by Jane Toombs
THIRTEEN WEST
By
Jane Toombs
ISBN: 978-1-927111-84-0
Books We Love Ltd.
(Electronic Book Publishers)
192 LakesideGreens Drive
Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2
Canada
Copyright 2012 by Jane Toombs
Cover art by Michelle Lee Copyright 2012
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Chapter One
"Mother, will you please stop staring at that crazy!"
Sarah Goodrow Fenz ignored her daughter's plea as well as Linda's frantic tug at her arm. Her feet firmly planted on the southwest corner of Horton Square in revivified downtown San Diego, she peered at the stumbling, mumbling derelict weaving his way toward them.
He was no novelty—all cities had their quota of drunks, druggies and dippity-dos—but something about him triggered a warning flare of memory. She shook her head, but the long-ago and unwelcome memory persisted from a time she didn't care to dwell on.
"Moth-er!" Linda cried, giving her arm a hard yank. "Let's go!"
As Sarah freed herself, the man's blurry gaze met hers and she noticed the wedge of yellow in the brown iris of his right eye. The bottom fell out of her world. Frank. Almost unrecognizable, but Frank all the same. The one man she'd thought she'd left forever back in the past.
After a moment she recovered enough to realize there'd been no flare of recognition in his expression. He obviously hadn't a clue who she was. Thank heaven. She'd simply walk on by and that would be the end of it. But her feet wouldn't move.
"Frank Kent," she said when he drew even with her.
He blinked, stumbling to a stop, looking around, apparently unable to believe she was the one who'd spoken to him.
"Frank," she repeated, understanding with dismay that whether she wanted to or not, she'd made up her mind what must be done. Reaching out, she grasped his hand. "Come with me."
"Are you out of your mind?" Linda protested. "You can't do this. These people are dangerous."
"Not Frank," Sarah said. "Not anymore."
Linda stared at her. "You can't be serious. Even if you know him, just what do you intend to do? Remember, you're staying with us and Darrin will have a fit if you try to bring him to the house." She gave Frank a shuddering glance. "I don't even want him in my car. I'd never get the smell out."
Head down, looking at no one, Frank left his hand in Sarah's, apparently oblivious to what Linda was saying.
Sarah eyed her daughter. "Don't worry; I'll take a taxi to a motel. And I won't bother Darrin about this unless I need a medical opinion."
Linda's expression changed from worried to horrified. "You don't mean to stay with this—this street bum in a motel!"
"You know as well as I do that no hospital will admit him. Where can he go to be taken care of? There is no place for street bums, as you call them. I have no choice but to try to take care of him myself. After all, I'm a nurse."
"Be reasonable, Mother. You haven't done any nursing in years. He's filthy. He probably has lice and God only knows what awful diseases. AIDS, for one."
Sarah shot her daughter an exasperated look. "Either help me or leave me alone. I'm doing what I have to do." She waved her hand at an oncoming taxi and it pulled to the curb. "I'll call you from wherever I go and you can bring me my things." Leaving her still protesting daughter, Sarah loaded a passive Frank into the cab and climbed in after him, wrinkling her nose at the stink of dirty clothes, unwashed male, old vomit and second-hand wine fumes.
"Take me to a motel where they'll accept this man, but make sure it's one where I won't be in any danger," she told the cabbie.
His over-the-shoulder glance was dubious, but he nodded. Frank hadn't looked at her except for the one time on the street. He not only had no idea who she was but no concept of where he was headed or what she intended to do with him. He was as helpless in her hands as she'd once been in his.
She owed him no debt, quite the contrary. Why did she feel compelled to try to rescue him? After all, it had been—what?—twenty eight years since she last saw Frank.
At forty-seven, divorced and comfortably off, she didn't need any complications in her life. She could pick up and go any time she chose and she liked it that way. Her visit to Linda and Darrin here in San Diego had been spur of the moment. Sarah sighed. Her doctor son-in-law, conservative to a fault, would be more upset than her daughter had been. Neither of them would ever understand. There was only one person who might, if she could turn him into a rational human being again. Frank Kent.
