Usury

Josie goes to the next town over to drink. The beer isn’t any cheaper or any colder. And she certainly isn’t going to Mona’s for the ambiance. But she hates drinking at home—it reminds her too much of her father—and anywhere she goes out in Murat she runs into customers. She can’t take the looks: angry, guilty, defiant, or downcast. Sometimes, and worst of all: familiar. At least the people at Mona’s only know her as the tall young woman with blonde hair who likes Canadian beer and dirty jokes.

That’s how Josie came to be sitting on her normal stool at Mona’s, finishing her second Molson and contemplating a third, when old Charlie Watson started running his mouth. Charlie—gin and tonic and asking for hockey on the TV above the bar—was normally the quiet sort, but that night the laconic man was bending the ear of anyone who would listen about something he’d seen while at his current job as a janitor at the local hospital.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said and then hesitated. “You know I’ll lose my job if it gets around that I said anything, so you guys have to keep it quiet.” And that will be the first step on the road to visiting me at work, Josie thought.

“You already know you’re going to talk about it, Charles,” Mona said, “so stop flirting and get to it. Josephine won’t say anything, either.”

Josie nodded and tapped the mouth of her empty bottle with one long finger. Mona produced another bottle as Charlie dove in.

Apparently, what had started as a typical guy-on-the-nod-passed-out-by-the-highway EMT call had turned into some sort of medical mystery. The guy had come in unconscious from blood loss and with his left arm wrapped up in store-brand gauze and an Ace bandage that were soaked through to dripping with blood. When the ER nurse unwrapped it, she could see that the arm was covered in dozens of small wounds, like paper cuts or deep scratches. The cuts were in a series of circumferential rows running from the midpoint of his forearm to above his elbow.

For all they looked like scratches, they bled like crazy. And they wouldn’t stop for anything: pressure, cold, Quik-clot, stitches, vitamins, ultrasound treatment, hyperbaric chamber treatment, nothing. Even cauterization didn’t work—the burned blood vessels just opened back up. If the arm was tourniqueted, the bleeding would stop, but then it would start up again as soon as the tourniquet was released.

It got to the point where the docs even tried grafting some skin from the inside of his thigh over a wounded section, to see if it would take. The graft adhered, but within a day the same small cuts opened on the grafted skin. That was the last straw, apparently, and they started talking about amputation.

They could keep just enough blood in his system to get him sort-of conscious, but the more units they fed into him, the more he bled. The lower his blood volume, the more the bleeding slowed. It was like the cuts were purposefully keeping him alive but weakened.

“The cops kept after him when he was strong enough to talk,” Charlie said, wringing out the lime into his third g-and-t, “but he wouldn’t say much to them. About what happened, I mean.”

“Weird,” Josie said, speaking up for the first time since Charlie had started his tale, “you’d think he’d want to…”

“He did it to himself, Josephine” Mona interrupted. “You ought to be familiar with the idea. People hurting themselves and not being anxious to admit it, I mean.”

Josie’s face crumpled. She opened her mouth to protest but Mona continued, “I’m not judging you. It’s just a fact.” She wrapped on the bar and turned back to Charlie. “Finish up, Charles.”

Charlie took a swig and nodded. “Anyway, I was talking to Dianne, you know, the charge nurse, and she said that he kept asking when he could get out. Every time he came around, he’d want to get gone and go back to whatever it was. He just couldn’t stay conscious long enough to do it.”

Mona nodded. “The young man is hooked on something. Maybe literally, in this case.” She laughed at her own joke (pretty much the only jokes Mona ever laughed at were her own).

Stiff-necked and sensible, Josie thought, still, a few slow weeks and she’ll be at my desk.

That raspy chortle marked the end of the conversation on the topic for the night. Charlie drained the rest of his drink and stepped away, needing to head home to sleep it off for his shift in the morning. Josie walked out with him, put off another drink by Mona’s remark.

***

But not so put off that she didn’t return to Mona’s eventually. As was typical for the end of the month, her workday had been particularly tough—lots of tears and more than a little begging—and she needed a drink or two.

It wasn’t Christmas or Memorial Day, so Mona was behind the bar. When Josie arrived, Mona was speaking to an older man in a cardigan, worn khakis, and dress shoes with rubber soles. Other than the difference in clothing, he looked a lot like Charlie.

