by Adams, Lucia
Matt didn’t look forward to being reunited with Jared. In their time apart, he contemplated the Danny incident. He was angry at himself for agreeing to follow Jared’s idea. Part of him wanted to exercise the guilt by riveting punches into Jared, but he knew that would only raise suspicion. Since they were both in solitary confinement, he didn’t have to deal with him. He was only on the restricted floor for a week before they allowed him to return to the integrated floor, and even reinstated his job.
Mopping piss splatters off of the urinals was worth his fifteen minutes with Bubbles every day. She promoted him from hand jobs to full-on sex. They never made the pit-stop for blow jobs, but he figured with her germ phobia, it was a dream that had to die.
Losing his virginity was epic. He had Bubbles practically folded in half, pinned against the wall in the bathroom stall, her toes kicking up over the top of the metal barrier, as he slammed angry thrusts into her. She looked terrified. He didn’t care. Since she came back the next day, he knew he must have done something right. From then on, he only called her Marilyn. His fifteen minutes with her was the best part of his day, and if you pushed the moments together like slices of bread, it still didn’t amount to a loaf of time.
Nothing filled the days. The patients attended a school of sorts—one room with one teacher who struggled to teach several different grades at the same time. Homework was nonexistent and no one could be trusted with a pencil. Marilyn would take the markers and color her fingernails during class. Matt watched her out of boredom as she avoided the cuticles and would color the little white half-moons with a different marker.
Almost as bad as school, group therapy was the second biggest waste of their time. Junior therapists who didn’t know how to handle the diversity of the group directed the sessions. One day, when the people gathered in their seats, he was surprised to see Marilyn among them. She usually had group therapy in the mornings, but they must have switched her to the afternoons.
She twitched. Two more people and it would be her turn. Matt didn’t take his eyes off of her. In the bathroom, standing so close, she looked much taller. She was small, and from the other side of the therapy circle, she looked like a fairy, despite her oversized tits.
“Marilyn?”
“Huh?”
“It’s your turn.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” she paused.
“The beginning? We’re talking about your first action in the series of things that necessitated your hospitalization.” The therapist rolled her eyes. She was a cunt.
Marilyn looked off into nothing as she tried to recall what it was.
“Marilyn?”
“Um, Squiggles, our guinea pig.”
“Your guinea pig?”
“Yeah, she caught ringworm and her fur fell out. We weren’t allowed to touch her.”
“And did you—touch her?”
“She squealed a lot at night. I guess they don’t sleep much then…nocturnal or whatever they’re called. She kept me awake and she was squealing like she was in pain.”
“So what did you do?”
“I put my mother’s rubber gloves on—the yellow ones she used to wash dishes with—and I took Squiggles out of her cage.”
Marilyn stopped and swallowed, clearly uncomfortable with sharing her story. Matt wondered if it was because he was in the group.
“Continue, please—what did you do with Squiggles?”
“I—I was going to set her loose in the woods, but it was so cold; I thought I was doing her a favor. I—I just took her outside to our goldfish pond. I had to break the ice to make a big enough hole to fit Squiggles. My fingers nearly froze and the goldfish swam around her like green ghosts. I held her under the water until she stopped moving.”
“So, what do you feel was your pivotal decision point?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when did you decide to kill Squiggles?”
“When I was laying in bed, listening to her squeal.”
“Would you identify this as your pivotal decision point?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“What do you think some alternative actions would have been?”
“I dunno. Maybe wearing leather gloves instead of rubber gloves so she couldn’t bite me.”
“Do you feel that being bitten was the worst consequence of your actions?”
“I guess not.”
“What was, then?”
“Winding up here?”
“If you back up, at what point did someone else in your family do something different than what you did that night?”
“They stayed in bed?”
“Correct. Having the thoughts of killing the guinea pig—Squiggles—wasn’t the critical point until you acted upon those urges.”
