One-Eyed Jack Read Online Free PDF Page A

says it was an
accident,” she said.
    “ He
wouldn’t admit he did it himself,” the psychologist replied. “It may be that
he meant to do something far less drastic, and the knife slipped;
that would be a kind of an accident, after all.”
    I tried to look around the office, to
see if I could see a name, or some other evidence of where this was
happening.
    Jack’s mother did not look convinced.
She stood up. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said. She walked out of the
office, carefully closing the door behind her, and I could see that
the name on the door was Dr. Brown, which was astonishingly
unhelpful. There must be thousands of Dr. Browns out there. She
walked down a hospital corridor to a waiting area where Jack’s
father was talking to a man in a white coat – another doctor,
presumably. The two men looked up at her approach.
    “ Dr. Brown thinks he cut
it off himself,” she said.
    Jack’s father started to say
something, but the man in the white coat spoke first.
    “ That’s impossible,” he
said.
    “ It’s what Dr. Brown –
”
    “ Dr. Brown may be a fine
doctor in his own field, but I’m telling you, your son did not cut
off his own finger,” the man interrupted.
    “ Why – ”
    “ Even
saying it was cut off is misleading,” the man continued, ignoring
the father’s attempt to speak. “I looked at the wounds when I sewed
them up. Those weren’t nice, tidy cuts made with a good sharp
knife; if they were made with a knife at all, which I very much doubt, it had
a very dull blade.”
    “ Then
what did happen?” Jack’s mother demanded.
    “ Was it a dog?” Jack’s
father asked.
    The doctor shook his head. “I do think
something bit it off, Mr. Wilson, but it wasn’t a dog. The
teeth-marks, if that’s what they are, aren’t right for any breed of
dog I’m familiar with.”
    Jack’s mother went pale, and I took
note of the name, Wilson. I was looking for Jack Wilson, a kid with
nine fingers.
    “ Then
what... if it wasn’t a dog, what the hell was it?” the father
demanded.
    “ I don’t
know,” the doctor said. “But it wasn’t a sharp bite, like a dog or
a wolf or a cougar; something gnawed that finger off. Or if it
wasn’t teeth after all, then someone hacked it off, little by
little – it wasn’t chopped off with a single whack.”
    Jack’s mother made a small,
half-strangled noise; her hand flew to her mouth.
    “ No child, no matter how disturbed he
is, could have done that to himself,” the doctor continued. “Dr.
Brown is simply wrong about this.”
    And then a cop appeared,
and I could see the patch on his uniform that read Lexington Fayette Urban County , and I had the clue I needed. The three of them all turned
to look at him.
    “ Mr. And Mrs. Wilson? You
can see Jack now.”
    And with that, both parents hurried
into an examination room, where Jack was perched on the end of the
examining table.
    His mother hugged him, while his
father hung back, looking uncertain. Jack didn't move; he accepted
the embrace, but he didn't hug her back. He didn't look at his
father at all.
    “ Jack,
what happened ?” his mother asked. “The doctor says... he says your
finger...” She couldn't finish the question.
    “ Jack, did a dog bite it
off?” his father asked. “Because if there's a dog out there that's
attacking kids, it has to be found and put down.”
    Jack's head slowly turned to face his
father, but he still didn't say anything.
    “ Was it a dog?” Mr. Wilson
persisted.
    “ I don't remember,” Jack
said. He looked down at his bandaged, four-fingered hand. “I don't
know what happened.”
    I wanted to say something. I wanted to
ask about the hunched-over woman. I couldn't, though – I wasn't
really there, I was just seeing this. I didn't even know whether it
was past, present, or future.
    At that thought I tried to look around
the examining room for a calendar, but I didn’t see one. So I still
didn’t know when this was, but that patch on the cop’s sleeve