by Tahlia Gold
Her voice stings more than the bullet that passed through my body. “Jess, I can’t come to the hospital.”
“Why not?” Her voice is flat.
“Think about it. I’m on probation. Some bikers just came to the hospital with bullet holes in them. I have a bullet hole in me. I fired my gun so there’s probably gun powder on my hands. I bet that place is crawling with cops right now. They’re actively looking for shooters. Even the dumbest beat cop could put two and two together, test my hand for gun powder and they’ll revoke my probation faster than you can say jelly donut.”
“You shot someone?” she asks. “There’s one dead guy here and another is a vegetable. Did you shoot someone?” She’s on the verge of tears again.
“I’m almost certain I didn’t hit anyone.”
“You know you could die right? Are you willing to die to avoid talking to the police?”
“Right now I’m willing to take the chance. There’s something important I have to do and I can’t do it if I’m locked up in a cage.”
“What the fuck?!” She’s screaming again. I’m imagining the nurses at the hospital staring at her. This is not good. “Did you know your President is dead?”
I didn’t even realize he wasn’t here. It doesn’t feel real. How could he be dead? Somehow I don’t feel any emotion. He’s the closest thing I had to a dad and now I hear he’s dead and there’s nothing happening inside. Maybe that will come later. Right now I only have one thing inside me: justice. And the object is only one man: Road Dawg.
“Are you there?” she asks.
I snap back to reality. “I’m here. I’m just thinking.”
“Oh great. You’re thinking. Shoot first, think later. Real smart. I’m so glad I know someone with the brains you have.”
I deserve that. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“All I want,” she says, “is for you to not fucking die. That’s the only thing I want. Do you think you can manage that?”
She’s really crying now. I hear someone in the background asking her if she’s okay. She doesn’t answer them. She’s just bawling.
“Jess? Jess, talk to me.”
“What? You’re a fucking asshole you know that.”
“I do know that. But listen, I don’t intend to die. We have a plan.”
“Yeah? What’s your brilliant plan? To go to the hospital where there are doctors and equipment that can fix the gaping hole in one of the most important organs in your body?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well what’s your plan then?” The sarcasm is dripping through the phone now.
“Viking knows somebody that can fix me. He’s going to take me to a dog doctor.”
“Jesus Christ. Listen to me very carefully. Don’t fucking move an inch from where you are. Keep pressure on the wound. If you have a sterile bandage that would be wonderful. I’m coming to where you are. Don’t even try to argue with me because I will kill you myself if you do. Now don’t say a word and hand the phone back to your intelligent friend there who obviously doesn’t care if you live or die.”
I sigh—it hurts like hell—and I consider things for a moment. Then I just hand the phone back over. There’s no point in arguing. I don’t have the energy for it. All my energy is going into breathing with my one good lung.
Viking is giving her directions to the warehouse. My eyes are getting heavy. I nod off while he’s still talking to her.
27
Jess
The phone clicks dead after Viking gives me directions. He didn’t seem too happy that I was coming there. Tough titties.
I wipe the tears and snot off my face onto my sleeve. My heart is pounding and I can feel it all over my body—my legs, my hands, my chest are all beating together from the adrenaline shot that’s making its way through my blood stream. The fight-or-flight response is making my hands shake. It’s just a chemical reaction; a reaction that I’m now going to ignore because I have a job to do.
People are staring at me like I need to be up on the third floor in the psych ward. They might not be wrong if that’s what they’re thinking because what I’m about to do is fucking nuts. If having sex in a spare room of the Emergency Department didn’t get me kicked out of residency, then this definitely has the potential to do it.
The warehouse where Dylan is holed up isn’t too far. I know I can get there in fifteen minutes if I haul ass and pray that no cops are out. I have a good idea of what supplies I need to take with me but finding them and getting them out of the hospital is another story. It has to be done though. A veterinarian is probably capable of treating him but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some gambling degenerate dog doctor put his hands on my boyfriend if I can do anything about it.
My boyfriend. When I was a little girl, I never pictured having a boyfriend that gets into shootouts then refuses to go to the hospital for life-threatening injuries. But what do little girls know about real life. Hell, what do I know for that matter.
When I get to the supply closet, I take a deep breath then let it out slowly as I try the door. It’s unlocked and when I look inside, there’s nobody there.
Thank God. Maybe this is going to work out.
I’m scrambling around, grabbing things, and stuffing them in my white coat. I’ll have to make do with what I can find. It’s usually the nurses that come here to get things and I don’t really know where anything is.
The one thing I absolutely need is a needle to puncture his chest with. I get a chill thinking about it. It’s a procedure I know I can do but I also know I’ve messed it up before. It’s one thing to mess it up when you have a doctor backing you up in a hospital and it’s an entirely different thing to know that if you screw up somebody is going to die in your arms and there will be nothing you can do about it.
I start to get woozy thinking about it. Fuck that. I bite the inside of my cheek hard, and the taste of blood hits my tongue. I push those thoughts out of my head. They aren’t useful right now. One thing at a time. Find the needle, then leave. Find the needle, then leave. I repeat that over and over while I open each drawer, one by one, methodically searching for what I need. There’s no room for fuck ups now so there’s no point in thinking about it.
