I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive Read Free Page B

Doc's word alone. A South Presa dime bag was a serious shot of dope. Novices usually split one into two shots and did well not to throw up. Doc had been known to bang as many as three at once, but right now he needed to keep his wits about him. Actually, he'd been operating at a deficit for most of the day and the dime bag felt pretty good; he tasted the taste, the tingle, and, for a fleeting instant, his chin dropped down on his chest.
The voice starts out low like it always does but it isn't soft. Subliminally irritating, like a fine grade of sandpaper.
    "
Come on, Doc. Can't you help me out? My back's killin' me!
"
    "
You're already dead!" Doc barks. "Now leave me alone!
"
    "Wha's that, Doc?" Marge bellowed.
    But the spell was broken and the voice faded away into a vague ringing in Doc's ears along with any trace of a buzz.

    "Nothin'. Nothin' at all. Just thinkin' out loud."
    There was a sharp rap on the screen door downstairs.
    "Hey, Doc! You got company down here!"
    "All right, all right, already! I ain't deaf! Quit your caterwaulin' and send 'em on up!"
    Normally, Doc would have completed his business with the young couple in a little over an hour and sent them on their way with a handful of penicillin capsules, but this time there were problems. The girl bled profusely and it didn't want to stop. It was touch and go for a while but Doc's hands were rock steady as long as he had enough dope in him, and his fingers remembered what to do even though morphine had long shrouded his brain in perpetual mist. Without any conscious deliberation, his focus shifted, allowing him to concentrate on the crisis at hand and to forget about anything and everything that haunted him, be it whispering voices or the discarded remains of the fetus in the washbasin on the dresser.
    Without a hospital's facilities at his disposal, Doc had to improvise. A transfusion was obviously out of the question, so it was imperative that he stop the bleeding immediately. He knew better than to expect any helping hand from the girls. Marge couldn't be bothered, and Dallas instantly lost consciousness at the sight of blood. He scrambled to rip narrow strips from the sheets, dropping them into the boiling water in hopes of killing any organism that had taken up residence there, and, when they cooled a little, he packed the birth canal full of the makeshift bandages and applied constant pressure with the heel of his hand until the bleeding finally stopped.
    The girl had lost a lot of blood and couldn't be moved and so far the boy had only been underfoot, so Doc sent him home, assuring him that she would be strong enough to go in the morning. Doc noted that the little bastard didn't hesitate for a second, leaving without so much as a nod to the girl. The bleeding came back in fits and starts, and the dressing had to be changed every couple of hours, so for Doc it was a long, anxious afternoon.
    But by four o'clock, the bleeding had finally stopped for good and the girl was resting comfortably enough that Doc felt safe asking Dallas to keep an eye on her while he slipped out to Manny's spot to cop.
    The afternoon's windfall allowed the purchase of a
quarta—
two and a half grams of dope for fifty dollars—and Doc still had a few bucks left over for a week's rent, some groceries, and a carton of smokes. He looked in on the girl, shot another lick of dope, and by four thirty he was back at his table in the beer joint nursing a beer and chain-smoking Camels in hopes that lightning would strike twice in one day.
    The happy-hour crowd began to filter in. Unlike the daytime patrons, these folks were mostly squares who busted their backs all day long building houses that they could never afford to live in or repaving perfectly serviceable roads in neighborhoods way across town. They arrived in groups of three or four, drank a pitcher of beer among them, and maybe shot a game of pool before hurrying home in time for supper. It was always one of them who