B. Traven
ASLAN NORVAL
1.
“She hit that poor guy.”
“Probably one of those rich ladies who don’t even know what to do with their millions.”
“She’ll probably settle the whole matter with a few measly dollars.”
“And the poor man will be stuck a cripple for the rest of his life.”
“If he doesn’t die on the way to the hospital.”
“Hang or gas her. In my opinion, they should electrocute the murderers who race around in their cars like this.”
“You are speaking the truth, miss. A seemingly decent person gets behind the wheel—”
“Yes, and before you know it, they turn into a bloodthirsty monster.”
“They can’t go fast enough.”
“They don’t even care how many people are crushed beneath their wheels, if it means they can get to their cocktail or their round of canasta ten seconds earlier.”
Suddenly, two police officers interrupted theses outraged comments. They’d rushed to the scene to figure out why people were congregated there. At this time of day, the street was busier than normal, although it was never really calm. The people standing at the corner of Thirty-Fourth were usually in a hurry, afraid of being late. Now, however, their curiosity proved stronger than their fear.
Before they’d even managed to push through the crowd to find out why it had formed, the two officers in uniform swung their batons around threateningly, in order to let everyone know that the authorities had arrived to guarantee law and order as well as safety for all citizens.
These citizens, however, possessed certain rights delineated clearly in the Constitution.
One of these inalienable rights was the right to go and stand wherever they pleased, whenever they pleased. No one could take that from them.
The police officers, of course, did not care at all about such things.
Swinging their batons forcefully, they yelled: “Keep walking—no standing around—yes, you too, keep walking—don’t stop—actually, what happened here?—Keep going—do not stop traffic—keep walking—keep going—do not stop!”
They pushed their way to the center of the crowd, where a lady had supposedly crushed a man with her automobile.
The woman had gotten out of her elegant Cadillac. Her face was pale from the shock of having squashed a young man with her car. But the young man stood next to the right front wheel of the car and smiled in a friendly, intimate way, wiping some oil from his face with his handkerchief.
Still pale, the lady looked at him with her eyes wide, as if she had seen a ghost.
“You—you—you’re alive, young man?” she stammered. “You really are alive?”
“Of course, I’m alive, ma’am. At least for the moment. Why would I be dead?” He pulled out a pocket comb. Using the car’s windshield as his mirror, he combed his slightly disheveled hair and grinned.
“If you could finish me off that easily,” he said, sliding his comb back into his pocket, “I would never have made it back from Korea. You better believe it, ma’am.”
Then he set off to continue his interrupted errands.
“You’re really not hurt? Are you sure?” the lady asked again, finally regaining some of her composure.
“Not at all, ma’am. Don’t worry about me in the least. Goodbye, ma’am. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“You there, stop. Sir, sir—your name?” called one of the police officers. He had finally managed to squeeze through the throng of curious people by pushing, shoving, and digging into people’s ribs.
He pulled out his notebook and licked the tip of his pencil, true to an old habit of his compatriots.
“What’s your name? Where do you live? How old are you? Where do you work?”
“That is private information and none of your business at all.”
“I am arresting you for disturbing traffic, do you understand?”
“Now listen here,” the lady interrupted. “If anyone is to be arrested for disturbing traffic, then it should be me.”
In the meantime, the second cop had finally arrived, using his baton to beat a path through the mass of people.
“Is that so?” he addressed the lady. “And who are you? You ran over this young man here. That will cost you quite a pretty penny. Where do you live?”
The first cop, who’d been ignoring her on purpose, suddenly remembered that she was there now that his partner had mustered the courage to ask for the name and address of such an elegant lady—the owner of a Cadillac Deluxe, after all.
“That’s right,” the first cop agreed. “What is your name?”
“I don’t stick my nose into your affairs, and you don’t stick yours in mine, all right?”
“That will cost you another pretty penny, just so you know.”
“Why don’t you add a few more, since we’re throwing pennies around?”
Just as the lady spoke, the deafening siren of an approaching ambulance sounded along Thirty-Fourth Street.
With a screech, it stopped next to the Cadillac Deluxe.
The back doors opened with a bang. Everything having to do with an ambulance has to be done with squealing, roaring, or screaming, since it would not leave any impression otherwise. Two orderlies jumped out with a folded stretcher.
“Where is the body?” a bespectacled medical student asked the police officer.
The student bent down and crawled halfway under the car to look for the victim.
“The body is standing over there,” answered the police officer, pointing to the young man. The two orderlies immediately pounced on the young man, who desperately fought them off. Invoking the Constitution, he violently resisted their attempt to load him into the ambulance.
“Good Lord,” he screamed, as if possessed. “Let me go, dammit! I’m not dead. I’m not even hurt.”
“We determine whether you are dead or dying. Not you. Understood?” yelled the resident. “In our eyes, you are dead until we have determined that you are alive. And now, no more arguments—or you really will be in trouble.”
That was the last thing the young man heard, as he was already lying on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance. The door slammed shut, and the ambulance raced through the streets with its siren wailing. It cut the corners so wildly that the young man was flung from the stretcher twice. The ambulance shot past several buses and trucks and almost hit them along the way. Later, he could truly claim how lucky he was because he had escaped death by a hair’s breadth at least ten times on this journey.
On the corner, where only a few minutes ago a poor unemployed man had been dismembered by an elegant car, the throng quickly dispersed. Everyone left convinced that their highly civilized city government would do everything to make life better and more comfortable for its stressed citizens, to heal the sick and wounded. So they all could get back to work.
Only a few people who had nothing better to do remained at the corner. They wanted to see what the two Irish police officers, who had called four more cops as backup, would do with the elegant lady and her even more elegant luxury car.
Two of the cops positioned themselves in front of the car, to stop its owner from deciding to jump boldly over them, like a circus acrobat. They feared she might race away, avoiding all responsibility. To make completely sure, all six cops wrote down the Cadillac’s license plate in their little notebooks, so that they could prove to their lieutenant where they had been during that half hour and that they had actually been part of the action.
One of the four police officers who had arrived later asked one of the original cops whether they had asked the lady for her name and address.
“I asked her,” he whispered to his companion, “but her answer made me think that it might be wise to treat her with kid gloves. Just look at her vehicle! If someone drives that kind of car—you have got to be careful. Damn, they must be loaded!”