Ben

         The September night was warm and I was glad that it wasn’t the rainy season, or my feet would have been in water in the ditch.  Tree frogs, soon to be silenced by frosty nights, sang their songs and a few mosquitoes buzzed among the reeds.  Remembering my training, I brushed them away instead of swatting them.
         I heard the sirens long before the flashing lights appeared. Two black and white police cars slowed down almost in front of me, their searchlights checking the parking area before they turned into it.  There!  They’ve seen him lying near the tall grass!  Getting out of the cars, two uniformed officers ran over to him.  Through the cattails I could see one speaking into his shoulder mike.  It won’t be long now before an ambulance arrives, I thought.
         Shifting my weight enough to take the sharp rock from under my right hip, I wondered how I came to be in this predicament.  I didn’t plan it, that’s for sure.
         Another siren interrupted my thoughts, and a red ambulance pulled in beside the cop cars.  The medics grabbed bags, ran over to Ben, and started working on him.  After what seemed like an hour, the medics took the stretcher out of the back of the ambulance, loaded Ben onto it, and buckled him down.  The cops helped the medics drag the wheeled cot over the parking area and load Ben into the vehicle.  The ambulance roared out of the parking area, spitting gravel from the tires, lights and siren going.  Good, I thought.  He must still be alive or they wouldn’t be in such a hurry.
         The cops, however, weren’t in a hurry at all, and I hunkered down near the telephone pole in the reeds and tried to be inconspicuous.  They prowled around the fence with their flashlights, and one found the hole we had cut.  In a minute they were swarming inside, and I was glad I had brought the evidence with me.  While they were out of sight inside the fence, I cut a plug of grass out of the bank with my Swiss army knife and dug a shallow hole in the depression.  Wiping the bolt cutters with my shirt, I laid them in the ground and replaced the dirt and grass plug, pounding it in place with my fists.  Now they couldn’t trace it to me by my fingerprints, if they found it at all.  I really wanted a smoke, but couldn’t take the chance that the cops might see my lit cigarette and find my hiding place.           Dawn was breaking when the last police car finally pulled out of the parking area in front of the substation, leaving yellow plastic ribbons with black letters that said “Police Line—Do Not Cross” around the hole in the fence.  I waited a while longer for good measure, then stood up.  Stiff from sitting on the hard ground, I leaned against the pole until my muscles loosened up, and then started walking down the road. 
         Two hours later I finally arrived at my apartment, bone tired.  I was due at work in an hour, so I showered, dressed, and donned my work vest.  Before I drove to work, I listened to the message on the machine.  It was Dad, reminding me of my doctor’s appointment tomorrow.  I thought the day would never end, but when it did, I ate the take-out I had picked up on the way home and fell into bed, exhausted, to sleep a dreamless sleep.
         Monday was my day to work late, and my shift started at 1:00 pm, so I had time to walk down to the corner store and buy a newspaper.  The headlines read, “Man Burned at Substation,” and the story identified my friend Ben, saying that he had been transferred to the regional burn unit in serious condition.  It went on to say that if he hadn’t been able to call 911 on his cell phone, which had a GPS feature, he probably would have died.  At least I had the presence of mind to wipe off the cell phone.  My dad is from the old school, and any hint of wrongdoing on my part would break his heart.  And my boss would certainly fire me if he ever found out what I was doing with Ben in the wee hours of the morning.
         Back home, I called Ben’s girlfriend on her cell phone, and she told me that he was burned over 35% of his body, and currently in a drug-induced coma.  The prognosis was good for his recovery, provided that infection didn’t set in and he could stand the treatments the doctors suggested for him.  I offered her any help I could give her, and hung up. 

