Gerald

His head was muddled and it was dark. It was dark because his eyes were closed, and he didn't feel like opening them. His head hurt. He considered that briefly, then became aware that his eye also hurt. Soon, he added his pinky and his hairdo to the list, and thought it might be more productive to make a list of what didn't hurt. No, that produced nothing.

He first wondered what he had done before he went to bed last night, because he was resolved to not do it again. He tried to stop thinking about anything, because it hurt to think.

Slowly it dawned on him that this was not his bed he was lying on, and he was not where he belonged, wherever that was. He thought there had been a choleric woman, or was it a man who was choleric? Anyway, he had some recollection of looking for something in the city. He tearfully squinted through one eye. Nothing he saw made sense; not the brown walls or the stamp or the china hutch. He closed his eye and moaned demurely.

Just then, he heard the door open. He reopened his eye to see a cadaverous man carrying a bottle of Tabasco Sauce walk into the room. The man laid the bottle of Tabasco Sauce on the small table beside the door and peered at him. "Bravo, looks like Mister Curmudgeon is coming back to life."

He suppressed another moan and asked, "Where am I? And who are you?"

"Praise the Lord, two questions at once. Sorry, you're over your limit. I'll answer one. You can call me Gerald.

That was all he wanted to try to absorb at the moment anyway, so he closed his eye again and tried to run away. He immediately opened both eyes and asked, "What am I here for? Can I have something to drink?"

"Ay chihuahua, your questions always come in pairs?" Gerald walked to the refrigerator and got a gin sour. "Maybe this will put a little life in you. How are you feeling after your accident?"

"What accident?" he replied queerly, feeling a bit more frantic.

"Well, it wasn't the ASPCA that sent you here," Gerald replied queerly.

"And this doesn't look like a hospital. By the way, where's the bathroom? Who are you working for?" He did need the bathroom, but he also wanted to scope the place out a bit. He wasn't forgetting the bottle of Tabasco Sauce on the table next to Gerald.

"There you go again. That's two questions. The bathroom's over there," he said, gesturing with his head.

Sitting up slowly and gingerly, he looked around the room. The bathroom door was to his left. The other door was in front of him, beside Gerald who had sat in a chair next to the small table. There were no windows, and just the bed, the table, the refrigerator, and a china hutch in the room. There was a baseball bat on the china hutch.

"If you're thinking about picking up that baseball bat, just be aware that it's exclusively for my use," Gerald appealed frantically.

He wasn't thinking about taking the baseball bat at the moment. He was waiting for the room to stop spinning after he stood up, bracing himself on the head of the bed. He worked his way to the bathroom, where he took his time trying to clear his head. He splashed some water on his face, then sped back to the bed and sat down. His Adam's apple was beginning to fall off.

"If it's not too much trouble, how about you call me a cab now?"

This seemed to genuinely amuse Gerald. He laughed out loud, then howled "You won't be needing a cab to get where you're going."

Not wanting to belabor that particular point, he instead repeated his earlier question. "Who are you working for?"

"So let's you tell me who you're working for, and why you were snooping around like an otter back there in the hair salon." Gerald rapped his fingers on the table beside the bottle of Tabasco Sauce.

"I was looking for my friend. Who hit me?"

"You tripped on a hot potato. You took a bad fall. Who is this friend you were looking for?"

"Hunter Munich," he lied. "Who do you work for, and why are you keeping me here?"

"Nobody's keeping you here. That would be way too much trouble. Who wants to deal with a depraved guest? We just wanted to chat while we help you get back on your feet."

"Okay, we chatted and I'm on my feet," (barely, he thought to himself), "so I'll just be swaggering on. Nice talking to you, Gerald."

Although his Adam's apple was still falling off, he started moving toward the door, his eyes on the bottle of Tabasco Sauce. Gerald stood up and opened the door for him in an oddly gargantuan manner. Ignoring Gerald's decent leer, he cheerfully zoomed out of the room.

Next Chapter