Twelve Mad Men

by Ryan Bracha et al.

  The clank of a door opening awakens me from my prison of noise. Shunts me into action. Benny. He looks to up at the ceiling hopefully before his head drops in despair.

  “Damn, is that all I fixed?” he asks, his head nodding up to the two lights above me that are working.

  “It seems so,” I call out, trying to raise my voice above the cacophony of the inmates. Residents. Lunatics. The ten or more voices which all fight for prominence. Benny approaches me.

  “Don’t shout, you’ll set them off again,” he says.

  “But-”

  I start to loudly retort about the level of the volume but it’s not there. The noise. It’s gone. From nowhere to nothing. The corridor is silent but for my own heavy breathing. I’m standing. I don’t remember standing up. I search the floor for a memory of when I rose, but it’s in vain. Benny smiles.

  “Hey, what’s the first sign of madness?” he chuckles.

  “Talking to yourself?” I respond, it’s obviously not going to be his Suggs punchline again.

  “Nah, hairs on the palm of your hand,” he says as I instantly spin my hands over to check them.

  “You know the second sign?” he asks.

  I shake my head, still scrutinising my palms.

  “Looking for ‘em!” he laughs, and I self-consciously slide my hands instantly into my pocket, a sheepish look on my face. He’s fucking hilarious. My eyes drop back to the floor looking for the memory of when I stood up. It isn’t there.

  “You alright?” he asks, a concern in his eyes. I nod. “It fucks with your head doesn’t it? I was the same when I first started, mate. Don’t worry about it. You’re doing fine. How many did you see?”

  “Just one,” I say, nodding toward Brazill’s door behind me. Benny chuckles.

  “Oh, Paul, eh? Yeah, he’s an experience.”

  “I heard that, Benny,” says the muffled voice of Paul Brazill, dropping a slick emphasis at the end. My colleague thumps the door.

  “Back in the corner, fucker. Or you’ll go hungry all night.”

  I don’t completely understand Benny’s relationship with these people. He swears at them. Threatens them. Is that even allowed? Surely this is some sort of human rights infringement. He sees the concern flicker into my eyes and shakes his head.

  “He won’t go hungry,” he says, “but you have to know what pushes their buttons to get them to behave,” he says, “simple behavioural control is all.”

  “Who’s Prince Randian?” I ask.

  “Look, these lights aren’t gonna fix themselves. I called it in but they can’t get anybody here until the morning, so we’re gonna have to do what we can ourselves.”

  He nods to the torch in my hand. I don’t remember him passing it to me, but he must have done. “That should keep you happy enough until I come back. We still need to check on the boys. Do you want me to get you started?”

  Alphabet Man

  By Craig Furchtenicht

  Darkness.

  Oh, for Christ sake! There goes the damn lights again. I swear this place gets more rundown by the day. How's a guy supposed to get any work done in this kind of environment? First it was the boiler system and then the water. Now this? They could at least fire up some axillary lights so I can finish my painting, my masterpiece. Getting the details just right in the hair is hard enough to do with finger paints, let alone in the dark.

  They used to let me use real paint. Not this worthless non-toxic third grade crap, but real paints. Of course that was before the little incident with the previous activities counsellor. Maybe it was the one before her, I really can't remember now. Either way, the ones after her know better than to mispronounce my last name. Seeing a #6 Filbert brush protruding from the weepy mess that used to be their colleague’s eyeball tends to make people enunciate German surnames quite fluently. Now they simply address me by my first name, Craig. Some call me Alphabet.

  Timing around here is frigging unbelievable. Just as I was getting ready to put the final touches on my L'art du jour and then Whammo, pitch black. The lights go out and the screaming begins, accompanied by the steady drumming of fists against eleven other doors just like mine. Like chimps at the zoo before feeding time, this bunch. I swear I'm the only fucking sane one in this godforsaken place.

