Self Help: A Novel

By Richard Cravens

About the Book
Self Help was born out of the notion that when people lose faith in our courts and other institutions, they will resort to “self-help,” which looks like chaos, vigilantism, and rioting in the streets. What does that mean for real people? How do we get stuff done when the courts and other institutions not only refuse to help in a timely manner, but actively get in the way? The answer is that we must help ourselves.
This book is about three people who have urgent, desperate problems, which cannot wait for a broken system. They must help themselves, but how? The system may be broken, but it works frustratingly well when it comes to punishing those who help themselves.

About the Author
Richard Cravens lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, son, two daughters, four cats, and two dogs. After a relatively successful career in the hospitality industry, and after a bout of temporary insanity, he was sworn into the New Mexico State Bar at the age of 46. Despite his best attempts by hang-gliding, rock climbing, kickboxing, bar fighting, and drunken jeep crashes, he did not die of stupidity, got sober, and now he has an incredible life, for which he is very grateful.
Richard has been a member of the Biomedical Ethics Committee at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center since his first year of law school. He belongs to the New Mexico Lawyer's Assistance Committee, which helps lawyers with substance abuse and other issues to keep their licenses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Jun 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888129449

Book preview

1

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The ER was in a perpetual state of chaos. Exhausted nurses moved among the beeping and whooshing medical devices. The hallways echoed with wracking coughs and there were no visitors ever. Someone was sobbing uncontrollably. A nurse sat holding a man’s hand as he died, the nurse quietly cried to herself before she got up to check on another patient. Nurses and doctors, anonymous behind their masks, reminded Nurse Sandy Hart of a Pink Floyd music video—a vast machine grinding its way through countless numbers of faceless victims.

It never stopped. Sandy heard the sounds of the ER in her dreams, when she could sleep.

Every bed was full. Wheelchairs and gurneys filled with COVID patients occupied most of the free space in the corridors, the beds and chairs lined the walls. Doctors, nurses, and nursing assistants negotiated the hallways like basketball players moving over, under and through the other players, everyone identical under their masks and scrubs. Haunted eyes met haunted eyes as they moved through the haze of exhaustion, death, and suffering. Nurse Hart did not think that she would ever be able to scrub the urine, feces and disinfectant smell from her pores. Sandy was at the ass-end of her sixth straight double shift; she was bone tired and running on fumes.

Making her way through the patients in the hallway Nurse Hart took vitals, checked oxygen tanks, and made notes in charts. Sandy had only been a nurse for four months but it felt like a lifetime, her shiny enthusiasm tarnished and forgotten in the crucible of COVID. Nurse Hart nodded to the nurses’ assistant who came for the deceased. As the orderly took the man in the wheelchair quietly away, Sandy turned to the next wheelchair on the wall. Looking into the man’s eyes, which she could see were wide and fearful, Sandy got a bad feeling. Her bad feeling was confirmed when she reached to take the man’s blood pressure and found his arm duct-taped to the wheelchair. The surgical mask hid more duct tape covering the man’s mouth.

Nurse Hart screamed, Al, I need you!

When fellow Registered Nurse Allison Duran arrived, she found Nurse Hart cutting away the duct tape that held the man, who Al recognized as the Reverend Chip Rappaport, restrained in a wheelchair. Al got on her knees to work on the preacher’s ankles, which were also held to the wheelchair by duct tape. Al gagged and could tell by the foul smell that wafted from under the thin blanket the preacher had pissed and shit himself.

Nurse Hart thought she might not get the hearing back in her right ear; the Reverend Chip screamed louder than Sandy thought possible when they finally got the duct tape removed from the preacher’s mouth, along with a portion of his five-o’clock shadow. He didn’t stop screaming until Al hit him with a sedative. Al saved the duct tape and gave it to security when they showed up, noting a stylized drawing of a fist on the tape that covered Chip’s mouth.

Sandy leaned close to Al and whispered, I think he was here my whole shift, and I didn’t even notice until just now, her voice rising with stress at the end of the sentence. Sandy’s emotional armor was wearing thin.

As charge nurse, Al recognized that and as soon as Sandy had given her statement to local law enforcement Al sent Sandy home, filling the spot herself as there was no one else.

The next day the headline in the Alamogordo Sun Times was: Preacher Spends Night in ER Taped to Wheelchair. Apparently, the Alamogordo Police Department thought the fist was an Antifa symbol drawn on the duct tape around Reverend Chip’s mouth with a sharpie.

Chip did not remember how he ended up in the ER. The last thing he remembered was driving his car at 5 A.M. and then waking up in the ER, surrounded by COVID patients, taped to a wheelchair.

