The Drunk Logs
Drunk Logs
By Steven Kuhn
Copyright 2012 by Steven Kuhn
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass
and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
The Drunk Logs
Steven Kuhn
Chapter 1
By a two-lane country road, there stood a rusted steel mailbox, its numbers worn off, on a wooden pole at the edge of an asphalt driveway—home to one lonely spider. Looking west, a lone road sign read “65,” where the trees and grass on either side of the road grew smaller behind it. Everything was green, except for the brown telephone poles and the wooden fence that lined the side of the road and hiccupped through the dimples in the earth. In the distance, if you squinted your eyes hard enough, you would have seen a small, speckled car heading east as an old, beat up crème Cadillac zipped past that mailbox and 65 sign, leaving waves of wind in the tall grass; a cool welcome to the spring heat.
I drove my black Oldsmobile Delta 88 east down the country road I had never been on before, and periodically felt my young but weathered face, which looked like it had been hit with a baseball bat. My brown hair wasn’t long enough to cover the damage, and my glazed, blue, blood-shot eyes looked like they hadn’t really cared for a long time. Realizing that I only had a few thousand feet to go, I slowed my car, when on the left side, that old, beat up Cadillac zoomed past with a man holding on for dear life to the hood of the car. I wasn’t sure if I saw what I thought I saw, but then again, I had heard strange stories about the country before.
Passing the rusted mailbox, I slammed on my brakes and strained to hold the steering wheel straight. I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was behind me, put the car in reverse, and slowly passed the rusted mailbox again. As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a white and black wooden sign that read “Stone River.”
If I had only seen that sign first, I wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble
, I thought.
As I crept in, I thought the parking lot wasn’t very large, but there were enough cars to make it look full. I found a spot between two Ford trucks, one dark blue and the other red, and parked my car in reverse. I thought that if this didn’t work out I could always make an easy getaway.
Dumped in the center of God’s country, surrounded by the vibrant colors of nature, stood Stone River, alone and defiant, resisting any form of nurturing. The multicolored wildflowers made up the blush for the stone and window face, a preview of the beauty that lay dormant inside. Its concrete and red wooden draw bridge unfurled like a tongue, overlooking the river (although many have thought it more like a creek) from which the building gained its name. The finely cut grass gave sideburns to the building, finished off by trees that encircled it like hair. It was quiet in this middle of…wherever. The insects, birds, and breeze were the only ones who had gained the right to speak.
The engine puttered a slow, dying death as I walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk. Pulling out my suitcases, I extended the handle on the large black one and threw the red duffle bag over my shoulder. With a loud “fwump” of the trunk and the beep of the car alarm, I started on my way, but not before checking my face in the side mirror; the swelling was still the same.
“Hmmm,” the wheels sounded as I crossed the parking lot and entered the covered bridge. I looked to the river below, where tiny bubbles exploded on the rocks like ships as the blades of grass on the shore watched in horror.
I grabbed the cold steel handle and with one heavy pull opened the door; a gush of cold air brushed my hair and clothes back.
This is it
, I thought to myself, and entered the building. The door battled the cold, blowing air as it closed slowly behind me.
The entrance was exactly as I expected; a room that resembled a reception area in a doctor’s office. It was sizeable and barren, with the reception desk firmly planted into the floor. Yellow leather chairs arranged in an "L" followed the flow of the walls, which stopped at a relatively large picture window. Outside in the distance was a pond, with a fountain that sprouted up in the middle.
“Well, hello there. How may I help you?” a young and frustrated woman said as she sat behind the information desk and threw her candy smile to anyone within distance.
“Yes, I called yesterday. They, uh, told me to come in today.”
“And your name, dear?”
“Matt Hoffman.”
Clippity-clap went the keyboard, “Okay, you just sit right over there and a nurse will be with you shortly,” she said, as she gazed into the computer screen.
I turned around and walked to the last chair closest to the exit, put my bags down, and sat in the chair. Just as my head began to nod, a nurse bent around the corner in her colorful, purple scrub uniform, accepted the file from the candy-smiled receptionist, and threw one of her own.
“Matt Hoffman? Follow me please.”
I grabbed my suitcase and extended the handle; the duffle bag around my shoulder helped balance out the weight. “Click, click, click, click, click, click,” the wheels sounded on the burgundy tile, followed by a low “hmmm” sound on the tightly woven, green carpet.
I followed the nurse down the vanilla corridor and found that my eyes became fixated on the rhythm of her bouncing, long, black hair that kept in time with her robust ass. Boom, boom, boom, boom.
She motioned her arms like a game show host and pointed to the areas of interest.
“To the left we have pop and snack vending machines.”
Click, click, click.
Hmmm.
“To the right behind the large window we have a courtyard where patients are allowed to go at night after curfew, if they wish to smoke.”
Hmmm.
“To the left through this door we have the Nautilus gym. Times are printed on the schedule you will receive when you are allowed to use it. You will be getting the schedule later.”
