Travis and Quan

"Welcome back", that's what the nurse said to me. Shortly after I began opening my eyes and things began to come into focus.

"where am I? " I asked as I looked over at the heavy set lady across the room.

"Room 213, in the stillwater medical center. Do you remember what happened?" I looked over and saw my roommate, Travis, sitting in the corner. "That guy" she said as she motioned toward him "saved your life a couple of days ago" I tried to sit up and was meet with an intense pain in my chest. "Stay put, you have some healing to do"

"What happened?" I asked. The last thing that I can remember was hearing a knock at the door of our apartment and getting up to see who it was. I don't remember anything else after that.

Travis sat up and said "Quan stuck you with an icepick, or a screwdriver, or something"

"It missed your heart by a fraction of an inch, barely missed your lung too. You're lucky to be alive" the nurse said.

I sold drugs at the time. Meth, coke, weed, acid, and whatever pills or other things I might have had at the time. Weed was my main market in the college town. I worked as a cook in the famous restaurant and novelty store "eskimo joe's" at the time. So i had no trouble finding people to sell to.

Quan was our downstairs neighbor. He was a light skinned mixed guy who lived with his dad. He was a little bit older than me maybe 23 or 24. He was aspiring to be a big time dealer, and he was a wannabe gangster, but had no real affiliation with the local gangs. All he sold was dirt weed and the occasional pills that he took from the old man. he didn't like me, mainly because I had the bomb weed and everything else, no one wanted his dirt after we moved in. He didn't have an issue with Travis, they went to school together and at one point were pretty close friends. My guess is he was mad about the decline in his nickle and dime sales and that's why he did it.

The nurse said that I was kept sedated for 2 days as they watched my vitals, make sure that I didn't have any other internal injuries, and give me blood. They kept me for another 2 days after I was awake. The whole time I was thinking about ways to repay Quan for his efforts.

Travis took me back home after they let me out. The walk up the stairs was agonizing as I was still healing. As I asked toward the door I could see where the blood had stained the concrete and the carpet just inside as Travis opened the door. "I got a rug doctor", he said. "I hope it will get that up." I went in my room. "I took all the weapons over to mom's house" he yelled from the living room. My gun, swords, knives, all were gone.

"Why, man?" I yelled. He said he didn't know if the police were going to come. He didn't call them, he just took me to the ER. The hospital called them and all the statements were taken there. He said that he found me in the door when he got home and didn't know who did it. They never even came to the apartment.

The next day I decided to leave, to go back to Lawton. The city where I lived before so I got my stuff all packed up and started loading it up. It was late so I took a bag of weed back in to smoke with Travis on my last night there. The rent was paid for the next two months and he has a job, so I knew he would be ok.

Thee next morning as I was getting ready to leave, I saw Quan out the window. He was in the parking lot trying to get rid of some bags. I looked all over the apartment for anything that I could use. I found Travis' tennis racket in the closet, grabbed it and walked out the door. Still sore a walked quietly up behind Quan. I said his name mid-swing and broke all the strings on the racket across the side of his face. I got a big adrenaline rush and ran back up the stairs. I grabbed my keys and gave Travis 2 twenty's from my pocket for the tennis racket. I told him if call when I got back to Lawton and I headed out. When I called he told me that I had broken Quans jaw and he had stitches all over his face. He said I left "waffle marks"

All I said was "good". We talked for a little bit and I have spoken to him maybe twice in the twenty years since then.