In addition to a popular sleeping pill, the very Reverend Chip was found to have very high levels of THC in his system, which depending on your political affiliation was either due to the Antifa scum who orchestrated the Reverend’s abduction, or the very Reverend was hip deep in some sort of drug or sex scandal. The Reverend was completely traumatized by the incident.

The last third of the article was spent excoriating liberals.

A very shaken Reverend Chip publicly Tweeted his thanks to God for saving him from the nightmare he had witnessed with his very own eyes and announced that church was cancelled for the next two weeks.

Dr. Joseph Cross laughed out loud reading the article that afternoon, which startled Dr. Cross’ nurse, who doubled as his receptionist. It had been a while since Dr. Cross had laughed.

Sue was not used to the sound.

Putting the paper under his arm, Dr. Cross locked the door to his clinic, walked Sue to her car and then climbed into the camper van he had bought for his little family’s road trips, like the one they had taken to the Pacific Northwest the year before the pandemic.

Dr. Cross had dreamed of an RV for many years. He spent long hours poring over online catalogues, debated the merits of travel trailers versus motorized RV with his wife and various sales agents. Dr. Cross even drove up to Albuquerque to check out the Airstream dealership. While Dr. Cross loved the sleek, bullet-shaped travel trailers, they chose the motorized RV because his wife claimed that the trip was more than half the fun. When she was a little girl, his wife’s family had taken annual trips to Canada in their RV, and she remembered the games they played and other fun they had on the road.

She was not wrong, and their merry little band of three had the most fun on the few trips they had taken before everything went to shit.

Aside from a couple of weekend getaways, they had only taken two big trips in the RV by the time the pandemic hit. Now, Dr. Cross took it out once every week to keep it running, the million-mile engine sitting at just under 25,000 miles. Although Dr. Cross thought it was a beautiful machine, he was not sure he could bear to take another holiday in the damn thing.

This dream, like all of his dreams, had died with his wife and daughter.

Like most healthcare systems across the country, Alamogordo hospitals had filled past capacity in the summer of 2020 with COVID patients. Dr. Cross had been forced to dust off the fancy education he got back East and step out of his comfort zone by filling in at the ER four nights a week, in addition to his general practice as a primary care provider.

Like most residents in the conservative little community, Dr. Cross was a God-fearing man. However, he was also a man of science and his faith and profession warred within him. His wife did not have this problem. When the subject came up, she would say, Reverend Chip says that God will get us through this if our faith is strong enough. Dr. Cross argued, Those who help themselves…, but when it came to matters of faith his wife put it all in the hands of God, and Reverend Chip. Dr. Cross tried harder than usual, but he rarely won arguments of faith with his wife and no power on earth was going to prevent her from doing God’s work.

Then she came home from a meeting for a local charity with a little cough she couldn’t shake. A couple of days later she had a fever and was having trouble breathing. Dr. Cross did not wait or take any chances. He drove her to the ER at 10 in the evening.

Because Dr. Cross was a frontline worker, he got to hold his wife’s hand as she struggled to breathe. Dr. Cross bitterly thought at least his MD was good for something as he was one of the few who could sit with a loved one as they passed. Dr. Cross was so exhausted he almost missed it when she left; mercifully the morphine took the distress of not breathing away.

It was only when he was quietly talking with the nurse after his wife had passed that Dr. Cross noticed he was not feeling well. Within a day, he was intubated and placed in an induced coma, where he stayed for almost three weeks—just enough time to miss his fourteen-year-old daughter’s very short illness and death.

Dr. Cross missed his wife and daughter and he was not sure how he was going to continue. He couldn’t even think about them without being paralyzed by pain. The clinical, observer portion of his brain was surprised at how much physical pain grief caused. It felt like someone was carving his heart out with a dull, rusty knife, and Dr. Cross often found it hard to breathe.

For the first few weeks it was impossible to look anyone in the eye. Dr. Cross didn’t understand how the world kept turning, how the mail continued to be delivered, or how people continued to eat and sleep like nothing had happened. The pain radiating from his eyes was palpable, making those around him profoundly uncomfortable.

Dr. Cross had temporarily closed his clinic when his wife had taken ill and was not sure he was ever going to open it again. His body was made of lead, and it took a massive effort just to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, make coffee and fall into the La-Z-Boy in the living room.

It wasn’t until Sue showed up one day to check on him that he realized he could not remember when he had last showered or eaten.

Disgusted with himself, Dr. Cross showered, trimmed his greying beard, and dressed for work.

Dr. Cross could not help crying a little when he passed the kiddie corner in the waiting room of his office. The toys had been provided by his daughter to start the little collection and she had continued to donate as she outgrew the toys her doting parents lavished her with. She would talk about how she hoped the sick kids would like the toys as much as she had enjoyed playing with them. Dr. Cross’ daughter had a knack with little kids, and they had loved her in return.

