Return of the Magi

by P. J. Tracy

  ‘You’re most welcome.’

  They looked on in amazement as Emil polished off his breakfast in minutes. ‘You were very hungry,’ Edith commented.

  ‘Starving.’ He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his full belly. ‘Now all I need is a little nap.’

  Edith’s eyes suddenly shifted upward and she smiled sweetly. ‘Good morning, Dr Harold.’

  ‘Good morning, ladies, Mr Rice.’

  Emil jumped and spun in his chair. ‘Morning, Dr Harold.’

  He glanced at Emil’s scrubs with an impassive expression. ‘Did you sleep well, Mr Rice?’

  ‘He slept wonderfully well,’ Gloria said cheerfully. ‘We gave him a teddy bear.’

  Dr Harold smiled in amusement. ‘That was very kind of you. Mr Rice, in my office in five for your morning briefing. Yesterday was your training-in period to get you familiarized with our facility, but today you’ll have a full schedule. You’ve got a lot of work to do, and I want you on the clock by oh eight hundred sharp.’

  Emil shrank a little. ‘Gee, Doc, I’m not so sure a man should jump right into work on a full stomach.’

  ‘You’ve got four minutes now, Mr Rice.’ Dr Harold did a crisp drill turn and clipped away.

  He flinched when Edith covered his hand with hers. ‘It will be okay, Emil. Dr Harold is firm but fair.’

  Gloria nodded. ‘We hate to let you go, Emil, but you should follow Dr Harold to his office now. He appreciates punctuality, but he appreciates it even more if you’re early.’ She smiled mischievously and spoke in a deep, theatrical voice, mimicking Dr Harold: ‘ “Ten minutes early for an appointment is on time. Five minutes early for an appointment is late.” ’

  ‘We think he also has obsessive compulsive disorder,’ Edith commented gravely. ‘But we all have our issues, don’t we?’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘Come in, Mr Rice. Have a seat.’

  Emil’s butt hadn’t even hit the chair before Dr Harold handed him a thick sheaf of papers. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Your manual. For your stay here, think of it as your Bible. The first page is a list of the daily duties you’re expected to perform. The rest is supplementary material you may find helpful.’

  ‘The sisters gave me a Bible already.’

  ‘Along with a teddy bear.’

  ‘Yeah. That was weird.’

  Dr Harold assessed him curiously. ‘You keep referring to them as “the sisters”. You’re reluctant to use their names.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m reluctant. I don’t even know them and you told me not to connect with any patients, so I’m just following orders.’

  ‘But they’ve connected with you.’

  ‘That’s exactly the way to put it. They connected with me, not the other way around. I swear, Doc, I haven’t been trying to play them, they just won’t leave me alone. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘I appreciate you being forthright, but for the time being, you’re doing just fine. Let me know if you have any questions. You’ll be on the second floor for part of the day, and that can sometimes be challenging.’

  ‘Challenging? Like, how?’

  Dr Harold stood and looked at his watch. ‘It’s oh eight hundred, Mr Rice. Time to go to work.’

  ***

  Initially, Emil thought the second floor was fantastic – most of the ambulatory loonies were already downstairs eating breakfast or weaving baskets or whatever they did when they weren’t in their rooms. But then he got to the first horrifying item on his day’s duty list.

  He sullenly pushed the metal cart with its big rubber wheels down the hallway, stopped at each of the rooms Dr Harold had listed, then emerged holding his breath with a bedpan at arm’s length. It was official: there would be no getting out of this dump with any shred of dignity.

  ‘This is a damn conspiracy is what it is,’ he mumbled. ‘Nobody said nothing about any mopping. Nobody said nothing about sewer patrol –’ He stopped dead in his tracks as it dawned on him that crazy people talked to themselves all the time – he’d seen it with his own eyes. Could something like that get you locked up in this snake pit? Was Foster lurking around the corner with a tape recorder, architect of the ultimate diabolical plan to get him quarantined to a loony bin?

  Intellectually, Emil understood that it was a crazy notion, but then again, you just couldn’t put anything past a man who had a constitution nastier than a Komodo dragon’s.

