For You // R.G.

Damsel in Distress

I walked down the street to Pete and Jessie's house. I was nervous to face Jessie, I mean, if she was even there I thought. She may not even be there, she might be doing something with her kids or who knows? Why are you thinking about it so much?

I managed to escape my flooding worries when Pete opened the door to his house to let me in. He gave a smile to me, knowing I came here to learn from him. He lets me in with a grand gesture of his hand. I walk in.

"Ah, I've been waiting all week for today. I haven't done anything that has challenged my knowledge in awhile. It's all been colds and headaches since I could remember." He explains to me, I walk up to their kitchen island, noticing that there were various surgical tools placed along the granite counter top. I felt his presence drift behind me.

"Yeah," he gives out a long, satisfied sigh while looking at the instruments with me, "it was nice pulling these things out again. Like I said, I haven't been able to do anything medically interesting for awhile."

"Even with the walkers and all? You haven't gotten anyone who has come in injured?" I asked, I thought it was peculiar that all he has had to deal with was some colds and headaches like he said. When saying this, he raised his eyebrows in a way saying he may have left some stuff out.

"Well, I mean, there have been cases like that... People who have accidentally gotten bit or scratched. There were more serious incidents, like Deanna's kids who go out and retrieve supplies for us, they sometimes take people out with them who don't come back," After that depressing note, he then gulped and continued, "but that usually doesn't happen all too much." He says then looks from the tools on the table to me. I didn't say anything.

"Alright," he rubs his hands together, "I'm not gonna be real formal about this whole thing but I'm gonna make sure you know what you're doing." He explains to me. He walks over to the tools and looks at them long and hard.

"What do you have planned? Are we operating on a cadaver?" I ask

He looks up at me, "I want to teach you about trauma to the head. I really wish that I got my fellowship in trauma before, it would be more convenient, but neuro works too. I'm not completely clueless on neuro so I can teach you a few things..."

...

It had been about five hours since I first arrived at Pete's and I was cutting the brain of the cadaver in sections out on the counter, a request from himself. I carefully measured and made sure I made each cut precisely. He had left again for a few minutes. He kept leaving about once every ten minutes to do something then come back moments later. I wasn't paying any attention to it until the last couple of times, he had been coming back with more altercations to how he acted and it wasn't until I got a whiff of him that I knew he had been drinking. I watched him carefully as he poked and probed at the sections of brain I cut on the table. He has no idea what he is doing I thought, not in this state of mind at least.

I looked outside, it was beginning to look like late afternoon, not quite sunset but it was about a an hour or so away. I was becoming more and more ready to leave as Pete's drunkenness became more noticeable. I hated being around drunk people unless I myself was drunk too. But, I wasn't, so I wanted to leave.

"Alright, I want you to separate the posterior from the ant... anterior..." He began to say but he stumbled on his words. God, the alcohol must have hit him all at once, he wasn't like this a few minutes ago. He got up from the brain and slowly made way to wherever his stash of alcohol was. I watched him, I had no intention on doing anything else with the brain tonight.

"Hey, Pete," I say in the friendliest way I could utter. I knew how drunks were and if you pissed them off, you would be in for it.

He looks back at me slowly, almost the same way a walker does when it hears you from behind, it gave me chills. I looked right into his eyes, and that may have been what pissed him off.