Chapter 15

After dinner at Tonya’s diner, I rode the scooter home. I fought it back into the packing case. Then I went inside and did more research on the internet. I went only to the Whistle Blower Site. There I got and got a link from Prince. The link led to a story about the General and the negotiations. It was very vague. I guessed that was because the Prince couldn’t get anything verified. Tough crap, I thought just before going to bed.

When I awoke somewhere around 5AM. I could barely make it to the bathroom in time. I had to fight through a large pain just to make it to a chair I could pull myself up on. I made it just in time to sit down on the toilet to urinate. It was very unlikely I would find a way to stand again. That being the case I began to work on a means of getting around until my pills could kick in to help. Thank god I have some foresight.

I had remembered to purchase three thin flexible ice packs after dinner the night before. They weren’t the only things in my freezer, but they filled most of it. The ice packs worked a small miracle, those and the slightly narcotic Tramadol. I was feeling a little loopy, but not too much to still think clearly.

I spent the next three days trying to figure out what I had done to deserve all the pain. I decided that it wasn’t because I tried to load and unload the scooter alone. It wasn’t pushing myself too hard on the pedal bike, it wasn’t a combination of the two. It was all about getting involved with the General’s family. It was true, no good deed goes unpunished.

While I waited for the pain to pass, I slept a lot and I played around with the computer some. I had always hated computers, but for those few days they were my only friend. That computer was how I kept track of the world.

For instance, I found out that the General’s family had disappeared completely. Some people thought it was retribution for his war crimes. I knew that it was either the witness protection unit, or it was Shepard taking care of loose ends. At the moment I could only hope it was the witness people. I was too rocky to be involved in anything else.

The fourth day after my severe pain problem began, I managed to carefully take the scooter to the Walmart center. On most days I wouldn’t have paid any attention to anything, but that day I felt every bump in the road. It was a road filled with potholes, as well as uneven manhole covers. In other words, I was in severe pain. I knew that it was time to do a lot of things while at the center. It really was a one stop shopping center that day.

First stop was Tonya’s diner for eggs, sausage, home fries and a biscuit. Not to mention a thermos filled with their cheap restaurant coffee. After that visit, it was a trip to the walk in emergency and out patient care clinic. I waited an hour and a half to see the on call doctor.

Once I met Doctor A-’something or other’, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the clinic after all. I made the visit only because I was going through my emergency Tramadol faster than I had planned. Instead of one a week, I had gone through them at a rate of two a day for the last five days. The pills I had managed to skim off were going to run out soon.

“You know Mr Selfridge I have read what little information the nurse could get from the military hospitals. I understand it is inconvenient for you to go to the VA clinic, but you really should make the effort to do so.” He looked at me and saw that it was useless trying to pass the buck. “So where have you had pain?”

“Actually it’s just a worsening of the lower back pain. I think maybe I damaged something recently. I may have overdone it a bit,” I admitted.

Then he submitted me to a little Q&A about what I had been trying to do. After I explained my routine the two days before my terrible pain began, he made a noise before he explained.

“Mr Selfridge it would appear your cowboy days are over. You got yourself blown up, you were in a coma, you had broken bones which healed only because you were in a coma, and unable to be a PAP patient,” he said.

“What is a PAP?” I asked.

“Pain in the ass patient,” he replied seriously. “I have listened to your explanation of your drug regimen. I am going to write you a scrip for a ninety day supply of Tramadol, but it is not going to be renewed until you come back,” he said. “I am also making a PAP note in your file. Just to explain the unorthodox treatment. Now go home stay on the ice packs, and take a minimal amount of drugs. You can use Tylenol along with this, but be careful mixing meds,” he advised me.

I left the clinic then rode to Walmart to buy groceries, and replace the clothes I left behind in Europe. I had been putting the shopping off long enough. I also didn’t feel like doing laundry just yet. More clothes equalled laundry less often. It was a pretty good load from Walmart, which is why I brought the small trailer. I was sure that it one of the reasons why I had felt every bump in the road.

By the time I got home and unloaded the trailer, I couldn’t put it away. I needed to take a nap. Not because I was sleepy, but because I was in great pain. It felt like I was on a roller coaster. It was either more pain meds or sleep. I chose sleep.

It was 5PM when I awoke. Breakfast was the last thing I had eaten so I was hungry. I chose to eat at home, since I felt that the scooter was causing some of my pain, that and the damn bicycle. I found that I had a half dozen messages.

Message 1 ‘Are you alright? You acted strange this morning.” Tonya.

Since I didn’t want to talk to her at the moment, I sent her a text. ‘I’m fine, just had some pain. I went to the doctor.’

Message 2

“Sarge this is Martin. You need to call me.”

Since I was sure it was about Shepard, I didn’t want to talk to him either. I sent a text. ‘Not feeling well, will call tomorrow maybe.’

Message 3

‘Fuck you sarge.’ no name.

Message 4

‘You really know how to create a shit storm. This my be a tornado of shit,” Lucy2

Text to Lucy. ‘Thanks, want me to teach you how to do it?’

Message 5

“They say I can thank you for my children being safe. Thank you.’ Petrov no return number.

Message 6

‘You aren’t the only one who sometimes does the right thing. Alas doing good is NOT it’s own reward. I want my pink present. Call me.’ Lady S.

I slipped into the shower before I found a frozen Mexican dinner. It was okay, but it needed some kind of bread to go along with it. I made myself a mental note not to forget it next time. I took two five hundred milligram aspirin tablets. It took an hour, but it dulled the residual pain from the morning. I didn’t feel that I needed the ice pack, but I used it anyway. Getting rid of the crippling pain was the number one priority at the moment. Getting stronger could wait.

