Good Intentions

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this story, the road was paved by a group of well intentioned medical students studying at a very prestigious medical school. This is a place where the living study the dead; a place where young men and women learn how to negotiate with death, and to make the living believe in forever. Amidst the parasites, microbes and cells, stand the guardians, the future sentinels of life, who give years of their lives to learn how to add days to ours.
-
Todd and his friends Brad, and Trent were among these future warriors. All three of them were in their third year of medical school and in desperate need of a break. As the last class of the day ends the three students exit the lab and wait for each other in the breeze way.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m burnt out!” Todd started out.
“Hell yeah, my head is smoking!” Brad added.
“Hey we should go out and have some beers later” Todd suggested.
“Yeah that sounds great.” Brad replied. Where do you guys want to go?”
“Well I was thinking about the Crystal Castle.”
“Man, fuck that place!” Trent interrupted.
“Well what’s wrong with it? It’s two dollar pitcher night and besides we get to check out the naked strippers.” Todd responded.
“Just stop and listen to yourself for one second. There’s a reason why the pitchers are only two bucks. It’s so that you can get drunk enough to stomach looking at those fat ass strippers. I swear that most of the time I don’t know if I should throw them a buck or a Twinkie.”
Trent never ceased to amaze his friend with comments and his views on life.
There were a few seconds of silence until Brad finally spoke out.
“You’re a cruel bastard Trent!”
“It’s not that I’m cruel, I’m just calling it how it is. Some of those chicks could dull a scalpel.”
Brad was growing impatient, “All right, I’ve had about enough of this. Todd’s down with two dollar pitchers and so am I. So either you are down or we are just going to have to go without you!”
“Yeah, I guess I’m going too, fuckers!”
“I guess that settles that then” Todd said with a smile on his face. “So what time do you guys want to head out?”
“What time is now?” asked Brad.
“It’s 5:30.” Answered Trent looking at the Cartier watch he got for a high school graduation present.
“Is 8:00 good for you guys?”
Eight was good for all of them and they agreed meet in the lobby of their dorm.
-
“So who’s driving?” Brad made sure to be the first to ask since he had no intention of driving.
“Well my car’s only a two seater, so I guess we’ll have to take Shaggy’s Scooby mobile.” said Trent with a smirk on his face. Trent sure knew how to get under peoples skin, and Todd was certainly no exception.
“First of all it’s a 21 window VW bus, you dick. But second and most important of all, if you guy’s happen to recall, I was the one that suggested getting beer. I figured that even a genius like you Trent could have deduced that I wasn’t implying that I wanted to drive tonight. We’re taking a taxi.”
-
The Crystal Castle was located in the old part of the industrial area of the neighboring town. It stood between a row of old buildings and abandoned warehouses that stood like specters, bearing witness to a once booming past. And like the ghost that inhabited the old iron smelting plants, this section of sky only came to be when heaven turned of the lights.
Twenty dollars later the guys arrived at “the temple” which just another word for “gentlemen’s club.” They got out of the cab and were bathed with the neon blue light emanating from what seemed to be Cinderella’s castle and the heads of various fairytale princesses superimposed on naked bodies made of light. This was definitely the place that they were looking for.
The three of them stood on the pavement for a few eternal seconds, as if the weight of all the stares in the world kept them from moving forward. They walked into a time warp were they were no longer men, but nine year old boys, who were about to go into their big brother’s bedroom to sneak a peak at his boob magazines for the very first time. They looked to each other for confidence and took a synchronized step towards the door.
As they entered the first set of double doors they came up to one of the most puzzling figure that a grown man has to encounter, the gentlemen bouncer. A sharply dressed, big man, big in the lumberjack sense of the word, a breathing oxymoron, standing on the doorway of the sleazy strip joint. None of the guy’s knew him, but they knew him. He was everyones big brother and behind him, beyond the second set of double doors was his bedroom, with his living collection of centerfolds. Here they were at the mercy of a total stranger, the gatekeeper of their childhood fantasies.
The bouncer eyeballed the trio while giving them all, the typical mistrustful look. He asked for their identification cards, which they surrendered without hesitation. He looked them over one last time and gave them the slightest nod of approval. He gave their ID’s back and stamped their hand with black light ink in the shape of an apple. They were in!
