The Power to Live

by Thomas Porter

  "How about The Taurus, in ten minutes?" Elizabeth said.

  "See you then. But I ain't got no matches. Sorry sister."

  At that, Elizabeth turned and walked to the Citgo. Inside, she put a red plastic 2 gallon gas can and a lighter in front of the guy behind the counter. His name tag read, "Mohammad".

  "Anything else?" he asked.

  "Yes. Two gallons of gas," Elizabeth said as she reached into her purse. She revealed a small roll of bills and pulled off a $20.

  Mohammad slid her change across the glass countertop and said, "Pump 3."

  She filled the container with gas, then rooted through the garbage can for a cloth. Finding none, she retrieved a pack of Kleenex from her purse, removed the wrapping and let it blow away in the wind.

  The wrapper skipped across the lot and passed the man from the corner as he walked toward her.

  "Five dollars if you carry this can to The Taurus for me," she told him as he approached.

  "What you trying to get me in for?"

  "Tell you what. Just leave it against the building across the street. Easy money. Can of baby milk, that what you need?"

  "That ain't me who need baby milk. But I'll take your money," he said and picked up the red plastic gas can with his left hand. Elizabeth held out a $5. He took it with his right and stuffed it into his pants pocket.

  Elizabeth waited by the pump while the man walked toward the corner. Mohammad emerged from behind the counter, lingered briefly by the glass door watching her, then returned. Elizabeth heard the man carrying the gas can exchange some words with the others on the corner, their voices unusually high-pitched. Then she walked in that direction herself. As she approached them, one of the men said, "You handing out money today sister? How about showing me some of that love?"

  "Not today, amigo. Busy,” Elizabeth said as she reached into her purse and placed her hand on the cold metal revolver.

  "She busy alright," he said and the others laughed. “What you got in that purse?” Elizabeth ignored their chatter and continued walking toward The Taurus. The man she had paid to leave the gas had done so and was walking back to the corner. She said nothing to him.

  "Be careful, now," he said to her after he had passed.

  At the gas can, Elizabeth carefully rolled the Kleenex into a tight roll and dunked it into the gas. She then unrolled it slightly until it wedged into the opening. With both hands, she picked up the can and crossed the street. A green Ford SUV was parked in front, about a foot from the curb. The expired meter was blinking red and Elizabeth lowered the can between the curb and the vehicle, then slid it underneath. It just fit.

  She then crossed the sidewalk and pulled open the door. Somehow, Elizabeth knew that Mr. Billings was just inside. She could not explain how. She felt it. Inside her chest.

  And there he was, sitting at the desk watching a reality show on MTV.

  "What's on?" Elizabeth asked him.

  He looked up and surprise filled his face. "What the hell you doing out there?" he asked.

  "Getting cigarettes at the Citgo for your skinny boyfriend. Want some?"

  "Since when does Marcos send you for cigarettes?" he said.

  Elizabeth ignored the question. "I heard he's getting a Bugatti."

  "Yeah. Sweet," Mr. Billings said, then turned back to the 48-inch flat screen TV. As he talked, the movement of his Adam's apple caused the backwards letter "R" to bounce up and down. It was the middle letter of the word "MURDER", which was tattooed in mirror image across the front of his neck. He had it done when he was 20, 12 years ago.

  "He said he'd let me drive it," she said.

  "You?"

  "Maybe," Elizabeth replied. "You never know. Where's it coming from, you know? Denver? Isn't that where Samantha's going? To Groghan's?"

  “Yeah, Samantha's going to work for him,” Mr. Billings said to Elizabeth absentmindedly, although his eyes were pulled to the flickering lights of the TV.

  “They taking Lozen and Napolita to Denver too?” Elizabeth asked.

  “You know I can't tell you where those two are going,” Mr Billings said, still staring at the flat screen. “Why don't you get back inside.”

  Elizabeth started edging sideways to the entrance. She had no idea how long the Kleenex would burn before the gas can exploded but she didn't want to find out. As she pushed the door outward, a shout rolled up the stairway in the back of the club.

  Something about the shout didn't sound right to Mr. Billings, who had instincts for such things. He straightened in his chair,pulled his eyes from the TV, and looked into the club.

