Keep Going
John tripped, fell, got up again, kept going. He wasn’t sure where he was, wasn’t sure how long he’d been repeating this endless repetition of one foot in front of the other.
A day maybe.
Or three.
He wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t tell.
He heard a car and thought it was in his mind. He didn’t turn because if he had, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t fall again. He didn’t stop because if he had, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get himself going again.
And he had to keep going.
He tripped, fell, got up again, kept going.
"Hey. Are you okay?"
John heard the question, but it didn’t make much sense to him. He would have answered it if he could have figured out how to do that; but he wasn’t sure what that would entail, and he couldn’t afford to waste the energy to figure it out.
He tripped, fell, got up again, kept going.
"Son of a …"
He heard the sound of tires losing traction on ice, then heard a car door slam and someone’s boots crunching their way across the road in his direction. But even so, it still surprised him when someone touched him. Scared him. He jerked away, tried to defend himself but only managed to trip, fall, roll down an incline into the ditch again, lie there in the snow and bleed into the cold ground again.
Fuck.
He was too far off the road. No one would see him lying here in a ditch; and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t stop. If he didn’t get up again, he’d freeze to death right where he fell, and they wouldn’t find his body until the spring thaw. That was as bad as lying there curled up in a fetal ball by a bloody tree; it was as bad as letting himself crawl into a cave and lie down because at least it was dry there, even if it was still freezing and he wouldn’t make it through the night on naked stone.
He had to keep going, dammit.
He had to keep going.
John struggled against the slick of cold snow, cursing the lack of traction as he tried to make it to his feet again, tried with everything he still had just to keep going. He only got as far as his knees before he lost his balance again, fell again, landed on his face in the snow again. His busted arm was twisted up under him this time, and the pain made the world seem dully indistinct and overpoweringly bright at the same time. He thought he might puke, but he didn’t … if for no other reason than because he simply didn’t have the strength it took to accomplish that biological function any more.
He would have liked to take a breather just to rest for a minute, but he was afraid if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get going again, and he had to keep going.
Digging his good hand into numbingly cold snow, John twisted raw fingers in until he found a grip he could use to claw his way back to his knees. He didn’t know where his gloves were, but they sure would be nice right about now. He was pretty sure he’d had a hat at one point, too; but he didn’t know where that was any more either, and his ears were so numb it didn’t really seem important any more.
He wasn’t sure if he was flat on his face or swaying unsteadily on his knees in the ditch when someone touched him again, but it didn’t scare him this time … not because he expected it any more than he had the last time so much as just because he didn’t even have the strength it took to be scared any more.
Fuck being scared. Fuck defending himself from attack. What he needed right now was to keep going. That was all that really mattered at this point: just to keep going.
Whoever touched him was talking to him in a voice he could barely hear. He couldn’t make out a damn thing they were saying, couldn’t have made any sense of it even if he’d been able to figure out what the words were. To be perfectly honest, he wasn’t even sure there was someone there until a shoulder slipped under his armpit and a hand knotted itself into his jacket and someone helped him back to his feet again, steadied him there until his knees quit trying to give in and dump him back on his ass.
He turned his head, blinked blood out of his eyes as he tried to focus.
"I think your arm’s broken," whoever it was said. "Try not to move it any more than you have to, okay?"
Sure. Whatever. He didn’t really give a shit about his arm right now anyway. He just needed to get moving again. Just needed to keep going.
He wasn’t sure if he said something to that effect or not, but they were moving again when he tripped, almost fell, thought he was going to fall until the man wedged under his arm caught him by the wrist and the jacket, held onto him and kept him upright.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t be getting yourself all twisted up there, friend. Let me do the hard stuff, and you just worry about putting one foot in front of the other, okay?"
John thought about telling the man they weren’t friends and decided against it. He tried to tell the man he was late, though, and that he had to keep going or he wasn’t going to make it home again; but he couldn’t get the words to come out in any order that made sense even to him, let alone to somebody else.
He wasn’t quite sure what in the hell they were doing until they were actually out of the ditch and standing on the side of the road again. Climbing that small incline was just about the hardest thing he’d ever done, but they made it without falling again, and that was something special. The man was still talking to John like he was a five-year-old on a bike without training wheels, and John still wasn’t following a damn thing the guy said, but just the sound of his voice was encouraging. It helped just to know someone was there, just to know someone had stopped after six cars passing him and not one of them stopping to come back.
Maybe they were friends after all.
At some point in the endless journey across the road to the car idling on the other shoulder, John decided the guy must be a father. He had that kind of perseverance in how he never lost his patience with John tripping, nearly falling, struggling to get his balance back again, fighting through the pain just to keep himself going.
