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The story’s pretty good, I think.

I’m just turned twelve and my name’s Chubby. Now in case you’re wondering, like most folks do, that’s my real name. My pa named me after his favorite uncle; a wide bodied jazzman, stacked full of gravy and gristle who blew his horn far and near, from down in New Orleans all the way up to New York City. Lakeside, Where I’ll Die was a romp he wrote. Twelve bar blues, if you know that kind of thing. If you catch the right band in the right tavern, you can still hear it played. And folks in fishing holes and pregnant women will often hum it, hoping the melody will bring them good luck. Music can do many things, after all.

Well then, it all started back there in October. October days here in Krollville are gray as gravestones and rainy as all get out. Our preacher, Preacher Lowe, says the reason it rains steady is because there’s so many serpent-eyed sons of bitches living in these parts. He says it’s Gabriel and his angels relieving themselves on us, trying to drown out the flames of perpetual sin and gluttony. Now I ain’t from poor folk, but I ain’t from rich folk neither, so my job was, and I suppose still is, to find cheap eating. And one way to find cheap eating in Krollville is by catching wild game. Sure you can pay for your eating, but if you can get it for free from catching a rabbit, then like Pa says, goddammit boy, catch yourself a rabbit.

So one wet Thursday after school got out, I done like I would everyday: I got onto my motor scooter, Red Motor Scooter – I call him that on account his paint’s redder than blood – and was fixing on finding some cottontail.

Usually my little sister Lil would ride along with, but that afternoon she’d been asked to play tea party with her friend and daughter of the mayor, Miss M.L. Williams. Ma had been setting aside one day a week since August for Lil to work on her refining, so after school broke that afternoon, she went to M.L. Williams’ house for a schoolgirl social affair and off I went, hunting alone.

There’s just one main road in Krollville and it’s the dustiest on all of God’s green earth. Reason being, it’s got no topping on it. Of course, back there in October it’s more like a muddy road with all the rain and what not, but they still call it the dusty road. The only thing that breaks it up is Timberscratch, an old stone arch bridge riding high and wide over the bubbling blue waters of Shawni Creek. Half a mile or so south of Timberscratch is where Mr. Bachsus’ place is and I swear to damnation, near his property, a fella can find cottontail bigger than puppy dogs. Riding down a steep hill with my goggles and scarf up and my cap pulled low and tight, I started looking on both sides of the road for rabbit. And just like rabbit, there’s trees all over Krollville. Pine, maple, poplar, birch, tamarack, oak, you name it; they wash across the land and along the bluffs in waves of unending upright rows. I suppose Krollville ain’t much more than a big old forest with a dusty road cut down its middle.

Once I got to the bottom of the hill and was on a long straightaway, I seen a white bob in the roadside bushes, up and off to my right. I had a trap that I was planning on checking about two miles further down the road, but I’ve always had more than a lame mare’s luck snagging a hare with just my hands, so I decided to try and make that rabbit my first catch of the day. I turned off Red Motor Scooter’s engine and slowed to a rolling pace, moving forward with just my skipping feet. I came to a stop and watched the rabbit strut with a high step through some purple primrose, inching his way into the forest. When I first got off Red, I thought the son of a bitch was smoking himself a pipe, but after I took my goggles down, I seen he was just gnawing on a leafy stick. I never have cared for harming the creatures, especially when you see their little mouths stuttering as they chew with their stubby arms twisting and turning their snack, but coming home with no dinner meant I’d get a backhanded beat to go with my empty belly. Either me or the rabbit that was gonna have to ante up.

