Leaves
I walked by my back door yesterday and stopped to look out the window. I felt compelled to venture outside and just stand in the cool air, experience the brisk breeze blow through my hair, and rub the goosebumps from my skin. I didn't go outside, though. It was all just a mirage. It's summertime playing tricks on me. We've had such little rain, the trees have started shedding their leaves. With fewer leaves on their branches, less water is necessary to sustain them. I stood there disappointed and prayed for rain.
The Old Man and the Game
“Hey, Dad, you don’t look so good. You feeling okay?”
James couldn’t get over how pale his father looked. He slyly spied on his father as he leavened a fork full of scrambled eggs to his mouth. Normally his father’s complexion took on a bronze tone. It was rather lovely for a portly, bald, sour pussed, septuagenarian man who wore sweat pants pulled clear up to his ribs, a tucked in t-shirt on a daily basis; even out in public. His complexion is probably the only physical quality one could complement him on.
“Yes, I’m fine!” Gerald grumbled, tetchily. “Your mother asked me this morning, your wife, if anyone else asks me this morning I’ll keel over and have a heart attack. That’ll get you people to leave me alone.”
A brief silence overcame the breakfast table as Gerald noticed his wife, Harriet had poured him a bowl of Cheerios. He picked up the spoon and let a few milky morsels spill back into the bowl as he heard a crunch from across the table.
“You going to the game today?” asked James as he slowly munched on his first strip of bacon. He always saved it for last. He knew the question was a stupid one but he needed to break the silence. The awkwardness was causing him actual physical pain. It seemed to be affecting his dad as well, who kept massaging his left arm.
“Of course I’m going to the game today and so are you! You promised. I haven’t missed a single one yet. It’ll be just like old times having you there with me. The Eagles are going to State this year, you know? I can just feel it. This is the year…. now give me a piece of that bacon.”
Football was the game. The most beloved of games as it normally is in Texas, but for Gerald, it was his world. High School football season was more meaningful to him than Christmas, or at least that’s how James thought his father felt about it.
Gerald motioned over to the kitchen with his thumb like a hitch hiker and said, “Now get over there to that skillet and fry me up a few eggs like a good son.”
Gerald slid his bowl of Cheerios over to James and nabbed his plate of bacon. Two precious strips left.
“Uh no, if you want eggs, you take it up with mom. Put the bacon down. Put it down. Put. It. Down.”
Gerald sneered at his son and slowly lowered the bacon to the plate and slid the plate back to him with a growl.
“Mom says you’re a cheese shred away from a heart attack.” James picked up a second strip of bacon and ate it with a smile just as Gerald shoveled a spoonful of soggy Cheerios into his mouth with a scowl.
“Yeah, cholesterol is a little high. Blood pressure too. Your mother keeps making salads and stuff for me to eat. Apples. It’s rabbit food! I don’t want anything to do with it. I tell her I’m running up to the shop to check on things when I’m really swinging by Burger Bomb.” Gerald chuckled.
“Well, Dad, eat the rabbit food and then maybe one day you can eat a nice, greasy, salty strip of bacon just like this again, without having to sneak it.” James took a giant crunch out of the bacon, closed his eyes leaned back in his chair and moaned, “man, oh, man, so good. So, so good.”
Gerald glared at him and waved his hand at him as if he were swatting at a fly, “get outta here…and don’t forget about the game!”
James got up from the table to place his plate in the sink, “I won’t, I won’t.”
Gerald finished his bowl of Cheerios, got up to place his bowl in the sink. He noticed a few crumbs of bacon left on James’ plate so he took a quick look around, licked the tip of his finger and dabbed up the salty morsels. Gerald closed his eyes and savored the taste. His wife, Jane comes down the stairs with a load of laundry and notices her husband standing at the sink with his eyes closed, holding a bowl.
“….Gerald? Are you alright?
Gerald snapped too, embarrassed, and quickly placed his bowl in the sink.
“Yes, yes, you asked me that already?”
“Well, honey, if you caught me standing at the sink with my eyes closed, I think you’d ask the same question.”
