Inflictions

by John McIlveen

  The moon seemed to follow my car’s passage, hovering in the cloudless midnight sky and reflecting dully off my weathered Plymouth Duster. Bet you haven’t heard that model in a few years or decades … if ever. I still have the damn thing, too. I maneuvered the old car habitually along the snaky mountain road, reflecting on the events of my day. These are many when you are an E.R. nurse especially during summers at Lakes Region General Hospital. Talk about your tourist trap hospital. Boat mishaps, motorcycle mishaps, relationship mishaps, pick your poison and we’ll fix it … usually.

  Rounding a corner, I was startled by the sight of a young boy standing in the road and waving frantically. In a way it frightened me, as he was far too young to be out that late. A lone child was about the last thing one would expect to see in the dark depths of New Hampshire’s forests at midnight.

  I slowed with the tortured squeal of worn brake pads and rolled my window down. The boy advanced quickly to my opening window.

  “My word, young man, what on God’s faltering earth are you doing out here at this time of night?” I asked. “You must be lost, you poor child. Am I right?”

  I saw that the boy was filthy, now that he was near the car. An angry-looking welt had blossomed on his forehead and a blood-crusted gash traversed his upper arm, having been sliced right through his shirt. His grime-covered cheeks bore evidence of tears now spent.

  “My mother … my parents,” the boy gasped. “Our plane crashed.” He pointed to the trees behind him.

  “Oh, dear. Where?” I asked. My mind automatically shifted into E.R. gear. I scanned the woods for some clue as to where the plane could be. “How far …” I started, and then asked. “How long have you been walking?”

  The child looked anguished by his inability to answer. “I don’t know. We were supposed to land in Portland, Maine, at 1:30.” He paced in place nervously. “This afternoon,” he added. “They need help. My mom’s hurt. She’s stuck.

  “I think my dad is dead …” he said, barely audible. Despair contorted the boy’s face as he gave away to sobs. I climbed from the car and hugged him tightly. He accepted, clinging to the welcomed embrace as if in fear of drowning. “There’s blood all over the plane.”

  “Shhh. We’ll get help there as fast as possible,” I assured him. “Right now it’s very dark. I think the best thing to do is to get you right to the police station. They’ll be much better able to help you then I would be, okay?”

  “Unh-huh,” he agreed, but a hint of mistrust shone through his eyes.

  I drove as fast as I dared without endangering our lives, which is far from speedy on those damn roads.

  “My name is Elaine Croteau,” I introduced myself, hoping some chatter would detour the boy’s thoughts—if that was possible. “What’s yours?”

  “Daniel Oliver Klein Junior,” he answered in a monotone. Now that he was settling down, it seemed shock was setting in, but at least he was answering. “My mom and dad call me Doc.”

  “Doc, that’s an interesting name. I’m a nurse. Do you someday hope to become a doctor?”

  “No, they call me that because of my initials, dee-oh-kay, just like my dad.” His voice faded out, swept away on some other thought. He was so slight, so frail-looking with his straight blond, nearly white hair. Even flushed and dirt-coated, his pale skin looked as delicate as bone china.

  What dedication! I couldn’t quite swallow the lump in my throat. This young man took it upon himself to find help for his parents. I’m not an authority on children, but I would set wagers that most children his age would have curled up at the crash site, immobilized by fear.

  I noticed that his chin was quivering. “Are you cold, dear?” I asked and flipped on the heater, though it was probably seventy-five outside. I was far too aware of my ineffectiveness regarding the boy’s susceptibility. It was a feeling I experienced seldomly, yet too often during my eighteen years as a nurse. If only I could become magic for one moment. If only I were able to relieve the child’s pain with merely a hug, or a simple snap of my fingers. That was beyond reasoning. One must deal with the here and now, and be sensible.

  Reality.

  “How old are you, Doc?”

  “Nine and a half,” he answered.

  “You are quite an impressive young man. That’s a very noble feat, walking as long and far as you did to find help.”

