I finally found out Chore's secret, the reason he gets regular deliveries from that medical supply company. He's offering unlicensed medical care for folks who can't afford to go to the hospital.
I found this out because one of his patients was on my doorstep when I came home from work today. I walked up and he rolls his head back because he obviously can't lift it and says "Chore Oboe?" But he's too out of it to actually respond when I tell him he's got the wrong person. And he's too fucking heavy to haul over to Chore's door, who at this point I don't even know if he's in right now, so against my better judgement, I drag him into my kitchen. At the time, I just thought he was a drunk friend, he looked like he was on the verge of passing out, but there didn't seem to be anything really wrong with him.
I knocked on Chore's door (hammered, really, I was pissed and tired and just wanted to go to sleep) and luckily the bastard was home. He wasn't too happy that his friend had landed on my door and I wasn't happy about it either, fuck you very much.
Until we got back to my place and there's a huge dark patch of....something on the front of his jacket now. Chore took one look at him, then turned to me and this is no shit what he said:
"I'll give you three hundred dollars to let me use your kitchen for an hour."
That's my rent for the month plus utilities. He left me with the now bleeding man, then came back with an old-fashioned doctor's bag.
A tattoo on his forehead and a doctor's bag? What kind of guy does he think he is? Fucking ridiculous is what he is.
Yet there he was, saving a guy's life on my kitchen floor. I don't know how long it really took, it was definitely longer than an hour, but I stood there and watched him operate. The sharp smell of blood, the pained groans, the light glinting off the needle, the-
Are you fucking kidding me? Even an idiot like me knew that if you're going to be operating on someone, you need to clean your shit up first. Before he finished threading the needle, I pulled it out of his hands and grabbed the bleach from under the counter. Not the best choice, but seeing as how he hadn't brought anything with him-
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Chore loomed over me, light shining off a sharp blade in his hand. Suddenly it looked more like a weapon and less like a tool. No... not in his hand. It was his hand. His finger. Oh fuck.
I was ready to chuck the bottle of bleach at his head and run...but the smell of antiseptic started to push away the scent of blood. A flash of white in the corner of my eye. A...beak? I couldn't turn around to see, I didn't want to turn around. I didn't want to see whatever it was behind me. The pressure in the room was intense, it hurt to breathe.
Chore's eyes flicked over to the....thing at my shoulder, then the scalpel wasn't a scalpel anymore, it was his finger. He stepped back and held out his now normal hand for the needle. The pressure went back to normal and I gasped in a deep breath. I think he did the same, but he hid it better than I did.
"Gloves."
"Fuck you, I don't have any gloves."
"You moron." Luckily I kept a box next to the cleaning supplies. Bleach is hell on the skin.
Hell, he was already pissed off, and he was afraid to do anything to me thanks to the...it. So I went for the gold. "And I think your tattoo is stupid, too."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he just shook his head and pulled on the gloves. I crouched down next to him and kept an eye on him in case he pulled the same stunt again. After a few minutes, he started asking for my help, which to be honest, was kind of cool.
We were there until well past dawn when Chore finally finished. The jerk tossed the dirty gloves onto the floor, then pulled three hundred in cash out of his wallet and threw it right in the middle of the dirty bloody towels. Fucker. He hauled his friend into a fireman's carry and walked out the door without so much as a goodbye.
Not that I wanted anything more to do with him, but, you know, basic fucking manners is all I ask. Since it's now 7 o'clock in the morning and I still have to clean up my kitchen.
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