Brazil

Here is this month’s Story-For-Shut-Ins.  Hope you enjoy.  I like writing in different genres. Let’s try a thriller!

BRAZIL

By Gerald DiPego

Here’s how it happened. I’m driving, night time, pretty late, coming from a meeting with my attorney, moving along on the highway, two lanes each way, maybe speeding, not much. I’m hugging the roadside, driving home, thinking hard about this problem, this… more than a problem. Like a bomb going off in my life, but I’m riding it out, and I notice this SUV coming up in the outside lane, coming up fast, about to pass me.

The moon is big and bright, and I see everything clearly. There’s this other car, a smaller car about five lengths behind me, but this SUV is pushing it now, right beside me, weaving on the road, weaving way too close, and I hit the horn and stay on it, but he doesn’t move away, and BAM! God! The SUV hits me, hits the side of my car! I’m heading into the ditch and I see all this like I’m on a merry-go-round, as I’m spinning toward that ditch, frozen, but thinking, he’s drunk! Crazy! Then POW, the car that was behind me is ramming into the SUV, and we’re all spinning out of control.

I roll into the ditch, attacked by an air bag, banging around like a doll. When it all stops, I have to sit a minute. I have to make sure I’m alive and…  I’m shaken and hurting and I think my neck might be broken or my shoulder or both, but I find I’m able to deal with the belt, click it open, moving like someone dreaming, and then staring at the door for a while, for an actual fifteen seconds or so, like I’m trying to fix it into my mind, and then I’m trying to open it. I watch myself, and it opens, and out I go. I’m in weeds. I’m on my knees, and I go on my hands and knees up to the road where all the chaos is. The tires are no longer screaming on the asphalt. It’s people now, screaming people.

Mostly it’s the little girl. She’s about eight or nine, out of her car on her knees, bloody nose, her eyes so wide and mouth open with screaming as she stares at the woman, her mother I guess, who’s halfway out of the car, lying on her side, her head down near the asphalt, holding one twisted hand away from her like it’s broken, and she’s screaming, too, her daughter’s name, I guess. “Kelly! Kelly!” The little girl crawls closer to her, but the woman’s eyes are closed, and she keeps screaming for her daughter. “Kellyyy!”

I move toward their car, my neck and shoulder not broken, after all, but aching so that I nearly go down. I see the SUV on its side, the man in there not screaming but roaring. He’s trying to push and pull himself free from the battered car, roaring in pain with every inch he gets.
 
I do a limping rush to the woman and the kid, and the girl turns her terrified eyes on me. “Help my Mom!!”  The girl is shaking, screaming the words. “Help my Mom!” And I rush toward the woman and reach for her as she moves in her slow, slow fall from the car’s seat sliding through the banged-open door, but as I’m reaching, I realize my phone is in my hand, with no memory of pulling it out of my pocket, and I kneel close to the woman while I’m thumbing in the three numbers and then hearing the voice and getting out the words:  “Bad accident, people hurt, on the highway just north of… No! Just south of the Banner Road exit! What? Just now! Me too, I’m hurt too! Ben Proffer, but… I can’t talk. Have to help. Are you coming?! Are you sending the… ? I have to help!” and I cram the phone back into my pocket as I’m reaching for the woman who is on her side, inching out of the car, and I hold her and help ease her down on the asphalt as her daughter keeps screaming:  “Mom! Mom!”

I don’t see any blood on the mother, just a kind of reddening dent on her forehead and that hand, that broken hand she’s holding away from herself like a claw. Without opening her eyes, she screams “Kelly!”

And I’m shouting:  “Listen, Kelly! LISTEN!” I get the girl to stop yelling and stare at me. “What’s your mom’s name? What’s her name?!”

The girl screams the name, “ELLEN!” and I come close to the woman’s face. “Ellen, Ellen, Ellen, can you open your eyes? Ellen! You’re daughter’s okay! Kelly is okay!”

I hear the other driver, the man, roaring again, and I want to go see what I can do for him, but I can’t leave… “Ellen, do you hear me? ELLEN!”

The woman opens her eyes about half way. My face is an inch from hers. “Your daughter is fine! Kelly, come closer, show your…”

Kelly puts her face next to mine. I should have wiped the blood from the kid’s face, from her bloody nose. It seems like her mother sees her and it seems like there could be a faint, shaky smile coming to Ellen’s face, and Kelly hugs her mom, and her mother, with her good hand, touches her child’s hair. I hear the man shout again, and I break away, saying, “I’ll be back to you!” and I hurry toward the man who is free of the banged up SUV now, lying on his back, and I notice, in the moonlight, that he’s all wet, and I think it’s oil or…. But when I get closer it’s blood, so much blood.