“But if I hadn’t worn the rubber gloves, I wouldn’t have tried to set them on fire. The fire was the consequence.”
“No, Marilyn, the fire came after you killed Squiggles. Killing Squiggles was your first consequence.”
“Well then, I’m glad she’s dead.”
Everyone in the group laughed quietly. Marilyn looked up at them and then quickly lowered her eyes.
“Okay, Paul—you’re next.”
Paul droned on about his pivotal point—something about being caught masturbating in his sister’s room. Matt ignored him. He stared at Marilyn, who looked too embarrassed to meet his gaze as he contemplated what she had heard. Matt thought, Humph. Who knew? I lost my virginity to a guinea pig killer. And those fucking rubber gloves…I’m not surprised she wore them long before she came here. And what’s with the fire? I wonder if she’ll tell me if I ask. Freaky. Oh well.
“Matt?” the therapist said.
“What? Oh, yeah, my turn.”
The bitch rolled her eyes again.
“My pivotal point was when I picked up the cinder block and smashed it on Hannah’s legs.”
“Okay, very good. But, did you think about it, or plan it?”
“Nope, she was passed out; I saw the cinder block, and it came to me.”
“So your arc of action was short and without a period of planning, correct?”
“Yeah, I just thought about it and did it.”
“Okay, now what were your other options?”
“I could have killed her.”
“Yes, you could have, but that’s a negative option. Can you give me a positive alternative?”
“Um, I could have just gone home.”
“Very good. Identifying these critical points will help you recognize them in the future. Okay, Chad, you’re next.”
Marilyn’s eyes darted to meet Matt’s and then back again. Matt wasn’t able to guess what she was thinking, but he was also sure he didn’t care.
The next day, in the bathroom with Marilyn, he found out.
“So who’s this Hannah girl you were talking about in therapy circle? Was she your girlfriend?”
“Are you kidding me? No, she wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“Well, who was she?”
“Just some girl from the neighborhood.”
“Did you like her?”
“She was okay for a while, but no, I didn’t like her.”
“Then why did you do that to her legs—with the cinder block?”
“She pissed me off. Listen, can we drop it? It’s bad enough I gotta go over this shit in therapy, can we just spend time together?”
Marilyn wasn’t satisfied. She refused to fuck Matt and gave him a half-assed hand job while she wore those fucking food service gloves. He had already made a mental note to not eat any of the sandwiches after their first encounter.
Marilyn would bring Hannah up occasionally. Matt realized she was jealous of Hannah, but it was another thing he didn’t care about. He liked Marilyn, but was more interested in her willingness to get him off than her jealousy trips.
He was right—Marilyn’s hesitation in group therapy was because she was uncomfortable speaking in front of him. After several weeks, the real reas
on she was in the facility erupted from her—literally. Marilyn had the stomach flu. She was a mess of snot and tears, with both fluids glistening in stray hair strands. As she sat in the recreation room with a bucket between her legs, she contracted the sharing disease. Matt sat across the room from her as she explained how she set the yellow rubber gloves on fire in her basement the night she drowned Squiggles. She drew designs with the lighter fluid, and didn’t bother to tell anyone when the house was on fire. Her little sister died, and Marilyn seemed detached from the incident. Matt knew he had issues, but he was not a monster like Marilyn.
*
Two and a half years after Matt was admitted to the state hospital, Marilyn told him she was pregnant. They stood crammed into the last stall in the bathroom; the smell of disinfectant stained his tongue. Marilyn was a slobbering mess of blubbery and drool. Matt didn’t experience the elated anticipation of becoming a father. He didn’t feel anything.
The next blow Marilyn dealt was confessing Matt might not be the father of the baby. She fucked one of the orderlies—Ronald. Matt would have taken this harder if she wasn’t pregnant. Not knowing if he was the father or not was a relief.
“What do you want to do about it?”
“Ronald says…”
Ronald says? echoed in Matt’s head.
