Chapter 3 Benji #2
The giant moves so fast I barely see it. One step, one swing, and his fist connects with the younger guy’s jaw. The man’s head snaps sideways and he crumples to the floor. Out cold.
The giant drops to one knee, shoves the guy’s jacket open, and pulls the gun out of his pocket.
The gun looks like a toy except for the smell of it, burnt metal and gunpowder, sharp enough to cut through everything else.
He slides it hard across the floor, away from all of us.
Then he turns, sees the cop on top of me and the blood.
The sound that comes out of him is a scream. Raw and broken, so loud it bounces off the walls and fills the space.
“MICKEY!”
He’s on the floor in a second, pulling the cop off of me, turning him over, and I see the wound for the first time.
A dark, wet hole just above his hip, blood pulsing out of it in a rhythm that matches a heartbeat.
His hands are on it immediately, pressing, and he’s saying the cop’s name, Mickey, over and over in a voice I will hear in my sleep for the rest of my life.
I’m lying in shock on the floor covered in his blood. My white jeans and torn shirt are soaked through. My hands and my stomach, all of it red. All of it his. And the blood keeps pouring.
The bartender, Sheila, is in the doorway. She drops to her knees beside the cop and her hands replace the giant’s on the wound.
“Stay with me, baby,” she says. “You stay with me, Mickey. Don’t you dare go out on us. You hear me? Stay with me. Mickey!”
Her voice cracks on “dare” and the giant flinches. He has his phone out, calling 911. His voice is controlled. The hand holding the phone is shaking while the voice coming out of his mouth is not. He gives the address. Officer down. Gunshot wound.
“What do I do?” I start yelling. I’m sitting up now, my hands shaking so hard I can barely control them. “What do I do? What do I do? Somebody tell me!”
“Press here,” Sheila says. She grabs my hands and puts them on his side, over the wound, next to hers. “Press hard right here and don’t stop. Don’t take your hands off, Benji.”
I press as hard as I can. His blood pushes through my fingers, hot and alive, and I press harder. His body shudders under my hands. His eyes are open but they’re not focused. His hand twitches on the floor, fingers opening and closing around nothing.
A young blonde guy drops down beside me. He’s holding a dish towel and he’s pale as he can be. He doesn’t say anything. He just kneels and presses the towel against the wound next to my hands, adding pressure, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles jump.
He glances over at me. Just for a second. Our eyes meet over the body of the man on the floor and he holds my gaze, unflinching.
He goes back to pressing the towel. His hands are steady. Mine are not.
There are sirens coming. Distant, then closer, then screaming into the parking lot. Red and blue light flashes through the bar’s front windows, casting pulsing shadows down the corridor.
The giant drops to his knees beside the cop when the paramedics arrive. “Mickey, hang on,” he yells. “The ambulance is almost here. Stay with me, Mickey.”
The cop’s eyes flutter open and find his. “Tex...” His voice is a whisper. “I can’t feel my legs.”
The giant goes dead still. Just for a fraction of a second. Then his massive hand comes up, bracing the side of the cop’s head, holding him in place like he can anchor him to the world of the living by sheer force.
“Don’t move, Mickey,” he says. “Don’t you move, you hear me? Stay still. Don’t try to move your head or your neck. I’ve got you.”
The paramedics rush into the bar and pour through to the back. “Step back, step back!” they yell.
Someone grabs my shoulder and hauls me away from him. My hands, slick with his blood, are pulled off his side and replaced instantly with gloved ones. Pressure never leaves the wound. It just quickly changes hands.
I sit on the slippery floor watching a cop bleed out while people who know what they’re doing work to keep him alive.
They’re already cutting his clothes off.
Shears through his uniform. Fabric peeling back.
His back is torn, blood-slick, the wound dark and wet.
Not a clean bullet hole. Just flesh and blood and the inside of a man who should never be opened.
“BP dropping!”
“Hold C-spine, don’t let him move!”
“He can’t feel his legs!” the giant yells at them. “Be careful. He said he can’t feel his legs!”
“Move back, Tex,” the paramedic says. “Let us do our job. Move out of our way.”
One of them is at his head now, both hands locking his skull in place. “Sir, don’t move your head,” the paramedic says. “Stay with me. Can you hear me?”
The cop’s eyes flicker open again. He’s still there. Barely.
The giant hasn’t moved. He’s right there at his side, gripping the cop’s shoulder so hard his knuckles are white, like letting go is the one thing he will not do. He will not let this cop leave this earth today.
“I got you,” he says. “I got you, Mickey. You stay with me, you hear me!”
A rigid collar slides around the cop’s neck, then gets locked tight.
“On my count. One, two, three.”
His body moves as a unit. They log-roll him just enough to slide the backboard underneath, then lower him down flat. They strap him in, chest and hips and legs. Hands moving fast from having done this a thousand times when every second matters.
“Load and go.”
They lift. The board comes up, the cop strapped to it, his head immobilized, his body no longer working right. And then they’re moving fast as a team through the bar.
The noisy bar of fifteen minutes ago is dead silent. The crowd parts without being asked. Every face turns to watch.
The giant is running along right beside them, one hand still on the board, refusing to lose contact. The paramedics obviously know him. They don’t fight him on it.
I grab onto the wall, pull myself up and follow right behind them too. Through the bar, and into the parking lot where the ambulance is waiting, the back doors thrown open, lights strobing red and white across everything.
They slide him in. The giant climbs in right beside him and nobody dares to stop him.
“He’s my best friend,” he keeps saying, tears pouring down his face and dripping into his beard. “He’s my best friend.”
Sheila stands beside me. Her hands and clothes are covered in blood, just like mine.
The blonde guy is standing alone in the middle of the parking lot with the soaked dish towel.
He’s watching the giant cry as if he’s the center of his universe.
Sheila walks over to him, pulls him closer and her shoulders shake as she sobs.
Jesus Christ. What have I done? This is all my fault.
The doors to the ambulance slam shut. The siren hits a second later, tearing through the night, and the ambulance pulls away with flashing lights.
He’s gone.
I’m standing in the parking lot in white jeans soaked with both his blood and my blood. My shirt is ripped, my ribs are broken or bruised, and my lip is split.
None of it matters.
I’m in the middle of these people’s lives, in the middle of their pain, covered in the blood of a man I didn’t know an hour ago.
Sheila told me to leave. Three times. She saw this coming and tried to stop it.
I didn’t listen. Instead, I sat on my stool and blew a kiss to egg the men on. I corrected a man’s grammar while he was threatening me because when somebody tries to make me feel small, my first instinct is always to hit back.
All that happened and then a cop named Mickey stepped in front of a bullet for me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’m just a stupid wedding planner who wanted to watch the sunset with a drink. I didn’t mean to do this.
What have I done?
My legs give out and I drop to my knees.