I removed this story from the site some years ago. It has been revised and reedited. As I rebuild my library, I will be posting these. There is no way to bring them back without resubmitting. If you have read it, you need not read, vote or comment. If not, enjoy.
As always, I need to give credit where it is due. My editors are Girlinthemoon. Hal, Olddave1951, Pixel the Cat and GeorgeAnderson. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. Sbrooks103x also gave me a pre-post read.
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Jack watched his tee shot sail exactly down the middle of the fairway. He always hit the same shot. It wasn't long; it was just straight down the middle of the fairway. The other two guys had already teed off, and it was my turn. I got it set up and took a little practice swing. This was a par five, pretty long and pretty wide open. I would just take a rip at it and see what happened.
I'm a big guy and I power lift four days a week. My bench is better than it was in college. I can do reps with 225 pounds that make the steroid freaks at the gym jealous. I had a new driver, one of those graphite composite ones and I felt pretty good. I got the sweet spot and Jack's jaw dropped.
"Jesus Christ, Eric, you hammered that. That's three hundred and fifty fucking yards if it's an inch. It's farther than that. You get up and down and you've got an eagle."
I'd had two eagles in my life. I felt pretty good about this one. We started down the fairway and Jack hit his second shot. It still wasn't to my first one. I heard his phone buzzing in his bag. He was a little hard of hearing so I told him he had a text. He got his phone out and his face went white.
"Eric, I've got to go," he said.
"What's wrong?" I asked him.
"Something back at the office," he said. "Take me back, Eric. I'm sorry but I can't tell you about it yet. You can have the rest of the afternoon off after you take me back."
Jack was my boss. He also owned Whitman Enterprises. I'd worked there since I graduated from college. They recruited me from the time I was a sophomore and I was the number two guy there. It was a family business. We made pumps, all kinds of pumps. They were one of a kind, designed for specific applications. We had a foundry, a machine shop and we made them from the blueprint to the finished product. I was the VP of production and I pretty much ran the place. Jack's daughter, Allison, was my counterpart in sales. I knew there had been some noise about us being bought out by a Swiss company, and I figured it was about that.
I took him back to the office and started home. I was sitting at a traffic light. The street downtown was one of those old cobblestone streets and there was an elderly lady crossing the street in front of me. I watched, horrified, as her toe caught on one of the cobblestones and she tripped. She tried to keep her balance but she was staggering forward, now. She dropped her grocery bag, tripped again and she went down. I heard her cry out as her arms hit the street, trying to save herself. I slammed the shifter into park and jumped out, running around the truck and kneeling beside her. She was crying and I felt awful for her. Her hands were bleeding and her arm was clearly broken.
I gathered her up in my arms. "I'm so sorry," I told her. "I'm going to help you. It's going to be okay. I'll take you to the hospital. Are you hurt anywhere besides your hands and arm?"
"No," she sobbed, "but I think my arm is broken. I dropped my groceries and I'm afraid my eggs are broken, too. Well, my knees are bleeding, too, honey. My arm hurts so bad!"
She was breaking my heart. I had tears in my own eyes. This sweet little lady didn't deserve this! "I'll get you some more eggs," I told her. "Let me help you get in the truck. I'll take you to the hospital."
That made her cry even more. "Thank you, but I can't go to the hospital." Her breath was coming in gasps. "I don't have any insurance. I can't afford to go to the hospital."
I felt like shit now. She was a tiny little black woman, probably seventy or so, and you could tell she had been a stunner. She was still very pretty and I felt really bad for her. I thought about my mother. She had passed away from a stroke two years before. If she had fallen like this I would have wanted someone to take care of her.
"I'm taking you to the hospital," I told her. "I'll take care of it. My wife works there and we'll work something out. You look like someone's mother, and I would want someone to help my mother. I'm taking you now. Let me help you up, I'll get your groceries and we'll go, okay?"
"It hurts really bad," she said. "Thank you, young man. I'll never forget this."
I got her up and into the front seat of the truck. It was higher than she could comfortably get into, so I lifted her. I gathered up her groceries and put them in the back seat of the truck.
On the way to the hospital she told me her name was Samantha Groves and that she was a widow. It was only about a mile and I pulled up at the emergency room door. Cindy, my wife, was on shift, and I helped Samantha inside. I took her to the desk and Kirsten was working. I told her what was going on and that I would be taking care of any bills. She took Samantha right back to a bed and Rachael, the RN, cleaned up her hands and knees while we waited for the doctor.
