James Axler – Freedom Lost

J.B. and Mildred were standing together for the second time in the front room of the tiny clinic Dr. Michael Clarke called an office. It was two hours after Ryan’s battle, after the cuts had been wrapped and the broken toes taped. Winded and bruised, the one-eyed man had accepted his winnings from the pit organizers.

Ryan had passed the credit chit to J.B., and they’d agreed to meet as soon as the Armorer had obtained the two pairs of glasses.

“You sit. You wait,” Clarke replied, having stepped out of the back of the establishment when hearing J.B. and Mildred enter. After J.B. had shown him the credit chit from Ryan’s fight in the pit, the doctor had most anxiously instructed them “not to leave his sight.”

Mildred couldn’t help but be amused by the fact that Clarke dressed the part of doctor. He wore thick horn-rimmed bifocals, a long white lab coat, conservative necktie, conservative shoes.

“What if we’re in a hurry?” Mildred said, enjoying the brief, satisfying rush of power. After the way they had been previously treated when entering Clarke’s office the previous night, it felt good to see the little balding man squirm. Now that J.B. was flush, the self-appointed physician was eager to see to their wants and needs.

“I’m with a patient right now,” Clarke explained.

“Maybe you needed to make an appointment, Johnno, wait, that’s what you tried to do last time we were here.”

“Could be,” the Armorer agreed, warming to the game. “Hey, Doc Clarke, you want me to come back?”

“No, I want you to wait.”

J.B. sat down slowly. “Make it quick.”

“Of course.”

“Say, Dr. Clarke? I do have one question before you go,” Mildred probed.

“Yes?”

“Are you an ophthalmologist or an optometrist?”

“Neither. I never could tell them apart.”

Mildred smiled, feeling oddly the way she imagined Doc must feel when catching her in an error. “An ophthalmologist is a medical doctor who can practice surgery and diagnose”

Clarke interrupted her. “I was joking. I know the difference. But working with such crude instruments keeps me from practicing surgery. I do the best I can. If you want to be smug about it, I suppose I’m nothing more than a glorified optician.”

Bingo, Mildred thought, but she didn’t want to antagonize a man whose services they needed, after all. “Just curious. That’s all.”

MOMENTS LATER, Clarke reappeared. “I am sorry for keeping you, Mr. Dix. Please come back with me.”

“You want company?” Mildred asked.

“No,” J.B. replied, his tone sharp.

“Whoa! Excuse me for asking!”

The Armorer’s tone softened. “I mean, no. I’d rather do it myself.”

Mildred looked at her lover with an odd expression. “I’ll wait out here, then.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Clarke told her. “Usually what eats up the time is the trial and error of matching the right lenses to his eyes. I don’t have the luxury of writing him a prescription and sending him on his way. We have to go through the boxes, hoping to find frames and lenses in the same package that fit.”

The examining room was lined with cabinets on three sides, a salmon pink series of upper cabinets and lower cabinets. A black countertop ran along the tops of the lower. The fourth wall was cabinetless, and dotted with various eye charts and diagrams of the interior of the eye.

Some gear J.B. didn’t recognize was on wheels in a corner. Four three-legged stools were lined up along one of the cluttered counters.

“You do a lot of business? With glasses, I mean,” he asked.

“Sure. No matter what, you’ve got people with failing vision. I do some work with contact lenses, too, but those are much more troublesome to match up to an individual and finding proper cleaning fluid’s a bitch,” Clarke replied as he peered intently at J.B.’s open eyes. His attention was drawn to the white slashes of the various adhesive bandages on J.B.’s frowning visage.

“What happened to your face, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Cut myself shaving.”

“On your forehead?”

J.B. gave the optician a scathing look. “That’s why I need glasses.”

“Very well,” Clarke said, letting the matter drop. “But I warn you now, you’re going to have to talk to me if you want my help. I have no use for a man who grunts and speaks in monosyllables. If I’m to treat you, I must have your cooperation.”