by Mike Gomes
"Well, you'll just have to excuse me, considering what the man did to me," Fernandez said as he leaned back in his seat, folding his arms in front of him. "He mistreated me. I was riddled with addiction and the man just kept feeding me the drugs so he could drink blood from my body. He's a vampire, nothing more."
"Please stop, gentlemen," said a younger woman sitting directly next to the oldest lady. "My mother and I, know how you feel. My father, her husband, died from the neglect of Mr. Patel."
"I'm very sorry," Gabriella said, attempting to show sympathy for all those around her. It wasn't hard to give that part of her heart to them, knowing what they had been through.
"I'm sick of this." Fernandez barked, standing up from his chair. "If this is not gonna be a group of action, there's no point in me being here. I am interested in revenge. I'm interested in him getting that needle put in his arm, just like he did to me. Try living down in the basement of that office building for a year, and then tell me how you feel about him."
"I think the time for action is now too," Jay agreed, standing to join the man in solidarity.
"Jay, sit down," Priya hissed, encouraging her husband to calm his thinking and do things in a better way. "If you two fools go running into that man shooting up his office, you'll be dead long before he is."
"No doctor is gonna bother us," Fernandez grinned. "I'd like to see him try to come after us."
"It's not going to be him," the older woman interjected. "It's going to be his men."
"Gentlemen, we have all seen the Russians that he has in the office. The men in the suits that sit at the end of the hallway, making sure nobody goes downstairs," Priya informed them. "How long do you think it would take for those men to be on top of you? And I would bet my life that each one of them has a gun and is not afraid to use it."
"That's why we have to outgun him," Jay said. "We need to go in there with enough firepower that we can blow our way through."
"Jay's right, as soon as we get through the office door, we take out the Russians and then we go to his office," Fernandez agreed, pumping his fist and pointing over to Jay. "If he's not there, we search the area, and we free the people downstairs.”
"What about the receptionist and the other people up front?" asked Gabriella in a soft tone, drawing all eyes to be looked at her.
“The new girl has a good question," said the old woman. "Are you just prepared to kill her and anybody else that might be out there?”
"We'll kill anybody we need to," Jay said.
Jay, you are not a killer," Priya said, again pleading with her husband for him to have more sense. "Why do you take that tact every time? Why do you act as if the only thing we can do with this man is to kill him?"
"Because that's all that's fitting for this man. Just ask Fernandez if he thinks this man deserves anything better? Or the people that work for him? I think it's okay to have a little collateral damage if it means we're gonna get rid of the skunk."
"Then you do it without me," said the old woman as she gave a soft smile and returned to looking down into her hands. "No amount of blood will bring my husband back. And death is much too quick a sentence for Patel to have."
"And what do you mean by that, ma'am?" asked Fernandez, having all the people in the room focus their attention on the older woman.
What I mean to say is that letting him die, basically lets him get away with it. Sure, he gives up his life, but he has no suffering. He has no pain the way our relatives did."
"She has a point," Priya agreed, walking over to the older woman and placing her hand on her shoulder. "Murder is too good for Patel. If you wanna do something to him, make him suffer with it for years."
"There's nothing that's satisfying as killing him," Jay argued, knowing that he was echoing the thoughts that Fernandez was having at the same time.
"You could castrate him," Gabriella said calmly, drawing complete attention to herself with the words.
"Castration?" said Fernandez. "I like this woman's style, she thinks in terms of permanence."
"It was just the first thing I thought of." Gabriella gave the group a smile. "I just thought what is the one thing that a man doesn't wanna do without."
The members of the group gave a small laugh, realizing that what the woman said was completely true. For a man to lose his manhood would cut deeply into his psychology, making him a shell of what he once was.
"And how do you propose to do that?" the older woman asked.
"I'm sorry, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I just tossed it out as an idea," Gabriella shrugged. "I don't even know if it's practical to try to get to him in that way."
"I think it's a fool's errand," Jay said, looking to the others in the room. "There's too many factors and it gets far too dangerous."
"And you don't want your hands dirty, do you, Jay?" Priya gave her husband a stern look. "You'd rather shoot him from across a room, so you don't have to be in the blood and the guts and the grime, or watch the man's face as you harm him."
"I don't think anything that ends in less than death will be good for this man," Jay argued. "You can disagree with me if you like, and you can say that I'm a fool. But the fact of the matter is, this man needs to die. And if it's not me, then somebody else is gonna do it.”
"That person will be me," said Fernandez, pointing over to Jay and giving him a gesture of solidarity.
"We just have to do this in the right way. And then we can get rid of him, and life can go on as normal," Jay said. "I can understand if you want no part of that, because it's a risky proposition. But whether you're in it or not, that's what I'm gonna do."
Seventeen
Pulling her hair back into a ponytail, Gabriella sat in the driver's seat looking into the rear-view mirror. Her hands made the motions like they had done so many times before, twisting the grouping of hair in and out of the elastic before it dropped comfortably on the back of her head.
