Mr. Rainer

Mr. Rainer ran very slowly, after he had been hit by a car, to the hospital. He would have gone faster, the emergency of the situation all but ensured that, but his new, grotesque limp was an insurmountable impediment. The car had clipped his calves fro behind while Mr. Rainer was pausing in the street in the crosswalk to pick up one of his quarters.

He always carried four quarters in his left pant pocket. There was something about the jingling of the change while he walked that had always made Mr. Rainer smile. He would also, occasionally, reach his hand into his left pant pocket and rattle the four quarters manually if the automation of walking provided an insufficient metallic din. So was the happy quirk of Mr. Rainer.

The day Mr. Rainer was hit by the car was wet. It was not raining, but had been, so the city street was soggy but, owing to the moisture, pleasantly uncrowded. Mr. Rainer was about town, between obligations, before he had to run to the hospital. The car was speeding and, more than likely, had ran a traffic light. Such is usually the case in similar instances. No doubt the driver did not see Mr. Rainer in time to throw on his breaks; the suddenly sleek, wet road would not allow for quick stops. So, when Mr. Rainer stopped in the crosswalk to bend down and grab one of his quarters which had fallen out of his pocket—he was rattling them quite hard but mindless to the fact—he had no knowledge of his impending disfigurement.

Mr. Rainer's back was facing the car. He heard the squeal of the black rubber on the gray, wet gravel and stood in attention. He had time to move his head back over his left should just to see the hood and grill of the car move into his legs. The grill clipped both calves but the left leg was the most affected. Mr. Rainer's lower left leg was pushed away from his body very quickly, as if he was trying to kick an approaching ball, but the upper half of his leg, from about the knee on, did not follow. Mr. Rainer heard the knee buckle and quickly became sick to his, up until that point, stolid stomach. The right leg made an unnatural jerk but nothing had obviously snapped or buckled, and Mr. Rainer had faith that it, unlike the left leg, remained unmangled. After the initial blow, Mr. Rainer's body slumped onto the hood of the car and panic slowly started to rise in Mr. Rainer.

As a small child growing up in the pleasantly nondescript suburban area of town, Mr. Rainer was taught never to make a spectacle of himself. His mother would refuse him anything he would cry over wanting, and this taught Mr. Rainer to never want anything too strongly. It also forced into him an admirable humility and served to calm his tumultuous nerves in times of emergency. A necessary result of this particular combination of rearing philosophies was that Mr. Rainer utterly refused to make a nuisance of himself. Some of his more critical peers complained that it seemed Mr. Rainer held himself above his company, but this was simply not the case; Mr. Rainer loved his fellow man and had a distinct, aloof kindness about him. Mr. Rainer just did not see the point in indulging upon the kindness of a host and forcing him or her to waste his or her hospitality and resources when it was not, in fact, needed. This is why Mr. Rainer refused a ride from his deformer to the hospital after his leg had been ruined.

The driver of the guilty car was very kind and courteous, obviously concerned past his obligation in the matter and generally well wishing for the man he had just broken. But Mr. Rainer would have none of it and, after he was able to tear himself from the damp, dark hood of the driver's car, made it all but clear, in as a calm and civil manner possible in his growing panic, that a ride would not be necessary. The hospital, as Mr. Rainer hurriedly but fully, pointed out was only several blocks away, and, on the bone and muscle of the good leg, Mr. Rainer could make it there very easily. The driver still persisted, but Mr. Rainer was beginning to grow light headed from stamping on his one good leg and gentle rattling along the moist road with the other in the small, pacing steps he was taking.

The police, who had been called from a nearby telephone booth by a witness and typically good Samaritan, were making their way to the crosswalk where Mr. Rainer's quarter lingered, heads up, waiting ever so patiently to be returned to the company of its three permanent companions. Mr. Rainer heard the sirens first, but in his pacing and continued dealings with the driver of the awful car, was able, somehow, to ignore them while he persisted in his attempts to politely, but assuredly, make his own way to the hospital which remained only several blocks away. When Mr. Rainer noticed the swirling lights beginning to reflect from the damped things and puddles around him, he decided to quickly thank the driver for everything (he was, honestly, a gentleman of the first class) and make his way rather rashly to the hospital before the police would stop him. There was no reason, thought Mr. Rainer, to waste all the resources of an ambulance, and all the to-do of a barrage of police questioning, just to get him to a hospital over an exploded lower left leg.

Mr. Rainer hobbled his way over to where his orphaned quarter still sat and quickly gobbled it into the warmth of his pocket with the other three. When the quarter hit the bottom of the pocket, and consequently the other three quarters, it made a familiar and calming ding, and Mr. Rainer, in his current near-panic, displayed the hint of a smile. It was always so pleasant to hear them rattle about in that certain way that they did. He would have smiled fully but he did not think the onlookers who had gathered would quite understand why a man in his state would be smiling. Besides, thought Mr. Rainer, it was a personal matter (the jingling of the quarters) and it is best to keep the quiet joys in life to yourself, especially when you need them the most. But, noticing the shockingly bright streams of blood eagerly gushing into his left shoe from the carnage of what was left of his lower left leg—and noticing the police cars creeping slowly to the scene from farther up the now crowded road—Mr. Rainer decided to hop to, and began to run, as best as he could with his horrifying aliment, those several blocks toward the hospital.