Patient: Crew (The Crew Book 1)

by Hannah Kaplan

  “Just let me get my shoes off,” Picky continued to yell from the living room. “I dealt with Bradley Garner all day. He took Helen to Sweetwater yesterday and ended up having to bring her to Doc this morning. She was vomiting up her breakfast. The stink was miserable. Bradley gave Doc a DVD of the sonogram and Doc just looked at him all confused. Like he would know what to do with that thing. He couldn’t understand, and frankly neither can I why in the name of Jesus Bradley’s spending all this time running back and forth to Sweetwater just because of what that psychotic little twit said to him.” Just as the word twit came out of her mouth she rounded the corner, and my eyes were the first pair hers met.

  “I’m going to join Jason for a little of that fresh air,” I said.

  “No!” Jima yelled. “No! Dad, don’t let her go!” She looked at Picky. “Don’t run her off like that. Apologize for what you said. Apologize right now.”

  “I’ll do no such thing young lady,” Picky scolded. “And you will not raise your voice at me.”

  “Let’s all just calm down now,” Pilly pleaded. “Let’s not ruin our pleasant supper here.”

  “Mine has already been ruined,” Picky said. “Excuse me.”

  “No,” I said. “This is your house I’ll leave. Pilly, Jim thank you for having me for supper. It’s ok Jima everything is ok.”

  “No it’s not ok!” Jima said. “It’s not her fault don’t you see it’s not her fault.” Jima started to cry and then bolted from the table running down the hall to her room, and back to the table within a few seconds. She had the Patient: Crew book in her hand. “I told her to do it. It’s my fault. I told her she had to tell Bradley the truth about Helen, I mean Mrs. Garner, being pregnant. It’s all here in the book. The crew told me. Shanna only did what I asked her to do.”

  I sat down in the chair before my knees buckled. Silence was my best option. Picky took the book from Jima and thumbed through some of the pages and then concentrated on the cover.

  “I can show you the passage that talks about Helen, I mean Mrs. Garner, being pregnant,” Jima said and tried to touch the book. Picky slapped her hand away and shook the book in my face.

  “You knew she was reading this trash this devil scripture and did nothing to stop it? Not only that, you didn’t let us know. You were talked into making a fool out of yourself, Bradley, Helen, Doc and me. She’s a child. Are you crazy?”

  That did it, that one little word. “I’m crazy? I’m crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy lady.”

  “Ok that’s enough,” Jim said and held my shoulders. “Aunt Picky, you should apologize to Shanna. Shanna, Aunt Picky’s had a hard day. Her sister was put in the ground this morning, and you have to admit that pregnant stuff did come out of left field.”

  “What is it with you people,” I said. “You’ve had a hard day, something bad has happened to you so you’re allowed to take it out on the local twit, crazy woman. Were you having a bad day when you killed my mother?” I walked out the door ignoring the pleas from Jima. It was better that I left than say any more of the words that were flooding my mind. I stood on the porch steps, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I smelled the smoke from Jason’s cigarette, and followed the trail.

  “What’s got them going?” Jason asked as he saw me coming towards him. “Ah never mind I don’t want to know.”

  “You can figure it out, and if not then I’m sure you’ll hear about it tomorrow,” I said. Jason took a long drink from a bottle of whiskey that he held between his knees and offered it to me. “What the hell,” I said and took a swig. It went down like liquid fire and quickly calmed my body.

  “I don’t see what the big fuss is,” Jason said. “I mean since they know she’s pregnant isn’t it better? I would think they would be happy they found out in time.”

  “She’s pregnant? They know that for sure?”

  “Bradley told me the doctors in Sweetwater said she was about eighteen weeks. Like I said what’s the big fuss? The crisis has been averted.”

  “I don’t know Jason maybe it’s because it came from me. I don’t think my coming back was good.”

  “Why in the hell did you come back anyway?” he asked. “That’s the only reason I think you’re crazy.”

  “Enough with that word ok?”

  “But it is crazy that you got out of this town and then voluntarily came back,” he said. “You were out clean. People didn’t even talk about you anymore. You were dead and good riddance.” I was taken aback at his statement, and he noticed. “I…I mean that’s what they said,” he said. “I mean I…I…I don’t really remember you that much I was only ten.”

  “It’s ok Jason.”

  “Do me favor?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “If you leave again,” he said. “When you leave again,” he corrected himself. “Take Jim with you, and the squirt. Get them out of here before this town ruins them both.”

  “Jim's never going to leave Sunny,” I said. “He’ll never leave his land.”

  “He has to. He has to do it for all of us,” he said. “Did he tell you old man Randall offered him close to a quarter million for it?”

  “Why? It’s not worth half that.”

  “Mineral rights. His daddy had that land prospected in the seventies when everyone was doing it. They found oil but he decided not to drill. He said it would taint the land. He said your Momma told him that.”

  “Jim’s not going to sell it is he?” I thought better of giving his statement about Momma any credence.

  “Nope, not a chance in hell.”

  “You want him to sell?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Picky and Pilly? Do they want to sell?”