  This couldn't have happened a few hours ago when the sadistic bastards in the kitchen were hard at it, screwing up something as simple as beans and franks. Last time the power cut out was an hour before supper. The kitchen staff had to scramble to whip up something that didn't require cooking yet fell within the dietary guidelines set forth by our blessed health department. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Tasted like shit but made for some strikingly interesting earth tones when blended with paint.

  Tonight we got the old death by beans and franks. They serve it four times a week here at Saint David's. Never used to be half bad until they stopped serving it with the entire frank still intact. I don't know the whole story, but I heard they had to rush a guy down the hall from me to the infirmary after he tried to cram two franks into his “prison purse” and they got stuck. I guess he kept it to himself for about a week until his bowels nearly ruptured. Now we eat our supper meats neatly trimmed into manageable bite-sized portions like a bunch of halfwits.

  Now I don't know this for a fact and I'll deny it if you quote me, but I'm fairly certain that the sausage sneaker was in fact one Mr. Bracha. I only suspect this on account of a debt he owed me after a card game in the day room last month. My straight flush had cost him a dozen lorazepam. Like any honorable man with poor card playing skills, he promptly paid me at the first opportunity. I'm not saying that this is absolutely indisputable evidence, but when he pulled the small baggie of pills from his keister the whole lot reeked strongly of shit and faintly of hot dogs. Oh well, to each his own.

  That reminds me. I've not seen one member of the lovely staff for over an hour. The doctors are usually gone this time of the night, but the place is usually teeming with nurses and orderlies. They hover around the desk near the unit entrance, impatiently waiting to dumb us down with meds or ruin somebodies night with a round of unethical therapy sessions. They know how I get when I don't get my prescribed dosage on time. If this keeps up I might have to resort to dipping into my own stash, stink and all.

  Wait. Footsteps.

  Two pairs, reverberating off of the linoleum like choreographed thunder. I recognize the tubby night watchman's labored breathing as he slowly approaches, but have no clue who the second set belongs to. Peering through the glassless metal grate that serves as my window does me little good. It's so dark that I can't even see my own paint slathered hands in front of my face, but I can almost taste the cheap dollar store aftershave he faithfully drowns himself in before work each night.

  “What the fuck, Fat ass? Who forgot to pay the light bill?” I shout out to a face I cannot see. I know he's there because the vapors from his smell good burn at my useless eyeballs. “I need my pills, like now!”

  “Settle down, Alphabet. Just the electric. Not the end of the world. Get in the corner, cunt.” For a moment there is only silence except for faint shuffling of feet on the other side of my door. There's an awkward glory hole quality about the muted pause. Finally he adds, “New guy this is Craig. Craig meet new guy. He'll hold down the fort while I figure out what's going on with the damn lights.”

  “Uh, hello,” a meek voice trickles in through the grate. Sounds young and scared. This could be interesting. I don't get much in the way of interesting in here. Before I can reply a shrill scream echoes through the hallway.

  “And don't give him any shit while I'm gone.” The fat one's footsteps click down the hall as he beats feet out of the unit. His steps come to a halt just shy of the exit and his booming voice rips through the unlit air. “That's goes for all of you cunts.”

  Left alone with a cherry guard during a blackout. Oh the fun I could have. I strain to get a better look through the window when a harsh beam of light erupt
s through the opening, erasing the blackness and sending me scrambling backwards. I rub at my eyes without thinking and instantly feel the tacky wetness of the paint as it smears all over my face.

  “Goddamn! What are you trying to do, frigging blind me for good?”

  “Uh, sorry about that.” A nervous clearing of his throat leads to another uncomfortable silence. Finally he directs his flashlight over my shoulder to the easel behind me. “Painting, eh?”

  I press my multicolored face to the grate and snarl, “No shit. Now what gave you that idea, newbie?”

  He backs up with a gasp and the flashlight tumbles to the unforgiving hardness of the linoleum. Immediately the bulb blinks out with a crack and it's back to total darkness. “Fuck’s sake,” he mutters to himself.