My nerves calm as I do my job, putting my whole being into it. One drawer after another. Finally, after probably the tenth drawer I open and rummage through I find what I’m looking for. The needle is two inches long and thick; not something you would ever want to have stuck inside you. I shove it into my pocket and turn to go.
Then the door swings open. I’m not even surprised by who walks in. It’s Webber. The woman has a nose for anything that isn’t by the book. And stealing supplies from the hospital to go do a procedure on a suspect in a crime when I’m not even a fully licensed doctor is most certainly not by the book.
Her eyes key in on my bulging pockets. “What the hell are you doing in here? And what’s in your pocket?” She’s walking towards me.
I act fast, doubling over and clutching my stomach. I groan. “Ohh. I don’t feel so good.” While I’m doubled over, my face out of her sight, I shove two fingers deep into my throat.
It works; better than I thought it would. I vomit all over the floor right in front of her. Yellow bile splashes onto her shoes.
Webber jumps back away from me. When I stand up I have to hold back a smile when I see the disgusted look on her face. She’s staring at the pool of sick on the floor between us. Her mouth is wide open. I think she’s forgotten all about my pockets but I’m not about to stick around to find out.
“I have to go home.” There’s vomit dripping down my chin and I don’t wipe it off which turns out to be good because now she’s staring at that instead of my pockets as I brush passed her. When I’m outside in the hall, I break out into a run, heading for the exit and leaving her behind with my mess.
The traffic is sparse and I guess the police are all busy because I go as fast as my crappy little car will go and I make i
t to the warehouse in eight minutes. I don’t know what I’m going to see when I get in there but I’m about to find out.
I’m almost sprinting out of my car, and when the two big bikers standing at the door see me running at them like a wild animal, they both buck up and one of them throws his cigarette down then pulls his gun out in one practiced motion.
You would think a gun being pointed at you would be enough to slow you down but nothing is going to stop me from seeing Dylan, from fixing him. The biker not holding the gun recognizes me—I think he’s friends with Dylan—and he says something to the other guy. By the time I get to the door they’re a little more relaxed.
“I need to go in,” I say.
They don’t respond. The friendly one opens the door and I ignore the glare from the other one as I rush into the warehouse.
Inside it’s dark and drab—a stark contrast to the bright light outside—and it’s all anxious bikers pacing around and tables full of every kind of gun you can imagine. It’s like they’re getting ready for a guerilla war. No, it’s not like they are; they actually are. The tension in the room is so thick you could cut into it with a scalpel. Actually, if I could cut into it with a scalpel—fix it—I would. Nothing good is going to come of this. Just more dead bodies. But I don’t have the time or the ability to do anything about it and I have a job to do.
Road Dawg sees me. He’s in the corner with a group of guys standing around him, like he’s the general advising his lieutenants. But he takes a moment anyway to cut into me with his stare. I get the feeling he considers me an enemy. Or maybe more like a bug that he would squash if he had the time. I don’t think the man has a soul.
I ignore him and scan the room for Dylan. It’s dark and my eyes haven’t totally adjusted and panic starts to rise up in my chest when I don’t see him immediately. What if they moved him? I reach for my phone to call him but it’s not there. I left it in the car?
Someone says, “Hey. Over here.”
Then I see him. There’s a biker waving me over to the back wall of the warehouse. And there’s a figure lying on an old couch. It has to be Dylan.
I run to them and then kneel beside the couch. Dylan looks like shit. He’s sleeping but he’s completely pale. There’s a bloody bandage over his chest, blood on the couch, blood on his jeans. I see blood all the time; I’m practically immune to the sight of blood—you have to be in my job—but this is different: this is making me scared.
“Dylan,” I say softly, putting my hand on his arm, shaking him.
He opens his eyes, smiles when he sees me.
He must be in so much pain, but even now, he’s genuinely happy to see me, and, despite the circumstances, I’m so happy to see him. I wrap my arms around his neck, careful not to touch his wound, kiss him gently on the cheek, then whisper into his ear, “Hi.”
A tear rolls out of his eye. “I missed you.” His voice is faint, barely audible.
“Are you in pain?” I ask. All the anger I had towards him for getting into this situation is gone. I just want him to get better. I want him alive. I want to be able to make love to him, to laugh with him, to just be with him.
He starts to speak but it turns into a cough and his face wrenches up in agony. It slowly turns back into a smile. Never one to show weakness, he’s doing his best to hide what I know must be extremely painful.
His face is almost too much for me. There is absolutely no color to it. I’m completely used to seeing people like this—on death’s door—but it’s different when it’s someone you love.
Someone you love…
I do love him. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to let him go like this.
“I’m going to examine you now, okay?”
He nods his head, smiles. “Do I need to take my pants off, doc?”
I laugh. It’s impressive that he can crack jokes in this condition.
“Not for this,” I say. “But later, you’ll definitely need to take your pants off. Doctor’s orders.”