Trying to rehabilitate him meant tending him over a period of time. Who knew how long? During his recovery, she might be forced to bring him to her own home in Nevada, a daunting thought. The process, she feared, would force her back into being nineteen-year-old Sally Goodrow again, back to 1972, trapped in the quagmire of the past, the insanity of the old state hospital system and the horrors she'd faced there.
Was it worth the doing?
Words echoed in her mind, said years ago by a nurse who'd befriended her: Pity is shit. Guilt is shit. Love or nothing.
Whatever she felt for Frank certainly wasn't love, never had been love. Yet something compelled her to take on what would be—make no mistake—an unpleasant, down and dirty job with no guarantee of success.
Maybe Linda had it right. Maybe she was out of her mind.
Chapter Two
1972
Sally Goodrow peered out the rain-dotted window of the bus. A stuccoed cement wall ran along the highway, massive trees arching over it, ubiquitous oleanders laying red and pink flowers along the top. Did the wall enclose an old estate?
She caught sight of a red tiled roof and thought hacienda, one of the old Spanish estates.
A moment later the bus turned and passed between open iron gates and she saw the heavy wooden sign hung on black chains: CalafiaStateHospital.
Palms lined the entrance drive, alternating Mexican and date like skinny Jack Sprat and his fat wife. The bus pulled up in front of a three-story Spanish mission style building which another sign identified as Administration.
Sally hurried through the rain, feeling conspicuous with her two suitcases, and entered the building. A scale model of the hospital grounds encased in glass confronted her just beyond the front door, so she put her bags down and examined it.
The AdministrationBuilding wings elled east and west. Behind each ell, three single story structures sprawled like triple digits on a spread hand. Smaller outbuildings huddled in the open-ended inner court.
The entire unit was bounded by the stucco wall she'd seen from the bus. In addition, a higher metal fence cut off the three buildings to the west from the inner court and also from the wall, imprisoning them.
I knew I wasn't going to like it here, Sally thought, her gaze lingering on the fence. I guess I can stand anything for six weeks, though. It isn't like I'll ever have to come back again.
She picked up her luggage and looked around for some indication of where Personnel might be. A, B, C East Wards were indicated by an arrow, the A, B, C West Wards arrow pointed the opposite way. Seeing an Information sign, she crossed the lobby to ask for directions.
In Personnel she signed multiple forms, finally taking possession of a key marked #32.
"If you walk down that corridor," a secretary told her, pointing, "you can go out the side door on the east wing. When you come to a fork, make
a left turn and follow that walk till you come to the singles' apartments. They're two-story, green. If you'd like some coffee before you go back out into the rain, there's an urn in the waiting room just off the lobby."
In the waiting room, Sally saw two men seated near the urn, hesitated, then decided she needed the coffee. As she filled her disposable cup, she tried to ignore the two men—one fat and balding, the other, wearing a green jacket, hunched over as though in pain. He had a towel wrapped around his right hand. A bloodstained towel.
"Take it easy, Dolph," the fat man muttered. "Ain't the end of the world, coming here. Can't be no worse than the one up north. If you'd've stayed off the booze, you wouldn't've got all squirrely again. Jeez, Vera's gonna kill me if she finds out you got hold of that bottle."
"Vera," Dolph said. "Knives."
"Wasn't no knife. You cut your hand on that bottle you smashed," the fat man said.
"Vera and Ron. Snake words."
"Only snakes around here are in your screwed-up head. Comes from too much booze."
Sally took a sip of the coffee, bitter beyond sweetening. She didn't want to hear any of this but she could hardly carry the coffee cup and the two suitcases.
"Knives," Dolph repeated. "They ain't gonna cut me." Without warning he bolted from the chair, startling Sally into spilling some of her coffee as he dashed past her toward the west wards.