As they walked past the second set of doors, their eyes were immediately drawn to the dancer hanging from the pole on the center of the room. They all stared at the dancer for a few seconds, then Todd and Brad looked at each other before turning towards Trent.
Trent didn’t need to say anything, because his dimples spoke for him. But even if he did Brad wasn’t about to give him a chance. “Shut up Trent!”
“I’m going to buy the first round. You guy’s go get a table, preferably one facing the wall.”
Todd walked over to bar, placed his order, and quickly rejoined his friends at the table.
“Where’s the beer?” inquired Brad impatient as always.
“The waitress is bringing it over in a few.” Todd answered with the same kind of patience required to deal with a small child.
It wasn’t long before the waitress came over to their table. In the middle of the table she placed a pitcher of beer, three chilled beer glasses and three shots of whisky. After emptying the contents from her tray she walked away, without ever saying a word. None of the guys minded that the waitress didn’t say anything; they all knew that in a place like this, service with a smile will always cost you a little extra, besides none of them had been particularly talkative anyway.
Todd set a beer glass and shot in front of his two friends, and poured himself a glass of beer. He then set down the pitcher and encouraged his friends to fill up their glasses, which they did promptly. Todd then lifted his shot glass and motioned for his friends to do the same. They all lifted their shots and Todd toasted with a simple, “Cheers!”
But before they had a chance to take their shot, Trent interjected with a cheer of his own, “To fat chicks!!”, which the other two repeated in unison with a grin on their faces.
After that the laughs just kept pouring in and so did the glasses of beer. They talked about anything and everything and like most bar conversations all their endless chatter amounted to nothing at all. But on rare occasions, when people carry on for a long enough period of time, someone will take the conversation from mere idle chatter to something meaningful. This just happened to be one of those times, and Todd just happened to be the person to turn the conversation around.
“So what made you guy’s want to be doctor’s?”
Trent and Brad looked at Todd with the look of someone who at the count of three and the snap of the fingers suddenly awakes from a hypnotic trance.
“Where did that question come from?” asked Trent.
“Yeah, Todd for real, what kind of question is that?” added Brad.
“What’s wrong with my question? I was just sitting here and I started thinking about my own reasons and just got curious about the both of you. That’s all.”
As Todd finished speaking a dancer approached their table to see if someone wanted a table dance. None of the guy’s bothered to look at her; they just nodded their head no. All three were far more interested in finishing their conversation. The dancer took the hint and simply walked off, while giving them the finger.
“All right, since you have already thought of your own reasons, why don’t you tell us first and then we’ll tell you ours.” Brad demanded.
“Well I want to be a doctor because I want to help people out and make a difference.” answered Todd.
“I guess that’s a good enough reason.” said Brad and continued on with his own reason.
“You can say that medicine is my blood. My father and my grandfather where both doctors and my great grandfather’s father was a medicine man, so ever since I can remember, everyone expected me to follow on my father’s footsteps. I bought into everyone’s expectations from early on and never even thought that I could be anything else. Besides it comes pretty naturally to me so I don’t have to work too hard at it.”
“What about you Trent, why did you want to become a doctor?” Todd inquired.
“Well, like Brad here, everyone expected me to grow up take over the family business. But unlike Brad I didn’t buy into everyone’s expectations for my own life. I didn’t want to dedicate my life to just making tons of money like my parents and their parents had.” Trent paused and took a few gulps from his glass of beer, put glass down and continued. “Since I had decided that I wasn’t going to be making the family any money, I had to find something else that would keep me in their good graces. So I figured that being doctor was a pretty respectable profession, and I’d get the chance to help people out and keep my family off my back.”
The conversation had become sobering and the three friends agreed that it was time to go home. So they called for a taxi, made their way past the two sets for doors and the bouncer, and just waited outside. They kept on making small talk but only to hide the fact that all three of them kept going over the reasons that they had given for wanting to become doctors.
After about twenty minutes of waiting the cab finally showed up. They all got into the cab and gave the cabbie directions, they also asked him to stop by a liquor store in order pick up some beer. When they arrived they asked the driver to drop them off at the entrance of the campus, and walked in the rest of the way. But instead of walking back to their dorm, they made their way to the marina and just sat on the dock, popped open some beers and started another conversation. But Todd wasn’t saying much.
Trent looked at Todd,“Hey Todd what’s going man? You’ve been kind of quiet ever since we left the temple?”
“I was just thinking that’s all.”
