Roadapples and Prairie Oysters: Ch:45<title> </head> <body>   <body bgcolor="#ffffff"> <h1> <font color="#FF0000">ROAD APPLES AND PRAIRIE OYSTERS</font></h1> <font color="#FF0000"></font> <h3> <font color="#FF0000">Part 45.</font></h3> "What will you name him, Luka? What will you name your son?" Nikola smiled watching the gang stumble around on the front lawn, chasing each other with the hose and running through the lawn sprinkler. Acting like children, laughing, screaming, giggling, and swearing as they doused each other with water... Abby squealed, ducking a cold spray from the hose as Mark drenched her. <p> "Dickhead!! I'm going to get you for that!" She squawked grabbing a handful of water balloons and pitching them in his direction. Running after him, Abby hit a wet patch of grass, slid down on her butt and sailed across the lawn. Greene snickered, then fell onto the lawn, his sides splitting with laughter as she ended ass up in the flowerbed. <p> Luka looked at the old man, his hand quivering with palsy, the lit cigarette jittering dangerously close to Luka's bare knees. The weather had recently turned seasonably cold with the coming fall, but they'd been blessed with a warm day, everyone taking the day off from angst and taking their frustrations out on each other, in a friendly matter. "My son?? How sure are you that it'll be a boy, Nik? It could very well be a girl... Or twins for that matter," Luka shrugged. <p> "Are you happy about it? Are you happy about the baby? I know you hadn't been. I guess it's a shock after all these years. You know you should have married her long ago, why did you wait?" Nikola took a slow drag on his cigarette, flicking the ashes into the wet grass, sparks and cinder hitting it with a soft smoking hiss. <p> "I'm not even married to her now, Nik... I wish you would stop making all these plans for me. You're not my father." Luka said sullenly, watching Abby dance in the rainbows that sparkled in the sky, caused by the falling water. She was beautiful and he loved her very much. But... "It's complicated. We've both had setbacks. Situations where it wouldn't have been a good thing. For us to be married." <p> "Like when Carter slept with her..." Nikola offered, his son-in-law gawking at him. A strangled gasp of surprise uttered from his gaping jaws as Luka started to wonder how much the old man knew, about all of them. <p> "How did you know!?" Luka mumbled embarrassed. The last thing he needed the old man knowing was the love triangle bullshit. "I think I'll call him Ferdinand..." He murmured, changing the subject. <p> "She told me, Luka. Your Abby sat me down one day and we had a nice long talk. She loves you very much you know. What her and that John Carter fellow had, is well over. She's made that quite clear to me, and him," Nikola took a slow puff on the cigarette, his hand shaking as he butt it out onto the porch, his chest seizing with coughs. <p> Luka stared at him concernedly, putting out a hand to help, but he was batted away. "I'm an old man, Luka... Let me be. What do they say in your doctor language? DNR? Let me be... I am fine... I am old. I am getting on in years. It doesn't give you the right to fuss over me when I have a tickle in my throat," he grunted irritably, smoothing out his mustache with his fingers and running his hand over his mouth to wipe his lips. <p> His palm brushed over one knee wiping away the evidence of bloodied spittle on his fingers. I'm old... I don't need no fuss... Nikola thought to himself, fishing out another cigarette from his pack. "Light it please," he murmured, the cigarette clenched in his old and yellowed teeth. His gums the receded and brown of a devout smoker. As his former-son-in-law flicked the lighter near the tip, the old man's shaky hands sheltered it from the warm summer breeze. Nikola smiled slightly, nodding a thanks as he took a slow drag. "So... You never answered my question. What will you name your son?" <p> "I was hoping for a daughter, actually I like Monin..." Luka murmured in response. "Maybe Tanna.. Emma, Chloe," he shrugged. "I'm American now. I have to assimilate." <p> "I suppose you do. Perhaps Croatian middle names?" Nikola offered, the younger man nodding in agreement. "But what if it's a boy?" <p> "That's a good idea." He smiled sadly. "If it's a boy. I like Matthieu, or Nathaniel, Raine