“He hasn’t been here in a couple of weeks,” Mona said with a shake of her head.

The man nodded, stepped back from the bar, and put his hands in his pockets. Josie wouldn’t have noticed had her eyes not been drawn by the motion, but there was a frayed bit on the pocket hem where the man’s watch rubbed against it. Frugal, sensible. Medical emergency, or something with his house that insurance won’t cover, Josie thought, other than that I won’t see him at work.

“Okay,” he said, pulling a rumpled business card out and sliding it across the bar. “My cell number is on there. If he comes in, could you let me know?”

“No,” Mona said, leaving the car where it lay, “but if he comes in I’ll tell him that you’re looking for him.”

“Well,” the man said, “I guess I appreciate it.” He turned to leave, giving Josie a brief, awkward nod as he walked by.

“Molson?” Mona asked Josie.

The blonde nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Who was that?”

“Robert. Charles’s brother.” Mona said as she reached into the ice chest behind the bar and extracted a beer. With practiced ease, she twisted off the cap, dropped it into a bucket, and put the beer down on the bar next to Robert’s card.

Josie picked up both. Robert Watson was a vice principal at Murat Middle School. His cell phone number was written under his title in blue pen.

“Charlie hasn’t been in?” Josie asked as she slid onto her stool.

Mona just looked at her.

“Obviously not,” Josie said. “Any idea why?”

Mona cocked her head. “Why would I have one?”

“Because he was a regular,” Josie said. “He was in here more than I was.”

Mona shrugged and sweet back to cleaning glasses.

Josie looked at the open beer but had lost taste for it. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a billfold—Josie used credit as little as she could—peeled off a sawbuck, and traded it with the business card’s position on the bar.

“For the beer,” Josie said. “And I’m going to take this.”

“Sure,” Mona said.

Josie called Robert before she even made it to her car.

***

They met at an Exxon station and leaned on the tailgate of Robert—Bobby’s—truck to talk, nursing 8-hour-old gas station coffee in styrofoam cups.

“You’re a friend of Charlie’s?” Bobby asked. “Because…”

Josie saved him from having to finish with something like my brother was a loser in his 50s and I can’t imagine how he’d have a put-together young woman for a friend by saying “From Mona’s. I saw him there a lot.”

“Oh,” Bobby said, relief and understanding in his voice, “sure. I don’t get out to the bars much, myself.” He swirled his cup around. “So, do you know where he is? Or might be? He dropped off the face of the planet, seems like.”

“I know he had some weird stuff going on at work,” Josie said, and gave Bobby an abbreviated version of Charlie’s story. “Maybe he got caught talking to someone about it and got fired.”

Bobby nodded, “He definitely got fired, that’s why I’m looking for him. Mark, his boss dropped his last check off with me when they couldn’t track Charlie down.”

“And didn’t say why?” Josie asked.

“Nah,” Bobby said, “but I didn’t really press it. It’s not like it was the first time. Just the first time in a while.” He set his coffee down and smoothed the front of his khakis. “Well, anyway, thanks for calling. Please let me know if you hear from him.”

“Yeah, sure,” Josie said, unsatisfied. She waved to Bobby as he climbed up into his truck.

Charlie really wasn’t anybody to her—just some guy who drank at the same bar. But, all the same, she felt compelled to help. She couldn’t quite admit it to herself, but deep in the back of her mind she knew that the compulsion was borne of the need to prevent him from becoming a customer.

***

Josie had more than a few customers who worked at Murat Memorial. It was trivial—technically improper, but trivial—for her to look through her records to find someone who might know Charlie. There was no “Mark” in the customer database, but there was a “Dianne Fonteneau” from Murat who listed her position as “charge nurse.” Lucky, but not all that lucky given the state of things.

Josie copied her license plate number, address, and telephone information into the notes app on her phone. Then she studied the scan of Dianne’s driver’s license until she was confident that she’d recognize the woman if she saw her.

The next afternoon, Josie drove over to Murat Memorial Hospital, now one of the largest employers in town after the several rounds of layoffs at the aluminum smelter. The staff parking lot wasn’t busy yet, but would be in a few minutes when shift change neared.

