This will be good. I promise. It had better be, as I had it almost finished last time and then WordPress barfed all over itself and deleted everything but the title. So, with ABBA Metal Covers playing in my headphones, I will try to catch that lightning in the bottle again.
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Dr. Shalmut Teller’s phone rang just as the hour was ending with his patient. The patient, a laborious windbag of the first order turned their head when the phone buzzed in his pocket, but said nothing. Perhaps in hopes of talking another ten minutes on the Doctor’s nickel, versus paying for the time. No game, as the Doctor stood, straightened his coat in a perfect Picard maneuver, and handed him a tissue as he left the room.
Looking at the message on the screen, Shalmut frowned. Again. Trudy was on the loose and the tracking software he’d installed on her cell phone was alerting him to the fact that she’d remained outside of one of seven locations for longer than eight minutes. Why eight minutes? He’d calculated that eight minutes was long enough for her to park within the two block trigger radius and walk to the bar.
More than angry, he was simply sad. The seven locations were the spots where she’d been involved in violent incidents over the last five years. There were a few others, but Trudy was a creature of habit and usually went to the same places out of ease of transit.
It hadn’t always been like this. Once, when they were young and he was in his first year of med school, they’d fallen in love at the university. She’d been waiting tables while working on her MFA and he’d been drinking coffee and studying inorganic chemistry.
Trudy was smoking hot in his opinion. She’d gone to college on a full scholarship for weightlifting, and while she was strong as a bull she was feminine and charming. Her muscles were well proportioned, and her frame was ideal for power lifting. She was also brilliant, and after graduation she was a full-time writer for several travel magazines. It was creative writing at its best, because she made up most of the stories with never having visited the locations.
That had all changed six years ago when the attack in the garage took place. Trudy had been parked in a ramp downtown, and as she got in her car some thug brained her with a baseball bat. It was a miracle that she’d survived, and even more of a testament to her strength that she worked through all the therapy and regained her speech and motor skills.
But the cost was an unpredictable one: she became an alcoholic after a life of barely touching the stuff. The problem was that with the remnant of the brain damage from the attack, her control centers were almost gone. One drink quickly became half-a-bottle, and after the first few drinks she became mean. Very mean.
On more than one occasion he’d been beaten badly by the woman he loved but couldn’t turn his back on. She’d eventually pass out, but he’d lost four teeth and suffered a number of broken bones over the past few years. He never reported it to the police, and when people asked him about his injuries he claimed a streak of bad bicycle accidents. Not one person believed him.
The worst part was the expense of other’s injuries. He was able to cover most of her damage to the bars where she started fights, and fortunately (or unfortunately) she usually picked opponents who were larger and less drunk than she was. Consequently, they largely laughed her off and held her at bay: it was hard to punch a beautiful woman out.
But the problem of the law had reared it’s head when she punched an undercover cop so viciously that he needed medical treatment. She spent a weekend in jail, and Shalmut had left her there instead of bailing her out. His hope was that she’d awaken to the problem and curb her drinking.
That was a vain hope, and he had paid off so many cops and bartenders over a short time that he sought a different solution.
Being a Doctor had some pluses, primarily the ability to prescribe medication. Trudy was a day drinker, and he figured if he could get the day shift bartenders in her favorite places to help out he could manage her.
His plan was simple: find out where she was, call the bar, and confirm her presence. If it was one of his tame bartenders (who were all on a handsome retainer) he would go to the secure identification feature on his phone and give the bartender a one-time code that was good for exactly one minute.
This allowed the bartender to get to the office of the bar, punch in the code in the lockbox installed there, and gain access to a single dose of liquid Benzodiazepine that was kept in the box. Just large enough to slow her down to be collected, not large enough to cause her to pass out. More of a zombie impact than anything else.
His call to Gabe’s Emporium met with success. He was already in the car and headed there when the bartender asked for the code. Once he had served her the drink, he hung up the phone and the clock was ticking.
Shalmut arrived just as she slumped on the bar. He handed over a pair of crisp Benjamins and collected his wife. She walked herself to the car and fell asleep in the passenger seat as he took her home. She’d sleep for the next few hours.
Shalmut was relieved that trouble had been avoided, but this was not a long term solution. Neither were the tears he shed as he sat in his home office seeking something to help.
And he prayed. For the first time in years, he prayed.
Hopefully God was listening.
