(no subject)
Excerpt from this year: In which Claude encounters an unsettling character
As the clock struck nine, a clattering sound came from the queue. “Let me go ahead. I have to see the doctors,” a cracked male voice called flamboyantly.
“Excuse me Sir, but you will have to wait in line with everyone else!” Mikey shouted. “Who on earth is he?” he discreetly asked Azucena, who was sitting nearby and poring over a dirtied edition of a music magazine while munching on a sugar-covered bun. She had washed her hair and changed into a clean periwinkle colored t-shirt and a pair of oversized jeans, which she held up with a wrinkled and flaking black leather belt.
Azucena glanced up from her reading and wiped her mouth. “You mean Father Daryl? He’s a healer. Been in and out of the place since forever, so that’s why you haven’t seen him much, Doc.”
“Does he really go to work dressed like that?” Mikey asked. The man named Daryl was clad in a bright fuschia shirt and frayed light blue bellbottoms, which he paired with rather ludicrous looking shiny brown boots. He wore a long silvery trench coat over this entire incongruous ensemble. His salt and pepper hair was covered with an unwashed black knit beret.
“He has all kinds of odd things,” Azucena said. She nodded to Pierre, who was just walking up to the clinic. “He keeps all kinds of little bottles in that coat of his. I’ve seen the bugs and worms there,” she told Mikey in a conspiratorial tone.
Claude, who couldn’t help but overhear this conversation as he was helping Uncle Mario soothe his arthritic joints, couldn’t help but feel a little worried as Daryl swaggered up to the consultation table. ‘He looks like he’d want to have all eyes on him,’ he noted as he crossed to one of the boxes to fetch a clean pack of dressings and some soothing ointments.
“Which of you is the lady doctor?” Daryl asked.
“We both are,” Ari said congenially.
“The one who always comes here, I meant,” Daryl said. His beady eyes fixed on Fran. “It’s you, isn’t it? I heard them say said you’d be very young.”
“Yes it’s me. Doctor Francesca Campos. I don’t know how I can help you, Sir,” Fran said.
“Father Daryl. That is what everyone here calls me,” the man said with a grin.
“Alright then. How can I help you?”
Daryl’s look softened, almost as if he had been talking to a young child of his own. “I know you can help me. I’m sure you’re a clever girl, even if you’ve been telling my patients that their children are better off in the hospital with you doctors than with me. I see you’ve made them better, no?”
“What do you mean?” Fran asked apprehensively.
“That boy, Phil and his mother. Or those twin girls who had worms but you took them out. The boy who fell down the trash heap and wounded his leg. I could have fixed them up just right if you hadn’t been around.”
“It’s your patients who come here to the clinic or look for us downtown and we just give them the advice we know how to give. Whether they get better or not depends on a lot of things like how bad in a way they were when they came.”
Daryl sat down on the stool across from the table, letting out a flamboyant sigh. “Ah I see. So are you saying that by coming to me, I am making them worse?”
“No! Nothing of that sort.”
Daryl clucked his tongue. “I see you think you’re so smart and know everything. I like that you’re trying to be nice. I’ve heard you study years for this, hmm? You doctors think you know everything when in reality people like me have had remedies for the longest time before your theories of germs and fancy pills. You say that all I give them is powder and hocus-pocus, but don’t you think I know that your medications are made of sugar anyway half the time?”
Fran raised an eyebrow. “What are you getting at, Sir? If you mean to consult, our friend Mikey here will see to you. If you don’t, perhaps we can have this discussion after clinic hours.”
“Ah, ah, I’m not going to let you get away with this that easily, young lady,” Daryl said, gripping the edge of the table. His fingernails were stained brown with a viscous sort of liquid, and he left some small streaks on the tabletop.
“Then what is it do you want?”
“For you to give my patients back to me.”
Fran shook her head. “It’s their call to who they go to for their medical issues. I never told them to stop seeking you out.”
“I think I could believe that. But how much do you charge for the ‘help’ you give?” Daryl sneered as he pointed to the boxes stacked up in a corner. “Those couldn’t have come for free.”
“We have donors and the public hospital helps out with the cost,” Mikey chimed in impatiently. “Now please, Father Daryl, you are holding up the line, there are other patients here today.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Doctor,” Daryl snapped. His gaze fixed on Fran again. “You’re very bad for my work, Doctor Campos. Stealing an old man’s bread and butter, what do you have to say to that? What sort of help are you giving then?”
“That was never my intention.”
“Well what can you do for me then? You cannot leave me destitute.”
Fran stirred uncomfortably. “I’m not about to tell people here to stop going to me or my colleagues, especially if I know that we can and should help them. Some things need a lot more than massage and prayers, don’t you think?”
