Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 02]

by Madly Viking Truly

  “Jerome Johnson. President and CEO of Medic-All,” George informed them over his shoulder. “He was supposed to be tied up all day in meetings with the Dallas lawyers. Guess he decided to cut them short.”

  So this was the elusive, high-powered Donald Trump of the HMO world. He resembled a mild-mannered Mr. Milquetoast, but looks were deceiving. Money magazine described him as mysterious and obsessively protective of his private life. As far as Maggie knew, he’d never been photographed for the media.

  Hattie Lawrence, a spoiled Houston socialite, whispered in Maggie’s ear, “Who is that character?” She was staring fixedly at Joe. “He’d better not be spoiling this deal for us. We’ve worked too hard to—Mercy! The man is a giant…and drop-dead gorgeous. Please don’t tell me he’s a patient.”

  Hattie was three times divorced, with as many face-lifts, tummy tucks, and boob jobs as a thirty-five-year-old woman could sustain. Luckily, the greedy woman had only a small say in Rainbow’s future. Her daddy, Jack Lawrence, also in attendance, held the purse strings. Today was not the first time she and Harry had met Jack Lawrence or Hattie, but most of the negotiations had been taking place between the Lawrence family and the Medic-All people, off premises.

  “That’s Joe Rand, and yes, he’s a patient.”

  Hattie’s face dropped with disappointment.

  They had almost reached the exercise wing, and Maggie could hear Joe expounding to the Medic-All honcho: “’Tis my opinion that all of your patients can benefit from a daily exercise program. You know what the Norse proverbs say: sound bodies go hand in hand with sound minds.” Jorund took a deep breath and continued. “Spear throwing and hand-to-hand combat on the practice field work best, of course, but in their absence, your exercise machines provide a fair substitute. I tried to instruct the pay-shuns yesterday on swordplay, but Norse Hatch-her nigh had a fit over that. You’d think broom and mop handles were priceless objects. Dost think a practice field would be a possibility for the future?”

  Oh, good heavens! A patient lecturing on mental health and fitness! A patient who thinks he’s a tenth-century Viking!

  And Jerome Johnson was all ears.

  “Even those who live in those wheeled chairs should be working muscles that are still alive,” Joe was blathering on. “Otherwise they will all atrophy…that’s a word I learned on Wheel of Fortune. Oh, you watch that show on the world box, too? Anyhow, just since I’ve been here—about two sennights—you can see a change in some of the pay-shuns. Hair-vee Lutz, for example, has the strangest compulsion to count things. Well, now he is counting the strokes of his oars on the rowing machine.”

  Sure enough, through the open doorway to the exercise room, they could see Harvey counting away as sweat poured down his face and he continued to row. Appropriately, the logo on his T-shirt today read, I Get Enough Exercise Just Pushing My Luck.

  “See Chuck over there? Today he thinks he is a puff fish, but look how energetically he is rowing. This is the first time in two years that Chuck has worked his muscles.”

  Yep, Chuck was puffing away like a steam engine—or a puff fish, whatever that was—as he worked the rowing machine. The bright young man wore a T-shirt that pretty much said it all: Okay, Who Put a Stop Payment on My Reality Check? Someday soon Maggie hoped to find out what Chuck’s real problem was, because it sure as heck wasn’t being a split animal personality.

  “And my comrade, Steve Askey, is pressing five hundred benches,” Joe was still blathering on, “or is it pressing the bench at five hundred…? Oh, I didn’t see you there, Dock-whore Muck-bride…and Dock-whore Sea-bold. Have you met my new friend, Jaw-rome Johnson? He’s a Norseman, too…from New-arc. That’s in the world of New Jar-see.”

  Her jaw dropped another notch.

  “You will hardly credit the coincidence, but Jaw-rome is a former fighting man, too, like me and Steve, except he was a green bar-ray.”

  For a prolonged moment, silence hovered in the air. But leave it to Joe to break the ice even further.

  “Tsk-tsk!” Joe chided Maggie and Harry. “Aren’t you going to shake hands with Jaw-rome?”

  Maggie’s mouth clicked shut, along with Harry’s, Hattie’s, and Jack’s.

