She gently swollowed while she calmed herself and said, “You have no idea!” She tilted her head back quickly to allow her thick blonde hair flow over her shoulders as she threw down the tequila. She straightened up, shook her head and gave a little “Whoop!” as she reached for a lemon.
“Sounds great, can I help?”
She smiled and said, “I don’t know, can you?”
He stared at her a second and said “Not sure, but I sure would like to try.”
“Well let’s just see how the night turns out then.” And she gave him back his wink.
Almost instantly a couple bikers came over and asked what club she was from.
“I´m from the 'Gliders.' You know, Spinner’s boys.”
“What the hell are you doing in here? Those boys do not come to this neighbourhood unless they need their diapers changed,” one said loudly.
She snapped back, “I had a little fall’n out and I heard that this bar gets some real bikers in it at times. Besides, I was thirsty and now I´m having a beer, what the hell do you care? Got any problems with that?”
The guy leaned in close and almost whispered, “No,” he said, “In fact, I like it.” He straightened back up and said, “Why don´t you let me buy you a beer?”
“Why don´t you just relax for a while until I get the feel for this place, ok?”
He looked at her and smiled and said, “OK baby, just trying to be friendly”. “OK, friend, where is the toilet?” A quickly pointed finger was offered.
“OK, I can do this she tells her nervous self while looking in the mirror in the bath. Mom taught me and I can get what I need.”
Walking past the pool table with her new friend watching, she nodded at the pool table, “Ever play pool?” she asked.
“Pool? That’s my game. You could say I’ve played it a few times,” he replied.
She looked around and saw another biker sitting a few feet away and asked, “You know how to play?”
“Hell yes,” he responded, hardly able to get up fast enough.
“Want to play? Will you show me?” she asked dismissing the first guy with a shirk of her shoulder.
“Do bikers love Hogs?” he said and headed over to the pool-cue rack.
“Well then shake a stick big boy,” she laughed, “let´s do it!”
She went over and was about to put three quarters in the slots when he grabbed her hand and said, “little lady, let me do the honors.”
She looked up and batted her eyes, “Well then; do it,” she said.
He racked the balls and went ahead and broke the first set. The balls were all over the table but none fell in the pockets.
“It’s my turn, right,” she asked.
“Yes little lady, it’s your turn, need any help?”
“No. I want to put that yellow one in that pocket way over there.”
“That’s a tough one.” he said.
“I can do it,” She leaned way over the table; her skirt raised just enough to show the bottom of her butt. The whole room got quiet; the music even seemed to pause. Then she leaned a little more, feeling her heart pounding and her legs shaking. Now her ass was almost half out of her skirt. All you could see was her tiny thong panties. She hit the cue ball and it went completely crooked and into the side pocket. “I guess that was a bad shot,” she said.
“Not from where I was sitting!” some guy hooted from the bar. Two other bikers barked agreement. “Hot damn!”
She turned and looked at the biker square in the eye and said, “OK hot stuff, it’s your turn to show me what you got!” Another guy walked over and went to grab a cue stick and the fat guy she was playing with immediately walked over and told the other biker to sit down and wait his turn. He wanted to teach this fine young lady a few tricks first. The other biker sat down and mumbled to himself that he might enjoy watching the bitch stretch for the shots as much as playing anyway. He buried his face in his beer glass.
By this time she had the attention of the whole bar and the bartender as well. Sherine thought to herself, “this is so easy, I have all these fat bastards in the palm of my hands and I’ve been here less than 20 minutes. I could be dangerous! Yup, and I think it will be tonight.” She felt her stomach and legs calm down as she gained her confidence. “Mom was a natural at this, I am not. I want to crawl into my cave and hide in the corner, but I will do this and make enough money so I can finally be on my own.”