“You don’t know what I can do,” Daryl countered, giving her an offended look. “I would have had that lump out of Miss Meryl’s stomach if I had been allowed to go up there to help.”
‘It wasn’t just a mass but also fluid, so what could he have done about that? It was in her liver anyway, not her stomach,’ Claude thought indignantly. “Father Daryl, perhaps you’d like to talk here instead?” he called.
“Claude, what the hell? He’s going to make this place septic---just look at him!” Paul warned.
“I’ll get him in another corner,” Claude replied in an undertone as he got to his feet.
Daryl fixed him with a glare. “Now who are you?”
“Doctor Claude Ramirez. A junior surgeon,” Claude replied. “Leave Doctor Campos alone. It was my idea to bring Aunt Meryl to the hospital that night.”
“Claude, what are you doing?” Mikey asked loudly.
‘Getting him away from you guys,’ Claude thought. He figured that if he could either calm down Daryl or weary him out, the latter would quit the clinic and go off to bother someone else. As he took a halting step forward, Azucena suddenly screamed. Claude looked up in time to see Daryl spring forward, clutching a knife with a long wavy blade. Claude had just enough time to dodge his attacker, who landed hard on the floor but jumped to his feet with surprising agility. Some of the men in the room, including young Pierre, ran forward to hold down Daryl while Paul pried the knife out of his hands.
Daryl’s eyes were wide as he kicked and screamed in a vain attempt to get away from the men who were trying to drag him out of the dispensary. “Damn you! You’ve already brought the dragon down upon this mountain, it won’t be long till the hawk and the serpent come down from the sky to devour us, and the three flames will pick off what’s left! You bring nothing but death behind you, you liars, cheaters and pretenders! Those you will have under your hands will wither away and perish, the Lord will see to that! Damn you all!” He shook a dab of spittle out of his face as he tried to lunge again. His bony fingers were splayed and trembling until at last he pointed at Claude. “May all of them come after you first!”
“Aw shut up, old man!” Pierre growled, hitting Daryl upside the head. “You’re scaring everyone with that mad talk of yours!”
“Pierre, that is enough,” Claude admonished calmly. Still, he could not quite shake off the dread he now felt just looking at Daryl, who was digging his heels into the ground in a last effort to resist. “We never intended to make you angry, Sir. I am sure we can clear this up without anyone having to jump at each other like this,” he said in a level tone.
Daryl glanced from Claude to Fran, and a leering smile stretched his nearly toothless mouth. “Who is protecting who? I can see you’re a nice boy, you need not stand up for someone who is likely to be the daughter of somewhere out there---“ he hissed viciously.
“Now you are going too far!” Fran snapped. “You don’t even know my mother!”
“He’s a regular mad case, Doc Fran, don’t you trouble yourself too much about him,” Pierre said before helping haul Daryl off, not heeding the latter’s continued shrieks and invectives. “Just up to one of his regular fits, that’s all.”
“Was that a fit? He sure didn’t fall to the floor or nothing---“ Patrick noted before Paul shot him a warning look.
“Wait, where are they taking him?” Ari asked concernedly.
“To his place up there near the top of the hill. It’s a snug sort of cell so he won’t hurt himself in his own house. It’s the only way to deal with him,” Azucena deadpanned as Daryl’s howls faded.
Almost as soon as the disgruntled healer was gone, some of the other, more easily shaken, residents filed into the dispensary. Nina was with them, the confusion in her eyes being the only sign that she’d seen what had gone amiss in the dispensary. “Exactly what did Daryl do?” she asked as she helped a hunchbacked woman over the dispensary threshold.
Instantly a whole hubbub of voices attempted to answer her question till Uncle Mario whistled for order. “He came in here, started making a nuisance of himself to Doc Fran, and when Doc Claude called his attention, he drew a knife,” he spoke up.
Nina’s forehead wrinkled as she looked around grimly. “Did he hurt anyone?”
“No. You should have seen how fast Pierre and the boys moved,” Azucena said proudly. “Honestly Miss Nina, he should get locked up, and soon.”
Fran shook her head disapprovingly. “Not that. He needs someone to talk to, someone who can try and help him out...”
“Eh, don’t think that would help very much. You saw what he was up to; that knife could have gotten stuck into you or Doc Claude if it had gone on a moment longer,” Uncle Mario pointed out. “He’s been a mean one, always has, has scared off docs like you before. “
‘I’ll be damned if I let that happen,’ Claude resolved. “He doesn’t curse them too, does he?” he asked lightly.
Uncle Mario shrugged as he and his neighbours exchanged knowing looks. “Best you don’t find out,” he said in a warning tone.
