Page 49 of Mountain Man Bad Boy

“Open the door,” George said.

“I can’t do that,” the receptionist whispered.

“It’s okay,” I said.

She looked at me, and even though we couldn’t talk, she understood. Without further encouragement, she slid a temporary card across the desk. I picked it up and swiped it across the card reader, opening the door to the patient area.

“Put your gun away,” I told him. “You’re only going to scare people.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” he growled, yanking me tight against his side.

I ground my teeth together.

“Where’s the pharmacy?” he snarled.

“On the second floor.”

“Where’s the stairs?”

I pointed, and he strode toward them, pulling me in his wake. I saw the frightened forms of my patients cowering in doorways and under tables. It was the stuff of nightmares, a crazed gunman on the loose inside the facility. I fought to keep my breath even. If I could just maintain a sense of calm and impart that feeling onto my brother, maybe I could pull off this impossible stunt. I was so close to achieving my goal, if I could just hold out for a few minutes longer.

The stairwell door closed behind us, and George took the stairs two at a time. He seemed to understand that he had very little time, and I didn’t want to anger him by moving slowly. I had an altogether different plan in mind.

We broke out onto the second floor, and he hesitated. “Which way?”

“That way.” I pointed. “Room 204C.”

He stalked away down the hall, reading room numbers on placards until he came to 204C. I held my breath. Just a few more steps and the trap would be sprung. He glanced inside and didn’t see anything resembling a pharmacy.

“Where?” he demanded.

“It’s right past there.” I pointed with both hands, indicating that there was something behind the curtain that bisected the room.

He stepped inside, and I swung the door shut. It locked the moment that metal touched metal, designed with the most dangerous of drug addicts in mind. I dropped to my knees as George pounded against the door, stepping back to level his weapon. He fired and the safety glass cracked, shattering into hundreds of rounded pebbles that rained down on me. The wire mesh frame of the window held, resisting George’s attempts to break it. He fired again through the window, digging a bullet into the wall opposite.

“Put the gun down!” I screamed, scooting out of the pool of broken glass, back down the hall toward the stairwell.

Two orderlies approached, crouching, and helped me to my feet. We ran back down out of the locked ward to the nurses’ station on the first floor. One moment it seemed that my life was in my own hands, and the next moment, I was free. Cindy was there and helped me into the break room.

“What the hell is happening?” My friend gasped. She took in my disheveled appearance and the duct tape on my wrists.

I sagged into a chair, too tired to talk. Whatever happened now, George was trapped until the police arrived to arrest him. He might destroy property, but he had ceased being a danger to anyone but himself. A nagging part of my mind urged me to stand up. I should go wait for the police, to explain that George was my brother, that he was high and didn’t know what he was doing. I should be an advocate for my own family member and plead with the cops to take it easy on him.

Instead, I looked into my best friend’s eyes and said flatly, “Do you have a pair of scissors?”

27

PORTER

Iwas in Greenwood at a meeting. The folks there were regular addicts and alcoholics, diverse in their income and occupations but similar in temperament. We were all selfish, all running from something and struggling to acquire simple adult coping mechanisms. I didn’t have to speak. It wasn’t like group therapy with a leader and people who made helpful suggestions. It was more like a group of friends at a picnic, where everyone brought their own casserole dish of dysfunction.

I listened to one woman talk about losing her kids. The state came to take them away because she was an unfit mother. It was just the kind of kick in the pants I needed right then. Drugs and drink weren’t going to do anything good for me; they weren’t going to bring Gina back, and they weren’t going to make me feel any better. The only thing they would do would be to destroy what little happiness I had managed to achieve.

I was feeling marginally better when my phone rang. I took it outside, checking the caller ID and saw that it was Jason. “Hello?” I said, eager for information.

“They found her,” he opened with the breaking news. “She’s fine. She’s at the treatment center.”

“Oh.” I didn’t understand. She gone back to Nashville? Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. If she had a work shift she didn’t tell me about, maybe her phone had just been turned off.

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