Oh God. He was going to die. JD Dunne writhed
in agony, clutching his stomach with trembling fingers. The pain was nearly
unbearable. He wanted to die. As spasm after spasm wracked his body, waves of
nausea washed over him. The room spun crazily in circles as if he'd wandered
onto some wonderland type of carousel. His head pounded. His stomach cramped. He
couldn't breathe. He was going to...going to...
JD spewed up the contents
of his stomach into the toilet bowl for at least the twentieth time in the past
few hours. He clung weakly to the side of the bathtub as he attempted to
struggle to his feet, before finally giving up the effort and crawling on hands
and knees out into the bedroom. He pulled himself up onto the disheveled bed and
curled up into a ball, groaning weakly.
"Would you like to try a bit of
salt water to soothe your stomach, laddie? It'll make you feel better." The
rough Southern voice, with it's vague Irish lilt, sounded like it was coming
from the very devil to the young man curled up on the bed in agony. Salt water?
JD's stomach heaved at the thought.
"No. Gonna die." JD croaked the
words, too sick and dispirited to object further. He began to shiver, despite
the sweats and flannel shirt he was wearing. He could feel the cold sweat pop
out on him everywhere, but he lacked the energy or will to do anything about it.
He lay there, praying for death or unconsciousness or the sky to fall. Anything
that would end his suffering. He didn't do more than whimper when the old man he
was staying with sighed and shook his head before covering him gently with a
clean, if somewhat scratchy, blanket. The old man left the room, muttering
something about stubborn young fools and the remarkable soothing powers of salt
water. JD just moaned and rolled out of bed, stumbling back in the direction of
the bathroom.
The slight
figure in the bed cautiously opened one slightly bleary brown eye. When that
only hurt a little bit, he opened the other one. Maybe he would live. He might
even decide he wanted to. Later. Right now he wanted something to drink and then
he wanted to go back to sleep. For a month or so. He felt weaker than a new born
kitten. He sat up, wincing at the various aches and pains in his body. He
shuffled out into the shack's tiny kitchen. He turned on the tap and reached for
a cup. He'd just taken a tiny, experimental sip when he heard the unmistakeable
sound of retching. JD's own stomach tightened in response. But he knew his
duty.
"Jesse?" JD peered around the door to his host's room. The older
man was hunched over the sink. He looked up at the sound of JD's hoarse
voice.
"I'm fine, laddie." Jesse whispered stoically, before staggering
over to the bed and collapsing.
"Yeah. Me too." JD went back to his own
room and stayed there the rest of the day. And the next one, too. Duty be
damned.
"No computer? No
TV? No telephone?" JD's voice had gotten progressively louder with each question
until it was almost a screech. He'd just gotten out of bed for the first time in
nearly three days. Felt well enough to watch a movie or maybe surf the net. He
wanted to do something. Besides be sick.
"Nope. Never saw a need for
them." Jesse lay propped up against some pillows, an open tackle box on the bed
next to him.
"What do you do then?" JD's voice was a plaintive
wail.
"Fish." Jesse's reply was succint.
"What else?" There had to
be something else, JD thought desperately. Nobody could fish all the time. Could
they?
The older man scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I reckon I
like to do something else, occasionally.
"What?" JD demanded
eagerly.
"Go bird watching." Jesse shook his head as JD let out an
agonized moan. These young people. Always in a hurry. Always wanting to be doing
something. But still, JD seemed like a fairly nice lad. Maybe he'd see what he
could do for him. Or he might be stuck with the boy caterwauling like that for
who knew how long?
Oh God.
He wanted to die. He'd never been so bored in his entire life. Go West. Hah! He
should've stayed in Boston where he belonged. Where they had cable. But no. He
had to take the little bit of money his Ma had left him and buy a secondhand
car. More like a fourth or fifth hand one. And then, just to compound his error,
he'd picked Texas as his destination. Things had been going great until his car
had decided to lay down and die. Right in the middle of Nowhere, TX. When he
only had twenty seven dollars in his pocket. Enough to buy him "Not a damn thing
that's like to fix this old heap". Or so he'd been informed by the man who owned
the one and only garage in town.
