Steve’s Escape: Chapter 3

The first draft of the last chapter is done. I should be able to get the last chapter through a second draft and editing and have the book out by the 15th. I hoping I can do a free preview on Amazon March 15-16-17.

Chapter 3

Maria had been on her feet for over fourteen hours, but sleep would not come. Steve had called her and told her had to rebuild an engine for an important client and would not be home until after midnight. Maria was upset because she needed to talk to Steve, but she understood. Her own job often had her away for long hours during the night.

“Hey, Sweetie,” Maria said as Steve walked into the bedroom.

“Hey, Yourself. What are you still doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I have something we need to talk about.”

Maria told Steve about her day treating victims of the gang warfare. She went on to tell him what Isobel had said about her neighborhood and how they were leaving to go back to Mexico where it was safer.

“She’s just overreacting,” Steve said. “There’s always been gang fights in her neighborhood. How is this different from the other times? Don’t you remember the big fight that happened a few years ago and how she reacted? You spent all day at the hospital helping out during that ‘war’. How’s this one any different?”

“There were over thirty people killed last night. Two years ago, only five people were shot and only two of those died. I watched every news report I found today and not one of them mentioned the gang war and the deaths at the hospital. We had thirty people die on our tables and nothing about it in the news. All the news talked about today were reports of how well the stimulus package is doing and some cheerleaders taking a trip to China. Thirty people die in gang warfare and another hundred injured, including a two month old baby, and nothing. Nothing on the local news except stories about cheerleaders. Nothing on the national news except for some fluff piece on the stimulus package helping a single mother. How can you sit there and tell me everything is normal?”

“Did you call any station and let them know what was going on at the hospital? Maybe, they just don’t hear what happened. They’ve had their budgets cut along with everyone else and probably didn’t hear about the emergency last night.”

“You know we’re not allowed to do that. I may only have two weeks left, but if they found out I called the news, I would get fired today. There were too many people involved for the local news not to hear something.”

“Did Isobel call? Didn’t you say last night was her last night at work? Why didn’t she call them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, she just left as soon as she got home and got the hell out of Corpus. She was pretty scared about the fights in their neighborhood.”

“What did the police say at the hospital about the gang problem?”

“What police? It took every guard we had to keep the gang members away from each other. I didn’t see a police officer all night.”

“Really? Maybe with all the cut-backs they were too busy trying to stop the fight and didn’t have anyone left to help you guys”

“We could have used their help. The ER was turning into a zoo there for a while. We started treating the gang members before anyone else just so we could get rid of them. I hated seeing small kids waiting all night so we could treat some idiot gang member. Most of us were just scared and wanted everything to end as soon as possible. I think a lot of people were glad the ER is closing down this Friday if this is the way it’s going to be from now on. No one wants to go through something like last night again without cops around to help.”

“At least you’re all right. You have the next three days off to unwind. If they call you, tell them you can’t go in because you’ve drank some wine at dinner or something. Stay away from the hospital until they close down the ER.”

“What about what Isobel said about the news? You don’t think someone is censoring our news do you? How come nothing has been said about all those poor people?”

“Watch the news, someone will break the story. It’ll be all over the news in a few days. If not, someone will cover the hospital closing down and mention the need for it with the rising gang violence. That would get someone from one of the stations to investigate.”

“Ok. Maybe, I’m overreacting. I guess all those things Mark and Kelly told us about has gotten me all worked up. It’s easy to listen to those two and put stuff together to sound like something bad is happening. This was probably a one-time thing.”

“Yeah. You’ll see in a few days, it’s nothing.”

“I still want to talk about leaving if it happens again. If there’s a gang war going on and it’s coming this way, we need to consider leaving. Those monsters do not care who they shoot. Isobel said it had gotten so bad in her neighborhood they put up sandbags to keep bullets from coming into her house.”

“Nothing’s going to happen here. Isobel lives in a bad neighborhood and has always had problems with gangs. Didn’t you say she should just stay home and open up shop there to save gas on ambulance services since most of your patients came from her neighborhood anyway?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m going to keep my eyes open though. I’m not too sure there is not something else behind this. Isobel is not usually the one to overreact to things. She’s pretty level-headed.”

“We just signed this big contract today,” Steve said to change the subject, “and I’m going to have lots of overtime the next few months. My overtime may even be enough to make up for you losing your job and tide us over until you can find another one.”

“That’s great! That takes a big load of pressure off,” Maria said. Before turning off the light, she turned to Steve, “I don’t want you to ignore me though. I swear, the first gunshot I hear, I’m taking the kids and leaving.”

“Ok. Ok.”

The next two weeks did not see a repeat of the large gang fight which worried Maria. She knew the gangs were still at war since gunshot victims would show up at the hospital trying to get help. It broke everyone’s hearts they were not allowed to help anyone because of the closure. The ER had closed and only a few people stayed on staff at the hospital to help ship the remaining patients to hospitals out of the city. No new patients were allowed to be admitted, no matter what condition they were in. Maria closed her eyes and ears and tried not to go near the front door so she wouldn’t see those poor people asking for help.

Maria spent her last two weeks cataloging supplies and sending cases of unused supplies to other hospitals. She wished she could have shipped them to the various free clinics being set up by doctors and nurses that used to work at the hospital. The people of Corpus Christi needed someone to take care of the sick and injured and until the city could come up with medical facilities. The unemployed doctors and nurses would do what they could, but without supplies it would not be much.

“How was your last day?” Steve asked Maria.

