fiction - july 30 2006

it was frighteningly hot out on the patio. stupid fucking natural sunlight and all that rot. i wiped the top of my lip again and tried to mop up the sweat beading around my sunglasses. i looked over my shoulder at the restaurant and sighed. 7 feet away from airconditioning and i'm stuck out in the heat watching my beer go piss warm from the sun and smog.
"Nate... Nate! Isn't that your ex?"
I scanned the sidewalk for him until i was cast in a shadow. he had gotten the drop on me and strode towards me. bastard was probably sitting inside where it's nice and cool. in tow there was a boy with a shaved head... a proper little mini me that looked over his shoulder from behind and focused a nasty glare on me.
I, I was a glorious mess, but wasn't too concerned. I was butting out one cigarette as an unlit one bounced around in my lips. my lighter was hot to the touch but I cooly lit up and feigned suprise. "Oh! You. I know you."
"Hi Nate."
Too happy looking. Too polite and not enough threatening to kill me. I was unsure what the fuck was happening. A show for the boy? Please.

My forearm was bandaged up to the elbow and snaked with blood that had peaked out from the gauze. I was dazed from trying to party hard after putting my fist through a window. Not enough blood to carry the booze around.
A few friends had caught me in a net of moral obligation to try and look after friends who are drunk and on the edge of collapse. it hadn't been too inspiring don't worry. they had simply kept me propt up in a cushioned booth to hold their coats and bags while they danced all night. gradually i found the balance of one shooter to every bottle of water. my skin was warm purple under the black lights. i don't recall sleeping on the fouton with my pants off and shirt over my head. Some how those moments were bridged together... with shit, well shit that I totally couldn't remember. But I could go for some food... and hence how i was duped into sitting outside in the patio... food yes, beer yes, sitting like peasants in the sun? Ew.

