Selfishness, Selflessness, and Sundays: Chapter 1 – Just Another Day

Chapter 1 – Just Another Day

An emergency patient enters my home. His friend called me earlier and gave me a heads up to prepare for him. After I remove the bullets, patch him up, and the patient wakes up, I pull up a chair next to him.

“Where am I?” he says.

“The basement of my house. Your friend took you here after you got shot. He’s upstairs waiting for you,” I say.

“Oh, that’s right. I guess that’s what I get for trying to get rid of corruption from the city.”

“That’s right. It’s why you should stop, keep your head down, and mouth shut about what you’ve been doing for a while if you want to stay alive.”

“I can’t because I can’t stand how corrupt this country has become.”

“Welcome to the club. Dozens of people have died and been put in prison for doing the same things you’re doing.”

“So? I’m going to make a difference and I don’t care if I have to die to do it.”

The man gets up, puts on his black jacket, brown shirt, and black cowboy hat, and puts his revolver in its holster.

“Suit yourself then. Take these pain pills with you before you go.”

“Thank you. How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing. It’s a favor for a friend. I’m friends with Josh’s wife.”

“What’s your name?”

“Natasha.”

“I’m Silas. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Natasha. I’ll find a way to pay you back one day.”

I nod in response knowing that mentioning that he won’t live to pay him back won’t make a difference. He’s just like the other people uselessly risking their lives to change the country. Once Josh and Silas leave and I clean up the operating room in my basement, I put on the TV and then look outside and can’t help but reflect on what America has become. I would’ve been a normal doctor if the medical colleges didn’t require doctors and nurses to be able to perform abortions. The culture of the medical field with its perverted and toxic practitioners and ridiculous costs of college also pushed me away from becoming an actual doctor so I learned what I could on my own and became a back alley doctor.

Working like this allows me to be the doctor I know God wants me to be without compromising my beliefs and helping people who can’t pay the expensive medical bills. Nowadays, jobs pay less than they usually did and medical insurance is still required, but the insurance can cut deeply into a person’s pay if they want the insurance to cover procedures and checkups without having to pay the rest out of pocket. Because of this, people get the lowest insurance and come to back alley doctors like me who won’t charge them an arm and leg. In fact, I may ask for some food and drinks in addition to my payment since the money I get sometimes isn’t enough to help me with the bills and upkeep of my medical tools, and tech. It's a struggle to buy groceries since they're so expensive as well. Sometimes, I’ll have to work part-time as a community service worker by cleaning houses, taking care of the elderly and injured, and doing other work like it at a homeless shelter. Other doctors may lower themselves to sinful kinds of work, but I refuse to do that no matter how desperate I may be.

Another depressing matter I have to keep in mind is the closing of the local church that I go to. Since the number of religious people going to church is on the decline, the diocese has been closing churches so that the ones that have more attendance can receive more funding to stay open. Because of that, I’ll have to take about a ten-minute walk there every Sunday, which doesn’t sound too bad but these streets aren’t exactly the safest. I want to believe that Silas and Josh will rid the country of corruption, but that’s just a fantasy since so many have failed. They’ve been making progress by getting rid of criminals in the usual underworld criminal sphere and corporate world, however, people are replaceable in today’s world and it doesn’t matter how many you arrest or kill. You’ll hardly make a difference.

Okay, I better stop thinking about depressing things. It’s bad for my health. While thinking, I’ve been rubbing my miraculous medal necklace without noticing as if I’m trying to squeeze out whatever blessings and miracles the Blessed Mother can give me. It’s a habit of mine. My prayers do give me a feeling of peace and the truth that I know does make me realize that I don’t suffer and work in vain. Still, I pray for more than a feeling and knowledge. What use are they if I can’t do anything with them?

There goes the useless depressing thoughts again. I better head out to the grocery store since I hardly have anything left. The trip there and the shopping is easy with nothing notable happening until I get the feeling to look down an alley of an apartment that I’m passing by. In the alley, I see what looks to be a human figure in a trash bag. Unable to help my curiosity and knowing what it probably is, I open the trash and see a scantily dressed woman in it. This apartment is probably a prostitution den judging by the woman’s clothes and condoms, porn magazines, and other clothes like hers in the trash. Somehow, the woman is still alive, but she won’t be for much longer if I don’t do anything to save her.

Part of me wants to forget I saw her while the stronger part of me wants to take care of her. Knowing it’d be wrong to leave her here, I wake her up and help her get to her feet. She’s hardly conscious but thankfully able to get on her feet and limp walk. At least I won’t have to carry her home. With my bags full of groceries in one arm and the woman leaning on me on the other side of me, we walk back to my house until three homeless-looking men and one woman stop us on our way there. They surround us and make it clear that they have knives and small guns in their pockets.

“What do you want?” I ask while already knowing.

“You can offer us one of two things and we’ll let you go. You can either give us your groceries or show us a good time. Take your pick,” the homeless woman says.

“Tch. Take the groceries.”

“Thank you for your charity.”

The homeless people forcefully take the groceries from me and then run off. Getting back on track, I take the woman back to my house and to the basement where I heal her wounds and take out the drugs from her system. She wakes up sometime later in a groggy state.

“Huh? Where am I?” she asks.

“You’re in my house. Don’t be afraid. I saved you from dying in the trash,” I say.

“Oh. Thank you. Wait, I was in the trash?”

“Yes, you were. People throw out men, women, and children like you in the trash once you don’t serve any purpose to them anymore assuming they don’t want to use your dead body for…other sick purposes. It’s the nature of the industry you work in, so I suggest leaving the city while they think you’re dead.”

“Where would I go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere, and don’t even think about going back. I’ve done this before and ended up finding the same people I saved dead on the side of the road, in the trash, or found somewhere else that’s reported on the news because they chose to go back to their abusers.”

“I’m not sure if I should.”

“Trust me when I say that walking or rather running out of the city and finding anywhere else to live in is preferable than going back or staying here because if they find you, they’ll convince you to go back to them and then you’ll end up dead.”

“Hmm. I have to think about how I’m going to leave. Thank you again for saving me.”

The woman gets up and I watch her as she leaves the house and walks down the street. Sometime later, I see on the news that she was found dead not too far from where I found her. Idiot, both me and her, we’re both idiots. I feel like I should do something to get justice for the woman. There is calling the cops and letting them know about the prostitution den masquerading as a normal apartment building, but it’s possible or rather very likely that the police themselves frequent it and prostitution isn’t exactly illegal in this country even if children are the ones in it. Josh and his friend Silas are the only justice-focused cops that I know of. I’d ask them to help me out if they weren’t over their heads with their suicide mission.

Just like that, the cruelty of the present is making me depressed and livid at the same time while reminding me that there’s nothing I can do about it besides pray and hope that what happened today doesn’t happen as often. It’d be useless to hope that it doesn’t happen again given how the country is. I understand how people like Silas and Josh feel and I do hope they can manage to do a lot, but I know it’s a vain pursuit to make any real changes to the present situation. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be too upset. What happened today happens every day. It’s just been another normal day in America.