I put my goggles back up over my eyes and straightened my scarf around my mouth and neck, making me look like a two-bit crook and started creeping up on the rabbit with my back hunched and my hands a-clutching. When I was damn near within diving distance, the little fella caught an eyeful of me. At first he just twitched his nose and kept gnawing his stick; but when I took a quick next step, he sprang over a pile of rocks and into a crushed tree trunk. Of course, I ain’t the type to be fooled by no tree trunk. I trotted to it and kicked its soft dead side, caving in the cardboard bark. “A’right rabbit: I know ya in there. Come on, now.” I gave him a spell to say something, maybe try and make friends on account I wouldn’t skin and gut no friend, but there was nothing but a wet drop sounding from the hollow knot. I stuck my hand in and felt for his fur. He put up protest with a soft nibble on my gloved left thumb and he sighed out his breath with a wheeze. I spanked his bottom with my right hand to get him to stop. After that short tussle, I pulled him out by the ears and sat against the trunk, my back pressing into the moss and wet wood. I was unlatching my skinning knife from my belt and telling him how sorry I was it had to happen like this when a rolling crash clanged with a rising clatter from across the dusty road. I listened close. Right quick, another crash sounded loud, followed by a fella giving off a scream. Best I could figure, it was coming from Mr. Bachsus’ mighty stone barn. I looked at the rabbit but his blinking eyes offered no advice. A second shallow scream sounded. Staring straight ahead and standing slow, I let the rabbit go. As he sprang off into the dark of the forest, I tightened my scarf and pulled the hood of my rain slicker up over my cap and tied the strings in a loose knot. I latched my skinning knife back onto my belt and listened through the forest wind; wondering if some poor bastard was trapped or hurting in that barn; maybe needing some help; maybe needing a friend. With my eyes squinting, I looked past the barn and up to Mr. Bachsus’ house, wondering if he heard it, too; wondering if he’d be coming out to check on the racket. When another stuffed cry sounded from the barn, I thought no more on it and hoofed across the dusty road, splashing through the dark puddles with my fists closed tight, ready for whatever was standing before me.

Even though I imagine it was no later than three-thirty, it was right dark from the covering storm clouds. With the burning autumn leaves in the forest below, it looked like the land was sending up a hot, dark fire.

A tall stone wall surrounds Mr. Bachsus’ property but the fancy gold-black metal gate that opens to his driveway was unlatched. I pushed the heavy gate open a smidge and stepped onto his cement driveway.

I turned from the gate and was no more than twenty paces from the mighty barn, when it happened – I got knocked back with a stiff, quick push, landing flat and hard on my back in a huff, kicking my cap over my eyes. Reason being, I got shot in my left leg. It put an awful hurt on me.

I felt a lump alongside my thigh. Almost missed, I thought. My glove got wet and warm from the blood, chilling my bones with a cold fear. With my clean hand I pulled my scarf down so I could breathe easier. With my bloody hand I clutched the grass and squeezed tight. Watching the blood mix with the wet grass, a little calm overcame me. It didn’t last long, though. I got to thinking that whoever shot me might finish the job. Maybe pop a slug in my head or something. Listening to the rain skip against my brown rain slicker, I closed my eyes and began to feel an awful fright.

There wasn’t no more racket coming from the barn. At least I don’t think there was. Once I got shot, hell, I forgot why I was even in that field.

My new plan wasn’t to see who was in the barn, but to go on past it and up to Mr. Bachsus’ house. There I reckoned, I could get some help. I rolled onto my stomach and started pushing myself up. But with that bullet being where it was, when I got to standing, my leg hummed with a sour ache and I fell back down. Spitting out wet grass, I got to my fists and knees and said, “Da, damn.” Staring at the ground with the wide eyes of an owl, I thought of a different plan – crawl.

A stream of rain water, clear and blue, was twisting next to me. After crawling just a few feet, I stopped and splashed a handful of the wet onto my wound, hoping it would cool the hurt. The water felt fine, but the wound kept burning like a piece of fired iron, branding me with its red hot tip. I bit my lip, trying not to cry as I neared the barn.

Mr. Bachsus ain’t no farmer, but he’s got himself a fancy stone barn that’s bigger than the one Johnny O’Malley has for his cattle herds. Some say Mr. Bachsus’ barn looks more like a castle than a barn and I suppose they’re right. I used to have this picture book, The Singsong Pirates and King Fergus, and in it, the pirates were always trying to break into King Fergus’ mighty castle to get his gold by charming his queen with their starry-eyed songs. And that’s what I’d think of whenever I passed Mr. Bachsus’ barn. Both places were chiseled from deep blue rock, rising high into the sky and decorated with peculiar church windows while statues of unknown creatures perched on the outreaching ledges. Of course Mr. Bachsus has something old King Fergus didn’t, and it’s the finest part of the barn: a golden tower that twists like candy taffy and rises so high it nearly kisses the clouds. With the sound of low gears churning, one half of the mighty front door started rumbling open. I seen someone stand with an easy lean in the doorway. There was a misty blue light hazing in the barn behind them. They held still for a moment, like they was posing for a photograph; then with a quick hitch, started towards me, taking steady steps through the rain with a shining cane. I knew it was Mr. Bachsus when I seen the cane.

