Three (3 page)

***

G
eoffrey stumbled and stammered aimlessly, nearly losing his
balance as he exited the club. There were voices, laughter, and
blurred faces surrounding him but he could not focus on any one in
particular. He spotted a line of yellow cabs and meandered in their
general direction, indiscriminately picking the closest one. After
a couple of attempts, he found the taxi door handle, and fell
inside.

“Where to sir?” the cabbie asked.

Geoffrey tried to focus on his face but
couldn’t. He felt like he’d been riding a high-speed merry-go-round
for three straight hours. His stomach rolled, his throat was dry,
and felt as if he was going to be sick.

“Home,” was all he could muster before
passing out.

***

A
bright beam of sunlight awakened him. He cracked open his
eyelids and massaged his temples. His head pounded, throbbing with
each beat of his heart.
Boom – Boom –
Boom.
He sat up in the bed and squinted
through the bright light. A single beam had stretched through the
window. Thousands of tiny dust particles danced in the light,
floating in every direction.

Where the hell am
I?
thought Geoffrey. He retraced last
night’s steps. The bar, the dance club – the last thing he
remembered was the vague notion of getting into the back of a taxi
cab. He was still wearing his blue suit from the night before; his
jacket folded neatly on a chair beside him.

The dank room was well worn by time. Cheap
wooden-veneered particle board lined the walls – the kind that was
in style in the early 70’s. The blanket that covered him was more
like a quilt; hand sewn, old, and foul smelling. The musty scent of
the room combined with his pounding hangover was nauseating.

A single window next to the
bed provided the only source of light in the room. There were no
overhead light bulbs and no lamps – only a few half-used candles on
a nightstand. Geoffrey peeled back the thin brown curtains and
looked outside.
What the hell?
Wheat fields for as far as the eye could
see.

He sat up, grabbed his jacket and slid it
on, his head pounding as if it had been repeatedly bashed with a
hammer. He struggled to his feet and staggered - the dizzying
after-effects of the booze knocking him off center. The weight of
his feet creaked the floorboards beneath him. The noise was as loud
as firecrackers in the stillness of the room. He cautiously paced
towards the only door.

Creeeeeak – Creeeeeak –
Creeeeeak
.

Once painted white but now a dull gray, the
rickety door seemed as if it would fall off its hinges at any
moment. Flakes of cracked paint littered the floor beneath it. He
walked slowly, gingerly towards the door. For some reason that
could only be chalked up as instinct, he tried in vain to minimize
the sound of his footsteps.

Creeeeeak – Creeeeeak –
Creeeeeak
. Each step impossibly
loud.

He reached for the handle of the door; a
somber looking metal handle that was cold to the touch. He turned
it slowly and, like the floorboards, the decrepit door groaned and
screeched as he pulled it open, seemingly announcing his presence
to everyone within a quarter mile.

His pulse quickened and he
could actually
hear
his heart beating -
Boom – Boom –
Boom
. The deafening silence, the
dilapidated room, the not knowing where he was; it was as if he
were stuck in a bad dream. As the door opened it slowly revealed
another room – a kitchen. Geoffrey racked his brain, desperately
trying to figure out where he was, wildly scanning his surroundings
in hopes of finding some shred of a clue. Faintly, he could hear
someone talking. And a laugh track - a laugh track from an old
television show.

He warily entered the kitchen, its
floorboards creaking even more profoundly than in the bedroom.
Geoffrey searched for the source of the laugh track and found it on
the far wall on the left-hand side of the room. An old
black-and-white television sat on a shabby card table that
supported its weight with buckling legs. The television’s rabbit’s
ears antenna extended in a V-shape into the air. Parked in front of
the small t.v. was a frail man, wisps of white hair projecting in
every direction from his balding head. He wore a grungy white
sleeveless undershirt – a “wife beater” as Geoffrey called them.
The man chuckled heartily at the television as he spooned in a
mouthful of oatmeal.

The man was…familiar. Geoffrey searched the
fog of his memory for the face and just before he placed it, the
creaking of the floor behind him spun him on his heels. An elderly
woman stood next to the bed he had just vacated; staring at him
with wild eyes.

