by Jason Carney
“What are you doing?” Patrick asks. “You drop something down there?”
I do my best to ignore him. I should’ve closed the bathroom door.
“Let me brush my teeth real quick,” he says. “Scoot.”
Before I can say no, he comes over with his toothbrush in hand. There is not much room for more than one person in here. I back up to give him space. Patrick turns on the water and begins to apply the toothpaste. His straight blond hair hangs over his forehead. I can’t see his eyes. From the back, he looks very much like a petite woman—a small delicate frame and fine, shoulder-length hair. I watch him comb the tresses at night, right before lights-out. He reminds me of my cousin Jill as a child, practicing to be pretty. The way he studies himself in the mirror, checking for imperfections in his skin, resembles a teenage girl. He primps quite often. Even the way he holds one side of his hair back as he brushes his teeth is feminine.
My eyes keep going from the toilet bowl to him and back. To my thinking, even his toothbrush and hairbrush are covered in that sickness. I keep all my toiletries in my shaving kit, in my dresser. I want to say something about his unsanitary behavior, how his careless disregard endangers me.
“What are you doing?” he asks with a mouth full of minty foam.
Startled, I do not know what to say. “Nothing.”
He gives me a quizzical look, then goes back to brushing. I glance back at the toilet. The thick orange clump at the end of the Q-tip pulses like a beacon from the depths.
I have to say something.
“What are you staring at?” he asks, peering at me in the reflection of the mirror.
“AIDS,” I mumble without thinking.
“Huh?”
“You can’t leave that there,” I say.
He pauses there with a look of confusion on his face. Toothpaste runs down the sides of his mouth. I gesture with my arm to the bowl. He questions me with his eyes. I watch the droplets of his toothpaste-saliva drip into the sink basin.
This whole place is contaminated.
“I don’t want to get sick,” I say. “You have to flush that shit.”
He looks into the bowl and then at me. His face contorts, his nose wrinkles like a bunny, his finely tweezed eyebrows scowl, making him look like a scorned woman. He bends back into the sink and rinses out his mouth.
“I don’t know what you have to do to take care of yourself. Whatever . . .” I hesitate as I search for the words, trying to avoid an unpleasant confrontation; the topic makes me very uncomfortable. I’m unable to stop grimacing at the way he spits openly into the sink. I’m barely eighteen; I never thought I would be having this conversation. “But when you’re done putting stuff up there, be cool and flush it.”
“Flush what? Up where? Explain what you are saying. I don’t think I get it.”
“You know when you’re done cleaning . . . the . . . you know . . . the stuff—”
“What stuff?” he interrupts.
“That stuff, you know . . .”
“Know what? Spell it out.”
“The stuff . . . you know . . . the AIDS out of your butt in the mornings—get rid of it. Spray Lysol on the toilet and sink, be considerate of others, man.” I’m not sure if that came out right, but I feel lighter now that I said it.
“You’re kidding, right?” He looks into the toilet. “So, you think the orange stuff on the Q-tip is AIDS from my ass?” He stares at me for a few seconds. “I would be really pissed off if you weren’t so fucking stupid.” He laughs in a condescending tone.
I’m confused. The grin on his face grows ear to ear.
“You’re shitting me, right?” he says as he turns to leave the bathroom. “Hold on.” I can hear him mumble to himself in the other room.
“What are you doing?”
He returns with a Q-tip in his hands. “You ever use one of these?”
“No,” I shake my head.
“You’re tragic,” he says. “Hold still.”
I freeze, unsure what he is doing. He grabs my chin with his left hand, jabs the cotton swab into my ear with his right. There is a good amount of pressure within my ear canal as he twirls the shaft. I flinch from the uncomfortable sensations of his touch and the sound of the cotton cleaning my ear. He pulls the bulbous end out.
“Well, look at that,” he says, holding the Q-tip in front of my face.
The fluffy cotton is matted and clumped; it is caked up with so much orange wax, the end appears an earthy brown. The sight is disgusting. He throws the swab into the toilet with the other one. I stare down watching it float to the bottom, where it rests on the other Q-tip that looks half as dirty. I am amazed.
Earwax, Jason you’re a dumb-ass.
“You better go to the doctor,” he says with a chuckle. “Looks like your ass is in your ears.”
TRIPLE-D COKE CANS
1988
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Patrick asks.
“Getting ready to talk with my friend over there,” I say, pointing in the direction of the adolescent unit on the other side of the building. “My doctor told me to write down some points that I want to discuss. His doctor, he, and I are having a powwow tomorrow.”
“Must be hard having a friend your age so close, but unable to hang out,” he says with a smile. “Is it hard being with all us older folks?”
“I sold him drugs. He’s kind of gay. We were not really friends.” I pause. “And I wish I had more in common with y’all sometimes.”
“What do you mean, kind of gay? He wouldn’t be a faggot to you?”
“I don’t know. He just hung out with some dudes I assumed were gay. I shouldn’t call people names. I guess I should apologize for that.”
