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  Then Dr. Huddleston assured Robey that he would be back home and safe with his family by the following morning.

  “What?!” Robey burst out.

  Over in the corner, Buddy jumped up out of his seat and ran over to his friend’s side.

  “My mom doesn’t even know I’m here!” Robey said, nearly shouting now.

  “Robey, it’s okay,” nurse Beckett said. She added, “we are trying to contact your mother at her place of employment, and,” she stopped. Robey Paquette, not a child prone to rudeness, nonetheless, cut her off.

  “I need to get home, Dr. Huddleston!” Robey said, trying, with some difficulty, to keep his voice under control. He was what some of his classmates were calling, a late bloomer. He’d not yet entered puberty. And, sometimes, when he got a little excited his voice cracked. Needless to say, it caused him no small amount of embarrassment on a number of occasions at school. His mom just laughed and, her voice filled with a new-found confidence her few years of sobriety seemed to provide, crooned “my little boy is becoming a man.”

  “Robey, I told them where your mom works when they brought you in,” Buddy told his friend. His arms swung slowly at his sides, and he stared down at his shoes. On his face, a look that seemed to say he felt that, somehow, he’d betrayed his best friend.

  “You told?” Robey said, his voice incredulous.

  Buddy stood by, mute. Robey could tell his friend was embarrassed at exposing such information to adults. At least without confiding in him first.

  Buddy mumbled something about Robey hitting his “noggin super hard.” And, he made some reference to all confusion at the CVS parking lot.

  “Robey, don’t be upset at your friend,” nurse Beckett said to him. The woman placed her right hand, gently, on Robey’s left knee. Even through the sheets Robey could feel the warmth of her soft touch.

  “I’m not upset,” the young boy said. He had regained full control of his voice. But the stern tone he achieved, for the moment, betrayed his feelings. At least it had not broken into that shrill teenage girl squeal that possessed it from time to time, “it’s just that my mom works really hard. I don’t really want my mom to worry about me. It upsets her too much.”

  Just then Dr. Huddleston, who’d been quiet during Robey’s minor outburst, perked up. He shot another quick, efficient, and probably fake, smile at nurse Beckett. Then he proclaimed “Well. There it is.” And, quickly, before Robey could open his mouth to protest any further, the good doctor nearly ran of the room.

  Both boys, and the nurse, were quiet for a moment.

  Then Robey’s angel of mercy offered a tidbit of wisdom to him.

  “Robey, y’all know that your mama would be absolutely mortified if anything serious had happened to you and we’d not made any effort to contact her,” nurse Beckett said. She paused, as if to let her words sink and, just maybe, reach the boy’s logical mind. Then she added, “right? Robey? Buddy had to tell us that neither of you two have cell phones. We might not have been able to even contact your mom without his help.” Again, she paused, then continued, “wouldn’t your mother want to know that you were alright?”

  Robey, sheepishly, agreed with her. He offered yet another nod of his head.

  “I suppose you’re right, nurse Beckett,” he said.

  The angel, currently acting as Robey’s nurse, gave another sweet smile to him. Somehow, Robey just knew, at least if what his heart kept telling him was true, that her smile was the real thing.

  Nurse Beckett turned and addressed Buddy.

  “Buddy, since you’re Robey’s best friend, I’m going to let you stay with him until we can set up the rest of his tests. Okay?”

  Buddy turned to the pretty lady, and gave the thumbs up sign to her.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Make sure you don’t get him too riled up about anything else. Okay,” she said. She, now, wore her own stern look as she spoke to Buddy.

  She turned back to Robey, glanced down at him, and once more flashed her most expansive smile at her young patient.

  As she turned to leave the room, Robey felt his heart skip a couple of beats. The effect of having such a pretty lady so close to him. He’d not yet entered the strange existence of adolescence, but he knew enough about the world around him to know beauty when it appeared before him.

  Nurse Beckett was nearly out of the room, when she, abruptly, stopped.

  She turned, very efficiently, thought Robey, and said “and, please, boys. Won’t y’all please call me Susann?”

