Unhinged

by Barbra Leslie

  I slid over to him and pushed him from his side onto his back, the effort sending waves of nauseating agony down my leg. He groaned, and some white froth came out of his mouth. I hoisted myself up onto him and ripped open his shirt like they taught us in First Aid. I carefully removed his glasses, and did eight chest compressions.

  Leaning forward as though to clear his airway, I slid the corkscrew out of my pocket where I’d stashed it earlier. I told him to open his eyes, and while he was watching, I plunged the business end of the corkscrew into his eye. Once, twice. Pause. A third time. He tried to scream, but I was now kneeling all of my body weight on his chest, over his heart and lungs.

  “That was for Ginger. That was for Jack,” I said softly to him. When he stopped breathing, I slid off his chest, onto my back. I let myself scream once, loudly, for the pain in my leg and the pain in my heart.

  I looked at Fred, who was staring at me. I nodded at him, and he nodded back.

  “Hey,” I called out. I looked at the blood on my hands. I was pretty sure there was some on my face, too. “Kids, it’s kind of messy over here. Don’t look. Dave, keep them there. Don’t call EMS.” I had an idea, and unfortunately for me it was going to involve a delay in getting medical attention.

  “Is anybody dead?” Matthew called out.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Who?” Luke asked.

  “Michael Vernon Smith is dead,” I said.

  Michael Vernon Smith was dead.

  “Ned,” Dave yelled. He seemed very far away.

  Ned was there suddenly, holstering a weapon at his side. I couldn’t fight. I watched Ned rip the tie from around Fred’s neck, and then he was wrapping it into a tourniquet around my thigh. He politely, wordlessly passed me napkins to clean the blood off my face and hands. When I was finished, I told Fred to take his suit jacket off and cover Smith’s face with it. He obliged silently.

  “What the fuck,” I said to Ned.

  “You didn’t think I was going to leave you alone with these two fuckers, did you?” he said. He grinned at me, but I could see he was scared. “Dave would have had me drawn and quartered if anything had happened to you. This was the only way.”

  Too many questions, and right now I had more pressing concerns.

  “I’ve got Percs,” I said, nodding to the pack at my waist. Ned got them out for me, and I forced a couple down. I wished I had time to grind them.

  I could hear Matty and Luke arguing with Dave, who seemed to be trying to hold them back.

  I was gritting my teeth so hard it felt like they were going to break. “Kids, just stay where you are for the moment, okay? I mean it.”

  “Are you hurt?” Matty called over. I was staring at the ceiling now, and I thought my face was probably as white as Smith’s was.

  “Yeah, a little.” As long as you don’t count the bone sticking out of my leg with a floppy foot attached. “Stay the fuck back, guys, I shit you not. Love you,” I added.

  When Dave rounded the bar and saw me lying on the floor next to a very deceased Michael Vernon Smith, with Ned timing my pulse on his watch, the look on his face said it all. And because I’m wired wrong, his face, combined with pain unlike anything I’d experienced to date and the fact that I was lying side by side next to Dead Fuckface Smith, I started with the hysterical laughter.

  “I’m calling 911,” he said, holding his phone.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said.

  He hesitated for only a second. I didn’t have time to question him, or worry about whether he was on the wrong side of all this. Smith’s gun was too far away for me to reach. “Get him away from that,” I said, nodding at Fred and the gun. He could have shot me with it already if he’d wanted, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Dave and Ned were whispering, and one of them was wrapping my leg with a t-shirt. I was trying not to puke.

  “Crush me some pills,” I said to them, “and bring the boys over now. They have to help.”

  Five minutes later, with Matty and Luke’s help, my leg was elevated on a chair, Dave had made the necessary calls, and Luke had put handcuffs around his father’s wrists. Tightly. Ned had crushed a couple more pills and dissolved them in something very strong that he got from behind the bar. And as the oxy began to kick in, the boys sat next to me, Luke holding onto my hand tightly, and they distracted me with a very bad rap about my general badassedness.