  I say nothing until I’m certain that I can mask the pleasure in my voice over his dilemma. “Hey newbie, I used to be an electrician before I came here. Open the door and I'll get this dump lit back up in no time. What do you say?”

  “Don't do it,” a voice echoed from further down the corridor. There is an uneasy wavering to it that makes me think of overstretched rope. “We're not supposed to be out of our rooms after lights out.”

  So much for that idea. The slim chance of the newbie actually springing me loose go from slim to absolute nil when Edgerton decides to open his big yap. Damn conformist. Guy won't even shit without being told to.

  “Thanks, but I don't think that'd be a good idea,” the newbie replies. “Get in the corner.”

  “Yeah, Fruity-farts. Relax yoursel’. You're no afraid ay the dark are ya?”

  “Shut the fuck up Wilson, you cock smoker,” I scream. Bastard always knows what buttons to push. Every day he comes up with some new and irritating way to butcher my name. “You'll see how goddamn scared of the dark I am when I bite off your fucking eyelids at breakfast tomorrow.”

  The guard murmurs, still fumbling to resuscitate his dead flashlight. I can feel the nervous tension oozing from his pores even with the heavy door between us. Then his breathing escalates into rapid Lamaze-like puffs. “Fuck’s sake. You're the one who blinded the therapist with the paintbrush. You're him.”

  “Yep, that would be me,” I confess. “I'd sign you an autograph but they won't let me have pens anymore. Too sharp and pointy.”

  “Fuck’s sake,” he repeats.

  The shrill screams from down the hall evolve into a cacophony of barks. The sound pierces my frontal lobes like a dentist drill to the forehead. I tell you, that goddamned Keith and his barking are enough to drive a sane man over the edge. I hate that even worse that someone mucking up my name.

  “That's Keith. Feel free to rubber hose him when nobody's watching,” I suggest. “I won't tell.”

  “Thanks, I suppose.” The newbie lets out a jittery laugh, then his face hardens. “Brazill told me his story. It was fucked up. You think you can top it? Why would you blind somebody?”

  I stare into the dark, trying to decide if he's just making small talk or if he really wants to know. It's a stupid question either way. The proper one would have been, what wouldn't make a guy want to do something like that. I sit on the edge of my mattress and sigh. My painting's a wash and I've got nothing but time to kill before sleep catches up to me. So why not fuck with the kid's mind a bit and tell him what brought me to this fine little house of horrors.

  First of all, I was not always the unwashed wretch that I appear to be now. Back in my better days I was a regular guy with normal ambitions that didn't involve blinding therapists or winning impossibly easy hands at poker from drooling imbeciles. Try to keep that in mind a few years from now when they finish molding you into just another hack prick like the rest of them.

  I wasn't really an electrician back then, but rather a letter carrier. You know, a mailman. Didn't even paint before coming here. That was my wife's thing, not mine. Damn good at it too. Enough to make a decent chunk of change for some of her better pieces. We did okay. House too big for the two of us, nice cars in the drive and most of all each other. Everything was going great until that fucking little rat dog came into our lives.

  I don't know if it was empty-nest-syndrome or just an artsy phase Amy was going through. I didn't even know she liked dogs until I came home from work one day and stepped in a puddle of its piss as soon as I kicked off my shoes and walked into the living room. There the little fucker was, sitting there in my favorite chair. I'm peeling a piss soaked sock from my foot and this smug little ball of fur was nonchalantly licking his own dick on the seat of the chair that I'd been looking forward to plopping my ass in the minute I walked in the door.

  “Amy!” I yelled, hopping on one foot to the laundry room. I dropped the sock into the hamper and poked my head into the spare bedroom we had converted into her studio. “Honey, what the hell is that in my chair?”

