Heaven or Hell

"You scared the shit out of me," she said. "Your EEGs have been really strange. We had to run all kinds of tests on you to make sure that you haven't damaged your brain or your memory. But I think that physically you're okay."

"Except for this huge headache," I said.

"I can't give you any more pain meds," she said. "I don't want you to become addicted and it was time for you to wake up so we could assess the damage. You've been asleep for three days. Amanda has been going crazy." She looked at me as she said that and smiled.

"I'm wounded," she said. Her melodic voice warmed the cockles of my soul. "It didn't take you too long to replace me."

"No one could ever replace you," I said.

"Oh Boy, you're too smooth," she smirked. "You do know that I'm extremely happily married and have two annoyingly spoiled kids, right?" I nodded and smiled.

She pulled out her phone and called a number. "He's awake and coherent," she said.

As she turned to leave, she looked at me. "Is there anything I can do for you before I go?" she asked.

"Yep," I said smiling. "Send in Beth and a razor."

"Who's Beth?" she asked.

"My nurse," I said.

"Oh yeah her," she said flatly. "Beth got her ass fired. She has to go before a nursing review board too. She might lose her registry and her license. Beth played it fast and loose with the rules too many times. In the first place, she should never have let you have those magazines. Then she revealed personal information about a staff member. Then she also either ignored or simply forgot about the fact that both your chart and the card on your door indicated that you were not allowed any kind of media contact. No TV, no radio, no newspapers. She even paid that maintenance guy to hook up your TV."

"But..." I began.

"No buts," she said. "Do you even know how close you came to having some kind of seizure? I'm not a shrink. I just handle the physical aspects of your treatment but your brain wave patterns were significantly altered. Amanda has been so worried about you that she stayed in the hospital with you the whole time that you were out. She went home this morning just to get some sleep. Your friend Beth and her pet maintenance man sold each other out. He told us about her telling you about Amanda's past. That alone could have gotten her fired. She has to be the worst nurse ever. We fired the maintenance guy too." She nodded her head as if she was pleased with herself.

"Amanda and I have taken over seeing that you're cared for properly," she said standing up again. "We even personally got you a far better nurse. If you need to shave or something you can do it yourself or if you're still not sure of your motor skills, your new nurse will do a far better job of it." She smiled at me as if she had some sort of secret joke.

A few moments later a shadow formed over my doorway. I looked up and a huge guy, he had to be taller than 6' 6" tall and a good 250 lbs came into the room. He was bald and had a beard with no mustache. All he needed was a straw hat and he could have been the world's biggest, scariest Amish guy. He looked like he could raise a fucking barn single handedly.

"Ah'm your new nurse," he said. He smiled at me but it didn't seem to be a friendly smile. It looked more like a crazy smile. In another sign that my memory was still coming back, I reached for my service weapon and only found bare skin and the hospital robe.

"Ya want me to shave you or can you do it yourself?" he grumbled. I reminded myself what they always told me about dealing with strange animals. "Don't show any fear."

"You do it, please," I said. "I'd probably cut my own throat."

Less than thirty minutes later, with me feeling better than I had in weeks, Ted, my new nurse and I, were playing poker when Amanda flew into the room. Her eyes widened as she saw me.

"We'll finish this later," said Ted. "Don't forget you owe me ten million dollars."

He stopped as he passed a shocked Amanda. "It's imaginary money, Dr. Clark," he said.

"But how did he lose that much?" she asked.

"He has no poker face, Doc He's also a terrible liar," smirked Ted.

As soon as Ted left the room Amanda came over and sat on the bed near me. "Did you do that for me?" she asked, feeling the smoothness of my cheek.

My eyes turned skyward and I did my best to keep my face neutral. "Of course not," I said.

"Ted is right," she smiled. "You are a terrible liar. I can see right through you. And I shouldn't be your doctor anymore."

"Why not?" I asked.

"There are plenty of reasons," she said softly. "First off, your old nurse told you far too much about my personal life. It's probably skewed your view of my professionalism and my skills. Secondly, you like me, don't you?" I nodded and she smiled.

