Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,15

holding two of my fingers in each hand, and pulling them apart so they formed a “V” and opened up a path that would go directly into the middle of my hand. My fingers were pulled so far apart I was sure he was going to rip them right out of my hand. I twisted as best I could, heaved against him in a panicked fury, but to no avail. He leaned against me, pinning me still, my hand a helpless sacrifice to whatever he intended to do.

“Where…is…it?” he asked me again. I could practically hear his teeth grinding as the words choked from his mouth.

I turned my head so my good eye could get a better look and what I saw sent my body and mind both screaming in panic. The roaring was the high-pitched whine of a glorified scroll saw – a thin blade moving up and down with nearly incomprehensible speed. My hand was pressed onto the cutting surface, the blade already in the middle of the V, just an inch or so away from the webbing of where the fingers meet the palm.

Before I could react, he pushed my arm forward and a searing pain shot up my palm to my arm to my brain and I exploded as I saw the blade sink its teeth into my flesh. I crashed against the man and we both fell against the saw. I felt the blade rip from my hand and then the man screamed in pain and we both toppled to the floor. I heard his knife clatter across the concrete just before my head banged against the floor and then he was on top of me, punching and kicking and the lights were swirling.

I lashed out at him, but my blows caught air or glanced off him harmlessly. I was going to die, a few feet from where Jesse Barre’s blood still stained the concrete—

—but then the color of the flashing lights changed, from a throbbing dull yellow to bright white.

The blows suddenly stopped and he was off me in a rush. I struggled to get up but my legs didn’t want to cooperate.

I heard shouting and then glass breaking as the windows and walls of the studio were now awash with incredibly bright light. Maybe this was Heaven. I looked for Jesus, thinking he would wave me in. Instead, I saw a thick wave of gray hair.

“Grandma?” I asked. “Should I come toward the light?”

For just a second, everything started to spin and the spacious room looked like a dance floor. Only instead of teenagers consumed with the throes of adolescent love, the only thing happening at center stage was a thirty-five year old father of two bleeding and being overcome with more pain than he’d ever thought possible.

The figure in the light moved and said something but I couldn’t understand.

Just before I blacked out for good, I figured out who was calling me to Heaven.

It was Kenny Rogers.

Ten

The last time I had stitches I was eight years old. I’d gone ice-skating for the first and last time. I took a header and fell flat on my face, my front tooth slicing through my lip. A lip the size of a ping pong ball resulted, with four stitches sealing up the cut.

Now, at Bon Secour Hospital’s emergency room, I got the same number in the middle of my hand.

“That’s a really ugly cut,” the doctor said to me. “How did it happen?”

“I was building a bird feeder and I got careless,” I said. “I was thinking ahead to the cardinals and bluejays, not about what I was doing.”

He nodded like he heard it all the time.

“You know that older guy you came in with?” the doctor asked. “Where do I know him from?”

I sang, “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…”

The doctor gave a surprised look and then peeked out of the room toward the lobby.

“Hey,” I said, “Are we done here?”

• • •

Clarence and I walked out to my car in the Bon Secour Hospital parking lot. My hand had a small bandage, but unfortunately not so small that I’d be able to get it past my wife without her noticing. That would be another tussle where I’d end up on the losing end.

I insisted on driving, no way was I going to let a minor woodworking accident turn me into an invalid. After we got in and