Via Dolorosa(82)

There was a point where his head broke the surface. Gasping for air, swallowing water and choking on insects, his eyes located the yellow light of the cabin cruiser, now blurred and smeared and teasingly false. It was a million miles away. Erratically, he thought of his childhood, of growing up in Pittsburgh, and of the paintings his father used to busy himself with in the basement. He thought of the black steel locomotive barreling along the track high above the quaint New England village. He was on that train now, shuttling through a mountainside tunnel, a rift in the earth. The only passenger now, careening at breakneck speed. He could smell the burning coal from the furnace and could see the way the raw soot collected on the white of his skin. Around him, the train rattled and shuddered and threatened to break apart. Break apart, he willed it. A maniacal laugh wanted to burst from his lungs. Break apart, goddamn you. Why don’t you just break the hell apart? And then he did laugh, or at least attempted to, filling his mouth, his throat, his lungs with freezing water. The train—the world—swung out of control. It was going to spill off the tracks. He would go down with it, spill with it—this fiery missile launching into the air and arching down, down, down to the tiny, quiet, unsuspecting New England village below. He could imagine the explosions, the chaos, the destruction and annihilation. He was there for it. He was there, helping pull young children from a flaming frame house—the mother screaming—the children blackened by soot but otherwise unharmed. He would spend the entire afternoon rushing from burning building to burning building, rescuing the innocent. Are you okay? Can you breathe? Choking, choking on smoke. Watery eyes. Breathe deep—breathe the fresh air. Can you breathe? Can you, can you, can you? Did any of them know he had been on the train that had crashed through their town? That he had been the sole angel fallen from heaven to crush and burn and destroy their world? He could help them and play nice, and they might even believe him…but he knew, he knew, he knew the truth of it all. (Can you breathe?) And beside him, Myles Granger began to laugh and shouted something about divers, Chinese divers, that he’d won a parrot for shooting the most Chinese divers. How many did you shoot? He didn’t know. Can you breathe? He wouldn’t say. Can you? Stop laughing. He wouldn’t stop laughing. Stop it! And he couldn’t tell if it was Granger, Myles Granger, who was laughing or himself, his own mouth, his own bitching sounds coming from his own bitching body—but no, it couldn’t be him, because he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t make the air work for him or even find the air, because there was only water, cold and freezing water, just water, and it was all he knew and all he had—

Lieuten—

Have baby, he thought. In stomach.

It occurred to him that he had stopped thinking. And then he lost his thought completely. When you drown, it registered with him in those last perilous seconds, you can tell exactly when you are about to give up, like watching a clock tick down to zero. You see how long you can hold your head under water, and you try to experience what it is like to almost die, almost drown, almost buy it all. He knew it now—and knew, just as quick, that once you know it, you cannot go back to not knowing it, like being told a horrible secret. You can never forget that secret, and it will resonate with you always. Always. He thought, We won’t let little things ruin us, will we, baby? And he thought, Not as long as the train stays together. But he knew the train would not stay together—that the train was halfway down the mountainside right now, trailing behind it like a comet a black flag of smoke. Always. He thought, Always.

But everything was fine. He had reached the boat and had rescued Emma from Leslie Hansen, had even struck Hansen in the face knocking him clear overboard, and then pulled Emma to him, kissed her, promising they would never let little things ruin them, baby, and she would say—

She would say—

What?

Just as he drowned, he felt the dreamlike hands of a Chinese diver clamp down around his ankle.





—Chapter XXIII—





Nearing dusk in the bombed alleyway…

“Don’t look at them,” he told Myles Granger. “Just sit still.”

“It’s bad,” Myles Granger panted. He was propped up against the wall of the alley, trying to strain his neck to look down and see his legs. But movement caused him great pain and he was having difficulty with it. “I can feel it…I can tell it’s bad. Is it bad?”

“It’s not pretty,” Nick admitted. He was busy trying to make tourniquets from his own shirt to wrap the kid’s legs.

“I want to see…”

“You don’t. And stop moving. I’m trying to stop the bleeding.”

“There is a lot of bleeding,” Myles Granger expelled in one monotone breath. He was beginning to shake.

“Just hold still.”

“I want to look. I can’t stop thinking about my legs.”

“Try.”

“I don’t want to lose them.”

“You won’t lose them.”

“I don’t want to lose my legs.”

“Quiet.”

“Shoot me in the head.”

“Cut that shit out, Myles. You’re going to be okay.”

“I don’t want to lose my legs.”

“Then hold still.”

“I don’t want to lose my legs. I don’t want to lose my legs. I don’t want to lose my legs. I don’t want to lose my legs.”