"Good afternoon, Thunder-Baby," he said rolling through the low fog. He had a handkerchief in one hand and his cane, he called it The Golden Eskimo, in his other. He was wearing a fancy hat, suit, jacket, and tie, all done up in black with a sharp red scarf keeping his neck tight and warm.

I’ve known Mr. Bachsus my whole life. He’s an older fella, but I can’t say just how old. I reckon he’s old enough to be Pa’s pa since his beard and hair is mostly gray and he uses a cane for walking. Mr. Bachsus came from across the sea many years ago, even before Pa was born. They say he came after his uncle Randymore McGregor passed on and left him all his acres, house and barn-castle. Some say he didn’t want any of it but came on account he was caught consorting with the devil on the other side of the sea and had to lay low until the local constables forgave or forgot. Other folks claim he poisoned his wife with arsenic and fled soon after the fact while still others say he’s Randymore McGregor himself, posing in a new body after he discovered the secrets of eternal living from an old stone tablet found deep within one of Krollville’s many ore mines.

Mr. Bachsus touched the corner of his mouth with his handkerchief then put it in his jacket. He pointed at my wound with The Golden Eskimo and asked smiling, "Lover’s row?"

I didn’t know how he meant so I just let my jaw hang with loose slack. With the tip of his cane he tapped my wound, putting a deeper hurt in it. I squinted my eyes and crunched my teeth. He looked up at the storm and asked, “What’s happened?” He took out a cigarette and lit it off of The Golden Eskimo, which I found peculiar. Didn’t surprise me that he was smoking or that he lit it off his cane, I knew he kept a pile of tricks on it, but that he got it going with all the rain and wind that was coming down.

"I was ‘cross, over yonder. Getting ra, rabbit… But then I heard ya… yellin’, so I come to see…"

As smoke snaked out of his nose, his eyes split wide and he nodded his head. "Some ‘yellin’ you say?" Holding his right arm at its elbow with his left hand, he waved his cigarette at me, letting the smoke spin through the blue wet. "Perhaps one of our esteemed bootleggers fetched site of this rather than a bucket of their autumn moonshine. What proof are you, child?"

He tapped my wound again and walking in a small circle, laughed. I could hear the gears on The Golden Eskimo hissing and huffing. It looked more like a grapevine than a cane, full of gold leaf and fruit; but some of those grapes or vines would turn and twist, steaming like angry pistons whenever Mr. Bachsus took a step. “Da, don’t know,” I said after the hurt started to slow. "But I heard it before I got shot. Like I say, was over gettin’… I muh, mean, had a rabbit and then I come t’ see who’s yellin’ n’ got shot. Here, in my leg."

Mr. Bachsus blew out a lung of smoke. "How compelling. O, happy day; at last, the town minstrel has revealed himself." Resting on The Golden Eskimo, he bent down and with a crooked smile asked: "Have you a lute?" I could make no reply. He stood right back up. "I’m humbled to confess, O my Vergil, that any shrieking you heard was my own." He looked up with his hand on his chin and said with a little thrill, "For a brief, rousing moment, I thought I’d caught glimpse of an apparition. Whimsy, my child. Pure whimsy."

“Oh,” I said, not knowing how he meant.

As he held his cigarette to his side, the rain damped it out. He tried to spark another fire from The Golden Eskimo, but the wind was too heavy, keeping the flame out.

"Misfortune; alas, lo, life," he said tossing the butt down before me.

While he tightened the belt on his jacket, I noticed his black gloves were trickled with spots of blood on the palms. He must have seen me looking on account he said with no concern, "Sliced myself whilst cleaning my revolver."

I looked down at the bloody earth, feeling a sudden burn from the bullet, not thinking of anything but the hurt.

The tips of Mr. Bachsus’ shining shoes stepped beneath my squinting eyes and the turning gears of his cane were in my ear while the grass snapped in the wind.

"Clearly you’re in need of a doctor," he said suddenly.

I looked up and nodded, happy that he was finally taking notice of my hurt.

"Certainly you require immediate medical attention."

I nodded more.

