Duane's Depressed Read Online Free PDF Page B

chair.
    “I’m soaked—what’s going on here? Has everybody in this office gone crazy?” she asked.
    “No, but I guess you could say we’ve had a few setbacks,” Karla admitted. Earlene’s head had hit the corner of the watercooler when she fell, opening a gash that took nine stitches to close. Karla left Bobby Lee in charge of the office while she ran the hysterical Earlene down to the clinic.
    “It’s gonna take plastic surgery, I know it is,” Earlene sobbed. “No man will ever look at me again if I have a big ugly scar.”
    “Earlene, you just bumped your head on the watercooler. Calm down,” Karla said. “A little cut like that will heal up perfectly fine.”
    “Will you pray for me—I figure prayer’s my best hope,” Earlene begged.
    “You’ve got pretty good health insurance—I expect that’s all you’ll need,” Karla said. She did not want to commit herself to praying for a little cut on Earlene Gholson’s head. Her own husbandmight be wandering around the country with Alzheimer’s, for all she knew; what little credit she might have with the higher powers had best be saved for members of her own immediate family, she believed.
    Once Earlene finally got her stitches, screaming all the while as if she were being tortured by Comanches, Karla took her back to the office, to discover that Bobby Lee and Ruth were at each other’s throats. Bobby Lee, sulking because his own injury had been neglected in favor of Earlene’s, had refused to accept any responsibility for Ruth’s wet feet and at some point in the discussion had told her to go to hell.
    “If I do go to hell there you’ll be, roasting on a spit,” Ruth told him.
    “That’s probably true, and it could happen in the next few days if I get gangrene from this injured toe,” Bobby Lee countered.
    “You can’t get gangrene from your toe because your toe’s not there,” Karla pointed out, but her logic, however impeccable, was lost on Bobby Lee when he was in one of his sulky moods.
    Karla, knowing she would never hear the end of it if she didn’t offer Bobby Lee at least as much attention as she had offered Earlene, took him to the clinic too. The young doctor, who had just moved to Thalia and didn’t really know the local ways, was annoyed with Bobby Lee because he had made no attempt to find the shot-off toe and bring it with him.
    “If you’d just brought it with you I’m sure I could have sewed it back on,” the doctor said testily. “Frankly, I would have liked the practice.”
    “Then shoot your own toe off and practice on it, you dumb fuck,” Bobby Lee said, after which the doctor’s ministrations grew noticeably perfunctory.
    “Bobby, why would you insult a doctor when he was trying to help you?” Karla asked, as they were driving away from the clinic, Bobby Lee sporting a nice clean bandage.
    “It’s a doctor’s duty to heal the sick, no matter how rude they are,” Bobby Lee replied.
    “Yes, but people don’t always do their duty,” Karla reminded him—the sentiment prompted her to remember Duane, hersick-in-the-head husband, who must have long since walked to wherever he was going.
    “Will you just ride out with me to the cabin, so I can see if Duane’s there?” Karla asked. Bobby Lee, now that he was cured, had a familiar, selfish look on his face, the look that meant he was seriously considering parking himself in a beer joint and drinking beer for a day or two.
    “It’s kind of late,” he said. “I’m sure Duane will show back up when he gets good and ready to.”
    “Does that mean yes, or no?” Karla asked. “I sure hope for your sake it means yes.”
    “Why for my sake?” Bobby Lee asked. “It’s for my sake that I’m trying to be a little careful. Getting in the middle between a husband and a wife can be dangerous, you know.”
    “Yes, but not as dangerous as refusing me on one of the rare occasions when I work up to asking you a favor,” Karla said.
    “That sounds like a