All Mixed Up

He staggered inside and they took one look and rushed him onto a gurney and into a treatment room, where they injected him with something. They got his name and home phone from him before he passed out.

The next morning, he woke up in a room. He had a drip for the pain meds. Blanche was there, along with two police.

He made a report. They wrote it up as an ordinary mugging. Money and wallet stolen. They found his phone at the field.

In the end, he spent two days in the hospital, and three more at a rehab place. He got home, still taking Percocet.

Brad gave some thought to what had happened to him. He didn't believe that his attackers were after the money. He believed they wanted to hurt him. And had succeeded. A lesson learned, he thought. He couldn't be sure of his conclusion. But either way, he was done fooling around. Payback or karma. No matter.

Gina heard about the mugging that Friday morning when she went to work. She was appalled. She had a fleeting thought that, even if she had not cancelled, the date would never have happened. That caused her to consider a possibility.

But, no. She knew that Mike would never do such a thing. Didn't she? He had been with her, anyway.

That evening, as they were eating burgers, Gina told Mike about the mugging. She had word that Brad would survive, with no permanent damage, likely. Mike seemed ambivalent about it. But after dinner he pulled a get well card out of their common desk. He wrote out, 'Hope you recover quickly.' He signed it, 'Mike and Gina.' His writing. The two of them walked to the box at the end of the street and dropped it in. As far as he was concerned, that ended the matter.

The end.