by K. L. Savage
“We aren’t used to getting out,” Zipper says. “We enjoy it here. It’s fitting.” Zipper doesn’t say much but having Reaper here has triggered him. He sneers at the President of the Ruthless Kings, making the small dots—less than half inches apart on his top and bottom lip—slither and come alive in their own way.
“I understand,” Reaper says, placing his hand on Zipper’s shoulders.
Zipper jerks out of Reaper’s hold. I can tell an episode is about to hit him. He looks around nervously, his eyes dashing back and forth between me and Goldie. “They are here! They are going to kill me. I can’t take it anymore.” He grips the side of his head and starts to cry. “They can’t get me again. They can’t.”
“Zipper, everything is okay,” I tell him, but he doesn’t hear me. He is lost.
“No. Please. No more. I can’t take it anymore,” he pleads for his life, his cheeks wet from his tears.
Reaper steps forward to try and console him, but it’s the worst thing he can do, because Zipper doesn’t know him. Goldie rushes to his side and begins to cry, and Zipper presses his lips together, screaming as if they were stitching his mouth up all over again.
“Jesus Christ,” Reaper says with regret. “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know. I should have been more careful.”
“Goldie always calms him down.” I explain. She does the one thing she always does; she tickles her hair over his nose.
She leans down and whispers in his ear, but I can’t hear what she says. She presses her hand against his and it’s a familiar touch that slowly brings him back. Post-traumatic stress disorder has a few tips to try and help someone out of an episode. It doesn’t always work. Sight. Sound. Smell. Taste. Touch. Basically, anything consisting of the five senses has to be done to be brought back to the present.
I give them my back and stand in front of Reaper to give Goldie and Zipper some privacy. “Listen Reaper, my friends, they are delicate. There are things you don’t know.”
“And that would have been nice to fucking know before I came here. Let me get this straight, his trigger is touch, but touch bringing him out of an episode helps?”
“Only with someone he trusts, no offense.”
“None taken,” he says. He pinches his nose and lets out a breath. “You obviously do not have anyone here to help you all. You lied to me.”
“I’m sorry. I was desperate. I’d do anything for them. You don’t know what it was like in the institution, Reaper. I was there all my life. It was awful.”
He frowns, a look of guilt across his face. “If I would have known… I didn’t… I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I really had no clue. I would have gotten you out. I don’t give up on family. It’s why I’m here. We obviously have a lot to talk about,” he says, watching the scene over my shoulder. “We won’t talk about it today. Is Porter still in his room?”
“Yes, safe and sound. And thank you, for sending food. I’m figuring it out,” I say, sounding like a real low-life. I hate that I don’t have my life together. I feel like I’m mooching off Reaper. I don’t like that. I want to contribute. I want—as a man—to build my home into a safe place for me, for my friends, for the Kings if they ever for some reason to want to come over.
“I understand,” Reaper chuckles. “Damn, I’ve said that so many times since walking through your doors.”
“Reaper. Reaper. Reaper,” Oli bounces over to us in his happy fashion. I don’t know how he stays positive, but he’s a bright light in the dark all of us seem to live in. “I’m Oli. Hi. Hi. Hi.”
He holds out his hand and Reaper meets the shake with his palm, grinning. “Well, Hello, Oli. It’s nice to meet you.” Reaper tries to let go and Oli grips his hand harder, but Reaper doesn’t see it as a challenge, so I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding
“Three more seconds, please,” Oli states.
“I’m in no rush, Oli.” Reaper shows his patience and stands still, letting Oli work through his quirk.
Oli lets go and sighs. “Okay, there.”
“You have a flying spider on your shoulder,” Felix says, pointing to Reaper’s shoulder with a shaky finger. Out of all of us, Felix is the one I worry about most. His schizophrenia is severe. He is always having delusions or hallucinations of some sort, even with medication. His meds make the delusions less severe.
“Here,” Reaper says, catching on quick.
“Yeah. Right there,” Felix gasps with wide, terrified eyes. “Be careful. It has spikes. Oh, I can’t watch.” He covers his eyes, and I chuckle, then clear my throat so I don’t offend him.
“I need your help…” Reaper lets the sentence hang because he doesn’t know Felix’s name.
“Felix,” I whisper in Reaper’s ear.
“Felix, how will I know if I get him? I need you to tell me what to do.” Reaper hovers his hand over his shoulder. There’s nothing there, but Felix believes it and that’s what matters.
Felix lowers his hand and gulps. “Okay. I’ll help.”
“Thank you,” Reaper says, then slowly moves his hand. “Like this?”
“You have to be quick. It has wings.”
Reaper slaps his hand down and grunts. Felix yells in fear and Reaper starts pretending to be in a raging battle with a fake flying spider. “Oh, wow! It’s strong. Get something, Felix.” Reaper struggles and slams his back against the wall.