“…he says I should tell them I’m pregnant, but say I don’t know who the father is. I’m—I’m going to get an abortion.”
Matt didn’t hesitate, “I think that’s a great idea.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely.”
Marilyn was a trouper. She aborted the baby and only missed three days of hand jobs. After two weeks, she was freshly medicated with birth control and back to fucking Matt in the bathroom.
“So what’s with this Ronald? He’s an orderly on the female ward?”
“Yeah.”
“And how often do you sleep with him?”
“Just once or twice.”
“Once or twice a week, a month, or what?”
“Just once or twice a month. He caught me sneaking off to meet you and that’s how I keep him quiet. Why, are you jealous?”
“No, should I be?”
Marilyn had a disappointed pout on her face. “You still love that Hannah girl, don’t you?”
Matt sighed. “Why would you think that?”
“You crushed her legs. You must feel something for her.”
“Well, it wasn’t love.”
“She has your scars though. I’ve been fucking you for a year and I don’t have that.”
“Hey—didn’t you have my baby cut out of you?”
“Yeah.” Marilyn looked down.
“Look at me.” Matt lifted her chin with his fingertips. “Those scars are more beautiful than anything I could have done with a cinder block.”
Marilyn smiled at Matt and kissed him.
CHAPTER 5
Palms
1994
All of Hannah’s pills were yellow. She was sure it meant something significant, perhaps a secret message of sorts. Yellow Xanax was prescribed for her panic attacks, yellow Zoloft so she wouldn’t off herself, and yellow Percocet for her leg pain. She didn’t know how she lucked out getting the Percocet, but it wasn’t something she was going to start complaining about. Hannah was nineteen and worked as a filing clerk at City Hall—not exactly a job she couldn’t do high.
Donna was the only other person who worked in the basement filing area with her. Hannah liked Donna—she had trained her and they always took their lunch breaks together. After a year of lunches, Donna told Hannah about her splitting migraines. Hannah was happy to offer her a handful of Percocets. Donna learned quickly. She had other pains from all of the bending she did over the filing cabinets, and her husband’s back aches would frequently reach emergency status. Donna could have just asked for the pills, but Hannah figured it made her feel better to mention a story before an outstretched palm.
The friendship didn’t go one way; Donna often invited Hannah over for dinner, or they’d meet Donna’s husband, Bob, for beers after work. A few times a month, Donna and Bob took Hannah to drink with them at the bar near their house. The plan was always that Hannah would sleep on their couch instead of driving to her apartment, but willing lips and the inability to say no always led to Hannah going home with some guy she’d not remember when she was sober. Bob always had a use for anything yellow Hannah had in her purse. He was friendly and always made her laugh. During the week, he was a construction worker with a voracious appetite for neatly rolled joints. He could out-smoke Hannah and Donna and still drive home.
Bob met them for lunch every Friday. Afterwards, he always convinced them to smoke. The three of them crammed into the cab of his pick-up truck and passed the joint back and forth as they sat parked behind the post office’s dumpster. Hannah wondered how Donna didn’t notice Bob staring at her. His fingers lingered on the joint as he handed it to her, and he’d rub his leg against hers. She cursed herself for not being more assertive about wanting to sit on the end. She tried to figure out if Donna and Bob had an open relationship. Donna had slept with one of their co-workers for a few months over the winter, but still carried on with Bob like she was happily married.
The attention from Bob made Hannah feel insecure. Donna was far more desirable than she was, with her tiny, petite, doll-like figure, and her curly blonde hair. Her suntan never faded in the winter and her smile lit up her entire face. Hannah’s body was round in some places, scarred in most areas, eternally pale, and she hardly ever smiled. Even though she wondered what it would be like to sleep with Bob, she quickly shook the thought out of her head—Donna was her closest friend.
“Bob! We’re gonna smell like pot,” Donna giggled.
“Tell those City Hall crooks to go fuck themselves.”