Josie maneuvered her 4Runner around the lot until she found Dianne’s car. She thought briefly about parking in the staff lot or even blocking the nurse in to make sure that she could catch her leaving. But Josie quickly decided on a more reasonable course, parked in the visitor lot, and then walked back over to sit at the staff smoking benches. She’d keep one eye out for Dianne leaving from the exit and another for her approaching her car. The afternoon was cool, but not unpleasantly so, and Josie was comfortable enough in jeans and a sweater.

A bit later, Josie watched the hospital staff come and go through the staff entrance as first shift turned into second. She had begun to give up hope and think that maybe Dianne was working overtime when she saw the woman shuffle out. Dianne was in fuchsia scrubs and gray Crocs, her hair in a bob that Josie thought frankly wasn’t doing the woman any favors. Her pace and gait bespoke fatigue.

As the nurse made her way to her car, Josie realized that she hadn’t thought hard enough about how to make this approach. She dithered for a few seconds, but, seeing that her indecision was going to cost her the opportunity, she shouted “Mrs. Fonteneau! Dianne!” and hopped up from the bench.

Dianne stopped and turned around, confusion in her face as she watched Josie jog toward her. “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “who are…?”

“I’m a friend of Charlie, uh, Charlie Watson. I think you worked together,” Josie said.

“Ok,” Dianne said, her face softening but the confusion remaining.

“I know he got fired last week,” Josie said, making a placating gesture with her hands and stepping in closer to speak in a quiet tone, “and I know about your weird bleeding patient. But Charlie’s been missing, even his family can’t find him. Do you know where he is?”

Dianne’s eyes darted around the parking lot. Even seeing no one, she said: “I can’t talk to you about a patient, of course. And I also don’t think I’m supposed to talk to you about former employees. So, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you.”

Much as she hadn’t really planned an opening to the conversation, Josie had likewise not anticipated being balked. Her next statement came from instinct, which would give her cause for great reflection later on. “You’ve been rolling over your weekly payments. The interest is piling up. Pretty soon, you won’t even be able to cover the minimums.” Her voice was quiet, but she was not whispering.

She spoke in an even, professional, practiced tone, looking directly into Dianne’s eyes. “You don’t have to do it here, but you’re going to answer my questions or I’m going to make things very difficult for you with my employer.” After she finished speaking, Josie nodded pointedly at Dianne’s car: a late model Lexus.

“How…what the fuck…” Dianne sputtered. Her face turned red. She looked around the parking lot again; checking for the third time and finding the same answer.

She started to say something else, but Josie cut her off. “Just answer my questions and there won’t be an issue. I might even be able to help you out with those payments. I’ll be at your house in an hour. We can talk there. Okay?”

“Fuck you,” Dianne said, but she nodded.

***

“We can stay on the porch,” Dianne said as Josie climbed the front steps. The front porch of the McMansion in Murat’s lone subdivision development was really more like a stoop, and it forced the two women to stand awkwardly close together, but it let Dianne make her point about Josie not being welcome.

“That’s fine,” Josie said with a nod. “I’m sorry that we sort of got off on the wrong…”

“Shut the fuck up and tell me what you want to know,” Dianne said. “My husband will be home soon and I want you gone by then.”

So, Josie asked her questions, and Dianne answered. The bleeding patient, Schneider, had been transferred down to the University hospital down in the city; Dianne didn’t know anything else. She wasn’t certain where Charlie was, but she knew that he had spoken to the patient before the guy left. He’d been lucid for an uncommonly long time at one point, and had spoken to a couple of the nurses and staff about his “whole deal.”

As for what he’d said, Dianne only knew second hand. Apparently, the wounds were part of the initiation to some sort of group. It sounded like a support group or something from what Dianne had heard, but that didn’t make any sense. Anyway, the guy had apparently gone back several times—too many times—which is why he was in such dire shape.

“Why would he keep going back?” Josie asked.

Dianne shrugged. “Because he was a fucking idiot, I guess? I don’t know why somebody would do that. Whatever he was getting out of the group must have seemed worth it at the time. But Charlie talked to him a lot. Then he got fired for it. He was on thin ice, anyway, and the administration didn’t like him hanging around their big medical mystery after being told not to.”

“Do you know anything about where the guy met up with them?” Josie asked, figuring it would be a place to start looking for Charlie.

“No,” Dianne said, “like I said, I was getting everything second hand from my nurses.”

Josie pointed at the woman’s phone, lying on porch rail. “Call them and ask.”

