Invasive Procedures

by Aaron Johnston

  “What I mean is, maybe there’s other people who want to be your friend.”

  She snorted. “Like who?”

  “Like me.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “You?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “You want to be my friend?”

  “Yeah. I kind of thought we already were friends.”

  She looked surprised. “But I’m ugly.”

  He could only laugh. “No, you’re not. You’ve helped all of us through this. Monica, don’t you think Dolores is a beautiful person?”

  “The most beautiful.”

  “See? Frank, what about you?”

  “One in a million. Gem of a woman.”

  “See?”

  “I like you,” said Wyatt.

  Byron laughed. “See? Even Wyatt likes you, and he’s an incredibly tough judge of character.”

  “Ya’ll just trying to be nice because you feel sorry for me.”

  “If people tell you they want to be your friend, Dolores,” said Byron, “you either tell them yes or no.”

  “We waited for you, Dolores, because you’re one of us,” said Frank. “You want to belong to somebody, you belong to us.”

  “That’s right,” said Byron.

  She looked at each of them, then nodded, beaming. “All right. Sounds good to me.”

  Frank gathered their wet clothes once they were finished, as well as everything else they had touched, and threw them in the trash. Then he tied off the trash bag, took three more bags from the utility closet, and put each bag inside another until he was certain it wouldn’t break open if snagged. Then he threw it in the Dumpster out back.

  When he came back inside Monica was preparing more syringes.

  “Again?” said Dolores. But she didn’t put up a fight. In fact, she even rolled up sleeve without being asked.

  Once everyone had received a dose, Monica got the tweezers out of the bag. “I need to take out those staples,” she said.

  “It can wait,” said Frank.

  “It’s waited long enough. Take your shirt off.”

  He removed his shirt and lay on the cold concrete. She knelt beside him and delicately pinched each staple before pulling it out. Frank felt awkward there on the floor with her so close to him. Rather than look at her while she worked, he looked just past her up at the ceiling tiles.

  “There,” she said, removing the last one. “That should feel better.”

  “Thank you.” He got up and quickly put his shirt back on. It did feel better. Much better. In fact, he realized that most of the discomfort he had been feeling was from the staples and not from the wound itself.

  “Now what?” said Byron.

  “Dinner,” said Frank. He walked to the junk-food vending machine in the corner and kicked in the Plexiglas. It took three sturdy kicks to make a hole big enough to reach everything. The machine hadn’t been stocked in some time, but there were enough potato chips and candy bars to go around. Wyatt and Dolores couldn’t have been happier.

  After fifteen minutes, Frank was wishing he hadn’t eaten so many.

  “Who wants the last Snickers bar?” asked Dolores.

  “It’s all yours,” he said.

  She tore into it while he went back to the utility closet for more trash bags. He filled them with the Plexiglas shards and the food wrappers. Then he emptied the bottle of spray glass-cleaner and filled it with bleach. While the others watched, he sprayed down everything they had touched: the dryer, the vending machine, the countertops. He even went back to the office and sprayed the window he had looked through and the door he had knocked on.

  The remainder of the bleach bucket was emptied onto the floor. When he was done, the laundromat smelled so strongly, it was doubtful anyone would enter without hosing the place down first.

  The others were waiting outside. “Any luck finding a car?” he asked.

  “One,” said Byron. “Over at that campsite. Man and a woman. I think these are their clothes.”

  Frank spotted the tent and car in the distance.

  “But they’re sleeping in it,” said Byron. “Tent must have flooded in the rain.”

  “No good then. We can’t risk infecting them. We’ll have to keep looking. Meanwhile, we stay off the road. They might be looking for us. Wyatt, you want piggyback or are you walking?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Monica. “He’s on a sugar high. He could carry us on his back.”

  “I’ll walk,” he said.

  They stuck to the woods but stayed close to the road. Occasionally a car would pass. “Why don’t we flag one down?” asked Dolores.

  “Same reason we shouldn’t have flagged down the boat,” said Frank.

  “So we have to find a car with nobody in it? Oh, that’ll be a cinch out here in the middle of nowhere. People are always abandoning perfectly good cars on the side of the road.”

  “You’re a woman of faith, Dolores,” said Frank. “Pray for a miracle.”

  “Oh, I’m praying already. Trust me. And when this car magically falls from the sky, then what? You going to break inside and jump it? Or should I also pray that the key be in the ignition?”

  “Key in the ignition is preferable,” said Frank.

  Dolores grunted in exasperation.

  They passed a road sign, and Byron went up to the street and read it. “Says we’ve been in Kings Canyon National Park.”

  “Where’s that?” asked Frank.

  “Couple hours north of LA along the Sierra Nevada.”

  “Couple hours in a car, maybe” said Dolores. “Not on foot.”

  “Then I suggest you keep praying,” said Frank. She gave him a look that said she was half annoyed and half amused.

  They got moving again, and no one said another word for two miles. Finally Wyatt came and walked beside Frank and broke the silence. “Where’d you learn to shoot a gun?” he asked.

  Frank looked at him. He looked like an adult who’d been hit with a shrink ray in those clothes. “In the Army,” he said.

