The blue sky suddenly disappears, the manhole cover clunking in place.
“Hey!”
The muffled sound of laughter causes Patrick’s heart to race.
“Hey! Let me out!” He presses his shoulder to the cast-iron cover, unable to budge it beneath Michael Pasquale’s weight. To his right is a sliver of opening between the curb and street. He tries to squeeze out, only to be met by kicking sneakers.
“Let me out! Help! Grandma, help!”
He gags, then vomits his breakfast into the muck.
Sweat pours from his face. He feels dizzy. “Let me out, let me out!”
Panic sets in, he can’t breathe. Adrenaline turns his shoulders into battering rams, and he attacks the manhole cover, the force of his blows momentarily knocking Michael Pasquale off kilter. The resistance is quickly doubled by the weight of a second boy.
He feels faint. He feels small and scared. Cancer has stolen his mother, alcohol his father. Sport is the glue that has held him together, his athletic prowess leveling life’s playing field. As the laughter grows and the last ounce of dignity leaves his body, he loosens his grip on the metal ladder rung, intent on filling his emptiness with the muck’s drowning embrace.
Then he hears a girl’s voice, firm and demanding. Backed by an older male presence.
The sneakers move off.
The manhole cover is lifted.
Patrick Shepherd looks up into the blue August sky at his angel.
She appears to be his age, only far more mature. Wavy blond hair, long and silky. Green eyes peer down at him below the bangs. “Well? You gonna stay down there all day?”
Patrick climbs out of the sewer and into the light, helped out by a man in shirtsleeves and a maroon tie. His gray wool sport coat is flung over one shoulder. “No offense, son, but you need to find yourself some new friends.”
“They’re not… my friends.” Patrick coughs, trying to disguise the sob.
“By the way, that was a nice hit… the way you kept your wrists back. Try to lay off the pitches out of the strike zone.”
“That’s as good as they pitch me. If it’s over the plate, I can take it deep, only we lose too many balls. Really though, I’m a pitcher, only they don’t like me to pitch either—”
“—’cause you’re so good, huh?” The girl smirks.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Patrick Ryan Shepherd.”
“Well, Patrick Ryan Shepherd, we’re just on our way home from synagogue, then we’re headed over to Roosevelt High to watch the baseball team scrimmage. Why don’t you grab your glove and meet us there. Maybe I’ll let you toss batting practice.”
“Batting practice? Wait… are you the new baseball coach?”
“Morrie Segal. This is my daughter—”
“—no, don’t get near me, you stink. Go home and shower, Shep.”
“Shep?”
“That’s your new nickname. Dad lets me name all the ballplayers. Now go, before I change your name to Stinky Pete.”
Coach Segal winks, then leads his daughter away.
The sky is awash in blue, the August day glorious—
— the day life changed for Patrick Shepherd… the day he fell in love.
The man with no left arm opened his eyes. The phantom pain had subsided, replaced by something far worse.
It had been eleven years since he last kissed the only woman he has ever loved, eleven long years since he held her in his arms, or watched her play with their toddler daughter. The absence wrenched his heart, the organ a dam about to burst, releasing a swollen river of frustration and anger.
Patrick Shepherd loathed his existence. Every thought was poison, every decision of the last eleven years cursed. By day he suffered the humiliation of a victim, at night he became the villain, his actions in battles past replayed in heart-wrenching, skull-rattling, nerve-shattering nightmares of human violence, the reality of which no horror movie could ever capture on film. And yet, as much as he despised himself, Patrick hated God even more, for it was his accursed Maker, his eternal guardian of indifference, that arrived like a thief in the night and excised the memory of Shep’s family from his brain, leaving in its place an empty hole. Try as he might, Patrick could not fill the void, and the frustration he felt — the sheer anger — is far too much for one man to bear.
His bare toes gripped the concrete ledge. A strange sense of calmness washed over his being like a soothing tide. Patrick looked up one last time at the clear blue August sky. Unleashed a primordial, guttural scream, announcing his death, and—
No.
He froze, balancing precariously on one foot. The whispered voice was male and familiar. Sizzling through his skull like a tuning fork. Patrick Shepherd whipped his head around, startled. “Who said that?”
The empty helopad mocked him. Then the rooftop exit burst open, the stairwell releasing a dark-haired beauty. Her white physician’s coat flapped in the wind. “Sergeant Shepherd?”
“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that!”
“I’m sorry.” Dr. Nelson approached cautiously. “Is it okay if I call you Patrick?”
“Who are you?”
“Leigh Nelson. I’m your doctor.”
“Are you a cardiologist?”
The reply catches her off guard. “Do you need one?” She saw the tears. The anguish on his face. “Look, I have a basic rule: If you’re going to kill yourself, at least wait until Wednesday.”
Shepherd’s expression changed, his anger diffusing into confusion. “Why Wednesday?”
“Wednesday’s hump day. By hump day, you can see your way clear to Friday, then you’ve got the weekend, and who wants to off themselves on a weekend. Not with the way the Yankees are playing.”
Patrick’s mouth twitched a half smile. “I’m supposed to hate the Yankees.”
“That must have been quite a problem, a Brooklyn son pitching for the Red Sox. No wonder you want to jump. Anyway, you can call me Dr. Nelson or Leigh, whichever you prefer. What should I call you?”
Patrick took in the pretty brunette, his emptiness momentarily quelled by her beauty. “Shep. My friends call me Shep.”
“Well, Shep, I was just about to grab a coffee and a donut. I’m thinking chocolate cream-filled, it’s been a helluva Monday. Why don’t you join me? We can talk.”
Patrick Shepherd contemplated his existence. Emotionally spent, he expelled an exasperated breath and stepped down from the ledge. “I don’t drink coffee, the caffeine gives me headaches.”
“I’m sure we can find something you’ll like.” Hooking her arm around his, she led her newest patient back inside the hospital.
September
“What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.”
“Please state your name and occupation for the record.”