Blocks Away

Photo by Wadi Lissa on Unsplash

I ran for blocks.

She’s the heaviest thing I ever carried. Cold, scared, crying…my little sister was going to die if I didn’t do anything. I’ve tried carrying her in my arms, which didn’t let me move as fast I wanted to. I stopped, and heaved her on one shoulder, but she kept making this gulping sound that made everything sound worst. I couldn’t think of how to carry her with the wound, because she won’t make it if we stay here. I settle for laying her behind my neck.

The streets were empty. Typically, whenever a shot is fired, everybody clears out. Nobody wants trouble and nobody wants the blame of who was shot and what was hit. I figure I have a little leeway because I’m trying to be responsible. Fourteen years old, and I’m the only one being accountable

My dad blames the government. My mom blames people who look like us. I blame myself.

I should have convinced my sister to hurry up. She had new chalk she wanted to try out. She wanted to finish her Picasso drawing. She doesn’t know who that is, but she claims since she’s heard the name in a song, she was worthy enough to use him as a muse. I blame myself for admiring her work a little too long, because it was good. She’s talented, or at least, ambitious. I don’t know what’s more important, but the answer was really anticipation. Stuff like this happens all the time. I should have known better.

During a shooting, the people who stay out usually aren’t the ones you want to talk to. The homeless, or worse, junkies. You can tell the difference because the homeless person really wants to be left alone, and the junkie will convince you that your donations will help a family in need. It worries me when some of the homeless people I normally see, turn to look at us, and start to follow me. I worry until I see a man, keeping his distance, but still see looking for where we’re heading. I realize the only reason I see him because he looks worried too.

I have so little time.

My legs hurt more than I thought they could, so I turn it into a game. It’s a race; a really, really, bad race. I used to be good at racing before I grew up, and I don’t think I have the time to really do something like that in high school.

High school. Yesterday it was my biggest concern. I don’t have many friends. People in class say that I look like a robot sometimes. I’m too focused, that I care about my schoolwork too much. I try to tell them schoolwork is how we make a life for ourselves. It something I heard my dad say when he was drinking once. Him and Mom were up and giggling, thinking that we were asleep. They talked about their dreams before that had us, and once we went off to school, that they make sure to do that for more kids in the city. The cheered and hugged, and poured more to drink, but that was the only time I’ve heard them say that. It’s the only time I get to see them really be happy, and not the happy when we’re around. That seems forced. They do it because they’re scared of how we’ll turn out if they don’t.

Scared like am I right now.

“I’m scared.” My sister says, quiet like she’s in trouble.

“Good. Tell me why.”

“I’m scared because it hurts.”

“It does, it does, but don’t focus on that.” It’s good to hear her voice. “Tell me what inspired you to draw today.”

“Picasso.”

“That’s right. You told me that earlier.”  I had to look him up. I didn’t know anything about him other than he was a famous painter. “He was famous for using cubes in his work.”

“Cubes?”

“Yes. They’re kind of like 3D squares.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll use more squares.”

“Good. Use all the squares.”

After the conversation died, I realize she stops whimpering. She recognizes that the pain’s not going away. She knows it serious, and now we’re on the same level of concern. It’s not a good thing to notice as a seven-year old.

Her coat hides most of the blood, though it’s the only warmth I feel on her. I wasn’t there when the shot went off. The silence after the pop give me enough information. She almost didn’t let me carry her, because I don’t do something like that. She knew something was wrong, but the impact just hit her now.

I made it. I’m out of the neighborhood, where the stores are bigger, cleaner, and have a bigger inventory. A different inventory. A more expensive inventory. Now the hard part starts. I set my sister down, in the cut behind a pharmacy store, check her pulse, and hug her.

“Stay here, okay?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“I know, but I need you to be strong, okay? I’m going to get help.”

This is her chance. I had the make the most of it, but it required me using somebody’s phone. I’m in a weird part of town, where people don’t stop for anything, and little girls aren’t much to stop someone’s commute. I struggle to get started, knowing that I must do it, but the fear makes me hesitate. I don’t like talking to people I know, and now I’m relying on complete strangers to save the day.

I start asking. The first one people don’t even look at me, like they can’t hear me. My niceties don’t even stop some folks. I try a few more times, getting a few to look over as they continue to walk away. Please sir and ma’am weren’t enough to warrant attention from the busy adults. A few times, I squeezed in the request to borrow their phones. That caused people to speed up their walk. More was needed from me.

I need tears.

I need to undo 12 years of hardening, making sure that whatever I did, I didn’t cry. Not in front of my friends, who would mock me and call me dramatic. Not in front of my family, who tended to argue afterwards of who to blame for upsetting me. Not in front of anybody else in the neighborhood. It was a vulnerability, and it was a place that didn’t envy the weak. I’m cold, like my sister.

I focused on that, trying to get myself to see her on the brink, hurt and unconscious, bundled up with her and my jacket, trying to keep warm. I think of the random shivering, trying to hold on to the life that’s slipping away from her, still losing blood and in pain. I hear my parents screaming of how and why this happened, partially blaming me for it.

Nothing. I ask a few more people, which is futile. The fear of failure leads me to a different place, a different thought.

