SOME THINGS
YOU DON'T HAVE TO MAKE UP Cornelia Wells |
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TITO RAMIREZ SET DOWN ANOTHER EMPTY DOS EQUIS BOTTLE ON THE
black and white checkered cloth. Beer by beer, the plastic table covering looked more and more like the houndstooth blazer his uncle Anthony wore to mass. "Anyone who sits within twenty feet of 'The Jacket,'" Tito said to the small group of work friends clustered around the table, "bows their head and pretends to pray just to keep from going cross eyed." Voices erupted in sudden loud laughter like the companionable backfire of his old Mustang. Tito raised his hand to signal the waiter for another drink, and in the process noticed his watch--11:40 p.m. "Shit, y'all, I gotta go."
He stood abruptly, the backs of his knees scraping back the pine picnic bench on the concrete floor. The friction of wood on concrete sounded like a screeching gull, no, like his aunt setting up her ironing board to press his uncle's Sunday shirt. "Easy," someone at the table shouted. "My ears survived playing in a rock band for eight years. I don't want to lose my hearing having a beer." Everyone laughed again, except Tito, who was concentrating on lifting his boot high enough to step over the bench. There , he thought. But the boot failed to clear it, and he stumbled against a coworker's shoulder, half sitting in the man's lap. It was Johnson, Tito's shift boss. The newly refilled mug of ale in Johnson's hand sloshed onto Tito's back and Johnson swore, "Jesus!"
Tito elbowed himself back up, using the table and Johnson's paunch for leverage. "Watch it, man," Johnson warned.
Another voice wheedled, "Hey, Tito, why don't you wait some before taking off? Burn off some alcohol?"
Tito stuck a forefinger in his mouth and sucked on it in mock contemplation. "Like to, but I'm a pumpkin."
"Sure, sure. We all know you don't got any hot chica waiting for you. What's your hurry, man? It's Friday night," said Hector, the coworker whose birthday they had come to celebrate.
Tito started to respond, but couldn't tell if he was actually talking or just thinking. He hoped just thinking. His driver's license had been restricted two years earlier for a DUI. He was allowed to drive only on the days he worked, meaning he had to be off the road before the clock changed to Saturday. Probably best not to divulge his drinking history to a bunch of welders. They might refuse to work beside him.
"I'm good," he said, head bowed, eyes rapt on the bench he had yet to get over. "I borrowed my uncle's truck. He needs it to work graveyard at the bakery." At least he didn't have to lie outright. With one knee, Tito carefully pushed the bench another six inches, quietly this time, and walked around it rather than try again to step over. He half turned toward the table to wave good-bye, then thought better about walking out backwards. "Catch y'all Monday," he shot over his shoulder, and pushed through the door.
In the sweet but sweltering Georgia night, Tito broke into a sweat and rolled down the windows to keep awake. He concentrated hard on maintaining his speed below the 45-mile-an-hour limit. Within ten minutes he had no idea which of the winding back roads of the foothills he was on. A curve ahead advertised 35 miles per hour. He managed 40 and skidded into the opposite lane. He was alone on the road, so there was no consequence. He was just getting back into his own lane when a wild hog the size of a cow snuffled out of the trees to the right and onto the tarmac. "Querida Madre!" Tito muttered. Hogzilla! He knew from the stories on the evening news those hogs could take out a semi, not to mention a small pickup. His car insurance had already rocketed half way to Jupiter. Had he not totaled his Mustang in his last accident, he couldn't have afforded the insurance to drive it now anyway. Only Anthony's generosity, and enough dubious faith in his nephew to let him drive his truck, allowed Tito to keep working. Hitting Hogzilla would be financial suicide.
Tito swerved hard left. His uncle's brand-new Toyota Tundra left the tarmac and solid ground. In the nanosecond before it ripped through the curtain of kudzu to roll down the ravine beyond, Tito congratulated himself on missing the hog.
. . .
