Free Ghosts of Florence Pass by Brian J. Anderson

 
    When John Parker first came to after the crash it was dark and it was cold and outside there was the patter of rain on hollow steel. From somewhere in his shell the drip of water and the close echo of it measured against his keeping. He turned his head for perspective on the darkness but there was none and so he tried to rise but his right arm was a torment and his leg hurt and was held fast by an unseen burden so he lay still. His head hurt and his neck hurt and his insides hurt as well and they felt hot and bloated like those of a dead fish on a lake.
    David, he said. Are you here?
    David didn’t say anything and by feel John Parker checked his arm and found it broken above the elbow and a jagged splinter of bone was pressed against his shirt sleeve. Then he screamed and blacked out.
    ***
    John Parker was in the dumpster behind Ricks Tavern throwing cans out of it onto the ground where his brother was picking them up and putting them in a garbage bag tied by one corner to the handlebar of his bike. The dumpster stank of stale beer and rot and it was hot inside and there were flies but he didn’t mind because he was going to buy a model of the battleship Bismarck with his share of the money. He stepped on a broken box to check the other side of the dumpster but there was something slippery underneath it and it slid from under his foot and he fell against the side of the dumpster. The back of his shirt and the seat of his pants smeared with filth.
    Shit, he said.
    You okay? David said.
    Yeah. How about you do the next one.
    How about not.
    Why not?
    Because I’m older and because this was my idea. You get em all?
    No.
    Well get goin.
    John Parker got to his knees on the flat of cardboard and bent to his work.
    Mom’s gonna be mad about my clothes, he said.
    Not my problem, David said. Stop bein a nancy and get movin. You want that stupid model or not?
    Okay.
    John Parker lifted the corner of the box he was on and found a paper grocery bag half full of cans. It was wet so he had to hold it by the bottom so it wouldn’t rip and then he handed it carefully up and over the side where his brother took it and dumped it out into the garbage bag.
    Jackpot, David said.
    Yeah.
    John Parker picked up the cans that had spilled from the bag onto the bottom of the dumpster and threw them over the side. His hands were sticky and cold with beer but he didn’t mind.
    Thanks for letting me help you, he said.
    David laughed.
    You’re welcome nancy.
    ***
    John Parker woke and it was still cold and there was still the dripping of water like a metronome but now light was coming through the windows of the plane and he could see what had happened. The floor under the seats in front of him where his mother and father were had buckled up and it had crushed them into the ceiling where they sat. His mother’s seat back had broken and she lay reclined with her arms spread like a penitent’s and her hair was wet with blood and it hung stiffly above John Parker’s chest. His father was in the seat next to his mother and his neck had been broken and his head pushed askew by his body when it rose up during the crash.
    John Parker screamed and struggled against the hold on his leg and as he did this he cried with the pain of it and with the pain of his broken arm and his head and neck still hurt and his insides were still afire.
    Help, he said. David help me!
    His brother had been in the seat next to him but instead of a seat there was only a tangle of metal braces and electrical wire where the seat had been and there was a hole in the side of the plane that was open to the rocks outside. In his panic John Parker grew lightheaded and he nearly swooned but then he collapsed with exhaustion as if his body had decided to quit him in preservation. As John Parker cried softly in the cold he looked down at his legs and saw that the left one was pinned under the frame of the seat his mother was in. The raw edges of metal cut into the flesh of his thigh