Where I went to high school in Mesquite, any boy who was different was a fag. When boys fought in the halls or the parking lots, varied homosexual slurs were always the insults of choice. Dicksucker is probably the most offensive thing anyone can be called. I’ve used this language since I was five. I learned gaywad and gayrod as derogatory terms before I knew what being gay actually meant. Those terms and others like them are part of the vocabulary of being a straight white boy in Texas. Gay means something that is retarded and dumb, in addition to the obvious meaning.
“You’re making progress,” he says. “So you hung out and did drugs with these guys you thought were gay.”
“No. Sold him drugs. Sold lots of kids in my school drugs. Even the star football player, who drove a black Corvette, bought for him by his dad. That prick would never talk to me except in passing to try to score some weed. Didn’t make us friends.”
“Oh,” Patrick says, staring at Michelle and Mark. They are sitting in a conversation pit on the other side of the communal area.
“Same thing with this guy on the teen unit, he would call me for coke or speed and nothing else. That isn’t friendship.”
I continue writing on my yellow pad, the top two pages folded over the back. I don’t know what awkward things I am supposed to say to this person. For the last hour, I have scribbled and crossed out fake sentiment after bullshit excuse. I feel that our doctors making us come together to seek resolution and support for one another is “gay.”
“How did you know he was here?”
“What is going on over there?” I ask, noticing that he is focused on something on the other side of the room.
“Anticipating good news,” he answers. “Go on. How did you know he was here? I’m listening.”
“The other day I came back from getting some tests done. Y’all were still in group, so I was chilling out here by myself, when the entire teen unit strolled through.”
“Did he say anything?” Patrick asks. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything, didn’t recognize him at first. All the kids seemed to be staring at me, though; I guess he told them who I was already.”
“Well don’t let that bother you, be honest with him. Look at all the positive experiences you’re having,” he says with a funny sm
ile. “You never know how incredible a new connection could be.”
He is being too coy.
I look to the other side of the room; Mark is talking with Michelle and smiling at Patrick. These two very different men seem to be playing some sort of game.
“What are y’all doing?” I ask.
“Being stupid,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me what you wrote? Hey, you’re level 3B, right?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No reason. What are you going to say to that boy?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him nodding his head to Mark.
They are up to something.
As of late, these two have shown real interest in me. Mark has been on the unit for a very eventful three weeks. He is the scariest person on the unit by far. He is very muscular, and when they brought him in it took three orderlies to hold him down so they could sedate him. He is not very tall, maybe five eight. His arms are extremely long; they look like they belong to a much taller man. Mark talks a lot about ghosts who haunt diners on the other side of town. I thought he was very cryptic, until I realized he did seventeen years in prison. I do not ask about the ghosts. When he mentions them, I cringe.
“I’ll say sorry for selling him drugs, I guess. I don’t know. Just going to see how it plays out.”
Mark stands up and makes his way over to where we sit.
“Y’all going to be all right?” Patrick asks, seeing Mark approaching.
“Yeah, we’re cool,” I respond.
The other day in the gym, Mark and I had an altercation. I knew better than to argue with him, though I did not even have a chance. Mark acknowledged his mistake and I didn’t get into any trouble. He is in his thirties, and extremely angry; has been most his life. I am not the only one who notices this fact. When the group therapy ends, you can tell when Mark shared. Often as his group exits, a look of horror is frozen on the faces of those who listened to him work through his insanity; some people are just sicker than others. Mark bears the prison mentality of angriest man on the block wins. In here, he wins.
“What are y’all doing?” Mark asks.
“Jason is getting ready to be confronted by his friend.”
“Oh, that kid over there. Heard your doctor talking to the attendants about that,” Mark says, sitting down in an open chair. “I wouldn’t sweat that, he sounds like a pussy.”
“Now that isn’t very nice,” Patrick says.
“Have you seen him?” Mark asks.
“No—” Patrick starts.
“Well, all right then, I trust what I heard,” Mark laughs. “He’s a pussy, just like Jason.”
Mark winks at me. He is not wearing a shirt, hardly ever does. His torso is covered in tattoos—some big, some small, all look as if they came from a prison cell. On his face is a black teardrop at the corner of his eye. On his stomach, coming out of his waistband, is the outline of a .44 Magnum handgun. The tattoo gives the appearance that he is carrying a gun on his waist. He rubs at the handle frequently when he talks.
“You know I’m teasing, no hard feelings,” he says. “Sorry for the other day. You’re a 3B, right?”
I am smiling, not wanting to cause a problem.
“Yes, he is. I already checked,” Patrick says.
“Why?” I ask.
The 3B level is the highest you can obtain on the unit. I have been at this level for two days. With this security clearance, I am allowed to venture unattended out to the courtyard, go on overnight passes, and make runs to the soda machines on the other side of the courtyard every night at nine. Because of this clearance, the attendants do not watch me too closely. I worked hard the last month to gain this responsibility. I am making progress—3B means I am close to going home.
“So it’s on?” Patrick asks.
“She is if he is,” Mark replies.
