Free ThornyDevils by T. W. Lawless Page A

and luminous.
    ‘Help him. Help me,’ she implores Peter. ‘Please. Please help.’
    Her voice jolts his mind and Peter suddenly finds himself pulling off his jacket, tearing off his T-shirt and reaching down to cover the man’s neck. From observer to participant in a single moment: gonzo journalism at its most authentic. He presses hard against the man’s neck in an attempt to staunch the haemorrhage. His blue T-shirt turns crimson in an instant. He keeps pressing down, until his hand aches, but the man has stopped breathing, and the woman’s screams become a howl. She has already gone into mourning. Peter feels a hand on his shoulder, jerking him aside.
    ‘We’ll take over here, mate.’
    Peter looked up the driveway at a swarm of ambulance paramedics, police officers, cameramen and journalists descending like a succession of waves. When did they appear? The ambos were already applying CPR and the police had cordoned off the journos who were gathering further up the driveway. He could hear their fruitless protests.
    He stood up slowly and moved aside, his legs quivering, nearly buckling.
    ‘It’s okay,’ he heard himself saying, ‘I’m a journo with The Truth .’
    A police officer tried to shift the woman, but she hung onto the man’s torso with both hands.
    ‘I’m not leaving him,’ she cried as the police officer tugged. ‘I’m staying.’
    ‘You have to let the paramedics help him. They can’t help him when you’re holding onto him,’ the police officer reasoned.
    ‘I’m staying. Fuck off, you copper bastard.’
    Another police officer stepped in to assist, but she wasn’t letting go. He threw himself into the melee. Finally, the woman was dragged off the man and into the house, kicking, punching and yelling. In the meantime, Mad Dog was jostling with a detective who had covered his camera lens with his hand. Another uniformed officer joined in. Mad Dog was yelling vehemently about freedom of the press as he was frog-marched back up the driveway.
    Another officer had taken Peter aside and instructed him not to leave. The officer seemed annoyed, saying something about how Peter would have to answer some questions and congratulations, he had just contaminated a crime scene. Peter mumbled something about trying to help. He attempted to find an eye in the storm: a calm place. He finally found a spot near a child’s swing. A doll with one of its arms missing lay near the swing. He could hear men yelling. He looked up to see two thirty-something men pushing their way through the phalanx of police. One had red hair; the other had long hair and a beard.
    ‘He’s our father. Get out of the fucking way,’ the bearded one yelled, angry spit flying into the face of a young constable.
    ‘We want to see him. We’re his sons, you dumb copper cunt,’ Ranga added.
    The constable, flushed with anger, stood his ground until a tall, wavy-haired policeman, who appeared to be in charge, pushed the constable aside and took the two men to where the victim lay on a trolley. Peter walked back towards the fracas, observing that his neck was now covered in a tight compression bandage that was steadily turning red. Peter still couldn’t make out what the man looked like; his face now had an oxygen mask on it.
    The bearded son took hold of one of his father’s hands and the other leaned over him, dripping tears of grief onto the face of the dying man. The bearded man retrieved something from his pocket and pressed it into his father’s hand, then closed it. Peter edged forward: Rosary beads. The monitor on the trolley was alarming. An ambulance officer started CPR.
    ‘We’re losing him. Move. Move. Move!’
    The ambos were at both ends of the trolley, manoeuvring it frantically up the driveway. They hit a bump and the monitor looked like it would fall off the trolley, except that one of the officers secured it without stopping. The wheels rattled as they rolled over the concrete. The sons, the police and the