“Chuckie? There you are,” she said. Her
voice was shaky, desperate, disturbing. “You’ll catch your death of
cold, dearie. She held out her hands, as if holding an imaginary
coat, and approached. “Put this on, sweetie.”

She was hunched over, her back folded over
at forty-five degrees as she stepped closer and closer. Geoffrey
swallowed and backed away; retreating with each step the old woman
took. His mind scrambled.

Who the hell are you?

How did you get into the bedroom without me
seeing you?

This woman is fucking crazy.

“Good morning, Mr. Winters!” said the old
man from behind him. Geoffrey spun to face him. “Don’t mind my
Bessie. She means no harm.”

Geoffrey positioned himself against the wall
so that he could keep both of them in his sight – and so that no
one else could sneak up behind him.

“You!” said Geoffrey, recalling the face of
the old bartender from the night before. “Where am I? And how did I
get here?”

“You, sir, spent the night at the Floyd
Palace,” he chuckled as he mouthed another spoonful of oatmeal.
“It’s no Waldorf Astoria like you’re used to, but it’ll do. Won’t
it?”

The old woman reached out for him, caressing
his cheek with one hand while running her fingers through his hair
with the other.

“Chuckie,” she crowed.

She smelled strongly of mildew and the
vaguely unpleasant medicinal scent of old people. Geoffrey recoiled
at her touch but remained glued to the wall.

“How did I get here?” asked Geoffrey.

“You remember that second job I mentioned
last night?”

Geoffrey nodded while the old woman stared
longingly up at him, her fingers tracing the line of his chin.

“I’m a cab driver in the city. Well, as fate
would have it, you happened into my cab last night. My cab! Of all
the cabs you could have hopped into, you picked mine. I still can’t
get over it.”

Geoffrey put a hand on a grimy kitchen
counter, a bout of dizziness setting in.

“Well, you passed right out in the back
seat. So I brought you home with me, and put you up here in the
penthouse suite of the Floyd Palace.”

Floyd’s explanation instantly put Geoffrey’s
mind at ease. His pulse slowed and the trepidation he had felt
morphed into relief and quickly into annoyance. He shoved the old
woman’s hand aside and as she reached forward for his face again,
he swatted it aside as if she was a bothersome gnat.

“Yeah, well I’d appreciate it if you’d give
me a ride back home. How does a hundred bucks sound?”

The old man angrily clanked his spoon on his
bowl of oatmeal and sat back in his rusted metal folding chair.

“You’d appreciate it? You don’t appreciate a
damn thing, son,” said the old man. “A hundred bucks sounds like
shit. You cost me a job and embarrassed me in front of a bar full
of people.”

“Oh come on now, old timer. Floyd, isn’t it?
Come on, Floyd. I was drunk! I didn’t mean what I said!”

Geoffrey reached mindlessly for his wallet,
first checking his pants and then his coat pockets. His wallet was
missing.

“How about a thousand bucks? I feel bad for
costing you the job, how about a thousand bucks for a ride back to
my house? I – I can’t find my wallet but I’ll pay you once I get to
my house, I promise.”

“How about you shut your fuckin’ mouth
unless I ask you to talk?” said the old man. He rose from his
chair, his eyes narrowed in anger.

Geoffrey held both arms out defensively.
“Calm down, calm down! How about I just borrow your phone and call
somebody to pick me up? Better yet, just point me in the right
direction and I’ll walk home. I appreciate everything you’ve
done…”

“Appreciate?” the old man cut in. “You
probably haven’t used that word twice in your life and yet you’ve
used it twice in the last thirty seconds! Did I hear you correctly
or do I need to turn my hearing aids up?” He took a step closer,
his wrinkled forehead furled.

“I need to be put out to pasture, right? You
recall saying that, don’t ya?” said the old man. He took another
step forward, his infuriated face transforming to one of insanity.
Geoffrey felt threatened, an irrational feeling considering the
fact Floyd and his wife were in their 70’s. Still, he had no desire
for a physical confrontation. He scanned the room for an exit and
noticed a dark, narrow hallway to his right.

The old man closed his eyes and at the top
of his lungs shouted, “You pompous sonofabitch!”

Geoffrey bolted for the hallway. He’d find a
door that would let him out of this madhouse and he’d hoof it home.
He sprinted down the corridor with the old man still yelling in the
background. A split second too late, Geoffrey registered what the
old man was yelling.

