by Jack Steen
There’s a whole staff housing area off to the back.
We used to be surrounded by fields. Grew most of our own food and did the upmost to make sure people forgot our existence unless absolutely necessary.
In those days, the shit they used to do to inmates made Hitler look like a fucking tooth fairy.
Yeah, we burned our own. The grave stones you can find in the back corner field, all empty. No one was buried. Their ashes were used as fertilizer.
Back then, men and woman were on different floors. Different wards. Even different areas of the monstrosity called an asylum.
Now, we have one small wing on my floor where the women come.
Remember, they come here to die. That’s it.
There’ve still got their own floors. Their own special wing. Their own nurses and doctors and all that shit.
But when they’re about to die - they come here.
To me.
The wing where Bucket is kept is behind the staff area. There are four rooms.
It’s probably the cleanest area on my whole damn floor. Two of the rooms are used for staff to sleep in as needed.
Compared to other floors, ours is probably the quietest, believe it or not.
Some of the women took a weekend to clean up the area, washed down the walls, scrubbed everything with disinfectant and brought bedding from home to be used.
The two rooms now resemble nothing of their past.
White walls. White floors. A bookshelf with a mixture of fiction, non-fiction and porn. A television is in one of the rooms. The other is known as the quiet room…meant for sleep, meditation and the occasional fuck-fest with another staff member.
There are two rooms meant for patients. There are two beds in each room but it’s a rare day when those beds are full.
Bucket’s been alone now for weeks.
Her room is the very last one.
Before I introduce you to Bucket, I need to tell you something.
Bucket is…special. She’s your small daughter, your baby sister, your mother all rolled into one.
Her mind is…not healthy but that’s not her fault.
Some people are born screwed. Some are screwed. Some grow to be screw ups.
That was Bucket.
I treat Bucket with care and you think to make fun of me for the following conversation, you’d better be willing to back up any snide remarks with a clenched fist.
And be prepared for the ass kicking of your life.
Got it?
I nudge the door of her room open with my elbow and I listen first before stepping in.
Normally, Bucket would be whimpering. Soft mewing sounds that would tug at any normal person’s heart.
She whimpers in her sleep.
Tonight, there’s no noise.
“Hey girl, I brought you a treat.” I step into the room and am greeted by a weary smile on Bucket’s angelic face.
“We’ve been waiting for you.” Bucket lays on her side, her baby-doll resting in the crook of her arm, blankets pulled up tight to cover them both.
“Heard you met the new guy.” I sit in the chair I kept in here.
Normally, patients rooms don’t have chairs. They have a bed, side table, medical equipment and a patient.
A patient who is normally strapped to their bed by restraints or too sick to be a threat to anyone.
That’s it.
But Bucket is different. She’s not a threat to herself or anyone else. She’s dying, hasn’t the strength to lift her arm let alone sling a chair at a staff member and I like to come in and chat with her each shift, give her some company before she’s left all alone.
The first time Bucket and I had a chat, she was the one who asked me about my deal.
I wasn’t going to offer it. I figured any secrets she needed to keep could remain with her but she insisted.
I’ll admit, knowing word spreads about my deals…well, it’s an ego booster.
“We…we, don’t want to meet him again. He scares us.” Bucket clutched her baby tighter to her body and curled her legs up towards her chest.
I leaned forward and readjusted the blanket on Bucket. I was careful to not touch her, knowing she doesn’t respond to touch from men well.
“I don’t think you’ll ever be seeing him again, Bucket.” It wasn’t so much a reminder as it was an observation. She wasn’t doing well at all. Her breath was shallow, her skin a pale blue was thankful for the knock on the door.
Bucket inhaled with a gasp.
“It’s just Ike bringing a warm blanket. We figured you might be a little cold tonight.” I took the offered blanket and gently laid in over the waif of a woman.
“Do you promise?” Bucket asked, returning the conversation at hand to the doctor she didn’t like.
Did I promise? That she wouldn’t be seeing him again?
I could basically count on it.
In my pocket is Bucket’s medicine. Before coming, I added extra to the cylinder. Enough that her body would shut down while she slept but not too much that it would be a sudden death.
“I always keep my promises.”
I think Bucket gave what amounted to a giggle and I smiled.
“Don’t be flirting with me now.” I said.
“Who else would I flirt with? Besides, baby thinks you make a good daddy. You will be a good daddy to her, won’t you?” Bucket fingers absently smoothed the fake down on the doll’s head.
“Will she be mine then?” I already knew she hoped I would take care of her doll. Who else would do it? Besides, I was the one who gave her the blasted thing, so it was my responsibility now, right?
It was going to go in the quiet room, sit on one of the bookshelves, along with a few other patient treasures that we kept around.
