“Oh, no,” he says.
“Oh no, what?”
“You go out.”
“Take me to the hospital.”
“Which hospital?”
“Royal Victoria.”
“You are not sick!”
“I don’t feel well. My head hurts.”
“Out!”
“Hey, man!”
“Your head hurts? My buttocks hurt! What are you thinking of that?”
“You know, there’s a cream they sell.”
“Come! Out, please.”
“Just drive. What’s your fucking problem, man?”
“You are not to fool me!”
“Dude, I want to hire you.”
“If I must call the police.”
“What?”
“If I must.”
“What? Call the police about what?”
“They will make you go.”
“No, they’ll make you go, Chief. You’re a fucking cab driver! They’ll make you take me.”
Cab Guy folds his arms in front of him. Glares straight ahead.
You glare back, finally throw a twenty-dollar bill into the front seat. “Don’t you think I have money? Is that your problem? C’mon, let’s go.”
He unfolds his arms. Looks down at the twenty, picks it up. Puts the car into gear.
Apparently it was.
He takes you, muttering his way through the city.
At the lights in front of the Vic, he pulls up. Lets you out.
You take your change, walk away. Once you’re a safe distance from his vehicle he calls at you through his window.
“Go get a big X-ray of your head then!” The way he says it you know he’s been working on it the whole trip.
“Thanks. I might.”
“Yes. Do it!”
“I probably should. You’re right.”
“Check it then! Immediately!”
“Okay, I will.”
“Yes, ha! You will!”
“Wow, you’re really stinging me with these zingers, man.”
“I am!”
You enter through the doors at Emergency, passing the guard and making your way across the Registration waiting room. It’s a zoo, as usual. Shrieks and roars and cries of mayhem. The chairs are crammed with creatures of all colours and sizes. At one end a semi-conscious cow moans, bulging over the edges of her stretcher. Two jackals behind desks type frantically at their keyboards, ears pricked to gather information that’s being bleated at them above the general din.
Another pair of doors hisses open and a chimpanzee in a white uniform wheels an aging elk through the opening. When no one is looking you walk through these same doors and into the back halls.
Inside you walk briskly, looking for a corridor that will lead you to other wards. The hospital is built into the mountainside, with structures adjoining at different levels. This means that if you leave one building at ground level, you may connect with the next building on the third floor. Or you can take an elevator up in one, cross over, and actually end up lower in the next.
In other words, it’s a fucking labyrinth, this place. And ancient. Everything is falling apart. The paint is old, the pipes are older, the air is musty. The lighting is poor. There are areas where the air conditioning system is a fourteen-inch fan. It’s shameful. It needs its own surgery. And it’s not the only hospital that’s been treated this way.
You negotiate your way along several corridors, eventually arriving at a passageway clearly marked HOSPITAL PERSONNEL ONLY. A good idea this, big signs to keep the riff-raff out.
You enter it, walk towards the elevator waiting at the end.
At this moment a door swings open and a big brown rhino in housekeeping togs steps out, stops when he sees you.
“Where are you going?”
“Just up a few floors,” you say, breeze by him and straight into the lift. “I’m going to see one of the nurses there.”
“Who do you know there?”
“Honey Zamner.”
He turns clumsily to look at you, the big horn jutting up from the middle of his forehead. “You’re not supposed to take these elevators, sir.”
“Yeah, but now I’m here.”
The door tries to close. He lifts one of his big hooves to block it.
“You’re really supposed to take the ones from the lobby.”
“Yeah, but now I’m here.”
“Yes. But really you should be taking —”
“But it’s straight up.”
He doesn’t reply. Stares at you instead. You can see him weighing the options, labouring through the process. Not many people know this, but rhinoceroses rank in the bottom twenty percentile intelligence among mammals. A fact you made up just now.
The door begins its slide again. This time he allows it to close.
You get up to Honey’s floor, instantly block your nose and begin breathing through your mouth. The acrid smell of shit that fills the air will be with you your whole time here, will even be in your clothes when you leave. This you know. It’s not your first time here. You know this territory, worked here for almost two years. There are people in this hospital who remember you.
You walk over to the nursing station. It’s deserted. You look around, see no one. There are chairs inside the office but you’re hesitant to go in and sit down. Depending on whom Honey is working with, it might not be cool.
You hear noises coming through the open door of a room nearby. A scuffling sound, then bumping. A light goes on inside the room. The bumping stops, the scuffling continues. The sound, you know, of slippers slithering across the hard floors on a late night trek to the toilet. A perennial event with these golden oldies. One of these trips can take ten minutes or more. Sometimes they get there and sit down but then have to call for help to get back up. Or doze off on the seat.
