Mr. Mercedes

Brady’s mother screamed and grabbed him in her arms. She squeezed him, trying to make the piece of apple come out. It didn’t. Frankie’s face went red. She reached into his mouth and down his throat, trying to get at the piece of apple. She couldn’t. Frankie started to lose the red color.

‘Oh-my-dear-Jesus,’ Deborah A

Brady didn’t like to be shouted at, and his mother had never called him an asshole before, but he pounded Frankie on the back. He pounded hard. The piece of apple slice did not come out. Now Frankie’s face was turning blue. Brady had an idea. He picked Frankie up by his ankles so Frankie’s head hung down and his hair brushed the rug. The apple slice did not come out.

‘Stop being a brat, Frankie,’ Brady said.

Frankie continued to breathe – sort of, he was making little breezy whistling noises, anyway – almost until the ambulance got there. Then he stopped. The ambulance men came in. They were wearing black clothes with yellow patches on the jackets. They made Brady go into the kitchen, so Brady didn’t see what they did, but his mother screamed and later he saw drops of blood on the carpet.

No apple slice, though.

Then everyone except Brady went away in the ambulance. He sat on the couch and ate popcorn and watched TV. Not The Blues Brothers; The Blues Brothers was stupid, just a bunch of singing and ru

When the fat sitter showed up, Brady said, ‘Frankie choked on an apple slice. There’s ice cream in the refrigerator. Vanilla Crunch. Have as much as you want.’ Maybe, he thought, if she ate enough ice cream, she’d have a heart attack and he could call nine-one-one.

Or just let the stupid bitch lay there. That would probably be better. He could watch her.

Deborah A

‘He’s going to be fine,’ Deborah A

‘He might not be,’ she told Brady, wiping wine from her chin. ‘He’s in a coma. Do you know what that is?’

‘Sure. Like in a doctor show.’

‘That’s right.’ She got down on one knee, so they were face-to-face. Having her so close – smelling the perfume she’d put on for the date that never happened – gave him a feeling in his stomach. It was fu

‘He stopped breathing for a long time before the EMTs could make some room for the air to go down. The doctor at the hospital said that even if he comes out of his coma, there might be brain damage.’

Brady thought Frankie was already brain-damaged – he was awful stupid, carrying around that fire truck all the time – but said nothing. His mother was wearing a blouse that showed the tops of her titties. That gave him a fu

‘If I tell you something, do you promise never to tell anyone? Not another living soul?’

Brady promised. He was good at keeping secrets.

‘It might be better if he does die. Because if he wakes up and he’s brain-damaged, I don’t know what we’ll do.’

Then she clasped him to her and her hair tickled the side of his face and the smell of her perfume was very strong. She said: ‘Thank God it wasn’t you, honeyboy. Thank God for that.’

Brady hugged her back, pressing his chest against her titties. He had a boner.

Frankie did wake up, and sure enough, he was brain-damaged. He had never been smart (‘Takes after his father,’ Deborah A

Frankie had to keep going to the doctor. His breathing was never right. At its best it was a wet wheeze, at its worst, when he had one of his frequent colds, a rattling bark. He could no longer eat solid food; his meals had to be pureed in the blender and he ate them in a highchair. Drinking from a glass was out of the question, so it was back to sippy cups.

The boyfriend from the bank was long gone, and the fat babysitter didn’t last, either. She said she was sorry, but she just couldn’t cope with Frankie the way he was now. For a while Deborah A

‘It’s shrinking like the icecaps,’ Deborah A

She went to see a lawyer (in the same strip mall where Brady would years later flick an a

‘I can tell you what happened,’ he said. ‘Seen it before. That piece of apple left just enough space around his windpipe to let him keep breathing. It’s too bad you reached down his throat, that’s all.’

‘I was trying to get it out!’ Deborah A

‘I know, any good mother would do the same, but you pushed it deeper instead, and blocked his windpipe entirely. If one of the EMTs had done that, you’d have a case. Worth a few hundred thousand at least. Maybe a million-five. Seen it before. But it was you. And you told them what you did. Didn’t you?’

Deborah A

‘Did they intubate him?’

Deborah A

‘Okay, that’s your case. They got an airway into him, but in doing so, they pushed that bad apple in even deeper.’ He sat back, spread his fingers on his slightly yellowed white shirt, and peeped at Deborah A

‘So you’ll take the case?’

‘Happy to, if you can pay for the five years it’ll drag through the courts. Because the hospital and their insurance providers will fight you every step of the way. Seen it before.’

‘How much?’

Greensmith named a figure, and Deborah A