Pink Butterfly (11 page)

The manager, wide eyed and shocked tried to speak but nothing came out. Melvin banged him in the forehead with the butt of the pistol and commanded him to say fuck again.

“Fuck,” the manager whispered.

“Your life may depend on how loud you say that the next time, now, with spirit.”

“Fuck!” the manager yelled.

Melvin patted the manager on the back and said, “Good job you douche bag. Now go get me some ice cream.”

By this time Melvin knew he was fucked and that it would only be a matter of time before the authorities came looking for him so the idea of hiding out was no longer an option. He might as well make the best out of the shitty situation he was in for now. At least he didn’t have to look for another job. “On second thought, screw the ice cream,” Melvin said and stood up from his table and walked to the door next to the drive through window. He stepped outside and saw a line of cars parked waiting for food, all running, all ready to take him wherever he wanted to go.

The third car in line was a 2000 Chrysler Concorde, grey in color driven by a pretty twenty something woman in a business suit and skirt combo. Melvin opened the side door to her surprise and took a seat. “Let’s take this for a ride,” Melvin stated pointing his gun at the driver.

In shock, the driver looked at the gun and at Melvin’s eyes. “I can’t, we’re boxed in,” she stated.

“Unbox us,” Melvin stated waving the gun in her face.

The woman put the car in reverse and the car behind her backed up a bit. She backed as far as she could and pulled the car forward till her front bumper hit the back bumper of the car in front of her.

“Once more,” Melvin stated. She repeated the steps breaking free from the line. “At this point I’ll give you the option to leave,” he said with a nervous grin. The woman stopped the car, unbuckled her seatbelt and exited as fast as she could. It took Melvin only a moment to get in her seat, slide it back for his taller frame and take off out of the parking lot. At this point the stop sign meant nothing to him and he shot out of the parking lot onto the highway like a rocket. He paid no attention as a car slammed into his driver’s side door sending him sliding sideways into the median in a cloud of steam, broken glass and crushed metal.

The ambulance unloaded Melvin in the emergency bay and was quickly rushed inside to the emergency room to awaiting staff. “His blood pressure is 70/40 and his pulse is 146 and weak” the lead EMT crew yelled to the doctor on call.

“Sounds like an internal bleed!” the doctor yelled. “Get two units of O negative blood and an ultrasound stat!”

The emergency room crew scrambled to get an I.V. line started but had difficulty with such a low blood pressure. The EMT’s had an airway established and was ventilating Melvin with manual breaths from a bag.

“His blood pressure is dropping!” one of the nurses yelled. “60/34 and his pulse is now 170!”

“I have to stop the bleed now!” the doctor yelled. “I need a scalpel, rib spreader and suture kit!”

“But doctor!” the nurse yelled in response. “We need to get him to the operating room! We don’t have the equipment to do surgery in the E.R.!”

“We don’t have time! He’ll be dead in five minutes, get me a scalpel now!”

“It will take five minutes just to get a scalpel,” the nurse yelled back.

Frustrated, the doctor paced around the emergency room and started digging in drawers looking for anything he could use.

“I have a pocket knife!” one of the EMT’s stated holding it up, blade extended.

“Give me that!” the doctor yelled and took the pocket knife from the EMT. At the side of the gurney, the doctor checked for placement of his first cut.

“Don’t you want to put him on the table first?” a nurse asked timidly.

“If you question me again nurse, you’ll be working in a daycare for the rest of your life.” The doctor, non-sterile and fresh from lunch cut a line from the top of the breast bone to the bottom like he was cutting a rubber welcome mat. The knife was dull and it took several slices to get to the bone. Blood poured down the side of Melvin’s exposed chest. “I need a bone cutter!” the doctor yelled.

“Use the knife!” the nurse yelled back. “The bone cutters are in the operating room set up, not in the E.R.”

“Screw this,” the doctor said defeated and stabbed the knife in the sternum leaving it standing upright. “I can’t work under these conditions, what’s his blood pressure now?”

“54/30,” the nurse replied in a panicked and rushed tone.

“He’s fucked,” the doctor said. “Even if I had the bone cutter, the chances of finding the bleeder and fixing it in time are about shit.”

“You have to try doctor!” the other nurse yelled.

