|
Article Excerpt
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
YOU'RE DRIVING ALONG, MIND ON THE POLITICAL YAMMER OF THE DAY OR WHAT YOU FORGOT TO GET AT THE GROCERY STORE, WHEN SOMEONE MAKES A MISTAKE AND EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS OF HURTLING METAL CRASH AND COME AT LAST TO A SMOKING, AWFUL STOP. OR YOU CLIMB UP ON A ROOF WHERE YOU KNOW YOU REALLY DON'T BELONG, EXCEPT THOSE LEAVES COLLECTING UP THERE HAVE BEGUN TO ANNOY YOU, AND SUDDENLY YOU'RE AIRBORNE, HEADING FOR A LANDING THAT BREAKS YOUR NECK. SOMETIMES WHEN PEOPLE ARE KIND OR BLUNT ENOUGH TO ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO ME--WHY I WALK SLOWLY WITH A CANE--I REPLY, BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO TELL THE STORY AGAIN AND HAVE TO SEE THE SHOCK ON THEIR FACES, "OH, I WAS IN A CAR WRECK." NOT THAT A CAR WRECK IS A TRIFLE; THOSE ALL-TOO-COMMON CROSSES STAKED IN BAR DITCHES TO HONOR A LOVED ONE ARE OUR MOST POIGNANT ART FORM. SOMETIMES I THINK OF SAYING, TO ADD SOME EXOTIC SPICE TO MY STORY, "I GOT THROWN BY A MULE."
But the truth is, ten years ago this month, I was shot by a Mexico City thug at a distance of about fifteen feet. He looked me in the eye and me ant to kill me, and he ran away assuming he had. Three friends--Mike, John, and Dave--crouched around me in panic and disbelief. We had gone off on a three-day lark. We would roam the streets of a vast and ancient city, act foolish, throw down shots of tequila, and lend some moral support to a boxer friend who had been deported (he has since resolved his difficulties with the immigration authorities, returned to Texas, and won two world titles). We were on our last taxi ride back to the borrowed apartment, our friend's boxing match handily won and a fine trip behind us, when the cabbie jammed on the brakes, allowing his two gun-wielding chums to jump into the car.
In the blink of an eye, your life can change.
When the cabbie finally stopped on a street that looked like the urban end of all time and the thugs ordered us out, my survival instincts summoned me to try to fight, instead of making a run for it. To the extent that the Mexico City police expressed much interest in the matter, they maintained that the bullet, which went in just under my ribs, barely missed the aorta, ricocheted down several vertebrae, and was later plucked out by neurosurgeons, had been fired from a 9mm pistol. But 9mm's are semiautomatics, and this was a revolver, an old scratched-up .38 caliber. I know what it was because the main thug had taken pleasure in hitting us over the head with this, and I'd gotten a pretty good look at it. A pistol fired at night ordinarily emits a trim, pointed blaze, like that of, say, a cutting torch. The thug's .38 threw out a crackle of lightning that sparked crazily in front of his silhouette, from his head to the pavement. My point in going into such detail is to demonstrate the possibility that things could have easily gone the other way. That old gun could have blown up in his hand.
Time has away of erasing terror and agony, or at least giving it a helpful blur. You don't forget--the damage you carry around won't let you--but you don't dwell. I've never dreamed about that man and his gun. I wouldn't know him if he walked up to me on the...
|
