JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
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“There’s a woman over there,” Wyzer said, pointing toward the parking lot. “Guy, we’ve got two women right here, and a man as well,” the attendant said. He tried to pull away, but Wyzer held on. “Never mind them right now,” he said. “They’re basically okay. The woman over there isn’t.” The woman over there was dead, and I’m pretty sure Joe Wyzer knew it… but he had his priorities straight. Give him that. And he was convincing enough to get both paramedics moving away from the tangle of truck and Toyota, in spite of Esther Easterling’s cries of pain and the rumbles of protest from the Greek chorus. When they got to my wife, one of the paramedics was quick to confirm what Joe Wyzer had already suspected. “Holy shit,” the other one said. “What happened to her?”
“Heart, most likely,” the first one said. “She got excited and it just blew out on her.” But it wasn’t her heart. The autopsy revealed a brain aneurysm which she might have been living with, all unknown, for as long as five years. As she sprinted across the parking lot toward the accident, that weak vessel in her cerebral cortex had blown like a tire, drowning her control-centers in blood and killing her. Death had probably not been instantaneous, the assistant medical examiner told me, but it had still come swiftly enough… and she wouldn’t have suffered.
Just one big black nova, all sensation and thought gone even before she hit the pavement.
“Can I help you in any way, Mr. Noonan?” the assistant ME asked, turning me gently away from the still face and closed eyes on the video monitor.
“Do you have questions? I’ll answer them if I can.”
“Just one,” I said.
I told him what she’d purchased in the drugstore just before she died.
Then I asked my question. The days leading up to the funeral and the funeral itself are dreamlike in my memory—the clearest memory I have is of eating Jo’s chocolate mouse and crying… crying mostly, I think, because I knew how soon the taste of it would be gone. I had one other crying fit a few days after we buried her, and I will tell you about that one shortly. I was glad for the arrival of Jo’s family, and particularly for the arrival of her oldest brother, Frank. It was Frank Arlen—fifty, red-cheeked, portly, and with a head of lush dark hair—who organized the arrangements… who wound up actually dickering with the funeral director. “I can’t believe you did that,” I said later, as we sat in a booth at Jack’s Pub, drinking beers.
“There’s a woman over there,” Wyzer said, pointing toward the parking lot. “Guy, we’ve got two women right here, and a man as well,” the attendant said. He tried to pull away, but Wyzer held on. “Never mind them right now,” he said. “They’re basically okay. The woman over there isn’t.” The woman over there was dead, and I’m pretty sure Joe Wyzer knew it… but he had his priorities straight. Give him that. And he was convincing enough to get both paramedics moving away from the tangle of truck and Toyota, in spite of Esther Easterling’s cries of pain and the rumbles of protest from the Greek chorus. When they got to my wife, one of the paramedics was quick to confirm what Joe Wyzer had already suspected. “Holy shit,” the other one said. “What happened to her?”
“Heart, most likely,” the first one said. “She got excited and it just blew out on her.” But it wasn’t her heart. The autopsy revealed a brain aneurysm which she might have been living with, all unknown, for as long as five years. As she sprinted across the parking lot toward the accident, that weak vessel in her cerebral cortex had blown like a tire, drowning her control-centers in blood and killing her. Death had probably not been instantaneous, the assistant medical examiner told me, but it had still come swiftly enough… and she wouldn’t have suffered.
Just one big black nova, all sensation and thought gone even before she hit the pavement.
“Can I help you in any way, Mr. Noonan?” the assistant ME asked, turning me gently away from the still face and closed eyes on the video monitor.
“Do you have questions? I’ll answer them if I can.”
“Just one,” I said.
I told him what she’d purchased in the drugstore just before she died.
Then I asked my question. The days leading up to the funeral and the funeral itself are dreamlike in my memory—the clearest memory I have is of eating Jo’s chocolate mouse and crying… crying mostly, I think, because I knew how soon the taste of it would be gone. I had one other crying fit a few days after we buried her, and I will tell you about that one shortly. I was glad for the arrival of Jo’s family, and particularly for the arrival of her oldest brother, Frank. It was Frank Arlen—fifty, red-cheeked, portly, and with a head of lush dark hair—who organized the arrangements… who wound up actually dickering with the funeral director. “I can’t believe you did that,” I said later, as we sat in a booth at Jack’s Pub, drinking beers.