“Unless you have a bone cutter hidden in your panties, I think we gave it our best shot.” With that said, the doctor hung his head and sulked away in dismay.

“Doctor! His blood pressure is coming back up!” the nurse yelled. “It’s now 90/60 and rising. His pulse has dropped to 120.”

“What the fuck is going on?” the doctor said aloud watching the monitor. “Did we give him any blood yet?”

“No, they’re still in the lab.”

The doctor stood and watched the monitor as the vital signs improved. He reached over and pulled the knife from Melvin’s chest and tossed it on the table beside him.

“Now what doctor?” a nurse asked.

“Take him to the operating room, I think we have more time than I previously thought.” the doctor replied. “Call the surgeon on call and get the team prepped for surgery. This guy might make it after all.”

On the operating table, Surgeon Dr. Tank Torres cranked the handle on the retractor, pulled the neatly cut sternum apart and exposed the pericardium and other internal organs. Now in a sterile environment, Melvin was attached to monitors, had a working IV and a respirator to keep him breathing during the procedure.

“What the fuck is that?” Dr. Torres asked pointing towards Melvin’s exposed heart.

“You’re the surgeon, you tell me,” the anesthesiologist replied.

“Looks like a pig heart, or baboon or something,” Dr. Torres said questioning his own judgment.

The nurses leaned in closer and took a look for themselves.

“What do you gals think?” Dr. Torres asked.

“Nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” the circulating nurse replied.

“Where is all the internal bleeding?” the scrub nurse asked.

“Is this the right patient?” Dr. Torres asked.

“What’s the name on his wrist band say?” the anesthesiologist asked.

“Melvin Skankmeyer,” the circulating nurse replied.

“That’s the name on my chart.”

“This was an auto accident right?” Dr. Torres asked.

“Yes, T boned after stealing a car,” the scrub nurse replied.

“The only injury I see is a few burn marks on his head that look like they’ve had some time to heal. Otherwise, I don’t see a bruise on the guy let alone any internal bleeding.”

“What do you want to do doctor?” the circulating nurse asked.

I want to check out this heart before we close, maybe take a few measurements and pictures. Did radiology get a CT scan of his chest before surgery?” Dr. Torres asked.

“Didn’t have time,” the scrub nurse replied.

Just then the monitors started to beep wildly and Melvin began to shake on the operating table. His hands were secured to the table by Velcro but quickly came loose when his arms jerked around like a hot Mexican jumping bean.

“Hold him down!” Dr. Torres yelled. “What happened to the paralytic?”

“I dunno?” the anesthesiologist replied. “Always worked before.”

Melvin, now awake, reached for his breathing tube and wrangled it out of his mouth with a gasp. The crew in the operating room were shocked that someone had come out of anesthesia, let alone begin to free themselves.

“What are you doing?” Melvin asked yelling. He curled his neck, looked at his chest and watched his beating heart between the arms of the retractor. “My heart!” Melvin yelled watching the regular beats. Melvin looked over at Dr. Torres who was in a daze, glassy eyed, in a fog and waited for a response. Nothing. With his free right hand, Melvin reached up and pulled on Dr. Torres’s surgical mask and tried to pull it off his face. The best he could do was pull it down under the doctor’s chin. “Excuse me!” Melvin yelled.

Dr. Torres stepped back and dropped his scalpel on the floor with a clink.

“Mr. Skankmeyer!” the scrub nurse yelled trying to get Melvin’s attention. “You were in a terrible car accident. You were brought to the hospital unresponsive with suspected internal bleeding. Dr. Torres was just trying to find the bleeder and close it.”

Melvin tried to sit up but the operating nurses pushed him back down onto the table. “Let me go!” Melvin yelled. “You have no right to keep me here against my will!”

“Yes we do Mr. Skankmeyer, now calm down so the doctor and finish the procedure.”

By now, Dr. Torres was sitting on a chair by the entrance door to the operating room staring blankly at the green tile wall across the room.

“Doctor!” the circulating nurse stated firmly. “You have a patient here on the table that needs you attention.”

“No he doesn’t” Dr. Torres replied scratching his now exposed nose. “He’s fine, look at him. He’s not bleeding, his vitals are fine and now he’s engaging us in legal talk. Give him the suture kit and see if he can sew himself back up.”

“Do I have to remind you of your ethical duty?” she asked.