I help him take his shirt off and inhale sharply when I see the holes in his left chest. Thankfully the bullet missed his heart, barely. He’s moving good air in the right chest but there are no breath sounds on the left.
“Viking is right. You’ve got a collapsed lung. When the bullet went into your chest it created a hole that’s allowing air in. Luckily it went out the other side so you don’t need surgery. But now your lung is deflated and the rest of your chest cavity is filled with air and your lung can’t inflate anymore because of it. I need to put this needle in your chest to release the air and allow your lung to fill up again.”
I hold the needle up to show him. Usually I don’t show the patient the needle but it seems like he needs to know what I’m doing. Especially since if I fuck it up he could die.
“Jesus,” Dylan says.
“I know. And I don’t have any anesthetic to give you.”
“Perfect,” he says.
I look to Viking. “You don’t have anything do you?”
He shrugs and holds up the bottle of whiskey he’s been sipping on.
Dylan says, “Give me that.”
Dylan takes three big gulps off the bottle and whiskey is dribbling down his chin. He wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand. “Okay Doc. Do me.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” I say. “This is going to hurt like crazy. And there is the possibility it could go wrong. I’ve messed it up before.”
He gets a serious look on his face. “Listen, I trust you completely. I have total confidence in your ability as a doctor. You should too.”
There’s a surge of energy in my chest—like something is being released, something I’ve been holding onto, something I don’t need anymore.
“And,” Dylan says, “I don’t give a shit about the pain.”
I oh so carefully find the second rib space, poise the needle just over the rib, in line with the middle of his clavicle
He winces as the needle goes in but doesn’t move a muscle. I can’t believe how steady this man is. I take the needle out and leave the catheter in, hearing the reassuring rush of air that means the pressure has been relieved and his lung can inflate again.
“Okay, all done,” I say. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He gives me a look that says it hurt like hell. “No sweat, doc.”
“But,” I say, “you need a chest tube now. The angiocatheter in your chest let off the pressure temporarily but you need to get the blood and air out of the space around your lung. That means putting a tube through your chest wall into the space around the lung. And I don’t have one here. It needs to be hooked up to suction so I couldn’t steal one from the hospital even if I wanted. So what I’m saying is you need to be at a hospital.”
“No,” he says. “You can fix me. You just did it.”
“Yes,” I say, putting on the stern doctor voice I use with particularly stubborn patients, “I can fix you but we have to be at a hospital to do it.”
He shrugs. “I can’t go there.”
There has to be another way. Bringing a chest tube from the hospital won’t work. It just isn’t possible. The suction mechanism can’t be transported. I need something to produce suction on the other end. A vacuum? I doubt it would work. Not to mention it’s not sterile and the chance of infection isn’t worth the risk.
Dylan coughs again. His breathing is still labored and wheezy.
Maybe I could sneak him in? No way. Webber will be on high alert after the stunt I pulled earlier. And I don’t think Dylan would ever agree to putting me at risk like that.
“Ain’t that cute?” Road Dawg is standing over us now. “Y’all are playing doctor? I should get in on this, too.” He grabs his crotch.
I glare at him, then stand up, ready for anything.
“How’s he look? Is he going to make it?” Road Dawg asks. He’s grinning like an idiot. He doesn’t give a shit about Dylan.
“He’s fucking dying,” I say.
Road Daw
g snaps at me. “If he’s going to die, take him somewhere else. I don’t need any more fucking dead bodies around here.”
I know I shouldn’t give into his taunting but I do anyway. “He’s laying there because of you, you fucking prick. Your President is dead because of you. And you don’t give a shit.” If I had a gun, I might actually use it right now.
His face wrenches and he’s coming closer to me, fists balled.
I’m ready to bite, kick, punch, scream. I’ll rip his nuts off and shove them in his mouth.
But then Dylan’s voice comes, steady and strong. “Road Dawg. She’s my old lady. Don’t touch her.”
Road Dawg looks at Dylan. I don’t take my eyes off him though. There’s surprise on his face. I take a quick glance at Dylan too to see what’s caught him off guard.
Dylan is resting a gun on his knee, his finger on the trigger and it’s pointed directly at Road Dawg’s chest.
They’re staring at each other. Neither is saying anything.
Finally, after what seems like minutes but is probably a few seconds, Road Dawg just shrugs. “I don’t have time for soldiers I can’t use.”
He struts off and I notice everyone in the warehouse is watching what’s going on. There’s no way he’ll let this go. He’s gathering some guys around him and they’re whispering to each other.
Viking says, “We need to get the hell out of here right now. I bet they have a chest tube at the vet’s office. All kinds of sterile stuff there.”
“Fuck it,” I say. “Let’s go.”
28
Dylan
“I’m sorry about your seats,” I say. There’s blood all over the backseat of Jess’ car. She’s sitting in back with me—we’re holding hands—and Viking is driving.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Well, don’t worry about it right now. When all this is over, you’ll have plenty of time to think about how you’re going to make this up to me. And you owe me big time. Got it?”
We drive over a bump—fast—and Jess and I almost hit the roof.