  A second shout, louder and more distinct than the first, pulled Mr. Billings out of the chair in a snap. As he stood up, he looked back at Elizabeth but she was gone.

  At the same moment the shouted words "Bowery's down" reached Mr. Billings' ear, an explosion blew in the panes of black-painted glass on the club's front, raking him with glass shards. One pierced the backwards letter M that also happened to be tattooed over his jugular. As he lay in the rubble, his blood washed the dust from the floor in an ever-widening circle.

  Chapter 5

  Later that morning, as the Denver-bound bus pulled onto I-80 outside San Francisco, Elizabeth wrote three names in a notebook.

  "Rio"

  "Groghan (McGroghan? MacGroghan?)"

  "Ramses"

  For the last two years, while she, her younger sister Lozen and her adopted sister Napolita were forced to work at The Taurus, she kept her ears open. Any information she deemed potentially useful were jotted into a small spiral-bound notebook, three of which she now carried in her purse. All those months being degraded at the club, being locked in a room for punishment, being beaten when a locked room wasn't considered punishment enough by Marcos or Mr. Billings. All those months directing anger away from her father, despite his betrayal of her and Lozen when he faced death in his living room. All those months pressing her ear against the pipe in her room listening to Marcos' ramblings upstairs, searching through garbage for receipts and notes, plying clients for information. All those months, those years, now boiled down to the three names written on the sheet of paper.

  Rio.

  Groghan.

  Ramses.

  Those were the men who ran organizations in Denver who were heartless enough, ruthless enough, and successful enough to trade a sports car for her sister, and pay God knows how much cash and cocaine for Napolita.

  She sat in the window seat and rested her head against the glass. Her long black hair was pulled forward to hide her eyes. The woman sitting next to her stood up and Elizabeth lifted her head briefly and pulled her lips into a brief smile.

  "Soy regresso."

  "No hay problema," Elizabeth said, smiled again, and gripped the notebook tighter. Her seatmate walked precariously to the bathroom in the rear of the bus, four rows back, gripping the seatbacks to keep from falling. Elizabeth wished she brought a sweatshirt or sweater. Night had descended unusually quickly and the bus was chilly. She brushed her hair away from her dark, round eyes, turned the notebook to a blank page and wrote on top in block letters "R I O". On the tops of the next two pages she wrote the other two names. As the bus rolled toward the Nevada state line, Elizabeth searched her memory and the three notebooks for information tied to those three operators. At one point, on the page marked "Groghan," she wrote "von Broughton (dr?) -> evergreen (elk view drive?)", then wrote a big “X” on the top of the page. She lined over the X several times as she looked out the window. When she wasn't writing or flipping pages she wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm.

  "Frio?" the woman sitting next to her asked.

  "Si," she answered.

  The woman pulled a carry on from the overhead rack, produced a black polyester sweater and gave it to Elizabeth.

  "Muchas gracias," Elizabeth said and, unlike before, flashed a genuine smile.

  "You have beautiful teeth. Very straight,"
the woman said in Spanish.

  "Thank you."

  "You are a very beautiful girl. How lucky you are."

  "Thank you," Elizabeth said. "You should see my sister. Very beautiful. And smart. Looks just like my mother."

  "If that's true, your father must be very happy," the woman said and smiled.

  Elizabeth sat in silence for a minute.

  "I'm sorry. Did I say something wrong?"

  "No. Nothing you said. Thank you for your complements."

  "I see you're busy. I'll leave you alone."

  "Thank you. I think I'll try to sleep now but these buses are so uncomfortable," Elizabeth said and leaned her head against the glass again.

  "Yes," the woman said, then returned the carry on bag to the overhead rack.

  For the next several hours, Elizabeth slept fitfully. She awoke several times, never sure how much time had passed. The bus was quiet except for the driver's radio.

  Chapter 6

  Bowery regained consciousness inside an ambulance, pulled awake by the sound of the siren. It had taken three practiced EMTs to lift him off the floor, onto a stretcher, then up the stairs and into the vehicle.

