Doc Tompkins, A Farm At Maple Hollow Vingette - 2. Chapter 2

On the drive back into Boston, Effr felt as if he could breathe. He had worked so hard to maintain a professional sense of detachment, it was one of the hardest lessons he had to learn in med school and his stint while serving his residency. Out in the field, in the war zones, it was critical that he do so. He would celebrate the ones he saved and grieved for those he lost and let them go for tomorrow was another day of triage, patch-up and send them on their way.

He knew the moment he heard the boy moan, ‘’No…more…please no more” and reach out to him, that he was in trouble. How could anyone or a group of anyone’s, do something like that to a child? What he saw that night, down at the fairgrounds, broke the hardened shell that surrounded his heart.

His colleagues used to call him Mr. Ice, always affable and genial but no one ever seemed to penetrate or connect with Effr, the man. Truth be told, the emotional detachment the so assiduously courted became a permanent fixture over the years, it was the only way he could survive, unknown to others, in the first year of his army service, he took the loses hard and started to drink. It was a senior colleague who saw the symptoms, and pulled his head back out of his ass. It was the most difficult lesson he’d ever learn, when you did all that you could do, in committing to your best shot giving everything you had, losing a patient wasn’t a failure. He had to learn that sometimes the damage was just too much.

The years spent in the warzones of the Middle East taught Effr that the human body can only absorb just so much punishment. He had seen countless bodies torn asunder in every devious manner; damages done only limited by the ingenuity of those on all sides seeking to destroy one another. The dichotomy was only too real, a sergeant brought to an untimely end by the smallest of mortar fragments piercing his skull or chest. The Humvee driver, launched fifty yards by an IED, both legs and an arm destroyed, survived, and went on to lead a productive life. The grunt, his insides rearraigned by a suicide bomber, so carefully put back together and the supply clerk, died when the crate that was being driven past him, toppled, and crushed him from the chest down.

Effr knew that there was no rhyme or reason as to the how’s and why’s the human body could sustain the most insignificant of injuries and perish, and yet a boy whose body torn asunder, survive. Effr knew whoever worked Timothy Johnson over, meant the most grievous harm done, while the boy was still alive, that he was meant to suffer before he died! Those who hurt the boy, dealt death as the final card in the hand they dealt.

Effr went in to check on his patient before scrubbing for the surgery that would remove Timothy Johnson’s right leg. Scanning the films and x-rays he made the decision to remove it to just above the knee. Lying there, in a puddle of liquid garbage that had leaked from the dumpster, had introduced every trauma surgeon’s nightmare, a decidedly lethal cocktail of every possible destructive pathogen imaginable. The compound fractures of his right leg, broke through the skin in three places. With the boy lying on the ground with that leg, the seeds of infection found a highway called opportunity.

There was one note that puzzled him, while there were no traces of drugs in his system, traces of crystal meth were present on his clothing. He speed-dialed Elm and got him on the third ring. Cutting to the chase he asked that the dumpster down at the fairgrounds be secured. Elm assured him it would be done; it would be locked in the back of the highway barn till they both had a chance to examine the contents.

Both of the broken bones in his arms were re-set without the need for surgical intervention, the tears to his rectum were manageable, someone had brutally sodomized him. His left testicle suffered severe bruising, its viability in question, removal was a distinct possibility. Not having any sort of clue as to how it happened, Timothy’s penis looked as if it had poison ivy rubbed on it, circumcision was a distinct likelihood if the skin got infected or blistered severely.

Effr was exhausted and mentally drained, the removal of the leg went as well as expected, the next twenty-four-hours would be critical. If the boys viral load stabilized and held, he’d have a better than seventy-five -percent chance of making it. He left orders to continue the sedation that induced the medical coma so the body would have the best fighting chance. What he didn’t expect to see was his uncles in the waiting room.

~~~

Reverend McCallister was losing the ability to remain composed, he was in fact fighting the emerging rage that lay just below his calm demeanor. Apoplectic would be a better word to describe the inner turmoil coursing through his veins. He wasn’t used to getting his ass chewed out, the phone call he just disconnected from left him with limited choices. Headquarters were furious, everything they had been working for and towards was now in jeopardy. Compounding the myriad of issues, he now faced was, if his informant was correct, traces of crystal meth was found on the boy and in the dumpster.

How in the name of all that was holy, could Bartholomew Foley be so fucking stupid! The use of the drug he could overlook, it was after all, used by those freaks in the city. The profits from their lab went a long way in helping him realize the organization’s plans. If they were going to grow and become a power to be recognized, this crappy little former cow town was an ideal base, rural enough to not to attract attention to the meth lab, and close enough to the center of distribution in the city.

It was obvious, Bart Foley would have to go, the question was how, he and the family couldn’t just disappear and then the same would have to happen to the Roberts boy. Bart had been stupid enough to admit to organizing the whole sorry affair. That the kid most likely would die wasn’t a concern, good riddance to that piece of human trash, the town they were growing would be better off. Not only were Bart and his two older sons involved, but they had to go and involve Dave Roberts, a townie of no discernable means or abilities.

Bart disappearing could be managed, he’d have to accept an ‘offer’ on the property, and ‘move’ out of town. The passing of his wife three years ago to breast cancer and a failing farm, made the scenario a bit more plausible. Bart would have to let it be known he was off to Florida to escape the New England winters. The youngest son, Levi would also have to disappear, while he wasn’t directly involved, he was most likely already corrupted, so no loss there.

With any luck, the new crew who would purchase the old farmstead, could keep the meth lab going. They would bury the bodies out in one of the back pastures, the moving van would be sent on the way, the contents would be disposed in Florida. For the next year, a member of the Florida crew would collect the mail and then anything to do with the Foley’s would taper off.

It was the involvement of the Roberts boy that was the one uncomfortable lose end. It was his truck they used. The police had casted plaster molds of the tire tracks at the scene. They were too late to go back; someone had the dumpster impounded. If Bart and his boys had simply ensured the boy landed in the dumpster, instead of bouncing off before driving off, cleaning this mess up would have been a lot easier. The Roberts boy and his truck would have to meet a fiery end and soon.

No, instead the boy sprang off the side as they drove past the dumpster, tossing him from the back of the pickup truck. Again, Reverend McCallister felt his blood pressure rise, if they had simply taken another ten seconds, only the mystery of the boy’s disappearance would have been an issue. He’ be buried deep in a landfill…disappeared without a trace.

Now he was left with cleaning up the mess he found himself in, now it was up to him to see all the assorted loose ends, get neatly wrapped up. His next step would be to call Papa Bear, leader of the Outlaw Bears motorcycle club.