Felix runs around the room and picks up a piece of drywall that’s fallen. He sprints to Reaper and lifts the weapon. “Like this?”
“Perfect. Now, when I let it go, you’re going to smash it. It’s the last of its kind, so we won’t be seeing it anymore.”
I have never used that tactic before. Everyone always says what he sees isn’t real, but it’s real to Felix. He doesn’t need to hear they aren’t real. He knows. He’s scared of what he sees.
“Okay,” Felix licks his lips, then wipes his left cheek on his shirt sleeve. “Ready.”
“I’m counting on you,” Reaper tells him. “You can’t miss.”
“I won’t. I got it,” Felix says, watching Reaper’s hand like a hawk.
“On the count of three,” Reaper says. “One. Two. Three.” Reaper lets go and Felix watches something invisible fly in the air. He swings at it, then shouts in victory when it connects with the spider.
He smacks the floor with the drywall, and it cracks in half. “I think I got it,” he says, dropping the weapon to the ground. Dust flies in the air, and it looks like a cloud of smoke swirling around Felix. “I did it,” he smiles
“High-five, man.” Reaper holds up his hand and Felix slaps his palm eagerly.
“Hey? We gonna fuck around all day or are we going to clean this place up and unload the truck?” Tool interrupts. He takes the screwdriver behind his ear and fixes the hinge the screen door is attached to. He tries to open it and it glides smoothly. “This won’t last much longer. Good thing we got a new one, which, I guess I shouldn’t have fixed it. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Truck? What’s he talking about, Reaper?” I ask him.
“We got some furniture for you, and we want to help get the priority rooms fixed, like the bathrooms and bedrooms. It won’t be an overnight job, but it’s a project I want to work on with you and your friends,” Reaper says. “If that’s okay.”
I’m stunned. I’m left speechless and I get a bit choked up. No one has ever done anything like this for us. No one has ever cared enough. “I… why?” I stumble over my words.
“You’re family, Uncle Zain. I won’t lose more time,” he says. “We’re going to fix the roof first. Okay? It’s why we are here so early.” Reaper walks outside as if he didn’t flip my world upside down.
Family.
The one thing I never thought I’d have.
I have a family.
It took three days from sunrise to sunset to get the roof on. Half of the club worked inside, cleaning it up, fixing the walls, and updating the kitchen. The asylum rooms, even Porter’s, are cleaned and u
pdated. The men have worked around the clock for more than two weeks now. It isn’t perfect, but it’s livable. Some areas have remained the same, like the main hallway. The ceiling is fixed, but the floor is original concrete. The walls are cracked, but Reaper put this plastic protective barrier over it to give us some stability. The wheelchairs are sitting where we found them, awkwardly placed along the wall.
I don’t think they look as creepy as when someone is in them, mind numb with medication and nearly catatonic. I’d rather see an empty chair, than an occupied one. Nothing will haunt me more than remembering the vacant stare of a patient in a wheelchair. They look directly through you. It’s unsettling to say the least.
Imagine your blood running cold and the air being sucked out of the room. You’re shivering. A tingle drifts down your spine, and you feel frozen in place, unable to move your feet from the glare. For a brief moment, a trembling second, you’re a statue.
And then they get wheeled away and you can breathe again and feel the warmth in your body.
It’s fitting to leave parts of the asylum original.
Crazy deserves to be appreciated. When you know the horrible things that happened here.
There are even a few padded rooms downstairs, used straitjackets collecting dust in a closet, and mouth guards to keep patients from biting their tongues off through electro-shock therapy.
Reaper asked if I wanted to get rid of them. I should have said yes, but something held me back. What if one of us needs a padded room? So I said no.
It’s the next room on the list to get an overhaul.
I sit down on the new porch steps and crack a beer open, then lean my head against the beam. It’s late. Everyone has worked their asses off and most of everyone is inside asleep. The majority of the asylum rooms have been turned into bedrooms. A few of Reaper’s men are staying here until all the work is done.
“How are your tattoos doing? Two nights of pure pain by Luci and Bobby Jane couldn’t have been easy,” Reaper chuckles, taking a seat next to me on the steps.
He’s paid Luci and Bobby-Jane extra to come to the Asylum after hours to tattoo me a few weeks back. Anything I wanted. When I told Reaper I liked his tattoos, he asked if I wanted them.
I did, but someone can’t get tattooed in a mental institution.
And with a snap of a finger, Reaper made my wish happen. I could have left my friends here with people they didn’t know, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. They needed me here in case anything happened.
Ironically, the guy they call Luci, full name Lucifer, tattooed the devil on my arm. He’s talented, which makes sense that he would own his own tattoo shop.
