my back pocket. Crap. The charger. I should have given it back to her while we were at her house, although I guess I still haven’t had much of a chance to completely charge my phone. Guess it was meant to be, and I still have an excuse to see her, hopefully tomorrow. Maybe we’ll even become roomies. That’d be a hoot.
I haven’t even gotten two pieces of siding up when I start looking around for a water station. This heat blows. How does he do this every day?
“Fuckkkkkk!” I hear loudly from the other side of the house, followed by a rattling crash. What the hell is that? I run around to the front of the house where everyone is crowding. “Someone call 9-1-1,” a bunch of people are shouting, but no one is jumping into action. I push through the hovering men and find that several planks of wood fell from the second story, or so it looks. I’m still looking at the scene trying to figure out why everyone is yelling about 9-1-1 but then I hear another growling shout and I see Tango lying beside the pile of lumber.
I shove the rest of the people out of the way and climb over the pile to get to him. “Dude, what the fuck happened?”
“That shit wasn’t secured up there,” he says breathlessly. I hear blame being tossed around behind us.
“What’s the damage?”
“Just my leg, man. It’s broken.” Tango tries to sit up but the wind escapes him so fiercely that he lies back down. “Maybe a few ribs too.” A fit of coughs follows his statement.
“You’re going to be okay, you know that. You’ve been through worse.”
Tango fists his hand around the collar of my shirt as the veins in his forehead press against his red skin. “I know I’m going to be fine but this fucking hurts like a bitch. Call an ambulance.” Tango hasn’t ever had the patience for pain or weakness. Not that any man I have ever worked with has, including myself, but the whole talking someone down thing is just old habit.
“I’ve already called an ambulance. They’re on their way,” a man shouts from behind us. Behind us. Why is it no one came over here to help him?
“Okay, I won’t tell you you’re going to be okay again. Just relax for a minute. I peel up his pant leg up and confirm what I was afraid of. The bone punctured his flesh. I tear my shirt off and wrap it tightly around his leg.
“Dude, spare us the strip tease,” Tango manages to joke.
“If you saw your leg right now, you wouldn’t be laughing, jackass.”
“That’s the Jags I know and love. Give it to me straight, Doc, how bad is it?” I know he’s using this whole badass facade right now, but he’s sweating it out and the look in his eyes is the same damn look he got when I told him he was being transported to Germany with what we were hoping was just pneumonia, rather than lung cancer.
“You’re going to need surgery for this one, bro.” Tango lowers his head back to the ground and folds his dirt-covered arm over his forehead. “It’s no big—”
“Don’t,” he grunts.
While he’s arguing with my bedside manner, the sirens blare as the ambulance flies into the lot.
“I’m coming with you,” I tell him.
“It’s fine, just stay here,” he says as the paramedics are running toward him.
“No,” I fight back. “Knock it off with this Iron Man shit.”
Listening to all the medical jargon being tossed around between the paramedics, Tango turns pale. It could be from listening to them talk about the bone puncturing his flesh or just the pain in general but he’s about to pass out. “He’s about to black out,” I tell the paramedics.
“Sir, could you please stand over there with the rest of the people. We have this under control.”
“He’s out,” one of the other paramedics says.
“He has multiple broken ribs, I believe,” I add in, ignoring the request to back up.
“You a doctor?” The same one who told me to back up asks.
“Navy medic.” Was. The guy nods at me and turns back to Tango. “We’re bros. I’m coming with you.” No one argues with me as we get him into the ambulance. It takes more than a few paramedics to lift the gurney since Tango isn’t a small guy. They’d need about five men to get me off the ground, though.