I kind of recall breaking the window... i remember knocking on Adelle's door... knocking and knocking... screaming at her to come out and pay me. what a scary mess. i banged my fist against the door for her to come out. i was expecting the panes of glass around the door to be treated... you know... the institution grade that you can dent at best? my hand flew through the section of glass and snared a fair bit of skin with it. i'm sure i did more damage yanking it out to examine it. Adelle burst out the door crying and pouding her hands on me to leave. I hoisted a gory arm up.
"Adelle, I broke your window. I... I didn't mean to do that. I just wanted you to come out."
She was stunned by the rivers of wet lines falling down my forearm and darted back inside.
"Adelle! Holy shit! Adelle!! I didn't mean to break the glass.... Please let me in... Call a fucking ambulance if you won't let me in."
She cried inside and I tried not to get enraged. Crying? Crying? I'll give you something to cry about. Leave me out here bleeding all over the fucking deck and all you can do is cry? I could have easily reached back through the hole to undo the deadbolt but that might be crossing a line.
I started down the porch steps and felt as though i was being slowly set into water. fully aware but slipping into something that was holding me inclosed. walking walking walking to the back yard. I yanked off some shirts from her laundry line and tied a tshirt around my arm. i secured it with a long sleeve shirt that I knotted the sleeves around to hold it all together. it was pushing through the material quickly. i better go to the hospital. yes, you can show up drunk and high at someone's place and not know what brought you there, but you have enough sense to get to a hospital? I guess i'll always be a little hypochondriac until I die so i cant resist the thought of a hospital inturn working on me and pretty much trying to ruin someone else's day.
ding-a-ling! i hear the streetcar. what luck! i think i can make this one. i was keeping it pretty straight looking until the driver looked down at my homemade bandage.
"Holy my god... Are you ok?"
"You know what would make me better?"
He shook his head and looked completely shit-scared.
"I'd feel a fucking lot better if you let me on so I can get to the hospital."
His face went hard and looked forward. I'm sure he was just concerned that i was going to bleed to death in the back.
I walked down the middle isle and people pulled back like waves of disgust. all silently saying the transit riders prayer of "don't let this whacko sit beside me..."
Finally I found a good little spot to stand and try not to faint. wow, i'm cut good. my whole arm feels icy cool yet i'm feeling a bit warm. don't forget to yank the cord to tell the man to let me off.
ding ding! ha ha... baby feels dizzy. i'm smiling at the noises around me.
and uh... wow. it just fades back into my mind like a little shiver. here and gone and there's just a small physical reminder... with stiches... and man do i need a drink.
I do remember making a rather forward trip through the gay ghetto to see if i could find someone who owed me money. someone had to cough up a drink.
Plowing through groups flitting around and chatting i cut through a group of semi friends and well wishers.
"Nate? Nate! Fuck man, did you try and slit your little wrists princess?"
Turning around to see who was talking to me I felt like wilting. I twiddled some fingers in the air to say hello and pop! down down down oh fuck the sidewalk looks dirty....
Gracious. There I am, looking up at a halo of men around me staring, concerned and asking me if I need an ambulance. cell phones already in hand. the fuckers will call for the ambulance but'll never stick around when the cops show up. no no no... no ambulance!
Seth cut in with some random friend and hoisted me up.
"It's OK! No ambulance... We got him."
Backs turned away and back to their original conversations. fuck, someone could have just claimed they knew me and dragged me to god knows where while i was passed out.
"God damn... could have taken me away... bastards... you..."
"What's he saying?"
Seth huffed trying to drag me up and away to press me up against a solid surface. "I have no clue what he's saying. Just hold him up for a minte."
I got a shot of heat inside of me. Awake! Pull yourself together! Seth owes you money! You can hit him up and get a drink!
"SETH! YOU MONEY ME FUCKING YOU KNOW WHAT TO DRINK!"
They looked back stunned. Seth pinched my cheeks in his hand. "I choose my words carefully: Get you and your shit together now before I leave you standing here."
Poof. Jerk. Dick. I'm clearly lacking a few quarts of blood and he's mad at mefor being embarassing? but... it IS rather tough to extract money from someone when they're hostile.
"Seth... sorry... I just got out of the hospital. I cut myself on glass and needed stiches. Just feeling a little MESSY. Am I right?"
He looked disgusted.
"Give me that $50 you owe me."
"You COCK! Ben, we're leaving."
I walked out after them swaying a little each step.
"Oh sure I'm a cock when you owe me money! For GOD SAKES SETH LISTEN TO ME!" I cut loose a yell that was a two-pronged approach of unecessary and hysterical. Seth stopped dead and charged at me with arms out to herd me back. I thumped into the wall again and his boy toy looked over his shoulder worried.
"You want a drink? Fine. I'll get you a fucking drink."
"What?! He can't come with us! You said it was just my friends tonight!"
"Shut it! I owe him this at least..." He grabbed hold of my wrist and dragged me into a steady pace of walking. "God I hope you can get in."
"Why the change of heart Sethy?"
"You can sit with our coats so we don't have to pay for coatcheck."
"Cheap fucking bastard... This is my night!"
I laughed but Seth ignored the boytoy comment.
I'm a coat rack. I'm a coat rack for a bottle of beer and the dull knowledge that I should probably stay awake in case i pop a stich and start bleeding to death. I plugged back beer in the corner and tempered them with water inbetween bottles. So sad... The doctor didn't even give me painkillers. I guess I did look a little cracked out to warrant giving me any opiates.
Then what? Then sitting listen to that terrible music and Seth with his little party posse. I was deemed the leper and there were clear scuffles to avoid sitting beside me when they took a break to sit down.
Come to think of it... Why the hell would Seth have even bothered to take me home... Probably trying to rope me into some threesome. One can only speculate based on prior evidence...
I should...
"Uh?"
Shit! Shit I'm wandering off and Ex is there. Another boy. Another leering little hairless dick who's disturbed to be around me. The Ex must love him. He's obediant and at attention.
"Sorry... sorry... there was a broken glass incident. I got stiches! Do you want to see?"
There was a collective gasp at my table and from the boy toy. The Ex strode up closer to take a look. Always a brave soul!
I let him take my wrist and turn the arm around.
"Quite the little mess there..."
"Can you believe that the fucking doctor didn't even give me pain killers?"
He quickly dropped my arm in disgust. What? Just because he was addicted to pain killers I can't have any? Jerk.

note to self...