"See, that would make it an even more difficult situation because it would sometimes color your responses," she said. "And then there's the fact that I like you too, so we should definitely terminate my acting as your therapist."

"So what are we really going to do?" I asked.

"I'm going to crack your head open and pull out all of your bad memories," she said. "And then together we're going to work on making better new memories."

She took my hand. "Is that okay with you?"

"Perfect," I said.

She stood up and went outside of the room. When she came back in she had a man with her. "Jimmy do you recognize this gentleman?" she asked.

"Nope," I said smiling. "I especially don't remember him if you call him a gentleman. Now if you call him Captain Greer, then I might know who he is. But that gentleman thing is throwing me.

He broke into a smile too. "I know just how you feel," he said. "She told me that I had to help you through this and I was worried. After all you are one of my bad bads," he said.

I looked at him like he was crazy. "That means you're like my worst detective and my least favorite friend," he smirked.

"Right," I said sarcastically. "As I recall it..." I hesitated and Amanda looked scared for a moment.

"I was the best man at your wedding," I said. "I have both the highest number of closed cases and the highest conviction rate on the squad."

"See what I mean," he smirked. "I hate that bitch I married so you're not that God damned good a friend. And every case you close gives me tons of paper work to write."

After a few more minute of reminiscing, Amanda steered us back to the subject at hand.

"Jimmy, last time we talked, we went over the fact that you'd shot and killed a man in the line of duty. Do you remember anything else about that before we add a couple of more details?" she asked.

"Amanda, let's finish this," I said. "No more baby steps. I want my life back. I have a new life to start. I can't move forward until I dig my way out of the past. So let's do this." She nodded.

"Okay, we'll move at your pace," she said. "That's why your captain is here. He can help us work out all of the details and you can help him fill in some of the blanks in the case as well." I nodded.

"But Jimmy, if anything hurts you to remember it, or causes you pain, we have to stop," she cautioned.

"Okay," I said. "I can remember shooting the guy three times. The first time I shot him in his shoulder. That should have taken all of the fight out of him no matter how big he was. But he kept coming. The thing that confuses the shit out of me is if I was shooting HIM, why the hell did it hurt me? All I remember was pain. And now that I saw the TV thing, I know that the guy I shot was supposed to be some kind of serial killer from Chicago. But Captain. I wasn't investigating him. The guy was...my best friend from childhood through college. And as I remember it, I'd just gotten home.

"The reason you remember pain," said my captain grimacing. "...Is because like you said, you'd just gotten home. You'd just gotten out of that Mustang of yours when your ex-friend stabbed you in the chest with a fucking butcher's knife. According to the trail of blood and evidence, you backed up and drew your piece and fired hitting him in the shoulder. He was staggered but came after you. He stabbed you again, twice more, in the other side of your chest. You shot him again, in his chest this time, as you fell. He still came after you and was standing over you. You had no choice Jim. You blew his fucking brains out of the back of his head. He was already dead as he fell on you."

I nodded my head. It was pretty much exactly as he'd described it. Amanda rubbed my hands. "Okay," I said. "We got through it. It was pretty bad but it's over. I can do some occupational therapy and..."

"Jim, it's not over," said Captain Greer. I turned and looked at him. He seemed as if looking at me was hard for him. Amanda couldn't look at me either.

"What else?" I asked.

"Jim..." began Greer in a monotone. "The only reason you lived was because of your neighbors. After your first shot, one of your neighbors called 911. A couple of them ran outside and did CPR on you until the ambulance got there. The bastard had punctured both of your lungs. You're lucky to be alive. You're even luckier that he didn't hit your heart or anything vital. Or at least that was what we thought at first until the evidence came back. We later learned from the Chicago PD that it was how your old buddy operates. He was really off of his nut when he went after you."

"Normally, he stabs his victims just like he did you. He stays away from the vital organs and stabs them only in the lungs. He shoots his goo by watching his victims drown in their own blood. We think that he planned on dragging you back inside of your house and watching you die too."

"But why would he want to do that to me?" I asked. "We'd just been out together the night before. He was only in town because I'd looked him up on facebook and reconnected with him. He'd even told me that he was thinking about relocating here from Chicago and..." I looked at him in confusion then. And he looked away.