So the General’s family was coming to America. I was almost proud of what I had done, but I was ashamed that it took so long to get it done.

I went to the whistle blower site before I went to bed. I left a message for Prince.

‘Situation my be resolved. Try to find out if papers have been issued in the General’s wife’s name.’ Angel 10. Then I went back to bed.

I awoke in the night and was in pain, but it was the ‘new’ usual amount. So I soldiered on to the bathroom, then back to bed. I awoke about around five. I removed the bike from the wall hangers, to move it outside. I didn’t want to be tempted every morning at 5AM. I knew that it would be a while before I could ride it comfortably for any real distance.

After I showered and dressed for the day, I rolled the bike into the rear of the ambulance. That bike had cost me almost half a grand. Nobody in the bike world looked on that as an unusual price to pay for a bike. I had been used to the fifty dollar bikes, so I thought of it as an expensive toy at first. I had ridden that bike, and its brother the green monster, aka mountain bike, for damn near five years. There was no way I could regret that expenditure. I was just sorry that it appeared to have come to an end. It hadn’t worn out, it had worn me out.

Even if I just wanted to store the scooter in the back of the ambulance, as a sorta garage on wheels, I needed a better way to get it in and out. Even with the somewhat lower bed it was still a tough lift for someone with a bad back. I know I was worrying about things that might not even be a problem. Still I needed to fix the problem before it got worse.

The plan was to buy a 12v winch. The kind used for a boat trailer. I could get one well under a hundred bucks brand new. I just needed two attachment points behind the lug nuts on the front wheel of the scooter. Then just push the button and slowly pull the scooter up the ramp and then inside the ambulance. Rolling it down the ramp should not be a problem. The ramp could be stored on the side or even on the ceiling of the patient area. The first of many work around projects was finished. I doubted seriously it would be last of the necessary ingenious cheats I would come up with. Show me a problem big or small and I just went to work on it. Then I gnawed at it like a dog with a bone till it was resolved.

I left the house on the scooter for breakfast at Tonya’s place, then to Walmart for a winch and a dog stakeout cable would do for the cable I neededin order to make a working scooter loading device. The metal ramp proved to be a problem until I called Jasper who had one as part of an old moving van. Twenty bucks and it was mine.

I drove the scooter to his junkyard after the lunch hour, which I never observed. It was after 2PM when I returned home with the six foot long foot and a half wide piece of ramp cut from a longer ramp. I had to have it shorter so that the trailer could keep it balanced. It still hung off end about eighteen inches. There was a three inch border on each side which I hadn’t expected. That border would make it even harder for the scooter to slide off the ramp. Jasper had been kind enough to weld a piece of angle iron on the end of the ramp so that it would hang from the ambulance floor without slipping off.

I sat in my hard wooden chair while I drilled the holes to anchor the plate on the step bumper for the winch. It could be removed after I used it, if I wanted to do so. After removal there would be plenty of little storage areas inside the rig to accommodate it. It would be an easy fit. The electric winch proved to be too expensive after all, so I bought a hand crank boat winch and a seperate pulley with which to change the direction of the pull. It hurt like hell, but I even managed to hide the cable along the edge of the cabinetry. The bending and stretching made sure I needed more pills. I stayed away from the Tramadol. I wanted to make the prescription from the doctor last a year at least. The heavy duty aspirin was almost as effective, but not quite as fast acting. I expected that it was a trick to make us remember to take it every time it was due, even if you didn’t need it at that moment.

By the time I stopped for dinner at Tonya’s diner, the job was painfully complete. It was painful, but satisfying. For some reason that night the pain didn’t beat me down. I was in pain and it was relentless, but I remained hopeful that the next day would be better. No I did not feel good enough to reclaim my road bike, and return it to its place on the wall. I was just a little more hopeful, or a little less depressed about my life going forward.

My dad seemed to be right after all, “A man is never happier than when working with his hands.”

At the end of the day, a man like that is able to look back and see what he had done. That couldn’t be said of a man who sold cemetery plots. Carpenters, plumbers, and mechanics didn’t need award ceremonies to validate them.

It took five more days before the flare up returned to what had become my base line pain level. Since I had no idea what had triggered the flare up, I had no urge to try long distance pedal biking. So the road bike was moved to a new spot under the porch awning. The mountain bike was better for the rough roads of Chatham County.

The truth was that both bikes were terrible on my back and hips. However going slower on the mountain bike, and with a little bit of suspension, meant I didn’t get shaken as badly. So it became my bike of choice. It was more about the calories expended, than the miles I put on the bike. At least at that moment.

I gave up and returned the road bike to the wall, just to save it from rusting away. That or being stolen by some drunk from Sadie Mae’s next door. I put the mountain bike on the wall across from the road bike. They were my only things hanging on the walls.

It was on my third day of being back to normal when I decided that I needed a small food and ice pack freezer. I chose Walmart’s smallest chest freezer because I felt I could handle it alone. I decided after much thought to carry the scooter and small cargo trailer to make the pickup. The weight was only fifty pounds or so. Since the roads were fairly flat, pulling it shouldn’t be a problem.

I made my morning schedule as efficient as possible. I rode the twelve miles, which I had done even at the height of the flare up. Okay, I didn’t ride at all at the height of my pain, but before the pain got so bad, that is where my morning rides had taken me. The extra suspension on the mountain bike did make a slight difference, I decided.