  “I don’t think Picky really gives a flying fuck what we do with the land she never had anything to do with it anyway. Pilly don’t care a bit neither.”

  “What about you? What would you or Jim do? All you know is farming.”

  “I’d like to go to school somewhere. Maybe a trade school to learn a trade. Jim could do whatever he wanted seeing as he’s good at everything. He could get Jima out of here and into a better school system. She’s a smart girl but if she stays here she’ll be married and pregnant by the time she’s sixteen. She’s too smart for that.”

  Jim walked out the front door and whistled; Jason whistled back. “What are y’all doing out here?” Jim asked.

  “Having our own private party away from the drama,” Jason said.

  “Hand over the bottle,” Jim said. He took the bottle from Jason, downed two big gulps and growled.

  “Still pretty rough in there?” I asked.

  “Rough as hell. Bradley went to the elders,” Jim said. “Most of the church are meeting with them now, which I think is ridiculous now that we know you got it out of a book. You should’ve told me about that book.”

  The ever-present mumbles became loud. A cold rush of foreboding ran through my body as the crew came forward. I was overcome by a dizzy sickness. I got up, ran to my car, started it and left. I wasn’t aware of my surroundings only of the road in front of me. The Preacher was loud and very much up front. He was on a roll and most of it was nothing more than jumbled up words except for the names, Tim, Marla and Finneaus Albert. The Singer was singing a song that consisted of one phrase. The death begins and will not end until a thousand souls are released. I pulled onto the dirt road, and I could see the silhouette of Jim in the moonlight. He must have followed me and even passed me at some point without my knowing. He was standing in the road making it impossible for me to go around.

  The west Texas winds were blowing hot and hard. The few small mesquite trees that lined the house were bending with each gust. I left my car with the motor still running and the headlights on. Kevin came out of the house, but Jim didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on me. He gently held my arms, his mouth was moving quickly, but I couldn’t hear him.

  I took Jim by the hand, led him past Kevin and into the house. Never letting go of
his hand I rummaged through the piles of notebooks, food and garbage on the floor but I couldn’t find them. My head began to pound. It felt as if it might explode from the increasing level of urgency from the crew. Kevin, I thought, Kevin has them. I pulled Jim to the door as Kevin came in the house. Just as I thought he had both books in his hands. I took the books from Kevin and put them in front of Jim’s eyes so he could plainly see the title, Patient: Crew, across the front. I forced him to hold them in his hands, and led him by the arm into my bedroom. I sat on the bed, took two notebooks and two pens from the nightstand and began to write. I looked up at Jim, and Kevin kept him from coming closer.

  “This is who I am,” I said.

  It was three hours later when the voices calmed, and I’d regained control. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Jim’s truck. Joshua Caleb was behind the wheel. I saw through the front windshield dozens of people—men, women and children. Some of them were carrying buckets of water; others were throwing that water on the house. Smoke was rising from the mesquites and billowing towards us. It didn’t take long for me to understand what was happening.

  “We got to get you out of here,” Joshua Caleb said and put the truck in gear. He drove in the opposite direction of the house and smoke. I struggled to watch as my house, and the people surrounding it faded into the distance. Neither one of us spoke as the truck came to a stop in front of my car. Kevin was in the driver’s seat. The back seat was packed with boxes. Jim and Jima were standing next to the open passenger side door.

  I hugged Joshua Caleb and whispered in his ear. “Thank you Uncle Joshua.”

  “If you remember nothing else remember you have family and we will always be here for you,” he said.

  “Can you hear me?” Jim asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You promised you wouldn’t leave me,” Jima cried as she wrapped her arms around my waist. “You promised.”

  I bent down and forced her to look me in the eyes. “I’m not leaving you Jima, I’m leaving this town.”

  “Then take me with you! Please, don’t leave me here with them!”

  “I can’t take you. I don’t know where I’m going. As soon a I know,” I said. Jim gave me a look of disapproval. “I will be back. I’ll never stop trying to come back. We will be together again.” I could feel Jim’s cringe, and I looked into his eyes. “I promise both of you. I will come back.”

  “Take this,” Jima said. She removed a ring from the necklace that was hidden under her shirt. “It was my mother’s.”

  “No Jima, don’t give that to me.”

  “Take it. It’s my only guarantee that you’ll come back.” Jima held my hand and slipped the ring on my finger. “Don’t ever take it off.”

  “I won’t take it off until I can give it back to you,” I promised.

  “I’m so sorry Jim,” I said.

  “We don’t have time for sorry. I understand the things you can’t say. I would have sworn we could make it anywhere as long as we were together. I was wrong; we can’t make it here.” He pulled me close and lowered his mouth to my ear. “Stay tough.”

  14.

  Kevin drove twenty miles to the Anson town center before either of us spoke a word. He pulled the car to a stop at the gas station and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Are you ok?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Abilene,” he said.

  We got out of the car. Kevin started to pump the gas. “Abilene, that’s the plan. We’ll go to Abilene. I’ll drop you off, go to the airport, get my ticket and fly to Mexico with Tim.”

  “Are you hungry? I’ll get some snacks inside. Want anything special?” Kevin asked.

