Free Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francesco X Stork Page A

some sandwiches that Margarita made for you.”
    Pancho placed the suitcases in the van. He kept his backpack on. “We taking the wheelchair?” he asked D.Q.
    “I guess we better.” D.Q. pulled the brake lever and lifted himself out slowly. D.Q. climbed into the front seat while Pancho folded the chair. Memo was making faces as if he was trying not to cry. “I want that room ready by the time I get back,” D.Q. told him. “Oh, shit!”
    “What happened?” Memo asked.
    “I forgot the perico.”
    “The what?”
    “My parrot. I left it on my desk. I wanted to take it with me.”
    “I’ll get it for you,” Memo volunteered. He turned around and went inside the building in a run.
    “What do you want that thing for?” Pancho asked, settling himself in the middle row of the van. He placed the backpack next to him.
    “I don’t know. I like it. It’ll bring me good luck.”
    “Yeah, like it did me,” Pancho said.
    “Aaahhh.” D.Q. made a noise that sounded like the bleat of a baby lamb. “That’s a whine. Remember the first rule of the Death Warrior Manifesto.”
    Pancho was about to tell D.Q. where to stick his Death Warrior Manifesto when Father Concha stepped out of the building. He was carrying a large plastic bag in one hand and a black briefcase in the other. “Ready?” he asked.
    “Memo’s bringing me something I forgot,” D.Q. said.
    Father Concha put the plastic bag and his briefcase in the seat behind Pancho. In the seven days that he had been at St. Anthony’s, Pancho had yet to catch the priest smiling. Father Concha got into the driver’s seat, buckled his seat belt, and started the van. Pancho closed his door just as Memo came running out. He handed the wooden parrot to D.Q. “Okay, little penguin,” D.Q. said to him. “Get my room ready. Don’t let Margarita put any sissy-looking curtains on the windows. I want manly stuff, you understand.”
    “Yeah, manly stuff. Nothing sissy.” The van was beginning to move and Memo and D.Q. were still doing some kind of funnyhandshake. Memo was wiping his left eye with his shoulder. Then the van accelerated. “See you, Pancho,” Memo called.
    They were all quiet until they got to I-25 and then D.Q. asked, “You know any good jokes, Father?”
    “No,” Father Concha said. He was looking in the rearview mirror, determining whether it was safe to switch lanes.
    “Pancho, when we’re in Albuquerque, we need to have us some adventures. We should do fun things, maybe go out drinking, pick up some girls, live it up a little. I mean, how often will we get a chance to visit the big city?”
    Father Concha cast a sideways glance at D.Q. Pancho didn’t think the comment required a response. Ever since D.Q. woke him up that morning, he had been jabbering nonsense.
    “Oh, I just thought of a joke,” D.Q. was now saying. “This couple gets married and they get into an accident just as they leave the church. So they go to heaven and are waiting for St. Peter, and the guy says to his wife, ‘You know honey, eternity is a long time to be married, maybe…’”
    Pancho saw Father Concha reach over and touch D.Q.’s arm. “It’s all right, you don’t have to say anything,” Father Concha said. “It’s all going to be all right.”
    D.Q. exhaled loudly. “It wasn’t a good joke anyway.”
    “We’ll go straight to the hospital. As I understand it, they’ll keep you there overnight,” Father Concha said.
    “Is she going to be there?” D.Q. asked.
    “Your mother? I told her it wasn’t a good idea. She’ll want to see you in a day or two, after the initial tests.”
    “The deal was that I would stay with her during the waiting period. I’ll be megablasted with lomustine, vincristine,prednisone, and I don’t know what else, kryptonite, and then I’ll stay with her for two weeks and that is it. She said she’d sign the papers if I did that. Do you have the papers? Did you bring them?”
    “I have them,” Father Concha said. He