He looked into the forest. "Disheveled rodent." Then down to me. "Sloshed through enough primordial stew for one afternoon, have we? Quite right, then. I’m just on my way beyond The Great Pines to collect twenty dollars from a dullard as desperate as yourself; what say we first make a stop at the home of Doctor Sprout?"

A slow smile rolled over my chops.

"I’d be thankful."

He was grinning, too. His skin crinkled around his beard like dead leather. "If you’ll just allow me to… fetch my keys." Turning away, he started up the path towards his fancy brick house. Not wanting to be in the field in case the bastard who shot me was still around, I started crawling after him. Mr. Bachsus turned back and said, "Remain still."

"But what if that–"

"My child, I have spent the better part of the afternoon waxing and glossing the foyer. I am, therefore, not about to present you with a formal invitation to pump blood and filth about its tiles."

"Can’t I jes’ come on the steps?" There were big, wide marble steps going up the front of his house, deep in a wavy green and blue.

Mr. Bachsus took his hat off and slicked his thick white hair back with a pressing squeeze. The gravel beneath his shoes crunched. He put his hat back on, tightened his red scarf and took out a revolver from the inside of his jacket. He pointed it at me and said, "You, will be patient."

I’ll do anything when a fella’s pointing a revolver down my nose, so I just looked straight and nodded. Mr. Bachsus spun the revolver about his finger and put it back into his jacket. He turned and started back towards his house.

The clouds were black with rain and the thunder thrashed with a deep, loud break. A wide branch of lightning followed, its crooked fingers grabbing hold of all the clouds above me. Looking up, I watched the electric light dull then dropped my neck back down and stared wide-eyed at the ground, wondering between whistles of the wind how mad Ma and Pa were gonna be that I’d gone and got shot. I reckoned taking a bullet was about as big a fuss that a fella could make when I heard something louder than the wind; something again from Mr. Bachsus’ barn. Wasn’t no yelling that time; sounded more like cans and tools getting knocked around. I figured sure as hell it was whoever shot me, coming out to finish the job.

"Ah hell," I hushed.

I looked up to Mr. Bachsus’ house and started crawling towards it. I knew he might plug me for bleeding on his floor, but I reckoned I’d rather take a bullet from someone I knew than from some crazy son of a bitch ramshackling in a barn. The gravel walkway was awfully slick and muddy from the storming, making it hard for a fella to get in gear. I was only halfway to the house when Mr. Bachsus came back out his front door.

"My child, are you perpetually daft?" he asked smooth and easy, trotting down his stone stairs with a wet skip. While he wrapped his red scarf around his neck, his long jacket waved behind him like a cape in the stiff wind.

I started turning back around and said, "I’m sa, sa—"

"Mush!" he said, not stopping but slowing to take a crack at my behind with The Golden Eskimo. He kept on at a good clip, walking straight to his long red car. It was parked beneath a mighty maple alongside his barn, so I thought about giving a holler, letting him know about the noise I’d just heard. But for someone who walks with a cane, Mr. Bachsus can hoof a steady pace and was out of earshot before I could jaw anything at him.

Being that I was on my hands and knees, when I got to the car, I couldn’t reach the door handle. Mr. Bachsus must have known that on account it opened like a knockout punch, popping me a good one on my lip and slapping me onto my back, sticking me into some bubbly mud with a suck. Worst part was, it knocked a bottom tooth loose. "Aww," I moaned covering my mouth. From just a little touch, the tooth dropped out. Hurt, too. Mr. Bachsus turned on his radio and said, "Young man, I left my theatrics in Lyon and am presently two bored chords and half a measure from leaving you and yours here." I laid there a short spell longer, trying to put it all back together in my head. "Now, Clowny," he said straight, giving the car some gas.

Ain’t sure why, just for something to say, I suppose, but I whispered, "Claw, Clowny," to myself and crawled back to the door. I reached up and took hold of the silver running board and got myself up onto the passenger floor. I was about to say something about my clothes, ask if he wanted to cover his black leather seat so I wouldn’t bleed or get mud on it, but before I could ask, he said, "Up and in," so I reckoned if he didn’t care none, then hell, I didn’t care none neither and pulled myself up and onto the seat.

With the bullet stuck in the side of my leg, it ached awful with a quick pulse when I sat down. "Mercy," I moaned.

