Be Purple

The old cop enjoyed driving Turtle Pond Parkway in the fall but not today, not with traffic bunged up and the sun sparking a glare across his windshield that pained his eyes and worried him about an oncoming headache. Fall was the old cop’s favorite season, and foliage along Turtle Pond Parkway, despite the sun’s glare, was brilliant, stunning, arresting. Reds and oranges popped from maple trees beyond counting, yellows ribboned from a grove of river birch, dark reds and undulate purples, regal and rich, flowed from sugar maples. God’s canvas, the old cop thought, infinite hues, perfect mix, inspired placement. “Damn, the glare,” he cussed aloud. “And fuck the traffic!” The old cop braked his blue station wagon to a fast full stop for only God knew why. A sour mood began to take hold.

‘…last half, detail one, home for nap, detail two, home by seven, sleep ‘til eleven, rinse and repeat…’ danced like a tired rhyme through the old cop’s mind and escaped with his breath like a half-ass mantra as he drove home from detail one for his beloved afternoon nap along Turtle Pond Parkway, a sinuous, two-lane road that snaked through West Roxbury, Hyde Park and Dedham.

His station wagon, an old rusted and dented Ford Country Squire, sputtered and stalled at the intersection of Turtle Pond Parkway and High Street. He double pumped the gas, gave it a second, and on the third pump, restarted the wagon. A crowd was gathering ahead on the southeast corner of the intersection. Probably a traffic accident, he thought. In uniform but off duty, the old cop thought mostly of home and his afternoon nap. A traffic accident was no concern of his.

More people gathered. Some ran to the scene. An elderly woman spun from the crowd, hand to her mouth. Sunlight beamed through the wagon’s windshield and changed the color of the old cop’s eyes from blue-grey to light blue. He shaded his eyes to better see. The elderly woman wore a plastic cover, bright pink, over her headful of blue curlers. Several vehicles had pulled off both sides of the road.

Definitely an accident. No Siren. No concern of his. Another person, a female, a red head, about the same age as his middle daughter Kelli, also a red head, turned from the crowd with a look of horror.

“Mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch,” the old cop yelled into his windshield as he slapped down hard on his blue steering wheel. He made an abrupt U-turn and pulled his station wagon off the road, driving fully up onto the sidewalk just east of the crowd and clear of the traffic still undulating along the tight curves of Turtle Pond Parkway.

The old cop’s knees groaned, his hips ached, and his feet burned as he unwound every bit of his six-four frame from the front seat of his station wagon to deal with whatever it was he must deal with. He put on his police hat and walked toward the crowd that parted as he approached.

“Has someone called for an ambulance?” he asked. He received no reply. Still no siren. “Did anyone call the police?” he asked again, and again, he was met with blank stares and silence. The old cop took in what he now must deal with and wished he had not stopped. He wished like holy hell he had just kept driving. Dear God, he thought. Ten fucking minutes from home, now fucking this. “Someone please call 911,” the old cop pleaded, pissed at himself for leaving his phone in the car.

***

Linda yelled from their back porch for the old cop to junk that ‘piece-of-shit-bluebeast’ every time she watched him labor away on the old station wagon. She took her Virginia Slims and a thermos of coffee onto their back porch whenever she heard him gathering tools. The old cop and his wife talked best while he powered bolts loose, tightened radiator clamps and patched exhaust-pipes with soup cans, him lying on his back in the driveway amidst tools, oil stains, fallen leaves and pine needles and her leaning over the railing of their back porch with coffee and cigarette in hand and the sun at her back, husband and wife shaded by a few mature oaks and a cluster of towering pines.

***

A motorcycle accident. High-speed, violent. A severed leg still wearing denim jeans cantered nonchalantly against the base of a weeping pine tree. Two victims. Both bad off.

Victim one was balled up onto both knees, arms angled out and back like airplane wings, or better still, like an angel cast down from heaven, cast down with vengeance. Both palms facing upward like a supplicant in reverence. The head, still sheathed in a cracked black helmet, unnaturally crooked between bent knees as if praying in secret. Broken Back. Broken neck. Broken Halo. Fatal.

The other body, victim two, was lying on his back surrounded by onlookers who did nothing other than gawk and gasp. One arm, the right arm, of victim two was severely broken, twisted, distorted, dislocated at the shoulder, wrenched in a pile, a ball, underneath and behind his back; the other arm draped over the forehead portion of a blue helmet as if holding a swoon pose. One leg upright, bent at the knee, seemingly unscathed, dressed in denim. The other leg gone, missing, shorn off high on the thigh, almost at the pelvis. No movement. No blood. No sound from the victim. No help from onlookers. No siren.

For reasons he did not understand, the old cop thought first about tending to the lone leg leaning against the weeping pine tree like nobody’s business. He wondered if he should first secure the leg, keep it foot down and thigh up so as not to spill the living blood.