or Jagori. Reuben, maybe..." Luka shrugged. "I'm sure Abby will have some input." He inspected the old man with his eyes, imploring over each wrinkle and crease, the paleness of his skin, the jittery limbs. As his trained ears catching each laboured breath, Nikola's lungs became more wheezy and lined with mucus with each puff of the cigarette. "Nikola... What did you mean by DNR?" <p> "I mean if I happen to stop breathing, don't try to fix me. If my heart stops working, I don't want to be fixed. I've lived a long life, longer than most. I outlived my own daughter and that's not supposed to happen, Luka. You should know that," the old man murmured softly, placing his own wrinkled palm on Luka's back and patting it softly. <p> "So you're dying?!" Luka said accusingly. "Why didn't you tell any of us!? Why would you keep this from us? What if something had happened to you while we were working in the fields, I already watched my family die slowly, I'm not doing it again. Not again, Nik. You're coming to the hospital with me to get looked at," he said gruffly, as the old man wrestled out of his grip and glared at him. <p> "I'm not dying. I'm old... I'm just an old man... and if I happen to die here on this porch, this very minute, I don't want you to do anything. I'm just telling you that. You've known from the first day you came here that I was not a well man. Why does now change anything? Hmmm??" He looked at the man, struggling to his feet. "Now leave me be." <p> "Nik!!!" Luka called out to him as the old man tottered up the steps and into the house, slamming the screen door. <p> "What did you say to him, Luka?" Carol sputtered, screaming as Doug sprayed her with the hose, icy jets of water, squirting up the leg of her shorts. "Cut it out Doug!" She squealed, panting as she stumbled to the Luka's side. Sitting beside him, a warm pool of water formed beneath her, of what Luka prayed was just water. <p> "You're dripping all over me, Carol…" He muttered, irritated, turning to look back at the door, hoping Nikola would return. "Did you want something?" Luka murmured, straining his neck and then finally stumbling to his feet and leaving Carol sitting on the deck by herself. "I've got to go… See if he's okay," the man mumbled to himself as he entered the house. <p> "You're not going to chase after him are you? Do you really want to make things worse between you and Doug? More than they already are?" Carter sighed heavily as he watched Carol get to her feet, his broken wrist encased in plaster, the thought of tying a garbage bag to his arm just so he could get soaked didn't seem very appealing. <p> "He's upset about something, Carter. And besides, Doug and me aren't any of your business. You should keep your comments to yourself," Carol retorted angrily as the weight of his words sunk in. Luka wasn't any of her business either. He hadn't been for a very long time. "I should go see how he is. He was fighting with Nikola." <p> Carter shook his head, his vantage point on the old wooden porch, laid up on the porch swing, was perfect. He'd heard it all, assuming that he'd been asleep, or that the two men hadn't cared that Carter was there, too involved in their own problems to care. "They weren't fighting. I heard them. It was just a little argument, and I think you should leave them alone." <p> It had turned into this had it?? The man who had been chasing after Abby all these years and was the thorn in the side of the Kovac-Lockhart relationship, was giving relationship advice. "I really don't care what you think Carter..." Carol said acridly, hands on her hips as Doug walked up behind her. <p> "Care about what, hon'?" Doug murmured uneasily. He'd tried to make things right between the two of them. He'd tried to explain his infidelities... Yeah... plural... Doug sighed, was this karmic revenge? Finding out your wife was pining after another man all these years? "I'll go see what's wrong." <p> "Doug!" Carol squeaked surprised, watching him brush past her and into the house. "Doug... Come back.. Don't kill him." <p> Carol glared at Carter before stomping off and tackling Mark face first in a puddle of mud. He sighed. This was how it was going to be was it? Alone and hated while everyone romped around and had fun. Charlene had gone home, hailing a cab for her after they had managed to wake up the whole