There were sympathy cards mixed in with the mail, which Dr. Cross could not look at.

 Dr. Cross shook off the detritus of inattention since his wife’s illness and got the office and clinic back in shape, which took his mind off his pain for a couple of hours. It came flooding back, colored with an unhealthy dose of guilt for the lapse.

When Dr. Cross opened his desk drawer, looking for a paper clip, he saw the stainless-steel Smith and Wesson .357 he put there after an incident with a patient who had tried to rob his office for opiates, scaring the crap out of Sue and pissing Dr. Cross off enough that he contemplated violence toward his fellow man, not a thought Dr. Cross usually entertained these days.

Lifting the compact, heavy little revolver he thought about how loud it would be if he shot the gun in the enclosed space of his office. When he was younger, Dr. Cross had been in a pickup truck when a dumb-ass high school buddy had fired a .45 out the window at a flock of turkeys. The young Joe Cross did not think his ears were going to stop ringing and he never forgot the pain in his eardrums.

Dr. Cross put the gun back, thinking if he was going to contemplate suicide it would not be so messy. Ambien would do the trick and he would just fall asleep. However, Dr. Cross had crossed that existential bridge when he was fourteen; he was not going down that road again.

Dr. Cross wallowed as he worked. He settled into wallowing and feeling sorry for himself like it was the rightest thing in the world. He was justified, after all. Who could argue that he was not entitled to feel sorry for himself? Hadn’t the very worst thing in the entire world just happened?

Dr. Cross’ self-pity morphed into anger. Dr. Cross felt a fire in the middle of him, in the hole his family had once occupied. His anger took on a life of its own and reached out for something, or someone, to take it out on. While still feeling the sharp pain of knowing he was complicit in his family’s death, he was not alone in fault.

Dr. Cross grabbed what was nearest and threw it. He flung awards and gifts, which shattered on the wall and floor. It was only as he saw himself destroy the little green glass globe, which was the first gift his wife had ever given him, that he became appalled at the destruction he had wrought. The fire inside him dampened, though it did not go out.

Breathing heavily, surrounded by broken glass and memories, Dr. Cross surveyed the damage. As he brushed the glass off his chair and picked up the ruins of photos that had taken pride of place on his desk, his eyes landed on a picture taken several years prior of Dr. Cross, his wife Mary and their minister, the very Reverend Charles Chip Rappaport.

Dr. Cross remembered how worried he was when his wife refused to avoid social gatherings when her preacher was telling her that if she just had enough faith, God would keep her safe. While Dr. Cross had not been to a sermon in years, his wife did not miss a single Sunday.

The Reverend Chip made national news when he very publicly refused to adhere to the Governor’s orders limiting attendance at churches and restaurants. CNN video showed hundreds of the faithful stuffed together like the money filling the collection plate.

Dr. Cross thought that if the very Reverend Chip told his flock they should wear masks, they would have worn masks. If Reverend Chip had suggested that his congregation should take precautions, they would have done so. The Very Reverend Chip was complicit in his wife and daughter’s deaths.

Dr. Cross did not think anything could fill the void that was his life now. He was not looking to hurt anyone and he had always been taught to turn the other cheek. If providence had not stepped in, Dr. Cross didn’t think he would have had the balls to act, but when he was on his way to the clinic at his usual ungodly hour of 5 A.M., opportunity knocked.

It was not unusual for Dr. Cross to see the Reverend Chip driving to church at the same early hour in Chip’s pride and joy, a little red ’65 Mustang, which Chip had lovingly restored when he was just out of college. However, on this particular day, as Dr. Cross was approaching the intersection of Indian Wells and Scenic Drive he saw Chip’s cherry-red classic Mustang wrapped around a power pole. It had rained that morning and from the flotsam it looked pretty clear that Chip had hit a patch of water and hydroplaned into the pole. Without a second thought, Dr. Cross’ training took over and he stopped to render aid.

When Dr. Cross got to the Mustang, Chip was unconscious. A quick exam revealed contusions and abrasions but aside from a nasty bump on his head it appeared Chip had avoided catastrophic injuries.

Dr. Cross carefully loaded Chip into the RV, which he was taking for its weekly drive, and started to the ER.

But on the way to the hospital something changed in Dr. Cross. While he believed that the very Reverend Chip was culpable in the deaths of Dr. Cross’ wife and daughter, nothing Dr. Cross did would bring them back. However, it occurred to Dr. Cross that even though his wife and daughter had died because the Reverend Chip refused to protect his flock, nothing had changed. Every Sunday the pews were full and local law enforcement refused to enforce the Governor’s orders limiting attendance at churches. Dr. Cross’ wife and daughter were not the only casualties; Dr. Cross’ patients were still being harmed by the Reverend Chip, and the bodies were stacking up.