***

Sixty-two-year-old Sergeant Pete O’Malley had worked nights, the last half -midnight to eight, on the Boston Police Force for thirty-seven years. He had originally signed on for nights to spend more time with his seven kids, now all adults piling up grandkids – 14 and counting. The old cop stayed on nights to keep his days free for working details. He was used to the good money details paid, and being a creature of habit, he thrived on routine. When the old cop kissed his wife goodbye before heading off to work, Linda always told him to ‘be purple.’ Careful was purple because years ago his oldest child David, still a toddler, gave him a kiss goodbye and said, “be purple, Daddy.” Linda telling him to be purple after he kissed her goodbye was a staple in the old cop’s routine whenever he left the house.

***

Victim two’s eyes fluttered and opened.

“You’ve been in an accident,” the old cop said, “You are badly hurt, but you are going to be fine,” he said. “What is your name?”

Victim two moaned. His eyes widened in terror. His good arm, the left arm, reached for his injured leg, the missing leg. The old cop caught victim two’s hand, cold and pale, before it discovered the stump. He folded victim two’s cold hand and good arm against his chest. Victim two’s eyes widened in terror and panic.

“Tell me your name?”

He tried to answer. His mouth opened. His lips smacked together. He moaned but could not manage words, as if the breath had been knocked out of him and had not returned. He tried to sit up but could not. He had no leverage. The old cop kept victim two flat on his back with nothing more than the weight of his left hand.

Victim two got out two words: “My brother.”

“Your brother is getting help. Ambulances are on the way. Lie still and tell me your name?” The old cop looked at the severed leg. There was no blood. No blood from such a horrific and violent injury, the utter unnaturalness, made the old cop unsure of everything.

“David,” victim two muttered. “My name is David.”

“David, good. David. My son’s name is David,” the old cop said. David’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Keep your eyes open, David,” the old cop used his dad voice, deep, sonorous, arresting, the voice he used whenever his son David needed to be rattled “Talk to me, David!” David eyes opened. His pupils were dilatated but even. No serious head injury, the old cop thought.

At that moment for its own reason a long thin arc of purple blood shot from David’s leg wound, followed by another and then another. The old cop reached under his holster and fumbled with the buckle of the thin black belt that held up his pants. He took his left hand off David’s chest and used both hands to pull his belt free. Dark purple spurted from David’s leg. This was what the old cop expected, but the force and volume unnerved him. David’s blood soaked the roadside sand surrounding them both. The old cop’s head was down as he worked his belt into a loop. He noticed a rivulet of blood flowing as if drawn toward a clump of sooty grass that had found purchase in an asphalt crack. David thrashed. “Lie still,” the old cop said. “Help is on the way.” Still no siren. The old cop thought: How much living blood can one body spill, and where the fuck is the fucking ambulance? The burn of bile rose in his throat. He steeled himself by pulling a deep, long breath in through his nose.

***

Keeping the old blue station wagon on the road demanded a constant work. On his off days, rare days, the old cop welcomed the distraction of popping the wagon’s expansive hood and leaning over the engine into the smell of boiling antifreeze, burnt oil and spent hoses. Family road trips flooded the old cop’s memory when he worked on the station wagon – camping lakeside in New Hampshire, bonfires on the beach by the ocean down the Cape, and countless foliage trips, his favorite drives, along the Kancamagus Highway and Swift River through the White Mountains. Foliage in the White Mountains was spectacular, breathtaking, soul lifting. Singing with his wife and kids during foliage trips in the station wagon ranked high among the old cop’s best memories.

***

With his belt looped loosely around his forearm, the old cop gathered up and squeezed together in his massive hand as much of David’s stump as he could. He worked the loop of his belt down his forearm and over his fistful of bone, muscle and flesh. With his other hand, his right hand, the old cop cinched shut the loop on David’s stump. Thankfully, miraculously, mercifully the makeshift tourniquet bit, and the violent spurts of blood stopped. More people had gathered at the scene of the accident, still no one offered help. The old cop’s arms shook from the exertion. He wrapped the thin black belt several times around each hand for a better grip.

A man, a grungy street person, wearing a torn army fatigue jacket knifed through the crowd and squatted by David’s head. He asked the old cop what he could do to help, his stare fixed on the old cop’s hands. “I’ve got this,” the old cop said. He could hear a siren off in the distance. “If you want to help, clear away some of these people so the EMTs can get through.”

The man in the army fatigue jacket bounced in his squat. “They won’t listen,” he said. “They’re here to see the show.” He rapped tattooed knuckles on David’s blue helmet. “It’s a damn freak show, and you’re the star, kid.” His voice was highpitched, nasally, excited, abrasive. A meth head, the old cop guessed.

David opened his eyes. “Is my brother okay,” he asked.

The man in the army fatigue jacket leaned his skeletal head inversely over David’s face. “He is spent, man. It is just you.”

The old cop felt a slight give, a small slip, a slither of tightening in his makeshift tourniquet. He let his breath out after a few long seconds when no bleeding resumed. His arms shook. His cut-up knees stung. Sweat burned his eyes. His pants slipped on his rump.

