methinks

Feed n' Seed

He fell through the door and limped across the empty waiting room to the reception window. He pointed his revolver at the one nurse behind the counter.

"I need a doctor. Don't touch the telephone. I'll shoot your pretty face."

She took her hand off the ear piece and started to cry. He reached over the counter and yanked the thick black phone cable from the wall.

"Is the doctor here?" he crescendoed from whimper to shout.

"The doctor is eating lunch."

"Well, if it wouldn't inconvenience you, do you think you could tell him there is a man here who's been shot. Go!"

The nurse swiveled in her chair and ran like she was wearing a skirt, even though she wasn't, to the first of two examine rooms. She knocked before entering.

As he came out the nurse pointed towards the wounded man and flapped her hand up and down at her assailant.

The doctor beckoned, "Would you mind coming around back here? Into the examining room to get a better look at you."

The wounded man limped back across the waiting room, streaking the blood that he'd dripped when he first came in, then locked the main door.

"Both of you in that room," he barked. "You think I'm an idiot." The gun was brandished some more.

The doctor put his arm on the nurse's shoulder and guided her into the exam room. The limping man slumped his way around the reception and back to the exam table. The exam rooms had no locks, so he swore loudly and pumped his fists to convince them that he really would shoot them if they tried to leave.

He sat on the edge of the table supporting his weight with his right leg. He lifted the left leg up with the doctor's help then threw his body back to get the other leg up. The table was smeared in bright blood. His face was equally red.

"What do we have here?" the doctor asked, even though a shotgun wound to the back of the left thigh was clearly visible.

"I got shot by a shot gun," he dutifully answered. Being on the table, for an instant he felt like a patient. "Is it bad?"

"You'll be fine. Don't worry." he lied. His leg would certainly need amputated; the shot had shattered the bone. It was incredible he could even limp.

"Who did this to you?"

"What does it matter who did this to me? Fix it."

"Well, I can't just fix it. It's a big wound. You're losing a lot of blood. I would call the ambulance, but you took care of the phone."

"No calls. I'm not going to no hospital. You'll fix me here."

"Listen, I can't just patch you up."

"I'll make you a deal, you fix me up and get me back on my feet and I won't shoot this pretty nurse in her pretty face. How's that sound, doc?" He pointed the gun at her and imitated a coy, girlish smile.

"Sure, I think I can fix you up. Nurse, would you get me the morphine." She drew a syringe full.

"What's the morphine for? I don't need no morphine? You think I'm an idiot? You trying to drug me?"

"It will help with your pain."

"Who's feeling pain. I don't feel no pain."

"You'll need to roll over then, on your stomach."

"Get over here on the floor and lay down," the wounded man ordered the nurse. She did and he rolled over on the table. His gun extended downwards towards the floor and her face.

"First I'm going to clean out the shot from the area. This might hurt."

"I don't feel no hurt. Get a move on it."

The doctor began to remove the lead pellets from the man's muscle with forceps. The wounded man grimaced in pain.

"Who did this to you?" the doctor asked again.

"Damn it, what does it matter? Some thug at that Feed n' Seed."

The doctor stopped cleaning. The nurse stopped crying.

"Is he okay," the nurse asked lying on the floor.

"I had the cash and was leaving when the bastard shot me in the leg. I planted one right in his chest."

He would have half-chuckled except the doctor injected the morphine deep into his thigh. The man craned his neck to protest as the nurse slid out from under the barrel and grabbed the man's wrist with both her hands. The doctor added his muscle to the struggle, but the wounded man's resolve quickly faded into happier thoughts.

The doctor grabbed his emergency bag and followed the sprinting nurse to his car.

"He'll be fine, Susan, don't worry," he said as they sped towards her husband at Feed n' Seed.

Posted by dacriss at December 13, 2004 09:37 PM | TrackBack