Living the Good Death

by Scott Baron

  “Hey, what did you say about a blue watch?” she grilled the inebriated man.

  “You’re a pretty girl,” he said, eyeing her up and down with his bloodshot peepers.

  She ignored the comment. “The watch?”

  “What? Oh, the watch… blue, so blue. And shiny! That’s the key, ain’t it, though? All about time. Time marches. Marches on. Hmm… marching bands, wedding bands! Band-Aids!” He paused his incoherent rambling, not for breath, but to take a big swig from his brown-bagged bottle of high-octane rot-gut.

  “What do you know about a blue pocket watch? Have you seen one?”

  He took another swig.

  “Huh? Oh yeah, I seen it! Important, that is! Or… I dunno. Where’d it all start anyway? Two by two, watches of blue.” He seemed amused with that bit and laughed so hard he tipped over, wheezing from the exertion, then promptly passing out when his body finally reached a lateral position.

  “Wait, what did you mean important?” Dorothy persisted, but it was no use. The man was quite unconscious, and likely to stay that way for some time.

  He said something about where it all started. I wonder… he couldn’t possibly mean the street where… A look of revelation flashed in Dorothy’s eye. Could he actually be a seer? An oracle?

  She wondered if it could be possible that maybe, just maybe, this was a sign, some kind of hint or direction guiding her where she needed to go.

  Where it all started.

  At random, she grabbed a passing man, startling the hell out of him with the abrupt contact and surprisingly strong grip.

  “There’s a park near an old flophouse hotel somewhere not too far from here. Older part of town. Do you know where that is?”

  “Uh…”

  “A park. Small slope, bus stop. Do you know it?”

  He did a double take as the adrenaline surge that had flooded his system subsided as he realized she wasn’t a mugger, or even a filthy vagrant for that matter, but just a young woman dressed in mismatched clothing. His pulse slowed as he regained his composure.

  “What, you mean Lafayette Park? It’s just a few miles that way,” he said, pointing down the road.

  “And Donny’s Happy Hour?”

  “Yeah, it’s maybe half a mile from there, but I’m not sure you want to go to that place. I mean, it’s not really the safest of spots for women.”

  “I’ll manage,” she huffed in reply, then spun on her heel as she let go of his sleeve. She had a destination in sight, and with it, a possible answer to the how and why of her situation. With purpose driving her feet on their way, she set off at a quick walk.

  “Hey, you’re welcome,” the man called after her, but she was already long gone.

  She arrived at the dive bar, having made surprisingly good time on her walk, though that could easily be attributed to her extreme motivation to figure out what was really behind her present situation.

  Okay, that’s the place, she thought, and I was standing right over there. She shifted on her feet, scanning the area as she stood across the street from where she’d first failed to take that poor drunk’s life. Andy was his name, she recalled, before she stepped out into traffic.

  She made a beeline right for the spot she’d been all those days ago, only this time her passage was a different story. Cars shrilled their horns, and tires screeched as thousands of pounds of metal and rubber resorted to evasive maneuvers to avoid hitting the strange young woman crossing the middle of the road.

  Even though she had been trying to kill herself and still had no fear of death, having recently survived the horribly painful experience of being hit by a bus, and recalling the agony that followed, Dorothy found herself unconsciously flinching from the near misses in spite of herself.

  “Watch where the hell you’re walking, asshole!” shouted a woman from a black SUV before returning to texting and speeding while drinking her iced soy chai latte.

  Dorothy’s ill-fitting shoes crunched to a halt at the curb, just as her slick black boots had so many days before.

  Am I supposed to feel something? Because I don’t feel anything here.

  Everything looked the same, down to the vomit stains on the sidewalk and food wrappers and cigarette butts littering the gutter, but she felt nothing.

  Come on, this is where it started, she thought. Wait, this is where it started on the other side. What if I’m doing this wrong? What if I need to go where it all began on this side?

  Finding the run-down hotel required a bit more searching than she’d anticipated after having so little trouble ferreting out the bar she’d been looking for.

  It took far too long for her liking before she finally stumbled upon the ancient (by American standards) building. She scanned the skies with a concerned look, troubled that the light was already shifting. It was getting late in the day, and if this didn’t pan out, the long walk back to the bus depot would be a cold one.

  In addition to her unease with her investigative prowess, she also noted that her stomach now growled with a renewed intensity as she surveyed the exterior of the old hotel. Focusing on her quest, Dorothy pushed her hunger aside and placed her hand on the worn, brass doorhandle.

  She still didn’t feel anything from the location, no spark or intuition, but she hoped her luck would change once she stepped inside.

  She took a deep breath, then pulled.

  Walking the dimly lit labyrinth of the filthy hotel’s corridors, Dorothy realized she didn’t remember which exact room she’d woken up in. Of course, she hadn’t exactly been paying the most attention to room numbers as she fled the building that morning, but she did think the current hallway she was walking, the one with the ancient carpet, smoke-stained walls, and flickering lights, held some promise.

  Then again, for all she knew, every hallway might be in a similar state of disrepair.

  With her arms slightly raised from her sides, Dorothy paused, stood silently in the hallway, and focused, closing her eyes and reaching out with her senses, trying to connect with a trace of the fateful day gone by.

