The Hard Bounce

Chapter Seventeen

Gravity can be a damned mean bitch.

The gun barked, and my right leg flew back and away. My left foot slipped sideways and I came down hard, smacking the side of my face against the foyer wall as I dropped.

I lay facedown on the hardwood, gritting my teeth so hard a molar snapped like a popcorn kernel. A hot wetness spread underneath me as I lay there, staring at my shooter’s expensive shoes. I hoped it was blood. Please God, I thought, if I’m gonna die right here and now, don’t let me piss myself. My whole body shook uncontrollably. I knew I was shot, but it didn’t hurt.

Yet.

Then I felt the cool metal of the barrel pressed against my forehead. I closed my eyes tight against the impact I was sure would follow.

Nothing.

A gently brogued voice said, “Be easy, boy. Be easy if this was a kill. You’re lucky the word was just to hurt you bad.”

A piece of paper being shoved into my hand, dry fingers closing my fingers around it.

I opened my eyes to see the expensive shoes walking away.

Then the pain came.

Boy-motherfucking-howdy.

It sliced through me like somebody had laid me open with a straight razor beginning behind my knee and cutting up into the back of my skull. I screamed with the sudden intensity of it, clutching my leg. When the initial shock of pain subsided, I unclenched my fingers from the blood-smeared paper. An address, mine, handwritten in block letters in black ink. Underneath it, another address.

Kelly’s address.

In pure panic and rage, I leapt to my feet, paying instantly for the stupidity. My dead leg buckled, sending me crashing back to the floor, bright new eruptions of pain blinding out the world. I almost passed out right there, but the frenzy overrode everything else. I pushed myself up on shaking rubber muscles and propped myself against the wall, weight balanced on the leg that wasn’t shot.

A door opened above me, and Phil trotted down the stairs. “Jeez, man. What was that sound?” He poked his head in my doorway. “What the hell are you-holy shit!”

“H-help me,” was all I could say. My wires were scrambled. Too much pain. Too much fear. Too much. Too much.

“Holy shit!” Phil’s skin tone went to chalk. “Dude, you need an ambulance.”

“No!” I said, louder than I meant. Phil jumped back at the ferocity in my voice. “Does… that van drive?”

“Yeah. I think so. But wouldn’t an ambulance be better right now?” He took a couple steps toward me, and I grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him into the wall.

“Start the fucking thing. Now!” I threw him toward the door and out. I only had one leg to push off from, but it gave me enough leverage to give him a good launching. I pitched forward with my own momentum and came down on my face again. White lights danced before my eyes. There was no time for clear thought, but I really had to stop falling the fuck down.

As the hippie van’s engine coughed over and over, I had a minor epiphany. The cell phone was only a few feet away, charging in the living room. I hopped and dragged myself toward the phone at a frantic clip.

Pulling myself onto the couch, I saw the thick trail of blood zig-zagging in my wake.

Shit, that’s a lot, I thought.

I didn’t want to look at my knee. I snatched the phone off the side table and hit the autodial for Kelly’s cell.

Ringing.

Ringing.

Ringing. Motherf-

Connection!

“Hi, this is Kelly. Sorry I can’t answer your call right-”

“Fuck!” I shouted. “Fuck! Fuck!”

Kelly’s home number was next in the menu. It rang twice. “Come on… come on,” I muttered.

It rang a third time and Kelly answered, a bit out of breath. “Hello?”

“Kelly. Call the cops.”

“What? Boo?”

“Lock your door and call the cops right now.” The words were getting harder and harder to produce. My lips felt shot full of Novocain.

“Boo, what’s-”

“Right now, baby. Please.”

“Tell me what’s happening!” Her voice rose in fear.

“I got shot.” Gotta admit: Them’s some strange words to hear yourself say.

“Oh my God, Boo! Who shot you? Where are you?”

“I’m on my way. Don’t answer the door.”

“Boo-”

“Please, Kelly. Just lock your door and call the cops.” I hung up before she asked any more questions I really did not have the time for.

I tried Junior’s number, but my blood-slicked fingers kept slipping off the small keypad. I took a deep breath and collected myself enough to find the right numbers.

“Wuzzah?” came Junior’s sleepy voice.

“Junior, I’m shot. I got shot.” It still felt weird saying it. My voice was calm, but it rang in my ears like I was in an echo chamber.

“Huh?”

“Get to 116 Mt. Vernon!”

“Sorry, think I got something crazy stuck in my ear. Did you just say you got shot?”

“Please, Junior. I think he might be going after Kelly.” Panic started chewing my gut anew.

“I’m out.” Junior hung up. Done and done.

From a distance that seemed too far to be the driveway, the van heaved a mighty cough and started.

Phil came running around the hall into the living room. “She’s running. Oh God.” He got a good look at my knee and promptly turned eight shades of green. “Oh my god.”

I reached out to him. “Help me get up,” I said, slurring. I sounded drunk. That couldn’t be good. My eyes were getting heavy.

Phil slung my arm around his shoulders and helped me to the van. He put me on my back through the rear doors and ran around to the front. “Where are we going? What hospital? Where is the hospital? Jeez, I don’t know where the hospital is!” Phil sounded one notch down the panic meter from where my needle was buried.

