Too Far Gone

32

Because of the headache, Leland Ticholet was chewing up one aspirin tablet after another as he piloted the boat toward Doc’s place. He needed his good headache pills and a dark space until the lights in his brain stopped flashing. He was tempted to pull over and lie down on the bench with a burlap bag over his head, but he needed his pills bad. It had been a while since he’d had a migraine, because he had pills to take every day to keep them away. They had worked until he forgot to take one due to all the excitement of thumping that man for Doc and all.

As he turned into the channel toward the little house, he could barely focus his eyes ahead because the sunlight hitting the water shot right into his brain like a nail.

He spotted the car Doc drove parked alongside Leland’s father’s old panel truck. He hoped Doc didn’t yell at him or make fun of him in that smart-ass way, because Leland didn’t want to hurt him. But if he did holler, then what happened to him was not going to be Leland’s fault. Most of the time he didn’t even remember the stuff happening that brought the sheriff’s men. He was going along just fine as you please, then somebody did something and the infuriation blast happened and Leland was as surprised as anybody else about it.

Doc was waiting at the back door, looking mad, as usual. “Why didn’t you answer the telephone?” he demanded. “It’s what I gave it to you for. Where is it?”

“I didn’t hear it ring,” Leland said as he pushed easily by the smaller man.

“What the hell do you mean?”

“Battery might have died. Little as it is,” Leland said, going through the kitchen cabinet drawers looking for his pill bottle. “And I got a headache on me. Feels like my brain is on fire.”

“You haven’t been taking these, have you, Lee?” Doc asked. Leland looked up and had to squint to see that Doc was holding his brown bottle of headache pills.

“Give me ’em,” Leland said, reaching for the bottle and snatching it out of the little guy’s hand.

“Where is the cellular phone I gave you?” Doc asked.

Leland remembered hurling it into the water, but he wasn’t about to tell Doc that. He threw six capsules into his mouth and chewed before he answered, his teeth slimy from the plastic casings. “I guess maybe it’s in the boat.”

“Well, go get it.”

“I will when I go back to it,” Leland said. “Right now I’m gonna shut my eyes.”

“Unacceptable,” Doc said. “Totally un-ac-ceptable behavior, even for a man without any social filters whatsoever.”

“Who gives a hoot,” Leland said, going into the closet. He slammed the door behind him, which made his vision go bright white and the pain almost put him on his knees. He curled up on the pine floor like a nesting rat. He heard Doc walking around in the kitchen, but he was smart enough not to say anything else. He sure as hell couldn’t go get the man staying at Leland’s camp, because he didn’t even know where it was. And Leland knew Doc wanted that man brought here. He wasn’t sure why he wanted him moved here, and whatever the sombitch was thinking didn’t matter to Leland one little bit.