  *****

  Robey and Buddy, alone in the confines of the hospital room for the first time that morning, just grinned at each other for a few moments.

  It was Buddy who broke the awkward silence.

  “Wow! She’s, like, the hottest babe in the world! Huh, Robey?”

  The boy felt his head nod in agreement.

  “Nurse Beckett is an angel,” he said, his voice sounding as if he’d just woke up from a trance.

  Then, catching an odd look in Buddy’s eyes, Robey added “I mean, Susann”

  They both laughed out loud. The tension that had pervaded the small room from the moment Robey had managed to open his eyes that morning disappeared.

  Buddy slid the chair he’d been sitting on from the corner of the room over to his friend’s bedside. Then, without further ado, he plopped his bottom down. Immediately, he started filling Robey in on every detail about what led him to a bed in Baptist. His story took off from the instant that the red Honda had just about flattened his best friend in the world.

  As Buddy Whetherby started to spin his reportage of the morning’s unbelievable events, his eyes seemed to widen to just as unbelievable proportions.

  Gone was his work in progress act of a young boy struggling to enter the precocious and forbidden world of teenagers. An excited child took his place.

  “Robey, I’m not lying, either!” Buddy said, as he filled the injured boy in on events that his unconscious friend had missed.

  “It was all happening really, really fast. Pal, for a second I thought you were gonna be splattered on the windshield of that car like a little, ol’ butterfly, Robey!”

  Buddy grinned at what he figured was his own clever simile.

  He continued. Robey lay back on the pillows, but was in rapt attention as the story streamed from the whirring mind of his best friend. Buddy’s excitement seemed to electrify the air inside the small room.

  “I ain’t got any idea how fast any of it happened. And, I’m not gonna tell you that time just kicked into slowmo, but it sure seemed to! When I saw y’all’s butt just flying over that car! Whew, well, I’ll tell ya what, Robey! It’s all up in here,” Buddy pointed a finger at his head, but didn’t miss a beat as he rambled on.

  “You went really high, boy. And that lil’ car, well, it didn’t slow down! Not even, Robey! That red devil flew across that parkin’ lot like your butt flew across the hood!” Buddy, caught up in his excitement, apologized for using Robey’s hindquarters in his metaphor, then continued.

  “Robey, I ran across the driveway to see if you was alright. And you know I’m a fast runner. Friend, you were just layin’ on the pavement, Robey. I wasn’t almost to you, when I heard the crash!”

  “The car crashed, didn’t it,” Robey asked.

  Oddly, he felt the tinge of excitement and foreboding he’d felt, so many times in his meager span of years. Foreboding well-honed by his relationship with his mother. By his many experiences of waiting at home for her to return from one of her, usually nocturnal, drinking binges. It was that same mixture of relief and fear that the boy had, to this day, never been able to control.

  Buddy wiped the back of a hand over his lips, and went on.

  “Yeah, like hell, it did! I heard it, and just froze, Robey!” Buddy continued, but Robey was sure he detected a slight hint of guilt in his friend’s voice when he told him that he’d not ran all the way over to him to see if he was still alive.

  “It w
as loud, Robey,” Buddy said. Then his rapid delivery slowed, and almost came to a stop. He seemed, out of character, to be reflecting upon the right words to describe something more. His eyes held the dear in the headlights look that Buddy sometimes got when Mrs. Benning, their English teacher, asked Buddy to provide an appropriate adjective other than his friend’s constant standby—cool.

  “Robey,” Buddy said, his booming voice, now, as close to a whisper as his friend ever tread, “I ain’t gonna forget that sound, Robey. When that lil’ red car tore into the wall of the CVS, I heard the crash alright. But, that’s not what stopped me from runnin’ over to you, Robey!” Buddy, continued his story. His South Georgia accent thickening a little more than usual. But his tone became more subdued. His tone, now, nearly a whisper. It was if he was sharing a deep, dark secret with his friend. One of those secrets, Robey thought, that a person would never repeat to another soul as long as he lived. Maybe the kind of secret that Robey knew a person should take to his grave.

