The Boardwalk Bomber

By Michael Jesse

Chapter 18

I had the wind knocked out of me and couldn't hear, but otherwise I felt okay. Andy wasn't moving. He was bleeding from a wound at the back of his head. I was on my knees beside him and put my hand on the wound to slow the bleeding and then looked around for the EMTs. They had been parked down by the school's main entrance and I saw them now running up towards us.

Scotty came running up the hill, tears on his cheeks, screaming for Andy. My ears were stopped up and I could barely hear him though he was bawling into my face as I held my hand on the bleeding hole behind his brother's head. My mouth said, "you did this," but I had no wind to make the words.

But he understood well enough. He shook his head, buried his face in his hands and then in a panic jumped up and ran away from the school grounds. McCain saw him and broke out after him. Those impossibly long white legs carried her effortlessly it seemed and in no time at all she was on him, bringing him down hard on the grass, just like they teach you at the academy.

In another couple of seconds she had him cuffed, tugged him to his feet and marched him towards the other officers who were only then reaching the scene.

Right about then I was finally able to suck air into my lungs and I wheezed a few times as the EMTs elbowed me aside to get to Andy. They did their work efficiently and in a moment were hoisting him onto a stretcher.

"What do you think?" I asked one of them. "Is it just a laceration or do you think he's got some shrapnel lodged in there?"

The guy shrugged. "No way to be sure where we are, sir. Need to get him to X-ray to find that out. Looks like we need to bring you along. You bleeding out your backside."

I had a vague idea I'd been hit in the ass with something from the explosion. I felt behind me and it hurt and I brought back a bloody hand.

"Can you walk, sir?" the EMT was asking. I nodded. It hurt like hell to move but I followed them as they dropped the wheels out under the stretcher and pushed it down the hill to the ambulance.

Across the lawn I could see a uniformed cop putting Scotty in the back of a cruiser. McCain was there too, but turned and started trotting our way. I was limping pretty good by the time we reached the ambulance and a second EMT crew came hustling over with a stretcher. "You're injured, sir," one of them informed me as they pushed me face-down on the stretcher.

Just then McCain came running up.

"You okay?"

"Close enough."

"Your butt's bleeding."

"That's the general consensus, yes. I'm more worried about Andy."

She craned her neck to see in the ambulance. "Is that him?"

"He got hit with a piece of shrapnel or part of a brick or something. Right at the base of the skull. He's out cold and I'm worried that it might be serious. I don't know if it's just a wound or if something's jammed into him."

"Well you sure got something jammed into to you, sweetie," said one of the EMTs, a stocky, red-faced, gum-chewing woman. She tore open the back of my pants. "You got some nails or something stuck in you."

"That's what it feels like."

The ambulance carrying Andy rolled across the grass to the street, flashed its lights and siren and sped out of there. I said a little prayer in my head for him as

they bundled me into another ambulance and slammed the door.

At the hospital there were other emergencies more pressing than an butt-full of metal and I spent about two hours lying on my stomach on a stretcher in the hallway. I tried to get information on how Andy was doing but no one could tell me much.

Then they wheeled me into a room and left me there for another hour or so. Finally a young girl came along who I swear looked like a junior in high school. "Hi," she said brightly, "I'm Amanda and I'm a physicians assistant."

I thought this meant she assisted a physician, but there was no physician. It turns out a physician's assistant is qualified to do minor surgical procedures like stitches and picking scraps of metal out of people's behinds. Amanda gave me a couple of shots and went to work. I could hear the metal bits clank in a bowl as she removed them.

"You need to save those, by the way," I said.

"Pardon?"

"You need to save whatever you're pulling out of me. It's evidence."

"Oh I know. They told me. They're nails or big tacks or something." She held one out where I could see it, holding it in forceps, her gloved fingers bloody."

"How much of that do I have in me?"

"Just a couple more I think, probably five or six total, but this one I'm working on now went kinda deep in your gluteus muscle. Does this hurt?"

It did, a bit. "I can feel you digging around, but it's okay so far," I said.

"Ooh, I got it! 'Kay, I'll need to give you a few stitches in the muscle tissue and then close the skin, but first I'm gonna get you a quick X-ray in case there's another one hiding in there. Okey-dokey?"

"Whatever you say, Doc."

