James Hynes - Next

“DON’T SIT UP.”

Kevin has no intention of sitting up. Sitting up is the furthest thing from his mind. He’s aware of someone near him — more than one person, in fact — but all he can see is faded blue sky, a spiderweb in an angle of railing, and the blurred silhouettes of dead bugs in the frosted dome of one of the flat-topped lights along the bridge. The sight is startlingly clear and strange all at once; the sunlight seems to be brighter than it was before. He feels like he does when he wakes up disoriented from a long nap on a Sunday afternoon, or after snoozing for an hour or two after dinner on a weeknight — unsure of where he is or what time it is, but everything around him vivid and bright. He’s aware that his fall represents a caesura, and it doesn’t really matter whether he’s been out for hours or minutes or only seconds: the break somehow stands for infinity, and now, on the other side of it, everything is strange and as sharply defined as a cartoon.

“Did you hit your head?” says the same voice, a woman’s.

Kevin blinks and tries to focus his attention on the back of his head. What just happened? Why is he flat on his back? The numbers 666 float before him, which jolts him a little further alert. Is this a Buchanan Street Station situation? He didn’t hear a bang, but then he wouldn’t have, would he? Or at least he wouldn’t remember it. His ears are ringing a little but then they always are, from all that loud music he heard years ago in Second Chance and Joe’s Star Lounge. Are there other people around him, flat on their backs as well? Or worse, pieces of other people? Is he all there himself, or is he bleeding to death from a severed leg? Maybe that’s why his head doesn’t hurt, because all his blood is draining out his femoral artery. He lifts his head to look.

“Barney, no, ” somebody else says, and suddenly, in monstrous close-up, Kevin sees gummy, drooling jaws, yellowed incisors, bloodshot eyes. There’s a hoarse panting in his ear, a wet nose against his cheek, sour doggy breath all over his face.

“Could you please keep your dog back, please?” says the woman.

The dog recedes with a yelp and a scrabbling of claws.

“Sorry, sorry,” says the second voice, a man. Then, louder, “Dude, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“No,” says Kevin.

“Lie still,” says the woman, and at last Kevin sees a face — Aztec nose, dark eyes, glossy, scalp-tight black hair — between him and the sky. She holds her hand over his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Now Kevin’s Admiral Adama in the CIC of the Galactica, which is full of smoke and sparking wires, and he’s waiting for a damage control report. All decks are checking in: the bulkheads held, the hull’s intact, nobody was vented into space. He can wriggle his toes and fingers, his head feels fine. The pavement under his back is very warm. Meanwhile the Amazon runner is splaying her thumb and two fingers just beyond his nose, so close that they’re out of focus.

“Three,” says Kevin, and he lifts his own hand to push them away. “Let me up.”

She presses his chest with the tips of her fingers to keep him down, but he levers up onto his elbows anyway. Only now is he beginning to worry about his suit. Just beyond the toes of his shoes, the spaniel Barney reposes like the Sphinx, panting, while the fat guy holds the leash tight and bounces awkwardly on his toes as if he’s about to run away. The Amazon is squatting next to Kevin on her powerful thighs, peering at him intently. She’s close enough that he can smell her sweat.

“Easy.” She grips him firmly under one arm as he pushes himself up off the warm pavement. On his feet he feels lightheaded, and he’s aware of his heart hammering. He brushes the grit off his palms.

“Sit.” The Amazon’s warrior grip guides wobbly Kevin to a bench.

“Man, I’m so sorry,” says the fat guy. “Barney,” he snaps, “bad dog. Bad dog.” The dog only looks up at its master mournfully, his big pink tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“Here.” The Amazon offers Kevin his sunglasses, and he turns them over in his hands as if he’s never seen anything like them before. Then he notices that his hands are trembling a little, so he folds the glasses and slides them into his jacket to cover it up. Then he remembers what the glasses are for and takes them out again and puts them on. In their autumnal glaze the Amazon stands with her hands on her hips, watching him.

“Just let me catch my breath.” Kevin puts his hands on his thighs. It isn’t until then that he notices the rip in his right trouser leg, and the blood oozing through the grit embedded in the skin of his knee.

“Oh, man, ” says Kevin, with a petulant, rising inflection. “Son of a bitch. ”

And it isn’t until he actually looks at the scrape, at the blood running down his shin and into his sock, that he realizes how much it hurts. He lifts his foot to flex the knee; he can move the joint without any trouble, but the scrape burns.

“Ow!” he says, his hands twitching over the torn fabric of his trousers. He wants to brush away the grit embedded in his kneecap, but he’s afraid to touch it. He looks up at the sheepishly grinning fat guy, and now, along with the pain, Kevin’s aware that he’s angry.

“Goddammit, I have a job interview in a couple of hours.” He gestures at the irreparable rip in his suit trousers, at the blood trailing down his leg.

“Oh, man,” says the fat guy. “I’m really sorry. You should’ve—”

“I should’ve what? Kicked your fucking dog?”

The guy cringes and hauls on the leash, forcing the spaniel to his feet and out of range. Now Kevin feels bad. It’s not Barney’s fault, he was just being a dog. Kevin slumps back against the bench, wondering if he’s torn his jacket, too. In frustration he flops his hands into his lap.

“I mean, fuck. I have a job interview. In three hours. ”

“Easy.” The Amazon has perched on one buttock on the bench next to Kevin. “Right now, we should do something about that scrape. Think you can walk on it?”

Kevin’s knee is really beginning to sting, and the sun is pressing down on him again. Even if the jacket isn’t torn, his whole suit is wilted now in the heat, wrinkled and dusty and marinated in his sweat.

“Yeah.” He flexes the knee again; the pain doesn’t seem to go any deeper than his lacerated skin. “I think so.”

The woman stands. “My vehicle’s right over there.” She nods toward the south end of the pedestrian bridge, where it empties into some drooping trees. “I’ve got a first aid kit.” Her hand hovers over his arm.

“I can make it.” Kevin waves her away. His hands are still shaking, though. He doesn’t even look at the fat guy as he pushes up off the bench and limps after the woman. The pain’s not so bad after the first couple of steps, and he’s aware again of the oppressive heat and the enervating sunlight and the angry buzzing of the little airplane overhead. Which is getting louder now, not so much a buzz as a deep, throbbing grind. He looks up to see the plane crawling straight overhead, hauling the HOOTERS sign at a steep, unreadable angle west, up the river. The plane’s so low he can see the cables that lead from the fuselage to the banner. He stops, and the woman stops, too, her hand discreetly poised at his elbow, but Kevin’s only scanning the sky for the jet as a gauge of how long he’s been out. Except for the dwindling dopplered drone of the Hooters plane, the sky is empty and silent, but Kevin looks around him for a moment longer. The fat guy has been following, and he stops, too, yanking the dog painfully tight on the shortened leash. “You lose something?” he says.