  What is that? I think… I think I feel something… maybe? No… There’s nothing here.

  She stood there a long moment, her eyes still closed as she desperately tried to connect with anything that could put her on the right path. The only thing she felt was her spirits fall even further. All that walking, all that searching and effort, for nothing.

  “I’m going to fucking kill you!” a man down the hall shouted.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, who’s got the knife, Eddie? Who’s got the fucking knife?” a shrill woman yelled back.

  Further sounds of a violent altercation escaped from behind the thin door, and thinner walls, echoes of breaking glass and furniture crashing that abruptly pulled Dorothy from her attempts to reconnect with any shred of hope. She opened her eyes just as the hotel desk manager rounded the corner, accompanied by a pair of uniformed police officers.

  Dorothy felt her heart race at the sight of them, but she wasn’t their quarry, and they passed her by with only a cursory glance.

  “I’m telling you, they’ve been at it all afternoon, Officers. They’re tearing the place up! Ya gotta do something,” the manager pleaded.

  As the police pounded on the door, Dorothy made a hasty, but calm, escape down the hall. Once out of their line of sight, she increased her stride and sped out of the building, disappearing into the bustling crowd outside.

  CHAPTER 13

  It took Dorothy hours to make her way back to the warm shelter of the bus depot. A few wrong turns, stemming largely from exhaustion and low blood sugar, had led her on a rambling, circuitous path. It was well past dark when she finally slid her hungry and aching frame down onto a bench, her dogs barking in weariness, her body aching in tandem.

  She sensed someone looking at her.

  “You’re new,” said the middle-aged woman staring at her from the other end of the bench.

  She was dressed in a hodgepodge assortment of clothes, similar to Dorothy�
��s attire, but quite a bit more worn. All of her worldly possessions appeared ready to burst from their home in a pair of over-stuffed suitcases she had propped next to a shopping cart full of bottles and cans. Still, Dorothy noted, the woman’s eyes lacked that dangerous look she had come to recognize, and avoid, with increasing regularity since hitting the streets.

  “Yes, I am. I just got here last night,” she cautiously replied.

  The woman looked her up and down. “You eat today?”

  Dorothy shook her head.

  She glanced at the motley bunch camped out in the terminal and saw that now, come sundown, most were dining on whatever they’d managed to scavenge, beg, or steal over the course of the day.

  The woman leaned over and dug down in a paper bag at her side, then pulled out a bagel. Breaking it in half as she slid down the bench closer to Dorothy, she reached out and offered her the piece of high-gluten heaven.

  “Here,” the woman said, handing Dorothy the bagel. “We look out for one another. I’m Beth.”

  “Thank you,” was all Dorothy managed to say before her hunger took hold and she sank her teeth into the chewy delight. Her salivary glands trilled with joy, shouting “eat it all!” while her rational mind tried to convince her to go slow and make it last as long as she could. She forced herself to savor each bite, until her hunger finally lessened and she felt her body relax noticeably onto the hard wood bench.

  At ease, at least somewhat, she reflected that, despite a few rough spots, the day could have been much worse.

  That evening was destined to be far less pleasant for another group of men and women, standing at attention, the focus of stern scrutiny as they lined up in a quiet, antiseptic-tinged hallway far across town.

  Doctor Vaughan paced in front of his assembled staff, the anger almost visibly bleeding off him, like a smoky shadow beast lurking behind its master, waiting to snatch up and bite the head off of anyone who dared utter a word, or even blink in a manner he disapproved of.

  He paused his pacing for a moment near one of the closed doors to an adjoining wing.

  Doctor Vaughan had chosen his location with a purpose. He was not a man who did things without a plan, and he had a point to make. While the staff stood silently at attention, he reached out his hand and rattled the door.

  It remained locked.

  He turned and walked back to the waiting employees and stopped in front of them, fixing them with a silent gaze long and hard enough to make them shift in their shoes.

  “All doors into or out of each wing are to remain locked at all times.”

  He spoke in a calm and deliberate manner, but there was no doubt about the anger lurking beneath the surface, ready to claim any one of them as a victim of his wrath.

  “Additionally, all doors to any exterior area are to remain locked at all times,” he added. “There are no exceptions. Are we all absolutely clear?” he asked, fixing the group with a look of bare contempt.

  The group answered in unison, or at least what passed for unison from a non-military crew.

  “Yes, sir!” they cried out as if their very jobs depended on it. And on this evening, they very well may have.

  He nodded, allowing himself the slightest hope that this lesson had penetrated their thick skulls. He supposed it was the best he could hope for from his staff of double-digit IQs.

  “Good. Now get back to work,” he growled.

  The staff scurried off, avoiding Doctor Vaughan’s scorching gaze as they passed. He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and punched a number on speed-dial as he walked down the hall.

  “Any sign of her yet?” he grilled the man on the other end of the line.

  The frown on his face would have telegraphed his displeasure at the answer had anyone been foolish enough to stick around after his speech to witness it.

  “Well, it’s cold out, so go look anywhere warm. Do I have to hold your hand through this? No? Then step it up! Must I do everything?”

