Page 51 of Redline Baby

She leaves.

His knee starts bouncing again. A few minutes later, a nurse practitioner pulls the curtain aside and introduces herself. She examines the wound first without touching it much, then turns her attention to the shoulder.

"Tell me what happened."

"Motorcycle got tired of being upright."

Her expression doesn't change.

“Tough crowd,” he murmurs.

"Speed?"

Kit hesitates. I look at him. He looks at me.

"Fast," he answers.

"How fast?"

"Fast enough that answering accurately will make you judgmental."

"Mr. Matthews, I need to write this down," she says, with no patience.

"Over a hundred, I guess. I don’t know."

The nurse practitioner stops. Just for a beat. Then: "Okay."

She checks his neck. Collarbone. Shoulder contour. Elbow. Wrist. Hand. She asks him to move his fingers, checks sensation, pulse, grip. When she gets to the shoulder, she has him try to raise the arm himself. Kit gets barely away from his body before his face changes.

"That's enough," she says immediately.

"I can go farther."

"No."

I almost smile. Kit notices.

The nurse practitioner presses carefully around the shoulder without forcing the joint through any range of motion. Then she steps back.

"I want X-rays."

Kit sighs dramatically.

"Of course you do."

"Shoulder and upper arm. I want to rule out fracture and dislocation before we call this a soft-tissue injury."

The X-rays take less time than the waiting. When Kit comes back, he's wearing a hospital gown over his jeans because they needed his shoulder unobstructed, his jacket and shirt folded badly in his good hand. I take them from him without asking. He lets me. That is becoming less surprising. He climbs back onto the exam table.

We wait another twenty minutes. He talks for eighteen of them.

The weather. The vending machine. The philosophical insult of paying three dollars for bottled water in a building where hydration is allegedly medically important.

Then the nurse practitioner returns.

"No fracture. No dislocation."

Kit points at me. "Ha!"