Vandermein

XXVII

There was a splash and feeling as if I'd been hit by a train. 

I found myself submerged, resisting the urge to breathe in the clear water that surrounded me. I kicked my feet, searching for a hold, and--blessedly--they struck a hard bottom, which allowed me to push upward.

My head broke through the surface and the pain, coupled with the collective ache of every collision, fight, and explosion that took place over the last couple days came through in force. It was profound how much hurt I could feel in a single moment, as if my life force was being zapped away and replaced with decrepit, creeping age. I was no young man anymore. I was old, tired, weary, and I felt every inch of it. 

"What in the hell?" I heard the bellow of a suburbanite man exclaim. I turned my head and found the bald, goateed homeowner eyeing me with a stern confusion. "What are you doing in my pool?" 

How to explain this? 

"I fell from a helicopter," I told him. 

The information seemed to process, almost audibly, in his shiny white head. He looked up into the sky. The helicopter was no longer there, of course. They move, and they're loud. But apparently he needed to confirm this visually. "Are you hurt?" 

"Yeah," I groaned as I waded toward the stairs in the shallow end. 

"You need an ambulance?"  

"No." What I needed was a few rounds of something strong. I pulled a vial of Vigor from my belt and prepped the needle. 

"Do you need me to call someone for you?" He was still scanning the horizon while keeping me in his peripheral. 

"No. Can I use your bathroom?" 

He was gob smacked, standing there in a fog of confusion. "You look familiar." 

"I get that a lot." 

"Do I know you?" 

I looked him up and down. "Probably not." 

He squinted, as if my stardom was obscuring my identity. And perhaps it was, because in the next moment he said, "Doctor Vandermein?" 

I sighed a heavy breath. "I can pee in your pool if that's what you prefer." 

He was about to open his back door when he turned around. "$150." 

"What?" 

"I'll let you use my bathroom, but it'll cost $150." He folded his arms, a smirk on his face. 

"I... I just fell out of a helicopter."

"And? What's that my problem? Look out for number one, right? Nobody owes you anything, right? Isn't that what you're always saying on the news? I know you got the money, and you know I got the bathroom."  

I wasn't in the mood to barter. I unzipper my soaking wet pants in front of him and began to urinate in his pool. 

"That's going to cost you a lot--" He started to cajole me with half-fury-half-amusement, but his words cut off as he watched me. "You sure you don't need an ambulance?" 

I looked down to see that my urine was a dark red. At the same time, the Vigor started working its way through my body, quelling the ache, but apparently not the internal damage. 

It seemed everything--my whole life--was catching up with me all at once. 

"No ambulance. But you'll probably want to put some shock in the pool before you swim again." I pulled my wallet out of my pocket a retrieved a couple 50s. "For the trouble," I told him before tossing the bills in the increasingly crimson water.