  “How do you do?” she and Harry said, shaking the hand extended by Jerome Johnson. Joe beamed as if he’d invented the ritual of handshaking. Then Hattie and her father stepped up as well, although they had apparently met Johnson on some other occasions.

  Joe appeared very pleased with himself. You’d never know he was a patient, and not a hospital administrator.

  “Did you know that Jaw-rome has his own longship, Mag-he…I mean, Dock-whore Muck-bride?” She had warned Joe on numerous occasions that he should address her in a more professional manner. “He is going to take me on a voyage someday.”

  Maggie groaned mentally. How long had Joe been talking with Jerome Johnson? Much too long, apparently.

  Jerome smiled softly and patted Joe on the shoulder. “Actually, I have a yacht, and it was a short cruise on the Gulf I mentioned. As a possibility, mind you, just a possibility.”

  “Yacht, longship, knarr…they are all boats,” Joe expounded. Then he returned the favor and patted Jerome on the shoulder in a good-buddy fashion.

  Maggie caught a warning glance from Harry and immediately stepped forward. “Joe, would you mind coming down to my office with me?”

  Joe immediately brightened and complied. Thank God! He probably thought there was more hanky-panky on the menu. Not that any of it had ever been initiated by her. “I hope to see you again soon, Jaw-rome. And remember what I told you about putting whale fat on aching muscles…arthur-itis, you named the malady, I believe. ’Tis what my father does all the time for his creaking bones, especially after a long time at sea a-Viking.”

  Oh, no! Had he just accused Mr. Johnson of having a creaking body?

  But Mr. Johnson just laughed. “You betcha, young man. Make a note of that, George. I want a tubful of whale lard, ASAP. I’m willing to try anything for this damned arthritis.”

  George was turning a strange color of pale green.

  “And here is a surprise for you.” Joe was talking to Harry now. “Jaw-rome loves the idea of our field trip. So you must put aside all your res…reservations, I think you called it.”

  Harry started to turn green, too.

  As Maggie and Joe walked down the hallway toward her office, she was steaming, and he was beaming.

  “Am I cured yet?” he had the nerve to ask.

  A week later…

  At last the momentous day had arrived. Maggie was taking Jorund and all his new comrades in madness on their promised field journey.

  Jorund had to admit to being a mite fearful. In order to get from the Rainbow Hospitium to Orcaland, the first leg of their journey, he would have to ride in one of the horseless carts he had seen nigh flying down the road from his chamber window. Actually it was a huge, yellow, boxlike structure with windows and wheels, known as a bus.

  “What’s wrong with a good pair of oxen to pull a cart? Or a sturdy horse?” he muttered to Mag-he, who was checking names off a piece of parchment on her clipping board as the other members of the group filed up the steps of the vehicle. It was a sign of his condition that he paid no mind to Mag-he’s tight den-ham braies and short-sleeved sweat-her that exposed a tiny bit of her midriff each time she lifted an arm in the air to wave someone new onto the death cart.

  Mag-he darted a quick look of concern toward him, sensing his reluctance to join the others. “There are plenty of horses in Texas, but a bus is more practical for our purposes…and safer.”

  “So you say!” he muttered under his breath. It would not do to outwardly show his trepidation, especially when everyone, even Not-a-lie, the wench who was afraid of crowds, had already bounced up the steps. Not-a-lie was wearing the most unseemly garb: white boots, a cowgirl hat—Who ever heard of a cowgirl? Or bragged of being such?—and a shert and short gunna, known as a skirt, both with fringes all along t
he edges. With that amount of skin showing, she could pass for a harem houri.

  Dock-whore Hairy was behind a large wheel inside the bus. He was going to drive, not trusting Mag-he and her demented troop to go off on their own. Two of the guards, who were known as attendants in this world, would accompany them as well. Norse Hatch-her came, too—surprisingly feminine in a long, gauzy purple skirt and matching shert with the words, C’mon. Make My Day. On second thought, she resembled a giant plum.

  Bracing himself, Jorund forced himself to go up the steps, feeling much as if he were walking the plank. Breathing a sigh of relief at passing that hurdle, he glanced down the rows of seats, many of which were empty, since their group numbered only twelve—their original therapy group and a few others.

  “Stop touching my fringe,” Not-a-lie snapped to her seat partner.