Of course, the worst is when they fall. Old like this, frail and confused, it happens. The sudden noise of one of them slapping down hard against the floor is a sickening sound you don’t easily forget. That’s how they break their hips. And breaking their hips is how they die, shrivelled up in bed month after month. They waste away, drips in their arms and meds in their heads. Even the pretence of recovery quickly becomes a distant memory.
Honey arrives, with Margaret in tow. Margaret likes you. You like Margaret. Margaret’s older, close to retiring. She likes to bum cigarettes off you whenever she sees you. Margaret still likes to think of herself as naughty. She smiles when she sees you.
“Well, look who’s come.”
“Hey, Margaret.”
Honey seems less thrilled by your presence. “What’re you doing here?”
“I just came for a few minutes. Want to go for a smoke?”
“No, I don’t want to go for a smoke. It’s almost midnight.”
“As in, it’s too late? Or too early?”
“As in, what’re you doing here?”
“I’ll have a cigarette,” Margaret says, extending her hand. “Don’t talk so loud. Go inside and have a coffee.”
You reach into your shirt pocket, hand her your pack and lighter. When Margaret leaves, you and Honey go inside the station. You make yourselves coffees. In the background, a radio plays softly.
“You sure do a lot of night shifts lately,” you say.
“It’s my last one.”
You haven’t seen her since the morning she arrived at your place, days ago. She works rotation of shifts, usually five or six in a row then several days off until the new ones. Day evening night.
“So you’re off after this?”
“For three days.”
“That’s great.”
“It’s good. My parents want Baby and me to go out and see them.” Baby is her sister. The youngest of three. The eldest is back in Europe. Honey’s the middle girl. Their parents live in the Eastern Townships.
“They have a nice place, your parents,” you say. A big, beautiful house with many rooms, it was a bed-and-breakfast before they bought it. “You took me there once.”
“I remember. There was a bunch of us.” She sips from her coffee. “Who were you out with tonight?”
“No one.”
“At all?”
“Johnny, a bit. But not long.”
She drops her eyes, chews on the plastic stir stick from her coffee. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I wanted to.”
The phone rings. Honey moves over, answers it. She listens then puts the receiver down and goes over to her charts. When she returns she speaks in a low tone, precise and business-like. It’s always a buzz for you to see this side of her.
She talks for several more minutes. In that time Margaret returns. At night everyone smokes outside the same building, a forgotten little patio not far from here. Barren until morning. Just put a rock to keep the door from locking behind you and then puff away all you want.
Margaret gives you back your smokes and lighter, plops herself down. Honey puts down the phone at the same instant, closes the folder.
No one says anything. The song on the radio ends. For some reason the DJ starts talking about a kind of insect that mates constantly. The three of you listen, unsure of what conversation should follow.
After a time Honey says, “Alright, we’ll be back.” She pushes her chair back, gets to her feet. “If Linda calls again, the chart is there.”
She motions and you get up. Margaret gives you a smile.
You walk in silence alongside Honey. You remember the nights when you used to patrol these halls, beeper on your belt, white shirt, white pants, white shoes. Yes, you used to be a monkey too. Cleaning shit, running bloods, turning bedridden patients. Flapjacks, you used to call them. You had that fake nameplate you wore for a while, Jerry Attricks. Fuh-nee. You used to buddy around with another orderly named McIntyre, who always wanted to take everyone to 7 West because there was this lady there, Mrs. King, that would yell out “Taxi!” every time you passed her door. What a laugh she was. McIntyre used to take all the new guys there.
You pass an empty waiting room and then a set of glass-pane doors that lead to a grungy stairwell. You are about to turn the corner and continue on to the smoking door when Honey suddenly takes your arm and steers you towards a room next to her. She pushes the door open, angles you inside. Closes the door behind you and positions you up against it. You are surprised but know better than to speak out.
Inside it’s dark, but she doesn’t turn on the light. You make out that you’re in a semi-private room, empty, with two freshly made-up beds. The parking lot lights perched outside the window bathe them with a soft glow.
“So, why did you come?” Honey leans in close to you, her forehead just inches from your chin.
“I just came,” you say.
“Because you miss me?”
“No!” It comes out petulant. High school.
“Come on. You can say it.”
“Say what?”
“You’ve been thinking about me.”
“I have been thinking about you. Does that mean I missed you?”
She moves in closer, cuts the distance between you in half. Now it’s centimetres.
“It’s so cute that you needed to see me,” she teases.
“I just thought we should talk. You know.”
