Chapter Twenty-Six
Elizabeth took Howard out to a restaurant. When they were on their way home, she would send the bartender a text message letting him know to turn off the lights and hide. It was time for the surprise party.
***
The massacre in the tropical greenhouse continued. David couldn’t just stand there and let the Department of Agriculture agents massacre the rare flowers. He had to do something, so he leapt on Lugo’s back, wrapped his legs around his gut, his arms around his neck, and squeezed with a sleeper hold.
“You just made a big mistake, flower boy,” Lugo growled.
Lugo grasped David’s legs to cut off any escape route, flopped down on his back, and crushed David under him. David’s lungs flattened painfully but he kept a tight grip around Lugo’s neck. They wrestled, rolling through the moist tropical soil, steamrolling rare flowers underneath them. Agent Black helped his partner by kicking David in the ribs.
Suddenly, everything went pitch black. David thought he was dead. A nuclear terrorist attack had killed him so quick he hadn’t even felt anything.
No. That wasn’t it. Aside from sight, his other senses were there. He felt the piercing pain of Black’s steel-toed boot in his groin, smelled the acrid armpit stink of Lugo’s headlock, tasted the bitter mud when Lugo shoved his face into the ground, and heard Black voice squeal, “EAT IT!!! EAT IT!!!” His senses became sharper, in fact.
He wiggled away from Lugo’s grip, grabbed the large sturdy branch of the chocolate tree, and tried to pull himself up. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw the two agents as dark figures swimming through the dim, filtered moonlight. All the lights outside had shut off.
David remembered the party and dropped to the ground. “There here,” he said.
“Who’s here?” Black asked.
“Didn’t you read the invitation?” David asked. “It’s Howard’s surprise party. We’re all going to jump out and shout surprise.”
David felt his way across the greenhouse, stumbled over stray cocoa pods, and pushed the tin door open. The cool evening air blew over his face. He scurried through the dark, moonlit garden, past the tulips, past the roses, towards the gazebo. The two agents followed after him. Lugo panted heavily and his footsteps were uneven; he seemed to be limping.
“Are you okay?” David asked.
“You should see the other guy,” Lugo said.
“I’m fine,” David pointed out.
Lugo slapped David in the mouth causing him to bite his tongue. He tasted salty blood and ground his teeth to stifle a scream. He would have kicked Lugo in the shin, but he didn’t want to alert Howard.
“Quit it,” he said and then felt embarrassed at the whiny tone of his voice.
Agent Black set a hand on Lugo’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” he said. “We have to hide now. We’ll settle this later…in the ring.”
They got up to the gazebo and saw it was completely stuffed with crouching, hiding people.
“No room fo’ you,” Tyrone said. “You gotta find somewhere else.”
A car door slammed in the driveway.
“Come on!”
David grabbed Lugo and Black by their collars and pulled them after him, his eyes darting around, looking for a hiding spot. They dove behind the strawberry bush just as two dark figures rounded the corner of the house towards the garden. Howard’s skinny frame and sunken shoulders came shuffling along next to Elizabeth’s airy glide. It was too dark to make out their faces.
“Can’t you show me tomorrow?” Howard asked. He could speak again, but his voice rasped and crackled.
“I stabbed him in the neck,” David whispered to Agent Lugo.
“Ooooohh,” Lugo mocked. “Scary.”
“Shhhhhh!” Agent Black said.
“I want you to see it right now,” Elizabeth said.
“Last time I went in the garden, Florence Nightingale stabbed me.”
“This flower’s special. They just delivered it this evening. You won’t believe your eyes.”
They stopped walking a few feet from the strawberry bush. David held his breath and made his body still.
“Why are the lights off?” Howard asked.
“Because of the flower,” Elizabeth said. “It only grows in the densest jungles where barely any sunlight can get through. It doesn’t like light.”
“Well, what are you going to do when the sun rises?”
“I’ll put a blanket over it tonight. That’s only a temporary solution, of course. Tomorrow I’ll get it a new greenhouse and paint the greenhouse black.”
“But you don’t have a blanket.”
“The flower deliverers said they’d leave a blanket next to the greenhouse, right next to the door.”
“How am I supposed to see the flower if there’s no light?”
“They also left infra-red goggles for us.”
“All right.” Howard sighed a raspy sigh and started to walk into the garden. “Your gardeners better not have left a rake out. I don’t want to step on it and get hit in the face.”
Elizabeth sashayed after him.
“Please God no,” Agent Black murmured. “Not the Congo Skull Blossom.”
“She didn’t really get a new flower,” David whispered. “She’s just saying that to get him into the garden.”
“I can’t take that chance,” Black said. He lifted up a pant leg and pulled a small pistol out of an ankle pistol. Its cold steel flashed in the moonlight. “We’re making our move.”