He had no idea how long it took them to actually get to the car, but when they did, he fell again before the man could get him inside. He apologized as best he could while the poor guy was busting a gut trying to horse him back to his feet; but his lips were so numb they couldn’t actually form words, so he just mumbled something incoherent, hoped the sentiment came through in how hard his hands were shaking when the man finally got him balanced again, finally got the car door open so he could maneuver John into the backseat like a two hundred pound sack of dead meat.
The inside of the car was warm, and it felt a bit like heaven. He thought for several miles that it was just him in the backseat and the guy who dragged him out of the ditch driving, but then he realized there was a woman sitting right beside him, and she kept touching his face with something that might have been a scarf, or maybe it was just her fingers. She must have wiped blood out of his eyes six or seven times, tried at least that hard to warm his skin up by laying her palms flat on his cheeks, on his forehead and chin, on his neck, over his ears.
He heard a child’s voice, but couldn’t tell if it was a girl or boy.
"Is he going to die, Mama?"
"No, Livy. Turn around and help your daddy drive."
A girl then, he thought. Either that or a boy who was going to get in a lot of fights when he was older.
The air in the car stayed a nice, even warm; and it eventually seeped deep enough into his skin to start thawing him from numb to something that aspired with all its heart to just please, dear God please, be numb. The pain rose through his body like Armageddon on a hell of a lot more than just four horses, and John paid it due homage by letting out a string of curses that no doubt scorched Livy’s tender eardrums to ash before he remembered there was a child in the car and did what he could to bite down on the worst of his overly explicit profanities.
"What does fuck mean, Mama?"
"Turn around and ask your daddy, Livy," the woman said.
She was still working overtime to keep his eyes free of the slow seep of blood coming off a deep gash in his forehead, and another one higher on his scalp. Her hands felt more like heating pads when she laid them to his face now that the handprints of holy water pressed into a possessed man’s flesh they’d seemed to be earlier. He realized she was talking to him suddenly, and that she had been all along. Her words started making a little sense once he knew they were there, once he knew he was supposed to listen.
Even though she really didn’t have much to say beyond empty platitudes and hollow re-assurances, those things were spoken in the tone of someone trying to comfort a total stranger for no better reason than because they were the kind of person who would stop on an icy road to try and comfort a total stranger. John felt a little sick with how grateful he was for such a simple thing, how much it helped to hear anything at all spoken by someone who’d cared enough just to stop and help him when he didn’t think he could keep going if someone didn’t.
He forced his eyes open, turned his head to look at her, blinked through the haze of disorientation to try and see her. She might have been twenty or she might have been fifty. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t tell.
"What day is it?" he asked.
His voice cooperated enough to put the words into some kind of cohesive order this time, but he didn’t think she understood him because she didn’t answer, she just said, "Shhhhh. It’s not far now. We’ll be there in no time, you’ll see."
More empty platitudes. More hollow re-assurances.
"What day?" he asked again.
"It’s Christmas!" Livy offered brightly from where she was hanging over the front seat, watching him. "We’re going to be late to Grandma’s house, and that’s just tough if she doesn’t like it."
"Livy Ann," her mother snapped. "For the last time, turn around and sit down."
The girl sighed expressively. "Yes, Mama," she said, then offered John a fervent "Merry Christmas," before she complied.
"How’s he doing, Kay?" someone asked. The man. The guy who picked him up and kept him going.
"He’s still bleeding. Hurry if you can."
"Ice is pretty bad," the man told her. "Going as fast as I can without running the risk of putting us all in the ditch."
"Thank you for stopping," John whispered.
The woman smiled at him. Whatever age she was, she had a beautiful smile. "What’s your name?" she asked like she wasn’t sure if he spoke English or not. "Can you tell me what your name is?"
"John," he said.
"John?" she repeated. "Is that what you said? John?"
"John," he agreed.
"John," she repeated a second time. She still didn’t look like she was sure she’d gotten it right. "John what?" she asked after a moment. "Can you tell me your last name, John?"
He swallowed, didn’t answer that one because he had no idea which credit card he was carrying, or what the insurance card in his wallet would say.
"Do you have a phone?" he asked instead.
"Phone?" She looked at him like he’d asked for a fucking reindeer or something.
"Phone," he agreed. "Do you … have a … phone."
"We’re almost there, John," she said, patting his broken arm, turning the world a greyish-green with the pain of just a small touch.
"Holy mother of God …" John hissed, gritting his teeth, working as hard as he could not to call her something else entirely. "Fuck. Oh, fuck. Fuck."
