Chapter Six
What saved Bill Maxwell's life was the fact the bomb was in the mantle, slightly around the corner from him, and that he had been standing right by a window. Thus, when the force of the bomb exploded, Bill was blown out the window, not into a wall, while Ralph's cape blocked debris that might have eviscerated him.
The noise of the explosion surprised everyone in the whole block and those on the sidewalk below ducked instinctively for cover as bit of glass and wall flew out and fell on cars and people.
Bill Maxwell crashed through the window, the broken shards tearing deeply into the back of his scalp and the side of his left upper leg. He landed hard on top of a furniture delivery truck parked at the curb, his right wrist hitting first, before smacking his right shoulder and hip. His momentum caused him to roll right off the truck onto a car, which had slammed to a stop next to the truck upon seeing the explosion. Bill hit the car roof on his right side again, frightening its occupants, and continued his motion to fly off it as well. He wound up landing in the street on his stomach, the left side of his face scrapping along the pavement, as he spun another couple of times, winding up on his back, relatively spread eagle, stunned and immobile, directly in the path of a car traveling thirty mph the opposite way down the street from the stopped car.
Ralph's lifting his cape had protected both him and Bill from some of the flying debris the bomb initiated, but hadn't done enough to keep his friend from experiencing the extremis of an explosion. Ralph himself was thrown by the bomb into the far wall of the condo, which took his breath away for a second, but the marble, walls and ceiling which struck and covered his body did him no other harm. Throwing the rubble off, a dusty Ralph stumbled over to the decimated window. He looked out, horrified to see Bill lying helplessly in the street as a car bore down on him. There was no time for "white paper," no time to stop and concentrate his telekinesis power—it never even dawned on Ralph to do so. In his panic, he simply lifted up his hand and yelled "STOP!" to the car, mentally demanding it do so.
The car screeched to a halt six feet from Bill's head. Fortunately the driver and passenger had seat belts on, or they would have been thrust through the windshield by the sudden, inexplicable stopping of their vehicle. Ordering the car to not start up again, Ralph put his hand down, his whole body shaking in his emotional turmoil, as Bill's words from the previous evening obsessed him, "But, I've got you watching out for me, Ralph." Ralph hadn't done a very good job of that, to his grave dismay.
It was then he heard Bill call out his name.
Bill lay on the road, thinking his head was in a puddle, even though his muddled mind recalled it hadn't rained in L.A. for a month. But, it was wet back there on his head and neck. People were leaning over him, apparently speaking, but he couldn't hear them; they mouthed words of silence, as if some Twilight Zone remote control had clicked the whole world to "mute". None of the people, however, were Ralph.
"Ralph?" he yelled, his voice louder than normal due to his deafness, even though he couldn't hear the word himself. His whole right side was excruciating—his wrist, shoulder, hip--the pains like a serrated knife being twisted in the joints. His head throbbed as if it was being pounded repeatedly against the street. Still, he had to sit up. He had to find Ralph. People tried to keep him down, but he shoved them away, demanding "Ralph!", as he pushed up with his left arm struggling into a seated position. Blood dripped in tiny drops from his left jaw, but the burning rawness of his face was mild compared to his wounded joints.
There was a car very close to him, and the driver seemed to be trying to turn it over without success, finally giving up with a punch to the steering wheel. Lucky it hadn't run him over…
It was almost impossible to move anymore. He could not budge his right arm, and he could hardly put pressure on his hip. From his sitting position, he got his left leg bent underneath him, mixing street gravel into his jagged laceration. He used his left arm and leg to scoot closer to the car to his side, next to the delivery trunk, the car his addled memory thought he had landed on. It had its passenger window rolled down, giving him access to using the door to pull himself up. Bill grabbed hold of the car door with his left hand, and driving up with his left leg, he somehow managed to stand. People put their hands on him to try to lay him back down, and he continued to shrug them off, shaking his head hard enough a few of them were splattered with his blood. He leaned onto the car hood, trying to breathe some air in his lungs, and get the terrible pains under control so he could chase away the growing dizziness.
