Running man

Part II

              The next morning he checked out of the expensive hotel. He walked to the nearest bank, and investigated the fullest qualities of the plastic cards his father had given him. The teller looked perplexed. He had questions, but didn’t ask any of them. David didn’t help the man’s curiosity, only accepted the liquidated assets and absconded.

               With a new number in mind, he walked and contemplated. What if he couldn’t find work? He needed to find a more efficient way to live for the time being. What if he couldn’t find work? With a new daily allowance, he could extend his situation for a substantial amount of time. What if he couldn’t find work.

               David walked into an alley and put his hands to a brick wall. He pushed, dissipating some of the stress in his shoulders and back. He grit his teeth and breathed. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t find work. He wasn’t going back.

               “Hey, you hear me?” someone asked.

               David looked over his shoulder at two men, dressed for the season and the setting. One of them even had a knife. “What?”

               “I said give me your wallet,” and he held the knife up.

               David stared at the blade. Old lessons made him reach for his wallet. His fingers touched against the weave of fabric of his pocket and he froze. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

               The one with the knife blinked and glanced at his accomplice. “Look. Shorty. Where do you see this going? We don’t want to hurt you, man.”

               “It’s all the money I have,” David said. He couldn’t ask for more. Calling home and asking… he couldn’t call home at all. David thought about the last kiss and hug he would ever receive from his mother.

               “I don’t give a, man get this fool,” the one with the knife said and stepped forward.

               David turned and ran. He was facing the wrong end of the alley, but he had to hope there was an outlet. Outrunning the thugs wouldn’t be difficult, but a dead end was still a dead end. Sprinting along, David felt better, like breaking down the fuel in his legs was breaking down the worry in his bones. The shouts and wheezing behind him faded from his perceptions as well. He needed a job, that was plain, but it didn’t have to be in civil planning. Just so long as he didn’t have to go home. Go back to the island.

               There wasn’t a dead end, but there was a high fence. David glanced over his shoulder. He’d left the robbers at a previous turn in the alley. Staring ahead, there didn’t seem to be anyone around. David accelerated, angling for one of the walls. He exploded from the pavement, aiming at the patch of bricks adjacent to the fence, and kicked over. He landed on his feet, like always.

               When he stood up, he heard a croaking noise and looked over to see what appeared to be a homeless man gawking at him. And that wasn’t all. The homeless man appeared to have a pet, a malnourished Jack Russel, that began barking with its ears back. David puts his hands out in front of him, and squatted.

               “Whoa there, sorry, hey, sorry, I’m sorry,” he said soothingly. How had he not seen the man? He was in the garbage, but still, looking at him, he was clearly not garbage.

               The man pointed, slowly. The dog inched forward.

               David had to get out of the alley. He had to get out of the alley and back… where? He lowered his head and looked the animal in the face. “No,” he said.

               The Jack Russell and nameless man both reacted. The man didn’t have the agility to sprint away, but the dog did, to the nearby mouth of the back alley and directly into traffic.

               Watching it all happen was like a crazy sort of disaster. David found himself looking ahead and projecting backwards, trying to piece out what had happened and why. How he could have avoided things. Then there was screeching tires and crumpled metal.

               David ran into the scene, perceiving the smell of blood and fear, hearing screams and whimpers. A near miss. That’s what they would end up calling it. David found the Jack Russell’s crumpled form shaking from pain. He could see that one of its back legs was broken and maybe some ribs.

               “I’m sorry,” David said, on his knees, reaching a hand down to pet the animal’s head.

               This time he did hear the footsteps approach. A woman in scrubs was sprinting over with a medical bag.

               David looked up and around, at the wrecked cars. Air bags had deployed. A round man was speaking to a thin woman as she clutched her head.

               “He’s still alive,” the woman said, crouching near David. “Good, good. Okay. Can you back away please?”

               David moved backwards, and looked at the people again. “What are you..?”

               “No one was seriously hurt. Paramedics will be here shortly. Plus I’m a vet, not a doctor.”

               The strange day continued on into late afternoon. David sat in the waiting room as if the animal was his. “We just met,” is what he said when people asked the obvious question.

               The woman from before, the vet, came out from behind the closed doors and gestured to him. She wanted to talk privately. Her posture matched that of the people in his mother’s telanovelas. It wasn’t good news.

               “I’m sorry, I never got your name,” she said.

               “David. Cruz.” Maybe she needed his full name for paperwork or something.

               The woman nodded. Her eyes lingered on his face, then looked at his shoes. “Alex. Marsh. Doctor.” She shook her head, and her eyes stopped dilating. “They told me you had been waiting,”

               “Oh.” David thought. “I just figured it was the right thing to do. I didn’t really have anywhere to be, plus,” but he stopped before saying the situation was his fault. The old lessons were still with him. When he didn’t do a good job at hiding, whoever got hurt, it was his fault.

               “I see. So who are you?” she asked. “I’m sorry, that isn’t really how I meant to ask that.”

               “No, no, it’s fine,” David said, and passed a hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself, honestly. But, you aren’t here to tell me,” and he lingered.

               “Oh,” Dr. Marsh threw on a different attitude altogether. “It’s still touch and go. The little guy is a fighter. A tech just told me that someone was still waiting, and I had some time.”

               “Right, right,” David said. “Well, I hope he makes it. I’ve actually been looking for work, so I think I’ll take after his example, and fight. Thank you, Dr. Alex Marsh,” he said, and smiled.

               He was halfway to the door when she offered him a job. Unglamorous, bottom of the hierarchy, but work.

               All told, the terrier survived the surgery, but his life was irrevocably altered. He didn’t see Summer. The homeless man, presumably his owner, never resurfaced. David went looking but the man had vanished in a mysterious sort of way, a Charm City sort of way. But he had secured a job. Steady, decent work doing something he could convince himself to be invested in on most days. Except for the occasional animal with a particularly bad owner, once he had acclimated to the facility, things went smoothly. The others accepted him for what he was, and behaved when he asked. The murders did not abate. David learned that Charm City had the nation’s highest death rate for homicide killings as well as unsolved missing persons cases. The people weren’t soft, unlike the people on the island, who only sometimes had harder layers deep within themselves. The people of Charm City were guarded, some even predatory, like the hooker in the hotel bar or the robbers in the alley. The ability to identify oneself as a member of a group was meaningful, and like a new pack, the co workers at the clinic took him in, and helped him about places to go in the city and not to, where to live, where to eat, places to avoid after dark, or even during the day.

               A chilly spring rolled into a humid summer which was followed by a gray Fall. David had found his bearings along with a fuller appreciation of the seasons. Charm City was not always cold. Sometimes it was sweltering, sometimes mild, and most usually wet. He’d even taken the train twice to see the capital of a nation his island could only be a territory to.  Life was engaged in a smooth dance where everything blended together, and he blissfully lost track of the fleeting days and weeks. When his six month lease ended for his first apartment, he upgraded into a year-long arrangement with a nicer place, in a better part of town. That was the first plan of his to succeed. David hoped it wasn’t the last. At his new apartment, settled into his new life, he sought out the physical distraction of exercise. Running was most natural, so running is what he did, at night, in the safe environs in his new part of town, down alleys, through parks, and across squares.

               David knew it was important to run to keep his nature down, but he hoped he wasn’t still running from other things.