“Jason, we got a surprise for you,” Patrick announces like a proud older brother. “The good news—”
“Michelle is into you,” Mark cuts in. “She wants to go get soda with you tonight.”
“Sure, I’ll go,” I say. I do not understand yet what they mean.
“Dude, you’re lucky,” Mark says. “She’s hot. You’re going to get some.”
Michelle is very good-looking. She is tall. Around five nine or five ten, long brown hair extending halfway down her back. The bangs sprayed high, typical for a rocker girl in the 1980s. Even though she dresses younger than her age, to my eighteen-year-old thinking, she is all mature woman. She has large, round, perky breasts that I stare at often. Her skin is pale and freckles line the bridge of her nose, her lips are a candy shade of red, even in the mornings. She is twenty-six and married.
I met her husband when he came on visiting day. A nice man with blond hair in his late twenties. He seemed very blue-collar. Their conversation appeared to be forced and disconnected. They did not make a good pair.
“Yeah, right,” I say.
“She said she’s been flirting with you all week,” Mark elaborates. “She doesn’t think you’re into her, I told her you were.”
“Hell yeah,” I say, still not sure if this is real.
“I told you,” Patrick chimes in. “I knew he would go for it.”
I still do not believe this is real. Mark is not a very trustworthy person. I can never tell what is a truth and what is extended. He has an angle. He has a scam—he trades and collects the other patients’ medications for smokes or cash. Three times, I found him and Michelle’s roommate hiding in the conversation pits, eyes barely open, sedated lumps giggling to each other. I think he is carrying on with her.
“I’m so excited for you,” Patrick says. “You know there is a bathroom right next to the soda machines.”
“You’ll only have, maybe, twenty minutes tops,” Mark adds. “Don’t waste time.”
He then looks over to Michelle and nods yes. She glances at me, smiles. I smile back, and give a small wave.
Holy shit. This is real.
She giggles and shakes her head in a good way. I am in her therapy group. I know very intimate details about her, especially about her relationship with her father; she knows very intimate things about me as well. We both have issues with sexuality. The muscles up my back tighten and tingle, my body builds with nervous anticipation.
I want to touch her boobs. Her enormous boobs.
I don’t know what interests her about me. I do not care. I am here to get better, not to walk on water.
“We thought you could use some confidence,” Patrick says. “You’ve been working hard, you deserve a reward.”
“Or two,” Mark chuckles, slapping me on the shoulder. “I bet you’re worrying about a different pussy now.”
WHAT IS NOT SAID IS IMPORTANT
1988
SUNDAY NIGHTS ARE SLOW. The weekends generally contain a lot of free time as a number of the higher-level patients receive day and night passes. Saturday and Sunday suck for socializing. Even though I am a 3B, I did not get a pass this weekend. My soda-run rendezvous attracted eyes of suspicion; my doctor thought it best if I stuck around. But my indiscretions are not at the forefront as the weekend closes. The unit strangely buzzes. Gossip lingers over the unit since yesterday when Patrick did not return from his overnight pass. We are all worried about him.
Mark and I play ping-pong in the far end of the communal area, mainly to get away from the gossip. Most of the other patients hover around the television or the smokers’ table. They have decided that something horrific happened. Mark figures he went out with his friends and partied all night. I fear he could be hurt or sick. The orderlies and attendants group together at the nurses’ station; they appear to be discussing some plan of action. Mark slams the ball past me.
“Pay attention. Pat’s going to be fine. What are you doing?”
“Something is going on up there,” I say.
“They’re probably getting the meds ready. Get the ball.”
As I start to serve, I notice two attendants exit th
e unit. Mark returns the serve. Something rare occurs—we volley. Mark is tremendously skilled at the table. He is also good at dominoes, Spades, and basketball. All of these are activities one can master if one has a lot of free time.
“You’re too good for me,” I say as Mark scores again.
Most of the time we play this ridiculous game, I pick up the ball after he smashes the damn thing by me. The game becomes repetitive and boring rather quickly for me. I need some excitement. I pick up the ball again.
I decide I am going to serve from six feet behind my side of the table. I arch my body as if I am Jimmy Connors with a racket. My right arm throws the ball up in the air, as if I am on center court at the US Open. When I slam down, the ball rockets squarely into Mark’s side. It bounces back onto the table, dribbles into a roll, and falls off the edge.
“What are you . . .” As I start to speak I notice he is not even paying attention.
Mark is focused on the door at the front of the unit. The two attendants have reentered, walking Patrick to his room. Patrick’s face is swollen and pink. His eyes are puffy, as if he has been crying. The way he walks suggests he is trying to maintain some dignity. Some of the other patients leave their seats on the couches and the chairs of the smokers’ table, heading toward him.
“They’re letting me get some of my things,” Patrick says.
He stops to hug a couple of the women, who reach him first. The attendants intercede and keep him moving forward. Mark and I start to walk over in the direction of the couches. When Patrick and the two attendants enter the room, the door stays open, though one of the attendants stands with his back to the communal area, blocking the view. They are in the room less than two minutes. Patrick exits carrying his belongings in an old suitcase and a white plastic bag.
