Richard Ford - Independence Day

“It’s the left eye,” I hear one of the medics say. Then Paul says, “Ohhhh!”

Then I hear someone behind me say, “Oh, ugh.” Some of the Braves and A’s are already starting to back away. I hear a woman say, “They said it’s his eye,” and someone else say, “Probably wasn’t wearing protective eye covering.” Then someone says, “It says ‘Clergy.’ Maybe he’s a minister.”

“Where are you now, Frank?” Irv says, still whispering confidentially. His hand seems to encircle my upper arm, his hold on me firm. He is a big, tanned, hairy-looking engineer type, wearing blue designer sweatpants with red piping and a gold cardigan with no shirt under. He is much bigger than I remember him when we were college age, me at Michigan, he at Purdue.

“What?” I hear my own voice sounding calmer than I feel. “New Jersey. Haddam, New Jersey.”

“Whaddaya do down there?” Irv whispers.

“Real estate,” I say, then look at him again suddenly, at his broad forehead and full, liver-lipped but sympathetic mouth. I remember him absolutely and at the same time have no idea who in the hell he is. I look at his hairy-fingered hand on my arm and see that it has a diamond pinkie ring on its appointed finger.

“We were just coming over to speak to you when your boy got hit,” Irv says, giving Erma an approving nod.

“That’s good,” I say, staring down at the wide, maxi-brassiered back of the fireplug female medic, as if this part of her would be the first to indicate something significant. She struggles to her feet at this very moment and turns to search among us and the two or three others who are still gathered around.

“Anybody responsible for this young man?” she says in a wiry, south Boston nyak accent, and extracts a large black walkie-talkie out of her belt holster.

“I’m his father,” I say, breathless, and pull away from Irv. She holds her walkie-talkie up toward me as if she expects me to want to speak into it, her finger on the red Talk button.

“Yeah, well,” she says in her tough-broad voice. She is a woman of forty, though perhaps younger. Her belt has a blizzard of medical supplies and heavy gear fastened on. “Okay, here’s the thing,” she says, gone totally businesslike. “We need to get him down to Oneonta pretty fast.”

“What’s wrong with him?” I say this too loudly, terrified she’s about to say his brain has been rendered useless.

“Well, what — did he like get hit with a baseball?” She clicks her walkie-talkie trigger, making it produce a scratchy static sound.

“Yes,” I say. “He forgot his helmet.”

“Well, he got hit in the eye. Okay? And I can’t really tell you if he’s got much vision in it, because it’s swollen already and got blood all in it, and he won’t open it. But he needs to see somebody pretty quick. We take eye injuries down to Oneonta. They’ve got the staff.”

“I’ll drive him.” My heart makes a bump-a-bump. Cooperstown: not a real town for real injuries.

“I’d have to get you to sign a form if you take him now,” she says. “We can get him down in twenty minutes — it’d take you longer — and we can get him stabilized and monitored.” I see her name on her silver nameplate: Oustalette (something I need to remember).

“Okay, great. Then I’ll just ride with you.” I lean to the side to see Paul, but can see only his bare legs and his lightning-bolt shoes and orange socks and the hem of his maroon shorts behind the other paramedic, who’s still kneeling beside him.

“Our insurance won’t permit that,” she says, even more all-business. “You’ll have to travel by separate vehicle.” She clicks her red Talk button again. She is itchy to go.

“Great. I’ll drive.” I smile awfully.

“Frank, lemme drive you down,” Irv Ornstein says from the side and with full authority, gripping my arm again as if I were about to escape.

“Okay,” Ms. Oustalette says, and instantly begins talking tough into her big Motorola without even turning away. “Cooperstown Sixteen? Transporting one white male juvenile ADO to A.O. Fox. Ophthalmic. BP….” There is a moment when I can hear the motor idling on her ambulance, hear two bats pop in quick succession from over the fence in the ballpark. Then all at once five immense jet planes come cracking in over us, low and ridiculously close together, their wings steady as knife blades, their smack-shwoosh eruption following a heart’s beat behind. All present look up, shocked. All the planes are deep blue against the morning blue sky. (Would anyone believe it was still morning?) Ms. Oustalette doesn’t even look up as she awaits her confirmation.

“Blue Angels,” Irv says into my deafened ear. “Pretty close. They’ve got a show here tomorrow.”

I step away from Irv’s grip, my ears hollowed, and move toward Paul, where the other medic has just left and he is on his back alone, pale as an egg, his hands covering his eyes, his soft stomach, bare beneath his Clergy shirt, rising and settling heavily with his breath. He is making a low, throaty grunt of deep pain.

“Paul?” I say, the Blue Angels roaring off in the distance over the lake.

“Uhn,” is all he says.

“That was just the Blue Angels that flew over. This is gonna be okay.”

“Uhn,” he says again, not moving his hands, his lips parted and dry, his ear not bleeding now, his “insect” tattoo the thing I can see best — his concession to the next century’s mysteries. Paul smells like sweat, and he is sweating freely and is cold, as I am.

“It’s Dad,” I say.

“Uhn-nuh.”

I reach into his shorts pocket and delicately slide my camera out. I consider removing his Walkman phones but don’t. He makes no motion, though his shoes waggle one way and the other on the phony turf. I put my fingers on the blond-fleeced tan line of his thigh. “Don’t be afraid of anything,” I say.

“I’m fine now,” Paul says woozily from under his covering hands, but distinctly. “I’m really fine.” He takes a deep breath through his nose and holds it a long, painful moment, then slowly lets it go. I can’t see his smacked eye and don’t want to, though I would if he asked. Dreamily he says, “Don’t give Mom and Clary those presents, okay? They’re too shitty.” He is too calm.

“Okay,” I say. “So. We’re going to the hospital in Oneonta. And I’m going down there, too. In another car.” No one, I assume, has told him he’s going to Oneonta.

“Yep,” he says. He removes a hand from one damp gray eye, the one not injured, and looks at me, his other eye still guarded from light and my view. “You have to tell Mom about this?” His one eye blinks at me.

“It’s okay,” I say, feeling lifted off the ground. “I’ll just make a joke out of it.”

“Okay.” His eye closes. “We’re not going to the Hall of Fame now,” he says indistinctly.

“You never can tell,” I say. “Life’s long.”

“Oh. Okay.” Behind me I hear creaky-squeaky sounds of a stretcher and Irv’s deepened official voice saying, “Give ’em some room, give ’em some room, Frank. Let ‘em do their job now.”

“You just hang on there,” I say. But Paul says nothing.

I stand up and am moved back, my Olympus in hand. Paul goes out of sight again as Ms. Oustalette begins to slide a litter board under him. I hear her say “All right?” Irv again is pulling me back. I hear Paul say “Paul Bascombe” to someone’s question, then “No” to the subject of allergies, medications and other diseases. Then he is somehow up onto the collapsible stretcher and Irv is still hauling me farther out of the way, clear to the side of the batting cage we are still in. There are but a few people now. A “Brave” and his wife look in at me warily from outside the cage. I don’t blame them.