The Ram Read Online Free Page B

ability to logically protest the cutting off of five of his toes. It’s lose them, or lose his life, and while the thought of checking out from his downward spiral is tempting, it’s not powerful enough to make him go to his casket all because of a desire to have a full set of toes.
    He is prepped for surgery and the last memory he has is of an attractive anesthesiologist entering the room. She has bow-shaped lips and golden eyeshadow and Riley finds himself aroused and not ashamed at the response of his cock. He doesn’t wonder if it will calm down by the time he’s through surgery. He just stares into the doctor’s eyes and thinks about the one instance in which he watched amputee porn. The woman in the film was missing both legs, sliced clean from her body right under her pelvic bone.
    “I want you to tell me all your pets’ names, starting with last pet and working toward your first,” the anesthesiologist says, placing an oxygen mask over Riley’s mouth and nose. He answers her, muffled responses through the mask. He begins with the chocolate lab he had when he was in his early twenties, the one that liked to catch squirrels and hold them in his front paws without killing them. Harlequin. But then he’s in the black of stopped consciousness before he can speak another name.
    What seems to be a second later to Riley has been over two hours to those awake. He comes to in a recovery room, nurses swarming in and out with tubes of liquid and rolls of gauze. The hot anesthesiologist is absent and he can feel the effects of the anesthesia in his system. The room spins while he lies in his hospital bed and his stomach ripples with nausea.
    Riley shouts twice for Harlequin. He doesn’t realize the dog is long dead before he starts to cry.
    The surgeon who removed his toes comes into the room and pulls a clipboard from the base of Riley’s bed. He flips some papers around and puts a hand on Riley’s good leg. His touch is stabilizing, warm, and Riley does his best to stop his weeping. But he finds it difficult to keep the tears at bay. They’re marshaled on by the drugs in his system.
    “You’re going to heal nicely, Mr. Wanner,” the surgeon says. He’s an older man with white hair slicked close to his scalp and a pink polo shirt poking up from under his white doctor’s coat. “Some recovery time in the hospital and then some physical therapy to help you regain your balance and you’ll never know you’re missing those toes.”
    Riley gets his sniffling under control but the water flows steadily out his eyes. He forgets Harlequin and his captive rodents for a moment and remembers why he’s in the hospital. And suddenly, because of his taxed emotions and chemicals in his blood, the cause for his trauma is more nefarious than a broken link in a chain.
    “Someone’s trying to kill me, doctor,” he says between heaves of his chest. “It wasn’t an accident. There are forces, universal energies, trying to kill me. I had it too good for too long. My happiness is over, doctor. Life wants me dead.”
    The surgeon puts down the chart and moves around to Riley’s side. He puts a hand to Riley’s forehead, less out of medical practice than bedside comfort. “It’s the drugs they gave you to knock you out, Mr. Wanner. You’re completely safe. No one is trying to kill you.”
    And the tears keep coming. Riley squeezes his eyes shut to try and halt the water but the tears push past his eyelids, leaving his eyelashes damp and soft. He remembers the anvil now, how it was his fault it fell. He thinks of Harlequin, dead at five years, her inexhaustible energy propelling her in front of a maroon minivan.
    He feels like he’s in her body now. He imagines the heat of summer asphalt under his foot pads and the scent of musky squirrel on his moist nose. He knows he’s the only one trying to kill himself. He knows he will unconsciously keep running in front of cars, anvils, pain. No matter if he keeps calling his own