summer list


words

fiction

another shift on the ward... hot as steamy piss. no wait, that's just what it smelled like in the back. no matter how often i emptied the trash, wiped things down, wiped the clients down... it always hung in the air. trapped in the humidity that wafted in during the summer.
i would be green in the mornings. literally on the verge of throwing up because i was upright at 6am. the auto pilot would click on and away I'd shuffle to start to wake up the apartment. who am i kidding? most of them were up already. some in bed waiting, others slinking around the back halls which always unsettled me. i had a back pocket full of medium gloves... and flipped on the tub room lights to turn on the beast of tub. the lights always casting an annoying tint to the room, an assault on my eyes.
bath time... always interesting, always different depending on what apartment i was in. i stared off into nothing shampooing hair and becoming more aware at the dampness that got into the gloves... pockets of water that always got in... always created red ruts on my fingers that sometimes split open and I would end up making it worse from wearing gloves more often because you don't need weeping sores working with hepatitis positive patients.
the supervisor i had the first summer worked as a nurse in some tough psych hospitals in England... eventually becoming a nursing teacher and somehow ending up in the Hospital as my bosses boss. She offended some of the sow staff who didn't get her chilly sarcasm or appreciated how skilled she was. everything was a learning moment... but more importantly just some hard skills behind what she was showing me. she talked to me about how i was eerily calm in Big Freakouts and just had made a decent name as a summer student who wasn't too terribly stupid.
her emphasis was on how your actions could make things better or make things worse... jean was keen on getting me aware of what i was actually putting a patient through when i tried to confront someone raging or someone who was having literally a psychotic episode. terrifying for the patient to be sure and made worse by a bad decision. jean was talking to me about how rare it is to use a 4 point restraint in the Hospital now... and only if the patient is ripping the apartment down or practically killing someone. still, it had happened after we had all gotten clobbered by a patient who was so good... except it was like he turned into a different guy for 3 weeks. just like someone had replaced his sweet little personality. regardless it was a hairy situation where we had all been rushed to stop him from tearing into guys who were in that apartment. the force of screaming, the clawing and punching made worse by the fact that he's blind and in tune with anything getting up close to him.
it was difficult to try and help the full timers get him to calm down... he would be still and boom! someone would get hit again... all dramatic recreations aside we finally got the go ahead to put him in a restraint... i wasn't able to do it personally but i had to sit in the room and try to hold down his legs then arms. the final moment before i left i asked him if he was going to be calm... he relaxed his hands and nodded... and as I got up from the bed he dug his nails into my arm and curled them up. Holy mother of god... there's one lesson learned...
so that was over and i was clearly affected by it. it's something where I can't imagine being in that bed, but conflicted because i had a puffy face and a scratched up arm that stung from his nails. i had fallen back when he slapped me and took his hand with me... i was despondant thinking that i had seriously hurt him... or as jean had been trying to teach me, make things worse by my actions.
We sat in the apartment livingroom and chilled out for a moment to try and figure out what caused this outburst. 5 people could hardly get him to stand up and walk without lashing out. what was wrong? why did he do it? did we do the right thing? should be have put the restraints on sooner before he kicked the shit out of everyone? Perry, a roomate of the patient who got thumped as well screamed in his downs syndrome drawl and cut into my thoughts, "he hit mwee!" clearly he was happy at the situation being dealt with.
Jean chatted for a bit and plopped the set papers i had to fill out... any time i got smacked and a supervisor saw it we had to fill something out. the union felt that this would prevent us from filing a claim because the forms would take so stupidly long. or at least that was my conspiracy theory.
i was filling out the forms with an icepack on the side of my face. getting too warm to be of much comfort but had done nothing to sooth the throb of my face. i was getting sweat in my eyes because the a/c was broken and i was depending on a breeze to come through the side patio door. i was awash in thoughts, worry, feeling perplexed as to why this usually calm guy was going ballistic.... and in the background a bigger debate was unfolding.
Perry was defending himself from Mikey's criticisms. "no-ah... you wee-taded" and Mikey with a stutter, "N n n no no NO you're retarded!" Seriously. They were trash talking each other on who was more retarded and it was heating up rapidly until the apartment was filled up with them squalling the r word over and over and over until i stood bolt up right. "you're both retarded stop it!!"
[pause]
"S... s .. s ssee? I told y y y ya you were."
i chucked the forms into the trash and got juice and some cookies for the three of us since it was the universal food and drink of snack time and calm the fuck down time. I appologized but all i got was big goofy smiles caked in oreo cookie brown-black and obliged them in a toast... and then another toast 5 minutes later because, well, Perry forgot that we had already done it. Dah well.

