from the Ballard Bridge, so I wasn’t in the ambulance more than a couple of minutes. The paramedics talked about starting an IV, but decided against it. “He’ll be in the ER before I find a vein,” the female paramedic said to her partner. Vomit came to the top of my throat, but I didn’t puke.
Once we reached the hospital, the paramedics wheeled me into an examining room and transferred me to something that was part bed and part table. A nurse with red glasses and red hair hooked up an IV; a thin man with a gray beard examined my leg.
“You’ve got a bullet stuck in your thigh,” he said, his voice angry. “But looking at how shallow that wound is, I’d say you got hit on a ricochet. A direct hit to your femoral artery and you could have bled to death before anyone reached you.”
“I saw s-sparks on the g-ground j-just before it hit me.”
He frowned. “Yeah? Well, those sparks may have saved your life. Now keep still and let me get this out of you.”
I lay back. They numbed my leg and then put up a screen so I couldn’t see anything, but I could sort of feel the doctor digging around. Finally he stopped. “You’ll go to x-ray next. A chunk of your leg is torn up, but your body will take care of that.”
“Th-thanks,” I said.
He snorted. “You know how you can thank me? Don’t get shot. Don’t get stabbed. Don’t OD. That’s how you can thank me.”
Mom came while I was waiting for them to take me to the x-ray room. “The doctor says you’re going to be fine,” she whispered as she leaned in and kissed me. “Just a flesh wound. How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. H-How’s Antonio?”
She started to speak, then choked up, then started again. “He’s bleeding inside. They need to operate. I’ll be with him for a while, but I’ll be back here to check on you, or Curtis will.”
A nurse came in. “They’re ready to take some pictures.”
Mom ruffled my hair and left.
The x-ray technician was a young guy. “You’re one lucky dude,” he said as he adjusted my leg under the machine. “If that bullet was a few inches over, you’d be singing in the girls’ choir—if you get what I mean.” He was grinning, but I’d already thought of that, and I didn’t think it was funny.
He wheeled me back into my room, told me a nurse would be coming by, and left. Around me, medical equipment hummed. I looked at the clock: it was 8:55. The voices in the hallway sounded farther and farther away.
I closed my eyes.