A light went on in the barn, warming up the church glass that ran above and around the giant doors like a dying rainbow. Mr. Bachsus slumped his head onto the steering wheel and turned off the engine. Looking back up, he jangled the keys into his jacket pocket and said, “Locals.” He got out slamming the door and went to the barn, pulling one of the two giant silver doors open with the handle of his cane. I was looking at how speckled my scarf was with blood and mud when I glanced out the window and seen my tooth in a puddle. I started wondering if the Tooth Fairy ever paid out for big teeth when three gunshots rang out like deep bells from the barn. The light went off and back out come Mr. Bachsus. He didn’t walk with any hurt, so I reckoned he was the one who popped the shots. He got back in the car, started the engine and looked dead ahead with a smile.

As we were rumbling down the dusty road, I was staring out at the trees speeding by and said, like I was just thinking out loud, "Ba, best call my folks..."

Taking us around a wide curve, Mr. Bachsus asked, "How’s that?" Way he said it, he said it friendly, not mean.

I looked at him and answered honest.

"I best call my fa… folks. Reckon they’ll wanna know. ‘Bout this whole mess." He didn’t say nothing else, just rolled his tongue inside his mouth while The Golden Eskimo twisted its muddy vines next to me. Then, being that nothing is too far of a ride in Krollville, we turned off the dusty road and started down Doc’s gravel driveway, cutting through a high wall of pine trees.

Mr. Bachsus opened my door with The Golden Eskimo then pinned its tip to my chest and gave me a stiff push out. When I looked up, he winked then shut the door with a reaching vine from his cane. He didn’t bother turning his car around in the large clearing alongside The Sprouts’ house, but instead dropped it into reverse and bolted back out to the dusty road, kicking up mud and rock at me. He honked his horn once, I suppose as a goodbye, just before he jetted away. A peculiar man lends a peculiar hand, I suppose.

Just like anyone that sells things or helps folks in Krollville, Doc Sprout didn’t have no office like they got in city towns; he just done all his work outta his house. And he never went to no doctoring school, neither. But his pa, Doc Harold, was the real deal, and after he passed away, he left Doc his books and papers on how to fix folks when they get crazy in the head or body.

I crawled up the puddle splackered steps of the porch, counting each one as I went; there were nine of them, and kept on my hands and knees until I came to the front door. I was too weak to hold myself with one arm and knock with my other, so what I done was, I held myself up with both arms, and gave the door a solid rap with my head; loud enough for anyone inside to know it was more than just the thunder asking for a cup of sugar. I backed off half a crawl from the door and waited. In short time, the shadow of Doc was standing above me, looking down with a cigarette in one hand and a paper bag in his other.

Taking a step out, he said, “Chubby?”

I nodded and looked up. “Heya Doc.”

“Sick?” he asked.

“Na, no,” I said. “But shot n’ bloody.”

Looking into the forest he said, “Shot?”

“Ya, yeah,” I said. “N’ bloody.”

Looking back down to me he asked, “Where?”

I nodded back towards my left leg. “That’s where I took it.”

He threw his cigarette over the railing, said, “Ouch,” and bent down next to me. I heard his knees pop. He gave my wound a quick once-over then rubbed his hair.

“Too dark out here,” he said picking me up like a baby, which ain’t too hard a thing to do since I’m such a small fella, and turned towards the door.

For reasons unknown but questioned by many, The Sprouts didn’t keep no electric power in their house so it was almost as dark inside as it was out there on the porch. But as soon as Doc closed the door, yellow candlelight was bobbing towards us from the other end of the long dark hall. Walking with a dancing shadow at her feet, like unseen fireflies were circling about her, was Mrs. Sprout. She wore a hooded black shawl over a flowing green dress with bracelets and rings sparkling in the candlelight.

“Happy Halloween, what’s this?” she asked with some worry.

“Shot,” Doc said, twisting me to show the wound. He almost let me slip, but caught me steady with a dip, bracing me against his upraised knee. He opened a closet door beneath their staircase and threw the bag he was holding into it, making a rattle. Taking hold of me with both arms, he asked, “Who shot you? Some boys? Your pa?” “Don’t s’pose I know…” I made like I was thinking it over and said with more sureness, “Sa, sneak attack, I s’pose.”

Mrs. Sprout looked Doc dead in the eye and held her candle out to him. He took it, their hands touching and fingers feeling each other. She smiled sweet at him and he at her.

