Marcus looked like a marionette thrown out of a car window, too still to be a living thing, his arms and legs splayed at unnatural angles. The paramedics were hovering over him, getting things from orange equipment boxes, and talking to each other. One of them cut Marcus’s backpack off with a scissor. There was blood on it and blood on the paramedic’s gloves. Isaiah couldn’t watch anymore and turned his head. He wanted to ask if Marcus was okay but was afraid of what the answer might be.
The paramedics wouldn’t let Isaiah ride in the ambulance so a cop took him to Long Beach Memorial. In the waiting room he couldn’t sit down, pestering anyone who went in or out of the authorized personnel doors. Is Marcus okay? He’s still in surgery? When’s the doctor coming out? Could I go talk to him? Isaiah called Marcus’s friend Carlos, who was there in ten minutes. “Marcus is gonna be all right, he’s a tough guy,” Carlos said. “He’s going to be fine, wait and see.”
After a three-hour wait, a doctor came out. He had a Jamaican accent and looked young even with the receding hairline and rimless glasses. He said they’d done everything they could but Marcus had suffered massive internal injuries and had passed.
Isaiah shook his head and smiled like he knew the doctor was messing with him. “No, forget it,” he said. “Marcus is in there, I know he is, just let me talk to him—just let me—” A sound erupted out of him; raw, searing, and so sorrowful he could have been a conduit for a prisoner in hell. Carlos tried to hug him but Isaiah pushed him away and sobbed into his hands.
Carlos said Isaiah could stay at his house. His daughters could double up and Isaiah’d have a bedroom to himself. Lucy had dinner waiting for them. Isaiah told Carlos his grandmother was coming in from El Segundo and that she’d meet him at the apartment. Carlos didn’t know there was no grandmother and Isaiah’s only other relatives, whom he’d never met or talked to, were in North Carolina.
Isaiah got up from the sofa, went to the bathroom, and threw up in the toilet. He stayed there a long time, his head resting on the cool edge of the bowl, freeze-frames blinking behind his eyes. Blink. The car coming. Blink. Marcus hit. Blink. Marcus folded in half. Blink. Marcus tumbling through the air. Blink. Marcus on the pavement, crushed and broken, his head pressed against the curb.
How could you do that, Marcus? Why didn’t you look? You’re so stupid, man, why didn’t you look?
Marcus’s girlfriend, Sarita, showed up. She banged on the door and called Isaiah’s name but he didn’t answer. What were they going to do, hug each other and cry and say how much they missed Marcus? He couldn’t deal with that.
The afternoon sun was blazing through the windows. Isaiah shut the drapes, unplugged the phone, turned off his cell, and sat in the corner under the spider plant. He kept still, hugging his knees, trying to make himself small but the pain found him anyway, hitting him as hard as that car hit Marcus, demolishing thought, reason, spirit, everything. He rocked back and forth and said Marcus Marcus until it was dark outside and his throat was sore. He’d almost nodded off when he heard that impact sound, sickening and final. He lurched and threw up again but nothing came out. He was empty. A birdcage without a bird.
Marcus had a policy from the Neptune Society. A nonprofit organization that provided low-cost cremations. Isaiah got Carlos to call the Society’s 800 number and make the arrangements. They moved the body from the morgue and took it to the crematorium. They handled the death certificate, the disposition permit, and the rest of the paperwork. A few days later, Carlos came by and slipped Marcus’s last paycheck and a note under the door. The note said UPS would deliver the ashes.