Hero

Chapter Twenty

The EMT insisted Tonya be taken to the hospital and was having none of her protests. He listened with a fake look of concern on his face that just barely masked his annoyance as his partner, a big guy with an olive complexion, made sure she was secure on the back brace.

“I’m telling you, I can’t go to the hospital! My mother’s in trouble! I have to get to her!”

“Uh huh, that’s what they all say,” the EMT said. He was a young White guy with a mop of black hair. “My mother’s in trouble, or I’m late to work or band practice or whatever. I’ve heard it a million times lady, and if I were you I’d count yourself damn lucky you made it out of this accident with your brain still in your brain pan.”

“Listen to me you little shit!”

“Wanna hear something?” The EMT didn’t seem fazed by Tonya’s anger. He leaned closer to her as his partner secured her to the gurney. “One time we had an accident victim like you. Guy was doing a hundred in a fifty mile an hour zone. He hit a tree head on. Dude wasn’t drunk or under the influence, he was just a really bad driver, know what I mean? He put on the same song and dance you’re putting on now and my supervisor, who showed up at the site, made the call for the guy to sign himself out. Turns out the guy had broken his back and didn’t know it. He got maybe ten feet before one of his discs collapsed and one of his vertebrae slipped down at just the right angle and—bam! It severed his spinal cord. I’ve never seen a guy drop so fast in my life.”

If I was out of this gurney I’d drop kick you right in the face you little punk! Tonya thought, her rage seething. She glared at the EMT, who held her gaze. He wasn’t intimidated by her at all.

“Long story short, guy sued the county for negligence. Claimed we should’ve insisted we take him to the hospital. Of course, if we did he could’ve pulled that same shit on the Emergency Room docs and it’s possible he would’ve walked out of there too and the same thing would’ve happened.”

“But I’m not hurt bad!” Tonya yelled. “Can’t you get that through your thick skull! The other driver isn’t even hurt at all!”

That much was true. The driver of the other vehicle—a middle-aged Caucasian woman who’d been on her way to work—was perfectly fine. In fact, she’d asked Tonya if she was okay.

“True enough,” the EMT said. “But you’re gonna need a couple of stitches to close that wound in your forehead up, and you were complaining of back pain. So why don’t you relax and let us take you to the hospital. You’ll be out by one o’clock.”

“But you don’t understand! I’ve got to—”

A uniformed police officer stepped into the fray.

“Mrs. Brown, I think it would be a good idea to listen to George, here. I’m going to need to get a statement from you anyway.”

Tonya almost pleaded with the officer to send a squad car to her mother’s house, but then stopped herself. If she told the police what she suspected, she was afraid her fears wouldn’t be taken seriously. Of course that was the logical thing to do—explain to the police why she was driving so fast, so she could make sure the home care nurse that had been hired to provide for her invalid mother wasn’t hurt or dead or hadn’t abandoned her, or wasn’t just ignoring her calls for some reason she couldn’t imagine. But she was afraid that if she mentioned that she’d asked her friend, a known felon, to look after the apartment, they might grow suspicious and insist that they accompany her to the apartment. That might get Big Mike into trouble even if he was innocent, especially if he had drugs or a gun on him. No, it might be better to not mention anything now. In fact, better yet, if she could get her hands on a phone and call her husband, maybe he could get over to her momma’s apartment.

The EMT helped his partner load Tonya Brown into the waiting ambulance as the officer followed them.

“I’ll see you at the hospital, Mrs. Brown.”

I can hardly wait, Tonya thought as the doors shut behind her.