"Catch him!" Ron shouted.
Sally froze in place, frightened of the situation.
A broad-shouldered man in a white uniform appeared from nowhere and raced after Dolph, Ron bringing up the rear. The receptionist, who'd come from behind her Information counter to watch, said, "Never a dull moment. Frank sure arrived in the nick of time, didn't he?"
She must mean the big guy. "Is he a doctor?" Sally asked.
"The evening supervisor," the receptionist told her.
"He came to pick up the guy. Frank can't help but nab him—that west side is all fenced in."
"I noticed," Sally said. Setting down what was left of the coffee in the cup, she picked up her bags, did her best to smile at the woman and left the lobby.
She found the exit door she'd been told to use and paused with it open to stare at the rain sluicing down, turning the late afternoon into an early winter dusk. A great beginning at this place she hadn't wanted to come to. Unfortunately, she'd had no choice.
Faint shouts reached her as she hurried along the walkway. Dolph must have gotten outside. Hadn't they caught him yet?
* * *
As soon as the guards took up the chase, Frank Kent ducked back inside the side door entrance to the west wing to get out of the rain, followed by the older, heavier guy he'd been with.
"The guards'll catch him," Frank told the man. "There's a fence out there—he's headed into a cul-de-sac."
"Thank the Lord. My sister'd never forgive me if anything happened to Dolph. Adolph Benning, his name is. I'm Ron Morris, his brother-in-law."
"We were expecting Mr. Benning earlier today," Frank said. "He's a voluntary admission?"
"Yeah. Signed some papers for the judge. Thing is, he needs to get his cut hand tended to—it bled a lot. You a doctor?"
Frank shook his head. "Registered nurse. As soon as the guards get him back here I'll take a look at his hand. How did he cut it?"
Ron shifted his shoulders. "On some glass—a broken bottle."
"A bottle," Frank repeated and waited.
"I should've checked him out before we got in the car to drive up here," Ron said defensively. "The bugger had a pint of rotgut hid on him. When I caught him sucking on the bloody thing I tried to grab it and he smashed the bottle against the car window—lucky the damn window didn't break."
"Why did he run off?"
Ron shrugged. "He got squirrely, muttering about snakes and knives. Figure he's got the DTs again."
"They'll be bringing him into the Admission Ward," Frank said. "There's a lounge to wait in on the ward if you'll follow me."
They passed closed office doors on either side of the long corridor leading into the west wing. At the end, Frank used a key to unlock the door leading into a small foyer where the elevators were. He unlocked a second door and ushered Ron into a short hall that ended in yet a third locked door.
"You got real whackos in here?" Ron asked.
"We put all new patients in this ward for the first forty-eight hours. Some stay longer. We have to evaluate them to decide where they'll do best."
"Any of 'em dangerous?" Ron persisted, glancing uneasily at the closed doors around them, each door with a metal reinforced-glass spy window. "I mean, how come you got to keep them locked up if they ain't?"
Frank shrugged. "With treatment, none of our patients are dangerous."
Ron looked far from convinced and started nervously when a dark-skinned woman in a white uniform emerged from a room. "Hi, Frank," she said. "You must've got caught in the rain."
He nodded. "This is Ms Reynolds," he told Ron. "She's evening charge nurse on this ward." He took a step closer to her and muttered, "Cap."
She raised her eyebrows at him before smiling at Ron.
"Security's out looking for Mr. Morris's brother-in-law," Frank said. "He's Adolph Benning, the voluntary admission you were told about."
"He doesn't sound all that voluntary," she commented.
Turning to Ron, she asked, "Would you like to wait in the lounge?"
As she led Ron away, Frank said, "Ten East called me—I'll be back as soon as possible. Better break out a suture set—Mr. Benning has a lacerated hand."
Alma Reynolds showed Ron into the small lounge in back of the nursing station, picking up her nursing cap from a cubicle inside the room. She was fitting it onto her head when Ron said, "Big bastard, ain't he? You like working with him?"