“And what where you thinking about?” asked Brad.
Todd took a few seconds before answering the question. He took a deep breath and started talking, “I’ll tell you guys but I don’t want you to flip out on me all right!”
“What are you thinking you’re gay?” asked Brad.
Todd gave him a death stare and continued on.
“No dumbass, that’s not what I was thinking about!”
“Alright then go on” said Brad in an apologetic tone.
“Ok. On the way here I was thinking about a bunch of different things. But the main thing that I was thinking about was all the different reasons that we gave for wanting to be doctors. Even though we all had different reasons we are all going to end up doing the same thing, which is trying to help people out.” Todd stopped to see if his friend where following, they were so he continued, “I say that we’ll be trying to help, because in reality most of the time all that we’ll be doing is patching people up and sending them away. Curing the symptoms and not the problems that brought the person in to see us in the first place.”
Trent and Brad both had their eyes fixed on Todd, and were both bracing themselves for whatever Todd had to say, and after watching and listening to him for a while they knew that he was about to drop a bomb on them.
“Ok guys this is the part where it’s going to get a bit strange. So just hear me out ok?”
Trent and Brad agreed.
“What if we could actually do something to change someone’s life for the better? I’m not talking about a small superficial change, but something that will change that person’s life forever. Well guys, tonight I thought of the way to it make that happen.”
Todd stopped to open up another beer. Meanwhile his friends watched him with anxious eyes.
“It’s no surprise that the world is just getting fatter. And no matter how much education there is out there about the health risks from being of overweight, people are still stuffing their faces with shit and sitting on their fat asses. Then after years of this kind of physical abuse we’re stuck cleaning up the mess. Whether its by shoving a balloon up some bastards arteries or sucking a few gallons of lard from someone’s gut.”
“You know Todd, it’s like that old saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. All we can do is to educate and warn people, but in the end they are going to do whatever they want.” Brad added with sense of helplessness in his voice.
“That is exactly what I was getting at. What if could make the horse drink the water! What if we were to take some fat person from the street and make him or her get into shape?”
“So how do you propose we “make” someone get into shape?” asked Brad sarcastically.
“Easy, we kidnap them.”
Brad and Trent had been bracing themselves for something shocking to come out of Todd’s mouth, but they had not been ready for what they had just heard.
“Are out of you fucking mind Todd?” yelled out Brad.
“For real Todd, what’s your problem?” Trent scowled.
“I asked you guys not flip out, and what’s the first thing that you guys do? You were the ones that wanted to know in the first place, so now you guys are going to calm the fuck down and let me finish!” They both knew that they had no choice but to finish listening to whatever Todd had left to say. “I’m not going crazy here; I’m not talking about kidnapping someone just for the fun of it. I’m talking about snatching someone from the clutches of a premature death. Wouldn’t you guys pull someone that was drowning out of the water if it were within your power?”
“Yes, of course we would Todd, but we’re not talking about drowning here. We’re talking about kidnapping people, and no matter how good your intentions are it’s still wrong!” Brad answered.
Todd was not about to let up now. “But you’re wrong, these people are drowning in their disparity, they’re drowning in the belief that they can eat their way to happiness. There is no difference between someone who is drowning in the water and someone that is drowning in their own body. They are both going to dye unless you do something about it. I know that taking someone against their will is very unorthodox, to say the least, but in this case it isn’t evil. Let me ask you guy’s , what is more evil, kidnapping someone in order to save their life, or to let that person , who needed your help desperately, die because you failed to intervene? Pretty soon we’ll be taking an oath to save peoples lives. We have an obligation to help by whatever means are necessary.”
Neither Brad nor Trent could disagree with Todd’s point; they had a commitment to help those who couldn’t help themselves. It was getting late and they decided that it was time to go home, but before they left Todd asked his two friends to give some more thought to what they had talked about. Both Trent and Brad agreed to think about it and then all three walked home.
After a week of thinking about Todd’s idea, both Trent and Brad agreed to take part in his social experiment. Now they just had to come up with a plan.


Part II

When Jerry opened his eyes all he was able to see were dots of light amid the blackness. He thought that he was having a bad dream, in which he woke only to find that he lost his eyesight overnight. He tried to wake himself up, but it was useless because he was already awake. Panic set in when he thought that he did wake up blind, but the panic quickly turned into terror when he went to rub his eyes and felt only numbness and something cutting trough both his wrists. Still clinging to the hope that he was having a nightmare, he tried to scream himself awake but all the came out was a muffled hum. He kept on trying to scream and to move his arms for some time until the pain around his wrists and the corner of his mouth finally convinced him that it was useless to keep on trying.
