A man like Donny, he’s had mace in his face before.
We went into the facility together with its fog of antiseptic smell. Of course I had to ditch my mace with my keys in my locker before I passed through security. Mace and keys are on the list of things you’re not supposed to bring in. Can’t have the patients get hold of anything they could use as a weapon.
Donny smiled and headed through security ahead of me. I let him get some distance, then I went through.
Without the mace, my self-defense skills amount to what places to kick a guy. A guy like Donny would be ready for those kicks.
I said hi to the other staffers in the hall. Most grudgingly said hi back. It’s better to force people to pretend to act civil—that’s the decision I’ve come to.
The antiseptic smell is strong today. Sometimes I have this feeling that the smell will cling to me and chase me even after I quit here. Maybe it was already there. Maybe it seeped into my soul after the hospital bombing. It never bothered me before that.
A lot of soldiers who see action end up with tinnitus, a permanent ringing in the ears, from exposure to explosions or loud gunfire. Maybe the antiseptic smell is my tinnitus. The smell. The screams. The songs that didn’t work to cover the screams.
Just do the job and get out,I remind myself for the zillionth time.And no more thinking about Patient 34. No more wondering about his history, no more wondering whether he’s faking his stupor. No more.
Yet an hour later I’m sitting at his bedside, studying his eyes.
He stares at the ceiling with his hellfire beauty. He feels…unusually alert.
His blood pressure is going to be up this time, I just know it. I fit the cuff around his arm. I get it crooked and redo it. “Calm and steady,” I say, kind of to both of us.
I watch the numbers stabilize. Too high. This is the kind of number I’d need to report.
“Fuck!”
I have this feeling that if I report it, Zara will come and get a normal reading like the past two times, and it will be another demerit. I could enter a fake number, but what if something is really wrong? It’s a huge load of toxic chemicals they’re giving this guy.
“I’m going to try this again in a minute. We’ll pause and rest.”
I take a deep breath, modeling restfulness. I glance over at the backs of two orderlies’ heads through the window that looks out into the hall. On their phones.
“Yup.” I turn back to 34. I study the proud line of his nose, the curve of his cheekbone. He’s beautiful in a stormy way, a statue hewn in hell, hair black as night. Short downy beard. He has a very Mediterranean look—as though he has Italian or Greek or maybe Middle Eastern heritage. I shouldn’t think he’s hot. He’s in his early twenties and I’m almost thirty. I’m his nurse. He’s supposedly criminally insane. Or is he?
“I would give anything for your story,” I say. “And seriously—no name? No history? It’s like putting a lit sign over your door saying, ‘We’re hiding something about this guy.’”
He keeps up his blank stare, eyes the color of fire. Occasional blink. He doesn’t look aware, but hefeelsaware.
And what if he is? But if he was sane and aware, the boredom and immobility would drive anybody out of their mind. I rest a gloved hand on his arm, so solid under my fingers.
“We’re going to go again. We’re going to sit here, and then do the BP again. I could do the blood draw first. But I’m not going to poke your arm and then squeeze it with the cuff like an asshole. Unless I did it on the other side. Hmmm. What do you think?”
I decide it’s not a bad idea. I move the chair to the other side of him and do the draw. He doesn’t react to the prick at all. I fill the tiny vial and drop it into the marked tube.
One thing down. I take a centering breath, filling my lungs with the antiseptic smell.
“Okay.” I set my hand on the bed next to his muscular arm. It’s ironic that my presence seems to shoot his BP. I find his presence calming.
Another deep breath. “We’re okay. And you know what? The kitten is okay. And I’m not there.”
I scratch my finger back and forth on the sheet, so cheap and coarse I can feel the grain through the glove. Sometimes this thing happens where I forget about it momentarily, but then I get this feeling of dread, and then I think,What bad thing am I forgetting?And then I remember the kitten.
“It’s okay. I fucking saved it, right? But in my mind, it’s still in trouble. Trapped there.”
I sigh.
“It could be worse. I could be talking to a whiskey bottle, right? I know what you’re thinking. Many kittens die in the world. Why did that one kitten take me down? Yeah, that is definitely the question of the day. You hit it right on the nose, 34. Nobody asked me, but that’s what they all wonder. It’s like death or cancer or something. Nobody wants to ask. They think you want to forget. They don’t know you’re still in it. Really, I don’t want to talk about it.”
So why am I talking to him? This completely inanimate man who burns with intensity.