  The boy simply shrugged. “I think I was knocked out in the crash. I don’t remember the crash. I don’t know how long I walked for,” he reasoned.

  It didn’t surprise me, considering the horrible welt on his forehead. It was a little too close to his temple for my liking. I would have to administer to that once we arrived at the Tilton Police Station. The twelve or so miles seemed like a hundred, especially to the boy, I’m sure. To me, the usually calming road had never looked as desolate and long and as it did that night.

  We arrived at the police station around twelve-thirty. Doc stumbled out of the car completely bone-weary, but too distraught to surrender himself to sleep. We timidly entered the building to observe three uniformed men sharing the good-natured chatter of a quiet, characteristic night at the office. Their smiles liquefied and became frowns of concern upon sight of the bedraggled child.

  The three officers were memorable due only to their ordinariness. They had the looks and faces of common everyday folk, except they were complete opposites of the other.

  Officer Bertholdt, who seemed barely old enough to drive, was as anemic as a pearl and looked as thin as a nail in his baggy uniform. The contradictory Officer White—whose name seemed better suited for the first—was mahogany-skinned and tall, with an athletic glow. The third, a middle-aged man who looked thick-bodied and solid as a bulldog, came to meet us at the desk. “I’m Sergeant Merrifield. Please, come and sit down.” He pointed us to some chairs near a large, cluttered oak desk.

  “Mark, please check the boy’s wounds and see if he needs first aid,” he directed the gaunt Officer Bertholdt, and then asked Doc, “Do you need something to drink?”

  Doc answered with imperceptible nod.

  “Could you see to that, Bob?” Officer White left and returned promptly with two large plastic cups of water and set them on the desk near us.

  I quickly recounted the preceding half hour to Sergeant Merrifield, who responded with a flourish of phone calls and some remark that sent Officer White darting out the door to his cruiser.

  Officer Bertholdt returned with a large plastic first aid kit. He eyed my E.R. whites and pushed the box toward me. “I think you’re better suited to do this,” he explained. “No pun intended.”

  Sergeant Merrifield returned to our side. “I’ve informed the proper authorities,” he explained. “They are releasing a search helicopter, though they are not too optimistic about finding them until daylight. We’ve been able to cut it down to about a twelve- to fifteen-mile radius, going by what the boy said, and the path their flight to Portland would have taken. We also have a list of search volunteers Officer White is calling as we speak.”

  He put a hand on Doc’s shoulder. “We have a cot set up for you so you can rest, you’ve …”

  “No!” Doc responded, instantly alert. “I can show you where they are. I know my way back!”

  “I don’t know,” the sergeant said, looking at me questioningly.

  “Please!” Doc begged, prompting a fresh gathering of tears.

  “I’ll go too … with him. I might be needed.” I volunteered, pointing to my Lakes Region name badge, pleading my case.

  “Very well,” Sergeant Merrifield assented hesitantly. I made a quick call to my husband, and shortly after was seated with Doc in the back of the cruiser.

  Sergeant Merrifield maneuvered the car confidently along the wandering road while Officer Bertholdt sat, expressionless, in the passenger seat. The sergeant’s self-assured manner seemed to be somewhat of a comfort to Doc.

  “I think this is just about where I picked Doc up,” I said, as we rounded a familiar lo
oking curve.

  “It was farther up,” came Doc’s monotone voice. “Near the water-rock.”

  “The spring,” said Officer Bertholdt. Officer Merrifield nodded while a rush of static and some incomprehensible patter erupted from his radio. He muttered some guttural expression into the handset, and then returned it to the seat between the two men.

  “Officer White and his search party just arrived to a designated point on Route Nine. They will start searching in a northwest direction,” he explained. “Seven or eight searchers will be joining us once I call in the locale. We will search southeast, which should cover enough area to avoid an oversight. We will meet in the middle, or at the site.”

  “There!” Doc called out.

  Sergeant Merrifield pulled the cruiser beside a tall ledge formation that trickled a moon-glistened trail of water to a pool at its base. “Good memory,” he commented, then murmured a few more sounds into the handset.

