Page 9 of Walk on the Wilder Side

“Keep your hands up!” he commanded.

“But I said I don’t have a bomb! I don’t have a bomb!” Doris shouted at him. “That’s what I keep saying! Idon’thave a bomb!”

“Doris, for cripes sake, stop saying that! Stop speaking!” I blurted, raising my own hands high. “Sir, she’s a harmless old woman,” I told him as he closed the last distance between him and his perp ... Doris. “She’s as harmless as a fly. Right now, about as smart as one, too, but harmless.”

“Keep your hands up!” he commanded.

Doris lifted her hands, and big crocodile tears started streaming down her face. “I don’t have a bomb! I don’t have a bomb!” she kept saying, only making things worse.

“Don’t resist, Doris!” Sylvie said. “Just do what they say, and they’ll sort this whole thing out. You’re okay, Doris! Everything is okay!”

Though her words said everything was okay, the panic in her voice said the exact opposite.

Two other security guards descended on Doris like velociraptors, and she wept as they ziplocked her wrists.

“Where are you taking her?” I demanded. “She’s an American! She has rights!”

“She’s coming with us for questioning,” the small female guard responded.

I noted that it looked like I could take her. Easily.

I cracked my knuckles.

But then my gaze lifted to the guard who looked like he spent half the day pumping iron in the gym and the other half shooting up steroids. The veins on his bulbous forehead bulged as he gripped Doris’s wrists.

Nope. I can’t take him.

Knowing there was no way to fight our way out of this, I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. “If you answer their questions, Doris, it will all be fine. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. You’ll be alright. We’ll be right out here waiting for you. They’ll quickly see just how wrong they’ve got this.”

“Is this her bag?” the guard at the X-ray machine asked.

“Yes,” Doris answered, her voice trembling with her tears.

“There’s something suspicious in here,” the guard said, eyeballing his coworkers.

The Hulk of a guard tightened his grip on Doris. “You’re coming with us.”

“There’s nothing in there! I swear there isn’t a bomb!”

“Stop saying that!” I shouted in unison with Alice and Sylvie.

Doris burst into full body sobs as they took her away, leaving the three of us standing stunned in the line, watching her go.

“This time, it wasn’t me,” I finally said. “I didn’t do a damn thing wrong. If Doris gets tossed in the clink, I’m not taking the blame this time.”

“What do we do now?” Sylvie asked, staring at the door that slammed shut behind our wailing friend.

“We drink,” Alice sighed and reached for her purse. Then she grumbled. “Shit. I forgot I had to toss my booze to get through the security line. We need to get to the bar.”

“We’re waiting for Doris.” Sylvie scolded her with a glare. “We’re not leaving her here alone.”

With a hefty sigh, Alice closed her eyes. “Fine. Let’s get through this checkpoint and go get Doris so I can get a freaking vodka.”

“You three,” the man at the scanner said when we approached. “Step through one at a time, and then you need to come with us.”

“Us?” I pointed at my chest. “What the hell did we do? We weren’t the ones yelling the B-word!”

“Just do as you’re told,” he said, scowling.

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