  He paused, took a deep breath and clamped his mouth shut. He wouldn’t be doing any more talking, no, sir, at least not to himself. It was heads-down time. Empty bedpans, work hard, be Emil Rice, the best ex-con ever employed. And definitely not crazy. Nope, not one bit crazy.

  The last room on his second-floor list belonged to some dude named Ralph Flowers. He was a big guy, built like a linebacker gone to fat, and he was standing by his bed, wearing a Yankees baseball cap and a look of utter misery.

  ‘Hey, what’s up, Ralph? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be downstairs?’

  ‘I can’t. I have a doodle.’

  ‘What? What doodle? What are you talking about?’

  Ralph looked down at the floor, obviously heartsick. ‘I have a doodle in my pants.’

  Emil closed his eyes. ‘Aw, no, man, that’s disgusting.’

  ‘Can you help me?’

  ‘Who, me? Are you kidding? I’m what you call a maintenance engineer, and maintenance engineers don’t do diapers. Just hang on a minute, okay?’

  Emil rushed out of the room and looked frantically up and down the hall for a nurse, an orderly, anyone. No joy. Suddenly, a voice blared over the PA system. ‘Emil Rice to the dayroom. Emil Rice to the dayroom.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, in a minute.’ He grimaced and moped back into Ralph’s room with his head down.

  Ralph was fighting tears now, and Emil screwed up his face, took his arm and led him into the bathroom. ‘You need to take off your pants, dude, okay? All of them, even your short clothes, you got it?’

  Ralph sniffled and nodded. ‘I need new ones if I take these off.’

  ‘Course you do. I’ll take care of it. Just get yourself cleaned up – you can handle that on your own, right?’ Emil asked hopefully.

  Ralph cocked his head, clearly having an internal conversation with himself. Or maybe with several selves, Emil would never know.

  ‘I think so,’ he finally said decisively. ‘Soap and water.’

  ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ Emil breathed, with a relieved smile, giving Ralph an encouraging pat on the shoulder. ‘That’s right, buddy, soap and water. Let me give you a little privacy. I’ll just go get you some new wearables.’ He dashed out of the bathroom as fast as his legs would take him and closed the door behind him, pondering his options.

  Option one was to bolt down to the dayroom where he’d been called and leave some poor schmuck with crap in his pants and send up a nurse to take care of it. Option two was to handle the situation and maybe get some bonus points while he was at it.

  He puffed out a resigned sigh and went to the dresser bolted onto the wall across from Ralph’s bed. As he successfully raided the drawers for fresh clothes, his eyes slid up to the top where there was an elaborately inlaid wooden box. After a quick visual check of the room and hall beyond the open door, he lifted the lid and started exploring.

  ‘You doing okay, Ralph?’ he called out, utilizing his thief’s sonar. It was one of the best tricks of the trade – if you were tossing somebody’s stuff while they were in the general vicinity, you maintained a dialogue to keep a continual bead on their location.

  ‘Soap and water. I need clothes. What’s your name?’

  Yep, Ralph was definitely still in the bathroom: he could hear his voice echoing off the tiles. ‘My name is Emil, and I’ve got you covered, my friend. Just sit tight, I’ll be right in …’ Emil worked fast but, so far, there was nothing except old ticket stubs from Yankees games and Broadway playbills in the box, which gave him pause. Maybe Ralph was anothe
r washed-up actor who’d gone crazy, just like the sisters. For sure, he’d had another life before this place, and if he was going to Yankees’ games and Broadway shows, it probably hadn’t been a bad one.

  ‘Uh … Ralph?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Ralph,’ he called, still safely in the bathroom.

  ‘Yeah, you’re Ralph, I’m Emil. So, you like baseball?’

  ‘I love baseball! Go, Yankees!’

  ‘And you like music?’

  ‘I love music! “We three kings of Orient are,” ’ he tried to croon.

  Emil finally got to the bottom of the box, and was stunned to find an old Rolex watch. He knew the fakes, he knew all the tricks, and this wasn’t a fake. It was the real deal. He fingered it longingly for a brief moment, hesitating, then slid it high up onto his arm, beneath his sleeve and out of sight. ‘I’ve got some fresh gear for you, Ralph. I’m coming in, is that okay?’