  Hair-vee ducked his head sheepishly. “I was just counting them for you.”

  “Well, I don’t need you to count them,” she grumbled. “And why do you have to sit next to me? There are plenty of other seats. You’re crowding me.” Not-a-lie’s waspish demeanor was belied by her shivering body. This outing must be an ordeal for a person with her unique anxieties.

  Hair-vee got up and stared longingly toward the empty seat next to Rosalyn, the mousy woman who worked all day long with books—a lie-bear-ian, which was amazing, really. In Jorund’s world, books were a rare commodity; in this world, they were as plentiful as grass. Rosalyn gave Hair-vee a glare that was as forbidding as a berserker with a battle-ax guarding a castle wall. All of the men had been trying to get on Rosalyn’s good side ever since she’d announced her extraordinary longing for sexual activity.

  Rosalyn’s word-shert spelled out, Read My Lips. He tried to read her lips, to no avail. Apparently he was capable only of reading whale’s minds.

  Jorund began to walk down the aisle when his gaze snagged on Furr-red Burns-tine. He stopped dead in his tracks. The man had gone too far this time. Much too far!

  Last week, at group therapy, Furr-red had arrived in the garb of a caveman. Cavemen were apparently the ancestors of all human beings, though Jorund could hardly credit that. Jorund’s Viking forbears had never looked like that rendition of early man—of that he was certain. Furr-red had worn naught but a beaver skin, which turned out to be one of Norse Hender-son’s winter outer-garbs—a coat—wrapped around one shoulder like a Roman toga. When he bent over, everyone got a good view of his bare, flabby buttocks…not a pretty sight. And he’d carried a huge club, which Mag-he had immediately confiscated, claiming that it was the trunk of a newly planted crab apple tree from their back courtyard.

  Today Furr-red was impersonating his idea of what a Viking warrior would look like. It was insulting, to say the least. On his head was a long, blond wig that Jorund could swear he’d seen on a scullery maid’s head just yestereve. On his upper arms were two makeshift bracelets formed from strips of tinfoil, a product used in modern kitchens to save food. He wore tight sweating braies on bottom and a loose black T-shert with the sleeves and neckline ripped off, the whole cinched in at the waist by a wide, brown leather belt.

  “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Jorund demanded.

  Furr-red cowered back into his seat near the window. He was nigh whimpering when he replied, “Fred the Viking.”

  Jorund shook his head from side to side. The man meant no harm, he decided. Still, under his breath, he commented, “More like Furr-red the Idiot.”

  Just then he noticed Steve, who was motioning him toward the back of the bus. He headed in that direction, passing other Rainbow comrades along the way, including Chuck the Duck. That was who he assumed Chuck was today, since he was quack-quack-quacking to no one in particular. Just as long as he didn’t drop any bodily “gifts” in the bus, Jorund could care less what animal he chose to be this day or any other. Chuck’s message-shert said, Out of My Mind. Be Back in Five Minutes.

  Mag-he sat down in the front seat, directly behind Dock-whore Hairy. The doors swished shut. And they were off. Well, he assumed they were off. At first the bus lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped, lurched and stopped till Dock-whore Hairy got the feel of driving a bus. Holy Thor! Not only am I riding in a most dangerous horseless cart, but I am putting my life in the hands of an incompetent driver. ’Tis comparable to going aviking with my sister Katla at the rudder. But they were riding smoothly now. Jorund let out a pent-up breath, although he held on to the seat in front of him as they traveled at an excessive speed out onto the road.

  “What’s the problem?” Steve asked, staring at Jorund’s white knuckles and his face, which was, no doubt, white as well.

  “Must we travel so fast? What is the hurry?” he complained.

  “Huh?” Steve responded. “We’re only going twenty miles an hour on this entrance ramp. Wait till we get on the highway. The speed limit there is sixty-five.”

  “I cannot wait,” Jorund said dryly.

  Steve was frowning as he studied his rigid demeanor. “You’ve never ridden on a bus before?”

  “I’ve never ridden on anything that moved without animal power…unless it was a ship on the open seas, driven by the winds and the hard rowing of well-muscled men.”

  Steve shrugged his shoulders sadly. “Man, you are as screwed up as the rest of us.”