Her hand is at your belt now. She’s fumbling to unhook the clasp. Holy Jesus. Is this really happening? Again?
“What did you think we needed to talk about?” she asks, making you look right at her eyes, making sure you don’t look down.
“Well, I’m . . . a bit confused.”
“Confused?”
“Sure.”
“About what you want?”
“About what you want.”
She backs you against the wall. You offer no resistance.
“I have what I want,” she says huskily.
“Wow. You know, you’re really playing around with my head.”
Wow. Did you really just say that?
“Am I?” She unbuttons you. Unzips you.
“Um . . .”
“Are you worried about Johnny?”
“Yes . . .”
“Good. So am I.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you just said it.”
She’s grinding herself against you. By now, it’s fair to say, she has your full attention. You reach in to kiss her, consider veering her towards the beds. She pushes you back with a forearm. A surprisingly strong forearm.
And then crumples to her knees.
Gadzooks!
Your head snaps back, your eyes go to the ceiling. You feel her hands tugging your jeans and underwear down to your knees. You feel yourself straining, anxious for her fingers to release you.
Instead they pause, and you hear her ask from below, “What would it be like to be your girlfriend?”
A question. She’s asking you a question.
What would it be like to be your girlfriend? Is this to you, or is she just musing? Are you supposed to answer this?
Because it’s a toughie.
Like, for you, it would be great. And sad. And something else. But for her, you’re not so sure. Maybe not so great. She’d better like hanging around doing nothing an awful lot. It would be different for her. To be the homely guy’s girlfriend.
But then maybe it would be hilarious. And cool. And fun and sexy and everything else. Everything would be new again. Because when you’re with a girl like Honey, everything is new again. Everything is fun again. Just driving along in a car is fun. Doing groceries. Or just walking down the street —
Oh.
Oh God.
And she’s gotten down to it now. And this is embarrassing but you can feel already that it won’t be long until you spill yourself. It feels so warm and her mouth is so hot and you shouldn’t look down but you do, damn you, the image of her hair splayed across her uniform that way, soft and satin and white beneath you, one of her shoes has come off, the way her hands cling to your hips as her head pushes you back against the wall, the way it feels like she has complete power over you —
Oh.
And there you go. Unbelievable. You tense and jerk. Bwit bwit. Ah. Then again. Bwit. Your eyes are back up now, trained on the ceiling. You thrust more, a last time, sensing that she has subtly unglued herself from you somewhere along the way, pulled her head back, though you feel just as smothered in her grasp as ever, the utter physical sensation of it is already cross-fading with an all too immediate sense of sinking heart, like a high that has peaked and broken and has nowhere to go but down. How fast this all was, how swift. Swift. Good word, that. Is swift bad? Hard to say. Not that it feels terribly manly for you, having given up the goods in less time than it takes the average person to comb his hair. No, this is not a terribly proud moment.
Unless, you never know, unless it’s all right. Perhaps it is. Could it be? Certainly in bed, taking long is good. But here? Maybe as fast as possible is good here, maybe she’s grateful. Maybe it’s expected. But then you don’t have a wealth of experience getting blown in hospital rooms.
Honey stirs beneath you, you hear rustling. You look down again, see her holding her hand out in front of her, see that somehow she’s wearing a glove, one of those white plastic hospital gloves that leave powder on your skin after you take them off, that somehow she’s slipped one on back there when you were counting ceiling panels and got all the way to three, and she’s caught you in it.
And, oh boy, it’s not a pretty sight.
Good Lord. Is this woman completely mad?
She gets up, delicately strips the glove from her hand and lets it fall into the wastebasket a few feet away. You shudder, watching. She turns back to you. You are standing there in full ignominious splendour. These are never great moments for you, but this one feels like it belongs in its own special diary of shame. All your years of lust for her feel right now as though they’re being held in contempt against you.
She comes forward and takes your wrists in her hands, places them down at your knees where your pants are waiting.
You pull them up. She caresses your cheek, patchy with teenage stubble though you are twenty-eight.
“Now I feel like a smoke,” she says, quiet and matter-of-fact. “Don’t you?”
You arrange yourself, buckle up. Nod dumbly.
She goes to the door and opens it, walks out. Straight out, no looking around, no neck craning around the door frame first to see if anyone is there.
You take your own steps, tepid, in another direction, to the trash container by the bed. You peer inside. It’s lined with plastic, also white. Shiny and industrial. The glove lies there, propped up, held aloft by the folds of the bag, your ardour prominently displayed in its palm, white on white on white. Ugh. Are you going to just leave it there like that? Well, what’s the other option? Pull out the bag and tie it up. Stuff it somewhere. Where? In your pocket. Hold on to it until the opportunity arises to stash it somewhere. Secretly carry it around until then.
