And then she finally stirred. Very weakly she stirred, wheezing in a quick breath for the first time in minutes, her dry lips barely mouthing the words “How did I get back?” then “I can’t feel my legs.”
For the first time I noticed her legs had been pinned under the dash and saw the fear in her eyes as she started to go into shock.
“HANG ON JENIFER, DON’T GO BACK OUT THERE ON ME YOUR LEGS ARE JUST STUCK AND YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINE!”
She passed out again and I had to touch her face with my hands, accidentally smearing more blood from my arm, why is it still bleeding, onto her smooth white cheeks, forcing her to look at me, yelling her name so loud until her open eyes fluttered back with a spark of life and fear.
“Jenifer. Jenifer. Jenifer. Look at me Jenifer. I love you Jenifer. CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’m so sorry and I love you. I LOVE YOU. CAN YOU HEAR ME? SAY IT BACK TO ME! Everything is going to be ok,” my voice panicking at first, then trying to stay calm.
Can’t breathe
“I got your seatbelt off of you, you can breath now. I love you.” Then she passed out again, eyes closing this time, chest moving in and out in a weak rhythm.
“Jenifer, sweetie, I love you Jenifer, listen to my voice, stay with ME.”
Despite my lack of faith at the moment, I baptized her then, using my thumb covered with my blood and saliva to make a crude cross on her forehead while I prayed her soul would be spared the torment of the afterlife and that she would be there always. I didn’t know if she would live then, I just cried and cried while trapped inches from her torn body, listening for any changes and wanting to be thankful she came back to life for me, even for just a few minutes. “WHERE’S THAT FUCKING AMBULANCE!?!”
The guy from the road, backing further away said it had only been a few minutes by that point. “You fucking coward, come here and help us out, smell that gas? YOU need to help her! HELP HER PLEASE!”
Can’t breathe.
But he backed off and nobody would help us. So for minutes, hours, days, I talked to Jenifer while she was unconscious beside me, begging her to listen to my voice, begging her to not let go, fearing each sigh and labored breath might be the last moment we ever share together.
You died right there but my selfish ass wouldn’t let you go. I fucking need you. I couldn’t let you leave me, I just couldn’t let you leave me. Even if you curse my name for the rest of my days and we end up being apart I have to know you are here. Even if you are hurt beyond belief and choose to spit on my grave everyday for the rest of your life for bringing you back and denying your tormented soul a resting place I have to know you are here. Her destiny looms larger than mine right? Oh GOD, did I do the right thing? I’m a goddamn cocksucking, fucking white selfish trashy no good fucking junkie.
Can’t breathe.
The helicopters finally came circling and descended out of the sky like fat spiders closing in on their trapped prey and I had to let them take her from me. More screaming, “Never mind me! Get the fuck away from me! “I don’t car if the car blows up, just HELP HER FIRST!” I was spouting out Jenifer’s medical history to them like a mantra over and over again so somebody would pay attention. I’m telling them her name and about her severe asthma and hurt lungs and her legs, oh God I saw then what had happened to her legs as they roughly pulled her from the car and I watched them put her on a flat board take her away back up to the highway, to the helicopter.
Can’t breathe.
Somebody mercifully cut the electricity to the blaring car horn then. Nice priorities. “Get away FROM ME! Get the fuck away from me and just get her out of here, HURRY you fuckers, GODDAMN YOU ARE FUCKING HURTING HER!!” Oh Jen, I know we were out in butt-fuck-Egypt where they probably still use leeches to purify the blood but I had to let them take you away from me. As the fire crew puzzled over how to wedge me out of the car without it blowing up, I watched Jenifer’s helicopter slowly ascend and fly away but it seemed as if it rose and left too slowly, as if maybe it already carried away the dead.
Please Jenifer, I’ll be there soon, I woke you back up and you had better not fucking die on me again. Please. I love you. I fucking need you. I’ll be there soon.
“Where is she going? Please tell me. Hurry…help her…”
And then it was just me and broken glass falling from the windows around me, dropping onto the dashboard and hood like rosary beads falling on a cold floor.
Can’t breathe.
The firemen started talking about me like I wasn’t there and then about using the Jaws of Life to open the car on my side, which made me mad. I needed out of that fucking deathtrap NOW! I used my good arm (good arm?) to push myself out of the seat and pull myself,
Can’t breatheacross to where Jenifer had been sitting,
Can’t breatheand out her door, bleeding onto the red clay dirt and for a brief moment I noticed how beautiful and green it was next to the little creek,
Can’t breathebefore about 10 paramedics grabbed me. They put me in a neck brace and strapped me to a board and carried me up the hill to another helicopter. When they had reached the top of the embankment the paramedics didn’t notice they had set me down in a fire-ant pile where I screamed and for five minutes my neck and chest were devoured before they finally loaded me into the back of the helicopter. For such a big helicopter the place they squeezed me in was a really small space with my nose about 2 inches from a plastic ceiling which smelled like a disinfected coffin.
Can’t breathe, goodbye lover, please be ok.
God, it suddenly hurt so badly then, the paramedics gave me some morphine but the bullshit housewife dosage they gave me had absolutely no effect on the pain because of my high tolerance and withdrawals from my fucking heroin habit. Fucking poetic justice right? I asked for more and they told me what they had given me was the max dosage and I should be knocked out soon. I finally screamed at them long enough to get another shot but I could still vividly feelevery wound on my body, especially the bone sticking out of my right arm and the crushing weight on my chest that was still stealing my breath.
I started singing to myself then, and the paramedics probably thought that meant the extra morphine they gave me was working, but it was the only way I knew to distract myself from the pain and horror of everything that was happening.
All the voices we’re talking at once now and that’s the thing about the voices. You either go mad or learn how to sing a song that drives them mad first. Either way everyone thinks you’re fucking crazy. Maybe they are right. I was going fucking crazy.
Oh God what have I done?
At the emergency room there was no sign or news about what happened to Jenifer. Before I even saw a doctor there was a police officer in the surgery room drawing my blood to test the alcohol content. He was a fucking prick about it too, like he had seen shit like this a hundred times before and I was just one more fucked up drunk driver that went off the road driving home from the casinos in Louisiana. When a doctor finally rushed in to see me I told him I couldn’t breathe and he figured out my lungs were crushed. They gave me another shot of something that didn’t help and I felt every excruciating bit of pain as the doctor used a scalpel to slice the skin on the side of my pectoral muscle and force a tube into my left lung. I felt it get stuck on my rib cage and I almost passed out from the undiluted pain but in a moment it was over and there was bloody fluid being pumped from my lung into a bag, my body feeling the sharp shocks every time my lung tried to wretch something into the plastic sack.
And then…nothing.
I got out of the hospital today and went home. I’m a little worse for wear and my first thoughts were about how I could get out to Tyler and see Jenifer as soon as possible. I even had to beg and plead with my parents to help make some kind of arrangement for that. It felt like I was in high school begging for an extra hour of curfew on prom night all over again. I think I basically got their help and attention by letting them know I was going to go out there as soon possible whether they wanted to help or not. My fucking girlfriend is in the hospital, thanks to a car I was driving and you think any force on earth is going to keep me from her?! I didn’t fucking ask to be flown across the state with a broken body and no fucking drug or emotional support; Jen and I were together and we should have stayed together.