~~~

The sound of his cell phone ringing woke Effr from the first deep sleep he’d had in days. It was his uncles; they had been up and were waiting to take him to breakfast before heading back over to the hospital. Before leaving his hotel room he called the ICU nurses desk to enquire as to Timothy’s condition, he felt confident he was progressing, there were no calls to him over night. He was told the boy had stabilized, the infections seemed to be under control and they were keeping him as comfortable as possible. He’d give Timothy another 24 hours monitoring the infections, if he continued to improve then they could consider bringing him out of the medically induced coma.

~~~

Dave Roberts, known to his friends as ‘Donk” …short for Donkey, was asked through a mutual acquaintance if he was interested in running a load of ‘shine’ into Worcester, at a hundred and ninety proof, the shine was very popular at some of the private and social clubs. He had heard the Johnson boy, through the informal grapevine, would be coming home in less than a week.

It may just be the time to cool his heels a bit up at his buddy’s hunting cabin in northern New Hampshire he thought. With the money he had tucked away and with what he’d earn from this trip, he could afford to be gone for a month or so, till things cooled down.

Things were getting a little warm around town, other rumors had the Fed’s interested in the case, as traces of crystal meth were found on the boy and in the fucking dumpster. Had old man Foley not been in such a fucking rush to dispose of the boy, in the same god-damned dumpster, he threw the garbage from the meth lab in, things would have been a lot easier.

He’d just paid off the last installment on the upgrades to his pick-up truck, while it looked like a piece of shit, his baby could move, nearly six hundred horsepower lived under that hood and with the performance upgrades to the suspension, she handled like a charm.

~~~

Effr, after spending the morning observing his patient, made the decision to go home for a day, no more than two, to catch up on work at the medical center and to meet with Elm at the Police Station to see where the latest developments were leading. It was dusk as he and his uncles pulled into Hutchinson. Had they been a bit more observant, they would have noticed the tan pick-up truck in the darker corner of Pat’s Bar and Grill’s parking lot. What did catch their eyes were the cluster of motorcycles parked in front of Pat’s.

Tired as they were, as soon as they hit the driveway to the farm, the motorcycles were but a distant memory. Tonight, his uncles would show him the space that he and Timothy would live in. When Ethan was thought to have been lost in a plane accident on his way home from Viet Nam, and then found to be the only survivor of that plane crash, changes to the farmhouse had been made. Ethan had been pretty banged up and coming back home to the farm from the hospital, he would need suitable accommodations for someone who would be using a wheelchair on a temporary basis, as his broken leg and arm healed. His father reworked a couple of rooms on the first floor at the front of the farmhouse.

It was no secret to Ethan’s immediate family that he and Arik were partners in every sense of the word. Along with the modifications to the first-floor space, including a handicapped bathroom and bedroom, by reworking the rooms above on the second floor, made a small efficiency apartment for the two of them.