“What?” Dianne said. “Now, I’ve had about enough…”

“Call them now,” Josie said, “and I’ll be out of your hair before your husband gets home and I have to mention to him about who I work for and how deep you’re in.”

***

Once upon a time, Michaud’s Diner was a local standard. Famous—Murat famous, anyway—for its milkshakes and open-faced sandwiches, the restaurant served fifty years of millworkers and border patrol agents and their families. Now, the old building sat empty, broken down and mostly forgotten except for conversations in the local old timers’ Facebook group.

Josie, not being from Murat, didn’t know where Michaud’s had been, but Dianne was able to give her some fairly clear directions. It wasn’t far off Route 73, but it sat nestled back on a side road, not visible from the highway thanks to an intervening wood lot.

So, she eased her SUV off the highway and onto the much rougher pavement of the side road. The sun was setting to her left now, but there was enough light left in the gloaming that did not experience the fear—and hence caution—that she might have had she made the approach at night.

A few minutes’ drive brought her to the parking lot of the old restaurant. The windows had been boarded up and there were some shingles conspicuously absent from the roof, but the building didn’t look to be in imminent danger of collapse. She didn’t see any other vehicles initially, and thought that maybe she’d gotten a wrong tip from the nurse, but as she circled around the lot, she saw a handful of cars parked out back, concealed even from those who might head down the side road.

She sat in the driver’s seat for a moment, considering the next step. Josie hadn’t really expected to find anything here, and again she hadn’t given much consideration to what she’d do if she found something. She didn’t want to just barge into the restaurant—it looked like a trap house.

But, by the same token, she couldn’t just leave; now that the people inside had likely noticed her approach, they might take off if she just pulled out and left. She could call the cops, but if Charlie wasn’t in there she might never track these people down again.

She settled on delay. She stepped out of her 4Runner and put on a pantomime of helplessness, throwing up her hands and stomping around. She popped her hood and looked at the engine while she dialed Bobby’s number.

Charlie’s brother picked up on the third ring. “Vice Principal Watson,” he said,

“Bobby, it’s Josie. We spoke earlier.”

“Oh, um, yes. Did you learn something?” He sounded uncomfortable.

“Maybe, I heard from someone who works at the hospital that he might have fallen in with some sort of cult or support group or something that is squatting out here at Michaud’s. I’m here, but I don’t really think it’s a good idea for me to go in alone. Can you get out here, like, now?”

“Michaud’s?” There was a pause of a few seconds. “I’m already in the car, heading home from work. I’ll be there in ten.”

Continuing the charade, Josie paced around the car for a few minutes, and then walked the few yards over the road to stand by the sign, as if waiting for a tow or other help. She kept an ear out for any noise from the disheveled restaurant, and looked back toward it as often as she thought she could without making it too obvious. Whoever was inside could leave out the back and sneak away through the woods, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

Bobby slewed his pickup off the highway 9 minutes later. Josie saw the back end kick out a little bit as he turned onto the side road: he was driving fast enough to fishtail taking the corner. He slowed down as he approached the parking lot and pulled up next to Josie’s car.

When he stopped out of the truck, Josie hurried over and gave the older man a hug. He was surprised enough to flinch at bit. “I’ve been making out like my car broke down.” She said too quietly for anyone inside to hear as she patted his back. “What do you want to do?”

Bobby shrugged, rumpled corduroy jacket bunching up around his neck. “I don’t see anything for it other than to go in. If Charlie’s in there, I’ll pull him out. If not, we’ll see if there’s anyone sober enough to ask. It looks like a meth den, so I’m not hopeful.”

She stepped back and nodded. “Do you have a gun or anything?”

Bobby shook his head. “Kinda wish I did, but no. We’ll just be careful.”

“I’ve got some pepper spray,” Josie said. She made her way back to her vehicle and pulled it out of her purse.

As prepared as they would be, the two made their way around the side of the building. The blue paint was peeling off of the wooden siding, and the nails holding the boards over the windows had been there long enough to rust. Josie saw as they rounded the back corner that there were more than a handful of cars here; she counted ten.

“Charlie’s car,” Bobby said and pointed to a sagging beige sedan. He sped up toward the back door, which had been propped open with a tarnished copper pot.

The room smelled of blood. The floor and the walls were smeared with it. Some was dried to a rust brown. More was fresh. With the windows boarded, the close confines of the old diner kitchen were oppressive with the humidity of bodies and the odor of the blood. It was dark; the power having long since been disconnected and the window boards keeping out what remained of the day’s light.

