Response
By Terrio Jenkins
I watched the paramedics surround Matthews. I tried to look away as they tried to stop the bleeding and keep him breathing. Matthew’s chest wasn’t rising. Blood continued to pool out from the gunshot wounds near his chest. My arm screamed at me, the pain from my own wound finally hitting me, but I continued to ignore it. I could only focus on Matthew.
“Nathan, are you okay?” A hand grabbed my shoulder and Captain O’Neil stood in front of me. Tall, scrawny, and bushy-haired, O’Neil didn’t look like a cop, but more like a nerdy professor. His large glasses reflected the lights of the sirens and moonlight, so I couldn’t see his expression, but I could feel the concern in his voice.
“No,” I said. “My partner could be dying, and those kids got away.”
“You did all you could.” O” Neil dropped his hand and crossed his arms.
“You did everything by the book.”
“Fuck the book, the book almost got us killed tonight.” I looked over at Matthews as they lifted him on the stretcher into the ambulance. “Look, go get checked out. That arm looks bad.”
“Not as bad as Matthews.” I snapped. “You can’t do anything with your arm like that. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”
With that, Oneil motioned to the other paramedics to me. They started working on my arm and escorted me to the other ambulance. I took a deep breath, trying to stop myself from using my one good arm to punch them.
“Can you tell us what happened?” the first paramedic, a short, brown hair, surfer-looking guy, asked. “I got a fuckin shot.”
He looked at the other paramedic, a woman with red, curly hair. “Look, I know you’re angry and hurt and worried about your friend, but we need to know what happened to better assess your injuries.”
I heard him and knew they were doing their jobs, but I wanted to get back out and chase those bastards who shot us. My mind flashed back to us walking to interrogate a witness in the neighborhood. Matthews joked about him being black and me being white in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood where the Los Deimos ruled. Their hatred of anyone not Hispanic drove their mantras.
They were essentially the Hispanic KKK, and they didn’t care about laws. If they had firepower, they would start another civil war. We knocked on the door, and our witness, Maria, answered with her thin body barely hidden by the robe she wore, which fell off one of her shoulders. Her eyes went wide, and she told us we shouldn’t have come. Then I felt my arm go limp as pain shot up to my brain. Maria fell backward as I heard another shot followed by more shots. I threw myself on the ground, and when I looked over, Matthews’s eyes pleaded to me before they went blank. “Just hurry up and get me fixed up,” I said. “I have to get back out there.”