Mrs. Sprout took a smaller candle from the inside of her shawl and sparked it off the one she gave to Doc. The candle shone beneath her brown eyes and I wondered if she was looking at me.

Mrs. Sprout is as fine a woman I’ve ever known. Her hair runs deep black and ripples like a moonlit stream. I’m sure she washes it all the time. Her skin is colored like mahogany and a safe smile is usually worn on her face. And a finer dresser, you will not find. She always has a dress, jacket or hat on like you’ve never seen. She looks like she should be in the movies or married to a millionaire.

“I’m going back upstairs,” she told Doc. She gave him a kiss on his neck and I smelt her spiced vanilla scent when she pulled away. My wound and worry were not with me when she smiled straight at me and said, “You’re going to be just fine.”

“Ya, yeah,” I shyly replied. “’Sno big thing, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Doc told her, starting us down the hallway. “Let’s eat after I’m done.”

“Of course,” she said walking up the steps with a click-clack-clop.

All up and down the hallway, there were paintings of women and men. I don’t know what it was about them pictures but I never did care for them. They seemed old and hidden. The kitchen and some other rooms broke off from the hallway and at the end of it was Doc’s office. As soon as you walked into his office, there was another painting, one that would put a graveyard fright into me every time I seen it. It had a cursing old witch with a crumbling devil crouching behind her, burning in black and bone with a sinful smile cackling on his face. A fellow in a yellow hood was standing before the two of them, a fiery look of trouble passing through his own eyes. If you’ve ever walked a sunny day in the forest and come suddenly around some pine or over some hill upon a wolf feeding on a dead doe, then you know the feeling I mean.

Putting me in a kiddy chair so he could light the candles in his office, Doc said, “I don’t like it, either,” and turned the painting around. He winked at me. “I’d sell them all, but I can never remember which ones are real.”

Smiling through a shallow sting from my wound, I said, “Ya, yeah.”

I took my cap and goggles off and unwound my scarf and put them at my feet while Doc readied his operating table. Slow and easy I pulled my arms out of my rain slicker and dropped it next to my scarf.

I was kicking off my boots when Doc picked me up off the chair. He sat me soft onto his doctoring table and helped get my trousers off, dropping them onto the floor with the rest of the mess that covered it. Papers, books, operating tools; all of it was jumbled on the floor in hunkered piles.

Slow and easy, Doc lowered me onto my back.

He looked the side of my leg over and said, “I’ve put one in a man, but getting one out, boy…” He rubbed an eye. “Let’s see what The Young Doctor’s Friend and Guide has to say.” Taking the candle that was on a small table to the left of my head, Doc went to his desk and sat down. Going through some drawers he took out a book and said, “Here she is.” After paging through it a bit, he stopped and asked, “If your pa didn’t shoot you, where’s your folks?”

“Home, I reckon.”

“Home?” He looked straight to me. “Where’d you get shot?”

“Mr. Bachsus’s.”

“Bachsus? Where’s he?”

“Don’t know. Dra, dropped me off.”

Doc nodded slow and turned to face his desk, looking back into his book. He started reading it close, following the sentences with a finger and mumbling medical words to himself.

I closed my eyes, feeling with my tongue where my tooth was knocked out. There was pain in the gum, soft and broken flesh forming a little ‘u.’ I wiggled my tongue into the salty gap, putting a purposeful ache into it, so as not to think of the bullet in my thigh.

“I think I get what they’re trying to say,” Doc said closing the book. He took out a cigarette from his jacket pocket. “Let me knock this down,” he said, showing the cigarette, “and we’ll start.”

“Okay.”

While Doc enjoyed an easy smoke, I got to looking about the messy floor and room. My eye was taken by dancing candlelight in a far corner where I spotted a few bulging bags, like the one Doc was holding when he opened the front door. Breathing out a stream of smoke, Doc said with a head nod, “Got a few of those the other week.”

“…What’s in, in it?”

“Well,” he said standing up and looking over at the bag. “Monkey. Monkey bones.”

“Monkey bones?”

“Mostly bones.”

