Pin3appl3 Pi3, my sister texts me.

Woopies!! I want *Pineapple Pie* from the place between Newton an Iowa City, she amends.

I don’t see her texts, of course. 

No.

How could I, up here in the night sky and with the loudness of helicopter.

And dead in this moment. Dead.

Really dead for these three moments. Three minutes. My pocket buzzes with the text messages from my sister. Everyone is very worried in the helicopter. The paramedic with the beard puts something into my leg and waits for my pulse to come back, but, for real, they’re having a hard time making me undead, so there’s a hurry to everything, a rush.

“Six out from Methodist,” yells one of the two pilots.

It’s such a scene–such an embarrassment.

The helicopter flies fast and low, just above the American lights of the baseball fields and the always-red lights of the Arby’s, the MacDonald’s, the Jiffy Lube off the interstate.

The bearded paramedic breaks out the defibrillator paddles.

He says something about my junkie heart not being able to handle too many volts.

Then I think he says something quiet. A prayer? A line from a country song?

Doesn’t matter; he shocks me.

My chest jumps from its place on the stretcher as poplars and maples and other good trees bend beneath the force of the helicopter’s blades. 250 feet up and I’m still making a scene.

Like some fucked up angel I ruin everybody’s night with my bad ascent.

But.

But then: the paddles do what they’re meant to do.

My heart begins to start the way a truck’s engine starts in the coldest parts of winter. First the flutter. Then the gasp. My eyes open like a cartoon dog.

It takes me a minute to realize that I’m in the sky.

To understand the whir of the helicopter’s blades, now spinning in retrograde.

I cough.

Scream weakly.

Try to wiggle free.   

I say, “Yo, I have to get to Thanksgiving.”

And this beautiful paramedic, small and slight and with dark hair– the kind of paramedic they put on the brochure to let people know that pretty people are paramedics too– grabs my hands and attempts to settle me down a little. “You’re okay,” she says, soft-like. “You’re okay.”

“I’m late,” I say.

And I am.

And I have been for so long to almost everything.

And I’m so embarrassed to be the way I am.

* * *

In my hospital bed I scroll through my cell phone.

24 missed calls. 49 unread texts.

Pie! Pie! Pie! pleads my sister.

You get it?????

Where are you?

H3LLO.

The texts go on like this for a while, growing in anger, in worry.  

I scroll to the last one: I’m serious. There will be hell to pay and there will be ass to beat If you don’t at least text me and tell me you’re okay. Please. Please.

I text back that I’m sorry, I got held up, that I’m on my way, and that the diner with the pineapple pie is unfortunately closed for renovations but I can pick up a cherry or key lime pie from the store if it’s all the same.

I add a heart at the end.

Like: <3

Then I delete it all and start again.