It was about 9:00 PM. What the hell had happened? I was slouched on my couch, the remnants of a previously full bottle of scotch lay on it’s side on the end table. In typical northern state fashion the sky was still light out my window. My head throbbed and my brain was completely disjointed.
I had left the police department about 5 hours ago. There was a blur in my memory from that time until now. I wish the black out also covered the 5 hours preceding that. Everything seemed like it was stuck in replay. It must be a trauma reaction. I was going as crazy as one of my patients.
I had walked into the bank and started writing out a check for cash. I heard a scream from behind me and turned to see three men burst into the bank. They opened fire on the tellers. I had taken all that fine. I was calm, ducked below the counter I was at and pushed my back against the wall. I knew to keep a low profile and not play hero. Heroes die.
But that’s where things went all out of whack. Had there been drugs in my lunch? Had I really stolen the morphine and gotten high? Morphine shouldn’t make you see what I saw.
As the first teller was shot and started to fall to the ground my vision blurred. Not like being drunk, more like a TV where your madly adjusting the antenna to try and get reception. I heard a soft voice that seemed to come from inside me call for Jason then felt a warm trickle down my forehead and a searing pain in the back of my skull.
The world came back to normal for a split second. I felt a panic inside of me. What was that I read in that book, fear is the mind killer. Mine had to be dying. No sooner than that thought drifted through my head and the second teller was shot and crumpled. I heard the thump of her body on the floor then the world swirled again.
I found myself in a rapidly repeated scene in a kitchen. Sometimes it was night, sometimes day. Mostly night. A man was there, he wore a suite, no pants and a tank top, no he was in pair of boxers, now back to the suite. The smell of alcohol permeated my nostrils. I saw his first raise and strike my face, over and over. Then a child stumbled crying down the stairs and screamed. The man turned and hurled a chair at the small boy. It struck him. I felt a rage rising inside me. The vision slowed, the child fell. He didn’t move and blood trickled from his nose. His small chest rose and fell with unconscious breath. A voice resigned to fate, but defiant and laced with hate whispered “This should have been you Jeff, this should’ve been you.”
I felt my lungs filled with warm fluid, my brain stung and my muscles ached then I burst back into the real world again. I was raging, mad. For the first time in my life I wanted to kill someone or something. Who was Jeff? I wanted to find that man and beat him until my fists were raw and his body lifeless.
The door to the bank burst open. A middle aged officer stormed in with his revolver raised. Gunfire burst from behind the counter. The shots rang out and struck the officer. I felt my body pull away from me. I saw the robbers, their guns pointed at me. The barrels flashed like a rock concert light show. The bang, bang formed an odd rhythm that matched the anger still burning in me for Jeff. Who was Jeff?
As that thought flitted through my mind I felt the floor hit my face. It was warm, wet and sticky. I never felt a floor that felt like that before. I could still taste a doughnut, a cherry Bismark, in the back of my mouth. The tip, was it right, was it enough? The waitress was cute and I wanted her to appreciate me stopping by for my daily coffee and doughnut. But I had a job to do. Jeff, where was he. He needed to die.
I pushed up from the floor. I couldn’t hold my head up straight but that didn’t matter. Rage and duty pushed me toward the counter. The gunmen turned toward me. I couldn’t help the passing “heroes die” thought. The guns where flashing again. I felt like my skin was peeling. A sensation like needles from a thousand nurses found their way into my legs and left arm. I felt my left shoulder lurch forward like I had dropped a weight and was thrown off balance. A burning sensation throbbed just below the shoulder. I felt warm and moist, like the thickest sweat imaginable wept from my pores.
My legs gave way. I felt a snap and a sharp sting in both. I was on my knees. Then I saw the middle robber. That suit, I knew it. I knew it. Jeff, it had to be him. Rage reasserted control. Muscle memory extended my right arm in front of me. The guns weren’t flashing anymore. I saw their trigger fingers pulling madly and motionless shock on their faces. My right index finger squeezed twice at Jeff, then twice at the masked man to his right, then twice at the last one standing robber to the left. I collapsed to the floor. Helen would be proud I though. Who is Helen? The world went blurry. I fell two stinging sensations tare into my face, pressure build in my head then release in the back of my skull, then the floor. It happened again. Jeff, yes it was Jeff. Then the two stinging blows were felt for the third and final time. The thud of the floor then the world went black.
The scotch is empty, empty. Nothing left but the pounding in my head. No, what I’m hearing is a pounding on the door.