“He’s comin’ boys!”

As Geoffrey rounded the corner of the dark
hallway, something heavy connected with his forehead. He crumpled
like a bag of bricks and the world went black.

***

W
hen Geoffrey awoke, his head was pounding even harder than
before. His throat was so dry it practically begged him to find a
drop of water. He reached up to rub the throbbing knot on his
forehead, but his arms wouldn’t budge. He lifted his heavy eyes and
took in his surroundings. The same dank, musty smell as before.
Sunlight tried in vain to reach through the room’s only window, but
it was covered in layers of newspaper. In fact, as Geoffrey scanned
the room, there were newspapers covering every wall of the room.
Every single inch of wall space covered in black and white print.
One particular headline on the wall above him grabbed his
attention. Circled in red was the bold, black title:

“
THE SURGEON STRIKES
AGAIN”

Geoffrey tried again to lift his arms but
they wouldn’t budge. He lifted his head and was horrified to find
all four limbs had been tied down; restraining him tightly to the
hospital bed in which he laid.

“Comfortable, Mr. Winters?” asked a soft
voice. Geoffrey turned his head to find the old man standing behind
his head, with two younger men standing next to him. He wore blue
surgical scrubs and latex gloves. He was staring down at objects on
a metal tray and picked one of them up. Geoffrey’s heart skipped a
beat – the old man had grabbed a small scalpel.

“You know, I was a young hot shot like you
once,” said the old man while he closely inspected the scalpel.
“Best young surgeon in the city. But I caught a bad case of myopia.
Not as bad as yours, mind you, but bad enough that I lost sight of
who I was. Oh, I thought I was God for a period of time.”

He chuckled to himself, his eyes distant in
memory. “But the good Lord sent me a wake-up call – brought me back
down to reality you might say. Bess and I got pregnant with our
first child - a baby boy we named Chuckie. All was right with the
world. But Chuckie was born with a defective heart, a condition he
could not overcome.”

A single tear streamed from the old man’s
eyes, and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his scrubs as he
rounded the bed to Geoffrey’s side.

“Let’s just say I tried to take things into
my own hands – I was God after all. Well, the medical community
frowns upon its doctors taking things into their own hands, and my
license was revoked. After that, things were never the same for me.
I could never find a replacement for the thrill of surgery - the
power that comes with holding another man’s life in one’s hands.
Oh, we’ve eked out a meager living and I’ve raised a happy,
wonderful family. For that, I am grateful. But there’s nothing
quite like surgery.”

He nodded to one of the men, who dabbed a
reddish-yellow liquid over Geoffrey’s abdomen.

“Like I mentioned last night in the bar, my
grandson needs a new kidney. I’ve extracted the kidneys of nine men
now, and I’ve not yet found just the right one,” he said, pointing
to the wall with his nose.

Geoffrey looked at the wall in the direction
the old man had pointed. He found a headline that seemed to shout
its message:

“THE SURGEON SLAYS HIS
NINTH VICTIM
:
BODY
FOUND IN FIELD
.”

The realization of what was about to happen
came over Geoffrey like a great tidal wave. It crushed him with
such terrifying power that all he could think to do was to scream.
He unleashed a primal, gut-wrenching shriek that no one outside of
that house of horrors would ever hear. The old man’s deeply
wrinkled brow furled in aggravation. He reached his latex-gloved
hands into his pocket and retrieved a wrinkled ten-dollar bill. He
held it, stretched tightly, in front of Geoffrey’s face.

He smiled politely and, for the first time
since they’d been in the bar, the old man’s kind, timid personality
returned.

“Thank you so much for the tip, Mr. Winters.
I promise I’ll put it to good use.”

He grabbed Geoffrey by the jaw with one
hand, pulling his mouth open. He crammed the ten dollar bill into
his mouth as Geoffrey bucked and spat to resist it. It soaked up
the remaining wetness in his now bone dry mouth as Geoffrey coiled
back his tongue to avoid swallowing it. Geoffrey cried, thrashed,
and flailed but a strong pair of hands held him still. The old man
carefully covered Geoffrey’s mouth in duct tape.