Read Online The Wrath of Jeremy by Stephen Andrew Salamon - Free Book Online Page A

ago!”
    “Well, ma’am, you must have called her
cellphone. What is this regarding?”
    “It’s regarding my son, Gabriel,” the mother
replied, pulling out her insurance card from her pink purse,
shifting her hands around everything it held, and then slapping the
card down on the desk.
    The nurse gave out a smile of intrigue, like
she had found gold, shifting her eyes toward Gabriel again, and
questioning, “You mean Gabriel Netter?”
    A wind, mixed with cold and warmth, shouted
its way through the hallways and entered the vast foyer, striking
Gabriel’s back and causing him to turn around. Behind him stood a
single, large door, with a large, obese male nurse, dressed in
white, standing in it, gaping toward Gabriel’s figure. Gabriel’s
frightened eyes turned away from him and stared at the female
nurse.
    “Yes, my son, Gabriel Netter is supposed to
see Doctor Callahan now,” replied his mother. The obese man walked
quickly up to them and stood next to her and Gabriel, not moving or
fidgeting at all, standing straight like a statue of emptiness.
    The head nurse looked into the obese man’s
eyes, and then stepped out from behind the desk, walking up to him
and grabbing onto his hand. She guided him away from Gabriel and
the mother, and then stopped, while she whispered something into
his ear. Gabriel saw her lips moving and tried to read them, not
liking that she was so sneaky, not understanding what secret she
had to say to the large man right in front of them. She turned back
to Gabriel and the mother, saying, “Yes, Doctor Callahan told us
about Gabriel. We’ll just take him up to his room now and he’ll see
the doctor when she arrives.”
    The mother was confused, unfamiliar with the
nurse’s words, asking, “You mean he’s gonna be admitted today? I
didn’t even bring his suitcase or things with me.”
    The obese man walked slowly up to Gabriel and
gave him a rock-hard fake smile, waiting for the head nurse to give
the orders to him to take Gabriel away.
    “That’s okay, you can bring them later. For
now, this nurse will take Gabriel up to his room,” the head nurse
explained.
    The large man then walked in front of the
woman, blocking Gabriel’s view of her and forcing Gabriel to see
only his large figure. With a gargoyle-like gut, round and plump,
and teeth that gleamed yellow like the sun, Gabriel glared at this
man in disgust, but then stared in a form of nervousness when he
saw the man’s fingernails, and how clumps of dirt and mildew were
embedded under their long, sharp form. The man pulled out a small
wheelchair from the side of the front desk and began to unfold it,
bending over to pull out the wheels. That’s when Gabriel saw lice
jumping around in the large man’s black puffy hair that had streaks
of gray that helped to highlight the lice even more. He scanned the
man’s head, and how his ears almost seemed taped down to his scalp
and bushes of hair surrounded their inner parts, causing Gabriel to
look away in revulsion. He tried to look behind this man’s gut to
see if he could get eye contact with his mother again. After the
chair was ready, the man unnoticeably pushed Gabriel into it and
waited for further instructions, while Gabriel did the same, not
knowing how to react to this man’s lack of hygiene, but realizing
that not everyone is clean. He finally caught sight of his mother
again after the large nurse stood behind the chair, and saw how his
mother was filling out forms and not even reading what she was
filling out.
    The mother kissed Gabriel’s face, tapped his
nose and grinned. “Sweetie, I’m gonna be down here waiting for the
doctor. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” The mother then
turned away and two heavily excited tears fell from Gabriel’s eyes,
pain-filled and with a mixture of fright, not wanting his mother to
go and not wanting to be here. The large man looked intently at
Gabriel and then at the head nurse, and, seeing her head nodding,
knew this