Click, click, click, click, click.
“Straight ahead through those glass double doors are a pavilion where people can smoke, a tennis court, cornhole, pond for fishing, and a field if anyone should want to play athletics…given permission.”
Hmmm.
The nurse, on occasion, would look back to see if I was still there.
The further we proceeded, the more uneasy I felt, and the atmosphere changed the closer that we came to the intersection ahead. Within a blink, the nurse stretched like toffee around the corner, and with a quick step, I bent with a blur as my suitcase struck the corner wall; the image before me stopped me dead.
Chaos was the only element that I saw, as the guiding nurse had become one with it. Slowly, I advanced like on a carpet of eggshells and prepared myself for the world I was about to enter.
The rooms lined up like dominoes, where a cavalcade of pale patients entered, exited, and roamed aimlessly in their street clothes. The world was still the same, only this space was confined by four walls, and with happenstance, we all shared one thing in common.
Pick a color—they were here. Pick an age—they were here. Pick an occupation—they were here. Pick a family member—they were here. Pick at any moment, any person of choice, time, or place and you would find that in this life or the next they were here. And their caretakers tried in vain to blend in as they followed along with their uniforms of purple prints, embellished with woodpeckers, matchbox cars, comic book characters, or whatever suited their fancy for that day.
I maneuvered my way past the congestion, constantly trying to stay in step with the nurse, who directed me past the jam of even more nurses standing in front of the nurses’ station, which was merely an open hole in the wall. She pointed for me to wait in a small nook in the hallway, with four brown leather lounge chairs, and two examining rooms to the left. I chose the lounge chair closest to the hallway and put my suitcase and duffle bag down.
Eventually, I started to fidget in my chair as I tried to keep my ass from falling asleep. Adding to my delirium, I felt my suitcases constantly to make sure no one had stolen them. In the distance, by the nurses’ station, the atmosphere was cheerful; mainly talk of work, but occasionally the conversation got interrupted by food, family, or gossip about other employees.
Suddenly, a figure whipped around the corner. “Hi, I’m Jack, but everybody here calls me Jack Jack,” the person stated, scaring me, with his hand extended. “You must be one of our new visitors. Follow me. I need to check your vitals.”
Jack Jack wasn’t dressed like the other nurses, just in street clothes. He had semi-curly brown hair that just kissed his collar and a complexion that had just recovered from a bad case of acne. His pug nose trespassed onto his face, and the small cleft in his chin wasn’t invited either. The cocky smile matched his droopy eyes, which appeared to be in cahoots with one another, and his walk complemented his entire ensemble with his street wise strut and low flowing right arm.
The room we entered was cramped with only a medical table, a blood pressure machine, a white multi-drawer cabinet containing miscellaneous medical tools, and a lone, white plastic trash can in the corner that read “hazardous waste only.” The walls were that same vanilla color of the hallway, and the tightly woven carpet was still green.
“Sorry I’m not in my nurses’ pajamas, but I just got in, and as you can see we’re a little busy out there today. So why don’t you hop up on the table, roll up your sleeve, and try to relax. I first need to check your blood pressure,” he hurriedly stated.
I hopped up on the table and began to roll up my sleeve, while Jack Jack, with his back turned, started to fiddle with the instruments in the white cabinet. He proceeded to walk over to the doorway and poke his head out into the nook.
“Yeah, I’ll be with you when I’m done in here, just a few minutes.”
He came back, wrapped the blood pressure belt around my right arm, and pushed the start button. The machine began to hum like the wheels of my suitcase on the tightly woven green carpet.
“So…what happened to your head?” he asked, observing every bruise and dried blood spot on my swollen face.
“I fell and smacked my head on some concrete.”
“Some concrete? It looks like you fell on all of it. So was it D1 or D2?”
“D1 or D2?” I asked, puzzled.
“Yeah, drunk or drugs?”
“Drunk,” I whispered, embarrassed.
The machine started to beep, but Jack Jack didn’t notice; he was preoccupied with my two-tone face.
“Hey, I think the machine is done?” I said with concern.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” he laughed under his breath as he looked down at the screen. “Okaaay, everything checks out here. A little bit high, but you don’t have anything to worry about,” he said as the belt whistled and lost air.
He ripped the Velcro and took the belt off, walked back to the white medical cabinet, opened one of the drawers, and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves and a tongue depressor. With a smile and a snap of the rubber gloves, he devilishly sashayed over.
“Okay, now I need you to drop your pants, because I need to check you anally. To see if everything is ticking properly,” he stated loudly for anyone within earshot.
Stone-faced like a deer in headlights and not knowing exactly what to do, I sat motionless.
“Come on, I have other patients to see. If you don’t do it, I’ll get one of the female nurses in here to do it.”
Still nervous, but now confused, I didn’t know how to react. Do I drop my pants or just leave and forget all this nonsense? My mind continued to race.