  Believe it or not, I’ve had worse evenings.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I had a private ambulance to hospital. Dave had arranged it. Whoever the paramedics were who took care of me, they knew not to ask questions about the dead body lying next to the bar.

  While I was at the hospital being examined and then prepped for surgery, my last-minute idea took shape without me.

  Dave had quickly told Belliveau about how I planned to keep us off the radar of any of Michael Vernon Smith’s acolytes. While I was in an ambulance, Belliveau made some strategic calls to a few of his contacts. After what was apparently a very tense couple of hours, the FBI and the RCMP agreed.

  Michael Vernon Smith’s body was disposed of quietly as a John Doe. He remained on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Belliveau told me later that only sixteen people knew that Smith was actually dead, including those of us who were there that night.

  Fred Lindquist had access to Smith’s banking and emails – the email he used to communicate with his people. All involved were shocked at the lack of firewalls and online security he employed. After some toing and froing with the FBI, an email was composed and sent to everyone on Smith’s email list, supposedly from him, saying that he was retiring and going underground, probably somewhere in the South Pacific. He told his followers to discontinue any “campaigns” – a word he’d used often in his previous correspondence with them – involving any current “income streams”. He alluded to moles, dangers, the necessity to lie low. He promised to get back in touch in a couple of months to advise if he wanted them to continue any activity.

  In the meantime, law enforcement agencies would be working to trace the email accounts of all of his followers. They were confident they’d get most, if not all of them.

  * * *

  While all these arrangements were being made, I was otherwise occupied.

  I was undergoing emergency surgery to have a below-knee amputation of my left leg.

  I was only at the hospital for maybe thirty minutes when two doctors told me that there was too much traumatic damage and medical science can only do so much. They drew on my leg, several inches below my knee, to show me where they would be cutting. They called Darren for me, as I found I wasn’t so good at speaking just then. They said Ned had probably saved my life with the tourniquet. They explained the dangers of not doing the surgery, but if I was listening, I certainly didn’t take it in. The upshot was that this surgery was happening.

  I nodded and signed something, and they gave me a nice dose of a very relaxing drug. After that, I was being wheeled through bright hallways and a bunch of people whose faces were covered were telling me everything was going to go well, and not to worry. I wasn’t worried. As long as I had this drug in my veins, I doubted I’d ever worry about anything ever again.

  Fade to black.

  * * *

  I woke in the recovery room screaming, or trying to scream. The pain in my ankle was beyond the limits of human endurance. But when I looked, my ankle wasn’t there. I was trying to remove my oxygen mask, but a nurse was putting it back on.

  “The surgery went well,” she said. “What you’re feeling is normal. You’re going to go back to sleep for a while.” She adjusted something on my IV pole, and I sunk down into the dark.

  * * *

  The next time I woke up, Darren was there with Mama Estela. He tried to look as though he hadn’t been crying.

  “Everybody’s here,” he said. “Laurence and Skipper flew up.” He saw the look on my face, I guess. “Not here, here,” he said. “Back at the bakery.” I squeezed his h
and, and I think I slept again.

  I got a private room in the hospital, and by the time I was feeling well enough to sit up, everybody was there. Skipper’s wife Marie had flown in from Maine, and Laurence’s boyfriend Antonio had even come up from New York. He was the first boyfriend Laurence had introduced to the family, despite having been out since high school. It was ClearyFest, hospital-style. The nurses on my floor were somewhere between charmed and tortured.

  My family did what my family does. They made me laugh and indulged in a lot of dark humor regarding peg legs and my new career as a pirate. Marie brought me home-cooked food, and Darren and Laurence made sure the nurses were never a minute late with my pain meds. Matthew and Luke had put together a slideshow of famous amputees. Matt spent a lot of time talking to the surgeon, who was very kind and explained the whole procedure in more detail than I had paid attention to. Or wanted to, as a matter of fact.

  Luke was trying to be upbeat, but I could see he was faking it. His first girlfriend had been murdered – not to mention she’d been working as a stripper under another identity – and his father was going to jail. And he and his brother had seen more blood and pain than anyone their age should have to. Than anyone should have to, at any age.