Donna and Hannah laughed. It was Bob’s answer to most problems. He didn’t hesitate to tell people to fuck off at the slightest indication they were going to bother him.
“Did Donna invite you to our barbeque this weekend?” he asked in-between puffs.
“Yeah, I mentioned it to her.”
“Well, are you coming?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah hesitated.
“What do you mean you don’t know? Of course you’re coming.”
There was no arguing with Bob—Hannah would go.
*
Donna didn’t know about Hannah’s scars, so she dragged her around the barbeque, trying to introduce her to different men. A lot of Bob’s c-workers came, and his son’s friends were there as well. Bob was in his forties, so his son was slightly older than Hannah. When Hannah’s conversations with Bob’s friends didn’t last long, Bob crooked his arm around her shoulder and walked her over to his son’s friends.
“We’ll find someone you like,” Bob said before he pushed her towards the crowd of guys and gave her a smack on her ass. “Listen up, everyone; this is Hannah. She’s lonely. Someone talk to her—she’s a good girl.” Bob tousled Hannah’s hair and walked away.
Self-consciously, Hannah smoothed her hair down and smiled.
“C’mon, Hannah—we don’t bite. Let’s get you a beer,” some guy in a baseball cap said as he reached into the cooler and popped the top off of a Rolling Rock.
“Thanks.” She took the bottle and drank from it.
“We’re about to play beer pong—you can be on my team,” the same guy said.
Even though it was her first time, Hannah had fun playing beer pong. She lost with the lowest score. The wooden picnic table was on a slant and no matter how exact she thought her aim was, she always missed. By the time she had six beers in her, she was no longer walking to the house when she had to pee, but squatting in the dry leaves in the woods. She’d already taken a break to give the guy in the baseball cap a blow job behind Donna and Bob’s camper. Soon after they resumed their pong game, an obnoxious guy in cowboy boots rubbed up against her.
“Hey!” she said, “You’re making me
mess up my pong shot.”
“It’s okay, darlin’, your pong shots were off before I came. I’ve been watching.”
“You have?” Hannah gave him a drunken smile.
“Yes, I have. You wanna go for a walk?”
“Maybe in a little bit. I need another beer.”
“In a little bit? Can’t we go now?”
“No! I need a beer.”
Someone stuck a beer in her hand and she chugged it.
A group of guys who had been playing horseshoes all night joined the pong crowd. Hannah froze. She wasn’t sure—her facial recognition skills were terrible—but the one guy looked like Matt—cinder block Matt. His eyes met her stare and the surprised look that seeped across his face confirmed who he was.
Hannah turned and spoke to the guy in the cowboy boots, “How about that walk now?”
He grinned and pulled her towards the woods with him. She wanted to walk deep into the trees to avoid any spot where someone had already pissed, but the cowboy stopped when the light ended and laid on the grass, not bothering with going so far as the woods.
Hannah was sobering up—too afraid of Matt to leave the safety of the man she was with, but not drunk enough to fuck. The man tasted like cigarettes and calluses ridged his fingertips. He started to annoy her when his slobbering kisses wet most of face. He stopped, leaned back, pulled a flask from his back pocket, opened it, and took a swig. He handed it to Hannah. “Drink this.”
She took a sip and tried to hand it back to him, but he pushed the flask towards her and said, “No, drink all of it.”
Hannah hesitated, but opened her throat and poured the whiskey down, allowing it to burn in a flood as it emptied into her stomach.
“Now, what’s your name, little girl?
“Hannah.”
“Hannah…nice. Well, com’ere Hannah.” The man pulled her close, kissed her again, and his spit soaked her face. She could feel his hard-on grinding into her leg. He pushed her shirt up and pulled her pants down. His jeans were around his ankles when he mounted her. She could feel him struggling to get his cock into her, so she stretched her legs back as far as she could. He rocked onto his knees and started rubbing himself.
“Come suck this a little bit. I’ve had too much to drink.”