As he settled down he started to become aware of the rest of his body. He felt the burning on the back of his neck and a sting on one of his buttocks. He felt a cold chill in his bones as the cold humidity of the space penetrated his body. His head was itching from brushing against the coarse material that was covering it. The only thing that he could smell was a slight scent of motor oil from the material that was around his head. That was all. This was all he was able to make out in the darkness, there was nothing more, only silence.
Jerry’s heart rate started to race as the silence was broken by sound of locks and bolts, turning in the distance. There was silence again as the turning of the locks ceased, but the silence was short-lived as the room became occupied with the sound of an opening door and of approaching footsteps.
As he heard the steps getting closer he tried to scream for help, but it was useless. He once again started to squirm frantically trying to free himself, but all that he managed to do was to awaken the pain around his wrists. He heard the footsteps getting closer and closer, and then nothing. There were no other sounds other than his labored breathing.
As he laid on the floor trying to catch his breath, and regain his composure he suddenly felt something pressing hard against his chest pushing out the air which he had worked so hard to breath in. As he lay on the floor, too terrified to think about anything, he felt someone loosening the fabric around his neck. Then, with a single yank, the burlap bag which had covered his head was removed.
The light from the room blinded him. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a figure dressed in a black hooded cloak, wearing a white unpainted Venetian Carnaval mask. The mask was that of hideous creature. He took a look around the empty wine cellar and noticed two more figures wearing identical costumes standing over him. This was the worst dream that he had ever had.
The shock was more than Jerry could bear as he passed out almost immediately.
A few minutes passed by before he regained his consciousness. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the same three figures hovering about him. He had no idea of what was going on, or what was to happen next, but he was certain of only one thing. He wasn’t in control.
One of the three figures broke the silence.
“Jerry, do you know why you are here?” asked the first figure, his tone calm and direct.
Jerry tried to answer but the gag prevented him from doing so. However the look on his face was a sufficient answer to the fact he didn’t have the slightest idea.
“Would you like for me to remove that gag from your mouth so that you can answer my questions?” the figure added.
Jerry nodded his head affirmatively, as he stared at the figure with the look of a deer in the headlights. The figure continued on, “We are going to take it off but if you start to scream…”At this one of the two other figures knelt down besides Jerry’s head and removed the gag from Jerry’s mouth.
Jerry took a deep breath, “Who are you people and what do you want with me?” his voice trembling with fear.
“Who we are is not important, and that is something that you will never know. And as what we want with you… We want to help you.”
“Help me. Help me with what. I haven’t done anything.”
“That is precisely what we are going to help you with.”
Jerry was clueless as to what the figure had meant by this answer.
The figure went on, his tone becoming stern, “Have you looked at yourself lately? That is what nothing has gotten you. You are a big fat tub of lard. You have no one in the world that even gives a shit about you. You have no family, no friends, and as long as you keep paying the rent and your bills on time, no one will notice if you were to drop off the face of the earth. You fat piece of shit!”
The figure’s words were harsh, but Jerry knew that they were oh so true.
“How do you know these things about me?”
Before the first figure had a chance to answer, the third figure, who until now had only stood around Jerry, interrupted. “That is not important either, and if you keep on asking these kinds of irrelevant questions I’m going to stick this rag back into your fucking mouth!”
This reprimand did not help to make Jerry feel any more at ease, but it did make Jerry shut up.
The first figure continued on, “Jerry we are going to help you to help yourself, but you are going to have to cooperate. I want you to be rest assured that you are not going to leave this place until you are better.”
With that he motioned for one of the other two to untie him.
“Now, Jerry you are loose, but don’t try anything stupid!”
With this he removed a hand gun from underneath his cloak pointed it casually at Jerry and kept on talking. “Now we are going to be getting started tomorrow, so get some sleep if you can.”
With this the two other figures helped Jerry off the floor and took him to the adjacent part of the empty wine cellar. There was nothing there except for a small twin-size mattress; beside it was the door to a small washroom with nothing except for a toilet and a small sink.
