Like a Complete Unknown by Anara Guard

Author:Anara Guard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Wind Publishing
Published: 2022-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-six

Eight miles high

Huck, if you were sick or hurt, where would you go for help?” It was an idea that should have occurred to Robert weeks ago but had only struck him only now, as they stuck fliers on telephone poles around Circle campus.

“I’d come to your office,” Huck grinned. “No man, I’m putting you on, I know you only see the chicks. I’d go to one of the Free Clinics like I did when I got cut. They stitched me up real nice.” He pushed up a sleeve to reveal a neat white line arcing across his bicep.

“Ouch. How did that happen?” But Huck gave him that hooded look that meant he wouldn’t talk. (Or, as he would put it, “I’m not sayin’ shit.”) “It’s free because you didn’t pay anything?”

“Yeah, man, it’s free if you can’t afford it. But they’re also free like run by our people. They’re not in a hospital, not run by The Man. Black Panthers have their own on the west side, but I went to Haymarket. It’s in a church near Logan Square.”

“Sounds like a good place to check for Cathy. Come along?” He turned to go, but Huck took a final drag before crushing the cigarette butt beneath his heel.

“Nah, I’ll finish these fliers and hang out around here. Looks like there’s a concert tonight.” He gestured at a garish poster beside the flier he had just taped up.

“Suit yourself.” Robert unlocked his car door.

Half an hour later, he stood before a rundown Methodist church. Its rugged sandstone façade had blackened over the decades; gaps in the roof showed where shingles were missing. It looked like a hulking old man in a dirty coat with bald patches on his head. Shaggy clumps of grass sprouted intermittently in the dirt yard. According to a leaflet tacked on the front door, Reverend Taylor would offer the Sunday sermon “Peace in Our Time” and on Tuesday evening, all were welcome at a potluck community dinner. Robert couldn’t imagine many people came to this sagging house of worship. A sign directed him down a short flight of steps to the Haymarket People’s Free Clinic but the door was locked and no one answered his knocks.

As he remounted the steps, a red and white VW bus lurched to the curb, its side door slid open, and four young people spilled out. They pulled cartons and bundles from the back and trotted down to the clinic door as Robert called, “Excuse me?” to their backs.

The tallest man paused, cradling a cardboard box in his arms. “Help you?”

“I’m looking for the clinic director. Do you know where I might find him?”

The young man pushed his glasses up his nose to peer closely at Robert. He sported what passed for a short haircut these days, the ends barely brushing his shirt collar. “Tell me what you want and maybe I can point you in the right direction. What agency are you with?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. My name is Robert Lewis, I’m an M.

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