I picture a world where I was alone—no sister, no parents, no friends. The world I’m in takes them away from me, living me with solace. I have food, water, entertainment to some degree, but nobody to share it with. I smile, then I feel myself age. Months turn to years, hair turns grey, little by little, but the food and entertainment stay the same. Solace shifts to isolation, and soon I’m sick. I’m bed ridden, without the strength to get a sip of water. I feel the life leaving me, and I wonder.

Did the world take them from me?

No. I gave them away.

My face gets wet, and my chest heaves. I cover my mouth, wipe my face, but more tears come. I choke between the gasps, and my body begs for more air. The thought shames me, so I hide with my hands. I crouch down and feel the chill air for the first time. All the calmness leaves me, and I let it go. I let it all go.

“Hey, are you okay?”

I open my eyes to a stranger leaning over to me, head covered in a beanie, scarf and beard. He reaches over, placing his hand on my shoulder. I flinch, but his hand is slow and gentle.

“Do you need help?” He asks.

“Can I borrow your phone?”

#

I’m finally warm now.

I’m in the waiting room of the ER, still without a jacket. The handcuff on the chair is a little cold, but I finally let it settle, especially over the abrasions of trying to yank my hand free. I’m not in trouble, the officer informed, but I’m needed for questioning for more information on my sister. He told me when he first got here to stay put, after the EMTs carried my sister away. He was angry once he found me sneaking to find where my sister went.

I heard surgery when we got here, but the hospital is too big, I got lost a few times looking for it, and when I found one of the rooms, it was a large, heavy-set woman on the table instead of my sister. He asked if I was going to listen to him. I said no. That’s when he brought the handcuffs.

Waiting, I think of the stranger who helped me. I saw him panic when I called 911. I calmed him when I spoke to the operator, stating what had happened and where I was. I made sure to give an address a block away from where my sister was. The man was nice, but I still didn’t trust him. Handing the phone back, he looked terrified. He didn’t know how to respond as I handed it to him. He didn’t even take it right away.

“Maybe I should come with you.” He says, reaching to grab his phone. “Maybe I can—”

I ran as soon as he took it.

I made it back to my sister, cold as she was before, but her eyelids were heavy, blinking slow as if she’s trying to stay awake late at night.

“You can’t sleep.”

“Please, I’m tired.”

“No, you can’t. You have to be awake when the ambulance gets here.”

“I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

“We’re almost there.”

I can’t stop thinking of the stranger’s face. What was he so scared of? I’m only 5’4” and he looked down on me with such innocence. I was handing his phone back, so he couldn’t have worried I was going to take it.

I replay the scene. I slowed my breathing to make sure the operator heard me over the phone. I slowed my words to make sure she could understand the urgency of the situation, and this wasn’t a prank or some sort of joke. I thanked her after she told me she was going to send an ambulance, but I hung up when she asked to stay on the line. That’s when I handed the phone back.

What was he expecting?

The officer walks back into the room. He takes out a key, small enough to look like a toy, and undoes the handcuffs.

“Now,” He says. “We’re going to another room to get some answers. I won’t use these again,” he holds up the handcuffs, “if you promise not to make me chase you all over this hospital again. Does that work?

I nod.

“Let’s go.”

We walk over to separate room, where he holds the door. Inside there’s a desk and two chairs. Everything else is white, and seems new, like they haven’t figured out what to do with the room yet.

“Take a seat.”

I comply and he waits in the door.

“Do you want a soda or something?”

I shake my head.

“Okay.

He returns with a coffee in one hand and a soda in another. He places the soda in front of me.

“In case you change your mind.” He takes a seat. “Your sister is going to be okay.”

He looks at me after reporting the status of my sister, looking for something. I don’t know what I give him, but I hide my excitement and relief. I don’t trust him. He could be lying. I don’t know why he would, but that doesn’t mean people are honest.

“Tell me what happened.”

I go over the shot. I go over the journey over here. He shakes his head in disbelief, and then the interrogation begins. He stops, peppering over detail of the story: how loud was the shot, what street was it on, did you see him, did you hear him, who saw you and your sister in the street, where were your parents when it happened. Each question had a similar coldness to them, and I returned with answers just as frigid. Halfway through he took out a notepad and started to write things down. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t read his handwriting, but he was writing down more than I was saying. I finish, and he writes more into the pad. He puts his pen down.

“What made you bring your sister all the way out here?”

The answer is simple, but I try to formulate it. The way I speak is different from a lot of my classmates, and they tease me because of it. They laugh because it’s simple, but they don’t understand that it’s calculated. I spend a lot of time in my head, and I realize that could make it seem cold, especially because I am. I trouble with handling other people’s emotions, though I understand them. I plan for them, so I want to be careful in the way I phase this.

“No one would come if I didn’t.”

The officer’s reaction surprises me. Maybe he didn’t expect this type of answer from a teenage, but when he checks the address I gave, he realizes that the answer is true. He shows that he recognizes that. It shames him, that he let it slip. He taps his notepad and then scoops up his pen. He stops heading for the door, thinking of something to say, to reassure me of the circumstances I navigated through. He turns to me, looking at me with sorrow, realizing that he can’t.

So he turns and leaves.