Gerald grumbled as he made his way to the living room where he would plant himself for the remainder of the day, happy he got away with the tiny bit of bacon. This must be the rush thieves feel when they steal something.
Jane watched him place his rear in his favorite chair, a big shape in the middle of the cushion. The shape an exact imprint of Gerald’s hind quarters. She shook her head that he has sat in that same spot consistently enough to leave a “butt print” in the chair. She imagined a morbid situation where Gerald has gone missing for a few weeks and then the police knock on her door claiming they found a body they think might be Gerald, but the body is in bad shape. A truly gruesome sight. The police ask if she would be willing to come down to the station see if it might be Gerald. She imagines herself grabbing the cushion to his favorite chair knowing this would be a sure-fire identifier of her husband. If the fanny fits, it’s him. Jane shook her head and then let out a little giggle. She loved her husband and prayed nothing like that would ever happen, but laughed at how she really could use the chair cushion if it ever really did.
The television clicked on as Gerald situated himself with a sigh of satisfaction, sipping his coffee with a nice helping of heavy cream to cut the bitterness. Whether he was a shred of cheese away from a heart attack or not, he was having his coffee the way he liked it.
No football on yet so the Price is Right would have to do and then shouting obscure answers at Jeopardy.
That nagging pain in his left arm had intensified and now he felt like a chimpanzee was sitting on his chest. He must have had a bad bowl of cheerios, he thought, maybe the milk was expired. Gerald didn’t bother to get up and check. It didn’t matter to him that much, and he certainly wasn’t going to bring up to Jane that he felt ill. She’d make him stay home or worse, take him to the doctor who would probably
prescribe more pills for him to choke down. Nope. He was going to tough it out. If he still felt bad after the football game tonight, he’d let Jane know then.
“You forgot to drink this this morning. And here are your pills. What would you do without me to keep you alive?” Jane handed Gerald a Boost nutrition shake and enough pills to choke a baby horse. She stood and watched him to make sure he took his pills, and emptied the boost. Gerald handed back the empty bottle with a look as if he ate a lemon slice.
“Only because I love you.” Jane said.
The chimpanzee had now grown into a gorilla sitting on Gerald’s chest. He took deep breaths in between shouting answers at Alex Trebek. “Maybe a glass of water would help?” Gerald thought. He eased himself up from the chair.
“I’ll take ‘Clothing through the Ages’ for $400, Alex.” Muttered a voice from the television.
Gerald stood for a moment in a daze the refrigerator seemed like it was miles away as he stared at it from his position in the living room
“In Ancient Rome, a balteus was a shoulder ‘belt’ formed from the twisted folds of one of these garments.” Alex said.
Gerald took a meager step forward, collapsed to his knees and cried out, “What is a Toga?”
He fell on his belly, waving his fist in the air as he shouted to the television, “What is a toga? Alex!” Gerald succumbed to the pain and heaviness on his chest. He lay there on the living room floor moaning into the carpet. “This can’t be happening.” He thought, “I really was a cheese shred away from a heart attack…only it was bacon. Tiny, delicious, pieces of bacon.”
Jane came out from the laundry room, “Would you stop shouting at the T.V.?! He can’t hear yoh, God! Gerald!” Jane cried. “James! Call an ambulance. Your father has collapsed.”
James rushed down stairs and dialed 911 on his cell phone, filled the dispatcher in on the situation and hung up.
“Dad! Wow, Dad just lay there and take it easy. Breathe big deep breathes!”
“…those medics… better… hurry. We’ve only got three hours… until… the game.” Gerald muttered between labored breathes.
“What?! Dad, there’s no way we’re going to the game this afternoon! You’re, I mean, look at you! You’re having a heart attack. You’re lying on the floor fighting for your life!”
Gerald slowly turned over onto his back, reached up with his right arm and wrapped his hand into the collar of James’ shirt. He tugged James a little to make sure he was paying attention. Looking him eye to eye and said, “We’re going to that game.”
The medics pulled up in the ambulance, hoisted Gerald onto a stretcher and rushed he and Jane off to the hospital.
Laura, James’ wife, met James in the living room where he stood adjusting the collar of his shirt.
