“Cough,” Dr. Brown said, as he grabbed Daniel’s scrotum. He was a kindly southern gent who reminded Daniel of the doctor on Star Trek.
Daniel stood shirtless and pantless in the examining room, braced against the medicinal atmosphere and the doctor’s stethoscope, which sent a chill down his soul. When the doctor finished, he instructed the boy to sit on the examining table. The paper covering crinkled as he fidgeted; Daniel felt like a pork chop about to be wrapped.
Sheriff Maher stood in the corner, a toothpick sticking out from the bristles of his thick mustache and wearing mirrored sunglasses. The man seldom removed his hat even indoors. Daniel wondered if the sheriff took a crap wearing the hat and glasses, too. It was hard to tell exactly what the sheriff was looking at; perhaps at Nurse Shirley, who was one big smile as she assisted Dr. Brown. The nurse had retained her girlish beauty well into her forties, which, unfortunately, caused the half-dressed Daniel to be excited in a most embarrassing way.
The doctor examined the boy’s welts with soft prodding, but Daniel winced when he brushed the injured rib.
“Might be cracked,” the doctor said.
No shit, Daniel thought.
“You the kid whipped the Grundy boys?” the doctor asked.
“I plead the fifth,” Daniel answered, shooting the sheriff a glare.
Maher smiled.
“I fixed them boys up last night. Gotta say, you sure don’t look like the one who won the fight.” The doctor examined the fingers. Daniel winced again when he applied pressure to one of the joints. “Gotta say, them boys had it coming.”
“Wallace…,” the sheriff cut in.
“Now don’t give me lip, Ed. Know how many kids I treated over the years, them boys put in here? It’s a miracle no one’s sued them out of house and home already. Delinquents! You did good, son.”
“Wallace!”
“Just got to learn to duck once in a while.”
The doctor pulled out a ruler and measured the wounds. His expression changed to one of uncomfortable puzzlement.
“Wallace, I need to get him to the station,” the sheriff said. “Can we please take the photos?”
“That rib has to be wrapped, the fingers splinted… and…”
“And?”
“These marks… I’m not sure they were made by the Grundys.”
“Let’s talk outside,” the sheriff said.
“Shirley, photos and bandages please,” the doc said.
Nurse Shirley, it was easy to guess, was proud of her figure because she opted to wear an older style uniform, which accentuated it. Daniel used a pillow to hide his admiration for her curves. If she noticed, she revealed nothing as she took photos of his wounds.
“What’s this?” she asked, fingering a mark over Daniel’s left scapula. The warmth of her touch traveled down his spine to the spot he was trying to deflate. Daniel leaned further into the pillow.
“Birthmark.”
“Almost looks like a tattoo.”
“Yeah.”
The nurse began to wrap his ribs.
“I knew your real father,” she said, out of the blue. “We went to junior high together. John was a great guy. I was sorry to hear of his passing.”
Daniel was only eight when John Hauer, Rita’s first husband, died at the hands of a vicious testicular cancer. Most people believed John was Daniel’s biological father, a belief Daniel seldom dissuaded. Even Rita didn’t realize Daniel knew he was adopted. Clyde could never stand being compared to John, and revealed Daniel’s adoption shortly after he married Rita. It had been a bomb. “You just a borrowed bastard,” Clyde had said, with a smirk on his face.
But no matter how hard Clyde tried, he couldn’t erase the memory of Daniel’s childhood. John was a patient soul who had ushered joy into the boy’s early years. His death was a harsh blow to their little family, which Daniel had coped with better than his mother. To fill the void in her life, Rita chose her new companion swiftly and badly. Clyde Knoffler was an opportunist and a predator. A woman of Rita’s caliber would never have fallen for him under normal circumstances. Ignorant, penniless, he had a magnetism that gave him power over certain women. Clyde exploited Rita’s vulnerability and loneliness. Within months of their wedding he’d already spent the savings Rita and John took years to earn and pushed his new wife to the limits of her sanity. Avoiding reality was now Rita’s primary occupation.
“I was having problems with algebra one year,” Shirley continued, “and John tutored me to a B plus. He was also my first real kiss,” she said with a smile. “Who knows… if things had gone differently, you might have been my kid.”
As far as Daniel knew, he might very well be, anyway. He knew nothing of his heritage. Life was strange. Was it worth all the pain? Sometimes he worked too hard just to exist. He recognized that some people were very happy-couples who enjoyed each other, children whose primary worry was the gossip of who liked whom in school-but for the most part, people suffered. What was the point? It looked like good days only existed so that you would have somewhere to fall from.
Daniel stared out at the police station across the street from the hospital. He’d be going there next to take his mug shot and be fingerprinted. He was a juvenile delinquent, a danger to society. Just then, Clyde brushed past the window. Daniel’s heart jumped.
“Whoa,” the nurse said, navigating a roll of gauze around the boy’s torso. “Did someone walk on your grave?”
“What?”
“Just an expression. You shuddered.”
Daniel wanted to tell her that her grave remark wasn’t too far from the truth. Clyde would fly into a rage over the lawsuit. Once Clyde was in the zone, anything was possible.
“Honey, you’ve got the sweats. Are you feeling okay?”
Daniel stared at the door, waiting to see his stepfather walk in. He considered telling Shirley the truth in the hope that she would defend him. After all, his dad and her kissed in the sixth grade. She was practically family. Maybe she was so fond of him that she’d risk life, limb, and fortune for the child of John Hauer (who was almost hers). A minute went by, then two. It wasn’t that far from reception to his room. Maybe they were keeping Clyde out. The door opened, his heart caught in his throat. It was only the doctor and the sheriff.
“Just about done,” Shirley said.
Daniel had some trepidation about leaving the room, but with the sheriff’s hand on his shoulder he didn’t have any choice. The hallway was busy with healers and patients. They reached the waiting area and turned left toward the exit. Just then, he saw Clyde at the end of the far hall, talking to a young staffer in an office doorway. His arm, braced against the door frame beside her, gave the appearance that the woman was trapped in his clutches. She giggled at something Clyde said just as Daniel walked out of view.