  He ended the call with an aggravated jab, then pocketed the phone, a palmed coin from his pocket replacing it. He began to roll it back and forth across his knuckles absentmindedly as he anxiously paced his fiefdom of the mentally unsound.

  The following morning had been a busy one by the time Doctor Vaughan finally closed the door to his office behind him after making his rounds. The man in charge needed to be seen, after all, and he couldn’t afford any more disruptions from his patients.

  He let his shoulders relax ever so slightly as he slid into the deep, leather chair behind his desk. He sat there, unmoving, for many minutes as he stared at the printed letter in his hand.

  The board of directors must be serious if they took the time to send him a certified mail copy of the notice of pending review. Sure, there had been some issues in the past, but after a reprimand or two and some state-mandated training overhauls for staff, things seemed to be moving much more smoothly.

  At least they had been, until a certain disruptive resident breezed into, and just as quickly out of, his facility. Now his entire kingdom could be at risk, and all because of one pesky girl.

  While not exactly two strikes into the count, he knew that he was already under the ever-increasing scrutiny of the board of directors as they endeavored to keep the profits rolling in to their shareholders, while minimizing potential disturbances in cash-flow.

  Bumps in the road do not happy investors make, he had been warned. This bump needed to be smoothed over, and fast. Well before the board caught even a whiff of any trouble.

  Of course, run-of-the-mill lawsuits and insurance claims would continue to be a major inconvenience, if and when they should they arise, and thus, Doctor Vaughan had found himself forced to work within their new system, shunning some of his past techniques for those more suitable for management with weak stomachs.

  It frustrated him, but he’d finally managed to reach an equilibrium with the men and women of the board that seemed to suffice.

  A particularly heavy hand knocked on his door. It could only be one person.

  “Come in, Stan.”

  The enormous, bald orderly ducked his head as he entered the room, then took a seat across from his boss.

  He was in street clothes, an unusual sight for the few residents who had seen him breeze down the hallway on the way to his off-the-record meeting with Vaughan.

  “As you well know, we have a problem.”

  “I’ve got everyone I could dig up out there looking for her, sir. Even the guys on disciplinary leave, though those ones are still off the books.”

  “You know, Stan, of everyone here, you’re the one person I can actually count on.”

  The large man smiled at the compliment, but also knew it was not just empty flattery. He had come through for Doctor Vaughan many times, and had become his go-to, right-hand man when it came to getting things taken care of. It was a position Stan was determined to maintain.

  Vaughan sized up his lackey for a moment.

  Yes, this one is loyal to the end, he thought.

  “Stan, we are facing another review from the board.”

  The big man winced at the news. Last time there had been a cleaning of house, and it had taken much of Doctor Vaughan’s persuasion to keep Stan from being fired along with them.

  “I need you to do something for me. Off-hours. Off-book. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Doctor Vaughan.” His loyalty was unshakable as ever.

  “Good. I knew I could count on you. This current incident must not appear anywhere in our case logs or incident reports. Any record of Dorothy Maitland’s escape must be purged. She did not escape. She was simply transferred elsewhere for evaluation or treatment. Can you make that happen?”

  “No problem.”

  “Good. If you do this for me, we may get through this review intact.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Fantastic. And Stan, keep me apprised on the search. The sooner that little nuisance is back, the sooner we can all breathe a bit
easier.”

  Pushing open the door with his foot and deftly snagging his keys out of the lock as he lurched into his home, Randy hefted several bags of groceries into his kitchen. Gary, likewise loaded with bags, followed in tow.

  The walls of Randy’s place looked like you’d expect from a gallery director; excellent art hanging in just the right places, a decent selection of books on the shelves—books actually read and savored, not just placed there for aesthetic appeal, or bragging rights. The place still had more than a bit of that messy bachelor feel to it, though, and Randy knew he’d have to keep chipping away until it was ready for his daughter to move in.

  On the mantle of the antique fireplace sat a few framed pictures of her, from the time she was an infant up to her present, smiling eight-year-old face. Her room, while mostly bare, was painted and ready for her return.

  Randy heaved a bag of produce onto the counter before heading over to his answering machine. Its red light was steadily blinking a bright ruby-red notice of a waiting message.

  “I swear, Randy, you’re the only person under sixty in this city who still uses one of those things,” Gary chided.

  “Hey, cut a guy some slack. I’m lucky if can even get one bar of service in this building, and that’s on a good day. Would you rather you didn’t have any way to reach me when I’m at home?”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever, grandpa. This is why I’m your only friend. Maybe I’ll show you how to program the DVR later. Anyway, I’m gonna go swing by the gallery to finish up the last of those edits for the showcards. You got anything you need me to drop off there while I’m going?”

  “Nah, all good. Hey, and thanks for the ride. Grocery shopping without a car can be a bitch if I’m getting more than top ramen and toilet paper.”

  “My pleasure, though one day you’re gonna have to get back on that horse.”

  “Not so long as I’ve got you to be my chauffeur.”

  “You just love pushing your luck, don’t you, Miss Daisy?” Gary laughed as he flipped a little one-fingered salute to his friend and headed out.