If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on, now
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see
But, if I stayed here with you, girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you can not change
And this bird you can not change
And this bird you can not change
Lord knows, I can't change
Bye, bye, baby it's been a sweet love
Though this feeling I can't change
But please don't take it so badly
'Cause Lord knows I'm to blame
But, if I stayed here with you girl
Things just couldn't be the same
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you can not change
And the bird you can not change
And this bird you can not change
Lord knows, I can't change
Lord help me, I can't change
Lord I can't change
Won't you fly, free bird, yeah
Twenty-five miles from the monument, according to the GPS, Mark began coughing severely and woke himself up, meeting instant pain. He tried to bring his legs up to his chest but barely got half way before dropping them back down and trying to roll on his side. He was moaning in agony and began mumbling something none of the boys could make out. Jake placed his hand on Mark's arm and reminded him they were all there and asked him what he needed. His question went ignored.
I said maybe, you're gonna be the one who saves me. And after all...
Brad, who had taken over driving duty just before crossing the state line, turned the stereo off and looked in the backseat at his friend. "Shit dude, hold on buddy. We're pulling over at the next exit. Just hang in there for a few more minutes." Mark continued mumbling to himself. Jake thought he heard the word Mom, but couldn't be sure.
The van exited at the next off-ramp and the boys found themselves in a town roughly the size of a shoebox with a giant billboard advertising a place called Wall Drug . There was a Motel 6, though, and that was good enough. Brad tore into the parking lot, stopping directly in front of the office. "Keep him calm, I'll be right back." He opened his door and hopped out, engine still running, and made his way briskly into the office, slamming his hand down on the bell to get the worker's attention. He paid for two rooms with an adjoining door, grabbed the set of keys and dashed back to the van and pulled it into a spot directly in front of their quarters. The sun was just beginning to rise. All three able-bodied boys sprang from their seats and exited the van. Brad tossed Daniel the keys, "Rooms 106 and 107. Get the door open and the bed ready. We'll be right there." Daniel nodded and ran towards the room. Brad leaned in the car, "Hang in there, dude, we're going to get you some medicine and a nice bed. Sound good?" Only moans answered.
"Dude, should we wheelchair it or just carry him?" Jake asked.
"Umm. Shit. Dude? Wheelchair or you want us to carry you?" Still no audible response. "Fuck it, let's carry him. Be careful though." Jake got in the van and stood hunched over behind Mark's chair. Brad took up post at his feet. "Okay dude, on three, careful. Ready?"
"I'm ready. Marcus, you ready?"
"One...two...three." The two of them slowly and cautiously lifted Mark up and out of his chair as Jake walked around and took the full burden of Mark's weight. As Mark, in Jake's arms, made their way to the motel room, Brad grabbed the medical bag, closed the door and followed directly behind them.
Daniel was standing by the bed and had the covers all turned down to welcome its guest. Jake gently laid him down. Brad had the medicine bag on the counter, opened and was rummaging through it, pulling out all its contents and setting them in a row. "Shit, Mark, what do you take?"
"He's not going to answer, bro" Daniel said. "He needs the Oxy. I've seen him take that shit when he wakes up like this. It's the Oxy, I'm sure of it."
Brad grabbed the bottle and spilled out two pills into his palm. "Hand me that notepad on the dresser, Jacob." Jake grabbed it and tossed to him. Brad ripped off a sheet and put the two pills on top. He screwed the lid back on the bottle then smashed it down on the pills, over and over, until they were broken into several pieces, then began to grind up the pebbles by pushing down hard on the bottle and spinning it back and forth. When the pills were successfully transformed into powder he rolled the paper up and passed it to Jake. "Careful dude, that'll make it dissolve fast. Try to dump most of it under his tongue if you can."
Jake held the paper over Marks mouth. "Daniel, open his mouth for me, try to keep it still." He rolled the paper tighter making the dispersing hole smaller while Daniel gently held Mark's mouth open. Jake waited for the right moment and when Mark's tongue shot up towards the roof of his mouth, he quickly poured the ground up Oxy under it. "Shit, where's his juice?"
"God damn it! I left it in the van." Brad bolted out the door and returned a few moments later with the mostly full bottle of apple juice from the gas station so many hours ago. "Can he swallow?"
Daniel looked up, "I have no idea. We never got around to asking him exactly what to do. We fucked up."
"Yeah, I'll say we fucked up. Look." Brad nodded towards Mark whose body began to loosen and become still. He eyes and mouth both shut slowly and within seconds he had slipped peacefully back into his sleep.
Brad, Daniel and Jake collapsed onto themselves in equal parts relief and sheer terror. "Fuck me," Daniel said.
"Okay guys, from now on, we are better prepared," Brad said. "No more incidents like this one. We need to have everything on hand and we need to have the back seats of the van folded down with a blanket and pillow at all times. We got lucky this time, but God knows when it will happen again."
"Agreed," Jake said. "When he wakes up we have to get him to drink something though."
"He had that ice in the car," Daniel said, "so at least he has something in him. I don't think he's peed either. We'll have to handle all that shit when he wakes up, I guess." Jakes face noticeably showed grimace. "Bro, you knew it was going to be difficult."
"I know. No worries. We can handle this."
Brad rubbed his eyes with his palms, heart still thumping in his chest. "Anyone mind if we get a little sleep now?"
"Absolutely not," Jake said.
"I got us adjoining rooms, we'll just leave the door open, that way we can all listen for Mark."
"You guys get some sleep," Daniel said. "There's a little gas station across the street. I'm going to go get a few drinks and hopefully some yogurt or something for Mark when he wakes up."
"I'll go with you, dude. That's a good idea."