house. He had been right though. It had been marvelous, wondrous sex, even though he'd lost five bucks to Malucci. "Yeah... I know... I slept with the blonde one... That doesn't prove anything, Dave..." <p> "Pay up anyway..." Dave smiled, as he pocketed the money. "You fucked and I get the bucks... Hey, you didn't have to pay her too did you?" He had grinned, hooting with laughter as Carter yelped with surprise and chased him across the lawn. <p> *** <p> With the curtains drawn, the house was dark despite the bright sunshine outside. He walked unsteadily, his head swiveling from side to side, as if the two Croats would jump him any second. Perhaps it was a trap. The two men were laying in wait with a large car battery, alligator clips, and duct tape. That's all it would take to put him into an enormous amount of suffering. Duct-tape me to a chair... Doug thought. Pull down my pants, attach the clips where they'd inflict the most pain, and turn on the battery. It wasn't like anybody would come looking for him. It wasn't like they weren't all having fun outside in the sun and sprinklers and be here to save him. <p> "Doug?" The man jumped at the voice. A hand pressed firmly to his chest where his heart pounded madly, beating against his ribcage and trying to force its way free. Nikola smiled bemused. It had served Doug right, sneaking around like that, sulking in the shadows. "Did you want something?" <p> Doug smiled, realizing the Nikola was alone. What was one old man going to do? Nikola wasn't going to hurt him. The whole idea had been absurd. "I'm looking for Luka." He looked carefully at the elderly gentleman, he wasn't well. Any person could see that, medical training or not. "Are you okay, sir?" <p> Sir? This man at least knew how to respect his elders. Nikola nodded as a cough rose in his throat, his hand flicking ashes into a saucer before he brought the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag. "He's around. I'm not going to look for him, if that's what you're thinking." <p> Looking away from Doug for a moment, his gaze followed a fly that buzzed around his head, following it until the bug had landed beside the old man's tea cup. The unsteady palsied hand that had nearly burned the hair off Luka's legs with the cigarette, slammed down onto the table, shaking the cup, green tea sloshing over the sides. Lifting his hand, Nikola flicked the flattened housefly off the table with a gnarled finger, his yellowed fingernail scraping it from the table cloth before brushing it away. "You can go look for him if you like." <p> "Are you sure you're okay??" Doug said worriedly, watching the man take slow drags off the cigarette and flick the ashes towards the saucer. The oak dinner table was already covered in a fine gray dust of ash where Nik's unsteady hand had missed the ashtray, small black scars peppered the wood where cinders had burnt out and scorched the smooth finish. . <p> "Yes, I'm fine. Why does everyone keep bugging the old man? Leave me alone in peace!" Nikola grumbled, watching as Doug leaned in the doorway, his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Are you going to stand there and ask stupid questions or are you going to get me that bottle of scotch and join me in a glass?" He muttered pointing to the decanter and glasses that were sitting on Drizslav's side table. <p> Things did just get stranger, there wasn't any denying that. "Sure... If you like. Did you want it on the rocks, or neat?" Doug murmured softly as he strode across the kitchen and picked up the glass decanter, pouring himself a shot. <p> "On the rocks..." Nikola murmured, his gaze focused on his cigarette, taking the last drag before stamping it out into the saucer. "Are you much of a drinker, Ross??" <p> Doug stared at the shot glass before taking it up in his fingertips and knocking it back. "Not anymore. I don't mind a drink now and then though." Picking up the glass, he walked to the freezer, clinking a few ice cubes in the bottom before returning to the living room. After pouring a generous amount into the highball, Doug looked appreciatively at the bottle, and put it back into the cabinet. "Drizslav sure knew his liquor." <p> "Drizslav was a drunkard... He died of liver failure. Or hadn't you heard." Nikola muttered, grabbing the glass from the doctor and running it under his nose. "But