What in the world is going on here? Drops of blood on the floor of my house. The door was wide open and those red spots on the floor were my welcoming to the evening. “My friend was hurt” was Branden’s reply as he buzzed passed me to the outside. I took a mere two steps and there he lay on the couch. In blood I saw him reclining back, his arm in the blue purple hues of blood, the darkness of it all. On his body, on his ear, the left side of his face and in that wound on his neck. A slit no wider than a pocket knife blade opened up his neck and to reveal the deep dark red. It was Joshua, my brother’s friend. “He was stabbed” came a reply from where upon my questions.
He was breathing deeply. “Please call” came the moan when I announced in the house “Did someone call an ambulance?!”
What I found that night was different from what had happened in the daylight before. I was away from home with an Italian lady and her adoptive daughter. How joyous was our afternoon in the sun! There was climbing of a cargo net outdoors, eating bratwurst, lamb and even bean banana salad in the open air. There was no appetite for me that night, when I returned. Perhaps I had enough before, but perhaps it was just that smell of blood, as I cleaned it all up afterwards – when the ambulance had already gone with him to the Hospital. And my brother’s other friend – Robert – who was apparently lucky to have gotten away with just a scratch compared to what befell Joshua. Why such a wretched evening? What about the day? The devil surely has his way.
Quattro anni fa una cosa del genere capitò nella nostra cosa. Era anche di notte quando l’amante di Peggy, una amica della nostra famiglia, venne arrabiato per trovarci. Saltò sopra del recinto del giarno invece sonnare alla porta. Perchè non mi rendí conto del fatto che fosse agressivo e pericoloso? Invece, come uno scemo, l’ho fatto entrare in casa dovè eravamo tutti noi tre. Mio fratelllo, Daniele, Peggy e Io. La mamma era in Bulgaria e il Pappa simplicemente non c’era. Tutto fu sconvolto , la sua ira l’ha fatto sconvolgere la cena, buttare i piatti per terra. Peggy è rimasta male. L’ha spinta per terra e lei è caduta sbattendosi la coda – la parte tra la pancia e le gambe – contro la terra ceramica della nostra cuccina. Non sono riusciato a impedirlo, mi ha solo spinto via. Poi arrivarò la guardia (security guards) che Daniella chiamò premendo il “panic button” nella camera della mia mama. Ieri non nessuno ha invaso la nostra casa. Anzi, sono statti pichiati fuori, a uno centri metri della casa, quando stavano andando al negozino del nostro quartiere. Non so come Joshua cel’ha fatta a caminare fino a nostra cose con quelle piaghe addosso.
Ma mia mamma era in Bulgaria è mio padre non c’era. E come quel dia quatro anni fa, non fu raggiungibile – non ha risposto alle mie chiamate al suo telefonino.
Remarkably, I maintained my calm as I saw this young man lay there before me. Immediately, I remembered that we had a first aid kit and so I retrieved from the kitchen medicine cabinet. The thought of calling a doctor – our family knows two very well – ran through my mind. Putting the red pouch on the kitchen table before the wounded boy, I rushed to the telephone. As he was in agony, a dilapidated state, I dialed the number of Dr Star. No answer. What to do, should I call or put on some bandages first. I need to act and so I did, I decided to go for the first aid kit. It unzipped in mere seconds and in split seconds I noticed the different items: the gauze bandage, the sterile compresses in packaging – I need a scissor, where ? Here it is. But my hands – they are not sterile and this is, but what they will never be. There were not visibly dirty so I just went for it. Oh these plastic tweezers should help and here is a sterile alcohol swab. “Joshua this is going to sting a little” I said with a remarkable sense of confidence, as if I knew what I was doing. Then I saw the wound in his neck. It had blood in it, like it was minuscule lake of red on his sand colored skin, but it was not flowing or gushing. So what use would this serve? Non serviva a niente! I swapped the wound with the alcohol swab and all I did was to dab in that crimson red. Then I put on the patch of gauze like material, only a few millimeters thick on it, and then I began winding around the bandage. I went rough the bend, where his head leaned against the couch and I asked him to lift his head, and he did, and I went round again, and he lifted once more, and I think I did this twice more till I realized I did not know what to do next.
J’ai dressé sa blessure mais franchement, cela n’a pas servi aucun fonction médicale, puisque le sang ne coulait pas, je me suis rendu compte que c’était juste pour le soigner – il a servi à ce qu’il savait que quelqu’un prend soin de lui.
Would this wrap around bandage stay on ? How? Taking a moment to focus, I realized I needed to just cut it and then tuck the end in to the other layers already on his neck. And it held. I believe only the Lord helped then to focus before such a wounded person. I wished I knew what I was doing; I wish I had some first aid training or something that could guide me. That was what I lacked. I plan to be trained in first aid, because I want to be empowered. For what? Next time? I don’t want there to be a next time, but sadly there is this thing called the human condition, some people call it evil, others call it the devil while still others are just plain indifferent to it all. That is why I need to be certified.
So I have put this to posterity on my blog. Now I can get one with me life. I can continue applying to grad school, I continue looking for a job, I can continue living a meager existence. No. The last item on that list will not continue.
Lord, help me to find in you the strength I need to go on. I know I am weak without you. We are all weak. Was any of this my doing Lord?
Leave home in the morning. Have a splendid with another family, knowing your brother plans to have a barbeque at home with friends. Accept that your father is busy at a retreat that is tangentially related to his actual job, but still primal to what he does. Come back home feeling blessed. This was perhaps the recipe for disaster.
I don’t know. I really don’t.
I woke up last night, thinking about this. The boy, the poor boy Joshua, my brother’s friend. But he could have been my brother! In fact, in the grand scheme of things, we are brothers, we are all humans, we are both men (albeit that my brother asks me to “be a man and not a moffie”) and we are both children of God.
Now that I got this all out, let me go and see what I can cook for today.
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