Blind Man Walking Part Two

Jeff didn't know I was staying at Autumn's for the weekend. He never really knows when I may be there or not unless Autumn happens to mention it to him days in advance. I stood perfectly still in the entryway between the bedroom doors and the bathroom for a moment while I thought about what to do. I played it safe and said to Jeff in a stern tone of voice, "Autumn's asleep. It's me Jeff. What's going on?" Jeff had to be so completely drunk and belligerent, anything could happen. I backed a few feet away from his bedroom door and listened. He didn't say anything for a few seconds and I couldn't hear him moving in there. Then he said, "Come in here and turn on the light. I want you to look at something." Oh great. Visions of bad shit about to take place flashed through my mind. I didn't trust him. Was he going to hit me with a pipe wrench as I walked through his door? Maybe Jeff was bombed out of this world on liquor and thought it would be a good idea to show me his cock. This wasn't cool.

Carefully turning the knob to his bedroom door I used my arm's long reach to stay as far away as possible. Gently pushing the door open a crack I ran my hand along the wall just inside the door frame feeling for the lightswitch. I fished around where I thought the switch should have been searching randomly for it with my fingers. Just as I was about to become slightly annoyed with myself I found it and flicked it on. Peeking around his partially open door I saw Jeff on his back in bed, with his left leg thrust out towards the middle of his room. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light and said, "Come here and take a look at my leg. I think I broke it." I didn't have my glasses on so I walked right up to him and stooped close to see. Jeff's ankle was swollen the size of a large boiler pipe. The skin was turning black, the heel and bottom of his foot were a shade of purple. His leg was definitely broken and it was a very bad broken at that.

"Jeff, your leg is in a bad way."
"I just took some Advil and I was going to ask Autumn for a ride to the hospital in the morning."
"We're going to the hospital now. You can't stay like that. Advil won't do anything for the pain you'll be feeling in a little while, you won't be able to sleep. Not for a minute. Autumn has some crutches somewhere around here. You get dressed while I go find the crutches and get directions to the closest hospital." I was a man on a mission now.
Jeff looked at me and said, "Are you sure?" He had a sincere but helpess tone to his voice like he held out hope that maybe he wasn't in that much trouble and he could ride this injury out. It would be gone in the morning like a bad dream. "I've got to take you to get help right away. This can't wait for morning. Get dressed, I'll be ready to go in a few minutes."

I scurried back into Autumn's room and turned on the light. Autumn was out cold. As delicately as I could I woke her up and asked for her crutches. It's always confusing being jarred from a deep sleep in the middle of the night. Imagine the extra weirdness Autumn had to deal with as she saw me hunched over her babbling about used crutches stashed somewhere and where are they and Jeff's hurt I have to go. She directed me to find them in the back of her bedroom closet.

I got dressed, found the cripple sticks, and rushed into the kitchen for a phonebook. Sitting down at the kitchen table with the phone in my hand I looked up the non-emergency number for the local police and rang them. The cops were helpful. I described the situation and asked for the closest hospital emergency room and directions to get there from where we were located. The police repeatedly offered to send out an ambulance to pick up Jeff and I practically had to yell at them to get them to stop offering. So, I wrote down directions to Alta Bates hospital on Ashby. That wasn't far from Autumn's place at all. No sweat.

Jeff had managed to put on some shorts and a T-shirt. I handed him Autumn's crutches, opened the front door to the apartment and shut off the lights behind us. We had a little bit of a journey to get to my car thanks to three flights of stairs. Let me tell you it isn't easy to get a drunk with a broken leg on crutches down three flights of stairs. It took some time and Jeff had a couple of close encounters with the hand railings, but we made it out to the sidewalk. Everything was smooth sailing from here on out, I thought. Fortunately the Cougar was parked close by. I got lucky earlier that night and scored a parking spot damn near right across the street from Autumn's apartment. After cramming both crutches into the back seat Jeff managed to hobble-shimmy himself into the passenger seat. I shut the door after him and hopped in.

Firing the engine up I threw the car in gear and we drove through the outskirts of that shitty little shopping mall with the abandoned Emporium Capwell building that towers over the neighborhood. We past by the Mel-O-Dee and came out to San Pablo, which is one of the main thoroughfares in the area linking Oakland with Richmond. I was pretty sure I could follow San Pablo all the way out to Ashby and then easily locate Alta Bates from there. I turned on San Pablo. There wasn't a soul out on the street at that hour of night. The Cougar was the only car on the road. Both Jeff and I had the windows rolled down and the dual exhaust from my car resonated beautifully off of each building as we passed. All the neighborhood landmarks seem so different at night when no one is around. It's like everyone suddendly died and familiar places like Caspar's Hot Dog joint and The Mallard become strangely foreign and entirely depressing.

One thing crept into my thoughts as we drove deeper into Berkeley. Funny, I realized I hadn't wondered about it before now, but there it was. I looked over towards Jeff who was sitting there with an impatient expression on his face. He was in pain.

I asked him, "So Jeff, if you don't mind me buggin' you about this, uh, you don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to and all, but, how'd you end up with a broken leg tonight?"
Jeff took a deep breath and sheepishly looked me in the eye. "It's really stupid." He said and kind of half-nodded at me.
Again I told him, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"Promise you won't ever tell anyone about it?" He was serious.
Oh, this was going to be good. On the inside I cringed with evil delight. This was going to be good, indeed. I looked at Jeff and smiled. "I promise I won't tell anyone what happened."