It felt weird, opening the door and sitting down in Miss Lily-Rylee's little compact car. It was a 1980's model, a little gas-crunch sub-compact little beater, but she kept it clean. The seat was busted out but comfortable, even if my knees were up by my chest.
"How are you?" Miss Lily-Rylee asked quietly, turning to look at me after she buckled up.
"All right," I told her.
She patted my leg, smiling for my benefit.
I buckled the seat-belt, staring at my legs for a long moment.
"It's not too bad," She said quietly. "It could be worse."
I could almost feel a click inside my brain, like an old rusty cog clicking into place to lower a bulkhead to seal off part of my thought process.
I gave her a big grin. "Very true. It can always be worse. Hell, it's been worse."
My words made her stop reaching for the ignition, putting her hand back in her lap, and look back at me.
"You're taking the fact that you have to have surgery pretty well," She said carefully.
Again, I smiled at her. "The damage is old damage. If the doctor's right, having this operation will make it easier for me to breathe."
She shook her head. "You aren't afraid?"
That made me chuckle. "Do you have any idea what military medical care is like?" I grinned at her. She shook her head and my grin got wider. "The doctor's do their best, but the injuries they deal with are usually massive, they deal with outdated equipment, people who say 'I'm fine' with an arm bent wrong with the bone sticking out, and limited to 'authorized procedures' that are usually a decade or so behind current medical technology."
She frowned at that. "I thought military medicine was cutting edge," She said.
I shrugged. "It's complicated. During war-time, or at the bigger hospitals that are better equipped, they do cutting edge stuff for life-saving techniques. Hell, I'm alive because the doctor that worked on my chest had experience with the kind of trauma I'd taken."
I didn't tell her that despite the all of the doctor's, on three different continents, best efforts I'd lost my career. It was a lot of damage, and I'd been lucky. Luckier than 4/5ths of Echo-Five-Actual had been.
STAND AND DELIVER
"Are you worried?" She asked me.
Again, I shook my head. "There's a decade of medical advances, a couple of years of war time medical advances in treatment of injuries like mine."
She asked a question I knew was coming.
"Sammy, what happened?" She asked me.
I sighed, pulling my cigarettes out of my top pocket. I lit two, giving her one, and rolled the window down.
Then up.
Then down.
Then up.
I didn't realize she had watched me roll it up and down, her eyes narrowing. I looked out the window and blew smoke outside. I wasn't sure how much of what had happened was still classified. Even though a decade had gone by, even though Iraq was cooperating with the UN Inspectors, the facility and its contents could still be classified.
They'd never given us a cover story for it. Just told us it was classified. The award letter was written in generalities, just mentioning combat against superior numbers and a position that was vital to hold.
What are you going to say, Sam English? How are you going to explain what you did without sounding like a movie?
I stared out the window, at the parking lot, at the hospital itself. I took another drag and stared out the window, collecting my thoughts. Miss Lily-Rylee's hand rested on my thigh and rubbed gently, reassuring me.
"You don't have to talk about it if you aren't ready, Sam," She said gently.
I sighed. "I've never talked to anyone about it who wasn't there," I told her. Cold sweat covered my back and I shivered slightly. "Pru, she... she didn't want to know. It was bad enough for her, seeing the scars, coming to visit me in the hospital, the year long recovery."
I sighed. "That was the hardest. Rehab. They had to put my knee back together twice before I could walk without a cane. It took months for me to be able to use my right arm very well. Hell, even now I get short of breath real easy. For the first couple of years I was considered immunity compromised and had to take antibiotics all the time. Even now, I run a risk of infections."
"That's why you aren't surprised," She said, squeezing gently.
I nodded. "That's why I'm handling so easy. I knew this was a risk, but I expected it years ago, not now."
"Do you want to go shopping?" She asked me, jingling her keys.
I shook my head. "I need to go by the wrecking yard, make an appointment to get that old wreck behind the house hauled off."
She nodded. "I went to high school with one of the guys who works there. Bubba Coldwren."
The big bruiser from the bar. He'd mentioned working at the scrap yard when we were having drinks. I just nodded as she started the car.
We'd driven for about fifteen minutes when she broke the silence.
"You're going to need someone to take care of you after the surgery, Sammy," She said.
"I'll be OK," I told her, flashing her a smile.
She shook her head. "No, Sammy. I think I'll take some time off work. Tell Uncle Pete that someone has to take care of you."
I gave her a weird look, shaking my head. "I can take care of myself, Miss Lily-Rylee."
The car went silent as we drove and I could sense her disapproval. Women were like that, at times. The silence was heavy and I could feel she wanted to argue but she stayed silent until we turned in to Dolan's Scrap Yard.
We got out, heading into the main office. The bell tinkled and I recognized the guy sitting at the counter playing a game on his phone.
John-Edwards, the short stumpy mouthy little fuck.
He looked up, saw Miss Lily-Rylee, and got a nasty grin on his face.
It vanished when his brain finally processed seeing me.
"John-Edwards," I said, moving forward. He paled slightly, looking up at me from where he was sitting down.
"Oh," John-Edwards said. I could see sweat beading up on his forehead. "Um, you here to see Bubba?"
I shook my head. "Need to get an old wreck hauled out from behind my house."
John-Edwards nodded, relaxing slightly. "Not a big priority then?"
He kept glancing at Miss Lily-Rylee, something slick and ugly in back of his eyes.
"Next week. Thursday or Friday," I told him.