Lugo also pulled out a pistol from his ankle holster and the two agents briskly walked after the Rosemans. David scurried after them.
Elizabeth walked straight across the lawn towards the gazebo and Howard followed after her.
“Why are we going this way?” Howard asked. “The greenhouse’s over there.”
Suddenly, bright lights lit up the whole garden. David had to shield his eyes. Everyone in the gazebo jumped to their feet and screamed, “SURPRISE!!!” The garbage men popped out from behind the garbage bins and screamed. The baggers came running out of the rose bushes and screamed.
Howard straightened up, his eyes popped wide and he looked up at the group in the gazebo. Tyrone, Derrick, Downs Syndrome Bobby, Marcy, and the rest.
Howard was wearing a grey suit, yellow shirt, and no tie. Thick gauze was taped over his Adam’s apple. He sucked in a couple quick breaths, clutched his chest and a pained expression spread across his face. His eyes rolled back in his skull. He fell over dead, face first onto the grass.
Several people screamed.
“It’s a heart attack!” Marcy yelled.
“Naw, he just fainted,” Tyrone said. “Fortunately, Ghetto Traveler is also a smelling salt. And even mo’ fortunately, I always carry a bottle. Just in case.”
Tyrone ran down the gazebo steps, taking them two at a time, pulled a bottle of Ghetto Traveler out of his jacket pocket, broke the seal, and unscrewed the cap. He slid in the grass, stopping next to motionless body. He waved the bottle under Howard’s nose. There was no response. The professor remained limp, one eye half open, his mouth gaping.
“Well, that’s a first,” Tyrone said disappointedly. “Ghetto Traveler has met its match.”
“Yeah,” said Derrick. “Death.”
Elizabeth pulled out her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Certainly agents of the Department of Agriculture knew First Aid. David turned to the agents, and saw them fleeing out towards the driveway. He would have to handle it himself. Everyone else had frozen.
He knelt down and pressed two fingers on Howard’s neck. There was no pulse, or maybe the bandage was blocking the pulse. David ripped it with a single pull, taking out a good chunk of Howard’s neck hair with it. Howard was surely dead; he didn’t react to having his neck hair pulled out, didn’t shout “OW!!!” didn’t even cringe. David pressed two fingers against the scarred throat. Still no pulse. David shook his head sadly.
“CPR him!” Elizabeth shouted.
David didn’t know CPR. He had no First Aid training, but he had seen it done on TV. Now he could redeem himself for stabbing Howard in the neck.
He needed to pump Howard’s heart to get it moving again, but he couldn’t remember exactly where the heart was. During the Pledge of Allegiance, he put his right hand on the left side of his chest. Was that where the heart was or just where the right hand naturally rested? Maybe it was in the center of the chest.
He realized he had unconsciously placed his right hand on the left side of his own chest. Everyone was staring at him, wondering what he was doing and why he wasn’t performing CPR.
He placed his hands on Howard’s chest (halfway between the Pledge of Allegiance heart and the center of the chest) and started to pump.
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five! CLEAR!!!”
He pressed his fingers into the scarred neck.
Nothing. Still no heartbeat.
He squeezed Howard’s hairy nostrils shut and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Howard’s breath was surprisingly minty-fresh.
But Howard didn’t start breathing again. David continued for several minutes: pumping Howard’s chest and blowing in air while the workingmen looked on.
A siren screamed in the distance. Its wailing got louder until the ambulance crashed through the hedges, its flashing lights lighting up the garden like a strobe light. It skidded to a stop on the lawn.
The back door of the ambulance opened and a burly paramedic hopped down. Another medic, short with a slim moustache on his upper lip, hurried after him, holding a bag. They opened the bag, pulled out a small plastic-coated machine and went to work on Howard, shocking him with a defibrillator and shoving a plastic breathing tube down his throat.
Several tense minutes passed. The burly paramedic shook his head, switched off the defibrillator, pulled out the tube. They started to pack up their equipment.
“There’s nothing more we can do,” the burly paramedic said. “He’s dead.”
“I want a second opinion,” Elizabeth said.
The burly paramedic zipped up his defibrillator bag. “It’s not my opinion,” he said. “It’s a fact. See for yourself.” He gestured at the corpse lying on the grass.
Elizabeth looked down at Howard and shrugged. “Maybe he’s in a coma,” she said. “How would I know? I’m not a doctor.”
“Well I am a doctor and I can tell you: he’s dead.”
“You’re not a doctor,” Elizabeth said. “You’re a paramedic.”
“Same thing. I just can’t prescribe medication.”
“It’s not even close to the same thing.”
Elizabeth called 9-1-1again and asked for another ambulance. They refused to send another. Their policy was one ambulance per emergency. There was no one else to call; 9-1-1 had a monopoly on emergencies.
