Within what must have been seconds, as the noise gave way to a grotesque silence, I understood that something had exploded, probably right out front. I picked myself up without realizing that blood was flowing from a gash in my head and raced out the front door. On the sidewalk and street, in the cold night, the various parts of my car were strewn asunder. A small fire burned in the engine, exposed by the open hood.
I scanned the area furiously, looking for Havlicek. I spotted the door of my car on the sidewalk. The hood was sitting in the middle of the street. There was singed, broken glass everywhere I looked, sparkling softly in the streetlights. Finally, my eyes were drawn to the still form of Havlicek, or at least his tattered body, slumped against my house, his legs splayed open, his head concealed by one of his arms.
I did what anyone would do: I raced over to him, rolled him over so he was facing me, and saw that his skull was cracked open. Blood and God only knows what else poured out of the hole. Half his left ear had been ripped off. He was no longer wearing any shoes, and soot or burn marks covered most of his clothing.
His eyes were closed. My first impulse was to shake him, to yell in his face, to tell him he'd be all right. I knew, though, that if he was alive, shaking him would only cause more blood to flow out of his head. I felt his throat, knowing nothing about where a pulse might be, but in hopes I would suddenly learn. I moved my hand around a couple of different ways, trying to maintain some calm. To my absolute amazement, I found a slow pulse.
"Steve, you're going to be all right," I said, softly. I yanked my coat off and laid it over his form, remembering some first aid guide I must have read somewhere that said you always keep a trauma victim warm. "Stay with me, Steve," I said, speaking gently into his whole ear. "Stay with me. Just stay with me. Hang on. Help is on the way.
Everything's going to be all right."
I glanced around the neighborhood and saw several people emerge onto their front stoops, a collective look of panic on their faces. I shattered the odd silence by yelling, "Is there a doctor around?" I got no response. You would think in the heart of Georgetown there would be at least one doctor on my block, but this being Washington, you made your money in television and in the lobbies of Congress, pushing various legislation, not helping those who needed to be nursed back to health. Someone finally opened a door and hollered back, "I've called for help." Nice of you to get involved, I thought.
I turned back to Havlicek. His neck was resting in one of my hands.
His garnet-colored blood was dripping onto my wrist and coagulating on the cold ground.
"Everything's all right," I said over and over again, talking, probably, as much to myself as to him. "We're not going to let those bastards beat us," I said. "They're not going to beat us. You're going to be all right."
All of time seemed to screech to a halt out here on the sidewalk of Twenty-eighth Street, amid the morbid ruins that were once my house and car. The silence was still deafening. At this hour, late on a Saturday night, or rather early on Sunday morning, there wasn't even any traffic. I felt myself start to panic, felt myself want to scream at someone, to assess blame, to seek revenge. Eventually, in the distance, I heard the vague sound of a siren, and over my shoulder, a voice said to me, "Here, I have a blanket and some towels."
A neighbor who I hazily recognized spread the blanket across Havlicek's form. I took the towel and pressed it gently to Havlicek's head, trying to stem the flow of blood. "He's alive," I said. "He's alive, and he's going to be all right."
And just like that, Havlicek opened one eye and looked at me. My heart was pumping so hard it almost exploded through my chest. I hadn't actually believed anything I had said about him being all right.
I looked at him in unabashed amazement and said excitedly, "You're fine, Steve. You're going to be fine. Hear that ambulance. It's about a minute away. Everything's going to be all right. Hang in there with me."
Havlicek tried to mumble something in return, but it was incoherent, the talk of someone weak and in shock. I said, "Don't speak. Save yourself. Stay with me. Stay with me. Help is on the way."
Havlicek being Havlicek, he didn't bother to listen. He continued to mumble. His one eye was open, looking at me. His second eye popped open as well. I told him again to stay quiet. When he still didn't listen, I said, "Steve, do yourself a favor and shut up."
Then, summoning what appeared to be an inordinate amount of energy, Havlicek blurted out, "My pocket."
"Your pocket?" I asked him, still speaking softly, not raising my voice, not acting panicked, although all around us were the parts of what a few minutes ago was my Honda Accord, and before me, my friend was on the doorstep of death, about to ring the bell.
He nodded his head. I fished through his pants pocket, and he looked at me with some exasperation, saying, "Coat."
In the background, the siren kept getting closer, weaving through Georgetown. In the foreground, people weren't so much staring at us as gawking, as if they never had a car bomb explode on their block before in the early hours of a Sunday morning. I reached into the inside pocket of his navy blazer and found a sheet of white paper. I put it in my pocket without looking at it. He seemed content, and closed his eyes.
"Don't go anywhere, Steve," I said. "Hang tough for me. Just hang tough, and you're going to be fine."
I didn't even realize that my hand was on his and that he had been gripping one of my fingers. I didn't realize it until I felt his grip loosen, his hand become completely slack. He gave one hard exhale, and his facial expression changed completely. When I put a finger under his nose, his breathing seemed to have stopped.
I said, louder, "No, Steve. No. You're staying with me here. I need you on this. Your wife, she needs you. Don't go anywhere." The sirens seemed to multiply and got increasingly louder. It sounded like they were only a block or so away. I had my other hand cupped on the back of his head, and despite myself, shook him a bit.
"Come on, Steve. We've come too far. We don't have that much further to go. Stay with me."
With that, I started to breathe into his mouth, to push air into his system. But the sad fact of the situation was that I didn't have a clue what I was doing. It all seemed so futile. When the ambulance pulled up and the EMT'S leaped out, I told them I thought he had just stopped breathing a few minutes ago. One of the men put an oxygen cup over his mouth. Another thumped at his chest. Two more raced over with a stretcher. I backed away, fading into the background, almost tripping over what must have been the passenger-side door to my car.
A woman in an official-looking jumpsuit approached me and asked if I was all right. I replied that I was fine, and she said, "You know you have a cut on your head?" She wiped a cloth over it and told me to come with her. I shook my head, never really diverting my eyes from Havlicek and all the men around him. She disappeared and came back in a moment, told me to stay still, and carefully placed a bandage on my temple. "You'll be all right for now," she said. Physically, yeah.
The rest, I wasn't so sure.
At that precise point, it hit me-the dog. I turned back and raced toward the house and into the front door, which was open. The inside looked, well, like a bomb had hit it. On the floor in the middle of the living room, Baker was sprawled out on the rug, the shattered chandelier pinning him to the floor. When I knelt down in the broken shards of glass, he didn't so much cry as whimper, his eyes looking at me in a pleading pursuit of relief.