you're right. The man knew his liquor," smiling slightly, the old man sipped at his drink and placed it on the table. "Did you come in here looking for me, or for Luka?" <p> "For both of you actually..." Doug said with a nervous smile. "I had a strange feeling you were both going to jump me and kill me." <p> Nikola nodded, as if this was a normal strain of conversation. "Well of course... The crazy Europeans, hacking the good American to bits. Murdering them in their beds. How else would legends arise of Vampires. Vampires were never really indigent of the Americas or Asia... Always European. I guess the Europeans are mysterious and dark... No?" he chuckled, taking another sip of his drink. <p> "Well, Luka doesn't like me. But you probably already knew that." Doug smiled wanly as he stood, walking to the cabinet to fetch himself another drink. "You're sure you're okay?" he asked again, watching him out of the corner of his eye as he poured himself a glass. <p> Nikola sighed. "Luka hates you. That much is certain. He was happy with Carol, from what I have found. He was quite happy. But she chose you. She chose to run back to you. And that wounded him deeply. You have a less than stellar record. You're unfaithful, you left a pregnant wife and ran off to another state. He doesn't think you're worthy of her. He has Abby now, but that doesn't stop him from being protective of his friends." <p> He glared at Doug's last comment. "How do I prove it to you people?!" He grumbled, pulling another cigarette from the carton. Laying the cigarette beside his glass he pulled his arm out in front of him. Slowly pointing his index finger towards his nose, his feebled eyes crossing as his pasty tongue crept from his lips and strained to touch the tip of his nose. Eyeing Ross, Nikola snorted, snatching up his cigarette. "Do you have a light or what?" <p> Doug nodded, pulling a lighter from his jeans and tossing it to the old man. "Here..." Walking to the table, he pulled out a chair and watched as Nikola strained to light his smoke. <p> As his thumb slipped again, the man cursed and threw the Bic in Doug's direction. "It's broken... No use to me." he grunted angrily, more angry and frustrated at himself than anything. Useless old man... He thought to himself. Cannot even light my own cigarettes. <p> "Here..." Doug smiled kindly, picking up the lighter off the table and flicking it quickly with his thumb, a yellow and blue flame wavering and sparking in the dim light and Nikola advanced towards it, lighting the tip of his cigarette and taking a long grateful drag. <p> "Thank you, Doug... Much appreciated.." Nikola whispered, tapping the edge of the cigarette on the saucer and letting it sit there for a moment. <p> "Luka seemed pretty upset earlier... Anything we should know about, Nik?" Doug pressed, the ice clinking in his glass as it started to melt and settle in the bottom. <p> "No... Nothing I can think of. Everyone worrying about nothing, as usual. If you're worried about the cough.. It's just a summer cold... Allergies. That's all." Nikola grumbled, knocking back the rest of his drink and slamming the glass down on the table. "Fill mine up too." <p> Doug sighed, grabbing the decanter and placing it on the table. It didn't look like it was going back into the liquor cabinet anytime soon. "Fine... It's just allergies then. That's fine. Then how come Luka was so angry with you?" <p> "Because he worries, like you all worry about the old man. Just because I'm old, doesn't mean I'm dying." Nikola spat into his kerchief before stuffing it into his pocket, grabbing up his cigarette. <p> "You are though... Aren't you? It's natural, not to want family members to know. Especially ones who have experienced so much loss already. It's okay if you don't want him to know. I won't tell him if you don't want me to, Nik. I promise. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that." Doug nodded encouragingly, setting his head in his hand and grabbing his glass with the other. Slowly he took a sip and set it down. "So?" <p> "Y-you people... Doctors, always trying to prolong life past what it's supposed to be. When it's my time to go, it's time. There's no stopping that. Why should I stop it? I've lived a full life. I-I have no family left except for a daughter who doesn't speak to me, I have grandchildren I will never know. I don't have family anymore. I don't have a purpose anymore." Nikola grunted, forcing himself up from the table. The sinewy old arms straining, trembling as the table bit into his palms, trying to steady himself. <p> "Nik? You okay??" Doug leapt up from the table as the old man crashed to his knees. "Nikola?? Mr.Stepjan?! GUYS!!!!!" <p> "Leave me alone, meddlesome doctors.." Nikola wheezed painfully as he fell to his side. "Let me be... Didn't I tell you that?! I.. I told you that... Leave me," he whispered hoarsely, his jaw slacked, his eyes glazed. Doug slipped his hand over the man's chest to reassure himself that the man's heart had stopped beating. <p> Kneeling forwards on one knee he moved his fingers over Nikola's face, slipping his glassy, dead eyes closed. He sat rooted in the spot, fighting the urge to find a long white sheet. Cover it up. Pull it over, pretend it's not there. Wheel it away to the morgue. Forgotten and frozen until the family claims it. <p> *** <p> Stumbling blindly down the stairs towards the yelling, Luka stopped in the doorway of the living room. Doug knelt over the body of Nikola. "You bastard. What did you do to him?!" <p> "Nothing, Luka... He died... I didn't do anything to him." Doug said softly, rocking forwards slightly and getting to his feet as Luka tackled him. <p> "You bastard... You killed him! What did you do to him!? You killed him!" Luka screamed hoarsely, beating the downed man with his fists, "Can't you leave anything alone without destroying it!? Why did you have to interfere in my life!?" <p> "Luka..." Doug licked his swollen lip and winced, as the blows kept coming. Just keep your head down, Ross.. He thought to himself. Let the guy ease his pain. He grunted in pain as a fist connected with his skull, jarring everything momentarily, he could feel Luka getting to his feet, a sudden relief washing over him until the man started booting him in the ribs. His head snapping back as it connected with his face. The guy wasn't ever going to stop.. Luka wasn't going to stop until he was dead. Kicking, punching, slapping. It felt like every inch had been broken or bruised by Luka's crazed, anguished fury. God... Curling up in a ball, Doug breathed slowly, willing the man to back away as the kicks to the head resumed when he heard an angelic scream. <p> "LUKA! What are you doing!?" Abby knelt beside Doug pulling his battered body into her arms. "Luka.... Leave him alone! Why did you do this? What did he do to you?" Soft, gentle hands wiped away the blood from his face, carefully removing his shirt, mopping his face with it, finger probing his bruised and broken flesh. "Luka... You could have killed him!" <p> "He killed Nik... Nik's dead... I... I found Doug over top of him. Doug killed Nikola." Luka murmured tearfully, his hands still balled into fists, his body still tensed. <p> "Doug??" Abby murmured as the head shifted in her arms, his eyes swollen and purple, welded shut as his bloodied lips mouthed 'no'. "Luka, go get Carol... Tell her what you did. Tell them all what's happened... Who do we contact for the funeral?" <p> Doug winced, his fogged and battered head struggling to make a coherent sentence. "He had a daughter..." he murmured hoarsely, blearily watching Luka's expression. <p> Luka nodded sadly, looking at Abby, his hands covered in blood as he slowly wiped them off on his pants and exited the house. "My sister-in-law... Natalia... I'll find her... I'll tell her, don't worry..." </body> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <p> <a href="road44.html">Chapter 44</a><p> <a href="road46.html">Chapter 46</a> <p><a href="index.html">Return to Front Desk. Stat!</a> </body> </html> </html> </object></layer></div></span></style></noscript></table></script></applet><script language="JavaScript" src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mc/mc.js"></script><script language="JavaScript" src="http://us.js2.yimg.com/us.js.yimg.com/lib/smb/js/hosting/cp/js_source/geov2_001.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="http://visit.geocities.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1256660042" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript> <IMG SRC="http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=76001089&t=1256660042&f=us-w7" ALT=1 WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1>