Uh, no. Not in this lifetime.
Instead you grab the bag, twist and tie it in a single terse motion, then, holding it like a vial of bubbling plutonium, spirit it into the adjacent bathroom. There you bury it into the bottom of the garbage basket, tear off a few strips of toilet paper to crumple, and garnish a light topping. If someone goes to the trouble of removing it and opening it up, they deserve what they find.
You leave the room, burrowing down the hallway head down, breath held. In a hospital there are many airborne dangers, not the least of which is gossip. Just because Honey doesn’t care doesn’t mean you don’t. You keep your eyes on the floor until you reach the door to the outside, the rock already jammed in place.
“Do you think I’m mad at Johnny?” she asks as you light up.
You watch her pull her cigarette from her lips, notice the fine powder that has collected along the edges of her slender fingers.
“Well, I think something.”
She says, “You think I’m getting back at him for something? Is that it?”
“Are you?”
“Do you?”
“Maybe.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“For what?”
“How would I know?”
She flicks an ash into the filthy tin box screwed to the wall. “That’s such a guy thing to think.”
You flick an ash into the filthy tin box screwed to the wall. “Well, I’m a guy.”
“Guys think that if you sleep with someone else there has to be, like, a plot. A big reason for it. I’ve known you a long time and I know you like me. You don’t think I’ve ever thought of kissing you before?”
You say nothing. Sometimes it’s best not to answer. Even you remember this from time to time.
“You’re so full of shit,” she says now. “How many years have you been staring at me with big, sad eyes like you’d give anything if I looked at you the way I look at Johnny? From even the earliest days, Lee. You always did. Watching me when you thought I couldn’t see you. Staring at Johnny like he was so lucky. Like you wished so hard you could be him. So, if one day I kiss you and show up at your place and get into bed with you, suddenly it’s only me? Am I the only one with courage? What have you ever done, Lee? Nothing. You never even said anything, ever. Guys are the biggest chickens.”
“I came to the hospital. Tonight. That’s why.”
“Well, I thought you’d be here before now.”
“I wanted to.”
“I waited for you.”
“I should have.”
“When I went home in the mornings, I couldn’t believe you hadn’t come.”
“I guess, because Johnny’s my best friend . . .”
Her eyes flash. “Lee, Johnny’s my best friend.”
“Well, I —”
“No, you aren’t. Don’t you know? Are you that naive? You’re one of Johnny’s friends, Lee. The one that always has hash for him. The skinny one. The one he looks so good standing beside.”
You say nothing, look away. Skinny is not something Honey would say without knowing what it means to you. She’s hurt you, saying this. It’s on purpose. She must know.
Honey moves back inside. You follow.
When she gets to the elevators she stops. To bid you off.
“I waited, Lee. You didn’t come.”
“I know.”
“It was kind of a test. You didn’t do great.”
You don’t answer.
Another guard passes in the corridor. He slows, wants to be sure this nurse and the guy in the civvies are not in a situation. His reptilian eyes appraise you until finally he slithers off into another corner of the jungle.
“Go,” Honey says, pushing the button on the wall for you.
“Tell Margaret I said bye.”
The doors open. Thankfully, no one is inside. You enter. When you turn back, she’s no longer there. The doors close. Your blurry reflection gapes back at you.
What would it be like to be your girlfriend? That’s what she wanted to know. Like at this rate you’ll ever get there. Such strange behaviour. Weird scenes inside the chick mine. You think of Johnny. Picture him, see him in a different way suddenly. A guy whose girl is fucking around on him. A guy who can’t hold on to his woman. Just like a whole lot of other guys. Less of a deity. More one of you. Wow. Awful thoughts. What a shit you are. What a weird broad Honey is. Who would’ve thought?
So many questions. Unexpected answers. If you could ask her one more question, what would it be?
What’s the one answer you need most?
Hmm.
Just one question?
Okay.
What was with the glove?
You make your way down, over, across, all the way back through the hallways to Registration and the freak show in the waiting room. Then out the Emergency doors with a nod to the guard you’ve been nodding at since forever without ever exchanging a single word and across the parking lot to where the taxis park. Pick one, get in one.
The driver smiles at you. At least this guy, you’re pleased to note, is not having a meltdown. He pulls out onto Pine Avenue, speeds away from the hospital. Like most everyone else who came here tonight, you’re going back home not much more healed than when you first arrived.