  “I thought you said you were a doctor?”

  “I am. I work for the military.”

  “Oh. Is that where you learned how to fight?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Think you can teach me a few moves?”

  Frank raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

  “There’s this boy in my class. Keener Kiner. Big guy, total jerk. He picks on me and my friends.”

  “Anyone with a name like Keener Kiner has no right to pick on anyone.

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He punched me in the stomach.”

  “Oh. So you want learn how to punch him back?”

  Wyatt shrugged.

  “Did you tell your teacher he picks on you?”

  “That’s what my mom said. But it doesn’t work. If I told, then he’d really come after me.”

  “Hitting someone isn’t easy, you know? It’s not like in the movies. It really hurts your hand. It’s like hitting a tree.”

  “So you’re not going to teach me?”

  “I could, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Let me guess. Now you’re going to lecture me on how it’s wrong to fight.”

  Frank smiled. “No, I’m going to give you a dose of reality. Let’s say Keener the wiener corners you, and you sock him one. And let’s even assume it’s a really good punch. What’s going to happen next?”

  “Um, he’s going to hit me back?”

  “Right. And if he hits you, and remember he’s really ticked at this point, what’s that going to feel like?”

  “It’s going to hurt,” said Wyatt.

  “Right. And probably a lot. And then what are you going to do?”

  “Um, hit him again?”

  “OK, so you hit him again. Now you’re hitting each other. Boom boom boom. How is this going to end?”

  “Me getting my butt kicked?”

>   “No offense, but probably so.”

  “Well, at least I stood up to him. That’s something, right?”

  “What good will it have done you? Do you think Keener is going to suddenly leave you alone? No, now he’s proven he can kick your butt. He’s even more confident than he was before. And while your friends might be impressed that you got in a few good punches, that doesn’t change the fact that you got your butt kicked.”

  “But what if I did beat him? It’s possible.”

  “OK, let’s assume you beat him. Bloody lip, the works. All your friends put you on their shoulders, and you’re a hero for a day. But what happens tomorrow? You think Keener is going to play fair? No, he’s a creep. He’s got to save face. So he’s going to get his buddies, or worse, some older kids, and they’re going to ambush you. And then you’ll really get your butt kicked.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Ignore him. Never be alone. If you see him coming for you, go hang with an adult.”

  “So I run?”

  “Running from a fight you can’t win doesn’t mean you’re a coward. It means you’re smart. What do you think we’re doing now? You think I should have stayed in the barn and fought all those Healer guys, stuck it out, showed them that I wasn’t a coward?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why? They’re bigger than me, stronger than me, like Keener is to you.

  “But you did fight some of them.”

  “Only because I had no choice. Only because the other option was much worse. Every other time I ran. I got out of there. You think that makes me a coward?”

  “No. But even if I’m not a coward the other kids will still call me one.”

  “Maybe. Do you care?”

  Wyatt shrugged.

  “Well, that’s the question you have to ask yourself. What’s more important to you, getting called a coward by some snot-nosed wienies who are no braver than you, or getting your butt kicked repeatedly until you graduate from high school?”

  “My dad would probably say getting called a coward.”

  “Well, your dad is entitled to his opinion. As for me, I have better things to do than get pummeled every day. They can call me whatever they like.”

  The forest suddenly opened to a wide field beyond which were acres of fruit trees lined in neat rows. The road curved sharply to the south. Frank and Wyatt stopped and waited for the others.

  “Well, what do you think?” said Byron. “Should we stick with the road?”

  “This orchard belongs to someone,” said Frank. “I say we check it out.

  No one objected. They walked down the nearest furrow and soon reached a dirt road that divided the orchard and led to a small farmhouse. All the lights were off, but a beat-up white pickup sat parked out front.

  “It’s quiet,” said Monica.

  “Do you think anyone’s home?” said Byron.

  “Let’s hope not,” said Frank. “Stay here.”

  Monica crouched by the road behind some trees with the others while Frank snuck up to the house. When he was only a few feet from the truck, a dog chained to a post in the yard sprang to life from the shadows and began barking loudly.

  “Shut up, dog,” Dolores whispered.

  “It’s going to wake them,” said Byron.

  Sure enough, the front porch light came on. Frank hid behind the truck just before the front door opened.

  A middle-aged man in an undershirt and boxers shuffled outside. He yawned, scratched his backside, saw nothing of interest in the yard, then told the dog to shut up. When it didn’t, he picked up one of the shoes by the doormat and pitched it. It hit the dog unawares, and the dog retreated and fell silent.

  “Well, that’s not very nice,” said Dolores.

  “Shh,” said Byron.

  The man mumbled a few obscenities and disappeared inside.

  Frank went around to the passenger door—opposite the dog—peeked inside, then opened the door and crawled in. The dog went berserk, barking, pulling at his chain, pawing to get free.

  “What’s he doing?” said Byron. “They’re awake. He can’t jump it that fast.”

  The truck engine roared to life.

  “Okay, maybe he can.”