"Ralph!" he called, looking up at the ruins of the Culdero condo. Please, god, he hadn't erred in his estimation of the suit's capacity to withstand an explosion. Please, let Ralph be okay. He had to be okay. Bill couldn't hear his panting breaths, the drag of his right foot, the car owner telling Bill he was a doctor, or people inquiring who Ralph was, and if he had been in the condo, as well. The absolute stillness was eerie and seemed to enhance his weakness. Dragging his right leg, any pressure on his foot causing agonizingly sharp stabs in his hip, he kept up an awkward hopping gait. Leaning over, he used the strength of his left arm as a lever to lift his left leg up the curb. He could see the long straight vertical rent in his trousers and the blood from his thigh wound turning his leg dark red, but it was still usable where his right leg was not. Pushing away from the car, he slowly traveled a path back to the door of the condo building. He ignored the liquid flowing continually from his scalp, drops sliding down his back to soak his shirt and the top of his trousers, as he fought desperately to keep an encroaching faint from over-taking him. Yet after only a few more feet, and seemingly a galaxy away from the doorway, he could go no further. The world was beginning to spin, and he saw strangers with concerned eyes, cars, and the sky twirling quickly around him. He closed his eyes, hoping the world would rotate less if he couldn't see it happening, and yelled "Ralph!" again. Nothing. No answer. His body was weakening, he was going down and his friend could be hurt, dying, dead… Bill's despair gave a last lingering power to his voice, the harsh scraping in his throat his only indication his cry was actually vocal. "Raaalph!"
Suddenly, Bill felt an invisible arm grab hold of his torso, holding onto him, holding him up, taking the strain off his hip.
People looked at Bill, disbelieving what they saw—a badly injured man seemingly looking at nothing, gripping nothing, running his left hand over nothing, resting his head on nothing. He was obviously seriously concussed and hallucinating. He asked the nothing a booming "Are you alright?", and they saw his hand in the air go up and down as if his hand was nodding, a non-verbal positive answer for a deaf man. Upon that happening the man relaxed, allowing his eyes to close as he began a bizarre and baffling slow motion descent to the ground. Collapsing forward, his body lowered itself in minute motions, his long legs bending incrementally until his knees were inches above the sidewalk, finally coming down on them extremely delicately. His body then tilted backwards, lowering in such a controlled fashion the man wound up gently on his back on the sidewalk, like a butterfly coming to rest, his bloody head last to softly touch the cement, as if he had been lowered by wires too thin to be seen.
"An angel," a woman whispered. "It's his guardian angel, Ralph." Although there were no other explanations, that one was met with skepticism based on fear of the supernatural, fear of the unknown, and the idea the woman was Looney Tunes. It didn't matter, anyway, how the man had overcome the law of gravity in his fall to the ground. He was lying there now, still hurt, unconscious, bleeding, perhaps entering shock; certainly not miraculously cured by any celestial being. Now that the man could not fight it, help needed to be applied. The doctor went to Bill's side, using his own tie to apply pressure to the deep scalp wound, asking someone else to do the same to the bleeding leg wound, and another man complied. He had others elevate Bill's legs, resting them on a bag of used clothing a woman brought from her car. He asked someone to get a blanket for cover and a woman ran into her apartment to do so. Opening up Bill's brown jacket, the doctor undid Bill's tie and loosened his shirt buttons, noticing Bill's official looking double holster in the process. He figured the unknown man was a law officer of some sort. The danger these men put themselves in for the good of society, it was incredible, he thought, continuing his pressure on Bill's deep wound. The blanket appeared and was placed over Bill's limp body. The doctor checked Bill's carotid pulse--it was rapid, but strong--and noted the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest. It was all they could do until professional help arrived. Once or twice as the sirens neared the doctor had an odd sense of someone standing by him, watching, but a quick look behind him did not uncover anyone there, which settled down the tingling hairs on his neck. Soon after the paramedics, police and firemen arrived, along with news hounds, and took over the scene. While the condo was entered to find no other bomb victims, Bill was put into an ambulance and taken to a hospital.
People dispersed talking excitedly about the incident as the doctor stood wiping his hands clean of blood on his handkerchief. Someone whispered a quiet, yet earnest, "Thanks for helping him!" into his left ear. The doctor turned around to say it was all in a day's work, only to be confronted by empty space, and a renewal of his hair standing on end. He wondered if it would be too silly to ask his rabbi if Jews believed in angels.