Page 35 of The Cajun Doctor

“I cut mah hand on a friggin’ chain saw an’ it won’t stop bleedin’.”

“The runs are runnin’ me ragged. Too much Cajun Lightning, I ’spect.”

“I need ta renew mah birth control prescription. Quick-like. Mah hubby Jack is horny as a jack rabbit these days. Ha, ha, ha.”

“Kin I get some of that viiii-ag-rah?”

“We heard the clinic was openin’ t’day.”

Clinic? Oh, my . . . ! Daniel put his face in his hands and counted to ten. He would bet his left nut that Tante Lulu had something to do with this.

In this day and age, people didn’t do this country doctor bullshit. Did they? Was he expected to be some kind of Little House on the Bayou kind of physician?

“Uh. The clinic isn’t open yet.”

Tante Lulu must have heard he’d received the provisional documents—God bless the bayou grapevine!—and figured he was open for business. In fact, the speed with which his application had been processed was amazing, now that he thought about it; more than a few steps must have been skipped. The interfering busybody!

“Cain’t ya help us?” the woman with the baby asked worriedly. The skin on her baby was yellow with jaundice, and the cough was alarming.

“There must be some other doctor or medical center where you can go.”

They shook their heads, one after the other. One man revealed, “My family, we doan take no charity. Tante Lulu sez yer cheaper than the average doctor. Plus, yer willin’ ta barter fer services.”

Tante Lulu is surely the Mouth of the South.

“I kin fix cars.”

Would that include Beemers?

“My Dora makes the best jambalaya and lazy bread this side of Nawleans.”

Is that my stomach growling?

“I got a bushel of tomatoes here, and baskets of cucumbers, potatoes, melons, and okra.”

Okra? What the hell would I do with okra? I hate the stuff.

“I’d like to have the baskets back, if ya doan mind.”

“During deer season, I kin send ya some venison.”

Bambi . . . they expect me to cook a dead Bambi? Well, Aaron knows more about that than I do. Or Aunt Mel, when . . . if . . . she ever moves here.

“Do ya like squirrel?”

“For a pet?”

The old guy cackled. “Hell, no. Ta eat, doc.”

To eat? Yeech!

“In a few weeks, I kin bring raspberries, huckleberries, and peaches.”

Okay, fruit, I like.

“I’m a plumber. Laid off since March.”

Glory days!