The Drowning Child

Prologue

February 12

Jimmy Lyle was lying, bleeding, by the pond in Montgomery Park. Behind him, at the water’s farthest edge, four ice-white swans moved with mechanical serenity, necks as long as their bodies, black eyes on brighter views.

Jimmy drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of rallying bystanders, footsteps, the tones of cell phone keys, raised voices, concern. He could smell his own blood. He had taken multiple blows to the face before he dropped to the ground, powerful kicks to the ribs and abdomen as he lay there. His left eyeball was swollen like a nut. His right eyelid flickered. Darkness to light, darkness to light.

When Jimmy was a boy, his favorite toy was a slide puzzle. He remembered how quickly his little thumbs pushed the tiles around to put the photo of a gray duckling back together again. Sometimes, he would close his eyes as he clicked the final piece into place, hoping that when he opened them, the duckling would have turned into a swan.

‘His little girl!’ someone was shouting. ‘His little girl! She’s gone! She was right there! Then a guy showed up... he just... he beat the shit out of him! Took his little girl!’

There was a man’s voice, an authoritative one. ‘Do you think you could give me a description of the attacker, ma’am?’

‘Short white guy, stocky, brown hair, khakis and a dark polo shirt, white sneakers too,’ said the witness. ‘Early thirties is my best guess.’

‘Could that have been a uniform of some kind he was wearing?’ said the officer. ‘Like a store uniform?’

‘I... don’t think so – it was just, you know, those boring guys, what they wear. Guys with a boring job and a nice wife back home.’

‘And the little girl?’ said the officer.

‘She was seven years old, eight?’ said the witness. ‘Pink leggings, pink top with a rainbow on it and something writ across it and... white socks, white sneakers? She’d been crouching down, right there, feeding the swans with her daddy.’

‘This man right here,’ said the officer.

‘Yes!’ thought Jimmy Lyle. ‘Yes!’ Blood bubbled from his mouth. More footsteps, two men, crouched beside him.

‘Yes – him!’ said the witness. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t look at him. Is he... gonna make it?’

‘He may be able to hear you, ma’am,’ said the officer. ‘Keep talking me through what you saw.’

‘The rest was a blur,’ said the witness, ‘except that the little girl must have fallen in, her daddy tried to pull her out, but next thing that man was down on him, beating on him, taking his little girl. It was crazy.’

Jimmy Lyle felt a presence beside him.

‘Can you tell me your name, sir?’ He was checking his pulse. He was a paramedic. Jimmy could feel a second man kneeling to his right.

‘No – I can’t tell you my name,’ thought Jimmy Lyle. ‘I can’t.’

They could search his pockets for ID, but he had none. He had no cell phone. He felt a hard pinch on his finger and recoiled from the pain. Then the paramedics’ words, back and forth, interchangeable voices, descriptions, instructions. ‘His GCS is nine, get the collar, put on O₂ and put it on fifteen liters...’

Jimmy could feel hands on his head, holding it secure, as a collar was strapped around his neck, the padding tight against his ears, the sound sucked from the world. The paramedics inserted the IV, delivered the shot of dopamine that would increase his blood pressure, hung the bag that would fill his veins with circulating fluid.

At first, it worked. Then, the numbers changed; his respiratory rate dropped from twelve breaths per minute to four, his GCS fell to six.

They were about to tube him when Jimmy Lyle coughed, and his heart surged like a lagging runner in the home straight.

As he was stretchered past the pond, Jimmy Lyle thanked God for misperception, for absent facts, for the blind faith of good hearts and decent souls. The passersby should have passed on by. That little girl wasn’t ‘his little girl’. The man who beat him to a pulp was the little girl’s father. He had told her to turn away and cover her ears as he dragged Jimmy into the bushes and beat him without letting up, without caring whether it would send him to the ER or his grave. Then he fled, covered in Jimmy’s blood, his thick arms clutching his weeping, soaking-wet daughter to his chest.

Jimmy Lyle was a piece of shit, and, thanks to the kindness of strangers and the dedication of paramedics, remained a living, breathing, piece of shit.