“She’s always been yours. Remember? You told us that when you gave her to me to look after. Don’t you remember, Jack?”
Honestly? I don’t. I blurted out so many things to patients to calm them.
“I remember, Bucket. I remember. You remember why I’m here?”
I had no idea the secret she had to tell.
Was she going to confess finally? Was she lucid enough to admit her wrongdoings?
From her file, she’d been out of her mind when they found her. She’d laid at the base of a well out in the middle of nowhere, almost dead when a nature photographer had come upon her.
“I remember.” Her voice, a soft whisper was full of sadness, ache and…longing?
“I think it’s good, isn’t it? To unburden a heart before death? That way I’m not bringing all my sadness and grief with me, right? I’ll see all my babies and be full of love and happiness and…right, Jack?”
I’m not a soft person. I don’t cry. I don’t choke up and I sure as hell don’t get all emotional when someone talks about death.
But when it’s Bucket, it hits me. Hits me hard. I’ll be at the bar after my shift for sure, don’t care what time it is. The bartender lives above the shop and if I gotta wake him up to open the door, that’s what I’ll do.
The bastard owes me anyways.
“It’s good.” I cleared my throat and set the pad of paper I’d brought on my lap. “Let me take all that grief, Bucket. I’ll take it and then you can go see all your babies.”
4
BUCKET:
* * *
When you’re at the end of life, it’s always best to go back to the beginning.
My family was poor. We lived in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a dirt road, in the middle of a field of wildflowers.
I never went to school.
Never had nice clothing.
Never knew what it was like to be anything but poor.
It was all I knew.
I guess you would say we were squatters. My parents were on the run from something, I think, and found an old, run down house in the middle of the country and moved in.
My father was always fixing the place up. He would leave in the middle of the night and come
home as the sun rose with a truck full of…stuff…to fix the house with.
I don’t know where he found it or how he paid for it, but it was ours, all the same.
No, I know now where he got it.
He stole it. From garbage bins, behind stores, from construction companies who threw things out after jobs.
If it’s garbage, it’s not really stealing though, is it?
I was an only child. My momma died when I was little.
I don’t remember her much. I have snapshot images in my head of her, hair pulled in a bun, plain dress with a light blue apron. I remember her ghost of a smile and can feel her arms linger around my body as she held me close, but that’s it.
My father basically raised me.
I would trail after him, like a shadow, every chance I could.
Until I couldn’t anymore.
Before that happened, life was good. It was happy. I was happy. I think I was normal back then. At least, I remember I was.
Fixing our home wasn’t the only project Daddy had.
The other was building a well.
It was off in the woods. Far enough away that you couldn’t see it from the house but not too far that we couldn’t get to it quickly if needed.
And it was often needed.
We had a wheelbarrow Daddy used. I would ride on it, sitting atop of dirt, bricks, mortar. I carried the shovel and was in charge of all the flashlights.
We had a lot of flashlights.
It took Daddy a very long time to build the well.
He would spend hours digging the hole wide enough and then deep enough.
It was very time consuming, too.
Dads would fill a bucket full of dirt and using a rope, he’d get it up to the top. My job was to get the dirt out and then use a small shovel he’d found for me and throw it in the woods around us.
Sometimes it would take me a very long time to get the dirt out of the bucket. I had to get it over the edge first and then tipped downwards so I could scoop the dirt out.
But I wasn’t very old nor was I very strong.
It took Daddy a very long time to build the well because of me.
Once it was deep and wide enough, he then would carry bricks in the wheelbarrow and line the well.
I still remember our last lunch there.
Daddy helped me make a cake to celebrate. He said we finished ahead of schedule and that it would be our safe place.
Well’s were meant for water, weren’t they?
Not this one.
This well…it was meant for me.
While we ate peanut butter sandwiches and banana cake, Daddy explained why we’d worked so hard on the well.
Pretty soon Daddy was going to have some visitors and he didn’t want these people to know about me.
So when they came, I had to run to the well.
The bucket was there to drop me down. He taught me how to use the rope and levers so I could get down on my own and then when things were clear, he’d come and get me.
He made a lid for the well that wasn’t too heavy, it was to protect it from the rain and show, so it didn’t fill up.
Of course, the lid did no good when I was down there, since I couldn’t cover myself, which is why we had a few bags down there with a blanket, a pillow and some dolls for me to play with.
Also flashlights. But I was never allowed to shine the flashlight upwards. I had to be very careful and very quiet.
We would do practice runs, too.
First, Daddy would come with me, to show me how to do everything, but then he would stay in the house and let me run to the well myself. A
The first time times I lowered myself in the bucket was scary.
It’s amazing the things we remember when we’re small, isn’t it?
I remember that bucket being huge. Larger than life and heavier that my small body could handle.