As the clock struck nine, a clattering sound came from the queue. “Let me go ahead. I have to see the doctors,” a cracked male voice called flamboyantly.
“Excuse me Sir, but you will have to wait in line with everyone else!” Mikey shouted. “Who on earth is he?” he discreetly asked Azucena, who was sitting nearby and poring over a dirtied edition of a music magazine while munching on a sugar-covered bun. She had washed her hair and changed into a clean periwinkle colored t-shirt and a pair of oversized jeans, which she held up with a wrinkled and flaking black leather belt.
Azucena glanced up from her reading and wiped her mouth. “You mean Father Daryl? He’s a healer. Been in and out of the place since forever, so that’s why you haven’t seen him much, Doc.”
“Does he really go to work dressed like that?” Mikey asked. The man named Daryl was clad in a bright fuschia shirt and frayed light blue bellbottoms, which he paired with rather ludicrous looking shiny brown boots. He wore a long silvery trench coat over this entire incongruous ensemble. His salt and pepper hair was covered with an unwashed black knit beret.
“He has all kinds of odd things,” Azucena said. She nodded to Pierre, who was just walking up to the clinic. “He keeps all kinds of little bottles in that coat of his. I’ve seen the bugs and worms there,” she told Mikey in a conspiratorial tone.
Claude, who couldn’t help but overhear this conversation as he was helping Uncle Mario soothe his arthritic joints, couldn’t help but feel a little worried as Daryl swaggered up to the consultation table. ‘He looks like he’d want to have all eyes on him,’ he noted as he crossed to one of the boxes to fetch a clean pack of dressings and some soothing ointments.
“Which of you is the lady doctor?” Daryl asked.
“We both are,” Ari said congenially.
“The one who always comes here, I meant,” Daryl said. His beady eyes fixed on Fran. “It’s you, isn’t it? I heard them say said you’d be very young.”
“Yes it’s me. Doctor Francesca Campos. I don’t know how I can help you, Sir,” Fran said.
“Father Daryl. That is what everyone here calls me,” the man said with a grin.
“Alright then. How can I help you?”
Daryl’s look softened, almost as if he had been talking to a young child of his own. “I know you can help me. I’m sure you’re a clever girl, even if you’ve been telling my patients that their children are better off in the hospital with you doctors than with me. I see you’ve made them better, no?”
“What do you mean?” Fran asked apprehensively.
“That boy, Phil and his mother. Or those twin girls who had worms but you took them out. The boy who fell down the trash heap and wounded his leg. I could have fixed them up just right if you hadn’t been around.”
“It’s your patients who come here to the clinic or look for us downtown and we just give them the advice we know how to give. Whether they get better or not depends on a lot of things like how bad in a way they were when they came.”
Daryl sat down on the stool across from the table, letting out a flamboyant sigh. “Ah I see. So are you saying that by coming to me, I am making them worse?”
“No! Nothing of that sort.”
Daryl clucked his tongue. “I see you think you’re so smart and know everything. I like that you’re trying to be nice. I’ve heard you study years for this, hmm? You doctors think you know everything when in reality people like me have had remedies for the longest time before your theories of germs and fancy pills. You say that all I give them is powder and hocus-pocus, but don’t you think I know that your medications are made of sugar anyway half the time?”
Fran raised an eyebrow. “What are you getting at, Sir? If you mean to consult, our friend Mikey here will see to you. If you don’t, perhaps we can have this discussion after clinic hours.”
“Ah, ah, I’m not going to let you get away with this that easily, young lady,” Daryl said, gripping the edge of the table. His fingernails were stained brown with a viscous sort of liquid, and he left some small streaks on the tabletop.
“Then what is it do you want?”
“For you to give my patients back to me.”
Fran shook her head. “It’s their call to who they go to for their medical issues. I never told them to stop seeking you out.”
“I think I could believe that. But how much do you charge for the ‘help’ you give?” Daryl sneered as he pointed to the boxes stacked up in a corner. “Those couldn’t have come for free.”
“We have donors and the public hospital helps out with the cost,” Mikey chimed in impatiently. “Now please, Father Daryl, you are holding up the line, there are other patients here today.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Doctor,” Daryl snapped. His gaze fixed on Fran again. “You’re very bad for my work, Doctor Campos. Stealing an old man’s bread and butter, what do you have to say to that? What sort of help are you giving then?”
“That was never my intention.”
“Well what can you do for me then? You cannot leave me destitute.”
Fran stirred uncomfortably. “I’m not about to tell people here to stop going to me or my colleagues, especially if I know that we can and should help them. Some things need a lot more than massage and prayers, don’t you think?”