Josie and Bobby needed not have worried so much about their safety from the squatters. There were half-a-dozen people in the kitchen, but all save one were curled up under counters or in corners, nursing bleeding wounds. The last denizen was a well put-together man of about thirty, wearing a Tyvek suit over what appeared to be a shirt and tie. He had shoe covers—the type that businessmen use to protect their dress shoes from rain—over black shoes.

Bobby spotted his brother immediately and hustled over toward him. Even with rubber soles, he slipped and fell in the blood on the floor, falling hard. He finished his journey on hands and knees, the front of his pants soaked in red from the knee down by the time he reached Charlie. “He’s alive, but he’s hurt bad,” Bobby called to Josie.

Josie pulled up her pepper spray and pointed it at the standing man. “We’re going to take him out of here.”

The man shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “I just work here. And he’ll probably come back, anyway. Most of them do.” He sounded more tired than anything. Certainly there was no hint of anger or surprise.

Bobby, moving carefully, picked up his brother. Charlie had bleeding wounds in two sets of rings on his left arm. He was weakened and only half-conscious, but able to work with Bobby in getting him up. “I won’t come back, I promise,” he mumbled.

“What did you do to him?!” Bobby shouted at the man.

“Me? Nothing. He wanted what my employer provides, and this is the price. You can talk to my boss directly, if you want.” He pointed to the swinging door behind him that led into what was once the dining room.

Bobby paused, as if to consider it, but Charlie became agitated. “No, no, no. It’s not…it’s…” The bloody man flagged, forcing Bobby to take his entire weight as he headed for the door.

“I’m calling the cops as soon as we’re out of here,” Josie hissed at the man. “These people need help.”

“They do, that’s true,” the man said, nodding.

***

After that, it was the rush to the hospital and the panicky 911 call and the trying to answer unanswerable questions. Charlie wasn’t as badly wounded as the first young man: his two rows of bleeding wounds were less than half that suffered by the other man. Nor was he as bad off as many of the others found in Michaud’s when the police and EMTs arrived fifteen minutes after Josie’s call.

Charlie had the benefit of Murat Memorial’s experience with the first patient: they worked through mostly the same progression of ineffective treatments, but more with the air of confirmation than a desperate search. The decision to transfer Charlie to the University hospital was also made much more quickly.

On the day before he was to leave, Josie visited the older man in his hotel room. She brought him a canned gin-and-tonic (as a gesture, knowing he couldn’t drink it) and a bobble head doll of the Canadiens goalie.

Charlie, with the benefit of a constant flow of blood and medication, was able to return a small smile. “Thanks,” he said.

The minutes passed slowly, with Bobby and Josie making small talk and Charlie a friendly non-participant in the conversation. Eventually, it became clear that while the brothers would happily host the young woman for as long as she wanted, in deference to her role in finding Charlie, her welcome was worn out.

As she stood to leave, she said to Charlie, “I just have to ask something. Why? You saw what happened to Schneider. Why would you go there?”

Charlie nodded and took a deep breath. “Seems pretty stupid. But he said it made things easier. Easier to be alone. Easier to have nothing to go home to or be proud of.” He flagged, and Bobby started to call for an end to the conversation, but Charlie motioned him away. “And he was right, it did. But it wasn’t worth what it cost. That thing doesn’t want death. It just wants blood. Blood forever.”

***

The room smelled of cleaning products. The white tile floor gleamed from the light spilling in through the large windows and overhead fluorescent lights. Half-a-dozen customers were inside, huddled around counters and tables, filling out forms and checking things on their phones,

Josie stood behind the counter, ready to begin another day as an intermediary between her employer and the people who were here to get what they wanted, for a price.

“Oh, honey,” the older lady with the BankTrust Payday Lending loan-rollover forms in her hand asked as she walked up to Josie’s counter, “why are you crying?”

***

Red Charles is new to writing fiction, but - being fictional himself - has first-hand experience with it. The person who thought him up started out as a bookish nerd in a tiny Rust Belt town and is now a practicing attorney in a large city in the Southeastern US. That guy's been thinking up weird horror and sci-fi stories his whole life, but only recently started writing them down. Red's biography is pretty similar, but he's a lot better looking.