Captains Outrageous Read Free Page B

’em looks to be sewed too loose,” he said.
    “It’ll do,” I said.
    I was sitting on a gurney in a little room just off of the emergency room hall. An intern had just sewn me up and left. Now there was just me, Leonard, and John.
    A cop, a friend of mine, Charlie Blank, had been in earlier to take my side of the story. He left shortly after Leonard’s and John’s arrival.
    The young woman who had been beaten was in intensive care, and word was she wasn’t doing too well. One thing was certain, she had lost some teeth and an eye.
    “Well,” Leonard said, “you did say you saw a wood rat out by the trees.”
    “I just didn’t know he was so mean.”
    “Yeah, he wasn’t as afraid of you as you thought.”
    “I don’t think this sonofabitch was afraid of anything. I tell you, Leonard, he was the toughest dude I’ve ever fought. I’d rather fight three guys than fight him again, and me with a pipe wrench. I think Ella May wants a piece of him, though.”
    “Ella May,” John said, “hasn’t got the sense of two nickels rubbed together. I’ve known her all my life. Before she was cutting chicken throats, she worked at the aluminum chair plant with me. She put the damn riveter through her fingers two or three times. I’m surprised she hasn’t cut her own throat at the chicken plant.”
    “I’m not accusing her of intelligence,” I said, “just her willingness to fight. Come to think of it, her and this guy, they’d make a great tag team they wanted to get together. They’d be unbeatable.”
    “Good thing she wasn’t on his side tonight,” John said.
    “She hadn’t been there,” I said, “that sonofabitch would have gotten away. I wonder how bad messed up he is. I’d feel better he looked worse than me.”
    “Well,” Leonard said, “it ain’t like you got to worry about your native good looks.”
    “What I’d like to know,” John said, “is what’s this guy’s story?”
    “Whatever it is,” I said, “it isn’t a fairy tale. More like a horror story, I figure.”
    “Speakin’ of horror stories,” Leonard said, “that shirt Charlie had on, where in hell did he find that? It looked like it had been used to wipe up paint.”
    “It’s colorful,” I said.
    “Colorful is a nice word,” John said.
    In that moment I realized since Leonard had been seeing John he dressed nicer himself. Nothing fancy, but a little slicker. John always dressed that way, like he was going to a casual prayer meeting.
    “Charlie just looked like hell in general,” Leonard said.
    “He’s divorced and not happy about it. He gave up cigarettes because his wife wouldn’t give him any unless he did. Turned out she was seeing a guy on the side who smoked. It really got his goat. Worse yet, now he finds he can quit smoking. Thing bothers him most, besides the wife gone, is he’s gotten hooked on this shitty Kung Fu television series. He said when he got to taping it while he was at work, looking forward to it at nights, he knew he had crossed the line into dark depression.”
    “I don’t know,” John said. “Nothing to do, it’s not so bad.”
    Leonard and I looked at him.
    “I mean, I watch it sometimes,” he said. “I got nothing else on tape, you know. Now and then.”
    We kept looking at him.
    “Jeez, guys. I’ll quit. Promise. Really.”
    I took a couple days off from work, enjoyed being a hero for about fifteen minutes. Me and Ella May. I wondered how she was doing. Probably still cussing and wanting to fight.
    Night it happened I was so wired I didn’t sleep, and the next day I was still wired, and the next night too. I was not only wired, I hurt too. I felt as if I had been wrapped in duct tape and rolled down a rocky mountainside into a brick wall with my nuts in my teeth.
    Friday some of it passed and I got a good night’s sleep, slept in late without the bad dreams, and was a lot less sore. Saturday morning, near eleven, I was up in my sweat pants, T-shirt, and bare feet, making