She watched the guy sink three shots in a row. “It’s time to kill, or at least make them pay and pay and pay. Thanks Mom, I think I understand about a roof and food.” She could feel the rage of pain followed by sadness flow through her as she told herself to do what she was capable of; get all the bastards. Her good side told her to leave now before she gets into trouble, but she stayed nervously.
She deliberately missed each shot and in doing so set up the fat biker’s shots for him each time, so he sunk most of the balls. He hated to see the game end, but it did.
“Ok little lady, the fat biker said, let’s play eight ball and I will give you the advantage of being able to move the cue ball anywhere you want for each shot.”
Sherine brightened, “Ok,” and she thought “you fat ugly bastard,” “and since that’s not really fair, I tell you what; if you give me that advantage I´ll give you something worth winning for. I´ll put my panties on the table and if you win you can have the package they wrapped up. Deal or no deal?”
His face dropped and he said, “With a prize like that I better play and not fuck around. I haven´t had any fresh pussy in a long time. What’s in it for you?”
She threw her head back letting her hair flow through the air like a movie star looking like she had not even thought of that and said, “Well; I guess I could use new panties, so you have to put a nice crisp hundred dollar bill next to my panties. Deal or no deal?”
The guy knew he was being conned but didn’t care. “Little lady, I live so close to here we can walk to my crib. I hope you mean what you say, cause my old lady is waiting for me and she would love a piece of you too.”
“OK,” she grinned, “throw a second crisp hundred on the table and we have a deal; you and your old lady! I need to buy lots of new panties and I feel like shopping. Let’s go!”
He put another hundred dollar bill next the panties. She said, “You can sniff them if you like for good luck.” He didn’t wait to be asked twice. He smiled and said that he would numb that thing up as soon as they finish the game.
“Numb it?! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Yeah he leered, ‘Nyumb-nyum-nyum-m-m!’” Everybody in the bar cracked up, even Sherine.
“It was a great night,” Sherine thought as she left the bar, “what a bunch of pigs.” She got into her Mustang and naturally locked the doors. “All my training has finally come in handy and I don't even need to borrow Dirt Bag’s three hundred bucks now. I can get the apartment!” This thought really made her happy. She stuck the keys in the ignition and fired her up. “I’ll buy a few things and start a real job with a new clean life. I know it will be hard but I´ve never had a clean life and I’m ready!
“Damn, where is it?” She hadn’t moved an inch but she had to throw the car back into park. “Where did I put my phone? Who would be calling me this late?” Sherine thought. She finally finished digging through the stuff in her purse and pulled out the phone, peeling off hair and clinging cigarette cellophane from it. She put it to her ear and said, “Hello, hello? … I can´t hear you.” She stopped in her tracks and screamed. “Stop it, stop it! Who are you?” It the faint distance she could hear the caller say, “loose ends,” then a click.
She hung the phone up shaking and just sat there looking at herself in her rear-view mirror. “I need a couple beers and a couple vodka and tonics,” she told herself. “If I’m so tough then why do I want to hide every time I get one of those calls?”
18
“Oh my God, look at the TV,” Nurse Nadia screamed as she stared at TV
in the waiting room near the pharmacy. “Haiti has just had the worst earthquake of the century. Thousands are killed and they’re piling bodies up in the streets.” She reached for the remote to turn up the volume as people gathered. “Oh my God - poor Dr. Pierre! His family lives there. This is too much, I need to sit. Where is Dr. Pierre?” She screamed over and over. “Where is Dr. Pierre?”
“Call him and see if he is ok,” she yelled to the receptionist. At that moment Dr. Pierre rushed into the reception area and said fast and loud, “Nurse Nadia, I could hear you screaming for me, what is going on? You nearly scared me to death.”
“Dr. Pierre, have you seen the news?” Tears were streaming down her red cheeks and she was wringing her hands.
“No,” he replied, but his eyes drifted to the TV. The sound was blaring now and a newscaster was ranting like the Hindenburg was on fire.
