Anaideia 25

I threw Vic over my shoulder and carried his beaten and battered body back to the dirt road. Dale and Jim tried to keep up. I struggled to stay on my feet with Vic whimpering and only adrenaline kept me going. The small piece of civilization on the desert plain was only a couple miles ahead and when we reached it on swollen feet we discovered it was a one horse town. Down its main street, I went from store front to store front in a desperate search for medical attention. There was a small tin building off to the side that read the name “Dr. Lyle Lester” and I busted in through the front door.

“Help! My friend is dying!” I shout.

The lone doctor stood up from behind the reception desk and shrugged. “But I’m just a simple chiropractor,” he said.

“Goddamnit! You’re a doctor! Do something!”

“But I don’t have the medical training to help a wounded man!”

I laid Vic down on the stained corduroy couch and pulled out my Uzi. “You can do something and you WILL do something!” I said.

The doctor complied.

Dale and Jim caught up to me and we carried Vic into an operating room and laid him on the table. “All I have is this gauze to stop the bleeding,” the doctor said.

“Good enough,” I said. “What about some painkillers?”

The doctor stated to stammer. “Uh, all I got is some methadone,” he said.

“Do chiropractors usually carry methadone?” asked Dale.

The doctor said nothing.

Vic was pumped full of the medicine and his head was stitched up with the bleeding stopped. Within minutes he appeared to be in a daze. The doctor cleaned up his hands and gave us advice. “You need to take him to a hospital,” he said, “like, right now.”

I nodded and started to lift Vic’s body. But he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me close. “Don’t take me to the hospital,” he ordered.

“Vic, it’s alright…”

“No,” he interrupted, “I’m going after Penelope. Tonight!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I said. “We got out of there alive! No need to test fate!”

Then he pulled me closer. “If you take me to the hospital, I will KILL YOU!” he uttered. He gurgled a few more unintelligible words then passed out.

“Get him the fuck out of my office,” the doctor ordered.

“But doc,” I pleaded, “we’ve got nowhere to go…”

“Shut up and get out.”

Dale and I carried a limp Vic to a nearby no-tell motel and the receptionist looked at us sideways. “We don’t get too many of your kind,” he said.

“Just give us a goddamn room,” I said.

“Alright, that’ll be $39.99 an hour.”

“What?! I can find rent cheaper than that in Los Angeles!” I argued.

Dale took me aside and calmed me. “Relax,” he said, “let me handle this.” From under his trench coat, he pulled out the AK-47 and pointed it at the receptionist. “Will it be 39 bucks or 39 bullets bucko?” he asked.

The receptionist soiled himself and handed us a key. “Check out is at 11am,” he said.

I grabbed the key then picked up Vic by his feet while Dale took his arms and we dragged his body to the suite door. I unlocked it and inside reeked of bleach like old and crusted semen. “I feel right at home,” Dale said as he plopped down on the bed. I laid Vic next to him.

“I’ll stay here with Vic,” I said. “I know I’ve asked a lot of you Dale, but I need you to do one more thing. Find a way to get back to Los Angeles and take Old Jim with you. See if he has any family and…”

“I ain’t goin nowheres,” Old Jim declared.

“Jim, be reasonable…,” I said.

“If you’re gonna go huntin for Penelope, I’m goin with ya.”

“But it’s too dangerous…”

“I can handle my own out there. I know what I’m doin. I may be old but I can still shoot the pecker off a bull…”

“Alright, alright…,” I interrupted. “But we’re gonna need some supplies before we head back out there. Dale, what are you gonna do?”

Dale laid on the bed with arms folded behind his head. He contemplated for a moment before lifting his leg to release a massive ass fart. “Well, I reckon I don’t have much else to do since my wife left me and I got laid off at the toilet factory. I suppose I’ll go back out there with y’all.”

I shook my head and rubbed my face. “I guess that settles it then,” I said.

TO BE CONTINUED…