CHAPTER NINETEEN
I peeled off my clothes as I went through the house toward the bathroom. I showered with water as hot as I could stand it. I looked at the laceration on my side. It was a clean cut, not deep, but it had ruined a good T-shirt.
There was little pain, but I knew I’d taken a hit.
I toweled off and put on a pair of shorts. I could hear someone rattling around in the kitchen and assumed it was J.D. I joined her. She had the coffeemaker on and the smell was starting to permeate my senses.
“Let me see where you’re cut,” she said.
She peered at it, felt around the edges and said, “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but we need to get some antiseptic on it and get it bandaged properly.”
“You know how to do that? I don’t want you to kill me.”
“I’m an EMT. I know what I’m doing.”
All the Longboat cops had been through the Emergency Medical Technician training and could fill in until the Fire Department paramedics arrived on the scene of an accident or something worse.
“Do you have an antiseptic here? Bandages?”
“In the bathroom. The cabinet under the sink.”
She came back bringing the first-aid kit with her. “Lie back on the sofa,” she ordered.
I did so and she spread the antiseptic cream on the cut and bandaged it professionally. She ran her hand over the scars on my stomach where the docs in an Army field hospital had pulled shrapnel out of my belly before sending me back to the States for more intensive treatment.
“This isn’t your first scrape, is it?” There was a timbre to her voice, sadness maybe, or compassion.
“No,” I said. “That’s a little reminder of my year abroad when I was nineteen.”
“Vietnam.”
“Yes.”
“You never talk about it.”
“No.”
“Do you ever want to?”
“Not really.”
“I’m a pretty good listener if you ever feel the need.”
“Thanks, J.D., but I put all that behind me a long time ago.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Tell me about today. What happened?”
I told her, giving her the details. “I was going to kill the man who came after me.”
“Self-defense.”
“No. I mean I was going to kill him. After he was disarmed and at my mercy. Before the woman showed up.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“What happened to stop you?”
“The rage went away.”
“Rage?”
“Sometimes when I’m in very stressful situations like today, I’m overcome with a rage that comes out of left field. I don’t see it coming. It’s just there. It turns me into somebody I’m not, or at least don’t want to be. Then it goes away. It’s like the better part of my brain takes over and pushes the rage back into the gutter where it belongs.”
“Does this happen often?”
“No. But sometimes I feel like the rage is there, hiding just beneath my skin, ready to break out if I let my guard down. I have to fight it off. I used to drink it away, but that only caused more trouble. Now I exercise like crazy. Get the endorphins flowing and the rage goes away.”
“Do you think the war caused it?”
“No. It was there before.”
I was uneasy talking about this and wanted to change the subject. “What else can I tell you about today’s attack?” I asked.
“Can you give me a description of the man and woman?”
I stared at her for a moment. “They were Asian.”