  “Robey, that crash was mighty loud enough, it was. But, that ain’t why I stopped runnin’ to you,” Buddy said, paused, and sucked in another deep gulp of air.

  Robey felt his arms tingle, and the little hairs on the back of his neck seemed to tickle near the back of his skull.

  “Just as quick as the noise from the car hitting that wall dropped down, well, something else just come right up out of that sound. It was hard to make it out that first second it got into my ears. Into my head,” he paused, again, and tried to wet his lips. It didn’t work. Buddy reached over and took the plastic container of water that Robey’s nurse had left on his bed table. He reached for the straw and, clumsily, aimed it toward his own dry lips. Buddy took a long sip on the straw. He was still sucking when the cup was emptied. Only the sound of air filtering up through the short straw could be heard. Buddy set the plastic cup back down on the table. Robey could see his friend’s hand visibly trembling ever so slightly.

  “I heard it, Robey. I heard it! Then, I guess, I heard myself scream when I turned to look toward that sound.”

  This time, it was Robey that stopped Buddy from continuing.

  “Did you see someone die?” Robey said, saying out loud what he was thinking.

  At that very moment, it was clear that, just like him, his friend had never seen another human being die before. He’d never seen someone die in real life.

  Tears formed at the tiny ducts edging Buddy’s deep, hazel eyes. A ray of sunlight, from the large window on the other side of the room, moved across the room. It seemed to take aim at Buddy, and it hit the red headed boy’s right eye lash. As if burned lose from that single ray of refracted light, a welled-up tear dropped from his right eye. It formed a tiny, but perfect, circle shaped stain on the right leg of the blue jeans he wore.

  Robey heard his friend sniffle, and knew he was holding back from crying.

  “Yes,” Buddy said, then he sucked in another lungful of air. Another couple of tears fell onto the child’s lap.

  Robey leaned up in the bed, and placed a hand on Buddy’s shoulder. He could feel his friend’s body shudder as he felt him, vainly, struggle to maintain control of his feeling. Horrible accident or not, they were both young boys that understood the significance of having a friend—a best friend—see you cry.

  Robey tightened his grip on Buddy’s shoulder.

  It would be another first for Buddy. Less than an hour earlier, he witnessed a human being die in front of his eyes. And his best friend in the world was seeing him cry. For the first time ever.

  “It’s okay, Buddy,” Robey said, hoping to ease his friend’s feelings as best he could.

  Buddy brought his left arm up to his, now, slightly swollen cheeks. With the back of his hand, he wiped a couple more tears out of his eyes. Along with the tears, the smallest amount of, what the two of them called, in better times, snot from his nose.

  Buddy managed a weak smile. His friend smiled back.

  The boy took a few more seconds to regain what composure he could muster, and continued to share his story.

  “The first one was a woman,” Buddy, his voice, again, in whisper.

  First one, thought Robey. But he kept his mouth shut for a moment. Then, he could no longer contain himself.

  “A lady died?” Robey asked, trying to keep the curiosity he felt from sounding like morbid enthusiasm about a person dying in front of his friend.

  Buddy’s head was bobbing. He wiped a sleeve across the front of his nose again, and went on.

  “That sound I heard, Robey. What I heard above the noise of the crash. That sound just wouldn’t stop! Not even when the crash was already over. It was that lady,” the boy said, still holding back a full-fledged crying jag.

  He stumbled forward with his story.

  “She was trapped between the car and the wall of the CVS!” Robey blurted out, unable to mask any excitement in his voice.

  Buddy was shaking his head from side to side, now.

  “No!” He spat out, “no!” He was nearly frantic now, and more tears welled and fell from his eyes. All pretense of holding back, now, gone as he started to sob.

  Robey didn’t know what to do, so he let go of Buddy’s shoulder and leaned in a little closer. With gentleness, he was, now, patting Buddy on the back.

  Again, Buddy, fought to regain control of himself. He took a few deeper breaths, and managed to stop his crying.

  “No. The lady wasn’t trapped between the car and the wall,” he told him.

  Robey continued to pat his friend’s back.

