A Small Gray Dot

The hospital authorities would only let me view him through the glass at first, but allowed me to go in after I lied and said he was my brother. They sent for a doctor who explained his condition. He said Tremaine took a shot in his left shoulder but the gunshot wasn’t the reason he was in a coma. That was because he’d received a hard blow to the back of his skull causing a critical concussion. He thought the boy would get back his memory and seeing me might help jog it.

The doctor was right. It took a couple of days but he began to remember. He was still in serious condition but he would live. Within three days, he remembered everything except the actual moment of the shooting. The only thing he did remember was hearing a couple of pops and Will yelling something and then diving at him slamming him to the pavement. Everything went black after that.

That explained the concussion and hearing that pointed out to me that Will likely saved his friend’s life, but at the cost of his own.

He cried when I told him Will was dead but I wasn’t surprised that he still wanted to get to Jamaica as soon as he could leave the hospital and replace his ID.

That’s when I learned why Will had so much money on him. Tremaine didn’t have a money belt and Will was carrying it all for the both of them. Tremaine remembered where they’d stored Will’s car and I gave him the money belt and the three thousand dollars he said was his, and left after promising him I’d return.

I found Will’s car and sold it to a man trying to get to California who paid me a good price. Then I rented a cheap motel room and stayed until Tremaine’s release from the hospital at the end of another week. I knew it was pointless to try to get him to give up trying to get to Jamaica, so, since the hospital required a partial payment for his treatment, which took half his cash, I gave him some of the money from the sale of the car to get a new passport. Then, I set him up in the cheap room I’d rented, wished him well, and left.

There was no way to ship Will’s body back for burial, so I had him cremated. I took his ashes and went home. I was still angry with myself for not going with them though Lowell pointed out that I likely would’ve wound up in that morgue or hospital, too. True, but it didn’t make me feel any better to know that.

After I got back from Miami, I began trying again to reach the embassy in Kingston, and after a week I finally managed to get through. They couldn’t help, but transferred me to the American Citizens Services and a woman there said the place was in turmoil but she’d do the best she could to help me. I told her I was trying to find my Aunt and Uncle who had a ten a.m. flight out of Kingston on the day of the Event, and my sister and her husband with a flight scheduled for that evening. She said the airport was in the process of temporarily shutting down but promised to check with them and call me back when she could.

I wondered about that “temporarily”, if they thought the planes would be able to fly again, but I didn’t ask, and maybe they would.

She called back two days later. I could tell from her tone, before she even told me, that it was bad news. Missy and Jon caught an earlier flight, one that took off at five forty-five that morning and were in the air when the Event struck. She hadn’t been able to learn if Will’s parents were on the same flight but it made sense to me that they would’ve been. They’d been trying to get a flight together and likely found the earlier one had seats enough for them all.

The woman asked for my address and said she’d send some kind of affidavit. I didn’t think I needed it but I gave her the address, thanked her and hung up.

I didn’t try to find any more relatives.

Tremaine called me a couple of weeks later, and said he had his passport and ticket and would call when he got to Jamaica. He promised to look for Will’s parents, and my sister and her husband. I told him there was no need to do that and explained why. He offered his condolences before hanging up. Either conditions there were as bad as in the states or they were worse because I didn’t hear from him again.

In spite of assurances from the government that things would soon get better they didn’t.

I never believed they would.

Chapter Ten

LIKE MOST FOLK, I TRIED TO GET ON WITH living the reality of our changed world, which entailed dealing with the ongoing effects of the Event, the main one being fear it would happen again. Also, the riots and looting, and people attacking for no reason had to be avoided.