Duma Key

So I took Gandalf's upper body in my arms and without a pause I'm back at the Sutton Avenue site, where The Freemantle Company is getting ready to build a forty-story bank building. I'm in my pickup truck. Reba McEntire's on the radio, singing "Fancy." I suddenly realize the crane's too loud even though I haven't heard any backup beeper and when I look to my right the part of the world that should be in that window is gone. The world on that side has been replaced by yellow. Black letters float there: LINK-BELT. They're swelling. I spin the Ram's wheel to the left, all the way to the stop, knowing I'm too late. The scream of crumpling metal starts, drowning out the radio and shrinking the inside of the cab right to left because the crane's invading my space, stealing my space, and the pickup is tipping. I'm trying for the driver's-side door, but it's no good. I should have done that right away but it got too late real early. The world in front of me disappears as the windshield turns to frozen milk shot through with a million cracks. Then the building site is back and still turning on an axle as the windshield pops out. Pops out? It flies out bent in the middle like a playing-card, and I'm laying on the horn with the points of both elbows, my right arm doing its last job. I can barely hear the horn over the crane's engine. LINK-BELT is still moving in, pushing the passenger door, closing the passenger-side footwell, splintering the dashboard in tectonic chunks of plastic. The shit from the glove-compartment floats around, the radio goes dead, my lunchbucket is tanging against my clipboard, and here comes LINK-BELT. LINK-BELT is right on top of me, I could stick out my tongue and lick the fucking hyphen. I start screaming because that's when the pressure starts. The pressure is my right arm first pushing against my side, then spreading, then splitting open. Blood douses my lap like a bucket of hot water and I hear something breaking. Probably my ribs. It sounds like chickenbones under a bootheel.

I held Gandalf against me and thought Bring the friend, sit in the friend, sit in the fucking PAL, you dump bitch!

And now I'm sitting in the chum, sitting in the fucking pal, it's at home but home doesn't feel like home with all the clocks of Europe ringing inside my cracked head and I can't remember the name of the doll Kamen gave me, all I can remember is boy names: Randall, Russell, Rudolph, River-fucking-Phoenix. I tell her to leave me alone when she comes in with the fruit and the fucking college cheese, I tell her I need five minutes. I can do this, I say, because it's the phrase Kamen gave me, it's the out, it's the meep-meep-meep that says watch it, Pammy, Edgar's backing up. But instead of leaving she takes the napkin from the tray to wipe the fret off my forehead and while she's doing that I grab her by the throat because in that moment it seems to me it's her fault I can't remember my doll's name, everything is her fault, including LINK-BELT. I grab her with my good left hand. For a few seconds I want to kill her, and who knows, maybe I try. What I do know is I'd rather remember all the accidents in this round world than the look in her eyes as she struggles in my grip. Then I think It was RED! and let her go.

I held Gandalf against my chest as I had once held my infant daughters and thought, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I felt Gandalf's blood soak through my pants like hot water and thought, Go on, you sad fuck, get out of Dodge.

I held Gandalf and thought of how it felt to be crushed alive as the cab of your truck eats the air around you and the breath leaves your body and the blood blows out of your nose and those snapping sounds as consciousness flees, those are the bones breaking inside your own body: your ribs, your arm, your hip, your leg, your cheek, your fucking skull.

I held Monica's dog and thought, in a kind of miserable triumph: It was RED!

For a moment I was in a darkness shot with that red; then I opened my eyes. I was clutching Gandalf to my chest with my left arm, and his eyes were staring up at my face -

No, past it. And past the sky.

"Mr. Freemantle?" It was John Hastings, the old guy who lived two houses up from the Goldsteins. In his English tweed cap and sleeveless sweater, he looked ready for a hike on the Scottish moors. Except, that was, for the expression of dismay on his face. "Edgar? You can let him go now. That dog is dead."

"Yes," I said, relaxing my grip on Gandalf. "Would you help me get up?"

"I'm not sure I can," John said. "I'd be more apt to pull us both down."

"Then go in and see if the Goldsteins are okay," I said.

"It is her dog," he said. "I was hoping..." He shook his head.

"It's hers," I said. "And I don't want her to come out and see him like this."

"Of course, but-"

"I'll help him," Mrs. Fevereau said. She looked a little better, and she had ditched the cigarette. She reached for my right armpit, then hesitated. "Will that hurt you?"