Dr. Cross was getting more and more pissed as he thought about all the people who had died, who continued to die, that could be laid at the Very Reverend Chip’s feet. Dr. Cross’ Hippocratic oath warred with his rage; his rage won out.

Taking a short detour to his clinic, Dr. Cross got the syringe full of Rick Simpson Oil, a powerful cannabis concentrate, from the locked cabinet where it had been intended for Ms. Garwood, a cancer patient who had been downwind of the blast at Trinity. Putting the contents of the syringe under the preacher’s tongue, Dr. Cross found himself talking to the unconscious man. Dissolving an Ambien in water, Dr. Cross gave that to Chip in a syringe as well.

Dr. Cross climbed back into the driver’s seat, turned out of the parking lot and headed toward the hospital. Dr. Cross remembered a sermon Chip gave a couple of years ago that he called his letter to agnostics. Dr. Cross prodded Chip unkindly in the ribs. Chip did not respond.

Dr. Cross debated with the unconscious man. "Do you remember your advice? That if there is the slightest chance that God exists, we should not be dicks just in case the whole hellfire thing also exists? I thought it was very funny when you said that the only downside is that if there is no Hell, then you were a good person for no reason, win-win, remember?

"Why didn’t you just treat COVID the same way? If there was the tiniest chance it was as bad as they said it was, wouldn’t you want to take every precaution to save lives, just in case? I mean fuck, we get pointers every year on how to avoid being hit by lightning and the odds of that happening, if you aren’t Lee Trevino, are astronomical. If the pandemic wasn’t as bad as we thought we might feel a little foolish, but we erred on the side of life. You knew people were dying but you just kept packing them in.

My wife trusted God and you, Chip, more than she trusted medicine or me. The jury is still out on God, but you are a dick.

Dr. Cross pulled up to the camera blind spot in the drive at the ER.

Or maybe you just need a closer look at the consequences of your actions.

No one noticed another nursing assistant in scrubs and face mask wheeling a masked and gowned patient into the ER, and local law enforcement were left scratching their heads upon reviewing the surveillance video.

After driving the RV home that evening and cleaning the interior surfaces with the bleach wipes he had stashed when the pandemic began, Dr. Cross found himself sitting in his daughter’s room, looking at her short life expressed in posters, puppy photos, and books. She had been in the early stages of her save-the-world phase; the stop global climate change now sticker mixed in with 4-H trophies, dance photos, along with her nebulizer, albuterol and other kid paraphernalia, artifacts of a beautiful life snuffed short.

2

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This whole attorney thing is killing my soul, Jack told his paralegal as he walked from his office to the conference room that looked out over the playing fields of the University of New Mexico.

Two of the walls were floor-to-ceiling windows and Jack noticed OCD guy slowly making his way across the entrance to the parking lot closest to Panda Express, the homeless man carefully placing the heel of one foot against the toe of the other, looking like an unsupervised field sobriety test without the nose touching.

Sitting at the conference table were one well-dressed elderly gentleman, whose hands were shaking ever so slightly, and a very large younger man wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and an untucked western shirt with pearl snaps over a black t-shirt with a picture of actor Nathan Fillion in western Firefly drag with the caption We Aim to Misbehave.

Dave, Rick, it’s good to see you. How is Miranda? Jack asked.

 With a weariness Jack understood all too well, Dave said, For a 91-year-old woman, Mom is healthy but she doesn’t know who I am. She doesn’t leave the house anymore; my sisters are doing what they can, but Mom is never going to get better.

Jack nodded and jumped right in. Do you remember when I first took your mom’s case, I told you that if everything went sideways, I would get you at least six months’ warning before you had to move Miranda out of the house?

Dave nodded and looked at Rick.

Rick said, I wasn’t really at those first meetings but I remember you saying something like that when I started coming.

Unfortunately, that day has come, and I believe that within six months you will need to find another place for your mom, Jack looked at his notes, and your sister too if she is still living with your mom.

Dave literally wrung his hands as he protested, But they can’t do this! They promised my mom she could stay in the house until she died.

Jack watched the family dynamic as Rick put his hand on his stepdad’s shoulder and Dave shrugged it off. Jack sighed and he began an all-too-familiar speech.

"I believe that the mortgage broker who set this whole thing up promised your mom that she could stay in the house after your dad died. I deposed that guy and although he cannot remember the specific conversation with your parents, that is what he told everyone who applied for a reverse mortgage.

"This is one of the heinous things about reverse mortgages and one of the many reasons