"I'll stay here with him," Brad said, plopping down on the room's second bed. "Get Gatorade, too. He likes the red one." Daniel nodded and he and Jake exited the room, the sun showing itself fully now. Both boys squinted as their eyes met the day.
They returned to the room to find Mark still resting peacefully and Brad laying half on his bed with his legs dangling off. "Brad, you awake?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah, I'm up," he said, wrestling himself into a seated position.
"We got some snacks and stuff, bro, and a bag of ice."
"Cool," Brad said, getting to his feet. "I'll run out to the van and get the ice chest. I need a phone charger, too. I'm at like eight percent." He stood up and grabbed the keys from the table and walked outside and Daniel was emptying the bags from the gas station. Jake walked outside to help with the luggage.
"I need my charger, too. And a change of clothes."
"Dude, what you need is a shower. You still stink of Val-gina."
"Ugh dude, don't remind me."
Brad opened the back hatch of the minivan, grabbed the ice chest set it on the pavement and drained the water from it. He then loaded up as many bags as he could, hanging them on his shoulder. Jake took the two bigger suitcases with wheels and closed the door. They hauled everything back in to the room and unloaded. Daniel opened the bag of ice and dumped it in, putting a few drinks inside and four Yoplait yogurts.
"Alright guys, it's not fancy," Daniel said, "but we've got some delicious Hostess donuts, fresh as the Prince, I'm sure. Some Ding-Dongs, some delicious and oh-so-healthy Twinkies and some orange juice."
"Donuts," Brad said as he was promptly tossed a package.
"I'll take the Ding-Dong," Jake said, grabbing them from the table. "I haven't had one of these things in years, man. Seriously, like at least ten." He opened the package and took a huge bite, consuming more than half of the crème-filled cake with a single chomp. "Oh God, they're just as good as I remember."
The boys giggled a bit as they each ate their selected breakfast and drank their juice. "So, what's the plan, guys?" Brad asked.
"No idea, bro," Daniel said. "I say we just stay here for the day, let him rest, and when he feels up to it we continue on towards Mt. Rushmore. There was a diner behind the gas station so when we wake up we can get dinner or lunch or whatever."
"That's fine with me," Jake said.
"Me too. We really need to figure out his medicine situation though. We need to figure out exactly what he has and what he needs and when he needs it. Today freaked me out, man, and I don't want to be caught in that situation again."
"None of us do, dude," Jake said. "I'm pretty sure each of his prescriptions has the dosage and all that shit on it. We can figure it out. Plus, we always have the magic of the internet to help guide us."
Brad stood up again and picked up the pill bottles one at a time. "Hey, here ya go, Danny-boy." He tossed Daniel a bottle. Medical marijuana.
"Ha! Dude, let's save this for later."
"Whose phone has a charge? Mine is deader than Yahoo Serious' movie career."
Daniel fished his iPhone from his pocket, "I've got plenty. What do you need?"
"Here, we need to look up these drugs. We can't mess this up."
"Dude, maybe we should have put a little more thought into this trip before just taking off," Jake said.
"Yeah, well in hindsight, you are correct. But we didn't have time and the opportunity came up. I swear to God though, if he gets bad I'm calling off the whole trip and taking him to the closest hospital." The boys each slowly nodded. "Okay, Danny, pull up Google and type in these drugs, see what it gives us. Ready?"
"Ready."
"Okay, the first one we know, Oxycontin. Skip that." He picked up the next bottle. "Okay, this one is...Meth-o-tri-me...Forget it. I'll just spell M-E-T-H-O-T-R-I-M-E-P-R-A-Z-I-N-E."
Daniel punched the letters into his phone and clicked on the first article Google offered. "Okay, it looks like that one is used forrrr... Delirium? Wait, yeah, it says like for mood changes, hallucinations, confusion or memory loss." Brad sat at the table and wrote down Methortimeprazine and its use. "What's next?"
Brad grabbed the next bottle. "This one looks to just be a high-dosage of ibuprofen." The next bottle was the morphine. "This is the one I'm worried about. I really have no idea what it does. Shit, the only thing I know about morphine is from that movie The Crow when Brandon Lee squeezes it out of that beat-up woman's arm and says MORPHINE IS BAD." The three of them shared a laugh. "Seriously, dude, ever since then I've been like Okay, Crow says morphine is bad, good enough for me, I'm never touching the shit."
Daniel smiled and looked down at his phone, continuing the research. "This says that not only can the morphine help the pain and allow the patient to sleep, it also helps if he gets shortness of breath. So, that's good to know. Does it say dosages on the bottles?"
"Yeah, we're set there. I hope. Next up is, shit, um, Bendzodia...Ugh! B-E-N-Z-O-D-I-A-Z-E-P-I-N-E. Who comes up with these goddamn names?"
"Okay, Ben-zo-die-zap-een, I guess, is used to manage anxiety."
"Shit," Jake said, "let's all pop a few of those."
"Don't tempt me, bro."
"Hey, here is Oxycodone. Anyone know the difference between this and the other?"
"Nope. I'll look it up." Brad stretched in his chair, his back was hurting and his legs felt cramped. He was exhausted, as was everyone else in the cramped motel room. "It just says for pain. I guess it's pretty much the same thing."
"Okay, the only other stuff are a few fen patches and the medi-Mary, and, um, Ambien. That's just for sleep, though."
"Should we put another one of those patches on him now?" Jake asked. "He said they took a while to work, remember?"
"He's already got one, remember? They take a while to kick in. Ugh! Let's just wait for the Oxy to settle a bit. I don't want to load him up on a drug cocktail already. Christ, he's already had one O.D. this week."
"Okay, how 'bout this idea then? Sleep! Pass me one of those Benzo-Fuckitalls to knock my ass out."
"Preach on, Brother Jacob." Each of them retired to their beds and swiftly drifted off.