  Now awake, he remained silent as his clean white eyes, framed by the bloody, sooty skin of his face, scanned the interior of the ambulance. Two of the three EMTs remained in the ambulance after Bowery was finally loaded in and one of them now said, “He's awake.” The second EMT picked up a tethered pen which lay on a flat surface near the ambulance side wall and recorded the event.

  “What was that place?” the first EMT asked, leaning his face close to Bowery's and staring into his eyes.

  Bowery returned the stare and smiled underneath the oxygen mask. About 3 minutes later the ambulance pulled up to the emergency room entrance. From outside, a man pulled the rear doors open and the two EMTs jumped out. The three heaved Bowery's 300 pounds backward and the stretcher legs extended down to meet the ground.

  Inside, the chief nurse said “Room 3”. She sat behind the long counter of the central nurse's station and wore pastel yellow scrubs dotted with little pictures of Donald Duck. The three men changed the direction of Bowery's stretcher slightly but continued to push. Another nurse, a middle aged woman walking in the opposite direction, stared at Bowery as she passed. Her face was a mix of curiosity and fear.

  After being moved to a bed in room 3, he was connected to a monitor by another woman, this one in her 20s. Several minutes passed and yet another woman, middle-aged and wearing plain green scrubs, entered. She retrieved a folder from a clear plastic container on the door, looked at its contents for about one minute, and moved very close to the edge of the bed near Bowery's face, which was partially covered by his bleached hair.

  “Where's my pants?” Bowery asked.

  The doctor tilted her head very slightly and asked, “Are you in any pain, Mr. Bowery?”

  “Bet your ass I'm in pain. Who took my pants?”

  “Are your pants terribly important to you, Mr...” She glanced at the folder. “Mr. Bowery? Your clothes were probably removed by the EMTs while you were unconscious.”

  “Why in the hell would those two boys take my pants off?”

  “To diagnose and treat you. That's standard procedure. I'm sorry but they very likely cut them off and they won't be usable anymore. Your shirt as well. We can certainly find clothes that fit you but that's not important right now. Can you describe your pain to me?”

  “Is my arm broke? That bitch Elizabeth whacked it with an iron,” he said. With his left hand, he brushed his hair to the side.

  “That's what we're going to find out. I'm Dr. Appalach. I've ordered an x-ray of your arm, upper and lower, and the transporter should be here very shortly. You took a nasty hit to your head. I understand you were unconscious when you were found.”

  “That's nothing. But my arm hurts like hell.”

  “You may think it's nothing,” Dr. Appalach said, “but I've also ordered a series of x-rays of your face and skull to make sure nothing is broken. After you are stabilized, we may do an MRI or CT in the morning, depending on how you feel. You may not know it but the side of your face is quite swollen, soft tissue damage mainly although you have a laceration above your right eye. The EMTs stitched you up, although you may not remember.” As she spoke, she removed the oxygen mask.

  “No, don't remember that,” Bowery said. “Are you saying you're going to keep me here overnight?” He was interrupted by a soft knock on the door and Dr. Appalach turned.

  “Excellent,” she said to the transporter standing in the doorway then turned back to Bowery. “Your ride is here. I'll see you when you get back.” At that, Dr. Appalach left the room.

  The transporter, a thin, bald black teenager with chin whiskers, left the stretcher just outside the room and walked to the nurse's station. Bowery watched as he spoke to the chief nurse in the Donald Duck scrubs. She got up, disappeared for a minute, and reappeared with two other nurses, one man and one woman. With Donald Duck directing their movements, the four moved Bowery to the x-ray tech's stretcher.

  “Okay, that's it for my shift. Have a nice day, ladies and gentlemen,” the chief nurse said. She moved to the central nurse's station, picked up a large handbag, and said over her shoulder as she walked away, “The shift's all yours, Janice. See you tomorrow.”

  “Are you well enough to hold this while we move you?” the transporter asked Bowery, indicating the rolling stand for the monitor.

  “Whatever, but it'll have to be my left,” Bowery said.

  And so, with Bowery holding the monitor stand and the transporter and nurse pushing, Bowery rolled out of room 3, through a set of heavy wooden double doors and into the hallway. As the stretcher gained momentum on the smooth floor, the transporter moved to the front to steer.

  “Don't let go, Mr. Bowery. You're doing great,” the transporter said.

