Word: legging
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...corner around a brick building and a police cruiser spotted him. As he ran along the wall the cop in the car tried to block his escape by driving right up to the bricks. Charles didn't quite make it past as the car hit the wall; his upper leg was crushed against the bricks by the cruiser's bumper. I met Charles because I was on call...
...showed what you would expect; a shin bone smashed to splinters. The formica top of the X-ray table had trauma debris all over it - bits of asphalt, dirt and, of course, blood, with scraps of that useless white roll paper they put on exam tables. I stabilized the leg while she slid him over. The door opened, the cops saw the situation and flooded in. They helped roll him back out - pretty quickly - and I was left alone for a moment in the X-ray room. A metal object glinted from under the table paper. It was a Leatherman...
...This yours?" I asked Charles when I got through examining him and explaining that he needed surgery if he hoped to keep his leg. "Oh no, doc, not mine," he said. "I don't even know what they use those for." His eyes rolled toward the crowd of blue uniforms just outside the door. The Leatherman did have a knife in it and burglars with weapons do get in more trouble than burglars without them. He probably only used it as a jimmy though - and I couldn't quite live with the idea of keeping him in Sing Sing...
...Even after the emergency operation we did that night, Charles' leg was a punishment itself - pins sticking out, huge open wounds, skin grafts, almost certain to get a bone infection that would take more surgeries and lots of medicine to fix. We had a long talk when I made rounds the next morning. Then he was arraigned and taken away to the county hospital lock-up. They sent me an update: Charles had kept his leg. There was, of course, not the remotest chance I would ever get paid for those six or so hours of work in the middle...
...horror of Charles' leg did seem most unfair of all. Most of us think of fairness as a kind of symmetry; equal treatment on both sides of the line. But is there really any symmetry between my world and his? Would one of my surgical tools, or a shackle from my sailboat be for Charles what that the Leatherman is for me? Would he value a souvenir from my life...