She got up and stood next to him holding his arm. “Look, CNN is live and they’re saying that there has been the world´s worst earthquake in two hundred years. The entire city of Port-au-Prince has been destroyed. It’s terrible! The whole city is in ruins. Oh my God; I´m so sorry!”
Dr. Pierre looked as if he was in another world. He stared off into the distance and said slowly, “what can I do? My God; my mother and father; my God. I must go. I must go!”
“Dr. Pierre sit down,” she said, “think, you must sit and think. You cannot go now. You need more information. No one knows if the roads are even good enough to travel on. They are saying that they will have live pictures later today, as soon as they can. No one can get in or out of the city now. The roads in the city are all torn up and the military has restricted all vehicles unless it is for transporting the injured or for supplies. You have to think and make a plan that will work or you might get killed yourself ...” She had started to say “too,” but caught herself. CNN and all the other stations are broadcasting all that they can, but they just do not know much now. Dr. Pierre, you have to wait until we know more.”
“No I can´t wait. I will not wait while my family dies.” His face had gone a deathly pale white and there was a sheen of cold sweat on his forehead.
“You have to wait.” Nurse Nadia walked over to the cabinet in the office behind the reception desk, unlocking it she took out a small bottle and poured out a pill. “You need to take this, it a Valium.” She handed him the pill and rushed back across the room to the water bottle. “We will know more very soon. Look! Look now! There are some pictures being sent from someone´s phone.” She let the water flow over the little cup and jumped. “Wow, look at that,” Nurse Nadia said softly, “it’s all gone, everything is gone. Oh my God. Oh Dr Pierre, I´m so sorry.
“Dr. Pierre,” she continued in a steady serious tone, “you know that once you cross the border the roads are extremely bad. The mountains are high, and the roads anywhere near the city are terrible and hardly driveable at best of times … and that’s on a normal day! How do you think they are now? And it looks like if you do get into the city the military would not let you go anywhere. Look; here are more pictures.” They kept watching the TV in amazement. “See? They are saying just what I was just saying; it is almost impossible to get into Haiti let alone into Port-au-Prince. And what about the looters on the streets? You will get killed or at best beaten! You will not be safe there.” Like most Dominicans she had little good to say about Haitians anyway. “You just cannot go!” She reached out as she handed him the cup of water and held him by the shoulders.
“Nurse Nadia, I know!” Dr. Pierre almost shouted at her as he pulled away abruptly. With a stern voice he told her to Call Dr. Campbell now. “The other day he told me he would go to Haiti with me, maybe he will still go and help me find my family. Oh God I hope so. I am going and I need someone that will go with me. Nurse Nadia, where is Dr. Campbell? Where is he? I must go. Where is he? Oh my God. Call Dr. Campbell now.” She had never seen anyone so distraught.
Nurse Nadia picked up the phone and called Dr. Campbell over the intercom system. The desk phone rang almost immediately. She picked up the receiver and held it out to Pierre but he shook his head no as he listened to another news bite. She heard Campbell saying say, “Hello, hello, Dr. Campbell here, how may I help you? … What? ... Haiti ... earthquake ... Sure I can be ready ... When? ... Nurse Nadia stopped him and said “Hold on, here is Dr. Pierre.”
“Campbell, Pierre here. I’m concerned that my parents are in the middle of the earthquake. I’m leaving in the morning. Please come with me.”
“Of course, when?”
“In the morning. I’ll pick you up at sunrise, 5:30.”
“I´ll be ready.”
“Thanks. I owe you Campbell. You are a true friend.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just be ready when I arrive.”
“I will be.” The phone went dead.
Pierre handed the receiver to Nurse Nadia. He looked dazed as he met her eyes and said, “I am so glad he is going with me. I know we will need his expertise in trauma. I am lucky in a weird way.” He snapped to attention, in charge now. “I am going now to La Sirena Department Store to buy anything I can think of that might help us and those poor people over there. Let’s you and I see what we can put together here as far as triage stuff; bandages, antibiotics and the like. We better see if we can lay our hands on some blankets too. And water, I’ll buy as much water at La Sirena as I can load up!” His mind was racing a mile a minute.
