Shattered Sky by Neal Shusterman Page A

the pain of this particular extraction.
    Judith the Compassionate was the next to speak. “We’ve had even more complaints, Marty—from quite a variety of your patients.” She glanced down at a folder in front of her.“I have them right here—would you care to look them over?”
    Martin grinned, imagining that they were all bobbing heads in a shooting gallery, and he was firing away with the disgruntled joy of a postal worker. “No thanks.”
    Banning the Halitoxic snatched the folder away from Judith and flipped through the pages.
    â€œA Mrs. Susan Bernstein claims that you injected her daughter’s anesthetic right through her tongue.”
    What’s the problem? The little bitch is pierced just about everywhere else. Martin only grinned. Banning continued.
    â€œAnd a Tommy Watkins claims that you carved your initials in his molar.”
    Just like he’s been tagging his initials all over town. The spray paint was still on his fingertips. Martin only grinned. Banning angrily flipped a page.
    â€œAnd now, a Mr. Fisher claims that this very morning, you urinated into his rinse sink during your examination! I couldn’t believe it!”
    â€œI could,” mumbled one of Banning’s minions.
    Banning slapped the grievance folder on the table for emphasis. “Good God, what were you thinking?!”
    That Fisher was a prick in a power tie who deserved a little piss on his life. “Listen, I’ve got a pulpotomy in ten, are we almost through here?”
    The tribunal of dental pharisees gave each other hot-potato glances, wondering who would deliver the bad tidings. Banning, of course, took the initiative. “We know you’ve suffered great loss, Marty. No one should have to bear the death of a wife and child—God knows we all feel for you . . . but behavior like this . . . Well, whatever the reason, we just can’t tolerate it any longer.”
    And then the potato went round.
    â€œYou’ve left us vulnerable to a dozen lawsuits.”
    â€œWe could be closed down!”
    â€œThat’s why we’ve got to take action.”
    â€œQuick action.”
    â€œIn everyone’s best interests.”
    â€œIncluding yours, Marty.”
    â€œYou’ll agree with us.”
    â€œIn time.”
    â€œIn time.”
    â€œAnd for God sakes, Marty, please get some help.”
    It was a mighty fine ice-cream sundae of a dismissal, with all the fixings. Then someone—Martin couldn’t even remember who—came up with the cherry to top it off.
    â€œWe want you to know that we’re all here for you, if you need us.”
    The building’s seventy-year-old security guard supervised the cleaning out of his desk, and his departure from the building five minutes later.
    M ARTIN DIDN’T DRIVE STRAIGHT home. Eureka was a small town and nothing was more than fifteen minutes away from anything else, so finding a slow, meandering route was difficult. He took in a matinee, then stopped at Chick’s Sporting Goods, picking out some baseball items his son would have liked, had he and his mother not drowned in four hundred million cubic yards of water. At the funeral, his pastor had lauded the mysterious ways of God. His golf buddies had shaken their heads, mumbling about life’s curveballs, before returning to their families and rejoicing in their own domestic torpor. Well, there were curveballs, and there were wild, skull-crushing pitches. This particular pitch had been thrown by a redheaded teenager, who Martin had once believed was God himself.
    Coast highway, more than a year ago now. It was a road trip to Disneyland, just the three of them. Eddie was in the back seat of their Taurus, complaining about how boring the radio stations were in central California. It was ten at night when they were driven off the road just north of San Simeon. Three men came out of the other car, and from the very first,