         Pouring some coffee, I wondered how my life could have gotten so far out of hand.  Ben and I had grown up on the same street together, and were buddies from grade school on.  I was salutatorian of my high school class, got a free ride though college with the ROTC program, and earned several medals in the Middle East, including the Purple Heart.  After a lengthy stay in a veterans’ hospital, I was given a medical discharge from the Marine Corps. 
         When I got home to Youngstown, to be near my dad, I learned that Ben’s plans for college had fallen through right after I left the area.  He was bouncing from job to job, and the daughter he doted on was born right about the time I finished college.  I looked for a job to use my skills, but times were hard in the valley and nothing materialized, so I took a job as a hard lines manager at a large chain department store.  Ben’s girlfriend was not inclined to work, and his daughter needed a lot of things, so he and I hooked up to make some extra money. 
         First we started a lawn service, but when it was Ben’s turn to get up early and start mowing, he slept in.  As a result, we lost most of our customers and most of the money we invested in equipment, too.  I helped him and his girlfriend as much as I could, but with the price of gas and everything else going up, I used most of my money to help my dad.
         That’s when Ben got his brilliant idea: we could sell scrap metal for a little extra cash.  There were lots of vacant homes in the area, and we went out late at night to remove aluminum siding from some of them and took turns selling the siding for scrap.  We changed dealers frequently so no one got suspicious.  When the siding supply ran low, we went back to those same vacant houses and removed copper pipes, old footed bathtubs, fancy leaded glass windows, heavy oak doors, and even a hand-carved mantle.  The fancy items we sold to an antiques dealer who didn’t ask questions.  But the police patrols increased in the neighborhoods we frequented, and we had to come up with something else.
         One day Ben called me excitedly and wanted me to come right over.  He had, he said, the greatest plan of his life.  When we were settled in the back yard with a beer, he revealed his plan.  We could go into the substation of the abandoned mill on the other side of town and remove the heavy-gage copper wire to sell for scrap.  He had seen something on the news about a similar sting in another part of the country, and the thieves made off with about $25,000 worth of copper wire.  Of course, we wouldn’t be able to sell the wire for its actual value, but we should get at least half the amount it was worth.  We could cut a hole in the fence around  the side where it wouldn’t show from the road, and sneak in at night.  The mill was abandoned, and power was shut off.  He had been up there early this morning, and found the electric meter locked and not running. 
         The plan just didn’t sound right to me, and I had questions:  What if we got hurt inside the fence?  What if one of the scrap dealers turned us in to the cops?  We didn’t have the money to pay an attorney if we had to go to court, and I didn’t want to spend any amount of time in jail.  Ben assured me that his plan was foolproof, and suggested we reconnoiter the area at dawn next Sunday morning, when people usually sleep later and traffic would be light.  Hoping to find a flaw in his plan and change his mind, I agreed to pick him up at 5:00 am next Sunday.
         We were able to check things out in just a few minutes that Sunday morning, and it was just as Ben had said.  On the way home he talked on and on about what he could do with his half of the money, the way people do when they daydream about winning the lottery.  Reluctantly, I agreed to the scheme, and we decided to do the deed next Saturday night.  Between now and then, we would each buy a heavy-duty set of bolt cutters and make sure we had dark, long-sleeved shirts.  We could use ski masks if the night was cool, anything to keep us hidden in the darkness.
         Ben and his girlfriend picked me up at the appointed time on Saturday night and we drove off to the area near the substation.  We got out and his girlfriend took the wheel, promising to come back for us and the loot when we called her.  She handed Ben’s cell phone to me. 
         “Hold this for him,” she said.  “You know how clumsy he is.  He’ll probably drop it.”  As the tail lights disappeared into the blackness, we walked through the tall grass back to the fence.  We took turns cutting a hole in the heavy fence wire and finally had a big enough hole to go inside.  Once there, we each took a bank of big insulators and began our work.  It was heavy wire and I was sweating before I knew it.  “Got one off,” Ben said. 
         “Not me,” I replied.  Stopping to rest, I turned around to ask Ben if this was really a good idea, when he let out a weird noise and began to shake uncontrollably.  The electric was on!  Grabbing a piece of wood lying near my bank of wires and insulators, I pushed him away from the wire, and he collapsed on the ground.  I knelt near him and my training took over: A is for airway, B is for breathing and bleeding, C is for circulation.  Ben was alive and breathing, but I knew he was in bad shape.  His right arm and torso were badly burned, his shirt almost gone, and his right hand looked horrible.  He needed help right away if he was going to make it.
         “I’m sorry, Ben.” I whispered as I used his good arm to pull him along the ground toward the hole in the fence.  Ben whimpered as I dragged him, and cried out as his body hit the wire.  I had to run back for my bolt cutters to make the hole bigger so I could drag him through it.  I stopped, though, as I passed the spot where Ben had been working.  No wonder he was hurt so badly!  The dumb ass had cut the ground wire first!  He was lucky to be alive at all!
         Back at the fence I enlarged the hole, tucked the bolt cutters in to my pocket, and dragged Ben through the fence, trying to ignore his cries of pain.  I took him as far as the edge of the parking lot, then grabbed his cell phone from my pocket.  Calling 911, I whispered “help” and moaned a little, and left the call open as I wiped the case and pressed his hand around it to put his prints on it. I kicked the phone a few feet away from him so it would appear as if he had dropped it.  Satisfied that I had thought of everything I could, I ran across the road and carefully took cover in the cattails on the other side of the ditch to wait for the police.

         My coffee was cold, so I got up to warm it.  I should go and see him, I thought, but I can’t bear to look at him, knowing I could have prevented his injury.  All I had to do was say no to that harebrained scheme. 
         A knock at the door.  I opened it, and saw Dad standing there.  “Hi,” he said.  “You ready to go?” 
         “Go where?” I asked. 
         “You have a doctor’s appointment, remember?  We have to be at the veteran’s hospital in an hour.  You ready?” 
         “Yeah, let’s go.”  I locked the door of my apartment and followed Dad to the car.  The ride was uneventful, with little traffic, and I napped some on the way. 
         My favorite blonde nurse Kathy greeted me with a smile. “Hi there, Handsome.  Are you enjoying the weather?”           
         “Yeah, Kathy.  The sun feels good and the humidity is down.” 
         “Doctor’s ready for you.  Go on back,” she said. 

         As I shuffled down the hall, I heard them talking in low tones.  “How is he doing?” she asked Dad. 
         “He takes his meds as far as I can tell, and keeps talking about getting a job and driving again.  Still having those ‘waking nightmares,’ as the doctor called them.  He invents new scenarios every few days, and his friend either dies or is horribly mangled in every one.  Strange, though—in those events his friend is always Ben and he is someone else.  It’s almost as if he feels guilty to have survived,” Dad replied. 

         What are they talking about?  I wondered, as I came up to Dr. Pryce’s office door.  Ben is lucky to be alive.
         “Hi, Ben,” said Dr. Pryce.  “Come in.”


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