"What do you mean dragging me BACK inside of the house?" I asked. "I hadn't been inside of the house." Amanda gripped my hand even more firmly now.

"No, Jim, YOU hadn't been. But HE had. It turned out that your old buddy wasn't really THERE to see YOU."

"Rhonda..." I said suddenly. "He tried to kill her too?"

The captain just nodded his head. "God damn it," I smiled. "For a serial killer, Cary sucked. He tried for both of us and missed twice."

Both the captain and Amanda snapped their heads towards me simultaneously. "What do you mean Jim?" asked Amanda.

"Well, I'm alive," I said.

"Barely," said Amanda. "You died twice before they even got you to the hospital. If Dr. Griggs hadn't been so stubborn they might not have saved you even then."

"Yeah, but we both lived anyway," I said. They looked at me again like they'd suddenly discovered that my brain had been damaged.

"I get it," I said. "You didn't want Rhonda coming to see me, for the same reason that I wasn't supposed to watch TV. You didn't think I could handle it. But she's been sneaking in to see me the whole time and..." Everything started spinning and my vision closed in from the sides until there was only a small black dot in front of me and then I was gone.

I remember walking around in a totally black featureless room. It scared the shit out of me.

"Somehow, I thought you'd like this," she said. "After all, your beloved car, that you always loved more than me is just like this isn't it?"

"Oh shit, I forgot. The only thing inside or outside of that fucking vehicle that isn't black is those two obscene green LED headlights. Somehow you thought those two beacons shining out of the darkness made that beast alive. Here."

Just like that two bright green beams of light illuminated the landscape. I could make her out and myself and beyond the lights, the comforting form of my car.

"Where are we Rhonda?" I asked.

"We?" she asked. "We," aren't anywhere, Jimmy. Your mechanical pacifier is parked in your fucking driveway; waiting as usual for its daddy to come home and play with it. You, on the other hand, are still in that hospital with my replacement holding your hand and crying for you to come back to her. I, of course..."

"You're dead aren't you?" I asked. A smile curled at my lips.

"Are you glad that I'm dead Jimmy?" she asked.

"Of course not," I said. "It just begins to make a few things make sense. Maybe I'm not crazy after all. So are you haunting me or something? Did I do something really bad to you?" I asked.

"No Jimmy," she said. "You're just not that kind of guy. All you've ever done was loved me. And maybe that's the problem. Maybe I counted on that love too much. So now I need you to do something for me and I'm hoping that love will still be there because for me it'll make all of the difference in the world."

"We may as well start at the beginning," she said.

"Can you give me the cliff's notes version," I said. "I don't want Amanda..."

"Jimmy, time passes differently here in Limbo," she said. "Your sweet baboo will only notice a few seconds passing by for all of the time that this takes."

"Okay, run it," I said.

"Jimmy, you and I met in college," she began. "We were both eighteen. My parents were pretty God damned strict with me growing up. So even though we grew up in the same neighborhood, I hadn't gotten out very much. And I wasn't allowed to hang out with boys. For me, going away to college was like setting a wild dog loose. I wanted to do and try everything and I did.

I settled in with a group of people from our town that included you and a lot of your friends. The difference was where you studied criminal justice, I studied life. Jimmy, you need to know that I liked you from the very beginning and I wanted us..."

"Buuuuullllllllshiiiiiiiiettttt!" I said. "We never went on one fucking date in college. I loved you from the very first second I saw you. Rhonda, I would have married you instantly but you were..."

"I was a slut..." she finished. "Can I tell my own God damned story or are you going to keep interrupting? Remember Jimmy, you're the one who wants to get back to sweet Polly Purebred. I'm just trying to save my soul."

"Okay," I said. "Go on. I won't interrupt."