I remember the woods being dark, illuminated only by the full moon overhead.
I remember the sounds of the woods in the middle of the night. How alive they were.
How scared I was too.
We lived in the middle of nowhere and when you’re a young child, simple animals become beasts.
Beasts that grow in size, in strength and viciousness.
That well…it became my second home.
Sometimes I’d be in there for a few hours. Then it was over night. Then it was a whole day.
Daddy started to prepare food for me to take with me in case he couldn’t get to me for a while.
One blanket turned into several.
I hated that well…until I learned to miss it.
5
Bucket to Jack
* * *
I know what you’re thinking Jack.
I can see it in your eyes.
You feel sorry for us.
You’re looking at me as if I were that little girl again and wishing you could have changed things for me.
Right?
Why?
That well meant safety.
It was proof my Daddy loved me.
Proof that he put me before everything else in his life and was doing everything he could to protect me.
That well…it saved me, Jack.
It’s not different then being forced to live within these four small walls.
Sure, the well was smaller, more enclosed, unsanitary and it was dark with lots of bugs…but I was just as much a prisoner in that well as I’ve been here.
I’d rather be back in that well.
I felt safe there.
You make me feel safe, Jack. Us. You make us feel safe.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like that.
6
BUCKET:
* * *
There came a point where the bucket wasn’t large enough anymore for me.
So Daddy made a ladder.
With the ladder, I could recover the well, leaving enough space for light to come in and fresh air.
I still had to wait for Daddy to come and get me because we never knew when it would be safe for me to return.
One night, he didn’t come and get me.
Someone else did.
I heard noise in the woods above me and I thought it was Daddy coming to get me.
I’d been in the well for so long that I didn’t wait for him to take off the lid, I scurried up the later and shoved that lid to the side, scaring the man who was…
I saw something no little girl should ever see.
I was paralyzed. I should have been more careful with the lid, moving it slowly to make sure it was Daddy and when it wasn’t, I should have climbed back down the ladder and pretended I wasn’t there.
Maybe then the man wouldn’t have seen me.
He…had an ax in his hand and there was a woman on the ground in front of him. She was half naked and most certainly dead.
He was chopping her into pieces. I won’t ever forget that sound, of an ax severing limbs from a body, the hard thud of the bone, the sickly wet splatter.
It’s in my nightmares, that sound.
The man, he dropped the ax and ran toward me. He reached for my arm and yanked me out of that well and then dragged me out of the woods, past that woman and back home.
My arm was dislocated by the time I saw my Daddy.
I don’t like to talk about that night.
Bad things happened that night.
Daddy left me in the house with a lot of strange men while he had to go dig a grave for the woman left in the woods. He was gone for a long time.
Someone put my shoulder back in place but it hurt forever. In fact, it still aches when I’m tired, when it rains or when I’m sad.
Daddy threatened to kill them all if they touched me. I remember one man laughing at Daddy’s bravado but the look on his face…I’d never seen it before.
It scared me.
That was the first time my Daddy ever scared me.
When he came back to the house, he told me to go to my room and c
lose my door.
I heard a lot of yelling and things smashing while I huddled in the corner of my closet.
I fell asleep in there. The closet wasn’t my well but it kept me safe that night.
When Daddy came to get me in the morning I could smell bacon. We only had bacon on special occasions.
He apologized for what happened. Apologized for the pain in my shoulder. For the scary men he tried to protect me from.
He never stopped apologizing.
Not that day. Not the days after. Not for years. Even when it was too late and his apologies were meaningless.
It didn’t take me long to realize what my Daddy was sorry, it didn’t mean he could stop the men from coming. Especially now that they knew I was there.
They didn’t come often. Once a month and then every few months. Once we had a stretch of six months where we had no visitors and we could breathe with a sense of freedom.
Back then, when I was still only a child, I had no idea who these men were or what they wanted with my Daddy.
I just knew I didn’t like them.
There was one man in particular that always came. Sometimes he would be alone and he’d stay for days, sleeping on the couch, always looking out the window, barking orders to my Daddy, demanding that he go out and get him things.
I was a prisoner in my own home. When these men came, I was never allowed to go with Daddy on the errands they sent him on, I had to stay home. I was their insurance that he would come back.
He would lock me up in my room, to protect me but a simple lock didn’t do much when it came to protection.
The men…they hurt me. A lot. Did things men aren’t supposed to do to girls.
They would burn my skin with their cigarettes.
Cut me in places no one could see.
Make me do things no child should do…
7
Bucket to Jack:
* * *
Do I have to talk about that time, Jack?
I really don’t want to.
I know I promised you my story and I’m trying to tell you it…from the very beginning, but I don’t like the memories, Jack.
