The Crutch

(Write for at least 5 minutes about a crutch, and a bridge)

Rigoberto Corripo was recently discharged from his local small town hospital after being involved in a car accident. The circumstances of the accident had made it apparent to the authorities that Bert’s involvement was purely innocent as he was simply a pedestrian that had never strayed from the sidewalk. Many witnesses could vouch for him. A Volkswagen Jetta, a brown one, was causing a ruckus on his rear horizon. It was difficult to tell if the vehicle had lost control or if it had been operated by an reckless moron. Either way, Bert wasn’t aware of the commotion it was causing when it struck him from behind. if he hadn’t had his earbuds buried deep into his ear canals he would have heard the car approaching instead of Chris Cornell screaming about a rusty cage. If he could hear and see, he would have had plenty of time to find sufficient cover from the chaos that was inevitably drawn to him.   
             

Bert woke up in a hospital bed with his leg in a giant cast and suspended in a cradle. 

A doctor was already next to him doing his rounds, “You know you’re very lucky to be alive, Mr. Corripo- may I call you Rigoberto? My name is Doctor Antoine Tiller.”   
     

“You can call me Bert. What the hell happened?” His throat felt like sandpaper.

“Can I have some water?”

Doctor Tiller filled a plastic cup from a nearby pitcher. “Well, from what I gathered, a guy that was high on methamphetamine decided to take some poor girl’s car from the gas station when she was inside paying for the fuel,” The doctor shook his head. “He must have thought he had somewhere to go but instead he ran into you after causing thousands of dollars in property damage,” He pulled an x-ray out of his chart and held it towards the window. “You had a compound fracture to your femur,” He put it down and laughed to himself, ”I suppose I don’t really need an x-ray to see that, since the bone was just about to poke through the skin on your leg. I guess you’re also lucky to have not felt that snap in half. You were already out from the impact. No concussion though, so that’s good, right?”

“I don’t know, why are you asking me?”

An orderly came in to the room with a wheelchair. Doctor Tiller said, “Anyway, you are being discharged now. You’re pretty lucky the bone didn’t cause too much damage inside. Just some bruising.” The orderly had Bert put one arm around his shoulders so he could lift him off the bed and into the wheelchair. As he was being pushed through the hallways, his leg stuck straight out in front of him.

“You’ll be more comfortable moving around with a pair of crutches than trying to roll around in a wheelchair with your leg out like that,” the orderly said. He handed him a couple crutches which he laid across his lap.

The bright, humid afternoon flooded through the sliding glass doors and assaulted his senses. Bert adjusted to it quickly enough and started to get up from his seat with the crutches beneath him.

“Would you like me to call someone to pick you up?” the orderly asked.

Bert had no one that could come get him, but he considered a taxi, then changed his mind. “I think I’ll just walk. I’m just beyond that bridge over there. I need some fresh air anyway.”

“Whatever rocks your boat, man.” The orderly was already on his way back inside.

There was a police station across the street. It was the only one in this small town Bert grew up in. Not a lot of people broke the law around here but there was a bit of a drug problem so cops would frequently arrest meth addicts for possession or lock someone up for petty theft. A gaunt looking man with stringy hair and scabby skin emerged from the station and looked frantically around while he scratched his neck. Bert thought he looked familiar. The sickly man decided to turn left towards the bridge that Bert was headed to. He walked briskly with his legs straight and not pausing from his scratching. Once he began to walk, Bert recognized him as Trent Kump, one of his high school classmates from a while back. Last time he saw Trent was over a decade ago and he was healthy then.

Bert assumed that Trent had to have been the guy that drove into him so he decided that he would confront him about it. It seemed unlikely that he would even be able to catch up to him considering his swift pace and Bert’s current impairment. He followed anyway as quickly as he could manage.

When Trent reached the middle of the bridge he stopped abruptly and looked over the edge. The only thing between him and a quick drop to the stream was a short railing. He glimpsed Bert approaching him and after a double take, he began to cover his face and sob. “Please, don’t hurt me,” he screamed as he collapsed to his knees. “It was an accident, I swear! I’m sorry!” After some reluctance, Trent dared to look back up at Bert. Trent’s demeanor while begging for mercy transformed into a snarl with hate filling his eyes. “Get back! I’ll jump! I swear I’ll do it!”

“Then jump; see if I care,” Bert said without skipping a beat.

Trent winced at this. “You’re supposed to tell me not to jump, you big meanie!” His eyes were ablaze as he glared at him through thin, sweaty hair falling across his grimy face.

Bert was disconcerted by his childlike petulance. After gaining some composure he closed in on Trent and pulled free the crutch on his good side and jabbed it at him, “Here, let me help you out.” Bert couldn’t believe what he was doing, but he realized how angry he was at Trent for nearly killing him the other day.

“NO!” Trent screamed. Baring his rotten teeth, he clumsily clawed at the crutch with his scabbed hands until he had a good grip on it. Trent got his arm entangled through the framework of the crutch so that he had a better grip on it. Despite his frail physique, Trent was a lot stronger than he looked. He swung the crutch towards the bridge railing forcing Bert to hop on his good leg to keep his balance. Bert’s body slammed into the bridge railing and he toppled awkwardly over the edge with Trent in tow. The middle of the crutch slipped over a piece of metal jutting from the bottom of the bridge and effectively breaking their fall. The force of this tore Trent’s shoulder out of its socket while his hand and wrist were still stuck inside the crutch. A shrill cry escaped from him.

Bert held on with one hand onto the cushioned part of the crutch while the screaming addict’s filthy jeans were crotch first in his face. They both were suspended from the bridge on this crutch like an unbalanced set of scales with the addict on the higher end, screaming and unable to release himself. Bert held on as best he could but the plaster cast that came up upper thigh was weighing him down threatening to pull him towards the rocky stream below. He couldn’t get his free arm above him to grab a hold of the crutch because of Trent’s erratic kicking. If he was able to calm down, Trent probably could have done something to help, even with his injury. But there was no point in trying to communicate with him.

Bert’s knuckles were white with stubbornness and just couldn’t hold his own weight any longer. They slipped from the cushion and he dropped silently to the rocks. Bert landed head first and at an angle. The sound of the impact was like a wet branch snapping.

The sudden change in the crutch’s stability caused it to pivot about the fulcrum that had been supporting the two. Trent’s body swung in a rapid arc and freed his hand from the crutch before his body smashed into one of the supports that made up the web of construction for this bridge. He continued to fall onto a horizontal beam about 8 feet below him. When he landed on his dislocated shoulder there was an audible pop as the joint slid back into place. He cried out through the rust and blood that covered his mouth and rolled over a bit, bawling like a child. He tested his arm and it moved okay but it was still in a lot of pain. He held his bad arm with the other and peered over the beam towards the rest of the bridge’s framework. He could get down from it if he used the supports as a sort of ladder.

The descent took him about an hour before he made it to the bottom. He looked over at Bert’s body and, with tears in his eyes, began to hobble towards him. Bert was most certainly dead, but Trent approached him and attempted to wake him. The motion from shaking his shoulders caused Bert’s caved head to bleed and wobble unnaturally about his shoulders because of the broken neck. After a bit of hesitation, he rolled Bert over and pulled a leather wallet out of Bert’s back pocket and pulled out the twenty seven dollars that was inside. The addict apologized to Bert once again, this time for killing him, then made his way along the bank to find a way up to the street.