The Long Dark by B.J. Farmer (important books to read .TXT) 📗

“I want them back.”

“I do nod have dem anymore.  I lefd dem back at the hospidal, where dey belong.”

A wave of heat roiled over me. On a wicked impulse, I scraped my arm across the table, knocking everything in my reach off into the floor. The room spun unmercifully; my skin burned red hot; this wasn’t going to end well. “Tish has some,” I finally said.

Aadesh shook his head, not bothering to give credence to my idiotic comment and irrational behavior.

“Fuck you, Aadesh! I’ll just go get more. I went once, and I can go again.”

He tossed the magazine on the table. “I can nod and will nod dry do sdop you, bud I promise dad I will nod come and ged you, if you are nod showing up again. Whad you are doing is nod good. Id is sdupid… and I am sick of daking care and worrying aboud you--”

I was out of my chair and around the table before he finished his thought. I grabbed him by the collar and lifted him out of his seat. I don’t remember what I said to him, or, well, I want to forget what racist bullshit I said to him. It’s all so embarrassing. So much for the chill dude, I thought I was. I was just a damn brain-dead addict, enraged because someone was trying to save me from myself.

All the years of undealt with inner turmoil and self-loathing boiled to the surface, again. The fun-time guy façade I spent so many years crafting was gone. The roil of pain, fear, insecurity, and addiction churned its way to the surface in a fit of rage and violence. I slung Aadesh to the floor. I was in the process of rearing my fist back to punch him when I heard something out of place. Tish’s voice.

“I knew you had this pistol.” She never looked away from it as she spoke. “I had a hell of a time finding it. You were so screwed up. You didn’t even move once while I rummaged through your things looking for it.”

I rolled off of Aadesh and came to a crouching position. “What the hell?”

She waved the pistol at the chairs. “Have a seat.”

“Whad is dis, Dish?”

Tish popped several small, yellow pain pills. I could’ve used some of those about right then. Sweat was pouring out of every pore, and my head was throbbing to beat hell. My face was flushed and hot, my blood pressure quickly rising, and if things didn’t come to a quick end, I was probably going to do something stupid. I didn’t like pistols being pointed at me, especially by someone who I pretty much hated; by someone who also had a large bottle of pain pills sitting out in the open so I could jones over them.

She began to speak. It felt like she read all the hateful thoughts I had on my mind. “Jack, you are the epitome of what’s wrong with your country.” I tried to interrupt, but she pointed the pistol at me again. “For as long as we’ve been here, you’ve only thought about yourself. While you waste away, tending to your personal desires, Aadesh has been selflessly taking care of both of us. You represent America perfectly: you have yours; the hell with everybody else.”

What a crazy bitch, I thought. “You give up your citizenship, I guess,” I said with a smirk.

Aadesh shot me a look of stop poking the bear. “Are you okay, Dish?” he interjected before she had time to say something to me, or worse.

“No,” she said, trailing off.

“We can help you, Dish. Dere is no reason do be doing dis,” Aadesh pleaded.

“No one can help me now. I’m alone.”

“We are wery much here--”

She slammed the pill bottle on the table. “No,” she said. “My family is dead… my people have left me for fucking dead.” She then struggled to remove the lid from the pill bottle. Once she finally managed to finagle the lid open, she popped at least three more of the forty-milligram OxyContin’s.

“Dammit, I’m not playing the guessing game with you. Can you just tell us what the fuck’s going on?” I said as I wiped my brow.

Aadesh tried to speak again, but she shook her head at him. “No,” she said, now slurring. “You can’t keep saving him, Aadesh. Even if I don’t kill him, he’s going to die.”

“We are all having de sdruggles, Dish. Jack jusd is especially so.”

I placed both of my hands on the table. My head spinning a hundred miles an hour, not to mention my legs still bouncing, I said, “Talk to me. I’m right here, you know!”

Tish ignored my comment. Her eyes were almost closed. My problem was I needed meds, and her problem was she had taken too many. I hoped she would pass out, or, better, just die. I’d take the pistol and the pills. Fuck her. After a few moments of waiting, I began to get up. Her eyes were closed, but just as my ass lifted off the seat, she began to speak.

She said she was part of the Order. She said she had lived an honorable life and always tried to bring honor to her family, but that she had also failed. Then she started stammering about a woman named Janna, and how she was ruining everything because she was like me. She was too westernized and that she eschewed the values of her countrymen and replaced them with western ideals of selfishness. She called her a traitor and that she had single-handedly destroyed the Barrow operation.

“She killed them all…” she said.

“Janna was the woman dad did dad?” Aadesh asked.

She nodded. Her eyes nearly closed, she barely managed saying, “Yes.”

I took a few moderating breaths, trying to calm myself before speaking. “What do you want with us, Tish?”

The medication had taken her over, her irritated state replaced with just fighting to stay upright. She grabbed a notebook out of her jacket pocket and dropped