All three figures left the cellar shutting Jerry in. As the door to the cellar bolted shut, Jerry realized that he was a prisoner. As reality began to sink in Jerry rushed over to the toilet and began vomiting out his fear and helplessness.


He was unable to sleep most of the night between his sobbing and his need to relieve himself. It was about half an hour before daybreak before he was finally able exhaust himself into a restless sleep.
It wasn’t too long after he had fallen asleep that Jerry was awakened by the sound of the turning deadbolts. The three figures which he had met a few hours earlier, stepped through the door of the cellar. Jerry noticed that they were no longer wearing the cloaks and the mask which had haunted him throughout the night. All three of them were wearing the matching green track suits along with standard black bank robber ski masks. One of the three men stepped toward Jerry and threw him a bottle of water, some toiletries, and some workout clothes.
“You’ve got twenty minutes to get ready!”
Jerry now knew better than to ask unnecessary questions, as he grabbed his things and did as he was told.
It was about twenty minutes later when he was ready to go. The same man, who had given him the clothes, took a blindfold out of his pocket.
“Stand still while I put this on you.”
Once Jerry was blindfolded, they led him out of the cellar to another room in the house.
“Stop and don’t move.”
As soon as the command was given, Jerry heard a door shut behind him. The moment the door shut he felt someone undoing his blindfold. He opened his eyes and found himself in another very dimly lit room.
The room was a fairly spacious workout room. The windows had been covered up with blankets barely allowing any light to go through. There was a treadmill in the middle of the room, and to the side there was a home gym, along with an assortment of free weights.
This room would become very familiar to Jerry during the course of the summer; a summer that he would never be able to forget.
The shock of being kidnapped was a shock to Jerry’s psyche, but it was nothing in comparison to the shock his body felt. That first morning Jerry wished that he was dead instead of having to labor through the exercises. The verbal abuse that he received was nothing in comparison to the pain that he now felt all over his body.
After his exercise session was over jerry was blind folded again. He was led out of the room, but instead of being led back to the cellar, he was taken outside. It was a beautiful day, though he had not been able to tell through the blacked out windows of the workout room.
“Stop right there and take off your clothes, without removing your blindfold,” barked one of the three men.
“What?” Jerry asked automatically without realizing what he had done. It wasn’t until the back of the man’s left hand made contact with the left side of his face, that he realized what he had done.

Nothing else needed to be said.

Jerry did as he was told. He took off all of his clothes and stood there wearing nothing but a blindfold and his shame. He stood there, his sweaty out of shape body warmed up by the sun; but no matter how much sunshine there was that morning, nothing could warm up the cold that he now felt inside of his soul.
One of the other men grabbed Jerry’s hand and placed a brand new bar of soap in it. A few seconds later a jet of hot water shot out from a garden hose, and hit Jerry on the chest. The stagnant hot water ran out of the hose, gradually turning cold. But neither the hot nor the cold water made any difference. Jerry didn’t jump with the jet of hot water, nor did he start to shiver as the water turned cold. He just stood there lathering the wet parts of his sore shapeless form. He just soaped and rinsed; the water from the hose mixing with the soap suds, the dirt, and tears. The water removed everything, except for the shame.
Once Jerry was finished with his shower, one of the men handed him a set of fresh clothes. Jerry could not put his clothes on fast enough. They led him back through the house and into the cellar, and locked him back up.
Less than an hour later the three men returned to the cellar, they brought a tray of food in with them. Jerry had not even thought about food. Maybe for the first time in a very long time, food wasn’t the first thing on his mind.
It had been a long day and it wasn’t even noon yet. Although he didn’t quite have an appetite, Jerry longed for the comfort of a plate of fried eggs and bacon with half a stack of toast smeared with butter.
But like everything else that had transpired so far it wasn’t at all what he had expected.
Oatmeal and fruit, that was all. That was his breakfast and nothing else. Had he been anywhere else he would have thought that it was a joke, but he knew better. It was pretty fucking far from being a joke
“Eat it, you’ll need it later,” said one of the men as he placed the food in front of Jerry rather unceremoniously. If Jerry wasn’t hungry before, he was even less so now. He couldn’t even begin to remember the last time that he had something so disgusting for breakfast. But he knew that he had to eat something. Though he wasn’t hungry now he had no doubt that he would be later.
So he made himself eat. He ate until he was hungry, until the comfort returned. But it wasn’t long until he started feeling the pain in his body, the pain of activity which he has never felt before. Once again the men left Jerry by himself.