  The truck peeled out of the yard in reverse just as the man in boxers came running out of the house yelling. Frank spun the wheel, and the truck spun with him. There was a grinding of gears, and the truck shot forward and bounced up onto the dirt road. The man in boxers ran after it, while the dog pulled vainly at his chain. Monica and the others scrambled to the roadside, and Frank skidded to a stop, reached across the cab, and threw wide the passenger door. “Get in.”

  They didn’t need to be told twice. Monica and Wyatt climbed in first, followed by Dolores and then Byron. Frank floored it before Byron had the door closed.

  “How the hell did you do that?” said Byron, yelling over the engine.

  “Thank Dolores,” said Frank. “The key was in the ignition.”

  Frank stuck to the rural roads, always driving in a southeasterly direction—the bobbing compass on the dashboard proved useful in that regard. The LCD display on the radio said it was one in the morning, which explained the light traffic.

  The cab was unmercifully cramped. What was intended to seat three, now accommodated four and a half. It helped that Wyatt sat on Monica’s lap, but it didn’t make Monica any more comfortable. And when Wyatt fell asleep, it became even more awkward as she tried to cradle him without invading anyone else’s space.

  The heater worked, at least, much to Dolores’s delight. And moments after Frank turned it on the lowest setting, Dolores slumped onto Byron’s shoulder, fast asleep. Wedged against the window Byron had little else to do but join her, and shortly fell asleep as well.

  “You think you can stay awake?” said Monica.

  Frank rubbed his eyes. “If I was driving alone I’d have the radio blasting and the windows down.”

  “You want me to drive?”

  “No, I’m good.” He tried to press himself more into the driver’s side door to give her another inch of room. “You can’t be comfortable holding him that way. Why don’t you lay him across everyone’s lap?”

  “I don’t want to disturb them,” she said.

  “An atom bomb wouldn’t disturb them. Go ahead.”

  She bent forward and lifted Wyatt’s legs gingerly onto Byron and Dolores’s lap. Then she sighed and wiggled her leg. “My leg fell asleep.”

  “It’s all the rage,” he said. “Sleep, I mean.”

  “Right.”

  He had meant it as a joke, but knew it was a stupid thing to say as soon as the words came out. Classy.

  “I hope he didn’t talk your ear off back there,” she said.

  “Wyatt? No, not at all. After everything he’s been through, it’s good for him to talk.”

  “I think he’s kind of taken by you.”

  “Well, I hear he’s a tough judge of character, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  She smiled. “You have any kids?”

  Once again, the question had snuck up on him. “A daughter,” he said finally.

  “How old is she?”

  “She would have been eight this year. She died about a year and a half ago.”

  There was a brief silence. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been.”

  “It wasn’t sudden. She’d been sick for a long time.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she repeated.

  “Don’t be. She made me very happy.” He smiled to himself. “You would have liked her. She was a crazy kid. Loved the Bee Gees.”

  “The Bee Gees?”

  He laughed. “I know, what six-year-old loves the Bee Gees? My father was to blame. He brought an old record player and a bunch of albums for her hospital room. She really got a kick out of it. Most of the nurses had never even heard of Saturday Night Fever. She
even did this little dance in her bed with her hips and her hand. Cracked me up.”

  Wyatt squirmed a bit to reposition himself, then lay still.

  “What was her name?” Monica asked.

  “Rachel. Rachel Evelyn.”

  “Pretty.”

  “Names from my wife’s family”

  “And what’s your wife’s name?”

  “Ex-wife, actually. We divorced shortly after Rachel died.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Rachel was kind of the glue holding us together. When she was gone—I don’t know, if we had had other children, maybe it would have been different. But she was so sick, even early on, that more children was the farthest thing from our minds. Not because we were disappointed with her. Not at all. She just needed all of our attention. You know what I mean?

  She nodded.

  “That’s probably more information than you wanted to hear,” he said.

  “No, I don’t mind. In fact, it’s almost therapeutic to hear someone else talk about their divorce. It seems like that’s all I’ve been doing for the past year, getting a divorce.”

  He glanced at her.

  “It was all finalized a few months ago. Kind of a surreal experience. Just sign your name on some legal document and whoosh, everything you thought you had structured in your life is suddenly gone.” She became quiet, and after a moment, she reached up and wiped her eyes. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m sort of an emotional wreck. And not about my divorce, either. About everything.”

  Frank kept his eyes on the road. He wouldn’t disturb her. Let her have her cry.

  “You never met Jonathan,” she said, sounding calm again. “Not alive, I mean. He was good kid—misguided, maybe, but a good kid. With a little help, a kid with a future, maybe. And now, nothing.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for—”

  “Why not? It was my doing, wasn’t it? I killed somebody else’s kid to save my own, didn’t I? And Hal and Nick. You saw the barn fall. They couldn’t have survived that.”

  “Then the fire killed them, not you.” He said it as convincingly as possible, even though he didn’t fully believe it himself.

  “Don’t be nice to me. Please. I don’t think I can handle that.” She was quiet for a long time after that, staring out the windshield as if in a trance, the only sound coming from the hum of the engine and the low purr of the heater fan. “I never thanked you,” she said. “For getting Wyatt. Before you left. You risked your life. After everything I did to you. I’m grateful for that.”