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Jules and I get on our bikes and ride through Sacket Street. The grocery is dark. So’s the pharmacy. It’s blue-dick cold. We’re over the tracks, racing just ahead of the supply train headed for Omaha. It’s a thrill. The kind that makes you feel like Superman.
“Arm or leg?” Jules asks as we race, out of breath and too cold to cry.
“Arm?”
“Okay. Arm, your turn. Leg, I get to be the doctor,” Jules says.
“Game on.”
We drop our bikes and head for the crowd. The grass is long in spots, dead from spills in others. I want to take off my shoes and feel the cold, frozen earth. Squeeze it between my toes and tell it to remember me.
We push through. Catalytic reformers look like space needles wrapped in steel scaffolding. They’re the size of Manhattan buildings. You’ve seen them, probably. They turn low octane raw material into high octane fuel. But unless you live in a refinery town, you probably had no idea what you were looking at. You just blinked, then checked your distance to Chicago.
About twenty eight-by-two foot beams have collapsed. As Jules and I approach, some rent-a-cops retract a jaws of life. They pull a guy out from the wreckage and amputate his leg, thigh down. Then they give it to him. He’s holding his amputated leg, high on morphine. Jules and I clench hands. I wonder if this turns me on, touching her. Or if it’s the suffering that has my erection going.
Thirty minutes later, the generators start cranking. Dirty smoke spouts all over again. Jules and I book after the ambulance.
• • • •
There’s nobody in admission or reception at Pigment Hospital, just this janitor mopping floors. He picks at this stuck-on bit of grime with his fingernail.
I’m Jules’ bitch today, so I take the nurse coat, and she doctors up. We head to the ER, where they always take the scabs.
Some doctor is just closing the curtain on our lucky refinery scab. She’s one of the last in this skeleton crew. I wonder why she comes at all. But then again, why not?
Jules walks with purpose. I’ve got my clipboard and Nguyen’s Bic pen. I’m thinking about Cathy, who was born here. She smelled like milk and I loved her.
I love her still.
“How are you this morning?” Jules asks once the doctor is long gone.
The scab kind of blinks. He’s pale from blood loss and won’t let go of his leg. Does he think we’re going to steal it?
“Not so good?” she asks.
I’m completely serious when I tell you that Jules would have made a great doctor. She’s not squeamish.
She peeks inside his bandage. He bites his lower lip to keep from crying, but that doesn’t help; he cries anyway. He’s one of the rave guys. I can tell because he’s got glitter on his cheeks.
“I’ve seen worse. Don’t worry,” Jules says with this big smile.
The guy calms down. “Do I know you?”
“We’re go
“Can it be saved?” he asks. He’s talking about his stump, which he’s holding like a baby.
“We’ll try real hard,” she says. Then she turns to me. She’s smiling that angry smile from this morning. I’m a little scared of her, and a little turned on. What’s wrong with me?
“You’ll need to change his bandages every few hours,” she says.
I scribble
Bandages x2hrs
because I’m a terrible liar, so it’s important to make this as real as possible. When I play the doctor I just stare while Jules does the talking.
“And you’ll need morphine every six hours. Three em-gees per.”
I jot that down, too.
“Dwight here’s from Kansas,” she says, nodding at me. “Where you from, sweetness?”
The guy’s sweating from the pain—morphine comedown. “Jersey,” he says. “But really no place. Bopped around the rigs in Saudi a while… You sure I don’t know you?”
“I’m sure,” she says. “Any family? Because there’s some experimental treatment for your predicament, but it’s a hella lotta
dinero
.”
The guy looks at her fu
I’m waiting for the punch line, because Jules usually makes this game fun. We even help a little, make the guys feel better. Listen to them talk about their ex-wives and good times.
You’ll be saved
, we reassure them.
We’ll all be saved by the giant nukes in the sky
!
“Aw,” she says. “Then I guess you’ll just have to pray the fuckin’ thing gets all spontaneous regeneration, you fucking cripple.”
She’s ru
“Let go of me!” I’m crying, even though this guy can’t stand up. His detached leg rests in his lap. I swivel, leaving him with just the jacket.
Jules is waiting for me in admission, white coat gone, like it never happened.
“You ever think about killing a guy?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “All the time.”
• • • •
We’re at Jules’ house for di
I can’t wait to get out of this town
, she told me the first time we met.
Jules’ mom and sister want to play Gin Rummy after di
“I gotta shove off,” I tell them as I stand. Then I look at all three of them and realize they’ve all got Jules’ dull marble eyes. “Take care of yourselves,” I say. Then I’m out the door.
“The asteroid’s a hoax!” Jules’ sister shouts behind me. But it’s right outside, big as the moon and in the opposite direction. It glows, making the night doubly bright.
I’m on my bike, headed I don’t know where. Well, actually, yes. I do know. I’ve been thinking about it all day.
“Hey!” Jules calls after me, and she’s riding, too.
It’s biting cold. We’re wrapped in Hefty garbage bags to keep warm. “You go ahead. I don’t wa
“Where else is there to go?”
“Omaha,” I say.
She doesn’t chew me out for a half-brained plan, like riding our bikes six hundred miles in below-freezing weather. She just pedals right along with me, fast as she can, like the whole world behind her is on fire.
We go past the center of Pigment, near the high school. I stop at this arts and crafts house with a hoop out front. It looks like gingerbread. Jules doesn’t even ask whose house we’re at.
I ring the bell. I’m so nervous I’m panting.
“Don’t leave me,” Jules whispers. She’s sniffling. “You’re my family.”