  “My bag. Where’s my bag?” He held up his index finger to say one minute and walked around to the trunk of the car, opened it and brought back my bag.

  “A woman and her bag are not easily parted,” he laughed. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

  I looked inside for the ticket confirmation Tim had given me, and there it was folded and tucked inside along with my passport just as I’d left it. Abilene, that’s the plan. Kevin returned with chips, soda and a variety of convenience store junk food. It was almost midnight, and my last meal had been hours earlier. I ate half a bag of chips and chugged a Dr. Pepper.

  “Feel better?” Kevin asked.

  I let out a long deep belch. “Now I do.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t lose your sense of humor. My Momma says laughter keeps you sane.”

  “She hasn’t met me.”

  “No,” he laughed. “She hasn’t met you, yet. Are you ready to hear what happened?”

  “I know what happened. They tried to burn me, they won’t be happy until I’m dead.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s not that complicated either.”

  “You should know what happened.”

  “If it will make you happy then by all means give me all the gory details. Don’t leave out the inspirational—don’t suffer a witch to live—chants.”

  “You know about Jim and bringing him in your room. You showed him. You let him in,” he said.

  “It was a push. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “It was a good thing to do.”

  “Time will tell,” I said.

  “You went deep inside. We tried to wake you. You wouldn’t snap out of it. Jim opened the front door, and the smoke billowed in we couldn’t see any flames, but the wind was whipping tonight. It carried the smoke for miles.” He looked over at me and raised his brows, “You ok?”

  “I’m ok, go on.”

  “Jim drove his truck around to the back of the house, carried you out and put you in it. Your hands kept writing—in the air. I put the pens in your hands, and the tablets on your lap when we got you in the truck. You just kept writing. You didn’t miss a beat.”

  “Did Jim talk to you, about me?”

  “That man does not have the gift of gab. I guess you know that.”

  I smiled. I loved that about him. “He’s not a chatter box, at least not now.”

  “He loves you,” he said and looked to see my reaction.

  “Go on finish your story,” I said.

  “When we got around to the front of the house, the entire field was in flames. About that time, people came out of the hills. There had to be a hundred of them carrying buckets of water. They formed a line into the woods and as soon as they emptied a bucket of water there was another to take its place. They kept the house from burning.”

  “The cotton?”

  “Hard to see in the dark but I’d say its nothing but an insurance claim,” he said. “The kids started the fire.”

  “What kids?”

  “It seems the adults were having a bitch fest at the church with some of the leaders, and they started talking about your Momma. Some of their kids, the ones in high school, heard the part about them burning the house down and the devil raising it. The kids decided that if they burned your field as a sacrifice their daddy’s crops would not only survive, but also thrive since they’d done what God commanded of them. The witch stuff came in at that point. A couple of the kids hung back because they feared the whipping they would get when caught. I guess they ratted out their friends to assure immunity.”

  “Who told you all of this?”

  “Jima,” he said. “She heard it from Trenton Lee whose sister Tammy was one of the whistle blowers. Two of the men rode out with the fire truck and about ten others came in cars, but it was too late. The field was just a smolder by then, and the hill people were tending to the house. There was nothing else to do but take their kids home and commence the punishments. Jim told me to pack the car with anything important and drive at least two miles down the road. He told Joshua Caleb to wait until you woke up, and then drive out to meet us.”

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “No, that’s the good news. There were government agents on the road talking to the guys in the fire truck.”

  “How d
o you know they were government?”

  “Jim told me.”

  “Jim talked to them?”

  “He ran them off and told them they couldn’t go on private land without a warrant. They didn’t want trouble. Central Ignorance Agency never does.” He laughed at his own joke. “The FBI now that’s a cool group of guys—and gals of course. Those FBI agents, they got it going on.”

  “What did the agents want?”

  “They were looking for Tim,” Kevin said. “Must’ve followed him to the house. They showed the guys in the fire truck a picture of Tim, and when no one recognized him they asked who lived in the house. Jim said one of the guys, don’t remember his name, told the agents your name but that’s about it.”

  “I don’t want to become one of their weapons.”

  “Understood.”

  The rest of the drive to Abilene was silent. I rolled down my window to feel the air. The crew had been intense over the previous days. It was nice to have nothing but the sound of the wheels on the road and the distant mumblings. We drove past Clyde, a small community next to the airport, and Kevin changed lanes heading for downtown Abilene.

  “Where are you going?” I asked. “You need to take me to an airport hotel. I have to catch a flight.”

  “I thought we’d go to my house. My mother’s probably worried stiff. We can get some rest and decide our next move.”

  “No. Take me to a hotel,” I said. He pulled the car into the breakdown lane and put on the emergency flashers.

  “You wrote at least thirty pages tonight with each hand so that’s sixty pages in all and I haven’t had a chance to look at any of it yet. Hell girl, I’ve not even been able to go through half of your marathon session from the night before. Give me a break, I need some time to make sure it’s safe for you.”

  “You’re the one who said I have choices. Now that I’m making a choice you want to talk me into something different.”

  “You’re not making a choice you’re obeying Tim. The choice he made.”