CHAPTER 19

The two ambulance guys are beefy and calm and wear tight uniforms. I tell them I’m fine. That my sister is expecting me at Saanich College. That I don’t want to spend the day in the hospital. That I can get up and walk now. The ambulance guys don’t listen. I try to tell them things, but they talk to each other, not me.

“Vital signs normal, except for BP and heart rate.”

“Elevation there is a natural response to trauma.”

“I’m fine, I tell you. Fine!”

“I say we take him in. He’s a minor. And he’s hysterical!”

“I am not! I am not hysterical!”

“Is there an adult contact?”

“My sister! Call my sister! She’s an adult. And if I’m hysterical, it’s your fault. You won’t talk to me.”

“Let’s take him to the hospital.”

“You sure?”

“No, I’m Gus,” I say. “Remember? You just asked me. Which one of us is sick, anyway? You been having a lot of seizures lately?”

Spectators are crowding around, close enough to listen. Some of them chuckle at this. I am encouraged.

“Or are you more of a garden salad guy? As opposed to seizure. Get it — seizure? Me, I always order the fries. What? What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”

The ambulance guy I can see shoos away the crowd.

“You know who you remind me of? My friend Gale. He has that exact expression when I talk like this. Come to think of it, Gale calls me hysterical too.”

It’s frustrating, not being able to move your arms or sit up.

I wonder about the inside of my head. There was no river of poop. And yet I saw it, smelled it, swam in it. Did my brain do that all by itself? What an amazing thing a brain is. Also, I wonder if the frying onion smell was real. And if I can make that up, why don’t I do it more often?

They lift me into the back of the ambulance. One of the guys stays with me.

The ambulance starts off with a lurch and bump.

You know, the guy in back with me has enormous nostrils. I am right below them, facing up. From down here, his nostrils are the size of highway tunnels.

I ask if I can sit up.

He says he wants to help, but I have to stay down.

When I ask him to check my phone, he digs it out of my pocket and holds it to my face: 12:53. I get him to redial Ruby, but there’s no service. He puts the phone on a tray and says he’ll try again.

The roof of the ambulance is off-white. With holes. I count the holes. I get to thirty-eight and have to start again.

I tell the guy I have a problem staying still. I ask if he can at least untie my arms. He says sorry but no.

I think about not being able to move. I feel my heart thumping. I lift my head and put it down again. And again.

The ambulance slows down, then goes up a ramp. And stops.

We’re here.

My guy opens the rear doors from the inside, and he and his partner lift down my wheelie stretcher and place it beside the ambulance. I turn my head so the sun is not in my eyes.

Next second I hear a squeal of brakes, and something bumps my stretcher with a gentle crunching sound — the sound you make eating celery. I twist my head around and find myself staring into a grill. A convertible has pulled up the ramp beside the ambulance and hit my stretcher!

Wow. I’m not hurt. Don’t worry — yet.

The driver of the convertible gets out, shouting.

“Sorry!” he shouts. “I couldn’t see because of the sun!” He’s upset. Well, of course he is. He’s driving to the hospital, right?

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” he shouts, running around to open the passenger-side door. The woman in the passenger seat cannot get out of the car because she is so pregnant. The driver helps her.

“Sorry, sorry. My wife is sorry. I mean I’m sorry. I’m in labour. Sorry! I mean my wife is. You okay, honey? Sorry!”

The ambulance guys point at him. “Hey!” they shout, not quite together, so they sound like an echo of themselves: “Hey!” “— ey!”

The convertible driver hurries his wife into the hospital. “Sorry!” he shouts over his shoulder.

“Wait!”

“You can’t leave your car here!”

“Sorry!”

“Wait! Wait!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

The shouts are fainter because everyone is farther away. And why? Because I am on the move. The ER entrance is at the top of a hill, with ramps on both sides. The ambulance and convertible came up one side. Now my wheelie stretcher is coasting down the other side. As the pregnant woman hobbles into the hospital, and her husband argues with the ambulance guys, my stretcher picks up speed.

What happens next is absolutely crazy. My stretcher adventure doesn’t take long — no more than a minute, but that minute is the most unlikely and dangerous part of the whole day. I’m rolling feet first. I’m strapped down, remember, including my hands. I lift my head to see what’s coming. This ramp ends at a main road — four lanes of traffic. I’ll arrive at the intersection in seconds.

When the convertible hit me, I wasn’t hurt. Don’t worry yet, I said.

Now you can start worrying.