Dating Father Time's Daughter (Book 1)

Chapter 2: Joe's Best Day

Don't ask Joe to explain why he got involved. Every person on earth has a breaking point. The pieces of glass around this pink-haired girl's feet represented both a threat to her livelihood and the remaining bits of the old Joe.

"Just let her go home. It's getting pretty late" said Joe.

The gang of men turned away from Joe and Pixie to exchange glances with each other. Then, when the leader of the gang turned back around, the greasy bottom of a Freedom Fries bag smacked him in the face. The leader of the gang fell to his side as a shower of fries, napkins, and ketchup packets exploded out of the bottom of the bag and cascaded upon him.

"Five-second rule!" yelled Joe.

He gripped Pixie's arm with his damp hand and darted in the opposite direction.

Pixie allowed the man to lead the way, but he was far from an Olympic sprinter. She felt they would have moved faster if she carried him on her back. After five minutes of running, he came to a halt in a narrow alley.

"You head that way" said Joe pointing to a ladder positioned to his left.

"I'll stay behind and let them get close. That way they'll chase after me and forget about you" he finished, now pointing to the other end of the alley.

Pixie initially didn't want to listen to him, but she relented. She had already had more human interaction in this moment than her entire life. While she admired and mimicked the ways of humans from afar, she knew better than to become directly involved in their affairs.

The sound of the gang boomed within earshot. Two members spotted the two and charged in their direction, while signaling to the others. Joe took a deep breath and gave Pixie a thumbs up.

"I may look weak and completely useless, but... who cares about me! Hurry up and climb!"

Pixie gripped the bottom rung of the ladder and pulled herself upwards and away from Joe. With each inch upward, she regretted her decision more and more. This human had put her safety before his own. But why?

Joe managed to take two steps away from the gang of men quickly approaching before his ankle betrayed him and he fell onto his stomach. He knew he was doomed, but he didn't feel bad. Joe looked towards the pink-haired girl, who quickly ascended upwards and out of sight--like an angel. He smiled. What if a good use of his time was ensuring someone else got to make good use of their time?

A boot bashed into Joe's nose. His head bounced off of the ground as the gang of men pummeled him. Before going unconscious, Joe saw a white light that blended with the bright red color of his blood, spilled all over the concrete. Together the white and the red mixed into a lovely shade of pink. A shade of pink reminiscent of the hair color of the girl he managed to rescue.

Despite his mouth being numb, Joe fixed a smile on his face. For some reason, he was the happiest he'd ever been.

***

Joe woke up to the sound of bandages being unwound from his arm. He peeled open his eyes and saw the purple scrubs of a nurse.

"I'm glad you're finally waking up, Mr. Means" said the nurse.

Joe opened his eyes completely and saw that he was in a hospital room. To his left was a closed white curtain partitioning him off from another patient in the same room. To his right was an open window that permitted warm sunlight to beam onto his bed-sheets. 

"I can't believe they spared my life" said Joe.

"Oh you should have seen it" said the nurse getting up to dispose of the old bandages.

"A flood of young men on stretchers poured into the hospital last night. We haven't seen lacerations that bad in years! People started speculating that a mountain lion was on the loose, but what would a mountain lion be doing in New York City?!" continued the nurse.

She placed her hand behind Joe's back and helped him into an upright position on the bed.

"The crazy thing is, out of all those men, you were the only one without lacerations" finished the nurse.

Joe held his head in his hands.

"Oh no. You can't go back to sleep Mr. Means. We have to discharge you. You aren't hurt nearly as bad as those other folks. You look like you just suffered a little beat down. Nothing a little R&R can't take care of" she said.

***

Joe limped down the hall following the red exit signs that hung from the ceiling. Preparing to turn the corner, he looked into a room and caught a glimpse of the gang member, with the cinder block head, wrapped like a mummy in bandages.

Joe stared into the room and noticed a vase full of pink carnation flowers sitting on the guy's bedside table. The color pink served as a metaphorical boomerang. The memories from last night all came back to him now.

Curious, Joe stole a glance into a different room and saw two other men from last night wrapped in bandages. The shredded leather jackets that hung from the coat rack only supported his conclusion that these were the guys from last night.

Joe no longer limped out of the hospital. Seeing the wounded and mummified faces of the men, who assaulted him last night, energized him. Joe looked at his hands and tightened them into fists.

"I must have went psycho and knocked them out!" shouted Joe entering the lobby.

He felt there was no other reasonable explanation. Miraculously, he defended the pink-haired girl from the gang of men last night. His white smile was so magnetic that it stole the attention away from his black eye.

For the second time, he was the happiest he'd ever been.