“Ethics?” Dr. Torres asked dumbfounded. “I know another doctor that failed to follow up on a routine lab, and because of that the patient didn’t get an update on her Coumadin and she died of pulmonary embolism. He blamed it on the nurse for not reminding him and she lost her license. How ethical is that?” he asked.

“We don’t have time to have a discussion on ethics doctor, you have a patient here who needs you immediate attention,” the circulating nurse stated as a matter of fact.

Dr. Torres stood back up and begrudgingly walked back over to the operating table.

“You broke sterile,” the nurse stated in a firm yet bitchy way.

“Get me some new gloves and a mask,” Dr. Torres stated in an equally bitchy tone.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Melvin stated still pinned to the operating table. “I don’t want to spend all fucking day in here listening to you two bitch. Either get divorced or sew me back up.”

“Before I do that, tell me about this heart,” Dr. Torres stated looking down upon Melvin.

“What about it?” Melvin asked.

“It looks funny, and not in a ha ha funny kind of way.”

“Can you describe what funny looks like?” Melvin asked.

Dr. Torres leaned in close and took a long hard look at the thing beating in Melvin’s chest. “It looks like a potato, or some sort of squash.”

“What’s it supposed to look like?” Melvin asked.

“Like a big lumpy, chunk of beef with veins all around it, about the size of a fist. Yours is more like a brown, less lumpy potato with no veins at all. I mean other than the aorta.” Dr. Torres leaned in closer and squinted noticing something else unusual. “It’s hard to see beating like that, but I swear there is a bar code or serial number stamped on the side of it. Have you ever had open heart surgery before?”

“Not that I know of,” Melvin replied.

“You didn’t have any old surgery scars on your chest,” Dr. Torres stated dumbfounded. He paused for a while to analyze what he was seeing. “If you had open heart surgery, you’d remember,” he added with a smile.

“What do you want to do doctor?” the scrub nurse asked.

“I want a picture of this before I close, does anyone have a digital camera?”

“I have one on my smart phone,” the anesthesiologist replied.

“Go get it, we can wait, this is important. It’s not every day you see something like this.”

“You want me to leave my station?” the anesthesiologist asked? “What if, oh never mind.”

Dr. Torres turned his attention back to Melvin. “So what is your story?” he asked.

“I’d rather not discuss my life if you don’t mind,” Melvin replied.

“You are a mystery that needs to be solved. You have a potato heart, no previous surgery scars, burn marks on your scalp, your abrasions from the car accident are almost healed and nobody knows who you are.”

“My name is Melvin, glad to meet you.”

Six months later

Melvin sat in the office of his boss Gail Andrews waiting for her to get comfortable enough to speak watching her shift her huge ass between the armrests of her office chair. She was a large woman, dietician, cook and supervisor of the kitchen and very unpleasant at most times. Melvin didn’t know why he had been called into the office, but it wasn’t uncommon for staff to turn on each other and try to get each other in trouble.

“Melvin, I called you in here today because I received a complaint from nursing staff that you have been rude to some of the residents.”

“You’re shitting me,” Melvin replied trying to crack a joke.

“That’s not funny,” Gail replied. “They say you taunt the residents that return their food or refuse what you serve.”

“Taunt?” Melvin asked in a disapproving tone. “Like how?”

“I have a note here that says last week you were serving meatballs and one of the residents complained that they ordered the spaghetti and you refused to change the order. Not only that, you came over to the residents table, called them a fucking old bat and threatened to piss in their lemonade if they complained again.”

“That’s total bullshit and you know it!” Melvin snapped back. “Who wrote that note?”

Gale folded the note and placed it in the top drawer of her desk. “That’s confidential,” she replied.

“I deserve to confront my accusers!” Melvin yelled.

“This isn’t a court of law, I don’t have to tell you shit.”

“You’re making this up, who was the resident?”

“Can’t tell you that either.”

“Did we even serve meatballs last week?” Melvin asked looking for a menu on her desk.

“Melvin, the issue here isn’t the meatballs, it’s your attitude. I realize you’ve had a rough life and that the courts saw fit not to try to execute you a second time for the horrendous crimes you committed, but I think I’ve cut you plenty of slack and given you more than enough chances to prove you are not some criminal whack job. Not a lot of people would have hired you knowing what you had done to those two poor innocent people.”