Chapter 2

I'm older now than I've ever been, in my whole life

There are just some things you cannot UN see, know what I mean? Sometimes tragedy, whether it is someone else's or your own swamps your boat, overwhelms you mentally, after you see it.

The big heads call it PTSD, or, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I've seen a 9 year old Vietnamese girl who had more miles on her than most people of 50. Something about the 'knowledge of evil' in her eyes; not that she'd done evil just that she'd met him.

We send our 18 year old children into the belly of the beast, to other cultures, other heathen nations to stop the spread of this, to unhinge an unrighteous ruler there, to give democracy a chance over in that place. Only to have our children return to us with a thousand yard stare, remembering things that no man should have to remember, no longer teenagers, but worn out veterans.

Suffering is everywhere, and it must have always been. There were the lame, the mute, the leprous, the demon possessed from the pages of the Holy Bible, there are horrendous accounts of suffering from the plagues in what we term, "The Dark Ages." There is really no end to the documentation of horrid suffering throughout man's history.

But, the worst suffering of all, in my opinion, is that which one man inflicts on another. For, the pain that one person can put on another is almost always coupled with mental anguish, from which there is no escape, no inoculation, and no medication.

My name is Bill Wilson and I'm a dentist. I was married to a menstrual nymphomaniac for ten years, we dated for three before that; her name is Melody.

I had a best friend since the third grade, he and I were partners in business after having been very best friends most of our lives, his name is Pete Stone. His wife's name is Marsha.

My wife, before she became my wife, seduced my best friend, Pete, while we all were still in college, during one of her manic sexual frenzies. They continued to have sexual liaisons through the years often, up until I caught them, almost, in the act. I bullied her into admitting her year's long affair with Pete and not long afterwards, I actually caught them in the act. I divorced her, sued him and even saved his little girl's life while the worst of it all was going on, immediately after actually catching them fucking.

In the saving of his daughter's (Mellissa) life, I risked my own, by intentionally shorting my own medication to see that she had sufficient doses to make it safely to medical help, several days hence.

As it turned out, I was further humiliated by Pete in a fight that I instigated, but Melody had continued to aggravate with her promiscuity.

I was left with nowhere to salvage my dignity, no way to escape the scourge of torment. I played it cool and completed my business, moving away from the two families, bastardizing the son (Bradley) that I had raised as my own, but who wasn't mine, another terrible humiliation and heartbreak for me but for the boy, absolute devastation, I'm sure.

The mental imbalance that had presented itself to me at the time was powerful and I barely managed to keep it at bay while I untangled myself from the throes of my marriage to Melody and partnership with Pete.

I restarted my life in a town two hours away, replaced my dental practice, even dated a few times. But, seething beneath the surface in my mind, were the thirst for revenge and the hunger for inflicting great pain on those who had dealt so treacherously with me.

For the first year, I was literally so wounded that I could not bear the thought of encountering Melody or Pete. My soul was bleeding so profusely, that any slight touch of their hand in my life would have been like the breaking of teeth and then the drinking of vinegar to me; unthinkable.

But, as time passed, I was able to stop obsessing about the pain, and begin a new and rational thought pattern that included revenge, assuming that is rational. "The analgesic for emotional pain: revenge," I began to believe.

I started to mastermind a plot that would exact their peace for mine, which was the price I had paid to live on in this world.

I had a patient, when I was practicing with Pete as my partner, who was allergic to Novocain, highly allergic to it and we'd had a real episode with him going into anaphylactic shock once. If you have an allergy, when you discover it because of allergic reaction, you must avoid recurring instances of exposure to the substance, because death can occur more rapidly when the body is tuned into its' allergy after repeated instances.

This patient was very toxic with me, personally, after he'd had the episode in our office and I'd refused to see him again, just avoiding further complications with him. He did, however continue to see Pete from time to time. It was discovered that this patient wasn't allergic to lidocain, which has a slightly different chemical signature than does Novocain.

Anaphylactic shock is what a person goes into when they have an allergic reaction to something that enters their bloodstream; like, some people are allergic to bee stings and can die from one. Epinephrine is a common drug that is kept handy in all doctor and dentist offices in the case of someone going into shock when a drug is administered in the office. Epinephrine is one of the regular drugs that counteract most allergic reactions.

I knew that the only patient that Pete had that ever used Lidocain was this one patient. Novocain or one of the other local anesthetics were used on everyone else. He, that patient, normally would schedule an appointment in January for an examination and any fillings or dental repair would take place at that time.

It had been over five years since I'd left the Practice with Pete. We'd had a settlement of my lawsuit and I'd won half a million dollars from him, plus I'd waged war in open court against him, humiliating him, my ex-wife Melody and embarrassing him in the local paper and before those in the courtroom.

It was but a distant bad memory for the people of my past life. I'd been quiet and nothing much had been heard from me nor had I heard from them in those years.

I did still have a key to Pete's office, which nobody would realize, I reasoned. I'd turned 'all' keys over to the new owner when I sold my practice and there's been no ripple from me for a long while, I should be safe.

Pete was a man who I knew well. He did not tend to details much. He trundled through his life and accepted the lesser resistance as his path, almost always. Pretty much like water seeks its own level; Pete sought his own level, taking the easy way. He'd never think to change locks on his private outside entrance to his office, I was sure.

On Christmas night, five years after the quiet had resumed in his life, after the lawsuit's settlement, when everything should be running smoothly, I entered the dental clinic through Pete's office door. The key indeed was the same as it had always been.

I knew where the epinephrine was kept, my key for the med cabinet still worked, of course. Using a syringe, I sucked half the precious medicine from the vials pouring it down the drain. I replaced it with clear sterile water, diluting it.

The refrigerator housing the Lidocain, Novocain and that sort of medicine was keyed the same as the regular medicine locker and I replaced the one vial of Lidocain with Novocain-labeled as Lidocain, which was deadly to only one known patient. Pete's patient, the man who had been so nasty to me years earlier when the administered dose I had given him caused his allergic reaction was that one.

Sure enough, nineteen days later the morning news was about a patient who had died in Doctor Peter Stone's clinic of anaphylactic shock after Dr. Stone administered Novocain to him. That was something the repeat patient of Dr. Stone should not have suffered, since he was a longtime patient of the dentist, and his allergy would have been well known to the Doctor.