***
ו בחשוון תשס''ח
ירושלים
October 18, 2007
Jerusalem
***
The massacre in the tropical greenhouse continued. David couldn’t just stand there and let the Department of Agriculture agents massacre the rare flowers. He had to do something, so he leapt on Lugo’s back, wrapped his legs around his gut, his arms around his neck, and squeezed with a sleeper hold.
“You just made a big mistake, flower boy,” Lugo growled.
Lugo grasped David’s legs to cut off any escape route, flopped down on his back, and crushed David under him. David’s lungs flattened painfully but he kept a tight grip around Lugo’s neck. They wrestled, rolling through the moist tropical soil, steamrolling rare flowers underneath them. Agent Black helped his partner by kicking David in the ribs.
Suddenly, everything went pitch black. David thought he was dead. A nuclear terrorist attack had killed him so quick he hadn’t even felt anything.
No. That wasn’t it. Aside from sight, his other senses were there. He felt the piercing pain of Black’s steel-toed boot in his groin, smelled the acrid armpit stink of Lugo’s headlock, tasted the bitter mud when Lugo shoved his face into the ground, and heard Black voice squeal, “EAT IT!!! EAT IT!!!” His senses became sharper, in fact.
He wiggled away from Lugo’s grip, grabbed the large sturdy branch of the chocolate tree, and tried to pull himself up. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw the two agents as dark figures swimming through the dim, filtered moonlight. All the lights outside had shut off.
David remembered the party and dropped to the ground. “There here,” he said.
“Who’s here?” Black asked.
“Didn’t you read the invitation?” David asked. “It’s Howard’s surprise party. We’re all going to jump out and shout surprise.”
David felt his way across the greenhouse, stumbled over stray cocoa pods, and pushed the tin door open. The cool evening air blew over his face. He scurried through the dark, moonlit garden, past the tulips, past the roses, towards the gazebo. The two agents followed after him. Lugo panted heavily and his footsteps were uneven; he seemed to be limping.
“Are you okay?” David asked.
“You should see the other guy,” Lugo said.
“I’m fine,” David pointed out.
Lugo slapped David in the mouth causing him to bite his tongue. He tasted salty blood and ground his teeth to stifle a scream. He would have kicked Lugo in the shin, but he didn’t want to alert Howard.
“Quit it,” he said and then felt embarrassed at the whiny tone of his voice.
Agent Black set a hand on Lugo’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” he said. “We have to hide now. We’ll settle this later…in the ring.”
They got up to the gazebo and saw it was completely stuffed with crouching, hiding people.
“No room fo’ you,” Tyrone said. “You gotta find somewhere else.”
A car door slammed in the driveway.
“Come on!”
David grabbed Lugo and Black by their collars and pulled them after him, his eyes darting around, looking for a hiding spot. They dove behind the strawberry bush just as two dark figures rounded the corner of the house towards the garden. Howard’s skinny frame and sunken shoulders came shuffling along next to Elizabeth’s airy glide. It was too dark to make out their faces.
“Can’t you show me tomorrow?” Howard asked. He could speak again, but his voice rasped and crackled.
“I stabbed him in the neck,” David whispered to Agent Lugo.
“Ooooohh,” Lugo mocked. “Scary.”
“Shhhhhh!” Agent Black said.
“I want you to see it right now,” Elizabeth said.
“Last time I went in the garden, Florence Nightingale stabbed me.”
“This flower’s special. They just delivered it this evening. You won’t believe your eyes.”
They stopped walking a few feet from the strawberry bush. David held his breath and made his body still.
“Why are the lights off?” Howard asked.
“Because of the flower,” Elizabeth said. “It only grows in the densest jungles where barely any sunlight can get through. It doesn’t like light.”
“Well, what are you going to do when the sun rises?”
“I’ll put a blanket over it tonight. That’s only a temporary solution, of course. Tomorrow I’ll get it a new greenhouse and paint the greenhouse black.”
“But you don’t have a blanket.”
“The flower deliverers said they’d leave a blanket next to the greenhouse, right next to the door.”
“How am I supposed to see the flower if there’s no light?”
“They also left infra-red goggles for us.”
“All right.” Howard sighed a raspy sigh and started to walk into the garden. “Your gardeners better not have left a rake out. I don’t want to step on it and get hit in the face.”
Elizabeth sashayed after him.
“Please God no,” Agent Black murmured. “Not the Congo Skull Blossom.”
“She didn’t really get a new flower,” David whispered. “She’s just saying that to get him into the garden.”
“I can’t take that chance,” Black said. He lifted up a pant leg and pulled a small pistol out of an ankle pistol. Its cold steel flashed in the moonlight. “We’re making our move.”
Lugo also pulled out a pistol from his ankle holster and the two agents briskly walked after the Rosemans. David scurried after them.