He nodded, pulling over a notebook and flipping it open. "Yeah, we can do it then. It got tires?"
I shook my head. "No. Bare axles, sunk slightly into the ground. Need a winch to pull it up on the truck," I told him.
"Yeah, we can pull it. I'll have Bubba come out with the trailer and gear," he flashed me a nasty grin and I wondered if he figured me and Bubba might have problems. He gave Miss Lily-Rylee a grin. "You gonna be there, Lily?"
She just shook her head. "No. Gotta work at the store."
"Maybe I'll stop by," John-Edwards gave her another leer and I felt anger surge up inside.
I pushed it down.
"Next Thursday, then," John-Edwards said to me. "Where?"
I gave him the address and he wrote it down. As soon as he did, I turned and left, Miss Lily-Rylee following me.
When we got in the car, I locked and unlocked the car door three times. Miss Lily-Rylee fired up the little beater and sprayed gravel pulling out, the tires squealing when she pulled out onto the road. I could tell she was going faster than normal, the tires squealing slightly as we took the corners. We flew through town and she blew through the stop-sign. I could hear her teeth grinding the whole way to the house. She came in too fast, slamming on the brakes and skidding in the gravel of the little parking lot in front of my house, the tires bumping the log hard enough to throw us against the seat belts.
I'd stayed silent the entire ride. I knew better than to try to talk to her.
Being in the car with a mad woman was worse than almost anything else I'd ever faced.
The car was barely shut off before she jumped out, slamming the door with venom. I unlocked and locked the door three times before I got out, following her to where she was standing on my porch, her arms crossed and her jaw clenched.
I opened the door, going inside, and she followed me. I locked and unlocked the door three times, then turned to look at her.
She stood in the middle of my front room, her face red, jaw clenched, fists clenched at her sides. The muscles on her arms and legs stood out and her eyes were shut tightly. Her lips were pulled back in a grimace and she was breathing heavily between her teeth.
I went into the kitchen, pouring two glasses of instant lemonade, walking back into the front room and sitting on the couch. I set both glasses on coasters, then leaned back.
After a long moment she suddenly screamed, loud and long. I saw it coming and was prepared for it so it didn't surprise me at all. She inhaled and screamed again, bringing her fists up by her chest. I grabbed my cigarettes, lighting two, and waited.
She relaxed, then opened her eyes, looking at me. She flushed suddenly, looking down.
"Better?" I asked, holding one of the cigarettes out to her.
She nodded, still bright red. "Goddamn it."
"Mister John-Edwards really wound you up, didn't he?" I asked as she took the cigarette.
Miss Lily-Rylee nodded, taking it and taking a deep drag off it. She blew smoke up in the air, then went rigid again.
"I hate that son of a bitch," She snarled. She started pacing back and forth, her Daisy-Duke shorts tight enough for me to see how tightly she was clenching her backside. "I hate hate hate that motherfucker."
"Figured Bubba'd be someone you'd dislike more," I prodded.
She stopped, snarling at me. "Bubbe Coldwren is a good man. That tramp Betty-Joe better not ever show her herpes covered cock sucker around here ever again. That whore drained their bank accounts, took the car and the dog, ran off, left Bubba with their daughter. So what if he gets in fights at the bar, he takes good goddamn care of little Cathy."
I nodded. "My mistake, Miss Lily-Rylee."
"Goddamn right," she snapped.
I patted the couch. "Sit down, drink some lemonade, smoke your cigarette," I suggested gently.
She stomped over, throwing herself on the cushions next to me. We were silent for a few moments.
"That sawed off little goat fucking trash fire," She sneered. "Did you see him leering at my goddamn tits?"
I nodded and made a noise, just listening to her.
"Son of a bitch made my life miserable in school. When my boobs came in, he got worse. Seemed like every day that son of a bitch was grabbing my tits, goosing me, grabbing my goddamn ass," She snarled. "I fucking hate him."
We were silent for a long moment, until she suddenly stubbed her cigarette out and stood up. She started walking back and forth, mumbling to herself and I stood and watched her. Finally, I put out my cigarette and stood up.
"You, come with me," I said, snapping my fingers and motioning in front of me.
"What, Sam?" She asked. I could feel her anger in her voice.
"I carried a lot of anger for a long time, I had to learn how to control it," I told her. We moved down the hallway to one of the extra bedrooms. When I opened it up and went inside, she stared at what was inside.
"A long time ago I knew someone," I told her, walking into the room. "She often told us that meditation and all the other hocus-pocus around most martial arts was only half of it."
I pulled the training dummy out into the middle of the room.
"What is that?" She asked me.
"It's used to practice. This one is padded, used to start training or if you haven't trained in a long time," I told her.
"You're going to teach me martial arts?" She asked.
"No. I wouldn't even know where to start," I laughed. "What I'm going to do is," I paused a second to grab two of the rattan sticks, straightening up slowly as my chest twinged. I tossed first one then the other to her.
"Teach you how to bleed away that rage," I smiled. I moved over and grabbed two for me. I changed my grip, making sure she could see me. "First, grip them like this."
Miss Lily-Rylee nodded, copying me.
For a split second I missed Miranda Stokes so bad it physically hurt.
I pushed the feeling away, motioning at the practice dummy. "Now hit."
I stood and watched, correcting her now and then, as Miss Lily-Rylee took out her frustrations on the dummy.
Unfortunately, she felt good enough at the end of it, she insisted on cooking for me.
But I ate it.
Her smile made it worth it.