“Mt. Vernon. Just… just drive to Mt. Vernon Street.” The dancing white lights were getting bigger. And they’d brought friends. Not good. I was slipping into shock.

“I know where Mt. Vernon is, but there’s no hospital.” From my position, the upside-down Phil turned, confused. “And, uh-you’re in your underpants.”

“Drive, you stupid hippie jackass!” I shouted through clenched teeth.

Phil hit the gas and shot out of the driveway with a screech of tires. He turned a hard left onto Cambridge, centrifugal force flipping me upside down and bouncing my forehead off the van wall. Another explosion of pain shook my nervous system, and I fought back the nausea wringing my stomach.

I looked at the cell phone. Who else could I call?

Twitch. I could call Twitch.

“I don’t have a license, man,” Phil whined hysterically. “The van doesn’t have any plates. What if we get pulled over?”

The van chugged along. Not fast enough. Then I saw Phil had the gas pedal to the floor. We were going as fast as the beat-up van was capable.

I tried to answer him, but somebody had filled my tongue with sand. The lights slow-danced and grouped into one blob-a blob that was spreading over my vision. Not yet, I thought. Not yet, goddammit. I bit my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, trying to push back the shock. My brain was too disconnected to feel it, like I was biting into somebody else.

I anchored myself, palms flat on either side of me, as the van rocked with each turn. Phil was still yapping protests, but I’d stopped listening. Stay awake.

Stay awake.

Flowing, watery black curtains.

Stay awake.

Where is she?

“Where is who?” asked a puzzled Phil.

Don’t you hit her!

“Hit who? What are you talking about?”

Was I talking?

Where are my pants?

The van stopped. I reached up, grabbing the seatbelt draped over the passenger seat, and pulled myself into the seat. “Whaz going on,” I slurred. “Why’d we stop?”

“Um. Red light.” Phil pointed at the traffic light.

The phone rang. I hit the button.

“Boo?” Kelly was panicked. “Somebody’s here. Oh God. Somebody’s banging on my door!”

My heart convulsed in fear. “Don’t answer it. Call the cops.”

Kelly screamed. “He’s kicking in the door!” I heard wood crunch in the background.

The phone beeped three times. Disconnected.

With the strength I had left, I brought my good leg around the gearshift and stomped on Phil’s right foot, flooring the van. Phil screamed as we jumped forward into the intersection. Horns blared and tires squealed as the cars shot around us. We were almost clear when somebody clipped us in the rear and sent the poor, abused van into a spin.

Phil screeched a birdcall in pitch-perfect harmony to the shrieking tires. He held onto the operatic howl until the van came to a stop.

“Dude!” he said. “That was so unfuckingcool.”

I didn’t know where we were. Blurry. Whole world gone blurry.

Some guy in a Patriots hat smacked Phil’s window. “You stupid fuck! Get out of the van!” Must be the guy who hit us.

“Oh God,” Phil yelped.

“We facing the right way?” I asked.

“Yeah, but-”

I stomped on the gas again. I saw a Patriots hat go flying up and away in the rearview. Hope we didn’t run over the guy’s feet.

Phil resumed his screaming. “This is leaving the scene of an accident! This is leaving the scene of an accident! We can’t leave the scene of an accident!”

For a moment I was afraid he was going to bail, leaving me to drive from the passenger seat.

Two blocks south of Mt. Vernon, sirens ripped the air and two black-and-whites, lights blazing, blew through the intersection ahead of us.

They were heading straight for Kelly’s apartment complex.

“We’re going too fast!” Phil shrieked.

Phil was right, but I didn’t realize it soon enough. When we got to Mt. Vernon, I grabbed the steering wheel and turned hard. I lifted up out of my seat as the van pulled the corner on two wheels.

Then one.

Then none.

Oops.

The van’s left panel slammed to the asphalt and skidded, metal howling. I flew backward onto the left side of the van, which was now the floor. Phil screamed in falsetto as we tumbled. Part of the panel tore away against the street, almost sucking me under the van as we flipped over again. We came to a sudden bone-rattling stop, sideways and into a telephone pole. I hit the opposite wall, whacking my head with a bang.

I threw my body against the rear doors and burst out, rolling into the street. The white blobs of light were growing dark. Phil was off like a hippie Usain Bolt, darting between two houses and vaulting a backyard fence. Cops were running at me, guns drawn. I could hear yelling, but they all sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher.

There was Junior. He was on the ground too, facing me, arms handcuffed behind his back. His face was a mask of pain, and I could see blood on his shoulder. He was yelling in the same tongue as the cops.

I tried to move. Tried to crawl. Nothing. Tried to move anything. I was paralyzed. I didn’t see Kelly anywhere. I couldn’t even scream her name. I was out of time, out of blood, and out of fight. The only thing I was in was my fucking underpants.

So tired.

The white-lights gang-rushed me and drew me down, down, down into a sweet nothing.

Where is she?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I woke up to that annoying sound. Everything hurt. Everything hurt so bad I didn’t want to open my eyes. I wanted to slip back into that nothing.

Kelly.

I opened my lids and found myself staring into a pair of brown-yellow wolf’s eyes a foot from my own. The rest of the head came into focus. Ivory blond hair. Pink skin. I blinked to adjust the color levels before I realized who I was looking at.

Twitch.