Elizabeth walked straight across the lawn towards the gazebo and Howard followed after her.
“Why are we going this way?” Howard asked. “The greenhouse’s over there.”
Suddenly, bright lights lit up the whole garden. David had to shield his eyes. Everyone in the gazebo jumped to their feet and screamed, “SURPRISE!!!” The garbage men popped out from behind the garbage bins and screamed. The baggers came running out of the rose bushes and screamed.
Howard straightened up, his eyes popped wide and he looked up at the group in the gazebo. Tyrone, Derrick, Downs Syndrome Bobby, Marcy, and the rest.
Howard was wearing a grey suit, yellow shirt, and no tie. Thick gauze was taped over his Adam’s apple. He sucked in a couple quick breaths, clutched his chest and a pained expression spread across his face. His eyes rolled back in his skull. He fell over dead, face first onto the grass.
Several people screamed.
“It’s a heart attack!” Marcy yelled.
“Naw, he just fainted,” Tyrone said. “Fortunately, Ghetto Traveler is also a smelling salt. And even mo’ fortunately, I always carry a bottle. Just in case.”
Tyrone ran down the gazebo steps, taking them two at a time, pulled a bottle of Ghetto Traveler out of his jacket pocket, broke the seal, and unscrewed the cap. He slid in the grass, stopping next to motionless body. He waved the bottle under Howard’s nose. There was no response. The professor remained limp, one eye half open, his mouth gaping.
“Well, that’s a first,” Tyrone said disappointedly. “Ghetto Traveler has met its match.”
“Yeah,” said Derrick. “Death.”
Elizabeth pulled out her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Certainly agents of the Department of Agriculture knew First Aid. David turned to the agents, and saw them fleeing out towards the driveway. He would have to handle it himself. Everyone else had frozen.
He knelt down and pressed two fingers on Howard’s neck. There was no pulse, or maybe the bandage was blocking the pulse. David ripped it with a single pull, taking out a good chunk of Howard’s neck hair with it. Howard was surely dead; he didn’t react to having his neck hair pulled out, didn’t shout “OW!!!” didn’t even cringe. David pressed two fingers against the scarred throat. Still no pulse. David shook his head sadly.
“CPR him!” Elizabeth shouted.
David didn’t know CPR. He had no First Aid training, but he had seen it done on TV. Now he could redeem himself for stabbing Howard in the neck.
He needed to pump Howard’s heart to get it moving again, but he couldn’t remember exactly where the heart was. During the Pledge of Allegiance, he put his right hand on the left side of his chest. Was that where the heart was or just where the right hand naturally rested? Maybe it was in the center of the chest.
He realized he had unconsciously placed his right hand on the left side of his own chest. Everyone was staring at him, wondering what he was doing and why he wasn’t performing CPR.
He placed his hands on Howard’s chest (halfway between the Pledge of Allegiance heart and the center of the chest) and started to pump.
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five! CLEAR!!!”
He pressed his fingers into the scarred neck.
Nothing. Still no heartbeat.
He squeezed Howard’s hairy nostrils shut and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Howard’s breath was surprisingly minty-fresh.
But Howard didn’t start breathing again. David continued for several minutes: pumping Howard’s chest and blowing in air while the workingmen looked on.
A siren screamed in the distance. Its wailing got louder until the ambulance crashed through the hedges, its flashing lights lighting up the garden like a strobe light. It skidded to a stop on the lawn.
The back door of the ambulance opened and a burly paramedic hopped down. Another medic, short with a slim moustache on his upper lip, hurried after him, holding a bag. They opened the bag, pulled out a small plastic-coated machine and went to work on Howard, shocking him with a defibrillator and shoving a plastic breathing tube down his throat.
Several tense minutes passed. The burly paramedic shook his head, switched off the defibrillator, pulled out the tube. They started to pack up their equipment.
“There’s nothing more we can do,” the burly paramedic said. “He’s dead.”
“I want a second opinion,” Elizabeth said.
The burly paramedic zipped up his defibrillator bag. “It’s not my opinion,” he said. “It’s a fact. See for yourself.” He gestured at the corpse lying on the grass.
Elizabeth looked down at Howard and shrugged. “Maybe he’s in a coma,” she said. “How would I know? I’m not a doctor.”
“Well I am a doctor and I can tell you: he’s dead.”
“You’re not a doctor,” Elizabeth said. “You’re a paramedic.”
“Same thing. I just can’t prescribe medication.”
“It’s not even close to the same thing.”
Elizabeth called 9-1-1again and asked for another ambulance. They refused to send another. Their policy was one ambulance per emergency. There was no one else to call; 9-1-1 had a monopoly on emergencies.
***
ו בחשוון תשס''ח
ירושלים
October 18, 2007
Jerusalem
posted by Benjamin Fishbein at Thursday, October 18, 2007
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