That night, Campbell lay back in his bed. He stretched some as he remotely switched his TV to CNN Live. After a few seconds of watching, Campbell thought to himself, “how perfect is this? What an opportunity. Thank you God. My luck just keeps getting better and better.
“Haiti; who would have thought of Haiti?” He marvelled at the workings of the universe again, “Of all the opportunities. I´ll be in the U.S. faster than I thought, and as a rich handsome doctor with all those comatose hotties. Life is good!” He smiled, “poor-poor Dr. Pierre,” he said aloud. “Poor-poor Dr. Pierre.” as he fell peacefully asleep even as CNN reported.
The next morning Campbell heard a loud firm knock on his door. He opened it to see Dr. Pierre standing there. “Buenas días,” he told Dr. Pierre. “I’m not quite ready, but can be in five minutes, ten at the most.” Campbell quickly grabbed his things and finished throwing them into his canvas bag. He drew the draw string together and tied a quick knot. Hefting the bag over his shoulder he scanned the room for last minute items and walked over to a table. He slipped his sunglasses in his pocket, looked up at the waiting Pierre and said, “Let’s go.”
“My car is gassed up and I have fifteen gallons of extra gas in containers. We’ll buy gas every time we see a station because I don’t know if we will be able to when we get there. That way we can keep the gas in the containers as a last resort.” He was rattling along, nervous and tense. “I also bought lots of canned goods and twenty gallons of filtered water. I scrounged a lot of gauze, sutures and the essentials for emergencies. I raided the stock room at the hospital and left a note for Nurse Nadia telling her what I took.” He looked terrible. His eyes were red rimmed and puffy and he’s wringing his hands like he just couldn’t decide what to do with them.” They walked down the hall together.
“I just finished a couple hours ago. I’m tired, but ready to go. Perhaps you could drive the first leg so I could maybe take a nap.” He and Pierre walked quickly to the elevators at the end of the hall.
“You must have a large car to fit all of that in.” Dr. Campbell wondered aloud.
“No, not really I have a Skoda Fabia. It’s small Czech Republic car as you will see. I stuffed it to the max. I really wish I could have taken more. I’m sure water is going to be very scarce but that’s all I could fit in with all the other triage stuff.”
The elevator was there immediately and as the doors were closing Dr. Pierre continued his nervous litany, “We will have to be really careful once we get near the border. The mountains are steep and the
roads are bad once you get past Barahona. That means we will have to go slowly. And, that area is known for thieves. They force a car to stop and take everything from the people in the car and sometimes kill them. I brought a gun. Have you ever used a gun?” Pierre asked.
“Yes, I used to target shoot, but I do not know if I could kill anyone. I am a doctor. I normally take out bullets, not put them in.” He forced a laugh that was insincere in more ways than one.
“Well, let’s hope for the best, but Haiti is bad enough in normal times. I know it will be really bad now and as you look like a rich tourist, that will make things a lot worse by attracting the bad elements. And after Barahona the roads practically disappear until we get to Jamini, the town at the border.”
Pierre stood thinking with his hands on his hips. He continued, “There will be military guards there. We shouldn’t have any problems there because we are doctors; but you never know.” The elevator doors slid open in the underground parking area and Dr. Pierre led the way to his parked Skoda. The car was small, but it was actually bigger than Dr. Campbell initially thought. It was a four door with a rear hatch back and with the seats folded down; Dr. Campbell saw that Dr. Pierre had gone all out. The car was jam packed.
Dr. Pierre told him, “I’m glad I had the windows tinted when I bought the car. At least this way it won’t be so obvious to all the ‘ladrones’ out there that we are loaded with so many valuables.
My My Little Prince Page 14