“Holy cow, what just happened? I just saw an ambulance drive away. Was it your dad? He looked awful this morning.”
“Yep, it was dad. He’s having a heart attack.”
“Guess he’s not going to the game tonight then, huh? At least not if your mom has anything to say about it; and the doctor. He’ll probably have to stay at the hospital.”
“Oh no. She won’t stop him. The doctor won’t stop him. Nothing will stop him.”
“Are you serious? There’s no way he’ll get out of the hospital in time.”
Three hours passed when James’ cell phone finally rang. It was his mom’s number and he hoped for good news. Laura stood close to hear the conversation.
“Hey Mom, Dad alright?”
“Bring a Boost and candy from mom’s stash and meet me at the field.” Gerald directed.
“What? Dad, no. You need to rest and eat a good meal, c’mon.”
“Boy, you bring that Boost and candy and you have your behind at that field! Mom’s dropping me off. Turns out it was just a little indigestion.” With that, Gerald hung up.
James put his cell phone down and bowed his head as Laura shook hers in disbelief. He grabbed his keys, coat, some candy, and a Boost, just as he was instructed, and left to meet his father at the high school football field.
Night Shift part 2
Jemima sat there, staring at her chained ankles. Tears fell from her eyes and silently hit the tiled floor. What a short life she would live, but she did a lot of big things. She was going to school to be a Therapist, inspired by her connection with her younger brother who is diagnosed as severely Autistic, and her ability to connect with people who were different and had a hard time connecting. She volunteered at camps for kids with special needs. She loved it. She sat there drowning in her sorrows. Giving up. She was going to die along with the other girls in the room.
By now it was just Jemima and the girl with the name tag “eyes.” Eyes adjusted herself in her chair and spoke.
“You know who this Doctor is, right?”
“No. Who?” asked Jemima.
“Well, she’s no longer a doctor anymore, anyway. She had her license revoked after she just went ape in an operating room. I was there. I was a Surgical Technician in her practice when it happened.”
“What happened? Why’d she go crazy?”
“Her daughter died. Doctor Brently had fertility struggles. Her daughter, Cora, was the only child she ever had. Ever could have. Cora was her whole world. Dr. Brently’s husband took his own life when he learned news of their daughter’s death.”
“How’d she die?”
“She was raped, stabbed in the heart, and then set a flame. A she had just broken up with some guy who just couldn’t take it. He got away with it, though; or, as far as I know, it’s a cold case.”
“Oh my God….” Jemima’s intuition was right. She knew there was a reason to feel sorry for the doctor, but she never figured that the same thing she pitied her for would be the same thing that drover her mad.
“Yeah, so in the operating room. It was a guy. He wanted peck implants. Doctor Brently made the first incision in the guy’s chest, and then just kept going. Screaming and yelling like a banshee. She went to prison and got out somehow. I’m not sure. I didn’t want to keep up with it, to be honest.”
“Well what does she want with us? Eyes and heart? I don’t understand what we have to do with anything.”
“I have an idea of why. I remember Doctor Brently commenting on how myself and her daughter had the same color eyes, same length eye lashes, everything. Sitting in here I see our name tags and I shake my head at the absurdity of it all, but the possibility too. I think…”
Just then the Doctor’s mother walked out from the back room.
“Eyes. Come on now, dear. No fast moves. You know what happened to the other’s that tried.”
Eyes stood and let the old woman unlock her chains. She willingly let the woman escort her where the others went kicking and screaming until the mother used her method of silencing them. Just before she entered the back room, Eyes looked over at Jemima and said, “Frankenstein.”
“Quiet, dear.” Said the mother, irritated as she jerked Eyes into the back room and gave Jemima a quick look.
“Frankenstein?” wondered Jemima.
Hours passed. The fluorescent lights hummed and Jemima sat wishing she had a gun instead of mace. She searched her purse one last time. Maybe one would magically appear. A ridiculous notion, but she closed her eyes and prayed anyway and looked again. Nothing.
The doctor’s mother appeared one last time from the back room.
“You, dear. We save the best for last.”
Jemima began to sob as she stood to have her chains unlocked. The woman interlocked Jemima’s arm into hers, “There, there, dear. No need for tears. We’ll get you put all back together.”
