I changed the timeline slightly, but it'll be easy to follow. Forgive me if this first chapter is a little choppy.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, PAWNEE MEDICAL CENTER, 9TH FLOOR, 00:41.
"There are four kinds of people. There are good people. There are bad people. There are indifferent people. And worst of all, there are confused people." It was sappy, but that's what my father always told me when he was sober. I don't know how true the words of a dead drunk can be.
"But why? I looked at that man and he looked at me. I mean he nodded like people do when they drive past each other. Then he looked at you. Why did that man shoot at us?" He asked, not sounding whiny, but sounding confused and hurt. And he was hurt.
And that is what I didn't know. I don't know why that lone gunman approached on his motorcycle and shot my front tires. Not completely. No, not at all. I knew that someone was trying to get back at me for something I did. I knew I fucked with some people, but there was an unspoken 'code' among us. Among the fixers and hackers, "You don't fuck with the family." That asshole, whoever he was, saw the damn kids in the car. He knew… but I didn't and I'll find him and find out why. I tried to muster up the best answer I could.
"I think that man who did what he did was confused. I don't really think that he knows why he did it." My ribs hurt from speaking. I didn't break anything but I had bruises. I could deal with those.
"Does confusion make people do bad things?" He asked, rubbing the cast on his arm. He was worse off than I was and he shouldn't have to deal with it.
"I think that sometimes when people are… confused… they lose that thing that tells them what's right and wrong. They do bad things and they think that they're doing them for the right rea—" And then the doctor burst into the room.
"Mr. Pearce…" He gestured for me to go to him. I rose from my spot at the end of Jackson's bed and walked towards him, limping. "I think that we should go into a different room." He said.
"Alright." I agreed, there was no need to discuss this in front of the kid. It was his mother and sister we were talking about. I followed him as we walked down the corridor to an empty room three doors down and across the hall. It was a small room with about the size and feel of a living room. He opened the door and turned on the lamp and I sat on one of the ugly cloth couches and he sat across from me.
"I've been a doctor for many years and all of those years still haven't taught me how to deliver news like this. I'm sorry but," He looked down at his clipboard.
"What the fuck are you saying?" I couldn't bring myself to utter the words of the worst case scenario, not even in my head.
"Nicole and Lena Pearce both expired about fifteen minutes ago." He let out a sigh.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING?" I didn't realize it then, but I'd stood up and had the doctor backed up against the window. His arms were up in defense and his white knuckles and the back of his white coat were pressed against the glass. The fear became evident in the cracking of his voice.
"We did everything we could, but the physical forces of the crash caused a lot of internal bleeding. The only positive thing I could try to say is that the crash rendered them unconscious and they did not feel any pain, sir." I backed off of him and he continued speaking. "They were both in cardiac arrest when the ambulances arrived, we got them both to get a pulse again and we did all that we could, but the trauma was just so extensive that there was nothing that could save them."
"And what am I gonna tell that kid in that bed over there?"
"I'm sorry."
"You're going to have to do better than that."
"There's nothing more I can do." He said trying to slip out of the room.
"Then, get out!" I barked at him. He left in a hurry and I heard the fast rhythmic clicking of his shoes on the shiny linoleum fade into the distance. I walked to the window and tried to focus. I saw everything as a big picture now. The little drops of drizzle on the window obscured everything, even the skyscrapers in The Loop. Those little drops didn't distract me not as much as my thoughts did.
What was I going to do? I'd grieve but I have a kid to support now. I love the kid and I'll do it, of course. But I don't know anything about raising a kid. Now I got a sister and a niece to bury. And I have to keep this quiet. And it's all… my… fault. I live a dangerous life. I know that, but they didn't. This kid down the hall just lost his closest relatives. How do you tell an eight year old that?
I couldn't formulate the words. The sounds wouldn't even come together. I wished that a hole would just open up beneath me. I'd fall in and not have to speak again. I stepped out of the room and turned off the lamp from the switch on the wall. I shut the door behind me and looked again through the glass that let anyone see in. I looked out of the window again, and it was raining, steadily now.