The unreality of hanging by his knees from a giant crane, hovering like cargo above a ship on a sea a hundred miles inland, enabled Tito to guess that he was either dreaming or hallucinating. This did not stop the blood from pounding wildly inside his brain or prevent waves of nausea from threatening to break through the levy of his esophagus and join the ocean below, a thought which slammed him into a pain drenched consciousness, where he found himself suspended upside down in his seat belt. Gracias a Dios he'd been in the habit of putting it on. Still, his head was tilted and smashed at an awkward angle against the roof of the cab, which itself had been smashed to the texture of corrugated tin.
The truck had landed at a 45-degree angle, half on its head, half on its left side, matching its inhabitant. Tito moaned, might have moaned, at least thought, Querida Santa Maria, if I puke upside down, I'll choke and die... after the vomit torches my nostrils. The thought energized him to try righting himself, but he was stuck in the embrace of the seat belt. He reached up with his right hand and unlatched the buckle. He fell five inches. The result was so much pain in his left shoulder, neck, and head that he blacked out again and dreamed that the crane had missed the ship, dumping him instead onto a old piling jutting up from the water, the dock it once supported long since rotted away.
. . .
The next time Tito bobbed into consciousness, he thought a shark might have chomped off his left arm because he couldn't feel it. He tried to check his watch, but his forearm had gone through the side window and was pinned beneath the door against gravel and clay. He pushed aside the deflated airbag hanging from the steering wheel so he could see the clock on the dashboard. It would be so much better when the police arrived if he could prove he hadn't been driving after midnight. The clock was still glowing--11:53. On second thought --he was thinking now, thinking was good --he appeared to be far enough down in the ravine that maybe he could crawl out of here without anyone noticing, especially the sheriff.
Of course, there would be Anthony to deal with. Tito would be paying his uncle for the loss of his truck for the next decade. Hell, he was still paying off the Mustang. But if law enforcement didn't find out about the current fiasco, Tito could still avoid being arrested, and he would be allowed to keep his restricted license. He could just show up to work on Monday as usual. On the other hand--and there was the problem. Even drunk, he could tell: at the moment, he had no other hand. It was probably mangled, crimped as it was beneath god knew how many pounds of a dead truck, and since it was still attached to his arm, which was still, painfully, attached to his torso, Tito wasn't going anywhere. He would get out of this truck alive, but he would not be doing it on his own. The best he could hope for was a civilian passerby to notice the gash in the kudzu, stop their car and investigate. So far, he had not heard a single vehicle. He was more likely to be visited by the curious snout of Hogzilla, or a local panther, than anything on two legs.
Tito would have to call for help. To navigate the pain of retrieving his phone from his pants pocket, he talked himself through each motion, softly as a lullaby. "Twist torso. Stretch legs toward... uff... passenger side... as far as possible to... oooooh... dig phone with right hand... shit... out of pocket... uhh... without pulling left arm... out of socket." He heard the rhyme of pocket and socket , but did not laugh. His shoulder stabbed at him, threatening another blackout. Phone in hand, Tito curled back toward his injured side to alleviate the pulling. His uncle would just be getting up for work. Anthony would not be happy about being late to his job, but he would come to rescue his nephew.
Only, where would Anthony locate a car at this hour without waking half the county? Anyway, how could Tito direct anyone to find him when he had no idea where he was? There was nothing to do but call 911 and let Big Brother track him down from the GPS chip in his phone.
Tito flipped open his lifeline and punched in the three numbers. I guess I'm lucky to have a signal down here . The dispatcher who answered the phone seconds later was not as sympathetic as he had envisioned. He wanted someone to coo over his injuries, but she seemed satisfied to know he was alive. She wanted to get help on the scene and needed to know how much of it and what kind to send.
"Was another vehicle involved?"
"No, ma'am."
"Is anyone with you?"
"Just a wild hog rooting up by the road."
"Sir, can you tell me your cross streets?"
"No, ma'am. I'm on a winding road in the foothills. But trust me, I'm completely sober."
"I'm sure you are, sir. Can you be more precise about your location?"
Tito winced. "Yes, ma'am. More precisely, I'm half upside down in a kudzu covered ravine. Pinned inside my uncle's truck."
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