A Patient Boy, Page 5 of 8

"Is Mom all right?"

"You're going to be fine. . . " Why isn't he crying? Why isn't he in pain?

"Teddy was scared. . ."

This memory comes to me of when I was a boy, driving with my mother, and we passed a squirrel that just got hit by a car. It was stuck to the road-flopping and flopping, trying to run, only its hind legs weren't there. She pulled up, found a stick and cracked it on the head. Denny knew the story. That's what we did with fish when we caught' em. Put' em out of their misery quick. I didn't know why I was having this memory. It was making me sick. I wanted to cry.

The groaning from inside the car got louder. At last, I heard an engine.

Looking back, they got there awful fast. Sheriff's car was first. Ambulance was I about five minutes later. Now there was a spotlight glaring down on Denny. I put myself between it and him.

"We'll be fine now," I said.

"Oh, Christ..." The deputy had seen.

"He's fine," I say.

The car begins to rock. Inside they know help has arrived and they're trying to get free.

"Get them out!" I say, scared they're going to make that little difference. "He's
0K, you get them out. . ."

He understands and crashes around to the other side of the Impala. I hear glass breaking. He's taking them out through the windshield. The girl's crying. The car moves.

I hear him say, "Slow! There's a boy underneath."

"I'm OK," Denny says.

"I know you are, son."

One of them was out by the time the ambulance rolled up, red light chasing the shadows round and round. I heard puking.

Denny was looking up, I thought at the light show on the branches. His eyes widened and he smiled. "Good luck," he said. "I just seen a shooting star."

We always called it good luck when we saw one. Looking up, I saw the night haze gone and the sky clear as a fresh washed glass. I, too, saw stars through the swishing red. Then I caught the scent of beer and puke. The girl was crying. She was worrying about her nose being broke, how she was going to look.

"Oh, holy Christ..."

The paramedic had seen Denny.

"Give us a hand here!" the cop snapped. You could hear her moaning and glass being chipped."Steady that car!"

Now they were working together.

"Daddy... " Denny whispered softly.