It was this was the space that was shown to Effr, it was his to use for long as needed. What surprised Effr, was that his furniture and belongings had already been moved. Effr asked for a few moments and let his uncles know he’d see them in the main kitchen in a few.

~~~

Donk was slowly nursing a whiskey sour, waiting for his contact to show with his payment. The Shine was under a tarp in the bed of his pick-up. He couldn’t help staring at the barback’s ass. He watched the boy flit around the bar and tables, always in constant motion. By the way the jeans he was wearing stretched, it wasn’t difficult to deduce that as nice as his ass was, the kid was packing a serious piece of tube steak as well. He made a mental note to know the boy better once he returned from his ‘vacation’.

Donk’s predilection, his proclivity, his carefully guarded secret was teenage boys, between fourteen and seventeen. Many the night he’d get someone he had his eye on drunk on shine, and have them suck him off and on occasion, he’d bend them over if they were drunk enough or passed out. He loved a tight young ass.

Back in junior high school, nearly ten years ago, when they first had to shower after gym, his classmates noticed that his appendage was sizably larger and longer than the rest of them. It was a point of pride and in a few instances when some could get him alone, some would eagerly try him out.

Well on to his fourth whiskey sour of the evening he felt that familiar stirring in his groin, just like he felt for that faggot they tossed away at the fairgrounds. What a night that was, the look in the boy’s eyes when he saw what was coming, literally. He tried to run, a few bitch slaps to the side of the head and a solid right to the mouth, took the steam out of him. Yanking the kid’s pants and underwear down, he’d had his way, enjoying every moment. When he was done, both of Foley’s sons had their way as well, only Oscar wasn’t quite so smart, what the fuck did he expect when he forced himself into the kid’s mouth. A promise to swallow?

It had to have hurt, how he managed to pull back out with as little damage as he did, it still had to hurt like a son of a bitch. Watching Oscar get as mad as he did was pretty funny, what on earth made him think rubbing poison ivy on the kid’s dick would do? The funny part was Oscar managed to touch himself afterwards and the results weren’t pretty.

~~~

There were quite a few of the Outlaw Bears in the bar, but not all who came were. Unseen by anyone, two of the gang were silently working under Donk’s truck, while another two were off loading a dozen more crates of shine into the back of the pick-up.

Donk finally breathed a sigh of relief when his contact sat next to him and slipped him a fat envelope below the bar. His contact ordered a couple more rounds, let Donk know there was some more shine ready for pick up over in Oldfield at the Murphy farm, if he wanted to pick up and deliver that shine, there was an extra four-hundred-dollars in it for him. Donk was all for it, it meant he’d have to modify his route and take the old back road into Oldfield, it was a winding, hilly stretch but his truck could handle it. Making up time wouldn’t be an issue; he could still make the delivery on schedule.

~~~

Junior Bear watched Donk leave the bar, a tad unstable on his feet, followed by Papa Bear. JB as he was called would wait for Papa Bear to return before giving the good reverend a social call. Another loose end they would eventually have to clean up as well. This religion stuff was small time profits, and this jumping for salvation wasn’t gonna get anyone anywhere, or rich anytime soon.

~~~

Donk knew he’d had a few but felt he had things under control, the truck was running and handling well when he thought he saw a blue light in his rearview mirror. Giving the pick-up a bit more gas to gain some distance, he had to lean into the steering wheel a bit hard, to keep his speed up going around the bend. While he was looking in the mirror, he failed to see the lights of an oncoming vehicle.

When his reactions caught up to what he was seeing, it was nearly too late to avoid hitting the oncoming vehicle. Hitting the brakes, two things happened; the pick-up lost its ability to brake and the steering linkage broke. When Donk hit the two-hundred-fifty-year-old sugar maple tree, he was traveling in excess of seventy-miles an hour.

Papa Bear turned off the blue light on the front of his motorcycle as he pulled up to the wreck, the smell of shine and gas was strong in the air. While he couldn’t abide the habit, he found carrying a pack of cigarettes and a lighter handy some times. Flicking the lit cigarette in an arc towards the truck, it landed neatly in a rapidly forming puddle of shine.

By the time anyone arrived on scene, nothing, other than the engine block serial number, would be able to identify the truck and nothing that could be traced back to that night at the fairgrounds. All that would be left of the tires would be the wire strands that formed the basis of the tires and gave them their strength.

Papa Bear and his decoy were back at Pat’s Place when they heard the firetrucks fly past on their way to some sort of emergency.

~~~

Timothy continued to improve over the next couple of weeks, it was decided he needed an additional few days in the hospital, to ensure he was free of any further complications or a resurgence of any infections.

Effr was not surprised at Timothy’s reaction to his parents ‘giving’ him up, he was gay and strongly suspected they knew. The difficult conversation involved the amputation of his right leg, he was devastated, a rising member of the track team, he was an accomplished long-distance runner. Effr spent considerable time and called in a few favors to change Timothy’s mind. Every day one of three vets who suffered similar amputations would stop by the hospital. They were local to the Boston area and offered to bring him over to the VA Hospital over in West Roxbury to meet others, they were grateful that Effr did his best for them, giving them hope not thought possible.

These vets spent significant time with Timothy on a one-on-one basis. They answered every question, showed him all the prosthetic possibilities, meeting with him up at the farm and left Timothy in a much better frame of mind. The friendships he formed with these vets created a lasting bond. They became known as the ‘Vet Squad”, consisting of Mark, Tim, and Robbie. Mark and Tim were like Rabbit, they had both lost a leg, Robbie was a double amputee who excelled at wheelchair races. He was equally proficient at running as well.

Much to Timothy’s relief, the damages sustained ‘down and back there’ had healed without any further complications.