Luck of the Draw

Chapter 3 -All Good Things

Several minutes of practising with the cane and finally looking on the internet for instructions in the proper use, he deemed himself sufficiently skilled, returned to the kitchen to eat his lunch and clean up before tending to some of the cacti.

In the corner of the bedroom was his largest specimen, an organ pipe cactus consisting of several stems erupting from a large washtub. Two of the white-flowered stems sported the expected red fruit and threatened to jam themselves against the seven-foot ceiling.

Normally reaching somewhere around twenty-feet, Mickey hoped to train it at right angles across the ceiling, although it would pretty much engulf the entire room at some point, a considerable danger should it collapse under its weight and trap him in bed one night. He didn't want to think of the alternative; he would devise some kind of rigging to support it later.

He fussed with it for a few minutes then gathered his market bag, loaded up on painkillers, and with the spiffy cane, descended to the street again. Avoiding the movers, he began the careful walk to the local food store. Several neighbours spoke to him, asking about the cane and wasn't it a lovely day, and the market had field tomatoes for fifty-nine cents a pound.

Mickey glossed over the cane bit; cast a jaundiced eye at the clouds, and mm-hmmed the price of tomatoes. At the corner, waiting for the light to change, he came alongside an attractive young woman dressed for the office, with a short, bomber style jacket and crisp white blouse tucked snugly into a warm grey skirt.

He stood beside her and focused his drug-affected vision for a peripheral scan, a practice perfected by oglers around the world.

"Can I help you?" She turned to him, eyes flashing in an unfriendly manner.

"Pardon?" Mickey tried a confused smile.

"Your cute little market bag lifted my skirt."

He looked down and saw that the corner of the bag had indeed insinuated itself under the edge of her hem. "Oh God! I'm so sorry. I-I- please accept my apo-my apo-po..." She turned away and crossed with the green light. Mickey lifted his cane in a pleading gesture and fell off the curb.

He was received at the clinic with restraint over his explanation, the consensus of the nurses being he was a chronic stalker with masochistic tendencies, whereby he welcomed the physical pain. It apparently mattered not what age his prey was, and the staff clung together, reminiscent of beleaguered pioneers under attack from hostiles.

Nothing Mickey could do or say bolstered their opinion of him and he sat silently while the gruff RN taped the two broken fingers together and put his hand in a plaster cast the size of a baseball mitt.

Fortunately, for Mickey it wasn't the hand needed to operate the cane, and with awkward motor skills, he left the clinic with another huge bill for his collection, and a refill prescription for painkillers.

At the grocery market, with a shopping cart for support, he managed to make his way about the store and pick up the items he needed,then when he reached the cash and unloaded them on to the conveyor he found he couldn't get his hand into his pocket for his money.

Reaching across with the other hand didn't work either and as the line grew and the customers became restless, a small elderly man offered to risk entry into Mickey's pocket and retrieve his cash.

He thanked the man and the rest of the line for their patience, holding up his injured hand and glancing down at his leg as an excuse. They ignored him and aggressively shoved his cart out of the way so that they could move up. Cautiously, he steered the cart out of the store and instead of returning it to the corral, he used it to get home.