Walking to the bag and giving it a little kick, he said, “Yeah, mostly bones.” He started back to his desk. “I picked up some synthetic fur, too. I was hoping to make some winter hats, but it just got, I don’t know, the whole process is pretty haphazard. Like you have to galvanize the pots and get this caramel like iodine. It just ended up getting sticky and not really worth it. And, it got on everything. I was picking up a pair of pants two weeks later when I feel this glob on my palm, and I’m like, ‘Aaah, what is this?’ and sure enough, it was that sticky shit.” “Oh,” I said.

“Hare-brained schemes, that’s all I’m chasing. But it lets me move around every once in a blue moon. See some new places. I even flew to Argentina last month. The things a guy can do in Buenos Aires.” He sat against his desk with straight legs. “This cutting people up stuff, it’s never been what I want. Not forever. I’d be lying if I said I knew what I was doing with my life, you know.”

I nodded, not knowing.

“Then there’s Sadie. Promised her we’d be outta this place years ago. Bright lights, big cities. Paris, Prague, London Town; old stone architecture about us, cobblestones beneath our feet, cafés on every corner. Sticking around here’s done nothing but let her get caught up with, what would you call them? Nature lovers, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, she’s always been an earthy girl, but not to the point that she’d be dancing naked with a flaming baton and chanting pagan-gibberish with her face painted like some kind of daemonic lioness, you know? Druid. Really Druid-y stuff. Actually, that’s a stretch, she was just roasting marshmallows barefoot with some friends out back, but I can see it getting to that point. Of course, a smarter woman would have left me what, five, six years ago? Back before I hit this goddamned slump. So I guess I’ve really got no right to complain about a few of her friends, do I?”

He put out his cigarette in a silver ashtray then opened his top desk drawer and took out a set of knives. Walking to me, he asked, “Well then, any ideas?”

“You the doc.”

He paused to let some thunder pass. “Yeah. Guess I probably am.”

He put the knives down on the table next to me and looked my leg over again, saying there was more to it than met the eye.

“Oh, hey,” he said taking out a stethoscope from his jacket. “Sit up for a second.” He helped me sit and put the stethoscope to my heart. “Posterity’s sake and what not.” He listened then listened closer. “There it is,” he said. “Okay, check.”

He was putting his stethoscope back into his jacket and said, “All right. I think, just to get us going here, I’ll numb you. Numbing’s always a good way to start.”

I nodded.

“Think your folks would make a fuss if you had a nip of whiskey?”

“Whiskey?” I said, not sure why Doc was wanting to hang a drunk on me.

He had a little bottle in the pocket next to his stethoscope and popped its top.

“It’ll numb you up; at least fuzz you up. But I don’t wantcha, or, I wouldn’t have you take much now, just a nip.”

“Well,” I said, looking up at the bottle with a shrug. “If, if it’s for medicine reasons.”

He held my head up and tipped the bottle down with a slow tilt. It tasted like I was drinking the devil’s piss, so I spit it back out, onto his white jacket and fitted shirt.

“Easy,” he said and pulled back the bottle. He lowered my head back down. “Maybe that won’t work.”

“Sorry,” I whispered, my throat hot and stinging.

“You know,” he said, “what if I poured it right onto the wound? That might numb it just the same.”

“O, okay,” I said. Had no way of knowing, I suppose.

He took a nip for himself then held the bottle over my leg. “Okay, might sting a little...” It cut like salt in blood, a bucket of hissing rattlers. I didn’t want him thinking he wasn’t doing right, so I didn’t yell or nothing; I just pushed my tongue as hard as I could down into my empty tooth, and closed my eyes tight.

“Numbing up?” he asked.

It was stinging so deep I couldn’t talk; I just opened a watering eye and nodded with a weak smile.

“I’ll be damned,” he said having another sip for himself.

Just as the pain was cooling off, a second splash came down. “Good measure,” he said.

When I came to, Doc was standing over me with his tools and a budding sweat on his forehead.

“Feel good and numb? Ready to start?”

Truth is, it wasn’t feeling numb at all. It felt like it was covered in burning gasoline. But that ain’t what I said; I just nodded again and gave him a shaky thumbs up.

“You know, Chubby, this might not be like some of your other sicks. Even with the whiskey, this is going to hurt a little.” He was sure right about that.

I was wanting to howl like a hound when he started on me with his tools, but all I done was give out a little, “Aw.” It pained me like nothing from this earth. I got sweaty in my hands and could not breathe with any kind of calm. “Nope,” Doc said a few times then got back to poking and prodding with sharp and deep slices of cold silver bee stings.

