It worked, though. “Leave her alone, goddamn it,” Jeffrey said.
Jeffrey’s admonishment proved too much. That, I still believe, was what sent Nolan into action. He pointed a stiff finger at Jeffrey and held it there a second—not a word got said, but I’d never seen a more threatening gesture—and then he reached out and grabbed Marie by the wrist and tugged her toward him. For a second I thought, Here it is, he’s going to kill her—strangle her, or beat her to death—but when he had both hands around her, he pulled her toward Room A. She was fighting to get away, kicking her legs out and twisting her arms, but Nolan was strong, and in no time he had the door held open with his foot and was shoving her inside. I sat against the wall, my gut screaming, watching as she jammed a foot in the doorway, but her foot slowly slid backward as Nolan forced the door shut until it clicked, and then he locked it.
He turned around to face us, and that was the instant when Jeffrey—I had forgotten he even existed these past few seconds—rushed forward and swung the cymbal stand down on Nolan’s head.
Long ago, Jeffrey and I had bonded over stories of the brief, traumatic year we’d each spent in Little League, him in California, me in New Jersey—the dropped fly balls, the thinly veiled frustration of our coaches, the sad look on our teammates’ faces when it was our turn to bat. I was no slugger, but Jeffrey’s batting average had been a perfect zero.
This time he connected.
It was the same cymbal Nolan had thrown yesterday, the same one I’d set up again last night and had ended my drum solo with this morning. When it hit Nolan, it made a dull crack. It was a glancing blow, the equivalent of a foul ball, but enough to drop Nolan to his knees. At first Nolan looked down at the ground and did nothing. His hands covered his ears, and he shook his head a few times, the way that cartoon characters shake off an injury and become whole again. Then he looked up at us and lowered his left hand. He looked stunned but not visibly injured, though his other hand still covered his right ear.
“Nolan,” I said, “take your other hand away.”
Slowly he lowered his hand. His right ear was practically torn off.
“Oh, shit,” I said, my stomach giving one last mad lurch. “Oh, Jesus.”
Every little kid who’s ever skinned a knee knows that it takes a few seconds for the blood to start. But you know it’s coming.
This was a hundred times worse. Blood hadn’t yet started to flow, but I could see the deep gouge where the top of Nolan’s ear met his head. His eyes widened. Not because of the pain, not yet, but because of the horror he must have seen in my face.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
“I know where the nearest hospital is,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you there fast.”
“How bad is it?”
I shuddered. “It’s deep. Shit, it’s really deep. We need to get you—”
“Show me,” he said. “Show me in the bathroom.”
“All right, but hurry.” I helped him off the ground and told Jeffrey to stay right where he was. I opened the door for Nolan, then led him to the bathroom. On the way, the blood started to flow. In the bathroom I wetted a stack of paper towers and handed them to him. “You need to apply pressure.”
He was turning his head in the mirror. “I can’t see it! Fuck, Will, I can’t see it. Tell me what’s going on.”
Blood was oozing from him, turning the floor beneath us crimson. I forced myself to look at the wound. Nothing but blood. “I can’t tell. You need to stop the bleeding.”
“I can’t without seeing. You need to do it.”
I didn’t want to touch him. What if the ear came off in my hand? But I did anyway. I gently pressed his ear to his head with one hand, and held the wad of paper towels to the wound with my other hand. In seconds the blood had soaked the towels.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said. “We have to get you to the hospital.”
“Try!” he said. “Please.” So I got more paper towels and tried again. He shivered. “It really hurts. Oh, man.”
“I know why you don’t want to go to a hospital,” I said, “but you don’t have a choice.”
He was breathing deeply, slowly, trying to regain control. He reached up and took my place holding the paper towel against his ear. “There’s always a choice.”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “This is a serious injury.”
“I fucking know that!” he cried.
I washed my hands under hot water, scrubbed them with soap. We stood there, Nolan pressing the paper towels to his head, me looking on to see if the blood flow was slowing. And gradually—after fifteen or twenty minutes—the paper towels I handed him weren’t immediately turning red.
“Why would he do this to me? Huh, Will? Why would he hit me like that?”
“He must’ve thought you were going to hurt her,” I said.