Charlie Huston - Caught Stealing

During the flip you are for a moment suspended upside down. Rich bounces around the interior of the car and falls to the roof, sprawled on his back. He is looking at you, into your eyes, his face less than a foot away, inches away. The car flips with sudden violence, Rich disappears from your vision, and as you plow into the tree he appears to leap at the front windshield from somewhere behind you. He launches through the glass and flies the short distance to where the oak catches him brutally.

Lots of people show up at the funeral and cry and hug you. You have a bruised sternum and a cut on your cheek, and you look no one in the eye. Afterward your parents take you home.

In the spring you graduate and in the fall go to college in Northern California. You think about being a physical therapist or an EMT. You think about teaching like your mom. You won’t go to work in your dad’s garage. You don’t want to work on cars anymore. You don’t even drive.

You never graduate. You go to college for six years and study a bit of everything and do well at all of it, but you never graduate. You’re not sure what to do and then you meet a girl. She’s an actress.

You show up in New York with your girl and the two of you stay on the couch at her friend’s place. Two weeks after you get to the city, she gets a job on the road and leaves. The friend tells you that you have to move out.

New York has great public transportation. You never have to drive. You decide to stay. You find an apartment the size of your folks’ kitchen. You get a job tending bar. For the first time in your life you start drinking. You’re good at it.

You live in New York, but you always act like a guy from a small town in California. You help winos out of the gutter, you call an ambulance when you see someone hurt, you loan money to friends who need it and don’t ask for it back, you let folks flop at your pad and you help the blind across the street. One night you go to break up a fight in the bar and get knocked around pretty good, so the next day you start taking boxing classes. You drink too much, but your parents don’t know that.

You’re a good guy, you’re tough and you have a reputation in your neighborhood for helping people out. It’s nice. It’s not the life you expected, but it’s nice enough for you. You feel useful, you have friends and your parents love you. Ten years pass.

One day the guy who lives across the hall from you knocks on your door. He needs a big favor. That’s when life really changes.

When I wake up, the first thing I think about is the fucking cat. I’m looking after this guy’s cat for a couple weeks. God knows how long I’ve been out and if the thing is even alive. Fuck! I knew this would happen. I told the guy I wasn’t good with animals, that I can barely take care of myself, but he was really up against it, so I took the damn cat. Then I see I’m in the hospital and figure out I may have more important things to worry about.

A joke: Guy is born with three testicles and spends his whole life feeling like a freak. Boys make fun of him in gym class, girls laugh at him. Finally, he can’t take it and goes to have one of them lopped off. The doctor takes one look and tells the guy no way, it’s too dangerous, might kill him or something, but he sends him to a shrink who might help out. This counselor or whatever he is tells the guy to take it easy, he should be proud of this third ball, he’s special. I mean, how many guys have three testicles, right? So the guy feels great after that. He leaves the doc’s office, walks into the street, goes up to the first man he sees and says, “Did you know, between you and me we’ve got five balls?” This dude looks at him funny and says, “You mean you only have one?”

First guy I see when I walk out of the hospital I go up to and start talking.

– Did you know, between you and me we only have three kidneys?

He doesn’t say anything, just walks around me like I’m not there.

New York, baby, New York.

I’ve been in the hospital for six days: one unconscious and five conscious. The doctors removed the kidney, which had been nearly ruptured by the two big guys with four small hands and further damaged by my negligence and massive consumption of diuretic liquids.Booze. The kidney was at “four plus” when they took it out. At “five,” they simply explode and kill you. I have been told that I should never again consume alcohol in any amount for the rest of my life on pain of death.Likewise no smoking or caffeine. I don’t smoke and, like I said, caffeine makes me jittery.

After I blacked out, Dr. Bob called the EMTs and had them take me to Beth Israel. He rode with me in the ambulance and when we arrived he got me past all the emergency room crap and directly into an operating room. He saved my life. One of the doctors told me all of this and when Bob showed up I tried to thank him, but he waved it off in a just-doing-my-job kind of way. Then we get to my feet.

– So, your condition is chronic and brought on by the amount of time you spend on your feet at work.

I’m a bartender. I work a ten-hour shift five nights a week.Sometimes six or seven nights.

– You could buy a lifetime supply of Dr. Scholl’s and get your feet massaged every night and it would not help. If you want the pain to go away, you are going to have to get off your feet.

– What if I?-

– Off your feet. You’re like a computer worker with carpal tunnel: if you want it to go away, you are going to have to change your work habits forever.

– Wow.

– Yes, wow. Furthermore, the pain in your feet has been exacerbated by poor circulation, which I would say is related to excessive alcohol consumption.

– Wow.

– Yes. So stop drinking.Period.

– Yeah, sounds good.

And that was that. He told me good luck and was on his way out when I asked about the bill.

– When you get a new job and you’ve paid off your bill here, we’ll talk about money.

A great guy.

Booze and my kidney.Booze and my feet.A pattern emerging.

I called the bar and talked to Edwin, the guy who owns the place. I apologized for the lack of notice, but Edwin was cool and just told me not to be a stranger.

Would I have quit if it was just the booze and the kidney? If someone said, “Get away from the booze and the drinking life or you’re gonna die,” would I have quit? I don’t know, but my feet are killing me and that tears it.

I called my folks, made sure they knew I was OK and told them not to come out or expect me to come home to be nursed. Mom cried a little, but I made her laugh in the end, telling her the testicle joke. Dad asked if I needed money and I said no. We talked about Christmas a bit and how long I’d stay when I come out and then I told them I love them and they told me they love me and we hung up and I just fucking stared at the ceiling for a while.

I called one of the other bartenders from work. Her name is Yvonne, we used to see each other quite a bit, still do from time to time. So she’s a girl I see from time to time. She’s more than that. She’s my best friend. But I also see her from time to time. She has a key to my place, so I told her about the cat and she promised to check on it until I got home. She offered to come by the hospital, but I said no. I want to be alone. I need to figure out what the hell I’m gonna do.

So now I’m out. I walk up to the stiff on the street and tell my kidney joke, and then I’m taking a cab home. They wanted me to stay for ten days so they could keep an eye on me and take out my staples before I left, but my lack of a) cash and b) insurance encouraged them to let me go. I’ll have the staples out in a few days and just take it easy until then. I have one kidney, I’m being forced to go cold turkey, I have a hospital bill that makes the ten grand I carry in credit card debt look like a bad joke, and I have no job. On the other hand, I pick up a paper and the Giants are on a four-game winning streak and have picked up two on the Mets, who split a four-game stand against thePhillies. I lean back into the cab seat and feel a sharp stab in my former kidney and wonder what the hell was eating those guys who beat the crap out of me.