Vincent & The Doctor -- Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Vincent. I've heard this all before. I thought we were going to discuss what happened..."
"Doc, do you know why I'm here?" He interrupted. "I'm here because I'm not the kinda person who likes to be pushed around. I'll give anyone a fair shake, but I don't want to be messed with. I grew up on the dirty streets of New York and people ain't nice to kids like that so I learned to take what I needed, when I needed it."
"I remember this one time when I was a kid that my old man had me outside selling papers"

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"Hey Mister, Read about the Titanic. Biggest boat ever sailing into New York harbor." I hollars at a grizzly fellow walkin' by. I usually stood there with a stack of papers bundled with cord sitting at my feet. It's a cold morning, still early spring, and my coat ain't damn near warm enough.
"Biggest boat ever eh?" The guy stops and grabs a paper.
"That's two cents mister," I said to the guy.
"Sell many papers this morning son?"
"Yes sir," then that grizzly bastard clocks me as hard as he could. I wake up and I ain't got my coat on. Looks like I'm in a alley, not too far from where I was standing. My face is all swollen and I wanna cry, until I see the guy still standing near the edge of the alley. He's looking out to see if anyone is near by while he's rifling my coat pockets. He turns to look at me and catched that I'm awake and gives me this smile that makes me sick. It's the kinda smile a guy gives when he sees his kid playing with a puppy or when he learns to ride his bike. From this guy, it's not a nice smile at all. It's not the last time I'll see someone smile at me like that either. He starts smacking me around and I start crying and screaming, but no one comes to help me. He jams something in my mouth, slams my face in the dirt and starts doing some pretty unmentionable things to me, things no man should be doing to a thirteen year old boy and then just leaves me there and walks off with a newspaper.
I drag my bloody ass home and start telling my old man how it all went down and I get a beating from him for lying to him. Then I get another beating when I tell him I ain't got any of the money from the papers. Then I get another beating the next morning when I can't get out of bed to go sell papers. I laid in bed all day, hurting and crying. Come to find out that stupid boat sank and I coulda sold every paper I could get my hands on. When I got beat for that, is when I realized that people ain't nice to kids.

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"Vincent. That's not exactly why you are here you know."
"Yeah Doc, I know."

Vincent & The Doctor -- Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"The French were happy to see the first ships arrive with the Americans. The American Expeditionary Force, as we were coined by politicians, were sent over to clean up this Kraut mess. I wanna say it was around July 3rd when I was dropped off. I remember someone wishing me a happy independence day. The days are blurry. After spending a couple weeks at sea, I was a mess. Sick as a dog and smelled just as bad. The doc cleared me for duty even though my guts were twisting and I was still spending more time on the commode, than off. They were moving us around a bunch too. Thousands of our guys were coming off the boats every day so they were shuffling us around like a bad card game. But it wasn't all bad, we had a few breaks and a couple days after I got there I was drinking a beer and shootin' dice with some guys from B company. I ain't had a beer in almost 2 years back in the states."
"I lost about forty bucks to this Alabama boy before someone sees him swappin' dice. I jumped over guys tryin' to get a piece of that skrawny farm boy and more importantly, my forty bucks back. One of his buddies pulls out a blade and starts swipin' the air around me."
"Git back 'fore I cut you up boy", he drawls.
"In two steps I take his knife away and break his nose. I had the skinny kid in my hands when two other southern boys grab me and drag me down. I'm clockin' these boys left and right. Pretty sure I broke one guys jaw. One of them nailed me good in the gut, knocked the wind out of me and my stomach started turning again. They all got sprayed with my lunch. Now I was Rolling around on the ground getting the shit kicked out of me. I think one of those Assholes broke one of my ribs. That's when this big dago comes out of nowhere swingin' a bar stool. Ha, there was rednecks droppin' everywhere like some kinda dime novel hero. I wasn't complaining though. He walks over to me afterwards, lends his hand to help me up and tosses me a wad of green. We then make a break for it before we get into any trouble. He tells me his name is Chuck, Chuck Huxley. I never did figure out why a big Italian boy had a name like Huxley. Didn't matter. I got more than my money back and made a pal. Of course I didn't know then that one day he was gonna shoot me."

Vincent & The Doctor -- Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He opened his eyes quickly then shut them just as quick as the sunlight streaming through the open window shot daggers of pain into his already throbbing head. As he tried to adjust his eyes to the searing light of the room, he spots the moving shadow that stops before him, "G' Morning Doc."
"Good Morning Vincent," The shadowed form replied, "It seems you were rather harsh with the orderlies this morning. It seems they repaid you in kind."
Vincent's vision was improving as he could now see the room in some fashion. He was sitting in his usual place, on the over padded burlap couch, restrained, also per usual. He had a splitting headache and a new set of lumps along the base of his neck and shoulders, not unusual. "You'll forgive me Doc if I need a second to collect myself? The new cocktail of drugs you force on me makes it a little difficult to recover from the beating those clowns keep giving me." Doctor Ballard opened his mouth as if to reply but was cut off immediately, "Doctor Ballard, I wanna talk about what happened on October 17th now."
"This would now be the 4th time you've said this Vincent and..."
"If you'd just give me a sec to collect my thoughts Doc, I assure you, I ain't screwin' with ya."
"Very well Vincent." The Doctor sat back in his over-sized chair and scribbled a few notes onto his clip board. Vincent gives some thought to the two orderlies that worked him over a short while ago and grits his teeth almost painfully. The throbbing is lessening. He relaxes his jaw and feigns a smile.
"Where ya wanna start Doc?"
"Tell me about your time in the Army Vincent. This is where you met Mr. Huxley previously, wasn't it?
"Chuck Huxley..."