Between the Lines

- 18 -

BRADEN

When someone pukes, it’s a seriously gut-wrenching experience to have to be near.

When someone pukes in your car, it’s horrible on like, nine levels above gut-wrenching.

But when the guy I hate more than pretty much anyone on the planet (Hitler and Justin Bieber not being considered), is in my car and not yet puking, just giving these vomitous smelling burps…like the contractions before he makes a barf baby in my floor,  we have reached hitherto unforeseen levels and dimensions of nasty.

I’m not talking to him. I don’t want to talk to him, really, but moreover, I have this horrible sense that if he opens his mouth to speak – okay, I need to stop.

I’m envisioning a Kyle Bile Shower. It rhymes. It’s kinda funny, if it just weren’t here. Beside me. In my piece of crap car.

I hate him. For a moment I feel waves of slight dislike towards Kendal, but those recede like a gentle tide.

But sometimes, like when Kyle burps again and mutters “Oh God, Oh God…” I kinda dislike her again. Weird feeling.

We are turning down the street from Kendal’s dark house when I see a parked car idling on the corner. Looks like some old dude was creeping on a girl here too. Good God, how many of us are there? He’s sitting in his car, lights off, but the dash glow illuminates some of his jowl wrinkles. He’s not doing anything but sitting there in the green luminescence… probably stalking a girl…hopefully not Kendal.

Doubtful…I worry about that for exactly one second before Kyle gives a heave with his noxious breath and I can almost feel the splat on my legs. Before it becomes a reality, I slam on the gas and thus throw Kyle back into the seat, hopefully throwing back his gorge as well.

“Look, man. I’m driving you to the hospital, and that’s where this ends! Not with me mopping up your dinner from my floor! Don’t. Freakin’. PUKE!”

Kyle moans in return, still holding his hand a good ten inches away from anything physical, clearly dreading how bad the slightest touch might hurt. I wanna just grab the finger and bend it down. I imagine Kyle howling and pissing all over himself, which he probably would…just a moment before he punches my throat with his left hand and sends us both to instant death when I wreck.

So I avoid using my instant EMT skills, and concentrate on the road. Vaguely, I notice a pair of headlights pull into my rearview.

Then, for a few tense moments, I speed as much as I am comfortable to get to the doors at the emergency ward of the local hospital.

When we arrive, I pull under the awning and think that maybe I should grab one of the wheelchairs waiting by the door, throw Kyle into it and just push him through the door to the hospital and out of my life for the night.

But before I can do that, my door opens. I didn’t know they offered valet…or maybe, I didn’t know they offered valet to me!

“I don’t know who you are, or what the hell you were doing with my daughter, but you better have good explanations, or I’m about to put you in the hospital, son,” says a fierce, though frighteningly quiet voice as a hand grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls me from the car..

I stagger to my feet, not understanding why a nurse would act this way.

But it’s not a nurse. It’s a middle-aged guy who’s my size but is shivering like a pissed off wolverine.

“I-I…”

“Mr. Leah?” mutters Kyle from his position in my passenger seat.

Mr. Leah. Of course it is. Kendal Leah’s dad. Aaaaand he followed me here. Aaaaaand he’s about to kill me. Fine. Fine….at least this night would end.

“K-Kyle?” Mr. Leah asks in total shock. “What happened to your hand?”

“He-he did it,” Kyle mumbles, sounding faint and he nods towards me.

I turn my head, feeling my eyes wide as I lock gazes with a stunned Mr. Leah.

“No! Well-yeah-he-but he…”

“Can I help you?” asks a completely bewildered voice from the emergency room doors. All three of us turn to see a pair of orderlies with a wheelchair staring at us all in bafflement. No one speaks for a minute, we just look around, like there’s something we were searching for.

“Me,” Kyle finally gasps. “It’s my hand.”

Looking in to the open window of my car, the orderlies see Kyle’s disfigurement and amazingly, calmly, help him out of the car, into the chair and wheel him into the hospital.

Thank God. He’s gone now-and-and-and Mr. Leah is still here. In my face. Still very, VERY angry.

“I hope they have another bed in there for you,” he mutters.

“Me too,” I say honestly. “But before I go to surgery and you go to jail…um…can you maybe call Kendal?”