“I’ve got you!” I say to him, but his eyes are wild, face contorted. “Anybody else in there? In your car?!” I’m glad to see a quick shake of his head, so I know he hears me, but he’s trembling all over, and I’m trying to see where he’s bleeding. He roars again, the shakes grabbing him and making him shudder violently. “Where? Where are you hurt?” He moves a trembling hand toward his upper side, and I see the gash, big and deep. “Okay! Okay, I see…,” and I’m thinking Christ, how can I close that, how can I stop that? Then I’m pulling at my belt, pulling it out, fast as I can, and then what, what can I use…? I grab at my shirt, popping the buttons, tearing it off and putting the bunched shirt over the wound that’s chest high on his left side, and I’m using the belt to tighten the fabric over the wound, and when I look back at him, he’s staring at me, and his shaking is easing. His look is deep, deep on my face, and there’s anger there, a kind of sneer, and he says, his words like gravel, “Stupid… bastard.”

“Me!? Me!? You got into my lane! You swiped me, Christ!”

He’s saying more, but I have to get closer to his face to hear the words. “Stupid shit,” he says.
 
“You side-swiped ME, you drunken asshole…”

And now he’s actually smiling, his face still quivering, breath choppy. It’s a mean smile. I’m sure he’s crazy. He must…. Maybe it’s road rage, maybe he’s a weirdo racist, because I’m a Black man, and so he sideswipes me? Maybe just for that or….

“You know nothin’,” he says. "Friggin' Benjamin Proffer. You know shit.”  He starts to gag then and cough, and I’m stunned. My name? Could he have heard me give my name on the police line. No. I was too far away. That ugly smile is still shaking on his face. “You’re the one…. You’re the one supposed to be dyin', not me. Not me. Damn! It’s a… friggin’ fiasco, Benjamin. Look at me, look at me. It’s supposed to be you.” He laughs a broken laugh that brings back the pain, his face contorting. When he relaxes, he just stares. I’m kneeling over him, lost. I think I must be insane because I can’t take this in. He’s smiling again, a sarcastic smile, as he shakes there on the asphalt. “Supposed to be you.”  There’s a screaming in my head, and I realize it’s the kid, it’s Kelly screaming for me, saying “Help her! Help her!”

I pull my eyes off the man and rush back to the other car and Kelly and Ellen. “Her eyes went up,” Kelly screams at me, and I kneel and bend over Ellen, who seems unconscious now, god! Maybe she’s gone! The bruise on her forehead is darkening, spreading, but I press hard over her heart and feel it beating, slightly, but beating.

“Ellen. Ellen! Talk to her Kelly -- just talk, keep talking.” I once watched a demo on CPR, no mouth to mouth they said, just press and let up, press and…. So I’m pressing on her heart, trying for a rhythm, and the kid is talking through her tears. “Mom… Mom… open your eyes, please, please, please.” I keep pressing, but I admit that a part of my mind is working over what the man said, that I’M supposed to be dead, that…. He wanted to…. He actually wanted to kill me? Why? And then I know. It’s because of that ‘bomb’ that went off in my life, because I discovered something at work and found evidence, and the head of my company went to prison. Where he belonged. Jesus. Death? For that?

Ellen coughs. It’s one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard. Her heart is a little stronger, and I put my face very close to her, smelling her perfume or her lipstick or something. “Ellen, open your eyes. Open your eyes. Please….”  And Kelly comes closer, our heads touching side by side. “Open your eyes Mom, please!”  And Ellen’s eyes open, just like that. Kelly lays her head on her mother’s chest, hugging her, and Ellen slowly moves her good hand, puts it on her daughter’s back and holds tight.

“I’ll be back,” I say. “I’ll come back here!” And I hurry to the man and kneel over him. I can’t tell if the blood on him is old blood or if the wound is still…. “So you wanted to kill me?! For that?! For him?!” I’m tightening the belt one more notch and moving his arm to help hold it there while I shout at him. “He was friggin’ guilty! He was using company money for his gambling, for his friggin’ "life style," the bastard, and when we saw the money was missing, he pinned it on three other people, fired them, created phony evidence. He was ruining their lives! What?! You’re smiling at me?! What?!” And he stares with that smile, and even though he’s trembling, manages to shake his head, looking at me like I’m pathetic.

“Listen… Benjamin… he’ll just send somebody else.”
 
“No! Hell no! I’ll tell the police, about him, about you….”

