Blind Item #14 - Stranger Things Have Happened - A Himmmm Blind Item - Part 7

WEDNESDAY MARCH 31st.

Just after midnight of a new day.  I was coming off the late flight at Kennedy Airport in New York, half asleep and lost in thought.  An out-of-breath man in a suit and a sweaty uniformed cop were on the jetway.  They asked for me by name.  They showed badges, and told me to follow.  They'd run straight through the terminal to meet my plane.  I was confused – thinking someone planted drugs in my bag or something.  They ushered me down the ramp and down to a private office.

The detective said: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this Son…there's been a shooting.  In North Carolina, on a movie set – an actor, your friend, was shot."

HUH?? WAIT - WHAT?? This is some mistake fellas.  Or maybe a crew member was hurt, but not Buddy.  I started thinking some insane fan had run onto the set shooting people.  Or a jealous lover or someone in the crew.  What do you mean?  Then he told me again – slowly.  I sat down.  He said the details were scarce – it had happened while I was airborne, just now – but during a scene something happened on set, and shot Buddy by accident.  The cop didn't know anything more, if the gun had been replaced with a real one, or what.  Just that Buddy was rushed to the hospital down there, even as we were now speaking.

I didn't breathe for a full minute.

I just couldn't comprehend it.  I called Nin.  I called Cissy.  I called their Mom.  All busy lines, the only cellular brick phone was in the production office of the UPM. No answer.  I called my family, who already were on it and were getting details straight from the hospital now on another line.  I called everyone on set and in production, and finally got some answers.  They were all in a state of shock.  I spoke to the Director on the phone while I sat there in the customs office at JFK. He'd contacted my family, who contacted NYPD.  He said I needed to be there right now.  He said Nin knew, and was trying to get flights for her Mom and herself there.  I'd take care of that for them, begging and bribing pals in the business for their private jets.  I had relatives already on the way to meet me at JFK, and within minutes they had a jet ready for me and my same suitcase in my hand.  Within an hour of the shooting, I was back en route to North Carolina – to a local airport there.

What followed next was all like a blur of an acid fever dream; a nightmare; a carny ride from hell.  Late that night/early morning, I got to the hospital and a nurse scrubbed and dressed me like a doctor.  Buddy was still technically alive as he was in between surgeries in an ICU recovery unit.  I could not really accept it in my mind.  I stood frozen in the doorway…staring.  Stunned.  I couldn't hear the words coming from the doctor's mouth.  Lips moved, I heard nothing.  Buddy looked like he was playing a prank on me – ready to wake up.  I couldn't comprehend it.  Tubes, wires, machines everywhere.  I was in total shock, holding his hand – staring at tubes pumping blood out of his abdomen.  Seeing him alive, but not alive.  So much blood.  It was everywhere, but I just stared hypnotized as the blood pumped through that clear tube.  Like I was seeing my brother's life pumped out of him somehow.  His hand was so cold and limp.  I squeezed it, talking to him – hoping he could hear something.  Anything.  Everything.  The tubes pumped, the hoses blew air, and the monitors beeped.  This couldn't be my brother; my hero…my best friend.  Our entire lives flashed through my mind
. 
I felt so lifeless, so helpless there.  I couldn't protect my friend who protected me so many times.  I was powerless to help him and wanted to do something – to call someone, solve the problem, fix the crisis.  But I could not.

All I could do was cry and tell him: "I am so sorry.  I am so sorry…so sorry."

Every word that came out of my mouth was in a cry, and like a dam suddenly exploding - the tears would not stop.  I begged him not to leave me – not to leave us.  Please.  We had to have you to make everything right.  I told him – begged him – that I would make it all right again.  Just please give me one more chance?  We still had so much we had to do.  I told him I LOVED Nin, and that I WILL marry her.  And that Cissy was going to have their beautiful babies someday.  That we'd all live next door to each other, and we'd have cook-outs and go to our kids' ballgames.  Our kids would grow up together just like we did – wrestling, playing music, dropping water balloons on us.

"You CAN'T GO!"  I yelled, cried, and begged.  "God, please…just stay – just don't leave me.  We were gonna take over and make the business our way.  Make new movies.  New music, and do it ourselves.  We were going to take over the world.  Together…PLEASE don't…I'm sorry I let you down…I need you.  We need you.  Please don't leave me alone…"

It was the last thing I got to say to him - my best friend – my brother. The last thing that I got to say while his heart was still beating in that bed.  The ICU Nurses and Doctors came in to take him out of that ICU/recovery room to try another operation.  Then another.  Five more hours in and out of it.  They were some of the best, most relentless, heroic medical pros on earth.  They kept trying everything they could to save him.  They never gave up on my friend.  They fought harder than anyone could've asked.

I was sitting there, in that cold empty room, alone.  Just after mid-day.  I had just given my blood a second time (as a perfect/clean donor); and was staring at the red on my cotton swab.  My blood.  His blood.  Staring at the blood. Staring silently into space.  I heard her calling my name.  It was Cissy.  Her eyes so swollen, tear-streaked red down her face.  Like she'd been tortured.  Dressed in her scrubs gown, she couldn't speak – just her mouth open and closing.  I just grabbed and hugged her and we collapsed.  On that couch, holding each other as if the world was sucking us away in a tidal wave.  We shook and cried, and she kept beating hysterically on me yelling in rage.  Buddy had fought – as he always did – and given it everything he could.  The bullet had cut his spinal cord, after penetrating through the stomach into his back.  All from one single ten-foot shot.  He fought like the warrior he was.  He fought like I begged him to.  But in the end, it was too big for even him to overcome. After six hours of surgeries, liters and liters of blood transfusions – Cissy told me: he was now gone forever.

Gone…forever.  Forever.