  ‘It’s okay. Emil.’

  Emil swallowed hard and went back to the bathroom with a change of clothes, an odd nausea suddenly grumbling in his stomach. Maybe those old sisters were right about laxatives in the food.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Foster was whistling ‘Frosty The Snowman’ as he huffed and puffed his way up the stairs to his apartment, dragging an eight-foot Frasier fir behind him. As he struggled past Arnie’s door, he heard the deadbolt unlatch.

  ‘Table-top tree, huh?’ Arnie popped his head out, looking the Frasier up and down.

  Foster shrugged sheepishly. ‘Daughter called. They’ll be here Christmas morning.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? I thought Annie always spent Christmas with your ex.’

  ‘Not this year. She’s bringing the new grandkid, too, so I figured I should do a little something.’

  ‘About eight feet of little, huh?’

  Foster tried to glower, but his glowering button was apparently broken, so he kept dragging the tree toward his door. ‘I’m too old for this crap. You want to give me a hand?’

  Arnie smiled mischievously. ‘I’d love to, but I think I hear my phone ringing. See you later, Foster.’

  ‘Nice one,’ Foster mumbled, hoping he sounded grumpy, but the truth was he didn’t feel grumpy. In fact, a silly grin kept breaking onto his face. He gave the tree a final big push and shoved it through his door, wincing when he heard a snap. ‘Oh, no.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Foster was standing back, admiring his handiwork. The post-mortem on the tree hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared – the top had snapped off, but it was nothing a little duct tape hadn’t been able to fix. In fact, the tape was kind of festive-looking, all silvery and shiny. Maybe he’d go with a silver and blue theme to match it.

  Foster gave the tree a big drink of water, then suddenly remembered the package of lights he’d tossed in the downstairs garbage last night. He dashed down the stairs and dug past banana peels, a couple of browning apple cores, a bunch of junk mail, and was rewarded.

  The fact that the light string the homeless guy had given him actually worked was nothing short of a Christmas miracle. Better yet, the lights were blue, which solidified his color scheme. He only had to get about ten more packages to finish the job.

  He sat down on the sofa and breathed in the crisp scent of pine, a tangy hit of nostalgia that smelled like good times and not at all like the air freshener that hung from his car’s rearview mirror. He was tempted to grab a beer and enjoy the moment, but he had a lot of shopping to do, and only a couple days to do it.

  ***

  Foster muscled his over-burdened shopping cart through Toy City, trying to find the checkout stations in a place bigger than a commercial airline hangar. Did people really buy so many toys that you had to dedicate a city block to a single store?

  He glanced down at his cart and smiled sheepishly, answering his own question, then flagged down a young guy in a red and green Toy City uniform, who was standing around in a center aisle, directing shoppers and answering questions.

  ‘Where do I pay for this?’

  ‘Straight ahead, take a left at aisle sixty. Our elves will get you checked out in ten minutes or less, or Toy City will give you fifteen percent off your purchase.’

  ‘Elves, huh?’

  ‘Yessir. Santa sends some of his elves to help at Toy City for the holiday season every year. I hope you had a pleasant experience shopping with us today.’

  ‘And I hope you’re not a drama student.’

  The kid suddenly broke character, looking absolutely miserable. ‘Corporate makes us do this every Christmas. But the kids like it. Some of the kids actually believe it.’

  Foster folded his arms across his chest. ‘I guess there’s no harm in that, is there?’

  The kid shrugged. ‘No. It gets old after a while, but it’s kind of neat, too, especially when you see a face light up.’

  Foster looked around at the little gap-toothed terrorists yanking toys off shelves and shrieking selfless, charitable things to their beleaguered parents, like ‘I WANT THIS! I NEED THIS!’ ‘So how often do you see a face light up?’

  ‘Not often. But it happens.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Without any deliberation, Foster spontaneously pulled a ten out of his wallet and pressed it into the Toy City guy’s hand, feeling like an alien had taken over his body. ‘Merry Christmas. If I had to do your job, I would have hung myself a long time ago.’

  ‘Uh, thanks. I think?’