"Thank you very kindly," she said. "Anyway, Jimmy I liked you but you were just too...boring. I always knew that you were more important to me than the other guys, but dating you would have been the kind of thing my parents would have wanted. You tried to put me in a little box and protect me. I'd been protected and shielded and kept from the world my whole life. I wanted to get drunk, get high and get fucked. So I did. And I liked all of them. You have to understand, in the back of my mind I knew that you and I would end up together in the end. But I wasn't ready for the end just yet. I figured I'd fuck around for the first couple of years of school and then the third year, you and I would become friends again and I'd slow down. And our senior year, I'd have all of my wild oats sown and the two of us would get together."

"You and I weren't in any kind of relationship, so what I did wasn't like I was cheating on you or anything. Whether you knew it or not, I loved you even then. I just didn't want to even consider it. Why do you think that I started fights with every girl you dated?"

"Your friends could have told you too, Jimmy. I was always asking them questions about you. And hell, I called a few of them Jimmy when they ate my pussy and made me cum. You do know that they didn't tell you because they wanted to keep fucking me. So they probably weren't the best guys to have as friends."

"Anyway, my plans all went down the tube because that first year I failed most of my classes and went home not only with a bad report card but with a couple of STDs and an alcohol problem. My parents got me a job waitressing. And I never went back to college. You got an internship in the city that the college was in and never came home that summer."

"I was pissed off and frustrated and I hated being a waitress, but more than anything else, I realized that if you want something you have to go after it. So I kept fucking your friends so they'd give me information about you. Jimmy, you never came home. You showed up in town for one day or two every once in a while. There was the Thanksgiving when they told me you'd be home and I spent every dime I could scrape together getting my hair done. I went all over town trying to find you, only to discover that you'd come home with some woman who looked like a Victoria's secret model and had only eaten dinner with your parents and then flown back to college."

"A lot of the people that we went to school with settled here. It took me a couple of years to discover that you'd moved here and gotten a job with the police force here too. I saved every nickel I could and moved here too, hoping that we'd get together and we did. It took months for me to meet you again. And after that I had to keep running into you hoping you'd ask me out. Finally I had to ask you out, but it was worth it. The next thing I knew, we were dating. And then we lived together. Jimmy, being with you was like a dream. You loved me so much, but at the same time you kept trying to protect me. And that frustrated me. On one hand, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. But on the other hand, I was really angry at you because you treated me like some innocent little angel all the time."

"Jimmy, I'm not proud of it, but when I got really pissed at you, I fucked some of your friends. In a couple of cases, I had to keep fucking them behind your back to keep them from telling you. But as they got married, I got safer because none of them could afford to get into trouble by having it come out either."

"All it did was to make me realize how special you were and how much I didn't want to lose you. Another thing that bothered me was that we'd been living together for five years and you hadn't asked me to actually marry you. I was really pissed about that and I wondered in the back of my mind whether I should leave you before I was too old to start again. My mom told me to just stop taking my pills and get pregnant. Then with the kind of guy you are, you'd marry me. Before I became a mom though, I decided to have one more fling. I mean we weren't actually married so I wouldn't technically be breaking my marriage vows. I gave it a lot of thought and figured out who the perfect guy would be."

"I remembered your best friend Cary Granite. He was good looking. He was the only one of your friends that I hadn't fucked and he didn't live in our city so the chances of me ever seeing him again and him fucking up our marriage were slim. I started you out by talking about the old days and your friends. When his name came up, you looked him up on facebook. As soon as you did, I got in touch with him too. I spoke to him over the phone a couple of times and threw myself at him. Even over the phone, I could tell that there was something off about him. A girl can always tell things about guys, like if they're gay or something. He didn't give off that gay vibe, so at first I just thought that HE, unlike the rest of your friends, felt odd about stabbing you in the back."

"I kept coming on to him and slowly reeled him in. When he told me that he'd be in town to hang out with you and his other friends, I knew that I had my chance. The shitty thing about it is that I felt guilty about it. I changed my mind about doing it. I realized then exactly how much I loved you. I figured you out then too, Jimmy. You see, on the surface, you're this tough as nails cop. But with people you really care about, you're shy and timid. I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out. I'd had to ask you for our first few dates. I had to put the moves on YOU, just to give you some pussy, and I had to ask you if I could move in with you. I see now that all I had to do was to ask you to marry me."