  I noticed that he was sticking pretty close to Laurence. Those two had a special bond. I was glad Laurence was here. I was glad they were all here. For a couple of days, at least, the presence of my family was keeping me sane.

  I’d told Darren, in a quiet moment, that I didn’t want to see Dave. He and the boys had explained to me about Dave showing up and telling them about the message I’d left on his emergency number, and trying to convince them to come down to Helen of Troy in handcuffs – which were large and only partially closed at the loosest rung, allowing the boys to slip out of them easily. Dave had explained to Darren his role in the whole thing, including his relationship with Smith.

  “He told me everything, Bean,” Darren said to me quietly. “He had proof. I’ll let him tell you about that. But you know I wouldn’t let the boys go with him unless I knew they were going to be safe, right?”

  “You didn’t know that, Darren,” I said. I looked at my leg. What was left of my leg. “They weren’t safe. Dave might have been on the right side, but there were guns in that room. There was evil in that room. They should never have been there.” I didn’t add that part of that evil was me, or at least it felt like it at the time. Smith was having a heart attack, probably from the Taser, probably due to a pre-existing heart condition. The old corkscrew in the eye thing was, well, above and beyond.

  Though I couldn’t make myself regret it. He had it coming.

  “No matter what the reason, Dave should never have brought them there,” I said. “And you should never have allowed it.” I wouldn’t let him say anything else about it.

  I needed Dave away from the hospital for the time being. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to revel in the company of my family, especially Laurence and Skipper. I wanted to enjoy a world without Michael Vernon Smith in it, even from a hospital bed, even with one leg. I had a feeling that Dave’s story would break my heart in some ways, and I just wasn’t ready to take anything else on. I’d been living with rage and horror for nearly two years, and the man who’d set it all in motion was finally gone. I needed to sit with that for a while. And, of course, let my family bring me ice cream.

  For a few days after the surgery, I was actually almost fine. I would learn to cope. I had more support than anyone could ask for. I couldn’t look at my leg without a fluttery feeling of panic and horror, but, whether it was down to the meds or my family, the feeling would subside quickly.

  Besides, I was riding a high. Michael Vernon Smith was out of our lives permanently, and I was nearly certain we wouldn’t be dealing with any of his followers again.

  Before long, though, I began retreating to a dark place in my head. It wasn’t as severe as the catatonic depression I’d experienced after hearing about Garrett and Kelly’s deaths, but I wasn’t myself either. I felt empty and hollow, devoid of joy or purpose. I was maimed for life. I had to deal with prosthetics and learning to walk again. And without Smith to worry about and rage against, I didn’t know how to define myself. I had fulfilled my goal. Time and again over the past months, I’d promised myself that if this chapter of my life came to a close, I could live – or die – the way I chose. I wasn’t necessary in the world. The phrase “surplus to requirements” kept rolling through my brain. Sometimes I found myself setting the phrase to music, in my head. It was a refrain that wouldn’t stop.

  I asked Mama Estela to tell the family that I needed some time alone. A couple of days, just to adjust. Their presence had been a balm to my soul for a few days, but when the darkness started to take over again, I couldn’t face having to fake being okay. And the only person I could imagine having around was Mama E.

  I didn’t have enough energy to make the decision to kill myself. I didn’t have enough energy to really eat, or listen to the news, or look at a newspaper. I didn’t want to talk, and she seemed to understand that. The thought of going home and playing the Xbox filled me with dread. I would die there, with no purpose. I would wither away, a shell of a person, a one-legged freak. The people who were dead were still dead. Killing Smith hadn’t brought Ginger back. And in taking his life – and his eye – I’d given my leg.

  More than ever, I felt removed from anyone who hadn’t been through what I had. Who hadn’t committed the heinous acts that I had. I could fool myself that it was all for the goal of making my family safe, but I knew there was more to it than that. I hadn’t needed to stab Smith in the eye. It hadn’t been necessary for me to chop a woman’s hand off, back in Nova Scotia, as she lay dying. My soul was dirty, and no amount of picking up strange men or running myself into collapse would change that.