Finally he said, “If I wasn’t so goddamned drunk, I don’t think I’d believe it myself…” He walked around to the front of the table and held out the bloody bullet. He was smiling and I could see that he was one happy drunk son of a bitch. I got up on my elbows and opened my mouth to say how fine a job he done, when some blood dripped from my missing tooth.

“Your mouth –” he said pointing with the bullet.

“Got a tooth loose. Lost a tooth.”

“Oh… Well, I don’t do dental.”

“No, I, I know,” I said wiping the blood from my chin. “It’s ‘kay. I didn’t ma, mean… it’s ‘kay.”

Doc nodded and had another nip of whiskey. Holding the bullet out, he asked, “Say Chubby, would you mind if I kept this? Like a trophy, you know?”

“Sure. Pa got lotsa bullets at home.”

Like he was talking to it, he said, “Now who’s big timing?” He let his grin dim then dropped the bullet into his shirt pocket and said, “Let’s patch that up. More whiskey?”

“No!” I told him straight and loud.

“All right,” he said. “I think I could hold one more though,” and he took a real big nip for himself, what you might even call a gulp.

After he cleaned and patched my wound, he sat me back in the kiddy chair and told me to hold tight, he’d be right back. He left the office and walked down the hall. Real gentle, I rubbed the side of my thigh, testing the hurt with the palm of my hand. It stung to the touch and a small spot of blood was left on my middle finger. Doc came back in and gave me two peanut butter cookies and a glass of juice to get my strength back up.

While I was finishing my last cookie, tasting the nutty sweet crumbs from my fingertips, Doc, who was watching the storm through a round window on the other side of the room, said, “Guess we’re done here, Chubby. Why don’t you bring over some walleye when you’re back to walking? That’ll square us up.”

“Okay, Doc,” I said wiping crumbs from my mouth. “Ba, but I ain’t been fishing since summer. Ma ga, got us trapping now. Rabbit. S’how I got shot. Wa, was after this rabbit when… I heard, sca, screams… Coming—”

“That’s fine. Bring over some rabbit then.”

“’Kay.”

I put my boots back on and not finding my trousers with my goggles, scarf and cap, looked about the room and seen them on the floor by the doctoring table. I readied to get them, but once I started to stand, remembering my bum leg, knew I wouldn’t be able to stand for nothing and sat back into the chair with a plop.

“Doc?” I said, straightening myself out. He didn’t turn or say nothing, so I called again. “Doc?” He still didn’t turn, but scratching his neck said, “Yeah?”

“Jes’ wonderin’ if ya have… somethin’ t’ help me wa, walk.”

He turned towards me and bent down to the floor. He moved some papers around, and came up with a stick. He put it on my lap, said, “Try that,” and walked back to the window.

“Much appreciated,” I said. The stick helped me to stand fine, but poked sharp into my armpit. So I said to Doc, you’d swear the man had never seen a storm before, “Kinda ha, hurts my armpit.” I sat back down in the chair.

He nodded with his back still to me then went to the bag of monkey bones in the corner. He pulled out what looked like a rib and then a skull. He left the rib but held the skull in his palm and gave it a pausing look. He picked up some wire and twine from the floor then came back to me and took the stick from my lap. Putting everything onto his doctoring table, after a few twists, pulls and ties, he had the monkey skull firm on top of the stick, stiff and held in place.

“Try it now,” he said handing the stick back to me.

That monkey skull was nice and smooth; fit my armpit like a son of a bitch. “Oh yeah,” I said standing from the kiddy table. “That feels like a sombitch. Like a sa, sombitch.”

Doc nodded and walked back to his window.

I didn’t want to be no more of a bother, so I figured it best to get dressed and be on my way. I sat back down in the chair and picked up my cap and goggles, putting them in my lap.

With my goggles dangling around my neck, I was straightening out my cap when a flash of lightning filled the room with a white wash, like staring into the sun. Beside me, I heard the gears turning. Whirrrap, click, ssss, a little steam would spray.

Mr. Bachsus was standing tall and proud in the doorway, the candlelight twisting in his eyes. He had on a new jacket, suit and hat, all of it deep red, except for his scarf, which was crisp and black.

Holding The Golden Eskimo with a loose grip, he smiled and stepped full into the room.

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