Mama has regular visits to the hospital for her chemo too. I go with her unless it’s during school time ‘cause Mama’s dead set on my staying in school. I have feelings both ways; I feel I should go and make sure she gets there in the old car and has somebody to be with her when there’s needles and doctors. On the other hand, I hate the smells of the hospital and the tight feeling in the air, like everybody’s facing some bad scary thing, which they are, for sure. Things I don’t even want to think about too much.
Anyway, Mama gets through the chemo and starts with the radiation. “Do me up like that new meat, doesn’t ever go bad,” she says, sounding like herself. But in the meantime she can’t go back to the Hampton Inn and making beds and cleaning, and she keeps mentioning my Aunt Rita, who lives outside of Jacksonville. Mama keeps saying things like how nice Aunt Rita is and how kind and how she has a boy, Brian, just about my age.
Last thing in the world I want is to go to Jacksonville, Florida, and live with Aunt Rita, who I don’t know, or her kid, Brian, either. What we need is a settlement, and we need one now. We got an old junker of a Ford that Mama used to drive to her work and now takes to the hospital. It’s ideal for the purpose, but Mama won’t consider it, and I’m not old enough for my license.
“She’ll never do it,” I say to Billy J. I’m so desperate, I’ve talked to him about the lawyer and the chiropractor and getting the job done professional.
“Up-front money for that,” says Billy J.
“If I had money I wouldn’t need a settlement,” I says.
He says he’ll think about it, like this is some big favor. I’d about given up hearing anything, when one day Mama is feeling okay, and there’s no radiation on the schedule, and the shopping is done, I’m down at the court, missing everything because I’m so out of practice, and this guy comes over. He’s skinny with a yellowish face and a thin mustache, and he’s smoking a green cigar. His waist is so little his pants are all bunched around his belt, and he doesn’t look like much except for his arms, which are ropey with muscle like he’s lifted serious weight.
He watches me for a while, then raises his chin and gestures to show he wants to talk to me. Privately.
I’m not enthusiastic. He’s no bigger than I am, but he gives off a kind of warning vibe, like a video game villain with a pulsing bad aura. I come over to the fence.
“You Davis? Friend of Billy J’s?”
I says yeah and there he is: Victor, the guy who makes accidents happen, who has arrangements with lawyers and chiropractors, who can do serious rear-quarter panel and axle damage without creating fatalities. He’s some kind of foreign, Viet or Thai or maybe some weird Indian-Hispanic. I don’t know what I expected a bullet car driver to be like. But this is it: thin, smelling of cigar smoke, with narrow eyes and a cold stare.
We sit on a bench in the park. He doesn’t like it that I can’t drive. He doesn’t like it that Mama won’t cooperate. He’s ready to blow off the whole idea, when I mention we just gotta have a settlement ‘cause Mama’s a cancer patient, fifth floor, Central Oncology unit. I don’t know why I added all that — guess it just made it sound more official, as if there’s anything more official than cancer.
He gets interested at that. “Sympathetic victim,” he says. Then he asks a lot of questions about what kind of car and when she goes out.
I said for a regular schedule of radiation. And Mama was always, always on time.
“Better if you was driving.”
“I’m not old enough.”
“Not even for a learner’s permit?”
I shook my head.
“I’ll think about it,” he says. “But we do this, I want twenty-five percent — of everything.” He reaches out and takes hold of my shirt in a way I don’t like, but I know we have no choice. This is our one chance, and we have to take it.
Well, I start seeing him around our street and get so I recognize his car — a big, heavy Chevy Caprice, practically vintage. More than once I see him parked on a side street near the hospital. Then one day, just before Mama finishes with a round of radiation, the Caprice is idling at the curb as I walk home from school. The passenger side door opens. “Get in,” he says. “We gotta set this up.” Just like that.
I get in. It’s dead simple. Mama’s radiation appointments are set at three P.M. She’s always on West Walnut heading for the hospital lot by two forty-five; Mama hates to be late. Victor’s in the Caprice on Chapel Street, and the accident goes down at that intersection. “Very tricky,” he says. “Thirty percent.”
“You said twenty-five,” I says, but I already sense there isn’t much point in arguing.
“Midday,” he says. “Traffic. Cops. Very tricky.”
I can see that. “But nothing’ll go wrong,” I says, half wishing I was home and had never met him.
“Thirty percent and nothing goes wrong.” He smiles, and I swear he had pointed teeth.
“When?” I ask.
“Today.”
I hustle home and get ready to go with Mama. I’m all the time watching the clock, nervous she’s going to be late — or worse, early. It’s not one of her good days; she sits in the car for a minute, kinda collecting herself. She says radiation softens your brain and she is sometimes forgetful. She looks awful, too, pale in that soft doughy way old people get, which scares me when I let myself think about it. But this is why we need a settlement, so Mama isn’t all the time worried about bills and paying the pharmacy, and so I don’t have to live with Aunt Rita and her son Brian.
“We gotta go,” I says. “You want me to drive?” I don’t know if she knows I can, thanks to Kev’s older brother who lets us practice with a junker down on the river road.
Mama shakes her head and puts the key in the ignition. “You worried about something?” she says. “You got them big tests coming up at school?”
I wish. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just wish your radiation was over and you were all better.”
She puts her hand on my knee for a minute, just a minute, but it tells me everything I don’t want to know and a few things I need to remember. Then the car pulls away. I look out the window, counting down the streets. I wish this was over. Washington, South Adams, Jefferson. Chapel’s next. I gotta be alert ‘cause Victor’s gonna pull out in front of us and swerve and clip the rear on my side. I repeat that to myself a couple of times. I’m thinking how very cool it will be, the crash and all, when suddenly Mama hits the brakes and jerks the wheel so she misses the gray green Caprice that’s suddenly filling my window.
Our Fairlane swings into the oncoming traffic; Mama’s struggling with the wheel, trying to get us back in the right-hand lane. I shout ‘cause there’s this oncoming delivery truck, and Mama, who’s about got no muscle left between the chemo and the radiation, pulls the wheel but can’t get it round before the impact. Squealing tires and brakes, shattering glass, twisting metal. Not the crash I’d imagined, not a video game crash, but a shock that unhooks all your bones and wets your jeans and brings blood into your mouth where it sloshes around with your heart.
I realize I’m yelling and moving, but Mama’s not. She’s leaning over the steering wheel and her car door is caved in. I start struggling to get my seat belt off and unhook hers and I’m starting to pull at her to get her out when someone yells, “Leave her, leave her. You’ll hurt her worse.”
I don’t know what to do, but I keep talking to her, telling her she’ll be all right. There are sirens and a cop comes, and I’m telling him she’ll be late for her radiation, Memorial Hospital, Fifth Floor, Oncology Unit. The cop gets on his phone and calls for an ambulance, though we’re only two blocks away, and I’m thinking I can walk, we can walk, when the cop comes and puts a blanket around me, though I hadn’t realized I was cold, and has me sit down on the sidewalk. That’s what a real crash does to you; I guess why they call it a bullet car.