Loomis was in no mood. “What’s this goody two-shoes woman with patent leather shoes and rosy cheeks with braided hair to match want with a lost cuss like me?” he wondered
to himself. What he didn’t realize was, the heavy dose of Thorazine they gave him back at poor
old Charity was beginning to wear off, but the other opiates they poured in him were
starting in on him in new and strange ways.
“You definitely need a good shave and a bath,” Lindsay Patterson sniffed, although she felt an odd compassion for this lanky, disheveled “cat” with a nice face but way thin lips.
“Aw Pshaww,” grumbled Loomis Reader, trying to act ornery, but he was by circumstance
just too far wasted to offer much resistance. “Ahh, Ayyiii dun’need no frickin’ BATH—”
“Well,” replied Lindsay, biting lightly the tip of her dainty tongue, “That’s what you think,
Mister—” She turned over his hastily scribbled name tag. “—Umm, mister READER! Just read
THIS!” Using her best elemental triage skills she’d learned back in Riverdale, Maryland,
Lindsay tipped a large Dixie cup filled with fairly decent OJ and a 500 mi8lligram Valium, down Loomis’ protesting gullet, and waited for the magic to kick in.
“GACK-Gurkle-gluggluphh.” Loomis rocked forward, then fell back into a sling-seat wheel
chair of the most basic variety. This racket got the attention of Ms. Lyvania, who had
kind of “lost” her afghan shawl to the dirty concrete floor, and even in the dank closeness of the big convention hall was, in her way of thinking, feeling a chill. Dimly, she got a
glimpse of an unfamiliar figure. This was Loomis, of course, struggling mildly in the neighboring rolling chair.
“So then,” began Lyvania. “You then are the Gentleman Caller?”
Loomis was barely lucid at this point. “Whoa, like Tennessee Williams, yeah?? But
where in blazes is my LUNCH?” he crowed, then promptly passed out, as Lindsay directed two burly attendants to wheel Mister Reader to a huge fiberglass wash tub.
(To be continued)
