nurse. They put my high-tops back on, then helped me sit up before gently swinging my legs over the side of the gurney.
They’d parked a wheelchair right next to me, but just leaning a few inches to port so I could reach for the floor with my right sneaker’s toe loosed a retinal cascade of hot, sharp little stars.
Dean bent down to brace me, his mouth close to my ear. “Bunny?”
“Can’t,” I said, eyes shut again.
I felt him wrap one arm around my waist and snake the other beneath my knees. “Okay?”
I leaned into him. “Feel sick.”
“I got you,” he said, lifting me gently off the gurney. “Don’t worry.”
I remember Dean fastening my seat belt, and then the sun glittering on the East River when we drove across a bridge.
“Look,” I said. “All those girders. All that sky.”
His hand was light on my knee. “Home soon. Go back to sleep.”
“Wakey-wakey,” chirped Pagan. “We got you a cheeseburger.”
I was on the sofa, adrift in a bay of pillows.
Pagan and Sue and Dean were seated around the coffee table next to me, prising lids off a bunch of crimped-foil take-out containers.
“You guys rule,” I said, voice croaky. “Anything to drink?”
Sue slid a tall paper cup across the table. “Pepsi—not diet. Dean figured you could use the sugar.”
I pulled it closer with my left hand, then tried to lift my head
toward the straw.
No luck, and my mouth felt like a coal scuttle.
“Here.” Sue bent the straw at its crinkled hinge, picked up the whole vessel, and tucked it into my armpit. “Can you reach?”
“Think so.” I craned my head up a couple of inches and managed to get the straw between my teeth.
The cup shifted, ice sloshing, and a tide of sweet effervescence flooded my mouth.
Heaven.
“Big excitement today, huh?” asked Pagan.
“I guess.” I sucked down another sip of cola bliss.
She dipped a french fry in catsup. “What were you, wandering around in the middle of the road?”
“Sidewalk,” I said. “I heard the tires hit the curb.”
“Before the actual car hit you?” she asked.
“Pretty much.”
Sue took a bite of her own fry, examining my sling and air cast. “Fucked you right the hell up—”
“But thank you for not dying,” added Pagan.
“No shit,” I said, grazing the coffee table’s wooden edge with my knuckles in gratitude.
Dean had a burger in his hand, but he didn’t raise it to his mouth. “Bunny, do you think this had anything to do with the little cemetery kid?”
“Skwarecki doesn’t think so,” I said. “I mean, maybe in a small town the whole thing would be fishy, but it’s Queens—couple of million people?”
“Rush hour,” said Sue. “Everybody driving like maniacs?”
“Exactly. What are the odds, right?” I got the straw in my teeth again.
Dean took a bite of burger, chewed, and swallowed. “You mentioned two guys, though, when we were coming home from the hospital. And one of them left?”
“Prospect is off the main drag,” I said. “The front gate’s on this little unpaved lane across from a college, and there were some people walking by. Skwarecki was way late. These two guys came out from the subway—a little walkway under the tracks—and then they were hanging out in the campus gate across from me. Not like they were sharpening machetes or anything, but I figured I should move out to the street. There was a bus stop, more people around.”
“And then you got run over?” asked Pagan.
“Run under, really. That car had me airborne like a bull with a rodeo clown.”
“You landed on your arm?” asked Sue.
“I don’t know. I hit my head on the roof and then bounced.”
“That explains the stitches,” said Pagan.
I shrugged and then winced. “We got any more painkillers? Everything’s starting to throb again.”
“In the kitchen,” said Dean, taking one more quick bite of his burger before standing up to go get them.
“You are a young bronzed god,” I called after him.
“You’re high,” his voice echoed back down the hallway.
“So what happened with the two guys?” asked Pagan.
“Nothing, really,” I said. “Just… when I looked back over my shoulder, one of them was gone, and the other one was kind of smiling at me.”
“Smiling, like ‘creepy grin of foreboding’ or just ‘have a nice day’?” she asked.
“Pagan,” said Sue, “when’s the last time some strange guy smiled at you without whipping out a box cutter and demanding your wallet?”
“Last month, on the subway,” answered my sister.
“You mean the one who whipped out his dick and then barfed on you?” I asked.
Sue settled back into her chair,