  And I couldn’t imagine having the energy or the will to start living my new life as an amputee.

  A hospital psychiatrist came to my room. He said he’d talked to Mrs. Garcia, and to Dr. Singh. He talked about PTSD and depression and dopamine and serotonin. I just stared at him, and nodded when he said that after consulting with Dr. Singh, he was upping my medication, changing my medication… doing something involving my medication. And he told me that Mrs. Garcia had assured him that I would be taking it. And, for a while, I was to Skype with Dr. Singh daily.

  I nodded, to shut him up and make him leave the room. Didn’t these doctors know that when a person is having an existential crisis like this, that adding more to the laundry list of things one can’t ever imagine having energy for is actually counterproductive?

  But swallowing pills, I could do. There was no fight in me. Passive acceptance was the best I could manage.

  I was kept in the hospital for an extra week, and someone had wrangled it so that I got to stay on the post-op ward instead of in psychiatric. I was glad to be staying. I still wasn’t allowing any visitors other than Mama E., who didn’t make me engage with her other than to force me to do the basic minimum physical therapy and hygiene. I slept. I had nightmares that I was grateful not to remember. A psychiatric resident came to talk to me, and I listened. When I was forced to speak, I said that I was depressed. I was tired. And no, I was not suicidal.

  On that one, I was sort of crossing my fingers. I was pretty sure I’d kill myself as soon as I felt well enough to organize it properly, but that seemed like a faraway goal.

  I was letting other people fly the plane, and in a small way I started to revel in it. Everybody was fine. I didn’t have to worry about anyone else. One of the nurses said that Dave had come to visit despite the no-visitor rule I had in place, and that he’d seemed very keen to see me.

  I was unmoved. I would see him some day, or I wouldn’t. I would hear what had happened regarding his relationship with Smith, or I wouldn’t. I didn’t really mistrust him. If Darren believed him, I was sure it was all valid and solid. I just really didn’t care.

  * * *

  On the
morning I was being released, I woke refreshed. I felt, if not exactly myself, then a reasonable facsimile thereof. I knew the medication must be working when I smiled at the porter who brought me my breakfast, and I found I had an appetite for it.

  When I took a sip of orange juice and it tasted good, I found I had tears in my eyes. I closed them and said a silent prayer of thanks, to whoever might be listening. Although I knew I wasn’t exactly better, I felt something akin to alive. I thought about what life must have been like for Jack. My depression, or whatever the clinical diagnosis was going to be, didn’t hold a candle to the demons he’d fought for so many years. I thought that if I ever heard another person making fun of the mentally ill, they’d have me to answer to.

  And that thought made me laugh out loud. I must be feeling better if I was fantasizing about smacking people down.

  Mama came in from her rounds – she’d slept the night again, and left unchecked she tended to trail after the nurses, presumably making sure they were up to snuff. She looked at my face, and at my nearly empty breakfast tray.

  “Good girl,” she said, surprising the living hell out of me. Then she kissed my forehead, and I thought I must have stepped through the looking glass. “Strong girl.” I grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Harder to be sick here,” she said, tapping my head, “than sick here.” She tapped my leg.

  I nodded, unable to speak. After a minute, I asked her which of my brothers had been tasked with coming to collect us and take us home.

  “Tall one,” she said, making herself comfortable on the chair next to the bed. She settled in with the latest Spanish issue of People.

  Since my brothers are all between six-two and six-six, it was anybody’s guess. I laughed, and she shushed me, pointing at her magazine. Back to normal, then.

  I was ready to go home.

  I must have fallen asleep then. When I woke up, Dave was standing next to my bed with flowers and a nervous expression on his face.

  “Tall one!” Mama said, pointing at Dave. She cackled. Very funny. Dave was probably five-eight in shoes. I rolled my eyes at her, and she went back to her magazine.