***

The old cop still looked good, moved well. Every bit of hair on his head was a soft silver-grey, but his step was quick, sure-footed and his back did not want for pride. Knees that cracked, ached and did not flex so good pained him only when unwinding from his squad car. Hips weighted by holster, gun, cuffs, taser, flashlight and night stick hitched on occasion but did not hamper his gait. Feet that throbbed and burned by shift’s end began the night with ample pad and spring and purpose. Three more years and he would be sixty-five years old with forty years on the force. Sixtyfive/forty locked his pension at 80 percent of Sergeant’s pay – the best retirement the city of Boston had to offer.

***

The old cop saw blue from keeping David’s bleeding stopped. “Hey, fuck head,” he yelled at the man in the army fatigue jacket. “Back the fuck off, now!”

The man stayed his ground. “Relax, blue. I am trying to help.” He eased off David’s helmet, unzipped David’s jacket, loosened David’s belt.

Sweat stung the old cop’s eyes. He wiped them on his shoulders. The siren drew closer. The old cop wondered how far off the ambulance was, how soon it would arrive, and from which direction. He thought of his son David. He wondered where David was at that exact instant, if his son was okay. These thoughts went through the old cop’s angry and uncertain mind as he maintained the cinch with everything he had left.

The army jacket guy popped up from his squat wiping his hands on his thighs. “Don’t lose your grip, blue.” He smirked a brown-toothed, wiseass smirk at the old cop. “You got this,” he said. The old cop watched the man in the army fatigue jacket worm through the bystanders and out of sight. Two EMTs broke through the circle of onlookers with a backboard and gurney.

***

The old cop looked away as they fastened a tourniquet over the one he had fashioned with his belt. When the EMTs tapped his shoulder, and he could release tension on the thin belt wrapped around his purple hands, the old cop believed he would pass out. He shut his eyes and saw purple sparks. He could not catch his breath. His knees had locked. His arms were limp. His head hung to his chest where sweat and breath met. He felt sick. He felt alone. He felt old.

David back arched in a spasm of agony. He grabbed the old cop’s hand as the EMTs lifted him onto the gurney.

“Easy, son,” the old cop said, placing his hand on David’s good shoulder, and then down onto David’s chest, his madly pumping heart. “Everything will be okay.” The old cop felt the depth and weight of his lie on every inch of exhausted flesh and spirit, his and David’s.

“My wallet,” David yelled, biting down and splitting his bottom lip, a blue lip, a split blue lip with edges of red that did not bleed.

The EMTs loaded David into the back of the ambulance. Before speeding off with its lights whirling and siren wailing and David sobbing, the ambulance spun its rear wheels, spraying sand and road grit at the old cop still on his knees in a river of David’s blood.

The old cop summoned the strength and will to stand, one locked knee and quivering leg at a time. He limped to his station wagon holding up his pants and collapsed into the front seat. He rested his head on his folded arms for five, maybe ten minutes and then double pumped the gas, gave it a second, and on the third pump started the wagon. He pulled hard on the blue steering wheel, and the old station wagon, low on power steering fluid, squealed like a stuck pig. The old cop cut off two-way traffic and executed an illegal U-turn to blaring horns at the intersection of Turtle Pond Parkway and High Street. A ticket was no concern of his. He drove home without the wagon stalling, his pant legs soaked with David’s blood.

***

The old cop found Linda in their kitchen. He told his wife in as few words as possible about the accident. The old cop desperately wanted a hug, but Linda knew better. Along with ‘be purple’, no hugging after work while he was still in uniform was an

inviolate rule, part of his routine. “I don’t want to get any of my ‘work-nasty’ on you” is what he told his two sons and five daughters when they were young and could jump into his arms for a lift-me-up hug. The phone rang on his way up the stairs, one of the kids. He heard Linda telling of the accident, hurrying the call, her voice full of concern.

After a short while Linda came into the bathroom and found the old cop hunkered naked in front of the commode, heaves wracking his body. She said nothing and drew him a bath. When the heaves subsided, the old cop stepped into the bath and lowered himself inch by inch, letting the line of hot water sting alive the hair on his legs follicle by follicle and wash away David’s blood drop by drop. Once fully in the bath, his scraped knees screaming like holy hell, he sat silently while Linda soaped his back. Linda said nothing until the old cop’s breathing came easier, deeper, slower. When she spoke, she spoke of their children and grandchildren and of it being high time to junk that piece-of-shit-blue-beast of a station wagon.

The old cop took hold of his wife’s soapy hand. “I cannot do this anymore,” he told her. “How many years left on the house?”

“I do not want the house without you.” The old cop’s color had improved. His strength was returning. She could still heal him. “I’ll fix you a toddy,” Linda said. “And you are banging in sick tonight,” she commanded.

The old cop lifted Linda’s hand and eased her wedding ring over a soapy knuckle. “Don’t skimp on the whiskey,” he told his wife of forty years as he pressed his lips to the purple indentation the thin gold band had made in the flesh of Linda’s finger.