“Hey buddy you okay? Hell, what’s that stench?” He stared at Hank’s face. “God damn, did she shit on you? That asshole. I swear we’re going to bury her?”
Hank groaned, coughed, and began to lift his head.
“I need to get you inside where I can look at your wound. Can you stand?”
Tony helped Hank get to a sitting position and with his arms under his shoulders, lifted him.
“Ah,” Hank shouted. “What happened?”
“Sorry, buddy. I’ve got to get you up and inside. I know this hurts. The bitch shot you but you’ll be fine.”
Once on his feet, Tony pulled Hank’s right arm around his neck and slipped his left arm around Hank’s waist for support.
“We’ve got to get to the room as if you fell down, twisted your ankle and hurt your shoulder. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try,” he said, his jaw clenched against the pain. “That bitch shot me? Hurts like hell.”
“I know, I’ll get you fixed up, and then we’ll take care of her like we planned.”
She had just finished when she heard the sound of voices in the bedroom. She didn’t want to do anything to further exacerbate Tony, so she unlocked and opened the bathroom door. As she stepped into the room, Rudy hurried past her into the bathroom. He reappeared moments later with several towels in his hands.
She found soft drinks in the refrigerator and took a couple of cans, and then sat down at the table. A loaf of white bread and packaged salami looked like a royal banquet. She positioned her chair so she could keep an eye on everyone else in the room and, while she made herself a sandwich, watched the frenzy on the far bed.
Tony sat beside Hank with his back to her applying pressure to Hanks’ chest. Hank muttered under his breath. Even though she couldn’t distinguish words, she knew they must be profanities directed at her since he couldn’t divert his stare away from her.
While Rudy ran back to the bathroom to wash the blood out of the towels, she took the first bite of her sandwich. She found it dry and washed it down with a big gulp of the soda. The liquid refreshed. Even though the carbonation bit her throat, so thirsty, she gulped it all down.
She turned back to Hank who lay on the bed nearest the door and was overwhelmed by an unexpected fusion of divergent emotions. She found no need to justify her actions; self-defense would be warranted by anyone. Nor did she experience remorse. Sorrow perhaps that he wasn’t dead as that would have left one less terrorist to contend with, but even though he had brought this on himself, she didn’t wish him or anyone to die because of this situation.
But Hank’s eyes, filled with detestation, revealed everything in his mind. He believed she had made him the victim. She had robbed him of his conquest. He had no regret for the rape. He had every right to take whatever he wanted. Yet he had used this twisted entitlement to act on a hormonal instinct which drove him to pervert the pure and moral intimacy between a man and woman into something evil and elicit. What she saw on the bed was the pathetic consequence reaped when respect is disregarded and selfish, indulgent actions are brought on others.
With all that, this new emotion flickered to life and began to grow. She glared at the pathetic excuse for human life. This can’t be. She didn’t want it. She still wore his flesh and blood under her fingernails to remind her of the pain he had inflicted and the fear she had nurtured into rage. Yet this worthless, confused, degenerate creature educed a feeling of compassion.
Tony said with a chuckle, “I’ve heard of people getting shit faced over a girl, but this?” He held his right hand on the wound with a towel while he used a wet washcloth to clean the filth off Hank’s face. Rudy stood next to him and held out fresh towels.
Natalie opened the second soda with a crack.
“Who said you could eat?” Tony growled.
She didn’t want to implicate Rudy. She needed to use him and had hope of living long enough to set the three of them against each other. “I haven’t eaten all day. I’m starving.”
“Shit, this hurts,” Hank whispered, the breath escaped his pursed lips like air released from a high pressure hose.
Tony turned back to him. He removed the towel he held against Hank’s chest, dropped the feces filled washrag on the floor and with Hank’s help, wrestled the vest off, first over his right arm, then over his left. He slipped his left hand under the crew neck of the grungy, blood-soaked t-shirt and pulled it away from his body.
He stuck his finger through the bullet hole in the shirt and ripped the t-shirt open. A river of blood still poured out of the wound. He had seen bullet wounds before and had caused a number himself, so he knew the pumping surge meant an artery had been punctured, not necessarily severed completely, but nicked enough so it would be difficult to clot. When he had helped Hank to his feet at the fence, he noticed no exit wound. That left only one external wound to deal with. But it also meant the slug from the .357 was lodged inside where it could continue to do more damage.
“I need more towels,” he said to Rudy.
While Rudy ran back to the bathroom, Natalie finished a second sandwich. She tipped the second can of cola to her mouth, finished it, and then stood. The chair slid back and bumped the wall.
“Where are you going?” Tony shouted, without moving his eyes from Hank’s chest.
“To see if I can find a clean cup for some water,” she said, with an even tone. “You haven’t given me anything to drink for the last day and I’m thirsty.”
She didn’t wait for permission but continued toward the bathroom and was relieved when Tony didn’t detain her longer. She stepped aside to let Rudy pass through the doorway. Once inside, she found a plastic cup, still in its wrapper. She removed the cover, filled the cup with cool tap water and drank it down in one breath. Not slaked, she filled it again, and wondered if she would ever quench her thirst.
While she drank the second cup, she looked around the bathroom for something that might be used as a way of escape. Typical cheap motel bathroom accoutrements in plastic bottles, facial and toilet tissue, a bar of soap she had unwrapped earlier and a few other cups like the one in her hand were the only visible portable things. A window sat over the shower, but it was too high for her to reach and even if she could, it was too small for her to crawl through. The glass mirror appeared to be attached to the wall with some kind of glue, yet the sound it would make if she broke off a jagged edge, would have had Tony in here gun blazing.
_____
©
Jearl Rugh 2012
All
Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment