That Damned Place

“Yes, you must live life beautifully and not allow the spirit of the world that makes gods out of power, riches, and pleasure make you forget that you have been created for greater things: to love and to be loved.” —Mother Teresa

He took a moment to suck in a lungful of hot, dry air. He made his way back to the porch and eased himself back into the Torture Chair with a "harrumph" of dissatisfaction. He shifted around in the ridiculous thing as best he could to try and force it to be comfortable but ended up settling on a position that was the least uncomfortable.

He felt hungry. He knew it was after five o’clock, but the stupid watch he’d bought at the store in town didn’t keep good time. He glanced at it. It read 5:10 pm but it read 4:35 pm several hours ago. Time felt like an abstract concept here anyway, and the watch seemed to reflect that. He couldn’t be sure anymore. This damned place had a way of making him crazy with its niggling discomforts and hassles and God damned crows!

Life had never been like this for him. He had been a licensed medical practitioner once! A Bona Fide MD! He made great money too. That life had been pleasant, comfortable, and enjoyable all the time. He would take a few patients every day, listen to them drone on about themselves, prescribe them whatever it was they thought they needed, and then leave about two-thirty to get eighteen holes in before he came home for the night. It was only after “that business” happened that things turned sour!

He cursed himself. That damned business had chased Amelia away and had led to her leaving him. His daughters started openly ignoring him, and he’d just left shortly after. He slapped at his arm in mid-thought. A large bug had landed there. It bit him just before he squashed it. He sighed, remembering how things were before he'd come here. He wiped his arm on his pants as it began to itch.

He had friends back then too, and they were good friends. He used to go hunting with them. Once they even went to Africa for one of those special hunts only money could buy. They had fished in the Rockies together too. Back then he had been respected throughout the local medical community.

Here they viewed him with the same pretentious, backwater contempt that only the socially ignorant, poorly bred, or stupid could manage. They treated him like he was no better than any of them! They spoke to him like he was a common laborer! He might be forced to work in their factory, but he was nothing like them!

There was no sense of respect for him here. But it wasn't personal, no one respected anyone. When he was in town, no one looked him in the eyes. No one smiled. It was all just blank looks and fake hellos. He did the same thing, but the difference, of course, was that the other people here were the dregs of humanity.

They were the common folk, the masses, and the types who were too lazy to work hard enough to get out of their voluntary poverty. Their dress, lack of manners, and general ignorance told him all he needed to know about them. They were the type of people who worked as servants because they had no ability to perform any other jobs. Further, from the doctor’s observations they were the type of servants one would have to watch closely to ensure the whole household didn’t go missing!

He had tried to befriend the local sheriff, figuring he must be at least a little bit higher class individual. The doctor had taken the lawman at face value when they’d first met and accepted all kinds of promises from him, but that was before the doctor had seen the free meals, the free car, and the “free secretary.” Then the doctor found out about the bribes. The sheriff and Mr. Roland, the owner of the local factory where everyone worked, were thick as robber barons.

The factory was what had brought the doctor to town in the first place. He’d seen a billboard advertisement for a company doctor at the factory, so he had answered the ad. They didn’t seem to care about that damned business, nor the questionable status of his medical license. But he soon learned why as soon as he set foot in the building as it became apparent that the job as the company doctor was a sham!

He was put on the assembly line along with everyone else and was kept quiet when he tried to complain. He tried multiple times to talk to Mr. Roland, but in the end, all he got was punishment with a belt by the factory foreman in front of the doctor’s entire shift. They were all told to take it as a warning, as the whipping was a lesson for them all. The doctor never complained again.

After work finally ended the day he’d been whipped, he went to the sheriff to file a complaint. The sheriff’s response was a shrug. He was shooed away and then reminded to be on time for work the next day.

He informed the doctor that the contract each worker signed with the factory allowed the company to discipline all employees as the company saw fit. So the doctor had just fallen into the habit of toiling the day away in the factory while suffering out in the scrub the locals called the “back country” at night.

He thought of the crow, the house behind him, his wife and kids, his former practice, and even a few other choice things from his old life. In a short period of time (or had it been a long time now?) he had gone from a little piece of paradise to…well, whatever this was…

He spun his empty water glass in a circle in his palm. He watched whatever the white sludge was in the bottom as it moved with the motion of the glass. His stomach churned. In his previous life, he had loved food. He had always found it to be pleasurable to eat excellent meals, and to sample new things. He turned his mouth sideways at the thought of eating.

In this place, even that pleasure was diminished. Eating was a chore. The food from the lone grocery store was barely edible. The meat was universally tough. The vegetables were always a day away from going bad. The milk tasted sour from the very first time it was opened, and the eggs couldn’t be described with a civil tongue.

He stood up from the Torture Chair and made for the kitchen door. He’d lost twenty pounds since he’d come here. He knew he had to eat something, even if he had to choke it down. He glanced at the old-fashioned radio on the stand by the door as he came in.

He considered flicking the switch on for the background noise but reconsidered after a moment. The only stations he could get played either infomercials or religious programs. He shuddered at the thought of either option.

He glanced at the albatross that sat in the back corner of the living room. He could see the impossibly large CRT console television from the open kitchen. The television programming wasn’t any better than the radio.

He had gotten cable despite the exorbitant price of it, but he found over time that it didn’t matter. The channels offered were an endless variety of the same shopping networks, reality channels, and a smattering of weird special interest channels that he already hated without having five of them to pick from.

When he complained to the cable company it was the same answer he always got around here: Take it or leave it. The local station was an access channel operated by the community college one town over. If you liked things like in-depth discussions with old ladies making quilts, why the local government fails citizens by issuing parking tickets, or if you enjoyed extensive debate regarding the minute genetic differences of local cacti, the channel was a perfect home for you!

He looked through his cabinets for anything that could pass for food. He never spent much on it anymore, as it was all too much of a chore to cook and eat anything here. He settled on some tuna with an advertisement that it was guaranteed one-third less mercury per serving than the other leading canned tuna brands. He shrugged his shoulders and opened the refrigerator withdrawing the mayonnaise. He smelled it knowing he shouldn’t and wrinkled his nose. He threw the jar away.

Looking through the cabinets further he found a bottle of off-brand Thousand Island dressing. With a shrug, he grabbed it and the loaf of barely stale white bread on the countertop. He mixed the ingredients together and put the mixture together using a butter knife.

Flies buzzed around the sink. That was the other thing about this damned place! There were flies everywhere! They never seemed to die off entirely or go away. At night he often had to sleep under his blankets because they’d swarm his eyes and nose.

He sat in the worn, flower-printed, dingy yellow armchair that was in the living room. He clicked on the television with the remote. The Shopping-for-the-In-Laws channel was still on from last night.

The lady who hosted the program was giggling at something that occurred off-screen. Dr. Irving rolled his eyes. She pointed at a ceramic monstrosity, and revealed the low, low price of only $29.95 plus $9.95 for express shipping! He took a bite of the sandwich and winced at the taste. The dressing was rancid.

He choked the bite down despite the taste. The lady onscreen moved to the next item for sale. It was a pair of pink fuzzy dice that had gold-plated dots for numbers. She made a big deal out of how amazing that all was. He watched in bored resignation as he ate the rancid tuna sandwich.

When the price of the dice was displayed on the screen, an arrow graphic suddenly shot across the screen. The bubble graphic on the side of the screen listed them as $49.95. When the arrow met the bubble, there was a cheesy explosion that revealed the all-new, super-low price of $37.45, which included the express shipping!

The hostess was ecstatic at the revelation of the price. The doctor blinked for a moment as he swore her eyes turned bright red for just a moment! He blinked several times and shrugged it off. When he looked back at her they were normal. He never slept well here in addition to everything else, and that lack of sleep must have been getting to him. He was seeing things besides just angry crows now.

He flipped the channel as the tuna mixture made his stomach groan. He skipped through the shopping channels and settled on a station that played black-and-white movies. The part he saw at first was interesting, but over time the film became inane. As always seemed to happen he found himself bored to death with it. It felt as if three hours had passed since he’d started watching it. He glanced down at his watch, it read 5:45 pm. Why the hell was everything so God damn slow here?

He closed his eyes as he leaned back in the uncomfortable dingy yellow armchair. There were gunshots on the television that startled him, but he closed his eyes after realizing he still wasn’t interested. He dozed quickly and dreamed of his old life and blue skies. He dreamed of green grass. He dreamed of his wife back before that damned business happened. A smile crossed his face for an instant as he dozed.

His dreams became troubled in no time, though. He found himself imprisoned by a twisted, evil, four-headed, three-legged crow. The vile thing tormented him with lit cigarettes, a cattle prod, and a fantastic-smelling steak it kept just out of his reach. It was vivid. He swore he could still smell the steak after he finally woke up, drenched in sweat. He felt his arms and chest for the cigarette burns, but there were none.

He shifted in the seat, looking down. A bulge from a worn-out spring was poking him. He frowned as he tried to find yet another less uncomfortable way of sleeping in it.

Time passed slowly as he watched more gobbledygook on television. He glanced at his watch. He had slept most of the night away but felt like he’d gotten 15 minutes. His shift at the factory was just a couple hours away.

His stomach rumbled, but he dreaded the thought of trying to cook and eat the bacon and eggs in the fridge. The bacon was a little green, and the eggs didn’t smell any better than they ever did. Instead, he ran the faucet for a little while and choked down another glass of tepid, metallic-tasting water.

He left for work on his bicycle about forty-five minutes early. The shoulder was covered in peat gravel that made traction a little more perilous. If one were taking a quick ride, the extra resistance was no big deal. For longer trips, like getting to work, that little extra strain over many miles wore him out. He ended up making it to the factory with just a few minutes to spare because he took several breaks along the route.

There was a line of battered, heavily used bikes chained up by the front door. The doctor chained his right beside them. He hurriedly got his things together and went inside the building.

The doctor made his way through the building to the break room nearest his workstation. He grabbed his time card and stood around waiting for the last few minutes to pass. Some regulation or other prevented them from clocking in even one minute early without facing a fine or some other penalty.

He waited patiently as more employees filed in. All of them wore the same long faces and hopeless expressions he did. He ignored the lot of them, thieves, thugs, whores, and jaywalkers.

As the time ticked slowly by more employees filled the room. He wondered if there would be room for all of them when the clock finally struck eight. It didn’t end up affecting him. He punched in, went to his station, and started his machine. The sheer, mindless boredom and endless tedium set in immediately.

A unique soul-killing numbness spread through him as he performed his daily safety checks. He checked the fluid levels on the machine, which were acceptable. He tested each belt and pulley. Everything was good. He just had to wait for the booting of the main line so the products would begin passing through.

Several employees filed past him grumbling. He ignored them other than to note their passing. In time all the overhead lights warmed up and glared brightly down on the area. The heat from them was still an adjustment. The sweat never seemed to stop.

The noise from the primary processor ramped up as the main line began its pre-operational warm-up. Up above he watched for the second green light that would signal a full-line startup. It was generally a five-minute wait, depending on whether or not time cooperated. He idled his machine and waited for the second light that would indicate everyone else was ready to go.

When it lit up the noise became deafening. He inserted his earplugs. Just another tedious day on the line. He fought the boredom as best he could. He thought of many things from his former life, his hobbies, and the people he had once known. He remembered the booze, hookers, and medical suppliers. For fun, he contemplated making a bomb that would destroy the entire factory with the sheriff and Mr. Roland inside.

His shift ended late. Everyone in his section stayed four extra hours. The additional hours were awarded as penalty time because a couple of his coworkers had screwed up several pallets of product, and all of it had to be thrown away. That came out of the employees’ paychecks, which amounted to four extra hours. It wasn’t legal, but the doctor knew what good complaining did.

It was dusk as he rode back home. A hot, dry breeze made the trip more uncomfortable. His path home took him through the middle of town. As he made his way along the road he saw the local bar, Wally's Place.

He was sorely tempted to stop, despite his experience with the booze there, and drink as many beers as he could. The place was terribly expensive. He started to pass it and was just on his way out of town when he ultimately gave in to the thought of a cold beer and turned back around.

“To Hell with it!” He said through gritted teeth. All the regulars were in attendance. He’d met most of them some time ago, and he remained as unimpressed with the bar patrons as he was with everyone else in town.

Looking them over closely this time, he noted most were already drunk. The bartender was a tall, bulgingly large bald guy with green eyes and an even fatter face. He was easily 6'4" if he wasn't one or two more. There were women in the bar too, and a few were even attractive, but there were still none he’d trust with his back turned.

Rusty sat at the bar watching an old movie on the small television that was mounted high on the back wall. The doctor walked right up to him and patted him on the back. Rusty was an affable ginger and was tolerable for a townie. The doctor noted his acquaintance was a little further along in his nightly binging than the others. He slurred his words heavily when he spoke.

“Hey there stranger,” Rusty said to him. “I haven’t seen you around here in a while. Where have you been?”

“Mainly at home, Rusty.”

“Right. Right. Doc. Didn’t you buy the old Hernandez place out off the highway aways? Ten somethin' miles out or whatever it is?” Rusty asked the question with eyes so heavy you could blindfold him with dental floss.

“Yes, that’s the one. I moved out there about... well a while back, I’m not really sure how long it’s been now.” Rusty looked oddly puzzled at the doctor's comment but resumed his drunk smile.

“Hey. You gonna order sumthin or jus’ take up space?” The large bartender growled, interrupting the pair. He was holding a white terry cloth rag that he habitually used to wipe the bar down.

“Yes, a bottle of the coldest beer you’ve got.” The doctor replied, turning away from Rusty for a moment.

“I've got an ice-cold Coors or some imported Anjou crap. Which one you want?”

“Like I said, whichever is coldest!” The doctor replied jovially, forgetting for the moment where he was. The bartender looked him over with a deepening frown. The doctor wilted as the bartender's meaty face grew more severe with each passing second.

“The uh... ice-cold Coors please?” The doctor asked with a hint of real fear.

“Jus’ say so next time buddy.” The bartender said with finality. The giant man reached into the cooler, popped the top on the bottle, and put it in front of the doctor on a coaster. “Twenty bucks.” He said with a voice that sounded like he was chewing on gravel. It was deep and his pronunciations were all over the place.

“Twenty…? Really?” the doctor asked stunned. The bartender gazed back at him seriously, face a stone tablet. The doctor sheepishly reached into his wallet and handed him a twenty.

The bartender turned away. The price of beer had doubled since the last time the doctor had been in here. Had it been a year ago now? He couldn’t remember for sure. Time was sure weird down here. Rusty spoke up again, breaking the doctor’s thoughts. The bottle of ice-cold Coors appeared in front of the doctor, seemingly out of thin air.

“So what ya been up to doc? You still helpin' out at the factory?” Rusty’s speech was hard to discern. It was fraught with heavy drink and a thick local accent. The doctor examined each sound and put the sentence together in his head as best he could.

“I’m not sure I’d call it helping out, but yes I’m working there,” the doctor replied as he took an extra drink of the incredibly satisfying, ice-cold Coors. He let the swallow linger in his mouth. He couldn’t think of anything he’d had in this entire… land that tasted as good as that beer did right then.

“Ah, that’s good. Most people in town work there ya know. It’s really a good place once you get used to it. I don’t know what else we’d all do anyways! There ain’t nothin else 'round here, so at least we get to make enough money to buy our liquor!” He said this proudly with the goofiest grin Dr. Irving had ever seen.

“Right. Yes. There is that. Hey, Rusty, I’ve got a question for you.” The doctor said hoping to change the subject.

“Oh yeah, well if you’re lucky I might have an answer for you!” Rusty replied with a half-drunken air of snippiness and bawdy laughter.

“Ok, seriously now. Listen, does anyone else around here have a problem with crows? I mean, like… does anyone else have crows coming around cawing at them all the time? They seem really smart…” The doctor trailed off, noting the wide-eyed look on Rusty’s face. “What?” the doctor asked as he looked around the bar self-consciously. All activity had stopped. All patrons from the women to the bartender were staring at him silently.

“What? What did I say? What?” He asked repeatedly holding his arms out and with his fingertips pointed upwards. They all continued to stare at him, some gape-mouthed. One of the women leaned over to one of the men and whispered something.

They both nodded as they continued staring at him. The doctor looked back at them nervously. “What? What is it? I just asked about... the... crows?” The bartender threw his towel down on the bar with a loud pop that got everyone’s attention and came up to the doctor in a huff.

“You don’t talk about those things, you idiot! If you have stuff like that you keep it to your damn self! No one here wants to know about your problems! Everyone has had those problems here! You got crows? Well, Tommy over there’s got goats!” The bartender said pointing to someone staring back at the doctor with judgemental eyes. “Sheila had rats, poor Rusty you been talkin to? Yeah dealt with cats for longer’n anyone’ll remember!

“I don’t mean nice, friendly cats ’neither, I mean feral toms swarming him and his place day in and day out… So listen, you don’t have the faintest idea where you are, and until then you keep your damned crow talk to yourself! No one wants to hear it, ya hear me?” The doctor’s face went beat red. He lowered his eyes.

“Yes, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t…” The bartender turned away by the time he tried to stammer his apology. The rest of the patrons went back to their conversations as he endured their ongoing dirty looks. The bartender grabbed his towel and angrily wiped the bar down while occasionally shooting the doctor annoyed side-eyed glances.

Dr. Irving looked away sheepishly. Rusty was nursing some kind of dark mixed drink. He turned his attention back to the television just as the doctor was going to make more conversation. The doctor tried to engage him, but Rusty was off in his own world.

The doctor downed his ice-cold Coors and ordered a second. The bartender glanced sideways at him, then slid a second bottle into his waiting hands, while deftly snatching the empty one. The doctor watched the people in the bar.

Most of them looked like all the other townspeople here, downtrodden and hopeless. He raised his eyebrows for a moment as he thought about this. He looked outside and noticed it was hazier than usual. He grabbed his beer and walked up to the plate glass window that looked out on one of the two streets that made up the downtown area.

The wind blew hot air and now brought dust along for the ride. The doctor saw that the floor in front of the door had already accumulated a thin layer. He had never seen that before. He turned to the other patrons to show them, but they were oblivious to what was going on. He walked up to one of them and tapped him on the shoulder.

The man was a brute, large in all ways, with fat fingers and impossibly large hands. The doctor didn’t actually say much, he just pointed to the dust covering the floor. The man looked annoyed but turned to see what it was. Once he saw what the doctor was talking about he got up and went over to the door. His annoyance melted into concern. He came back to the bar and loudly knocked his beer on top of it.

“Storm’s a comin…”