I hope they find this acceptable, thought Gabriella, unsure of whether having her hair in such a fashion would create a stir with some of the other women.
Taking a baseball cap and pulling it over the top of her head and extending the ponytail out the back, she got out of her car and stepped to the sidewalk that led up to Dr. Patel's office.
The office was the same as it had been in the past, half scattered with drug users begging to get a fix that had not quite fallen to the point of living down in the basement, and others that appeared to be there to ask the doctor for mercy and an opportunity to become a receiver of some of the blood he found.
Entering the office, Gabriella walked up to the receptionist and saw a different face than she had the time before.
"Hello, I was wondering if I could donate some blood," said Gabriella to the woman with a soft, delicate features. "I'm sorry, but I don't have an appointment."
"With a nod and a smile, the receptionist did not return any words to her but instead handed her a form to fill out for her donation. The previous time in the clinic Gabriella received no such form and it was a different experience.
Sitting down in the waiting room Gabriella looked at the form that asked numerous numbers of identifying questions. A complete breakdown of medical history as well as where she lived was placed on the form letting Gabriella know that the form would need to either be falsified or disregarded altogether.
As the door to the back office swung open, Gabriella looked at the older man wearing scrubs as he poked his head through the door. "Anybody that's here to give blood, come with me."
Stepping up with the clear drug users and some others, Gabriella formed into the line just like the rest.
"In the door, come on, come on. Against the wall, everybody against the wall," ordered the older man, clapping his hands together like he was trying to get cattle to move the direction that he wished.
After guiding all the people through the door, the older man closed it behind him and settled the eight people against the wall.
"Alright, people,
you know the deal here. This is the place where we're gonna pay you for your blood. As you know there's no shame in that. You're actually helping a lot of people. It's a good thing. If you are someone that is here that wants to get paid in cash, I ask you to get into the right line along the right-hand side of the wall. If you are here for an alternative payment, please stay in the left lane. I will lead you to where you need to go."
Interest immediately sparked in Gabriella as she heard the man call out an alternative form of payment. With a little luck, this could be her opportunity to get some corroboration of what she had heard had been going on at the clinic. Moving to the left side of the hallway, Gabriella did the best she could to try to blend in with the people that were actively suffering from drug withdrawals.
"Ma'am, I think you're on the wrong side," the man said, looking at Gabriella and stopping in front of her. "People that are getting the money are on the right side."
"No, sir, I'm on the right side. I'm here for the alternative form." Gabriella tried to sound convincingly weak in her voice.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of, ma'am," said the man. "Luckily, we've got Dr. Patel, and he can help lead you along."
"Thank you." Gabriella smiled at the man, before looking down the hallway and making eye contact with the Russian guards.
"These two burly strong men in the suits that are at the end of the hall, they're gonna guide you through your journey today," the man explained. "Follow their directions and everything should be completed within the hour. If you fail to comply with their directions or you do anything to disrupt this office, you'll be asked to leave and will no longer have the opportunity to give blood."
The people on the right moved down the hallway and were directed into a room. While the group that held Gabriella, walked straight ahead to the end of the hallway and were directed down a stairwell by a strong man with a Russian accent, telling them to move as quickly as they could.
Traversing the steps one by one, Gabriella saw the meek and helpless all around her. Addicts who had no way out of the horror that they were in, grasping a hold of the railing as if the stairs were going to be pulled out right from under them. Their backs hunched and their heads craned up, all showing the physical and emotional toll that the drugs had taken on them.
"Through the door on the bottom," barked the Russian from the top of the steps. "Make it fast."
The group moved in to the dimly lit basement, where hordes of addicted men and women were laying on the ground, either having received a dose of their drugs or were begging to get them. Gabriella felt a deep twinge of sadness as the people that she saw cared for nothing else in their lives rather than the drugs that they would put into their bodies.
"Welcome, everybody, to the bottom floor," greeted a young man, no more than twenty-one years old. "This will be a very good place for you."
"What does he mean by that?" Gabriella asked the person next to her, trying to strike up a conversation to allow herself to blend in more.
"When you come up to give your blood, you will let me know your last date of use. Also, your drug of preference and what you would like for payment." The young man sounded bored, as if he had read the lines time and time again, now having them committed to heart, but with no feeling in any of them. "Until that time, you're expected to maintain yourself and leave others alone. If you get into a confrontation with someone, or if you attempt to take anything that is theirs, you will immediately be removed by the large gentleman that let you down here."
Gabriella watched as the heads of the inflicted nodded up and down, making sure not to cause any waves with the man in charge. His tone felt more like a man that was a drill Sergeant trying to keep control of a situation and not caring what the receiver is felt like.
"You, with the baseball cap on, come here." The young man extended his index finger, and curled it back in on itself, letting Gabriella know that he wanted her to come closer.
"Yes, sir," Gabriella nodded, quickly moving over to the man and giving half a smile. "You asked for me, sir?"