  “The car didn’t hit her, Robey. That lil’, fuckin’ Honda didn’t put a scratch on her at all!”

  Robey stared deeper into Buddy’s bloodshot eyes.

  “The car crashed through the wall like it was tissue paper. That big, drive-in window we always thought was bullet proof, ha! Well, it wasn’t Honda proof! No such luck. That window had already shattered by the time I’d stopped and turned to look over at the crash,” the boy said, the volume of his voice edging up a notch. He was no longer whispering.

  “The sound, it just didn’t stop, Robey. That sound was that lady. She was screaming!

  It was her scream I heard over the crash! The noise that didn’t stop!” Buddy told him. Robey could feel Buddy’s body heaving under his touch every time he patted his back.

  “The guy that drove that car into the drugstore. The guy that nearly ran you over, Robey. That guy!” Buddy stopped, gasped for air then he went on, “that guy just dove through the front of car window! The front windshield must have just popped out! I don’t know, but it wasn’t nothing between him and that big hole that the front end of the Honda left in the building when it smashed through the wall. That guy just leaped out of the car through the window,” Buddy’s voice was now deadpan. It was as if the bulk of his energy had just leaked out of his body through the tears he’d been spilling. The tears that, now, just tickled, slowly, in tiny rivulets down his flushed cheeks.

  “He was jumping through that window just as I was turning to see what that horrible noise was. To see where it was coming from,” Buddy stopped, again.

  “It was her, Robey. It was that lady just screaming! That scream was her scream. That fuckin’ guy was just tearing her apart, Robey! I mean he was tearing her body apart! She was screaming, Robey. She was screaming so loud! So much. She was being torn apart by that guy! She couldn’t stop screaming! He was,” Buddy’s voice caught in his throat for a moment. He sucked in more air, trying to steady his breathing.

  “The man was ripping her apart with his teeth!” Buddy paused, still breathing heavily.

  Then, as if, suddenly, worn out, he said, “Robey. I think that guy was trying to eat that woman.”

  It was Robey’s turn for his eyes to bulge out of their sockets. He stared at Buddy in disbelief.

  Both boys were silent. The only sound in the room was of the two of them breathing. That and, just possibly, the pounding of both of their hearts in their chests.

/>   A fleeting thought entered Robey’s mind, and quickly exited. But, he thought it just the same.

  Was Buddy just messing with his head?

  Robey grinned, noticed that Buddy saw it, and quickly dropped it from his face.

  “What?” Buddy said. Then a look of hurt spread across his face as he said, “you don’t believe me?”

  “Hold up, Buddy!” Robey shot his friend a look that said, of course I believe you! But are you shitting me? For real? It was a look that said both things at the same time.

  It was an honest thing to ask of Buddy, should Robey have voiced what he was, indeed, thinking. Of the two, Buddy had, all through their close-knit friendship, always been the source of nearly every tall tale, exaggeration, and downright lie the two friends got caught up in.

  “Well?” Robey, not wanting to doubt his friend’s sincerity, but fully aware of Buddy’s skill in the arts of what people called the spin.

  Buddy’s eyes burned into those of the boy sitting, now cross-legged, on the bed astride where he sat in a chair.

  “I’m telling you the God’s honest truth!” Buddy declared, loudly. If there was one good thing to come from Robey’s doubt, it was that Buddy found his voice, again. His friend let go of the fear that had been welling up inside of him since they’d been whisked away from the CVS parking lot in the back of a city ambulance.

  Robey peered hard at the boy across from him. Buddy stared back at him, and not once did his eyes blink.

  He was telling the truth, Robey thought. No, Robey knew that Buddy had just spilled out the truth about the horrible sight he’d viewed. All of it. All while Robey lay, out cold and unaware, oblivious to all of it, just a few feet away.

  “I believe you, Buddy,” he told the boy. Buddy’s defensive stare disappeared, immediately. Robey added, sincerely, “and, Buddy, I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  Buddy’s head was nodding. And, even though he’d just conjured up a recent memory that he knew that he would try like hell to forget, he told Robey Paquette, the very best friend he knew that he’d ever have, the rest of his story.