Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

Clay cut him off before he could finish with a raised voice and a jabbed finger, “You just stop right there, Doc. Now, this is the last time I’ll say this for you: people like to think they got folks in position around them who know what the fuck they’re doing, huh? I don’t give half an aborted shit what your title was when we still had things like medical boards, the FDA, and whatever the fuck else it was that had the final say on such matters. I don’t give a suppressed nun’s fart if you were a receptionist in the ears-nose-and-throat office, understand? You nursed people in a doctor’s office, which makes you eminently more qualified than anyone else in the group.”

Having built up a full head of steam, Clay’s lips tightened and drew back from his teeth, causing the salt and pepper whiskers of his bottom lip to stick straight out, while his eyes squinted in frustration. He swung his head back and forth, barking each successive word every time it stopped at the end of its path, “I’m… the… last… fucking… authority! You’re promoted! In fact, fuck it! You’re the Surgeon General now. How about that?”

Casey placed his forehead into a hand as though someone had just told him the most catastrophically unfunny joke in all of human history and jerked his head in a curt nod.

“That goes for everyone else!” Clay growled around the rest of the room. “His name is The Doc. It isn’t Casey or Nurse Casey or fucking Nurse Ratched! It’s Doc, and if I hear anyone calling him otherwise, I’ll have Pap here shit in your sleeping bag. Are we all fucking clear on that?”

There were various levels of assent given, some enthusiastic while others were less so. Satisfied, Clay said, “Well… Doc … what can I do for you?”

Sighing, Casey (or rather, Doc) said, “Well, it seems as though some folks are suffering a bit of a crabs outbreak.”

Confused, Clay glanced over at Pap and then back at Doc. “What the fuck? Like… crabs ?” He said this last while making pinching gestures with his free hand.

Doc nodded. “Pubic lice. We’re getting it under control; the last few scavenging parties did us fairly proud, and there’s plenty of permethrin to go around. Even so, we’ll need to spread the word… uh, discreetly, that people want to be more careful.”

“I don’t understand this,” Clay said. “How does an outbreak of crabs just happen ? We’ve all been living together under the same conditions a few months now…”

Pap cleared his throat to draw his boss’s attention and said, “Well… it seems some of the women… well, they don’t keep no truck with all the physical labor. Seems they’d rather earn their credits on their backs if you take my meanin’.”

Clay’s left hand dropped back into his lap, forgotten. “I’ll be damned.” He glanced out the front window and took a sip of coffee; really just a delay tactic to collect his thoughts. He looked back at Doc and asked, “Whores?”

“Looks like it.”

Clay sighed. “Well, we just gotta knock that off. Never mind the health hazard… we just… well, we can’t let a thing like that continue on, goddamn it. There’s kids and so forth…”

“Hang on, Baws,” Pap interrupted. “Let’s think this thing through—”

“Oh, Jesus, Pap, you’re not sampling the trim, are you?”

“No, no,” he shook his head. “But look at this: I been askin’ around since Doc came to me about this… just this mornin’, that was. Seems there’s been a lot less fightin’ since them whores started whorin’.”

“How much less?” Clay asked suspiciously.

“Like, a lot .”

“I can corroborate that,” said Doc. “I’ve been treating a lot less split lips and busted knuckles recently.”

“Still,” muttered Clay, possibly to himself. “Correlation doesn’t equate to causation.”

Pap scoffed. “Coruscation or not, Baws. They’re makin’ my job just all kinds of easier.”

Clay sighed again, trying to ignore the throbbing at his temples, and drained the last of his coffee. Pap asked if he wanted it topped off, which he declined gratefully, asking instead for a bottle of water. When he had it, he drained half of it down without stopping to take a breath, the way little children do when they burst into the kitchen immediately after an extended period of running around in the backyard. He gasped and nodded his thanks to Pap, who offered a relaxed salute.

He thought it over a moment longer. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Okay, then. Let ’em whore if they want to whore.” He pointed a warning finger at Pap, “But they stay on the outskirts and turn a fair rate. One credit for one hour’s work, just like the rest of us, huh?”

“They ain’t gonna like that, Baws. I hear they’re gettin’ a credit for a single trick. A lot of them aren’t takin’ more than but a few minutes.”

“Bullshit, Pap. We have a system. It works because it’s simple: one credit—one hour of labor. If they want to charge a credit per trick, they can fuck for an hour.”

“Hell, I can’t think of anyone I’d want to fuck fer an hour.”

“Well, you’ve got simple tastes, Pap,” smiled Clay. He looked at Doc and said, “Put fresh razors and soaps into their hands. Anyone that wants to whore can do so with a shorn snatch, no exceptions. Make ’em part of your rounds, Doc, and inspect ’em every third day or so. And put rubbers at the top of the lists. We’ll have some health standards, huh? Try to head off any other miserable shit before it gets discovered by some sap with more cock than self-control.”

“You think you can enforce that?” asked the recently promoted Doctor.

Clay leaned forward and softly said, “See if I can’t. First person I hear about going to the rodeo bareback gets a boot heel to his fucking balls, and then let’s see how quick they are to go around threatening the general health of our little fucking tribe. I don’t ask for much, but I damn well expect a little common courtesy. I’ll fucking have it.” He jabbed the armrest of his chair with an index finger to emphasize the point.

None of the others in the room had any response to that, so he leaned back in his chair and nodded. A confused expression came over his face shortly after and he said, “Wait a goddamned minute! A credit per fuck? So who’s been tracking these transactions?” Clay swung his head left to lock onto John DeMaio, the keeper of all accounts and balances, and demanded, “Johnny?”

Johnny shrugged uncomfortably and said, “I have my suspicions, but everyone in my group has denied it when I asked.”

“Yeah, and no doubt working in a freebie for himself to keep it all quiet,” snarled Clay. He looked back at Doc and said, “Start your rounds today. Line up all the whores next to all the bean counters, and start working your way down the row looking for crotch mites. Tell each patient exactly what the fuck you’re looking for, and let them talk with the others waiting in line when you’re done with them, if they want. That’ll make him nice and twitchy, whoever the hell he is, huh?”

Doc looked over at Johnny uncertainly, but Clay snapped his fingers.

“Don’t look at him, Doc, he doesn’t have any say in this. Any of the bean counters has crabs, you fucking tell me, is that understood?” Looking back at Johnny, he said, “And, when we find this guy, he’s fucking fired. Start making plans for a replacement right now, understand? Whoever the hell it is setting up this little graft operation can go to work in the fucking laundry… see how he likes that shit.”

Johnny nodded slightly and said, “Uh… what if none of my guys are infested, Clay?”

The other man’s eyebrows rose, and his voice took on that silky, dangerous quality it sometimes picked up when he decided that enough was enough. “Then we give you all to Pap and let his people sort it out. If it goes that far…”