They tried to shoo me out, but Samantha wasn't having it. She wanted me to stay and that was that. I asked her if she wanted to call someone. She said her phone was in her purse so I went back to the truck and got it. She needed her ID, anyway, and when I got back, I gave it to Kirsten. Samantha got her phone out and it was one of those cheap phones that you buy minutes. She dialed and then started crying again.
"What's wrong, Samantha?" I asked.
"I'm out of minutes," she sobbed. "This is just a terrible day!"
"Here, use my phone," I handed her my Android. I had to show her how to use it and she talked to someone female on the other end.
"Cecilia, I fell and hurt myself," she said. "I'm at the hospital. No, a really nice white man is helping me. Please, Honey, would you? Okay, please don't worry."
I wondered where Cindy was. She worked the emergency room. She was a Physician's Assistant and she should be handling this. I poked my head out and saw Rachael.
"Where the hell is Cindy?" I asked her. "This lady is hurting and she needs attended to."
Rachael flushed. "She went to lunch. I called her and she'll be here any minute."
"What do you mean, 'she went to lunch'? She just got here!" Cindy worked three to eleven. Her lunch hour was at seven.
Rachael stammered around for a minute and finally she just left. What the hell was going on? I went back to Samantha and she was still crying. I sat down by her and hugged her.
"It's okay, Samantha," I told her. "Who did you call?"
"My granddaughter," she said. "She's going to college. She just got out of class and she'll be here after a bit. You can go then. I know you don't want to be here."
"Nonsense," I told her. "I'm off work. This isn't going to be such a bad day, Samantha. You made a new friend today, you're going to be fine, your granddaughter is on the way and you won't have to do a lick of work for a while because you'll have a cast on your arm."
She chuckled and hugged me back. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and I heard a voice behind us. It was low and husky and sounded like smoky jazz. "Who's your new lover, Grandma?"
I looked back and there was a vision framed in the hospital curtain. She was little, brown and as cute as a newborn kitten. She stepped around to the other side of the bed and kissed Samantha.
"I don't know his name," Samantha said. "I've been so flustered I forgot to ask. I think he's the Good Samaritan. He's been taking care of me. I don't know where he came from but he's a gift from heaven."
"My name is Eric Hollister," I told them. "You must be Cecilia. I was sitting in my car at the crosswalk and I saw Samantha fall. I couldn't do anything but bring her here where the DOCTOR should have BEEN here by now!" I raised my voice. I knew I was being passive/aggressive, but I was starting to get pissed off.
I poked my head out of the curtain and saw Rachael avoiding my eyes. "Go get Pierce," I told her. "If someone isn't here to take care of this lady in five minutes I'm going to raise hell at the next board meeting! Where the hell is Cindy?"
"Dr. Pierce went to lunch with her," she said.
"Well, that's just freaking great," I was disgusted. "Call Olivia."
"Your daughter is just an intern," Rachael said.
"Can she prescribe medicine and order a cast for this lady?" I asked.
"Yes, she can do that," Rachael admitted.
"Then page her," I told her.
I went back to sit in the chair by Samantha. "My daughter is an intern here," I told her. "She'll be here in a minute."
I thought about Cindy and that creep Pierce being out to lunch together. What the hell was going on? Cindy knew very well I wouldn't like that. I had made that perfectly plain on a couple of occasions.
We had been dating about six months the first time. I had met Cindy when we were assigned as lab partners in biology. She was drop dead gorgeous. She was a tall plush girl with dark hair, fair skin and the bluest eyes you've ever seen. I invited her for a cup of coffee after the lab and while we were there, I asked her out and she accepted. We went to dinner and a movie, I know, not the most imaginative date in the world, but I was nineteen years old. She kissed me good night at the door of her room and I asked her out again. It took about four dates before she let me feel her breasts and they were amazing. She had very large breasts and they were very sensitive. I think she came twice just from me playing with them. She had been raised by very religious parents and I think I was the first guy to ever get his hands on those luscious mounds. It took me three months to talk her into my bed and she never left it.
We had been going out for six months and I was coming out of the electronics store with a new video game when I saw her and George Cooper going into Chili's next door. I walked in and they were sitting together in a booth in the back. He had his arm around her and she was laughing up into his face. I turned around and went home. I had an apartment across the street from the school and I just picked her stuff up, put it in a box outside the door and went to class. I didn't go home for two days or talk to her. She called me about a dozen times and sent me a bunch of e-mails, but I never read them or responded. Twice, she was waiting outside class when it was over, but I went back in and told the professor I needed to talk to him in his office. We were talking when we came out the door and she had no opportunity to say anything. I skipped biology lab.