“Very frustrating. The gang war is getting worse and I hate turning away all those injured people because the city closed us down. A lot of the doctors have set up small clinics to help those in need and prevent as many deaths as possible. It’s like we live in a third-world country. Volunteer doctors and nurses are working in tents along the road trying to save as many people as possible. I may want to spend some time working at one of them until I can find another job.”

“You sure you want to do that? It’s not going to bother you too much seeing all those people you can’t help?”

“It will, but something has to be done. You may not want to admit it, but this city is being torn apart by a large gang war. Hundreds are being injured and hundreds are dying. I don’t understand why no one’s doing anything about it. I still don’t see anything about the violence on TV. It’s like we don’t exist. I need to help as much as I can.”

“I don’t understand it either. I would have thought the state or even the army would have done something by now. It’s like they either don’t know about us or are ignoring us.”

“I know. At least it’s still staying on the other side of town.”

“Thank God. Well, at least I still have a job. With my overtime and what you’ll get from unemployment, we should be okay. Things might be a little tight, but we can hold out for a few months.”

“I guess. I still think sometimes we need to consider moving away. At least see if you can get a transfer to the Biloxi location.”

“Right now they wouldn’t let me go because of all the work piled up needing to be done. When we catch up and finish this new contract, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Ok. That’s all I can ask you to do.”

“So, what are you going to do with your days now that you are a bum?”

“I’m going to take the next month off and clean this house from top to bottom. If we do move, I don’t need a bunch of crap slowing us down.”

“You still worried about moving. I thought we laid that to rest a few weeks ago?”

“No. You laid it to rest a few weeks ago. I said I would keep my options open and if we heard gunshots, we would leave. I not staying around and putting the kids in danger.”

“We’ll, we haven’t heard any gunshots yet, have we?”

“No. But now that I have the time off, I’m not sticking my head in the sand and lie around doing nothing. I’m going to prepare in case we have to get out of here. You sometimes forget I see more of what happens in this city than you do. You go to work each morning the same way and stay all day in your garage and don’t even leave the boat yard some days for lunch. You come home after work on the same roads you used to get to work and don’t ever just look around. I get to see all those people trying to find a doctor to take care of their gunshot wounds. I told you before don’t treat me like I don’t know what’s going on around here.”

Maria walked out on Steve and buried her head in a book. Steve left her alone and went to get some sleep. He was exhausted after spending twelve hours a day at the shop and he wanted to get some sleep before he said something he would regret later.

No more was said about the gang war and leaving Corpus Christi over the next month as Maria cleaned the house. She went through every closet, drawer, and cabinet and threw out everything they didn’t use. She made piles of stuff she wanted to keep and even packed a few boxes with items they hardly ever used.

“Finished,” Maria said to Steve one night.

“Finished what?”

“I’ve cleaned this place from top to bottom and have gotten rid of twenty-year’s worth of junk. Even if we don’t move, I feel a lot better. This place is as clean as it has been since we moved in.”

After spending four weeks cleaning the house and resting, Maria knew it was time to go back to work. She started her job search like most people, reading the newspapers, researching online, and contacting her past coworkers to see if they knew of any openings. It surprised her when she couldn’t reach the majority of her ex-coworkers. Phones had been disconnected. Houses had been vacated and put up for sale. Personal email accounts closed or ignored. Maria only found a handful of her ex-coworkers sill available. Most of them told her there were no jobs left in Corpus Christi and they were surviving on their spouse’s incomes or savings.

“There’s nothing out there,” she said to Steve one night after dinner.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve contacted everyone I know, gone through all the job postings I could find, and blasted my resume to anything medical within fifty miles and nothing. Not a single response to my requests. There are no jobs in this area for nurses.”

“There has to be something. Did you try that temp agency you talked about?”

“Yes, I tried them and three others. If you don’t think I’m telling the truth and doing all I can, you can go to hell. You’ve had your head up your ass the last few months. I’ve been trying to tell you the city is dying and hundreds of people are being affected by a gang war going on in our very city. All you do is keep saying, ‘if it was so bad, the government would be doing something about it’. Why don’t you pull your head out of it and drive down to the navy base. Guess what? Their all gone. Pulled out a few months ago. Did you even know that?”

“Calm down. What do you mean ‘pulled out’? That’s a decent size navy air base. They are probably just on maneuvers or something?”

“I love how you think I’m so stupid. Go there yourself, jackass, and see the empty buildings. Just be careful, one of the gangs you claim don’t exist has taken over most of the base. And by-the-way, stop by Cabaniss field and say hi to the other gang. They took that place over last month before I left the hospital. And if you could, find us some groceries. Marty at the store said the last two trucks have gone missing. Gangs are hijacking trucks at the city’s edge and we are running out of food. This stupid person is going to bed. You sleep on the couch or in your truck. I don’t care.”

Maria stomped off and slammed the door to their room. Steve knew he had been working a lot of hours lately, but how could he have missed everything Maria was telling him about the city. How could gangs take over a city and nothing has been done about it?

“Hell. There’s still a few hours left before sundown. I’ll just go and see what has gotten her so worked up lately. Probably one of those egghead doctors filling her head with a bunch of crap. He probably lost a dog or something and think’s the whole world has fallen apart.”

Steve walked around the kitchen and made a quick list of groceries. He was surprised at the lack of food and wondered why Maria just didn’t go to another store if the first one couldn’t get their supply truck. He made sure the kids were fine and walked out to his truck.