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10:48
Last run of the night last run ever. It had been twenty-five years for Pops; at least that’s what the city called him. Even though he knew every light in town on a personal level still didn’t change a yellow’s personality, nor did it change where that fragile girl walked.
The paramedics did what they could to resolve the remnants of impact. It still wasn’t enough to save the critical parts of her. Being hit by a bus was not something you’d just walk off. All in all, they could just patch her up and hope for the best.
There wasn’t any need to bother E.R., when they had too many sniffle cases on their hands. So she was sent straight to Intensive Care. A room was given to her as well as a full tending nurse, who did the oddly regular routine of tubes. A doctor had to be called in from his scheduled R and R, being not too pleased with the abrupt interruption of his sleep.
“What’s her condition?” asked Doctor.
“She’s got three broken ribs and a shattered femur.” Said the attending nurse.
“Any brain damage?” Doc asked.
“Yes” the nurse turned back, to plug in the last of the machines needed.
“Well I better start making calls then.” Said Doc. He set the clipboard down on the bed, where she clung for sweet death.
One ring, two rings, someone picked up.
“Hello” said a voice, a middle aged woman ragged from two jobs and a persistent habit.
“Is Ms. Hawethorne there?” Doc asked.
“Yes, this is her. Look I’m kinda busy, can this wait?”
Doc began by saying “Your daughter was hit by a bus today, and I’m gonna need you to fill out some paper work.” He could hear the crash of the phone as it hit the floor, also the sobbing. Then there was silence, and click. She had hung up the phone.
He called an apartment building, no answer. He tried two more times still nothing. Fourth time, a older man answered with “What the hell do you want?”
“Is there a Mr. Hawethorne there?” Doc asked.
The man snorted “NO.”
“Then do you know where I can find him?” said Doc.
“He’s dead” the man replied “and he never paid four months’ rent he owed me either.”
This was as good as he was getting from that man. No talk, no remorse, no guilt. “Thank you” Doc said, just before hanging up. Third call was always the worst.
“Hey, one is on the way. No telling when though,” Doc said.
“I’ll have a clean slate ready.” The coroner replied.
This was the point at which guilt really set in and grabbed hold. It was the same story, yet it felt like new guilt to Doc. She was only a young girl, not even out of high school yet. Still it was all the same. She’d been struck, no way around it, over it or even sideways to it. He’d have to clean up somebody’s mess, same as the hospital janitors who mopped the floors every night. Speaking of which the head janitor walked by, he’d been working the ICU for the past five years. Just a drop in the bucket to the thirty-six years, he’d spent at the hospital. When he’d come by, Doc would pull his drink of choice which happened to be the only choice. During the new cabinets’ installation, he managed to hide a blender. Last time there’d been anything new was when the governor decided it was time for his epileptic kid to see a different shade of wall paper. Although in ICU it was always black walls. Doc opened his cabinets and made a pair of stale margaritas, not the Janitor’s pick. He preferred a good whiskey or gin, and not before twelve, didn’t matter which as long as it was after twelve.
“Same story?” asked Janitor.
“Yeah, broken ribs and there wasn’t enough to recognize a femur.” Doc said.
“You mind if I talk to her?” Janitor said “you know the usual speech.”
“Her, I don’t think it’ll help much. But for old time’s sake, sure why not.” Said Doc. Janitor stood up and followed Doc to the door.
“You can always join if you want.” Janitor said.
Doc grumbled “maybe next time.” Although Doc never joined and there was always a next time. It was more for tradition then for Doc and Janitor’s sake.
“How ya feelin’?” said Janitor “I see Doc did a bang up job fixin’ ya.” She wanted to scream in pain right then, except that they’d put her in a medicated comma for exactly that reason.
“About this time I should be checking the vending machines.” Janitor began his habitual speech.

“I had a daughter once, your age to. She’d been your average teenager, and had plenty of friends. Her mother thought, ohh, she was a fire cracker. Neither seemed to like me though.” He started pacing the room. “Secretly I think they had a soft spot for me. On my birthdays’ I’d get presents left on the balcony of my apartment. I found one time a tie, one time a watch, and one time a name plate. Silly since it read [Janitor], but I suppose it the thought that counts. So do you have any folks?” She didn’t want to think about her mother. The women who had left her alone for so many years; to struggle and ignored her very existence.
“Well I guess they’d be here then. Anyways, as I was saying, “I hadn’t been there for either them”. If God had of let me in advance know what was going to happen to them I would have changed it all,” Said Janitor. “When God deals the cards, you gotta play’em like the devil; because when a man comes down to his bottom dollar, faith just ain’t gonna save you. You gotta fight for life, for those you care about, for that silly picture of you as a baby your mother never let go because those are the things that matter in life. The ones that truly matter.” She wanted to punch him for mentioning card games. It had been those very games that’d killed her father. It all came down to a single hand, and a man’s paranoia of every one cheating.