fiction july 3 2006

my hand was going sweaty pressed up against the hood of the car. i was woofing up a searing mouthful of breakfast that had been layered on top of an ocean of beer i had drank the night before.
"That, sir, is why you shouldn't have had the drinks with brunch."
I really wasn't happy with the idea of throwing up a $30 meal in the hotel parking lot. Paul kept watch as best he could while trying to call his evening fling on his cell.
"What the fuck! I told him I was going to call back right at noon today!" He paced off down the garage to leave me trying to plug up my mouth and keep something down. I slid down to lean against the car and avoid the small puddle I had made. my upper lip was thick with sweat and i wondered if i would feel better in the car with the airconditioner on. Paul paced back to the car and steamed past chewing on his thumb nail. Still being psycho and still repeatedly calling the boy he had gone home with. I tried to get his attention for the keys but he was lost in repeated button stabs and didn't pay mind to me meakly waving a hand.
Finally I popped open my bag to fish around for a joint. i found one pathetic half-smoked bit and yanked out a bottle of wine. lit up and pulling on what remained I steadied my will for a drink. this will make the day or break it. Ahhhh... still kinda cold. wine never turns its back on me.
"I can't believe you're drinking!"
"Want some?"
Paul tore the bottle away from me and plugged a mouthful back. "Why isn't he here? We need to get going!"
"What exactly are you waiting for again?"
"Fuck it. Pull yourself together we're leaving." But he walked away again for one more burst of calls. I took the time to finish the wine off and feel steady again. I shut my eyes and felt around in my pants for a piece of paper. Paul had lost a heated draw for the hotel room last night and went back to the no-show boy's apartment. Resigned to the idea of figuring out how I could order in porn without it getting charged to Paul's credit card I had stood outside having one last smoke.
The Ex was a meathead cop in the northside of town. Big slab of dark eyes and a terrifying calm that would intensify the more enraged he got. He and I had a thing that had been dragging like an aching hardon for months since we had ended things officially, but lately i was in the mood to avoid him completely. The last bit of whining I had heard from him was in regards to his partner asking to be reassinged after getting up to his arsehole in stealing possessed goods. Needless to say it would be a little terrifying to have a racket be jeapordized by someone having a spat of guilt.
The partner had been a closet case so all The Ex had on him was a long list of dick that would certainly call into question the reasons why he was married with some kids. I turned to the side of the bar hoping to see some people fucking or better still someone selling weed for a night cap.
"Nate?"
I jumped backwards ready for a fight but only saw The Ex's ex partner. "Hey... Hi." He looked down and stuck a hand in his pocket. Probably the one he stuck his wedding band into.
He looked down and walked over to me. Like I was supposed to do something but he was painfully scared of it.
"Hey, Scott... right?"
"Yeah! So," He exhaled a stream of smoke and sized up to me and looked straight a head at my chest.
"Look...." He moved forward some more. "I dont know what you heard..."
"I don't give a shit. the more i know the worse i feel about it."
"Are you in town for something?"
"Just for my friend to get some tail tonight." I looked over my shoulder at the back of Paul's head and arms wrapping around him from the front. By the time I looked back Scott was even closer and our chests grazed closely. I eyed him up as he kept avoiding look up at me. Classic fuck me fuck me until i forget the bitch wife and kids syndrome. I had indeed won the hotel room for the night.... I pulled at his wrist and avoided Paul catching us wave down a cab.
"The Imperial on Jans St. please."
Scott stayed far to the side of the cab in dark shadows with his hand moving to find the top of mine and gingerly graze my fingers for a second. What a trip... this is grade 8 all over again! hopefully this boy won't break my collarbone when trying to reject me. what can i say? i went to a tough school.
We waked into the hotel lobby which was still save for the night staff behind the desk. i walked straight for the elevators with my little closet case in tow. Finally in the elevator he looked up at me as he pressed up against the mirrored wall. He was trying to think of some bullshit small talk I'm sure, but the doors pulled open again. I didn't say anything and let him trail after me. When we got to the suite he suprised me with arms enveloping me from behind. He came in the door linked to me and i tugged him to my bed to fall backwards on him.
"Hey, yo, lighten up. I'd like to consider this something fun for the both of us instead of me ruining your life."
He shook a head. "I can see why you made him crazy. You don't suffer bullshit very well."
"He was a great guy when he wasn't in a manic episode. So... are you ok with fucking or what?"
Clearly he was shocked. "I, uh..."
"Cause I'm fine with just drinking and hanging out. I dont want you to feel like you have to do this."
He warmed to the response and didn't overtly notice that I was only saying it to increase my chances of getting his pants off. We stripped down to obligatory tshirts and shorts and nestled into each other. for once I wasn't fiddling around trying to fan the passion in order to speed things up. Maybe it was all the beer or maybe it was from the massive quantity of weed Paul and I had smoked that day.
I find I'm a beacon for people to pour their little hearts out to, but we enjoyed the time to kiss and avoid having to let it all fall apart into a 15 minute burst of energy.
We passed out with hands under boxer waistband elastics and the airconditioner fanning us into a deep sleep. Paul came in after 8AM and noisily passed out on the floor after leaving all his luggage on the bed and was too wasted to clear it off. The Ex's ex partner shook me awake after Paul had settled to leave and silently left me his cell and email number.
"Nate! Get up. We're going. I'm not going to sit around in a parking garage all fucking morning."
I tossed my bags into the backseat and jammed the piece of paper into my wallet.