The owner of the garage had graduated
from Harvard. So out of pity for a fellow Bostonian, he'd given JD a ride out to
Jesse's. Twelve miles from town on narrow, twisting roads, densely forested
along both sides. Jesse sometimes took in drifters, the garage owner had
explained. Providing room and board in exchange for some help fixing a few
things. Everything was more like it. JD didn't think anything on that entire
five acres of land worked properly. But he hadn't had much choice. And then he'd
gotten that godawful flu the same night he'd arrived, so he hadn't had any
choice. The only way he could've gone anywhere was if someone had airlifted him
out. Which wouldn't have been half bad in retrospect. Because they would've
taken him to Houston or someplace like that. He probably would've liked it
there. But now he just wanted to get the hell out of this town. Out of this
state. He didn't care where. But it didn't look like he'd be going anywhere fast. Unless a miracle occurred.
JD's
lower lip quivered as he scratched at the dirt with one sneakered foot. He was
sitting on the front steps of the ramshackle old house. Jesse was inside making
dinner. Soup. JD had been afraid to inquire further. Afraid the old man might
tell him what was in the soup. JD didn't want to know. Not if he planned on
eating any. And he needed to keep his strength up if he wanted to escape. He'd
been here nearly two weeks and was liable to go "crazier than a junebug" as Jesse might
say, if he didn't get out of here soon. But he wasn't going to get real far
without a car. And it had already been established that twenty seven dollars was
not going to do anything to achieve that goal.
JD glanced guiltily into
the house, peering through the screen door at the dim figure inside. He knew he
should be grateful Jesse was giving him room and board. And asking very little
in the way of work in return. And JD was grateful. Really. It was just that he
was a city boy. He'd tried this country thing. Honest, he had. But so far all
that had happened was that he'd gotten gotten stung by one wasp and three yellow
jackets, had a heart stopping encounter (on his part, anyway) with a supremely
indifferent rattlesnake and when Jesse had taken him fishing, he'd fallen out of
the boat, gotten tangled up in the lines and a fishhook had wound up in an
embarrassing portion of his anatomy. They were still telling that story down at
the local hangout. JD's face burned at the memory. Give him smog and traffic and
crime anyday. This country life was going to kill him.
The screen door
banged and JD turned as Jesse walked out and sat beside him on the
steps.
"Son, you still looking to leave town?"
"Uh huh." JD nodded
his head vigorously. Then he realized belatedly, that this could be construed as
rather insulting.
"I mean...uh...it ain't that I haven't enjoyed myself
here. You got real pretty uh trees and..."
"JD. There's some folks as
made for the city and some as made for the country. I'm bound to say you ain't
one of the latter, my boy." The older man spoke gruffly, but there was a twinkle
in his eye.
"Yes sir." JD agreed with a sigh of relief. He hadn't wanted
to hurt the old man's feelings.
"My cousin is going up to pay a visit to
his late wife's sister. Check up on her. Name's Nettie Wells. I believe. He'd be
glad to take ya along for a few dollars if you'd be willing to take a turn at
the driving. He's not as young as he used to be." Jesse winked and nudged JD
with an elbow.
"When do we leave?" JD jumped to his feet.
"Well
now, don't you even want to know where you'll be going, son?" Jesse's amusement
was evident.
JD bit back his instinctive response of who cares?
Sheepishly, he sat back down and glanced inquiringly at his companion.
"Where?"
Jesse pursed his lips and frowned thoughtfully. "I do believe
it's Denver, best as I can recollect. How does that sound?"
Not only out
of this town, but out of this state? It sounded like heaven to JD.
"I
like the sound of Denver. When do we leave?"
The End
