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and offered to ride in the ambulance to Boston. Everyone agreed. Dr. Gibbons was the only one who talked directly to me; the other doctors spoke as if I were a stump sitting between them to be examined. As he looked over my wounds, Dr. Gibbons leaned in close. “It’s all up to you whether you live or die tonight,” he told me, looking right in my eyes.
    I motioned for pen and paper to write another note. This one I gave to Craig, pressing it into his hand. I told him who I thought shot me. I told him if I died he had to avenge me. He had to protect my family. This was laying it heavy on a good friend, but I could tell by the way the doctors were talking about me—around me—that they thought I was a goner.
    Before they loaded me into the ambulance again, Polly arrived with Rick Smith. She was in her second year of nursing school, so the blood didn’t bother her—the fact that it was my blood did. The doctors were trying to get enough morphine into me to calm me down so they could insert a breathing tube. But the second I saw Polly, I had to let her know this wasn’t an accident. A nurse saw me motioning that I wanted to write something, and she brought me a clipboard.
    “He wants to write,” she said to the doctor.
    “He also wants to breathe.” The doctor brushed her off. “Not right now.”
    But she found a way around him a minute later and gave me the board and a pen anyhow. I wrote, “Not an accident. Who is with kids?” Polly just looked at me, and I could tell she was inshock. She hadn’t said anything since she walked in. She couldn’t even read what I’d written down. I hadn’t seen myself yet, but I could tell by the look on her face that I must look bad. I hit the board three times with the pen, demanding an answer. Rick Smith looked over her shoulder at the note. “They’re covered; we’ve got someone at the house already,” he told me. Then I sat back and let the doctors slide a plastic tube down my throat and we headed for the ambulance. Polly got into the ambulance too, along with another nurse and two EMTs.
    The doctor told me to raise my hand when I needed suctioning, when the blood blocked my airway. We moved fast, it was late and we had a blue light escort by the state police up Route 3, where they handed us over to the Norwell staties, who took us to the Southeast Expressway, where the MDC—Metropolitan District Commission—took us to Mass General. A trip that usually takes an hour and a half done in about forty minutes. Fastest ride to Boston I’ve ever had.
    I needed suctioning several times—the fluid they were putting into me through the IV was just pumping out of my face and down my throat. In the IV was something called ringer lactate fluid to prevent me from going into shock from the blood loss. Everyone was trying to keep me aware, breathing, and stable until we reached the hospital. But I had swallowed so much blood that I started throwing up. I threw up my airway tube a couple of times; the doctor had to keep reinserting it so I could breathe. Once we got to MGH, I entered as a trauma case, sothings moved at lightning speed. They had been warned that I was on the way, and even though they were ready for me, the outlook wasn’t so good.
    “We’ve got a shooting injury to the head, neck, face,” someone was yelling. “It’s a police officer.” The last thing I heard was a man’s voice saying, “We’re losing him, let’s go!”
    Then the pain stopped at once.
    It’s dark and I hear this beautiful music playing. My eyes are closed, but there is light, like a calm blueness. More a sensation than a light. And the sensation is good; I want for nothing. It’s warm and calm and peaceful. All I can think is that I want to stay here. Everything is okay now. The worry and fear I’ve been feeling about my family—
Are they safe? Am I safe
?—the anger about being shot, it all melts away. I just want to stay here.
    Then suddenly I’m whacked in the face. And I’m not