Free The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Six by Randall Farmer Page A

drifted out again. I crashed on floors and mooched meals. I smoked pot and took LSD and heroin and speed, none of which affected me at all (save, I think, for about twenty seconds worth of an acid trip that reminded me of my screwy dreams). I spent my days surrounded by their music, and learned to like the Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and the Doors. I never did learn to like The Who or The Yardbirds – far too pretentious for me.  I slept with whoever caught my eye. At night I would sneak into local gyms and do my exercises, cleaning up after myself and sneaking out again, leaving no one the wiser. I didn’t need to do anywhere near as much as in my previous life.  Sometimes I would find a park in the darkness and just run and run and run. I loved the cool darkness and the air on my skin, a pleasant change from the cramped sweat of a gym.  Running felt right to me, now, as if I had to do a lot of running.  I didn’t make much if any progress on my mission.  I did spend more time than ever thinking about my former housewife life, and how I would have despised these people.  I didn’t despise them now.  I had changed.
    I hunt ed when the time came. I put on gloves and stole a car, keeping the vehicle only long enough for the hunt. My kill was a sloppy thing. I didn’t take the extreme care that secrecy required, and the police recognized they had an Arm kill on their hands. By then, I had moved on.
    I also became morbid.  I spent long silent hours thinking about Bobby. I saw him in so many of these young men. I remembered the little sigh he would give as he bent to my will. I remembered how much he depended on me. I remembered coming to him right after a kill and the hours of rollicking fun we would have in bed while filled with juice and lust.  I wondered what he looked like when he died. Had he strangled as he hung there, or had he managed to break his neck with a fall? Who found him? Did they take care of his body?
    I also spent time thinking about Chicago. Why did I care so much about a city?  I didn’t know, but I did miss the place. I wanted the gray days and the cold filthy snow that collected by the roads as the winter wore on. I wanted the tall buildings and the wind and the pizza and Mayor Daley and the mob. I wanted the cold gray waters of Lake Michigan and the sound of the ships as they came into the docks.  I wanted all those crazy confrontations with the Chimeras, though this time, I wanted to win them all.
    I wanted all the people that I had left behind, the Tiens, Greg, my two thugs and the mailman and the real estate agent. I wanted Pete Sanchek in my hands, to teach him the meaning of pain.
    While high on juice, I thought of the good things I had owned. While low, the demons came out. Memories of the old bad endless pinball chase dreams.  The Chimeras and their Monster harems.  The leering face of McIntyre as he broke me to his will.  The shadow of Focus Biggioni.  The unstoppable craving for juice.
    I frightened many of those gentle children when I woke up screaming in the night.  
     
    My mission got a boost when I drifted into a traveling band of anti-war activists.  This group, of four men and one woman, rambled aimlessly from one college campus to another in their Volkswagen Bus, organizing and supporting anti-war groups and protests. I ended up with them through a bedtime encounter with one of the men, Sharky. They called him Sharky for his card-playing skills, and also for his skills in arranging protests. He had about three-quarters of a law degree and was good at manipulating the system.  I stayed with them because the bus, all painted in bold colored flowers, asterisks and peace signs, smelled like home to me.  No, I had no idea what that meant, but I did wonder who had shot at the back of a simple VW bus once upon a time.
    A Vietnam veteran by the name of Red Mitchell, an actual SDS member, led the group. He was