Take a Hostage

I was laying there on the metal table, with my ass hanging out of the hospital gown, shivering and in pain. I'd never had any pain like this before. It was pain that I cannot adequately describe to you. Words cannot define it. You have to experience it for yourself to get the full impact of it.

I was 21 years old. I had been enduring this pain for most of the evening, and well into the wee hours of the morning.

The pain began as I was working the grill at a family-type upscale burger shack. In short order I was lying on the break room floor, moaning and clutching my guts. Someone was in there, and they wanted out. When a server came into the break room for her 15 minutes, I asked her to tell the manager to call me an ambulance. She returned shortly with a message.

Get your butt back on the line, or you're fired.

Sonofabitch.

I hauled myself to the back door on my hands and knees, hit the crash bar, and crawled to my car.

I could see the twin towers of the medical center just a few blocks away. "You can do this." I said to myself, and pulled myself to my feet with the door handle. That's when I blew chunks.

Cleaning my mouth up on my uniform, I got myself into the car and found the ignition. I lit a cigarette, and groaned as I started that big block up, and revved the motor to warm it up quicker.

I was leaned over to one side as I drove toward the hospital, and into the entrance that said AMBULANCE ONLY.

When I pulled up to the automatic door, I toed the high beam switch on the floor and everyone inside looked right at me.

I opened the door and fell out on the ground.

When I came to it was clear that little time had passed. I was on a gurney being rolled down a hallway, and someone was asking me if I could tell them my name.

I couldn't. I tried to enunciate this, but it came out as a groan I think.

Six hours and a whole bunch of tests, and even more prodding and poking doctors later, I learned that the problem was I had been busy making rocks, while I was frying burgers. I had a whole pile of little stones that wanted to exit my kidneys, and had gotten stuck. On both sides!

Relief was promised. The pain medication that was being withheld until the compassionate quacks could determine what was wrong, and of course that I wasn't a junkie with a serious jones, was supposedly on the way.

Looking at the clock, that had been an hour ago, and then some.

Fucking bastards.

So there I lay, with my ass getting colder, and the pain getting more intense, until I just couldn't take it anymore.

That's when the little geek in the lab coat walked by my room.

Hey dude! It seemed to come out as a groan from the depths of hell, at least to my ears, but it got his attention.

"Yes?" the skinny, small man said, leaning backwards to stick his head in the door.

"Come here dude, I need some help." I managed to motion with the hand I wasn't holding my guts together with.

"What is it?" the man asked, as he crossed the room towards me.

"Come here, I can barely talk." I whispered in a raspy voice filled with as much pain as I could put into it. I had plenty to spare.

He leaned down, and his tie dangled forward out of his lab coat. He was looking quizzically into my eyes. His were absolutely devoid of concern, and in fact he seemed rather annoyed with me.

He was about to get really upset.

With speed and strength I didn't know I had left, I grabbed his tie, and choked up on it right to the knot, wrapping it around my fist three times.

I WANT A FUCKING SHOT! WHEN THEY KNOCK ME OUT, I'LL LET YOU GO! SO START SCREAMING OR I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH! LET'S SCREAM TOGETHER! AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! The lab rat screamed with me. He jerked his head sideways, trying to make his face a lousy target for my other fist as I pulled myself up and him down, trying to rise off of the metal table.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! we screamed together.

By the third scream the room was beginning to fill up with people. We screamed one more time just for good measure.

The lights went out.

When I woke up I was on the 7th floor of the hospital. I know this because it was painted on the wall, over the elevator, and that was all I could see. It seemed I had been restrained, sedated, and couldn't move very much. This was fine with me. Looking down I could see I was stopped at a nurse's station, and that an orderly was handing a nurse a folder.

"This guy is to be kept sedated. He took a hostage down in the ER." the orderly said.

"Mmmm. A real sweetheart huh?" the smartass nurse quipped back at him.

I dozed off again, feeling no pain.

Over the next 5 days I discovered that the maximum dose of morphine for your pain is vastly different from the maximum dose of morphine you are given if they believe that you might cause them pain.

Next time you're hurting so bad you can't stand it, all you have to do is take a hostage.

At least, that's what you do when you're incorrigible.