I didn’t want to go near the vomit, and so I limped over to Midwest and he looked up at me, like a child.
His pain had made him innocent again, but not too innocent, and I raised the baton up into the air, like I was going to strike him, but I was just bluffing, playing the tough guy, and I said, “Give me your phone.”
He obediently reached into his hoodie pocket with his good hand and gave me the phone. I bypassed his code, hitting the word EMERGENCY in the lower-left corner, and put it on speaker.
“I called 911,” I said. “Keep me out of it and I won’t press charges. And I won’t hit you again.”
I handed him the phone—we could both hear it ringing through the speaker—and he just looked at me; he was in some kind of shock, holding his arm out away from his body, like it scared him, which I could understand. His hand was dangling off his wrist like a dead bird, and I said, “I’m very sorry about Carl Lusk.”
And I meant it.
Then a woman’s neutral voice came out of the phone: “This is 911, what is your emergency?” Midwest then put the phone in front of his mouth, looked at me, and mumbled, “I’ve been in an accident.”
Satisfied, I grabbed my thermos off the Caprice and went quickly through the back door of the Dresden. There was time enough for a swift drink before my meeting, and I wanted some ice for my face.
About the Author
Jonathan Ames is the author of I Pass Like Night; The Extra Man; What’s Not to Love?; My Less Than Secret Life; Wake Up, Sir!; I Love You More Than You Know; The Alcoholic; The Double Life Is Twice as Good; and, most recently, You Were Never Really Here. He’s the creator of the HBO series Bored to Death and the Starz series Blunt Talk and has had two amateur boxing matches, fighting as “The Herring Wonder.”
Also by Jonathan Ames
Fiction
I Pass Like Night
The Extra Man
Wake Up, Sir!
You Were Never Really Here
Nonfiction
What’s Not to Love?
My Less Than Secret Life
I Love You More Than You Know
The Double Life Is Twice as Good
Comics
The Alcoholic
As Editor
Sexual Metamorphosis
A Man Named Doll Page 17