"There's worse," Alma told him, not caring for the way he was appraising her. "How'd Mr. Benning get hurt?"
She listened to his explanation and shook her head. "That's too bad. You just try to relax—we'll take care of everything."
Leaving him in the lounge, she unlocked and entered the treatment room to set up for the MOD, the doctor on call for the night. Greensmith, worse luck. He'd be mucho annoyed about having to come out in the rain. Or come out at all, as far as that went.
* * *
Dolph ran, feeling himself light on his feet, hardly touching the ground. Suddenly something clutched at his jacket. He struggled. Jerked free, leaving the jacket behind. Ran. But now it took effort and a cold wetness chilled him to the bone.
Rain and a never-ending fence. Dolph slowed, fumbling along the wire. A cage. He was caged like an animal, a dog in a pound. They had him at last. His knees buckled and he grasped at the metal fencing. Pain shot up his right arm from his throbbing hand. He was so cold—where was his green jacket?
"Vera?" he mumbled, her name echoing in his head. Vera. Era. Ra. No, no it was Ron, where was Ron? Dolph slumped against the chain-link fence and howled for Ron.
Voices. He crouched near the ground, terrified. They were coming for him.
"...heard him yelling over here. This way, Bill."
"Goddamn nut."
"There he is!"
Dolph curled into a protective ball, eyes scrunched shut, scarcely feeling Bill's shoe prodding him in the ribs. Can't hurt me now. Safe. No knives.
"Son of a bitch," Bill grumbled. "One of those, you might know. Sure as hell not gonna carry him all the way back to the Ad Ward. You stay here, I'll get a cart."
Lifted onto something that moved. No more rain. New voices. Lifted again. Metal clinked against metal. Dolph opened his eyes to a blue-white light glaring overhead. A brown face hovered and was gone. His chest was bare and he was lying on his back with his right arm outstretched. Where?
"You're all right, Mr. Benning," a woman's voice said.
A strange voice. "We have you safe in the hospital now and the doctor will take care of your hand. Everything is all right."
Doctor? Hospital? Dolph's
heart speeded. His hand, they were going to cut off his hand with their knives.
"No!" he screamed, forcing himself up and off the surface he was on. The room spun sickeningly. "No, no. Nonono..."
"Frank! Quick, grab him. I'll get the Thorazine."
Alma Reynolds acted as she spoke, plucking a syringe and needle from the prep tray, swabbing the rubber plug of the bottled medicine with alcohol, withdrawing the Thorazine.
By the time Frank had wrestled the patient back onto the examining table, Alma was ready with the shot, jabbing it into Dolph's left arm.
"You should have slipped a Posey vest on him as soon as they brought him in," Frank told her.
She shot him a look. "You didn't tell me he was so flaky. From what the brother-in-law said I thought he was just an alcoholic in for the dries."
Frank held Dolph so Alma could force him into the restraining vest, then she tied him to the table. His legs were restrained individually by the ankles, his left arm by the wrist.
"You'd think with all that juice in him he'd be out of it," she said. "Two drinks and I'm flat." She slanted Frank another look.
He ignored her.
"Where's dear Dr. Greensmith, that's what I'd like to know," she said. "Surely he couldn't have bedded down for his beauty sleep this early."
* * *
Dolph struggled against the ties but his muscles were stiffening, he was in a sea of warm wax that would harden around him. If he didn't keep his head above it he'd be sealed underneath like in a jar of his grandma's preserves. Already he could feel the waxy grayness creeping upward past his thighs, his chest. He opened his mouth to cry for help but he was too late and the wax poured in, gagging him. He tried to retch and then darkness swept over everything.
* * *
Crawford Greensmith brushed his hair back, staring intently into the mirror. Was he letting it get too long? One thing to be mod and another to be labeled a grasper at the coattails of youth. Not that he had passed yet, not at all. But it didn't do to appear desperate.