  We waited until the rest of the search team arrived. Sergeant Merrifield had the searchers—all armed with flashlights—enter the woods at about two-hundred-foot intervals. He directed Doc and me to stay close to him, in case Doc should recognize anything from his earlier trek.

  “We have to find the steam and the big crisscross trees, first,” Doc instructed.

  Sergeant Merrifield regarded the boy with honest admiration. “You are quite the trooper, you know that?” he said, and relayed Doc’s message over a walkie-talkie.

  We walked for over an hour, before a strikingly loud voice erupted from the sergeant’s radio. “Found the big ex,” it said.

  Shortly after, we were all looking at the two bisecting birches as if they were national landmarks.

  “Where next, son?” Asked the sergeant.

  “Before this, I remember a small field-like place with a big frog-rock.” Sergeant Merrifield looked doubtingly at the boy, and shrugged.

  “I guess we look for a frog-rock in a field,” he said, and motioned the men onward.

  The next two hours and fifteen minutes were uneventful, save for the heartbeat thunder, swooping light of the passing search helicopter, and a few mild whips from sprung branches.

  This time a different voice broke through on the radio. “Well, I’ll be damned, if it don’t look like an old frog, warts and all.” Neither Sergeant Merrifield nor I could suppress a grin.

  Again, we gathered.

  Next, we would search for a fairly steep hill, at the foot of which should lay the airplane.

  We walked farther, for what seemed an eternity. I began fearing for the boy, whose spiritless and myopic stare was evidence of his total exhaustion. I wasn’t exactly hopping along either. I was on the verge of trying to persuade Doc to abandon the search, to let the others continue while we waited, when he suddenly perked up and pointed to an odd stand of trees.

  “Right through there! Down the hill!”

  We rushed forward to the brink of the hill to witness the scattered remains of a small plane that littered the forest floor. Sergeant Merrifield barked something into his walkie-talkie while we all worked our way down the hill, to the crushed cab of the Cessna.

  Sergeant Merrifield shone his flashlight to reveal two hunched forms in the cockpit of the plane. I moved to the form of the woman who lifted her head to look at me with the face of suffering.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, Mrs. Klein,” I tried to assure her with the false face we learn to camouflage ourselves with after years in E.R. “Help is on the way.”

  I could sense the other members of the search party milling around us, looking for a way to open the tattered hull of the plane. Mrs. Klein jumped visibly at the report of the flare gun, while I reached in front of her to feel for Mr. Klein’s pulse.

  “We’re going to get you out of there,” Sergeant Merrifield promised. “Can you tell us what’s stuck and where you are hurt?”

  “It’s my legs. What about my husband, is he dead? What about Doc! My boy?” she cried desperately.

  “Your husband is alive, but very seriously injured. We have to get you out of the plane now,” I told her.

  “Doc. What about Doc?” she whimpered. “I can feel him behind me, but he won’t answer me … he’s so cold.”

  “Doc’s okay …” I started to say, and then her words hit me.

  I can feel him behind me.

  I aimed my flashlight behind her, and saw the battered body of a child wedged behind the seat, lying on the floor. I squeezed my arm through the tiny opening to feel the child’s throat for a pulse. There wasn’t one.

  The child’s body shifted with the force of my hand, and I saw Doc’s face.

  “How many were on this plane, Mrs. Klein?” I demanded, grabbing her shoulder too roughly.

  “Us three. My family,” she winced, sobbing. “How’s my Doc? Why won’t he answer me?”

  I backed slowly from the plane and started calling for Doc. I searched the hill—behind the trees, and around the wreckage, but I knew he wouldn’t be there. I returned to the plane, in shock, numb. I felt my legs give out.

  Sergeant Merrifield rushed to my side. “Are you all right?” he asked, sounding muffled and miles away.

  “Have you seen Doc?” I heard myself ask.

  He looked around. “No. Why?”

  “He’s inside.” I nodded toward the craft.

  He looked at me uncertainly as he moved toward the plane.

