Rafael Yglesias - Fearless

Max put her in the back, positioning her in the middle where there would be no obstruction from the bucket seats and pulled the lap belt across her, locking it. He took the red box and slid it onto her lap.

She stopped praying at the feel of the weight. She looked down at the box, stupefied.

“That’s your baby,” Max said. “Hold him upright.” He lifted the box so it would stand on its side. It came up to her chin which he imagined would be about right. “This is Bubble. This is your chance to hold on tight and save him.” Max shut the back and front doors. He raced around to the driver’s side, watching her through the window, worried she would balk. She dropped her head to study the blanket. Her black curls covered the top and her face. But she held onto the blanket and box.

Max got into the Saab, put on his seat belt and started the car in a hurry. He pulled out into the street and shouted at her: “Did you pray in the plane?”

No answer. He saw the road was clear. He pushed on the accelerator, watching the speedometer. At fifty miles an hour that should be enough for a test and yet perhaps not enough to get himself squashed. He glanced in the mirror. Carla’s face was white, her eyes wide and pitch-black, staring at him with grave attention.

“Did you pray in the plane?” he shouted.

She shook her head.

“Hold on to him tight! Pray to God to give you the strength to save your baby!”

Three blocks ahead the road curved to the right, around a brick warehouse wall. If Max went straight they would smash into it. Nothing was parked alongside to obstruct a direct hit. They were going forty miles an hour. Max pressed the accelerator.

“Pray and hold on!” he shouted and glanced at the rear-view mirror.

Carla lowered her eyes. “Hail Mary—” she whispered. She folded her arms around the box, crossing past each other, each hand gripping the opposite side, holding it tighter than she could possibly have held her child.

Max glanced at the speedometer as the wall loomed — he saw the word PRODUCE written in half-faded red letters — and noted that he had already gone past fifty miles an hour…

Too fast for me, he realized. I’ll die. Pray for me now at the hour of my death. He shouted, “Hold on to your baby!” as they hit the brick wall.

Carla felt Bubble break away from her. He slipped the entwined grip of her fingers, flung her arms wide and flew out of her lap. Her body tried to follow him, but only the top half could. Her head passed between the front seats. Her cheek gently touched a bloody face that had turned toward her to make a plea. It belonged to Max. Max disappeared. She was yanked to the rear. A hand whacked the back of her head, the way the Sisters at school used to hit her if she talked in line. There was deafening noise, like countless drawers of silverware emptying at once on a tile floor. Yet she kept on thinking through it all, “He couldn’t stay. I couldn’t hold him.” Even in the quiet aftermath — all she could hear or feel was something spinning behind her — a corner in her heart opened to a glad feeling of comfort.

“You see—” she heard Max say.

She opened her eyes and screamed. A strange face was staring at her.

“You see…?” it mumbled. Max’s hand pointed at the smashed windshield: the glass was gone, replaced by bricks; the frame had buckled at the top and sides. The blanketcovered box was where the rearview mirror used to be, stopped from flying out of the car only because of the brick wall. The box looked to be half of its original size.

“You see?” Max mumbled. His face was covered with blood. “You see?” he repeated. He slumped, his pulpy cheek resting on the bars of a twisted headrest and mumbled, “Nothing…” as he lost consciousness.

Carla pulled at her seat belt. He was badly hurt, maybe dying. She shoved at all the things around her — tiny pieces of glass, a long metal rod, a large brown plastic funnel — and pushed at the crumpled rear door. People were nearby. She called to them as she got her door partly open. Someone took her hand and pulled. She fell out onto the ground. The Saab was several feet in the air, halfway gone into the building. Its exposed rear tires were spinning.

“Help him!” Carla shouted at the man who had gotten her out. A woman ran toward them. She moved in a funny waddle, both hands covering her mouth. Carla yelled at her — and at each person as they appeared — to get them to do something. They just stood and stared. Poor Max was dying, stuck up in the wall, slumped toward the remains of the box, his body squeezed into a tiny space, bright red blood washing down his forehead and nose — and no one made a move. Carla tried to get up to what there was of his window (it seemed to be only a quarter of its original size) to comfort him; but she couldn’t get a grip. Finally someone told her an ambulance was on the way.

Fire engines, police cars and two ambulances arrived after what seemed like hours. They urged her to sit in the car or go to the hospital, but she didn’t make the same mistake twice; she told them Max was her husband and she wouldn’t budge until they got him out.

The paramedics hovered around the wreck, unable to figure out how to reach Max. They were shooed away by the fire department. Two of the firemen, elevated on a platform attached to the engine’s ladder, were maneuvered toward the wreck. They carried what appeared to be a gigantic chain saw.

“Stop the bleeding!” Carla yelled at the paramedics.

They didn’t respond. Everyone was focused on the two firemen and the machine they planned to use to open what was left of Max’s door.

“They have to cut him out of there, ma’am,” said a young cop with dirty red hair and fair skin covered by pimples. He moved to lead her toward his police car.

“Stop the bleeding!” she yelled and got away from the cop. She ran up to the advancing platform that carried the firemen and grabbed hold. She could hang on to it and her feet would still reach the ground. They stopped the engine immediately. It had almost reached the wreck anyway. “Stop the bleeding,” she yelled at them.

“They can’t get up there,” one fireman argued.

“Get outta the way,” the other said.

“Let me try and put something on the wound!” a paramedic called to the firemen. He touched Carla, she let go of the ladder and he clambered up, using part of the platform and part of the broken wall and finally part of the car for his footing. Perched up there he bandaged Max’s forehead. Max was unconscious; his head lolled as if he were dead.

Carla got down and watched from below. “Is he alive?” she called up.

“I think he’s gonna be okay,” someone said to her. It was the cop with pimples. What did he know?

Another paramedic came rushing with a plastic pouch of liquid and an IV. He handed the needle and line up to his colleague, who got it into Max and strung the feed around the collapsed roof to the other side. They did it fast and got down so the firemen could use their enormous metal claws. The machine made a hideous tearing sound, as if it were murdering the car.

“Are you Mrs. Klein?” the pimpled cop said to her during the agonizing wait as they worked on the car door.

“Yes,” she said, afraid they would take her away if she admitted she wasn’t related to Max. The cop asked what had caused the accident; Carla told him the wheels had suddenly begun to skid and Max couldn’t control the car. The cop argued with her. He said there weren’t any skid marks, that it looked like they must have been going very fast and straight at the wall.

She said, “My husband may be dying. I have to pray for him.”