Night Shift
Jemima rubbed her forhead. It ached just above her left eye but she couldn’t understand what the cause of the pain was. Last thing she remembered, she was sitting at her bus stop after finishing her shift at the diner. It was the late shift again. She hated the late shift. The diner always seem to bring in the creepy crawlies, you know, folks who just gave off a vibe that made you feel you needed to put your guard up. She waited on a woman that made her feel that way tonight, but more so than usual. She wore medical scrubs, had her curly brown hair twisted up in a clip, but over the course of the day, her hair had loosened into tendrils around her oval face, turns out she had a lot of grey. She wore glasses across a freckled nose and tired, sullen eyes, dark circles draped beneath them. Jemima thought she looked as though she’d been crying all her life. She looked to be around 45 or 50 years of age. Something about the woman made Jemima feel sorry for her, but she’s so dangerous. Why does she seem so dangerous? Her badge read that she was a Plastic Surgeon at the local hospital.
"What the heck is a Plastic Surgeon hanging around this late at night?" Jemima wondered. "Are they on call like Obstetricians? "
Oh well, it didn’t matter to her enough to ask. She didn’t want to think too much about the woman. She’d look over at the doctor sitting alone in her booth, she’d be careful to look through the corner of her eye, and everytime she did, the doctor would be staring at her. Just blatantly staring with a small smirk on her tired face. Jemima sighed and looked at the clock. 3am. Time to clock out and go home. Thank God. Jemima walked over to the doctor to giver her her check.
“Here you go. Take care.” she slid the check across the table to the doctor. The doctor reached her hand up and grazed Jemima’s fingers with her own. Jemima was startled by the touch and looked at the doctor with wide eyes. She was rubbing her fingers against her thumb as if she touched something viscous.
“Cold hands...but a warm heart, I’m sure.” A look of mischief washed across the doctor’s face.
“Oh...yeah.” Jemima laughed uncomfortably. She turned quickly and walked to the kitchen, grabbed her belongings, clocked out, and headed to the bus stop. She sat down and took out her phone to text her mother, let her know she was on her way home. A sharp pain penetrated her kneck, like a wasp sting, then Jemima saw the syringe fall on to her lap and a hand clapped over her mouth. She recognized the touch. It was the doctor. Jemima felt in her bag for her mase, but blacked out.
She wasn’t alone sitting in the waiting room. Other girls of Jemimas age sat in the waiting room of the office of Doctor Wanda Brently, Plastic Surgeon, or at least that’s what the placard read on the door. Jemima noticed a picture of the doctor with her arm around a young girl who looked as though she and Jemima could be sisters, twins even. The other girls in the waiting room did too. One girl had the picture girls hair, another her lips, the other her eyes, and the last girl her exact skin tone. There were pictures of the young girl all over the room, actually.
"Is that her daughter?"Jemima thought.
Jemima got up from the chair to make a run for it, but fell just as soon as she did. Her ankles were chained and bound to the floor, just like the other girls.
Just as Jemima sat back down in her chair, a nurse opened the door to another section of the office and walked out. As she did, she put reading glasses on her wrinkled nose. She wore her curly gray hair in a clip just like the doctor and even had the same facial features. If she were a betting woman, Jemima would win big. She was the doctor's mother. The woman carefully read the name tags stuck to the girls shirts.
“Skin, there you are. Come with me, dear. We’ll get you put all back together.” the old woman unlocked the chains from the girls ankles and escorted her toward the back section of the office.
Jemima looked down at her name tag that read “heart.” And wait, what did she mean “put back together.”?
The girl with the skin looked back at the other girls, fear in her eyes and courage too. She looked at the older woman, then twisted loose from her grip. She ran toward the door, but fell dead once the woman put a bullet in her skull.
Everyone screamed.
The girl with the name tag “hair” vomited. Jemima watched in shock as the old woman placed her 22 back in her pocket, grabbed Skin’s ankle, and drug her to the back section of the office; blood trailing behind.
“Beautiful, bold, but dumb as a box of rocks. Don’t worry dear, we’ll get you put all back together.”