She understood that. "Put your hands over your ears again, Livy," she said, smiling at John like she didn’t want to wash his mouth out with soap even though her eyes indicated she might actually feel quite differently.
"Sorry," he managed. "Just. My arm."
"It’s okay," she said, patting him again. "Don’t worry about it."
He let lose another string of descriptive profanities, actually succeeded in getting his point across this time.
"Oh, God." She blanched, almost touched his arm a third time before she caught herself. "I’m so sorry, John."
"T’s okay," he gritted out between clenched teeth. "Don’t worry about it."
"God’s mother is Mary," Livy offered from the front seat. "And she’s holy because she's Madonna."
"Jesus’s mother is Mary," her mother corrected, not touching the Madonna thing with a ten-foot pole. "And you don’t have your hands over your ears, do you, young lady?"
"Mary," John whispered under his breath.
"Mary’s mother is Joseph," Livy clarified helpfully.
Her father snorted.
"Today is Jesus’s birthday," she added. "We’re going to Grandma’s house to eat cake."
"Turkey," her mother corrected.
"And pumpkin pie," her dad offered in a tone of voice that sounded like a smile.
"A phone," John said again, forcing the words to get them past his teeth. "Please … do you have a phone?"
"We’re only a couple minutes away now, John," the woman told him. "We’ll be there soon. Just try to lie still, okay?"
"My boys …" he said.
The car swerved a little as the man in the front seat twisted around, looked over his shoulder.
"Pay attention to the road, Bill," the woman snapped. Then to John, she said, "Are your boys still in the car, John?" Her eyes were bright with fear; her pretty smile, twisted in an effort not to look as horrified as she sounded.
"No," he whispered. "Home alone. Expecting me."
"Oh, thank God," the man in the front seat said fervently.
"God watches over you when you’re home alone," Livy opined.
"We’re almost there, John," the woman told him. "We’ll have them call your boys from the hospital, okay?"
"How old are your boys?" Livy asked. "Do they like cake?"
They must have been bored out of their minds in an ER on Christmas day because there was a gurney and half a dozen people on him almost before the car finished rolling to a stop. "You’ll be okay, John," the woman told him as the hospital staff did their damnedest to tear him apart by dragging him out of the car and loading him onto a gurney. "Everything will be okay, now." She looked at one of the nurses and said, "I think his sons are home alone. Somebody needs to call them." She held John’s hand until they had him settled, then let it go as they wheeled him away.
"Bye bye!" Livy called, waving enthusiastically at him from the front seat. "See you later, alligator!"
"Crocodile," John muttered, pretty sure she couldn’t hear him, but willing to say it just in case.
"Not too soon, you big baboon!" he heard her calling after him as the bay doors popped open and they wheeled him into the ER proper. The place was small and virtually empty. There’d been some kind of ice storm, he heard someone say. Evidently, in their neck of the woods, that meant people stayed the fuck home where they belonged rather than getting out on the roads and running into one another.
They must have assumed he wasn’t from around there because they attributed his cracked head to a windshield and the broken arm and ribs to a steering wheel. They quizzed him a little, asking if there were any other cars involved or if there was anyone with him who might still be out there, then watched his responses like they were at least as interested in the way he answered as they were in the actual answers he gave. He lied his ass off for the most part, considering it a Christmas present of sorts to preserve their peace of mind by not telling them what really tried to wrap him around a tree the hard way before he killed the evil fuck with silver and consecrated iron.
They did a pretty thorough once-over, then settled into stitching up the worst of his gashes while they waited for chest films and told him he was slotted for a CAT scan as soon as they found the guy who knew how to run it. He hoped they were kidding, but he suspected they weren’t.
They had him covered with half a dozen blankets in deference to the fact that his skin temperature was equitable to an ice cube in an igloo, and they had hot packs and heating pads packed in on either side of him, as well as under his knees, ankles and the small of his back. By the time the deep chill had started to ease out of his body cavity, he’d asked three people for a phone without getting one, and he was starting to get a little pissy about it. One of the nurses made a counter-offer, told him she’d dial if he told her the number; so he recited them slowly, careful to get them in the right order despite the fact that some fresh-faced jack-off was stitching his head shut like he’d been gotten his suture training in a taxidermy school or a mortuary.
When the nurse handed him the receiver, the line was already ringing. Dean sounded half frantic and half terrified when he said, "Hello?"
"Hey, bud," John whispered.
"Dad." The boy started crying, then did his damnedest to sound like he wasn’t. "Where are you? Are you okay? Sammy’s been scared shitless."
"I’m okay," John lied. "You?"
"Yeah. We’re okay. We’re fine. Where are you? What happened?"
"Got held up," John managed. "Be home in a couple of days. Sorry about Christmas."