  “In the back seat,” I said.

  He aimed his flashlight in the small gap behind the seat, and then turned his head sharply toward me. Complete bafflement marked his face, severely shocked.

  “How?” he asked.

  Years later I still hear that question.

  How?

  Now I know how and why.

  They don’t.

  What I have told you truly happened, though some of the people involved might deny it through fear.

  Officers White and Bertholdt, Sergeant Merrifield, they still will not talk about it. You see, people fear what they don’t understand.

  Me? I came to terms with it, and now I understand it, though I have never dared to confront Mr. & Mrs. Klein about it.

  They wouldn’t understand either.

  Devotion.

  I swear to this day, when they carried that small body out on that stretcher. When I pulled back the sheet … just to make sure.

  I am sure that he saw me.

  I know he looked at me.

  I heard him say “Thank You.”

  The Bore

  Munroe Dolan sensed his wife’s frustration even through a buffer of sleep. Rising from soporific depths, he opened his right eye and regarded Mekisha Dolan’s subtle profile through a hazy curtain. Backlit by the alarm clock, which glowed 2:47 in jaundiced numerals, the side of her face nearest to him was mostly in shadows. He could see an open eye staring at the ceiling.

  “You all right?” Munroe asked.

  Mekisha released an exasperated sigh, glanced at her husband and quickly returned her focus to the ceiling.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Work issues on my mind, they’re giving me insomnia.”

  Mekisha became a freelance photographer four years earlier. She had quit her job at the Boston Herald after her first photography book Love Is in the Air—a collection of gorgeous nude men and women posed in evocatively compromising positions while suspended in free air—garnered generous praise and some supposedly revered and unpronounceable photography award Munroe could never recall for the life of him. Two similar flesh-laden books later, Mekisha demanded and received a handsome advance from one of the big publishing houses, whose name also eluded Munroe. Was it Abrams or Little Brown? He was never sure.

  A slow but perpetual flow of admirers—most he felt were unsavory men who probably had hairy palms and were proud of their rankings on the ”sexual offenders” list—phoned or appeared on the doorsteps toting copies of Mekisha’s work, breathlessly soliciting inscriptions.

  First printings of Love Is in the Ai
r, especially signed, brought insane bids on eBay, sometimes nearly half his weekly take-home. Not bad, considering it was released at $49.95, and was still found at certain remainder houses for $9.99. Go figure.

  The notoriety of being a celebrated photographer offered Mekisha a hectic but enviable lifestyle, clicking glasses with the elite and rubbing elbows with the famous. Her latest endeavor, cleverly titled In the Jeans, was a collection of beautiful, denim-clad rich and famous relatives, ranging from risqué to ridiculous.

  Munroe, on the other hand, was just an accountant. This pretty much summed up his career … if you’ll pardon the pun.

  “What’s the disaster d’jour?” he asked Mekisha.

  “Oh, two problems actually,” she sighed again. “In three days we have a cover shoot for In the Jeans with Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson. I have to order a cloth backdrop and can’t decide whether to go with black or red.”

  “Black,” Munroe suggested.

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re all light-haired and light-skinned; they’ll stand out more.”

  “But red is a sensual color,” Mekisha said.

  “Then go with red.”

  Mekisha sighed yet again.

  “The other problem?” Monroe asked.

  “We don’t know whether to go with the Hilton or Olsen sisters on the back cover.”

  “The Olsen sisters! Wouldn’t that be like child porn?”

  “They’re well over twenty!”

  “No shit,” he said. “Still, I’d go with the Paris and Nicky Hilton; you expect to see them nude. Mary-Kate and Ashley may stir negative press.”

  “Yeah, but sell a million,” Mekisha said.

  “Then put them on the front cover.”

  “You’re not helping,” she said.

  They were silent few a few moments.

  “God, I’m wired!” said Mekisha.

  Another long silence followed. When she looked at Munroe, he was eyeing her appraisingly.

  “What?” she guardedly said.

  “Maybe we can do something to tucker you out,” he said.