He shakes his head a while before he says it. “Can’t prove it. I don’t even know the guy. Never met him. Just… got a phone call. He’ll get someone else. You’re dead, Benny. Like me. It’ll just take you a little longer.”

“I’m NOT dead! And what kind of a shit are you?! Taking money to kill somebody?”

“I’m a terrible person, Benny. Admitting it here. Terrible. Wanted the money, all that money. Brazil. Ever been? S’great there.”

“You’re going to live! You’re going to tell the cops the truth! You’re…” I can see that the color is draining from his face. He’s looking so weak, looking grey now. I move his arm from his side and see that the blood is still coming, through the shirt, through the belt. He’s dying right in front of me, still watching me. I hear Kelly shouting again, tears in her voice.

“She closed her eyes! My mom closed her eyes!” “I’m coming,” I shout, and I look at this man on the ground, my would-be killer. “Somebody dying over there?” he asks. “Why,” I say. “You care?”  He just stares, no smile now. I should hate him. Maybe I do, but this is IT. Actual death. I’m watching it happen, and I find that I’m reaching for my phone. “Listen, asshole,” I say to him. “Listen, is there anybody you want to talk to, want to… say goodbye?”  He just stares now. Surprised. “Benjamin,” he says. “Good… ol’ Ben…”  “Think!” I say. “I have to go back to them, so… A wife? Kid? Girlfriend? Boyfriend…?”  He says something I can’t hear so I lean close. “Sister,” he says. “The number,” I ask, “Quick, the number.”  He rattles it and I thumb it in and wait and it rings, once, twice, and now I’m hearing it. I’m sure. I’m hearing the far and faint sound of sirens. The best song I ever heard.

A woman’s voice says, "Hello,” and I put the phone to his ear and move his hand to support it there, and I rush to Ellen and Kelly. I press on Ellen’s chest, and there is still a beat there. I feel her hands, and they’re so cold. “Is there a coat, Kelly? In the car? We’ll put it over her,” and while the girl is gone, I say Ellen’s name over and over and touch her face, and her eyes flutter, then open slightly, then close. Kelly brings a jacket and we both spread it on Ellen’s chest. She’s blinking, at least she’s blinking. “Hear the sirens?” I ask Kelly, and she looks at me, wondering, and then her eyes widen and she smiles and shouts through her smile. “Yes!”

I stay with them, rubbing Ellen’s good hand, warming it. I glance over at the man. Can’t hear him. Don’t see him moving. The arrival of the ambulances and the police cars is one of the greatest blessings of my lifetime. The sight and sounds of all those people in their uniforms surrounding us, doing their jobs, lifts a weight that I didn’t know was crushing me, leaves me almost floating, gives me such a gift of peace, no matter what’s coming, no matter….

I step back from Kelly and Ellen and let the men and women work. I talk to two of the cops, give them my name and address as I glance over at the man, and that’s when I see it, as if I picked that very moment to turn my head. He’s being lifted onto the stretcher, and they they’re covering him. I watch them cover him, all of him, face and all.
  
Another cop, who seems to be in charge, is now standing in front of me, and I figure, okay, now, I’m going to try this. I’m going to try to get this crazy story right, so right that he’ll believe me. But we’re interrupted by the EMTs checking me out. I seem okay. I actually seem okay. I ask the medics about Ellen. “Broken left hand and what looks like a serious concussion, but we won’t know till we get her to Emergency.”

The cop in charge is still waiting for me. I don’t have my words straight, but I feel like I better begin. I stare at him and I like his face, his eyes, so I start.

“I know… this is going to sound really strange, but the guy in the SUV, the guy who side-swiped me…. That was on purpose. He tried to kill me. I know. Crazy, right? But I can tell you…”  He interrupts me by handing me my phone.

“We know all about it, Mr. Proffer. We’ll need to talk to you at the station if the ER says you can walk out of there.

I’m a statue, standing with my mouth open. Then I ask him. “You… know all about it? About someone in prison sending this guy…?”

The cop is nodding so I shut up, and he says, “The man in the SUV, Edward Coston, he told his sister on the phone all about it, told her to record it, about who hired him, and told her to call the police and play the call, tell the story. She did. Your old boss is now in lockdown. They routed the information to us, said we were picking up a possible felon, but… Coston didn’t make it.”
  
I just stand there a while, taking it in, then I watch the ambulances leaving, and I say, surprising myself, “Maybe he did make it.” The cop kind of squints his eyes, trying to understand, and I just say, “Brazil.” And that’s that.

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