  “Nay, I am not,” Jorund declared. “What you all cannot accept is that I really am a Viking, come here from the tenth century.”

  Instead of arguing, as he usually did, Steve asked skeptically, “Why?”

  Jorund relaxed back into the seat. As long as he didn’t look out the windows and see the landscape passing in a blur, he could almost forget where he was. He pondered Steve’s question. “I do not know. I am hoping some answers will come to me today.”

  “At Boot Scootin’ Cowboy? In a music hall? Hell, I know a lot of guys who think they can find answers in a bottle of booze—I did for more years than I can count—but I guarantee that even a glass of beer will be off-limits to us today.”

  “I did not mean that music place. I was referring to the killer-whale place.”

  “Do you still think that a killer whale is the key to your being here in Galveston?” Steve and all the others in his group therapy had laughed this week when he’d told them the tale of his arrival atop Thora’s back, bare-arsed and raging mad. Steve wasn’t laughing now.

  “I know it.” Jorund snorted with disgust. “If I can find her, I’m certain that this puzzle will become clear.” Leastways, he hoped that was the case. He thought of something else. “Mayhap you will get some answers yourself when we visit that war praise-wall.”

  It was Steve who turned stiff then. “I am not getting off this bus when we get to that freakin’ wall. I swear, I’m not. I know Dr. McBride has all these piss-poor ideas about making a big breakthrough with me, but it isn’t gonna happen there…or anywhere else, for that matter.” He turned away and stared morosely out the window. In an undertone, he murmured, for his own benefit only, “I don’t see enough of ’Nam in my dreams. I gotta see it on a damn wall, too?”

  The hairs rose on the back of Jorund’s neck then. In the distance, he could see a large sign that said, WELCOME TO ORCALAND. And beyond that was the water inlet that led out to Galveston Bay and the seas beyond.

  Would this be the day he returned to the past?

  Maggie found Joe, finally. He was sitting on a small promontory near the outer rim of the inlet, arms resting on bended knees, gazing out beyond the bay. Of course, he had defied all rules by wandering away from their group, which was still watching the Gonzo show back in the arena.

  “Joe?” she inquired softly.

  At first he didn’t seem to hear her. Even though his lips were moving, no words came out. It was as if he were speaking some silent language. Then he turned. Maggie’s heart almost broke at the bleakness in his gray eyes.

  “She’s not there,” he told her.

  “Who’s not there?” Maggie dropped down to the ground beside Joe
and put a hand on his shoulder in concern.

  “Thora.”

  “The killer whale?”

  He nodded. “Much as I’ve tried to communicate with her, there is no response.”

  “You…you talk to orcas?”

  “Not all orcas…leastways, I don’t think I can talk to them all—just my own personal pain-in-the-arse killer whale, Thora.”

  This was not good news. After all the progress Joe had made, believing that he could talk to an ocean mammal could be chalked up to additional delusions, along with his time-travel and Viking claims.

  “Does the whale talk back to you?”

  “Yea, it does. In my head.”

  Oh, God.

  He slanted a glance her way. “You think I’m demented, don’t you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You are a poor liar, Dock-whore Muck-bride.”

  “Well, anyhow, it’s not the end of the world that you didn’t have a chat with Thora today,” she said brightly. “Let’s view it in a positive light.”

  “For the love of all the gods, spare me,” he replied with a groan. “You are going to start the sigh-colic-jest blathering again, aren’t you?”

  She raised her chin, affronted. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He exhaled with a loud whoosh. “All those words and phrases that say nothing: ‘I see. How do you feel about that? What do you think?’ Never do you answer a question directly, but always turn it back on your pay-shuns. ’Tis enough to drive a sane man mad, I tell you.”

  She began to ask him how he felt about that, then stopped herself short. He was right. She did have a tendency to spout psychobabble, when the philosophy behind Rainbow was to avoid the therapist-as-robot approach. Psychologists no longer needed to hide personal emotions and reactions or remain silent and unmoved in the client relationship. At Rainbow, a therapist was supposed to be free to be oneself, while remaining objective at the same time. “What I started to say about putting a positive light on this event is that maybe this is a sign—I know you are big on signs—that it’s time to put aside the past and move forward.”