I limped down the hallway again. This limp would go away, I knew, but what will these images and sounds and sensations. Flipping, the lines painted on the road, the orange lights of the tunnel, asphalt, and the white tiles that made up the sides of the Pawnee tunnels, the lifeless body of a little girl and an innocent woman, my hands and clothes caked with dry coagulated blood, blood on my eyelashes. And the sounds, fiberglass crunching, glass smashing, a little girl screaming, the screeching of rubber from those cowards speeding away, Jackson groaning and then the lack of noise from my sister and niece. And I smelled rubber burning, lit gasoline, hair burning, clothes burning, the blood running from my nose and the blood from…, and strangely the perfume that Nicky bought while we were up there. I felt the something warm dripping on me, no pulse from them, pain in my ribs and spine and legs, something was pinching me.
Then I snapped out of my personal Hell… and I was in front of the room he was in.
I hesitated open the door. There was no knob; all I had to do was push. IT hurt, but I shoved the door open. His eyes were focused on me. Those blue eyes were like lasers and this time I wished that I could become small. I approached him, and with some effort he sat up even straighter.
"They're dead? Aren't they?" His voice was hollow, but his eyes weren't. The windows to his soul were trembling.
"I—" My voice was weak and then it failed. My eyes made contact with his and then they focused on the shiny sky blue tiles in that room.
"Why do people die?" I looked back at him and he wasn't crying. I kept my gaze on him.
"I don't know why people die. But I know that good people like Nicky and Lena all go to Heaven."
"And why are we left here?"
I muddled my way through the answer, "Sometimes people live through thing like this because they have to live. They have to- How can I say it? They have to help each other. We go," I started pacing in front of his bed, "We go through things like this to get stronger, to be better than we were before."
"Will we be any better?"
"I hope we will." I had the sick urge to laugh hysterically. I suppressed it.
They released us at about 2:15 that morning, in the dark and rain. It was cold and we were both shivering. I knew that it was probably more emotion than it was physiological. We looked like quite a sad duo. I had a crutch and his arm was in a sling. I held the umbrella that I had to purchase from the gift shop in my free hand. I had called a cab and it arrived quickly. I was worried; we would have to go through the same tunnel to get down to Parker Square. Why the hell did Pawnee have such a stupid layout.
There were several tunnels and the last one would be the hardest. When we got to it, the cab driver wanted to make conversation as he saw the wreck. I sat up straight, and he was leaned against me with his head pressed into my arm, careful to avoid my sore ribs. He still shed no tears. Was he being strong? Was he in shock? I didn't want to speculate. We came to the pot where we were ambushed.
"That looks pretty bad over there, but I heard that some of them mighta lived." Jackson grabbed my hand and had a strong grip for an eight year old.
"Yeah, I heard that too." My voice was restraining a lot of emotion. I would have shot him, but for the child present.
"You know that's one of the worst ones I ever saw. Praise God if anyone survived that one."
"I don't want to talk about it." I was hoping that he would change the subject.
"So, is that your son?" He got the point and found something else to yak about. Jackson got even closer to me.
"He is now." And his, Jackson's, eyes shot up to mine.
"What you kidnap him or something?" He was joking, I could tell that much. I wasn't in the mood for levity, no matter how pathetic.
"I was never in the kidnapping business," I replied testily, truthfully.
"Oh." He realized that the best course of action was to shut the fuck up.
...And I realized that there was something shady about him.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, NICKY'S HOUSE, 03:03
I locked the door and didn't feel secure. I hoped that he did. But how could he? The world crumbled beneath him. There was nothing solid left, nothing my perception or I could hope to grasp. No, not even noise. The rain had stopped a while ago. It was night, so the silence was multiplied. The lights that I switched on did nothing but mask the envelope of darkness. I chuckled a cold, sardonic grunt. People talked so highly of light, but light fades. Light fades and in the void we can't see.
We were both exhausted, for the adrenaline that had opened our eyes had run out. My ears were ringing. I looked down at the boy, my boy. His hair was more disheveled than usual. There was blood on his hoodie and on his T-shirt. It matched the blood on my coat. I am going to get rid off this coat and his clothes. I'm not going to wash my sister and my niece away.
"Do you want to take a shower?" I asked him.
"No, I want to sleep." His voice was small and drained. He walked to his room.
I let him undress in private in his room. He figured out how to shimmy his way out of his clothes and get into some clean pajamas. He opened the door, "Good night." And shut it again.
The silence became more silent and the darkness grew darker. I checked on him every fifteen minutes to make me feel better. He tossed and turned all night and I kept vigil until the he woke up a few hours after the sun rose behind the clouds.
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