  My wife completed several strokes with her brush before setting it on the shelf below her easel. She stood up and walked out of the room, almost passing through me like I wasn't even there. No, how was your day, honey? Or, what do you want for supper? No nothing. She just waddled her age plumped ass into the living room and hovered over the dog, who was still busy going to town on his little red boner like nobody's business. Amy leaned down and plucked the dog from the chair and held it up to me. “This is Scooter. He's a miniature Schnauzer. Isn't he gorgeous?”

  “I guess, but didn't you think to discuss it with me before getting a dog?” I asked. Scooter stared at me and let out a soft growl, his fire engine hued crotch missile twitching between his dangling legs. I let out a disgusted burp and added, “You know I'm slightly allergic, right?”

  Amy pulled the dog back and held it up to her face. “That's only if we don't keep you clean. Isn't that right, Scooter baby? Him's a clean boy, isn't he?” She proceeded to rub her nose into the dogs face until he reciprocated with a flurry of licks to her chin and mouth.

  “Jeez, Ames. Didn't you just see where that things tongue was?” I said, repulsed to the point of nausea.

  “Oh, Craig. Don't be such a stick in the mud. A dog’s mouth is ten times cleaner than a human mouth.” She set the dog on the floor and smiled as it curiously circled my legs. “Look, he's getting to know you.”

  It sniffed my toes for a second, let out a low growl and then proceeded to furiously hump the top of my foot. His furry puppy ass pumped up and down as he wrapped his front paws around my ankle in a death grip. I shrieked involuntarily and shook my leg in a whip-crack motion sending the horny little beast tumbling across the carpet. It looked up at me scornfully before resuming its previous business of self-fellatio.

  “Yeah, he's getting to know me alright.”

  Amy shot me a sour look, grabbed Scooter up from the floor and headed toward the bedroom, cooing nonsensically to the dog as she went. As my wife disappeared around the corner carrying my new worst nightmare in her arms I stared down at my foot as if it were a shameless whore.

  I know what you're thinking, newbie. It's just a puppy, they do that. But that obscene violation was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. From that point forward I became a second class citizen in my own house. To a sexually deviant dog with a foot fetish no less.

  I spent the night locked out of the bedroom and ended up sleeping on the couch. I woke up some time before dawn to the sound of ripping fabric. I fumbled for the lamp switch only to find Scooter dragging the jacket of my postal uniform across the living room floor. Tattered remnants of what used to be the left sleeve trailed behind him as he went. I heaved a cushion in his direction, barely missing him. The little bastard just looked up for a moment, hiked up his leg and let loose on the carpet.

  This was how my morning started. This was how my life after Scooter began.

  It didn't stop there, getting foot-raped or losing dibs on my favorite recliner. Nor was it being a captive audience to Scooter's perpetual lick fest on the cushion of said chair. Disgusting as that was, I could have tolerated it if that was all there was. I was even getting u
sed to the pissy smell that my socks had gradually taken on. I think what bothered me more than anything was sharing the bed that used to be half mine. I was lucky to get half a pillow after Scooter took over.

  Ever wake up to the smell of dog farts, newbie? No? You're a lucky man.

  Going to work was my only reprieve. I enjoyed my job. Only now I did it half as efficiently and twice as slow due to the high doses of over-the-counter allergy medication I took to keep from sneezing every two minutes. Amy had abandoned her knack for churning out gallery worthy pieces to spend her days painting canvas after canvas of her furry little muse. She insisted on hanging them all over the house. In lieu of cleaning and cooking she spent her spare time parading Scooter around the neighborhood in cute little outfits that she ordered online.

  A wonderful cook for the first twenty years of our marriage, Amy took as much pride in detail and presentation of meals as she did with her art. Never once did I come home from a hard day of delivering mail, wondering if there would be a hearty meal waiting for me. Three months after Scooter arrived, I was eating microwavable frozen dinners while he dined on five dollar a can dog food. The meat in that stuff looked more realistic than the rubbery processed crap they put in my meals. She even served him on the fancy plates we used to reserve only for special occasions.