"Don’t worry about stupid Christmas," Dean said, the tears in his voice more evident under the stress of that single word. "As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters. Are you okay?"
"I’m okay," he lied again. "Promise."
"Sammy was scared," Dean said again. "He was really, really scared, Dad."
"I know. Tell him I’m sorry."
Somebody was fucking with his arm while John talked, and the sudden jerk on it almost made him black out. "Son of a bitch," he hissed, swallowing hard to keep the pain from coming out as a scream until it settled back to a dull roar. "That’s still attached, you dumb bastard," he told the ER doc who shrugged his direction, gave him a half-smile that said "thought you weren’t paying attention, figured that was a good time to set it."
"Are you in a hospital, Dad?" Dean demanded, his tone tight with almost frantic concern.
"I’m in a bar somewhere," John lied. "Drinking myself through Christmas and into the New Year."
Dean hesitated, then asked, "Huh?"
"You heard me."
"I can hear you’re in a hospital, Dad. Why are you saying you’re in a bar?"
"I’m not telling you that," John clarified. "You’re telling Sammy that."
"I am?" Dean said. Then, "Why?"
"Because I told you to."
Dean didn’t say anything.
"Let him be mad at me, Dean," John added finally, quietly. "It’s better than being scared every time I’m two hours late getting home."
"But—"
"No buts," John interrupted. "You know the truth; that’s enough for me. And I’m telling you the truth, so that’s enough for you, right?"
"I’m sorry, Mr. White," the nurse who’d given him the phone said. "The CAT scan’s free, and the doctor wants you to have your head examined, so you’ll have to say goodbye now."
He nodded a little, regretted doing that a lot.
"Why are you having your head examined?" Dean demanded before he had a chance to say anything more.
"Because I’m not smart enough to keep it away from trees," John told him. "I have to go now, Dean. I’ll be home in a couple of days. Take care of your brother."
"Don’t go yet, Dad."
"I have to," John repeated. "I’m sorry, son. I meant to be there."
"I know."
The nurse didn’t give him a chance to say goodbye before she took the phone out of his hand. He would have fought her for it, but he was too fucking tired, and she looked like she could kick his ass on a good day.
And this was most definitely not a good day.
Dean must have said something as she started to put the receiver back in the cradle, because she stopped, held the phone up to her ear for a second then said, "Okay, but only that."
She held the phone down again, and Dean said, "I love you, Dad. I’ll take care of Sammy. I’ll make sure he has a good Christmas."
"Good boy," John said, fighting the tightness in his throat to get the words out. "Wish I was there."
"I wish you were, too," Dean said, his voice catching. "Call me tomorrow, okay?"
"Count on it," John said.
The nurse took the phone away again, and they started wheeling him down a hallway. Someone who wasn’t the nurse with the phone or the guy who set his arm smiled down at him and said, "Don’t worry, Mr. White. You’ll be home before you know it."
"First Christmas I’ve ever missed," he managed like that would matter in the slightest to her.
But it seemed to. She seemed to actually give a shit that there were tears leaking from his eyes now when there hadn’t been any there before, tears tracking down the side of his face to pool in his ears because he was being a punk-ass bitch about something that couldn’t be helped.
"The first one’s always the hardest," she told him kindly. "I’m sure their mother will hold the fort until you get home again."
"Yeah," John said, listening to the relentless pulse of blood through his veins. "Their mother will hold the fort." He closed his eyes, tried to imagine Mary’s face, tried to remember his first Christmas with her rather than his first Christmas without her.
The gurney jolted over a rough spot in the floor, and he must have grunted, because someone said "Sorry ’bout that."
"Yeah," he mumbled. "First one’s always the hardest."
He closed his hand to a fist, trying to hold on, trying to keep going. To his surprise, he felt fingers already there; felt someone’s hand in his, holding on, holding back. He opened his eyes as the gurney jolted on rough linoleum floor tiles for the second time and saw the same nurse keeping pace by his side: the one who gave a shit that some stranger was crying over missing Christmas with a couple of boys she didn’t know from Adam.
And she was holding his hand.
The damn woman was holding his hand.
"Thank you," John whispered, blinking back tears again as he tightened his grip on her, held on just because she was there.
She squeezed his hand as hard as he was squeezing hers, smiled at him and said, "Merry Christmas, Mr. White."
"John," he said, his voice cracking.
"Merry Christmas, John," she revised.
She stayed with him until they had him set up for the CAT scan, only left after they’d started the damn thing up with enough buzzing clatter to wake the dead. John closed his eyes and listened to the ruckus, thought about his boys waiting for him and did his best to get up again and keep going.
finis
satisfied
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