  After several turns, several hallways, and an elevator ride, with the nurse bent over at the waist and pushing, the transporter steered Bowery into the radiology department and, finally, into the first open door on the left.

  “He's all yours, Craig,” the transporter said to the x-ray technician who followed them into the open room. Craig was in his 40s, about 5'8”, and wore a curly mop of hair on top of his head.

  “Thanks. I'll call you when I'm done,” Craig said as he leafed through the folder laying next to Bowery. The transporter and the nurse left the room, leaving Bowery alone with Craig. It was not lost on Bowery that since he woke up in the ambulance, at least two others had been his constant companions. The EMTs in the ambulance, the gaggle of nurses in the emergency room, the two kids pushing him through the maze of hallways. Now he was alone with Craig, clearly a pushover. Child's play. Holding his right arm closely to his chest, Bowery rolled to his left side and swung his legs off the stretcher.

  Craig, who by this time was preparing the x-ray machine for the right arm x-ray series, looked up in surprise.

  “Stay still, Mr. Bowery, okay?” he said nervously.

  “Stay still my ass, Craig,” Bowery said as he deftly slid off the stretcher and landed nimbly on his feet, putting to good use a lifetime of practice hefting his weight.

  “No, Mr. Bowery, we really need you to stay put,” Craig said, raising his voice. As Craig reached to a string connected to a call switch nearby, Bowery picked up the monitor and stand with his left arm and threw it at him.

  Some of the wires pulled free from Bowery's chest and he flinched slightly but the monitor had the intended effect and Craig fell away from the switch. Bowery yanked on the other wires still connected to him until he was free of the apparatus. A young woman appeared in the door but moved aside as Bowery passed. Although he was unfamiliar with the hospital he quickly spotted an exit sign. Walking quickly but otherwise ignoring the swirl of x-ray technicians and transporters he left behind in the radiology department, he followed the series of exit signs to a s
tairwell and descended two levels before emerging at the back of the building. About 50 yards distant was a line of trees along the perimeter of the hospital complex. To Bowery's left, close to the building, several employees sat at a picnic table smoking. They looked over to him, startled to see the appearance from nowhere of this 300-pound man with bleached shoulder-length hair, bandaged right arm, swollen face and wearing nothing but fish print boxers.

  ~ - ~ - ~

  If the hospital employees, those men and women who smoked and watched Bowery emerge from the hospital back entrance, were surprised to see his sudden appearance, the chief nurse in the Donald Duck scrubs was doubly surprised when, as she waited at the parking garage exit for the traffic control arm to raise, he reached through her open car window and grabbed the steering wheel with his left hand.

  “Get out,” Bowery said loudly.

  The nurse recovered her senses quickly. “Like hell I'll get out, room 3. Why aren't you in the ER?”

  Bowery, still holding his right arm close to his chest, released the steering wheel of the VW Cabriolet, reached under the door handle, and awkwardly pulled it outward. The door opened slightly and Bowery stepped back, grabbed the window frame, and pulled. The door swung open. Bowery reached in, grabbed the nurse's shirt, and pulled. Her upper body jerked toward the opening. With one hand she held the steering wheel. With the other she grabbed at Bowery but there was nothing to catch but his boxers. While her seatbelt held her in place, she pulled desperately on the elastic until it gave way. His boxers slid to his ankles. Bowery grabbed the shoulder strap and followed it down to the latch. As the nurse pulled and clawed at his fist, he pushed the release button with his fat middle finger and the seatbelt popped opened. Bowery grabbed her shirt again, twisted the material to get a better grip, took another step back, and leaned backward. The nurse had no chance. The momentum of his weight yanked her from the car in a single motion. As the car rolled slightly forward, she hit the pavement and rolled several feet away. Bowery reached across the driver's seat and shifted the car into park, kicked his useless boxers free, backed into the door and sat down, his feet still outside the car. The car dropped several inches lower before Bowery swung his feet in and shut the door. With his left hand he reached across and shifted the car into drive. During the struggle the traffic control arm had risen and Bowery now pressed the gas. Steering with his left arm, he maneuvered the VW past the hospital entrance and onto the street, all the while thinking of only two things: killing Elizabeth and getting some pants.