“You don’t know what I can do,” Daryl countered, giving her an offended look. “I would have had that lump out of Miss Meryl’s stomach if I had been allowed to go up there to help.”
‘It wasn’t just a mass but also fluid, so what could he have done about that? It was in her liver anyway, not her stomach,’ Claude thought indignantly. “Father Daryl, perhaps you’d like to talk here instead?” he called.
“Claude, what the hell? He’s going to make this place septic---just look at him!” Paul warned.
“I’ll get him in another corner,” Claude replied in an undertone as he got to his feet.
Daryl fixed him with a glare. “Now who are you?”
“Doctor Claude Ramirez. A junior surgeon,” Claude replied. “Leave Doctor Campos alone. It was my idea to bring Aunt Meryl to the hospital that night.”
“Claude, what are you doing?” Mikey asked loudly.
‘Getting him away from you guys,’ Claude thought. He figured that if he could either calm down Daryl or weary him out, the latter would quit the clinic and go off to bother someone else. As he took a halting step forward, Azucena suddenly screamed. Claude looked up in time to see Daryl spring forward, clutching a knife with a long wavy blade. Claude had just enough time to dodge his attacker, who landed hard on the floor but jumped to his feet with surprising agility. Some of the men in the room, including young Pierre, ran forward to hold down Daryl while Paul pried the knife out of his hands.
Daryl’s eyes were wide as he kicked and screamed in a vain attempt to get away from the men who were trying to drag him out of the dispensary. “Damn you! You’ve already brought the dragon down upon this mountain, it won’t be long till the hawk and the serpent come down from the sky to devour us, and the three flames will pick off what’s left! You bring nothing but death behind you, you liars, cheaters and pretenders! Those you will have under your hands will wither away and perish, the Lord will see to that! Damn you all!” He shook a dab of spittle out of his face as he tried to lunge again. His bony fingers were splayed and trembling until at last he pointed at Claude. “May all of them come after you first!”
“Aw shut up, old man!” Pierre growled, hitting Daryl upside the head. “You’re scaring everyone with that mad talk of yours!”
“Pierre, that is enough,” Claude admonished calmly. Still, he could not quite shake off the dread he now felt just looking at Daryl, who was digging his heels into the ground in a last effort to resist. “We never intended to make you angry, Sir. I am sure we can clear this up without anyone having to jump at each other like this,” he said in a level tone.
Daryl glanced from Claude to Fran, and a leering smile stretched his nearly toothless mouth. “Who is protecting who? I can see you’re a nice boy, you need not stand up for someone who is likely to be the daughter of somewhere out there---“ he hissed viciously.
“Now you are going too far!” Fran snapped. “You don’t even know my mother!”
“He’s a regular mad case, Doc Fran, don’t you trouble yourself too much about him,” Pierre said before helping haul Daryl off, not heeding the latter’s continued shrieks and invectives. “Just up to one of his regular fits, that’s all.”
“Was that a fit? He sure didn’t fall to the floor or nothing---“ Patrick noted before Paul shot him a warning look.
“Wait, where are they taking him?” Ari asked concernedly.
“To his place up there near the top of the hill. It’s a snug sort of cell so he won’t hurt himself in his own house. It’s the only way to deal with him,” Azucena deadpanned as Daryl’s howls faded.
Almost as soon as the disgruntled healer was gone, some of the other, more easily shaken, residents filed into the dispensary. Nina was with them, the confusion in her eyes being the only sign that she’d seen what had gone amiss in the dispensary. “Exactly what did Daryl do?” she asked as she helped a hunchbacked woman over the dispensary threshold.
Instantly a whole hubbub of voices attempted to answer her question till Uncle Mario whistled for order. “He came in here, started making a nuisance of himself to Doc Fran, and when Doc Claude called his attention, he drew a knife,” he spoke up.
Nina’s forehead wrinkled as she looked around grimly. “Did he hurt anyone?”
“No. You should have seen how fast Pierre and the boys moved,” Azucena said proudly. “Honestly Miss Nina, he should get locked up, and soon.”
Fran shook her head disapprovingly. “Not that. He needs someone to talk to, someone who can try and help him out...”
“Eh, don’t think that would help very much. You saw what he was up to; that knife could have gotten stuck into you or Doc Claude if it had gone on a moment longer,” Uncle Mario pointed out. “He’s been a mean one, always has, has scared off docs like you before. “
‘I’ll be damned if I let that happen,’ Claude resolved. “He doesn’t curse them too, does he?” he asked lightly.
Uncle Mario shrugged as he and his neighbours exchanged knowing looks. “Best you don’t find out,” he said in a warning tone.