"Yes, I did. Why don't you walk with me over here?"
Taking Gabriella’s hand without asking, the young man pulled her along, strolling with her over to where three men were huddled into small balls in the fetal position in the corner of the room.
"So, what's your drug of choice?" the young man asked her. "If you let me know that, I can help you out a lot."
"I'm too ashamed," Gabriella whispered, as the man started to shake his head, trying to infer that everything was alright. "I started doing heroin only a month or two ago. It's very difficult. I just snort it, I don't chew."
"Heroin is difficult to get over," the young man said. "You know, there are ways for you to get the fix you need without having to give your blood."
Putting on a flirtatious smile, moving slightly in closer to the man, Gabriella asked him, "And what would that be?"
"Sometimes if you know the right people, they can get you things. I'm one of those people." The young man smiled at her. "And I can tell you, if you treat me right, I'll treat you right."
"What do you mean by treat you right?" Gabriella asked in a quiet voice, trying to remain in character despite the fact that what she was hearing deeply insulted her.
"All you have to do, is give me a little touch, and let me give you a little touch and I'll give you your great, big taste. If you like what I'm doing for you and you like how much I can get you, you can give me more so I can give you more."
Gabriella smiled and gave the man a light snicker. Looking at the men around the room and the women who were absent from their families, Gabriella had a burning desire to break the people out and bring them to safety.
"I'm not prepared for anything like that right now. But in the future, I think that might be a good deal. I hope that's alright by you." Gabriella looked him in the eye sweetly.
"That sounds just fine, but you're not gonna get any money for your blood today. And you're not gonna get a fix," the young man declared, smiling back at the woman.
"Oh, please? Let me have just a little? Just enough to show you?" Gabriella begged. "You can take two liters of blood. I just need one fix. I'm starting to get sick."
"Sorry, ma'am, but the only one who gets anything are the ones that give me something. If you use your hand, I can give you just a little."
"Right here in front of everybody?" Gabriella asked, trying to show innocence, despite knowing exactly what the man was speaking about. It was clear that he had done it many times before, picking out the most attractive women to involve in his sexual escapades and using the drugs that were supplied by his boss.
"I can't. This is something I just have to get my head around, but just give me a little, and that'll be enough." Gabriella grabbed onto the man's shirt and pulled him close. "How about just a kiss?"
"Just a kiss for what I have you? No, ma'am, that's not gonna work. You're not dealing with nobodies here. You're dealing with people that know exactly what goes on. But what I like about you is that you haven't been broken in yet."
Feeling a cheapness fall over her, Gabriella felt her stomach churn and nausea build up inside her. How many women before had heard the same lines from this man as he lined her up to use her body and then cast her aside?
"I'll tell you what, when you leave here today, you don't even have to give any blood. But next time you come back, you make sure that you're ready to turn yourself over to me for the night. And then I'll give you a whole bag just for yourself," the young man said, giving a long and greasy smile.
Eighteen
Jay sat in the living room, leaning back on the old sofa and watching the TV. It was the same old thing each night on the news that he had grown weary of over so many years. The news would start with the tragedies of the day, only to be interrupted by a feel-good story that he had little interest in, and then it was back to pain, corruption, and greed, followed by weather and sports. A pointless merry-go-around of the same information day in, day out, th
at he had no effect on and that he could not control.
Raising his hand, he used the remote control to turn off the TV, then dropped the controller next to him. As his head leaned back on the sofa, he tried to find the right words to say to the woman that he loved in the next room.
"Jay?" the woman asked like she didn't know if he was in the next room. "Jay, can you come here please?"
Seeing an opportunity to reconnect with his wife, Jay hopped up from the couch and moved quickly to the doorway. "Yes, Priya, how can I help?"
"I'm a... " She paused before looking up at him from where she sat legs crossed on the bed. "Please tell me about the woman that you brought to the meeting? Do I have a worry about her being in our life?
"No, she's just another one that hates Patel. I know she's beautiful, but—"
"So you think she's beautiful?" Priya interrupted, looking down onto the bed and gently shaking her head side to side.
"Priya, I swear to you, there's nothing going on with any woman," Jay assured her. "I have no interest in any other woman. She was held by Patel in an apartment for over a year. He kept her there and tried to get her addicted to drugs. She wants to see him gone just as bad as everybody else."
Knock, knock, knock.
"You need to believe me," Jay urged, he hated to see his wife so upset.
"You better get the door," Priya murmured, as if she half believed the words that he was saying.
Jay moved to the front door, opening it to see the one man that he held all his hate for in the world.
"Jay. So nice to see you again," greeted Dr. Patel.
"What do you want?" Jay asked, his voice hard and firm as his teeth clinched and his jaw jutted out. "You're not welcome here."
"Oh, come now, Jay, let's talk about this man to man," said the doctor. "Your son's death was a tragedy. But... Well, can I come in?"