“Well, those vending machines can wait, but medical director won’t though. He’s the sorta guy that if you keep the Snickers stocked then everything else can go to hell”, said Janitor just before walking down the hall whistling as he went. Doc walked in again this time not bothering to check the charts. He checked the tubes wires and rhythmic breathing machine. The breathing machine being one true machine as to who live and who would die, you could always tell with it. As it hit bottom a demon was born to scrounge through the world, then every peak an angel passed on to sing one more tune with the maestro.
The doors to the ICU swung open sweeping the floors as they went. There stood the lonely bus driver, red in the face from sobbing for hours.
“Sir, you’re not supposed to be here” Said the attending nurse.
Pops turned and looked at her, “I know, but I wanted to see her.”
“I’m sorry sir, family only during visiting hours” The nurse said.
“It would mean the world to an old broken down man.” Pops looked down the hall again.
The nurse hesitated “Alright, but you can’t stay for too long.”
“Thank you so much, I wish you could know how much this means to me” Said Pops. She smiled and waved him on. He crept down the hallway till he found the hum of machines and the twinkling glow. She laid there still as bones. Pops didn’t know what to start with, let alone make a conversation about. The only time he’d seen anybody in a coma was a Hallmark movie where everything turned out alright.
“You ever ride the bus?” Pop said. Of course she rode the bus. Every day, it was the only way for her to get around other than walk.
“Maybe I saw you, I don’t remember. I saw lots of people on the bus over thirty six years, none like you though. I do remember this one time when I was young.” He moved out of the doorway and sat on the bed. “Back in the war, I was too young then. I had faked papers, bribed, and had to cheat my way into service. You’re probably wondering why. Well the city I came from, actually the neighborhood I grew up in had a kid who used to beat me up every day and twice on Sundays.” Pops looked around at the starch darkness which seemed to lean in to listen to his tale. “His name was Frankie. An Italian kid, two years before graduation he up and disappeared to Italy. Those happened to be the best two years of my life, even better then my honey moon. The war ended up being half way to hell compared to those years. Heck even my battalion hated me, didn’t help that I was a Jewish kid from the wrong side of the tracks. That’s not what mattered though.” He started scratching his chin where a piece of shrapnel lodged itself during the war.” My squad was sent to take a church tower. We hop scotched from house to house and store to store, just out of sight of the enemy. Once we got to the church, the door just swung open. Wouldn’t you know, Frankie was there on his knees and praying. He turned, just as I raised my gun. I shot twice. He died in a pool of fresh blood and a choir boy outfit. You probably think I just reacted and shot him based on my training. That just wasn’t the case, I did it out of spite. Because of every day that I held a cold cut to my face for a black eye. I did it for every fractured rib, dumpster dive, and galley sally. Whether or not he deserved it, he still ended up dead in a warm pool of his own blood, and I had killed him cold blooded. Most say that your first kill is the hardest, this isn’t true either. It’s the only one that you remember everything about. I still remember his limp body, his grimy blood, and the smell of bleach. I dragged his body out the back door, light a cigarette and torched his body. It was all so easy, just like a pile of brush. Poof and there he went, straight to ashes.”
She wanted to cry not because of his story or how much pain she was in, but because of her own short comings in life especially when it came to forgiveness. All the things she never forgave her mother for.
“I guess this has been a long way to say I’m sorry, to you, to Frankie, to God, even to the devil.” Pops finished, got up and walked down the hall. Doc looked up just in time to see Pops to leave.
“Nurse, who was that man?” said Doc. Nurse looked over towards the doors.
“Just a bus driver” Nurse said. Visiting hours was only an hour away. The chance of more visitors today was slim, since there was only one patient. Still there was a chance. There was always a chance. A chance for salvation, and for damnation and a chance for winning and losing. There was always a choice.
The doors swept the floors once more. There stood an aging woman, the aging hadn’t help her looks any.
Nurse looked up “May I help you ma’am?”
“Yes, yes I’m Ms. Hawethorne.” The woman looked down at the nurse’s station.
The nurse grabbed the visitor sign in sheet “Sign on the line here, and I’ll show you to her room.”
“Thank you” Hawethorne signed the sheet and reluctantly followed the nurse down the hall.
“She’s been put into a medicated comma.” The nurse slowly opened the door, flooding the room with light.
“Do you think she can hear me?” asked Hawethorne.
Nurse hesitated “It is hard to say at this point.” Hawethorne nodded, not wanting to give up hope. The nurse closed the door behind her.
“How could you do this to me?” Hawethorne demanded. How could she, get hit by a bus without her approval. How could she do things her mother wouldn’t, take out the trash and bring the groceries home.
“Now what am I suppose to do?” Hawethorne sat in the stiff hospital chair across the room.
