Django Durango

It had been a whirlwind couple of months. If she’d been told that rainy night when she’d left their – Anton’s – house to go to Nick’s stupid party that she would never return, she wouldn’t have believed it. Yet here she was now in her own office with the lights off just in case, snatching notes out of her file cabinets and looting her own chemistry bench. Anton wasn’t in the office. Sally checked with Betty, his secretary, to make sure he’d be out at a lunch meeting when she came to collect her things. The absolute last thing she needed was for him to catch her here making off with company property. She tossed everything – gently, in the case of the chemicals – into a single banker’s box on her desk.

She only needed one last thing. Sally yanked open the fourth drawer of the last file cabinet and pushed the hanging folders back to reveal her new Joy formula notes lying hidden at the bottom of the drawer. She’d finally perfected it a couple months ago and had started using it herself, but she hadn’t told Anton. Her mother had always been so worried about Sally’s ability to keep a man around, but Sally had also learned that it was prudent to have a backup plan in case one needed to rid themselves of a man too. This new Joy formula was hers.

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“I could put some hinges on it, maybe. Or install a knob,” Corporal Hardy said. The only thing Hardy’s skill set as a joiner and that of a shipwright had in common was carpentry work. Fortunately or not, Hardy managed to get the wooden part of General Byng’s boat in working order weeks ago, but that left him with no other improvements to report now. Despite his admitted lack of ability, though, this was a good post to have so he made a symbolic show of looking busy by polishing a smudge of the battered yet shiny hull. “Aside from that, I don’t think there’s much else I can do for it. The engine’s rusted over, but I don’t know the first thing about motorworks.”

“If we was meant to be in boats, we’d be the Home Navy, now wouldn’t we?” Corporal Cheeseman groused. He’d been sent to check on Hardy’s progress in this foolhardy endeavor. “Where does the General think he needs a boat to get off to anyway?”

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September 5th, 1964

Freshly gassed with Coconut, Haworth waited at the end of his bed for the mist to settle and his breakfast to be brought in. When his door opened at 8:00 o’clock sharp – contrary to most employers who had to grant some leniency with time once Joy had been introduced, Verloc insisted that the daily schedule be maintained with exacting punctuality – a new nurse he didn’t recognize came in with his morning meal.

“Oh! You’re a new face,” Haworth said, slipping into his tried and true harmless old man act. “And a pretty one too! Just when I thought it couldn’t get any brighter in here.” While he usually acclimated to his increased dosage of Coconut by the second day enough as to be in more deliberate control of himself, this was an act he’d perfected over his years in here so well that he no longer needed cunning to perform it. He could play it entirely on instinct now.

“Don’t try to sweet talk me, Dr. Haworth,” the new nurse said. Her tone was brusque and her posture guarded. She kept a close eye on him as the door closed behind her. “The others warned me about you.”

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September 5th, 1964

The fever had set in today, and Gemma oscillated back and forth between sweating like a pig and being chilled to the bone, but at least the headache finally seemed to plateau. It still cut a sharp, persistent throb in her sinuses and eyes, but served to distract from how cold Gemma felt. She kept her blanket pulled around her tightly, even as she left the bed to eat her breakfast, making herself into a puffy marshmallow shivering at her tea table.

After breakfast, Gemma sat herself on the bed with her back to the wall with the window into the next cell, bundled up in her blanket, and waited for Dr. Verloc. When he arrived, they shared the space, but neither spoke. He didn’t even announce himself or greet her today. He simply let himself in, leaned against the wall by the door, and favored her with a glance every so often. Gemma sincerely wondered what these visits were meant to accomplish. Verloc did not seem the least bit interested in her or her condition or how she was adjusting to the switch between Blackberry and Coconut.

“What are you actually doing in here?” Gemma asked finally, her voice weary. “I can’t imagine you’re finding out much just standing there.”

“I’m observing,” Verloc said tersely.

“Have you observed anything interesting yet?” Gemma asked, trying to put on some of her flirtatious charm but her tone faltered midway through and she came off snappy instead. She felt too sweaty and shivery to convince even herself that she was up to that approach in this condition.

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September 4th, 1964

“How are you feeling, Harry?” Verloc broached from his established spot by the door.

“Like a caterpillar smoking hashish,” Haworth declared in a lazy drawl. He sat on the edge of his bed, at the foot so as to be far enough away that Verloc couldn’t inspect him too closely from his corner.

The morning after a Crash Day was a mixed bag. He ate well at breakfast so he wasn’t hungry or irritable as he had been the previous two days, but he always ended up doing something on Crash to earn a higher dosage of Coconut the next day. On an otherwise clear head, the increased dosage left him feeling loopy and not in as much control of himself. It was as though he were operating on a stream-of-consciousness auto-pilot, speaking without thinking through his words and relying on the feelings behind them to dictate how forthcoming he should be. While he couldn’t claim to be happy the way his own Joy formula had made him in the past, he was at least content on Coconut. If he’d incurred an injury as he had this time, though, Verloc would want to look it over.

“What?” Verloc said, troubled by the oddness of Haworth’s answer and chancing a step closer. Though Haworth had spoken so cryptically with the intent of worrying Verloc, the note of it in his voice put a point on the fact that there wasn’t anything actually keeping Verloc in the corner. Saying things that made him sound like he might be concussed would make Verloc want to come closer.

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