Part 3
After leaving Jerry the boys went to the kitchen themselves to get something to eat.
“Guy’s I’m not sure about this anymore” said Todd in a sullen tone.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” replied Trent angrily.
“I mean our idea sounded great and we wanted to do something good for someone. But now that we’re actually going through with it I’m not so sure anymore. I mean this guy is a human being not some lab case. You know”
Trent got in his face, “Listen here you fickle fuck. It was your fucking idea to begin with and we all went along with it. Now it’s too fucking late. To end it now would be the stupidest thing ever. We would be sending this guy out just as fat and disgusting as ever, and all that we have done, and the risk that we have taken would have been for nothing.”
Brad agreed with Trent,” I have to agree with him; we have to see this through until the end. We have no choice but to finish this, we have got to see this though to the very end.”
“I know you guys are right, but just… I don’t know… all right then to the end.”
“Pass me the syrup”
Todd smiled and as they sat there quietly eating their pancakes.

Part 4
Jerry finally managed to doze off. When jerry awoke a few hours later he could barely move without feeling the pain shoot through his whole body. He heard what was now becoming the familiar turning of the dead bolts. And the door flew open.
“Put this on!” There was still a small sting on his face which made him proceed silently. He took off his clothes and put on the swim trunks and blindfold that had just been handed to him. He was once again led through the house, to an indoor swimming pool.
The other two men were already waiting in the water.
“Hope you can swim Jerry!” one of them called out.
Jerry nodded his head affirmatively.
The one who had led him through the house placed a swim cap on his head and over his eyes in order to secure the blind fold. As soon as it was snugly in place, with a good push, he threw Jerry into the water.
He broke the water with a loud splash and began to sink down to the bottom. He was disoriented and had no idea which way was up or down, and was afraid that if he swam in the wrong direction he might split his head wide open on the swimming pool floor. Once he got his bearings he swam towards the surface, and took several desperate breaths.
He had only been under for a few seconds but it seemed a lot longer.
“All right swim towards my voice!” one of the men called out. Jerry obeyed and swam toward the voice. He reached side of the pool and hung on to the side wall to catch his breath.
“Enough, now swim towards me!” shouted a man from the opposing side of the pool.
It all seemed like a twisted version of MARCO—POLO. The game went on for a long time.
“All right this is the last lap. Ok, now go!!”
Jerry kicked off the wall of the pool and swam towards the voice on the other side. His body aching so badly that he could barely feel it anymore. He was relived to hear that this sick game would be over soon.
“All right stop where you are!”
Jerry was surprised to hear that command so soon. He guessed that he was pretty close to the edge but he still couldn’t touch the bottom.
“All right tread water for a while and then we’re done”
Jerry could not believe it. He was exhausted, but he didn’t dare to disobey. So he treaded water until he could no longer, until he just let go.

Part 5
Jerry woke up and felt a slight sting on the back of his neck. The room was dark so he couldn’t see anything. But there was something different. He no longer felt or smelt the moisture in the air. He tried to roll off his mattress only to fall hard on the floor. What was going on here? What was happening? He wondered. He groped around in the darkness bumping into things and falling a few times until he was finally able to feel his way to a light switch and flicked it on.
Once he regained his sight he was shocked. He was standing inside his own house. How long had he been there? Was it all a dream? He walked over to his dresser mirror and smiled shyly.

PART 6
Summer was over now and it had been a long one. After it was all over they took a week away from each other and said good bye until the start of the term.
After the first day of the term they agreed to go out and hang out.
“So where do you guys want to go?” asked Brad
“2 buck pitcher night,” answered Todd smiling
“Hold me back, I swear I’m gonna kick your ass!” Trent replied scowling.
“I’m just joking man”, he said snickering.
“So what do you think is going to happen to him now?”
There was no need for names since they knew perfectly well who “he” was.
“I think that he’ll be fine,” said Trent
“Do you think that he’ll be alright?” asked Todd with a concerned tone.
“I think he’ll maintain.” added Brad.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, I hope that we didn’t mess him up. You know like a side effect when you solve a problem and in the process you create one bigger than the original.”
“Well now it’s all up to him”
“Besides if gets depressed and gets fat again we’ll just spend another summer together.” Now the smirk was on Trent’s face, “Now let’s go get something to drink.”