“You know I was quite a bit like you once; rebellious, independent, and radical. It all changed when I met your father though, ohh, he knew it all. The right words, how to dance, he even knew my favorite flower. I don’t suppose you’d understand what was going on at your age. I hardly understood it myself.” She got up and walked into the hospital bathroom to adjust her apron and makeup. “I remember the first time I met your father, he had a plaid shirt on, jeans and a worn out cowboy hat. The day shift had just ended and I swung by early for the night shift. He was in the middle of the room, sitting with two older gentlemen. Neither of them even looked up when I offered coffee, but your father couldn’t keep his eyes off me. Not that I minded, actually I liked the way he looked at me. He spilled the sugar twice, turning to watch me walk back behind the bar. I had to replace the sugar the second time, because he knocked it onto the floor and broke it” She returned to her seat across the room. “when I swapped his napkin for a fresh one, he wrote his number on it and handed it back to me. I stood there stunned, the cook had to yell at me to get back to work. I went back hesitantly after that.”
Hawethorne starred out the hospital window, down on the cars lit up waiting for deliverance from the sun. “I called that Saturday. I had no idea what to say. I had almost hung up on him. Just then he said ‘movies tonight?’, the only thing I could manage to get out was ‘sure’. I don’t remember the movie we saw that night, or even what we ate for dinner. When he brought me back home, he kissed me goodnight and that was it. I was in love, not that giddy butterflies in your stomach teen love, but the real love between real people. It wasn’t too long before we were married and you showed up. Then when he died I almost lost it, my whole world turned inside out and upside down. Everything turned from pretty charcoal drawing to a pile of black ashes. Drugs were the only escape for me, from the pain, the pleasure, the time. I know I wasn’t there for you, I wasn’t there for a lot of people either. I still wished I’d stopped him that night, never let him gamble his life like that. It was all my fault, all my stupid fault.” She began crying dry tears, the real ones had dried up long ago. Even though her daughter couldn’t move she still wanted to jump up and shout at her mother. Her father would never had gone to those silly games if it wasn’t because of her mother. It was completely her mothers fault for driving him away. There was a lot of things she’d forgive her mother for, the drugs, not showing up for days, the constant flow of boyfriends. But forcing her father to feel he could never come home was something she could never forgive her mother for. Doc knocked on the door. Hawethorne swung the door open.
“I need a word with you” said Doc as he stood there with a blank expression plastered to his face.
“sure, sure, I need to get back to work soon anyways” Hawethorne said.
“please follow me to my office” Doc turned and walked towards the wooden door “right in here ma’am.”
Hawethorne walked in, and took a seat on an overstuffed leather chair.
“as you know, we had to put your daughter into a coma. There was heavy damage to the cerebral cortex. At this point it’s hard to say what is specifically damaged, without cat scans and mri’s.” explained Doc.
Hawthorne starred at him “what’s her chances?”
“not good, to give you an estimate number her survivability is around twenty five percent if she’s lucky. if not then deaths filled his quota” Said Doc.
“how much would it cost to keep her alive?” asked Hawethorne.
“ in her condition, a quarter of a million per year” Said Doc.
“there’s no way between insurance and what I make, that we can keep her alive. Are there other options? Said Hawethorne.
“well, there’s two alternatives, she can be taken off life support or a charity group can pitch in. I have to let you know that charities willing to do this are scarce these days. Said Doc. Hawethorne sat there contemplating her choices. Letting go was just something she hated to do, but was clinging on her best option.
“I just can’t pay to keep her alive, I guess I’ll have to pull the plug.” Hawthorne began to sob uncontrollably . Doc tried to console her, but to no avail.
He whispered into her ear “it’s never an easy thing to do.”
she stopped crying, “no, I suppose its not.”
Hawthorne stood up, walked out of Doc’s office and down the hall. Back to the certainty of living.
Here was the unbearable part, the final goodbye. Doc starred at the door for awhile, he had done this before so why was this time so different. Gently, Doc opened the door.
‘how are you feeling?” said Doc. He began shutting down monitors and anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. The only things left to pull was the withered iv and the breathing machine. Just as Doc reached down to pull the final cord, he stopped himself. Doc just couldn’t bring himself to do it, not yet at least. There’d been something keeping him and his patients distant for so long. This time the guilty straw had broken his back.
“I’ve never done this with a patient. I didn’t even do it when my sister died. She’d been hit like you, put into a coma. My parents choose to keep her alive. The money eventually ran out, and they had to pull the plug on her. It wasn’t fair, she’d been struck while saving me. It should’ve of been me on that death bed. The one to lie in a coma.” Doc sat on the edge of the bed, still clutching the chord. ”she was part of the reason I became a doctor, I never imagined that I’d end up back where it all started. Where she died. Life’s never been fair, not to you, not to me, not to anybody. Death on the other hand, is always fair. It’s always going to find you, wiether your rich or poor its all the same in the end. There’s no escaping it, no put running it, and no deals with it. Now it seems life has decided to hand you over to death, maybe I should say your mother has” Doc looked down at the cord in his hand, then at her face where a single tear rolled down her face. “I’m sorry, so very sorry. Maybe death will be gentle with you.” Said Doc, just before giving the cord one last tug killing the power.
There was only one last call to make. He pulled the phone off the hook, dialing three lonely numbers. There was a grim silence.
“it’s time” said Doc.
“alright” the coroner said.
The coroner moved her body onto the cold stretcher.
“it seems death has closed its grip on you, a bit to early.” said the coroner as he noted the time. Then he wheeled her down the hall.