yet.”
Jim became so lost in thought that he hardly even noticed Helga leave the room until she returned with a small syringe. She attached it to the IV and pushed the plunger. The familiar, warm sensation of narcotic relief spread through his body. His eyelids grew heavy. His arms became light. He felt himself starting to slip away.
“Helga,” he said, trying to hang onto reason. “Why would God do this to me?”
Jim never heard her answer. He drifted off into a deep restful sleep.
Chapter 39
Sharon didn’t know the first thing about stars, or the moon or planets either for that matter, but as she stood on the beach and looked out over the ocean at the night sky she knew it was one of those once in a lifetime, magical moments she would never forget. The cloudy haze of the Milky Way hovered overhead like a jeweled blanket. The breeze carried the faint odor of salt and just enough crustiness to stick to her skin. It made her feel like taking off her clothes and diving into the water and floating on her back and staring up at the sky and dreaming. Forever.
She reached down and touched the front edge of an incoming wave instead. It swept gently beneath the toes of her boots and seeped quietly into the sand with the wispy sound of a billion tiny fingers.
“Do you see that?” The middle-aged man standing beside Sharon cocked his head toward her and pointed at the stars hovering overhead. “That’s Orion, the hunter.”
“Orion?” Sharon gazed at the stars trying to put together some semblance of a human form, but she couldn’t. “I don’t see him. What’s he hunting?”
“The Bull.” Frank Lacy moved his hand a few degrees across the sky. “See that V-shaped cluster, with the ruby-colored star that seems to twinkle? That’s Taurus the Bull.”
“He’s hunting a bull?”
“Has been for millennia.”
“Oh, oh, wait a minute, I see it now. I see it! It’s shaped like a Vee. Oh, cool. It’s a bull’s head. The red star is beautiful, but I still don’t see a hunter.”
“See the…oh, forget it. Trust me. He’s up there. Hey, um, look, Sharon…”
Frank cleared his throat nervously. Sharon glanced at him. It was too dark to see his face but she could tell by the posture of his tall lanky frame that something was bothering him.
“Are you okay?” he said. “About everything, I mean…everything that’s happened?”
“You mean about Jim?”
“Yeah, and Sid, but really, I was referring to you. The assault.”
“Oh.”
“Some of the guys have been talking, you know. I just really wanted to hear it from you.”
“Guys love to talk, don’t they?”
“Well, Sharon, stop me if I’m being too personal, but there’s a rumor going around that you were, well, you know…”
“Raped?”
“Well?” Frank kicked at the sand with his boot. “Is it true?”
Sharon didn’t feel like talking about it, but Frank sounded sincere. She didn’t know her new partner well, but the fact that he seemed to be embarrassed just to be asking her the question put her mind at ease. She decided she could trust him.
“No. It’s not true. But it would be if the cops hadn’t shown up when they did.” Sharon wiped her eyes. She knew that crying would smear her makeup, but she didn’t care. Her emotions had to come out sooner or later. It was time. “Jim and I were just clearing up from a canceled call. He got a text message to meet this kid at the revival tent, some kid he knows, a gang kid in some kind of trouble. So we drove over there. I didn’t like it, I told him not to stop, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” Sharon closed her eyes. Vivid memories popped into her mind—images of Core Street and the revival tent and the dark creepy way the shadows seemed to move.
“Was that the kid who got shot in the head?”
“Somehow Jim spotted him, sitting on the back row. It was too dark, Frank. I couldn’t see a thing inside that tent. I wanted to leave, I begged Jim to leave, but he wouldn’t listen to me. You know him, tough guy, no fear. He got out and walked over calling the kid’s name, the beam of his flashlight lighting the interior of the tent. And that poor kid. He looked like he was praying. Head bowed. But he wasn’t, Frank, he was gone, you know, that ugly gray color we see all the time in people’s faces just after they die. Gone. Jim pulled him to the ground and crouched over him, and it looked like he was working him, you know, trying to save him, so I jumped out and started to run over to help him, but he yelled at me. No, Sharon! Stay there! And that’s when it happened…”
“You don’t have to—”
“There were gunshots. Jim grunted and fell. I didn’t even think of running back to the truck and calling for help, I should have done that, but all I could think about was my partner. I had to get to my partner! And it was like instinct just took over. I, like, just ran toward him. And then they were all over me. I didn’t see it coming, but they were just, like, all over me, tearing my clothes and grunting and filthy and evil. I mean look at me, Frank. Me! Why would any man want to jump me? I’m fat. I’m ugly—”
“Sharon, you are not ugly.”
“I wanted to kill them. I’ve never hated anyone so much. I so wanted them to die.”
Sharon tried to hold t
hem back but tears burst forth. She held her hands to her eyes and sobbed, trying to push away the memories of the horrible night that had left so many people hurt and dead. She noticed Frank turn and jog away. He returned a moment later with a towel.
“Here,” he said. “It’s clean.”
“I’m sorry.” Sharon buried her face in the cloth and wiped her eyes. “I’m usually not like this.”
“No, it’s my fault,” Frank said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Don’t apologize, Frank. I needed to let that go. Just do me a favor please. Ask the guys at work to stop talking about me, will you please?”
Sharon held her head back and glanced up at the stars. She felt her nasal passages drain into her throat. It had felt good to cry, to let her emotions go, to feel safe and secure and strong and capable despite everything that had happened to her, but at the same time she felt guilty that she was able to stand there and Jim couldn’t. She pictured him lying in the hospital bed unable to move his legs, an ugly fluid filled tube relentlessly emptying his bladder. It made her feel sick. Frank seemed to read her mind.
“How is he, Sharon? Have you seen Jim yet?”
“Only about a dozen times. As of last night he was still pretty much out of it. They had him off the vent, finally, but he was so doped up he didn’t even know I was there.” Sharon blinked several times to clear her eyes. “I just can’t imagine him never being able to walk again, Frank. He’s always been so active. Swimming. Fighting. He loves life so much.”
“Do the doctors think it’s permanent?”
“I don’t think they know yet. I talked with one of the surgeons yesterday. There’s still a lot of swelling where the bullet hit the spine. They say it needs to go down before they’ll be able to tell.”
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