"I told you I'm not a doctor."

"Close enough for me. Tell you what, could you check on my friend Andrew Hall while I'm getting my picture taken? He was hurt worse than me."

She said she would and wheeled me up to X-ray where I sat for another hour before a guy with the personality of a zombie took two X-rays and pushed me out into the hallway again where I dozed for another half an hour until someone came along and wheeled me back to Amanda.

"Hey, good news, you've got no more metal left in you," she said. "Let's get you sewed up."

"Great. So, did you find out anything about Andy."

She nodded. "He should be okay, but he's still unconscious and there's some swelling of the brain that the doctors are watching.

While she was talking Amanda stitched me up and gave me another shot and some pain pills to take with me. "Now you shouldn't be driving," shÛe said. "Do you want us to call someone?"

"No thanks. Can I see Andy?"

She told me where to find him and I hobbled stiffly. I didn't feel any pain, but my ass was completely numb and I felt oddly disconnected from my legs, though they seemed to function the way I told them to, as if under remote control.

Andy's mother was in the waiting area outside intensive care and she gave me a big hug. Rita was there too, and Brandi Greene, and Curt, and Vi and Fred Woodman. Andy has a lot of friends. I told them what I knew, but they'd heard most of it already.

Curt stepped up and said, "C'mon dude, I'm your taxi home."

I accepted the offer without argument. We ambled out to the parking lot without saying much and I did my best not to bend m1y body all the way as I climbed into his Honda Civic.

It was a surreally sunny late afternoon and I felt pretty good. Not being dead after a close call is always a hoot and I fully appreciate it every time it happens to me. Curt was yammering on about something and I pretty much zoned him out and pretended the drugs were affecting my attention span.

Then we were at my place, inside. I didn't want to climb the stairs and just made myself comfortable on one of the couches down in the shop. I was groggy and wanted Curt to go and my right cheek was aching a little.

Curt gave me the TV remote and then disappeared into the kitchen. He came back with two glasses of ice and my scotch.

He poured us both a drink and offered a toast to Andy's recovery, and we drank to that, and then he offered a toast to the‡ recovery of my butt and we drank to that too.

I emptied my pockets on the coffee table to get more comfortable and Curt picked up the little sample pack of pain pills. "What kinda drugs they give you?" he asked, squinting at the label. "Oh man, this stuff is crap. You'd have to take about eight of these to do any good."

"Thank you, Doctor," I said. "I probably won't need them anyway. It's just stitches."

He laughed. "It's not the stitches on the outside you have to worry about, my man. It's the deep muscle tissue that's going to wake you up tonight." He opened the package. "Here, tough guy. Take a few of these before the anesthetic wears off." My glass was empty so he filled it halfway and put three pills in my hand. I swallowed them with a mouthful of scotch -- and then decided, a little late, that this probably wasn't what the doctor had in mind.

"I could use your help with a couple of things, " I said.

"Name it, dude."

"Well first off, my boat's wrecked off the east shore of the dock."

"What? When did you have time to do that?" I gave him the quick summary, trying not to mention McCain but finding it difficult not to, particularly in my present state of mind. He seemed to find it pretty amusing.

"So, dude, you trashed your boat impressing a chick."

"I wasn't trying to impress her. I was just trying to get on shore as quickly as possible. Besides, it almost worked."

"No shit. I bet it was cool!"

"Yeah, it was a hoot, right up til we snapped the mast. So will you go pick up the pieces and bring it in? I think it's basically okay except the mast."

"No prob, dude." He started to pour more scotch in my glass but I waved him off.

"I've had enough of that," I said.

"It's nature's own anesthetic."

"No really, I'm done, and I should go to sleep. Thanks for bringing me home."

"And don't let the door hit me in the ass on the way out?"

"Something like that. No offense."

He drained the rest of my drink and set the glass back down, but didn't make any move to go. "Okay, so I'll be in to work tomorrow as usual. You need anything meantime?"

"I'm fine. Thanks."

"Okay," he said. "Well it's too bad about Andy. I sure hope he's okay."

"Me too," I said. I was starting to think I'd have to get up and throw him out the door, but I was so comfortable I could hardly feel my legs.

And then the doorbell rang.

Curt looked surprised and went over and opened the door.