Chapter 8 #2
“They’re not your friends, and I applaud them for treating you like an inmate.
You can talk to yourself for all I care, just leave the women alone.
” Nora, the judge looked at him. “For that matter, you’re to leave anyone alone who tells you that they don’t want anything to do with you.
Understand me? When they tell you ‘no’, then you’re to leave them alone too.
Not having the police call them for you either. ”
“Well, it’s going to be a boring year for me.
Can I at least have me some pens and paper?
I have to make notes on things I’m going to do when I get out of jail.
” Nora said that he could have one sheet of paper at a time and one pencil.
Nothing more. “Not even a magazine or two? How about me getting a television I can keep up with my shows on? This ain’t fair, you know.
She beat me up too and gets to be out doing things like she wants to do. ”
“She was defending herself against you. There is a difference. She wouldn’t have been beating on you at all had you left your ball bat at home and not touched the poor woman.
Now, as for your other requests, I’m going to leave that up to the police captain.
He’ll know what you need and what you don’t.
” She banged the gavel on the desk and then pointed at him.
“You’ll behave while in jail, or I’ll send you right to prison on the next trip, see that I don’t. ”
He tried to get someone to answer him about his television while they were taking him back to his cell.
David didn’t understand why it was such a big deal.
He’d made promises that he’d not have it on all night.
Unless there was something that he wanted to watch.
And he said that he’d turn it down when there were others around, but if they went to sleep, then he’d turn it back up.
They didn’t listen to him as usual, and he was getting kind of pissed about it.
Someone had to want him to be happy when he wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone for a whole year.
By then, Elaine might even have a baby. That would just ruin everything.
Her body would be all stretched out like she’d carried around fifty pounds of fat, then lost it.
He knew what a body would look like after giving birth; his own wife had done it to herself when she’d gotten pregnant with their kids.
And he wasn’t allowed to tell her not to get in the family way because he wasn’t allowed to talk to her.
Things were being messed with that he didn’t care for.
When they were taking him back to his cell, he asked for his pencil and paper.
They said they’d get it when they had time.
Well, he wanted to start on his list now, not when they had time.
He had several things already that he wanted to put on one sheet of paper that would about fill it up.
David was going to have to write really small, so he’d have everything on his list that he had, so as not to forget them.
His mind was too willy for him at the moment, and he couldn’t think straight.
He was blaming that on Elaine right away.
If she’d just done what he wanted, then things would have been better off for him.
Sitting on the edge of his cot, he put his head between his legs and sat there.
It had worked when he’d been a boy to calm his mind down.
It only happened when he was thinking too hard, and sometimes at work, he’d have to do this when the teachers were going on about something that they wanted.
Usually wanting more things for their rooms, but he had to deal with it the only way he knew how.
And that was to do what he was doing now.
Shut the world out and calm his breathing down enough where he could count them.
Sitting up, when someone said his name, they asked him if he was all right.
“I will be. Got me some breathing issues when I get excited.” The officer asked him what he had to be excited about. “My list. When I make one up, I get too excited and have to breathe this way to get my mind to relax. I’m all right now. Just have a bit of a headache.”
“You want to see the doctor?” He said that he would like something for his headache, but no, he didn’t want to see a doctor.
“I can’t give you nothing without his approval.
I’ll have to call the doc in to have him say it’s okay to give you something, even if it’s just an antacid. I’ll give her a call and see—”
“Is that all that works around here is women? Gees Louise. Would it be too much to ask if the chief of police is a man, then? Someone who would know what it’s like to be a man who isn’t allowed to talk to anyone?
” David was told that the chief was a man and that the doc was also their corner.
“Great. So long as she realizes that I’m a living man, not a dead one, I guess that will be all right. ”
The doc was called, and he was allowed something for his head.
But she was going to examine him first thing in the morning.
David couldn’t win today, and he wasn’t happy that he wasn’t going to get a television to watch.
The chief had said no, and that was final.
Everything against him was final, and he didn’t much care for it either.
~*~
Elaine got her stitches out of her lips this morning, and she was feeling good about herself.
Not only was she getting around better, but she could walk all the way to the mailbox and back without any trouble now.
She was able to do things that she’d not been able to do in the six weeks since she’d been hurt, like washing all of her hair instead of just the ends because of the wounds.
“You look like you feel better, too.” She told Shipley that she did, and it felt wonderful to feel good. “I’m glad you do. I might have you sign on as my assistant in the office I now hold. What do you think about being a medical examiner’s assistant?”
“I could do that for you. It sounds like something that I did when I was out of the country. I only did it a couple of times, but it wasn’t that bad.
” She said she’d been using Locke, but since he’s so busy with his patients at the hospital, it was getting harder for him to help her.
“I think that would be just the job that I’ve been looking for.
It’ll get me out of the house for sure.”
“That’s the reason that I do it. And because of the people waiting for death certificates.
There was quite a backlog when I first started.
I’m only just now getting things caught up there.
It wouldn’t be something that we do daily, I hope not anyway, but so far it’s only been about two a month.
Mostly from the nursing home.” She asked what she had to do.
“Nothing more than you did when you were a nurse. Just assist me with the post-mortems and help me keep up with paperwork, too. We can do a couple if you want to wait and decide if you want to do it or not. I’m easy. ”
“I think that it would be a good job. I’m not so sure about going back to class and teaching.
I drove by the parking lot the other day and had to pull over.
It made me so upset. I might not be able to teach again, but this I think I could do.
” Shipley said today she was working for the police department as a doctor for one of the inmates.
“It’s probably David. I think that he was the only one who stayed in jail when they were all sent off to prison. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“I don’t either now that you mention it.
But I’ll go and examine him today because I said that I would.
” Elaine asked if she had to do that often.
“No. He’s going to be there for a year, so at some point, he might get hurt, and I have to go and attend to him.
So if I have something to work with at the beginning, I’m not going to be blind sided by him when something goes wrong. He’s a dick weed, I heard.”
“He’s a prick, is what he is.” The two of them laughed.
“He really wasn’t that bad when I first met him.
Sometime between him interviewing me and Knox and me going out a few days later, he got it into his head that I was going to be his mistress.
As Knox said when he talked to him, it was like he heard the word and liked it, so he used it until he figured out what it meant.
Like I said, I want nothing to do with him or his illnesses.
It wouldn’t matter to me if he were to get some incurable disease and fade out of my life. ”
“You don’t mean that.” She said that she didn’t, but didn’t want to have to deal with him anymore.
“I can understand that. You’ve only just gotten your feet under you again, and you don’t want to go with me to examine him.
It would be nice, but I understand. Maybe Locke can spare a nurse to get blood for me while I’m there.
That would keep me from having to stick him several times to draw it. ”
Shipley made a call, and not only could Locke spare a nurse, but he sent over the equipment for her to get tissue samples, too, if she needed them.
David would be taken to the hospital in a couple of days to get a full body workup to make sure that his stay with the police was going to be a healthy one.
He would be put on a special diet too, so that he remained in good shape for when he went to prison, if that was a possibility after his trial date.