Free Somebody Up There Hates You by Hollis Seamon Page A

her skirts pulled up and her strong legs churning.
    ***
    Things blur. Sirens coming. Phil running, pushing my chair uphill, panting and grunting. Flashing lights. Phil turning, and we’re in an alley and we’re still moving fast, and then we’re two blocks from Warren Street, on a quiet side street, and Phil parks me behind some bushes in somebody’s front yard, and he leans over, holding his sides and groaning. “Shit,” he breathes. “I am too old for this.” He falls on his back onto the grass and lies there, his breath honking in his chest.
    I feel strangely peaceful. I start to look around. This is a nice street; houses have pumpkins in their windows or on their porches. There’s no trick-or-treaters left; it’s late, I guess. Jeannette might be calling the police right now. Might have done it hours ago. I have no clue.
    Phil’s breathing calms down and he sits up. He’s starting to laugh. “I hope you got some, Richard, me lad. Make it all worthwhile.” His face is smeared with blood, and his knuckles are cracked wide open. He opens and closes his hand a few times, testing it.
    â€œI sure did, man,” I say. “Thanks.”
    He nods. “Mission accomplished.” He sighs. “You want to go back there? That hospital? Or you want to go home? I can take you home, you know. We’re, what? Five, six blocks away? From where you and Sisco live these days?”
    I hear the real question in his voice and I get it: he doesn’t know where we live. Mom doesn’t want him to know. I close my eyes and I can picture it, the tiny little house Mom finally was able to buy us two years ago. He’s right, it’s only about five blocks away, to the north and west. Another quiet street, bitsy little ranch houses in bitsy little yards. But for Mom, it’s a huge accomplishment, that house. It’s huge. She bought it, fair and square, on her own. All by herself. My room is about eight feet by eight feet, hers not much more. But it’s got a little lawn and a little porch, and she planted flowers, and there’s a crab apple tree out back. It’s our sanctuary, she said once. Our safe place. It’s ours . Our house is something I think about a lot, sitting in my hospice room. Like how it’s so close and how I could walk there anytime. Or take a cab. I could go home, lie around my room. But then Mom would have to take care of me, and I think that’s way too hard, that this stuff should be left to the pros. Really.
    And, anyway, Mom’s sick. I bet she’s in bed by now, wrapped in her old quilt and finally asleep after the trick-or-treaters. Last thing she needs? Phil and me, all messed up, knocking on her door.
    â€œHospital,” I say. “Don’t want to get Jeannette in trouble.”
    It is a long hard climb, uphill all the way. I’m too beat to help. It’s all on Phil. And he manages, in short spurts with long rests. Give the man credit—he gets me back to Richie’s World, almost safe and almost sound.

7
    I WON’T EVEN TRY to describe the scene back at the hospital, it’s so dark-edged and foggy in my head. I remember that the first thing I saw when Phil pushed my chair into the ER entrance and said good-bye, backing and bowing away, was the clock. It said 12:24. Not even Halloween anymore. Now it’s All Souls’ Day, I thought. I remember that. Or All Saints’ Day. Whatever. I can’t roll myself another inch. Can’t get to an elevator, can’t do one single thing. I just sit there. I might even be crying, I’m so tired. No, let’s be honest: I am crying.
    It all got kind of wild, I heard afterward, but at the time, I just drifted off to sleep. The ER staff, they read my bracelet and put me on a stretcher and got me back to the hospice unit. They understand the meaning of No intervention. Good people, those ER folks.
    So I’m sent back to my floor where,