  Foster reluctantly pondered his uncharacteristic charity as he roamed aisle sixty and finally found the checkout stations about five miles beyond the horizon line. As advertised, he got a clerk in under ten minutes. She was a sullen Goth girl, who obviously didn’t believe in eye contact, but she seemed to know how to run the scanner, so Foster didn’t really care about her lack of communication skills. He started unloading baseball mitts, crib toys, blocks, action figures and board games.

  ‘You must have a litter at home,’ she mumbled, as she laconically dragged Foster’s cache across the scanner and dropped the items into big plastic bags.

  ‘New grandkid. Haven’t seen him yet, but this year, the whole family is coming from Boston to visit.’

  Miss Congeniality ignored him, so he ignored her and watched the toys roll down into bags. It reminded him of shopping for Annie’s first Christmas almost thirty years ago. The gifts had been as plentiful, but the store had been the size of his current apartment, and there had been no elves, no scanners and no conveyors. ‘Truth is, I haven’t seen my daughter in a while, either,’ he confessed, more to himself than to the automaton behind the register. ‘We never had what you’d call a real tight bond. Messy divorce, and all that.’

  The clerk let out an ennui-filled sigh, making it clear she couldn’t have cared less. ‘Uh-huh.’

  Foster lifted a bicycle onto the conveyor, which finally gave the Goth zombie pause. ‘How many grandkids do you have?’

  ‘Just the one.’

  ‘So all this stuff is for one kid?’

  Foster shrugged. ‘Well, yeah.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Uh … I’m not sure exactly. Couple months, I think.’

  The clerk shook her head as she watched her computer display tally the total. ‘Four eighty-nine even. You can swipe your card now.’

  Foster gaped at her. ‘Four hundred and eighty-nine dollars?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But I just got a couple things … well, maybe more than that, but that’s insane!’

  Goth Clerk finally made eye contact, and it wasn’t pleasant. ‘Bribes are expensive, but I’m sure this will make up for everything.’

  ‘Who peed in your oatmeal this morning?’

  ‘Everybody I ever met.’ She whipped a piece of card from under the register and shoved it toward him. ‘Here’s a customer service comment card.’

  He stared down at it incredulously. ‘You must really want to get fired because I’ve had better customer service at the government center getting my driver’s license renewed.’

  �
�Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.’

  ‘So stop torturing customers and just quit if you hate your job so much.’

  ‘If I quit, I won’t be eligible for unemployment. Please swipe your card or insert it into the chip reader to complete your purchase.’

  Foster gave her a sour look and swiped his card. ‘Nice attitude. And nice try, Einstein, but you’re not eligible for unemployment if you get fired, either.’

  The clerk’s black-lacquered lips curled up smugly. ‘Toy City doesn’t like to officially fire employees because it means frivolous lawsuits and bad employee-satisfaction ratings. Laying off problem employees is the path of least resistance. I did my research before I applied.’

  ‘You’re a lazy idiot,’ Foster said in disgust, flinging away the comment card and snatching his bags.

  It took Foster a while to offload his towering shopping cart into the trunk of his car, and when he finally trudged back, like a good citizen, to return the empty cart to the outdoor corral near the entrance, he noticed Goth Clerk shivering outside, choking down a cigarette. Against his better judgment, he approached her.

  ‘What do you want?’ she sneered.

  ‘To wish you a merry Christmas, even though I’m pretty sure you’ll find a way to make it as miserable as possible.’ Foster stomped back to his car, suddenly feeling lightness in his heart despite the bitch with the bad attitude. He had the high ground now. He was going to have a real Christmas this year, and he was finally letting himself feel good about it.

  Foster was just about to pull out of his parking space when he heard a sharp rap on his window that sent him airborne in his seat. It was Goth Clerk, looking either contrite or homicidal, he wasn’t sure which.

  He rolled down his window a crack. ‘Jesus! What?’

  She shrugged. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For wishing me a merry Christmas.’

  ‘But I called you a lazy idiot!’

  ‘I am a lazy idiot. And you’re an asshole. But it sounds like you’re going to have fun with your family this year, so merry Christmas to you, too.’