25 Years Online
••• The International Writers Magazine - Dreamscapes Life Stories
The World as Will and Juxtaposition
Russell Helms
Care behind locked doors
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Jorge sat on a large purple cow oozing margarine. The click of the pool balls in the dayroom sounded like Mexican jumping beans on the hood of his father’s old Chevy Nova. The air elongated and Jorge glanced at the TV, seeing there a menace cloaked in cookie dough. He had been on the unit for four days, or melons, as he called them. He wore a hospital gown over his torn jeans with flimsy slippers. He reached to wipe the bee from his ear and missed. The bee, Charles, had been with him for some time, enjoying his oily wax.
“There there, little bee. Swing low sweet chariot.”
“What’s that, pardner?” said Miko, sitting next to him on a yellow gang chair. She had cut her own bangs with pinking shears and thrown a banana at her sister like a knife.
Jorge cut his green eyes at Miko. “Spilled ash on my laptop. Have to buy some chili beans for the potluck. I’m an Eagle Scout, straight from the roaring forties.” Charles landed on the tip of his nose and Jorge crossed his eyes.
Miko drank a deep draught from her ice water pitcher, chewed some ice.
“What we got here is a zap and a gurgle,” said Jorge. “Straight from the roaring forties.” He slouched and fiddled with a string on his gown. He looked like a skeleton with his large front teeth, pasty skin, curved spine, and flat black hair. “I grow tobacco in Cuba by the way. At home I eat yucca with mojo sauce, lots of garlic.”
“My mother shot me in the head,” said Miko. “Said I let the sponge get moldy. Didn’t boil it after I washed the dishes. I could hog tie her for that.”
Jorge uncrossed his eyes. “Where’s the hole?”
“Right here. My ear, pardner. Went in one ear and out the other. Messed up my limbic system. After that all I saw was purple and rockets.”
Jorge laughed and slapped her knee. “You’re straight out of the roaring forties. But, me, I see mashed potatoes and little tiny specks of green.” He stared at the far bulletproof window that ran the room. “Them nurses are talking.” He glanced at the clock on the pale green wall. “That one, Betty, with the red hair, she’ll be over in a hot minute. Wait and see.” Charles was back in his ear, buzzing his wings.
A few minutes passed. The bodies in the dayroom shifted about, some going, some coming. The locked unit held thirty private rooms, always full.
“God, here I go,” said Betty to the nurse’s station. “Time for Jorge’s meds.” She gathered his pills and a cup of water. She checked to see that her top button was fastened. In her white uniform, she looked like a chef with a big belly.
“Good luck, Betty,” said the unit clerk.
“Yeah, thanks.” She opened the locked door and passed into the hall and then the dayroom. “That TV is too damn loud.”
“Here she be,” said Jorge. He tensed, gripping the arm rests.
It took Betty a full five minutes to get Jorge to swallow his pills. He objected, saying that his father had emptied the cat litter box into the dog’s food bowl and what was the difference? He let the Thorazine and lithium melt in his mouth before he took the water.
“You’re the hardest headed fool in here,” said Betty.
“You’re the plop after a hard squeeze,” said Jorge.
“Watch your mouth,” said Betty. She switched her large hips back to the station.
“Bang!” said Miko.
“Fingerling trout, Hoover dam,” said Jorge.
© Russell Helms 9.2.24
Chattanooga
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