Running From Daylight Pt II

by Dominick Brady, Atlanta, GA, USA

Greasy with blood, my fingers fumble clumsily with the buttons on my cargo slacks, grasping for my mobile. I hand the phone to my wife. “Baby, I need you to call Doc. Tell him not to bother leaving. We’ll meet him at his place.” Glancing in my rear view-finder, my mother’s eyes meet mine.

“How’s he doing back there, Mama, ” I ask her. Before she can respond; I don’t have to zoom in to see Pops is fading, or to feel the panic in Mama’s grimace of a gaze.

“He’s getting pale,” she manages to utter.

Priority number 1 is for us to make it to Doc’s place, undetected. Priority 1.A is to keep Gideon calm. “Mama, you’re doing fine. Everything is going to be fine,” I reply to her, attempting to reassure us all.

The tunnel’s cement gray roofing gives way to transparent recycled solar cells as M.A.S.H’s eastbound connector approaches the Downtown Arts District. Off to the left Grady Hospital’s helo-port quickly rises and falls along the horizon line as we approach the assent onto the Edgewood Avenue exit. Doc’s place wasn’t far now.

Dr. Jean “Doc” Chera runs a tight ship. He has to. As a moonlighting Grady Hospital Cardiothoracic surgeon, Chera operates the most respectable 'chop shop' in the metro area. It’s a dangerous business, but if anyone uninsured, undocumented or unemployed needs to get cut cheap, quick and clean Doc is the man to see. City-wide Universal healthcare isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as many hoped it could be. Even with the overwhelming budget surpluses Atlanta has been spoiled with, the unemployed and illegal traffickers such as myself are not eligible for care. Chop shops may be illegal, but they remain as vital to the Atlanta economy and its untold thousands of ATLiens as the tunnels we traverse each day. Doc's celebrity as a childhood phenom secures him a provisional pass with the Juras. Everybody is a soccer fan, even crooked cops.

Doc, like many of my clients, enjoys not having to worry about annoying regulations and data licensing associated with registering for commercial internet service. US.net’s free bandwidth is fine for non-commercial use, but Google-Diebold’s cube mesh network is one of the few real bandwidth solutions for profit-seeking endeavors. I supply my clients with low-cost, high speed bandwidth by bypassing commercial data security systems. It‘s what pays the bills.

Doc and I have a special arrangement. As long as I keep Doc wired, my family receives free service.

We speed up the parking ramp of Doc’s chop shop at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. near the old Royal Peacock. For some reason, the Juras are not hanging outside the precinct across the street flirting with the Meth-head-crisps near the underpass. Vatos from the fighting Zone Five have a sweet tooth for Anglo putas. After making a quick dua for our stroke of luck I begin to ease Pops out of the backseat. What should take two minutes of quick work is taking the better part of ten minutes, getting pops secured into a wheelchair left next to the stairwell for handicapped patients. I never could get used to manual labor in the morning heat.

“You’re getting soft, playboi”, I laugh to myself.

Leaving Gideon in the truck with Mama, my wife and I struggle to pull Pops up the narrow stairwell into the chop shop foyer. The steady hum of generators and antiquated wall-unit air conditioners is almost soothing. We made it. Doc enters the room in a rush, and squats down in front of the wheelchair. Holding Pop’s left wrist he listens intently to Pop‘s respiration, before ordering the attendant to change the blood soaked dressing wrapped about Pop’s face. Mumbling something unintelligible into his voice pad, Doc scratches his head while walking away to his office.
I can’t read him.

“Well how’s he look,” I ask, growing impatient.

Doc pauses to give me a stern look, “There isn’t much time. Did you bring the boy?”

“Yeah. He’s in the car with his Grandmother keeping cool. When did you get these air cond-”

“We don’t have much time,” he barks, cutting me off.

Reaching into my pocket, I mobile Mama. There is no answer. With no time to waste, I touch my wife gently on the arm letting her know I’ll be right back. The stairwell’s sweltering heat is nearly unbearable as it harmonizes with the steaming stench of vagrant’s piss. At this point I just want the day to be over. With my sweat glistening forehead throbbing I enter the tiny parking garage wiping my brow. The car is gone. In it’s place is a sealed envelope. Quickly snatching up the envelope I sprint down the parking ramp to the street. “What if they were kidnapped,” I wonder aloud. I stumble down the steep descent, nearly falling into the street. Bracing myself against an old deserted Hyundai Genesis, my eyes search left along Jesse Hill Jr. before turning right to peer down Auburn Avenue. The streets are barren. No one but criminals, cops and fiends are on the streets at this hour anyway. What the fuck is going on here?

I open the letter. Marked with an official City of Atlanta police seal, it reads:

'Jeff,
We need to talk.
Sincerely,
Major Carlos Vasquez,
Zone 5 Commander.'