They howled and howled at the van, something so primitive and beast-like, yet filled with human reaction and base anxiety. It was as if they were howling as a device to let the intruders know that they wanted nothing to do with them, but if necessary they might take up the means to do away with the whole damnable vehicle.
Flat tire or not, Mitzi jammed his foot onto the gas and sped down Broadway. As they were gaining speed, with sparks flowing from the rear wheel hub-cap, a small rock found its way through the passenger-side window into the head of his accomplice and instantly killed him. Right to the temple. Blood splattered like house paint onto Mitzi’s cheek and arm and caused the steering wheel to become slick. He swerved the van nearly hitting the militia coating the street but soon regained control. During the whole fiasco, the man – the corpse – fell to Mitzi’s lap limp and cumbersome. A man seemed to weigh a thousand pounds when he was dead.
Mitzi began again to speed up and out of this mess. His foot squished against the shoe as he pounded on the gas, and a warm sensation filled in his toes. Disgusting, blood gushed out of his right shoe. The driving became difficult. He felt no pain and realized that the man’s head on his lap was losing blood somewhat rapidly and draining into his socks.
While maintaining his speed, Mitzi reached over and pried loose the passenger door, propped up the dead man, and kicked him out. His body tumbled to the street and briskly somersaulted out of view. A whimpered was produced from the back of the van somewhere, probably from the man’s comrades. The howling had stopped as had the bullets, and the commotion now seemed to cease, leaving an intense silence. The injured man on the stretcher had half of his face blown off by a rock, “probably propelled by a sling of some sort,” conjectured one of the pilgrims. They had stabilized him, but for what? The man layed groaning on the stretcher, gutteral groans for part of his throat had been mamed. His groaning was growing intolerable.
“Don’t you have morphine? Why don’t you give him an overdose of morphine?” asked Mitzi, unable any longer to bear this man’s pain.
“Do you think that is the only use I have for morphine? Would you like me to have to operate without morphine? You have a revolver, shoot him yourself.” Said the apparent doctor.
“He’s been hit already. If you’d been hit, I am sure you’d think differently.” Mitzi was beginning to sweat.
“I will shoot the poor thing. I am a humane man. I will not let him suffer…” announced one of the other pilgrims reaching for his pistol.
“Shoot him then!” yelled the doctor, raising his bloody forceps in the air, “Shoot him. Assume the responsibility!”
“You are not a human being!” Yelled Mitze still driving, raising his voice as loud as he could to drown out the man’s groans. Cold this man understand the velocity of this conversation? About hi own life hanging in the balance of a few men who could never understand his world?
“I’m not killing anyone here. I care for the wounded, I don’t kill them.”
“Why don’t you care for him then?”
“I have done so. I have done all that can be done.”
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