“Good. I’m ready for more,” I say with a laugh.
“That’s what always happens.”
I clink our beer bottles together and take a drink of the citrus flavored amber.
“Should you be drinking that with your…” Reaper tries to find the words as he hums. “Because of, you know,” he says, then silences himself with a swallow of beer.
“My medication?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ask, but I need to know. You guys don’t live far. Sarah is pregnant, and I honestly don’t know any of you. I need to make sure my club is safe.”
“I understand. When a nurse gets here, I’ll talk to her. I can’t take the stuff from the institution. It made me a zombie.”
“I feel fucking terrible my dad left you in there. He wasn’t the best man, but I never thought he’d do that.”
“No one understood what was wrong with me growing up. I got in a lot of school fights. Constantly breaking shit. Attacked teachers. Attacked other kids. One day I nearly burned down the school. And then I genuinely would not remember anything when I’d come out of my manic state, and I’d look around and everyone else was horrified. I think he only did what he knew to do. I don’t fault him, but I do fault him for not trying harder for me.”
“Yeah, he had a habit of doing that. You met Delilah, right? The sister I knew nothing about. I bet he knew. That fucking bastard.” Reaper takes an irate swig of beer, a snarl lingering on his breath when the bottle pops from his lips as he stares into the desert night. “I just… I know this is unusual. This place. This asylum. I know you have your issues, but you’re family. Blood. You and your friends have the protection of the club.”
“I appreciate that,” I say, doing my best not to sound too excited. “You didn’t have to go and do all this. The beds, the furniture, the repairs, it’ll be awhile before I can pay you back.” I scratch the back of my head, wondering if and when I’ll be able to pay him back. “Maybe a payment plan? I need to find a job, under the books. I can’t find a regular job. No one will want to hire me. I just need some time—”
“—No time. There is nothing to pay back. Okay? You’re family. I’m helping you, and as far as I’m concerned you worked your ass off for the last thirty years. You deserve this. You’re just getting what’s owed to you. And I can get you a job. Consider yourself a bartender at Kings’ Club. You okay with that? Or you want to be in the back? Like the kitchen?”
My beer falls from my hand, spilling on my boot, and the bottle thuds down the steps. The glass rolls few inches across the sand, the beer leaving a wet trail. “You’re serious? You’d do that?” My thoughts start racing about the opportunity. Maybe one day I’ll be able to get my own place, run it, be the owner. I could do it. I bend my head forward and place it between my knees and take deep breaths. If I don’t calm down, I’m going to do something stupid, like try to go and buy a club and try to run it.
“Hey—” Reaper wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Of course, I’d do it. You’re my Uncle. This is the least I can do.”
“You have no idea how much this means to me,” I tell him. Emotion overflows in me, but it’s not my mania. It’s a new feeling. A feeling of gratitude. I welcome the sense of being wanted. It sounds ridiculous, but all my life I’ve been alone, especially when I was in the institution. Isolation is the worst and accepting help and love will be new to me. “Thank you.”
Reaper brushes me off as if it’s nothing. “I mean it, man. And if it doesn’t work out at Kings’ Club, we’ll find you something else. But I know you can step up to the plate. You’re a hell of a man, taking care of your friends like this. I respect the hell out of that.”
I look at him, wetness brimming in my eyes. I don’t even know what to say.
“Well—” Reaper drains his beer and stands. “I gotta get going. Sarah’s waiting for me.”
“How is she doing? Is she doing okay?”
“So far, so good. She’s beautiful. Her stomach is starting to swell. Barely, but I notice, and I can’t seem to ever pull my hand away. We’ve been trying for a long time. She miscarried awhile back. Trying to get pregnant has been a long, exhausting road.”
“I’m happy for you. I hope—” I take a long deep breath, because I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but I need a few extra seconds, “—I hope I’ll be able to meet him, and/or her.”
He gives me a look of disbelief, brows raised, and then he tosses his head back and laughs.
A stab of disappointment hits me in the heart, and I chortle. Of course he doesn’t want me around his family. I’m too unstable. I snag another beer out of the cooler and twist off the top. I shouldn’t be so upset. He’s just met me. He doesn’t remember me from when he was a baby. This relationship is going to be a long road. I’m willing to put in the travel, the time, and hopefully he and I can get to a place where he can trust me.
“Are you kidding? I’m not going to have my kid miss out on time with his Great Uncle. You better be ready for that title.” Reaper gives a parting goodbye grip, squeezing my shoulder before he pulls out a cigarette. “Relax, Uncle Zain. You’re home now.”
He opens up the driver’s side door of the midnight black Ford Raptor. He steps up on the foot rail and before he dips his head down, he leans one elbow on top of the truck and the other on the door. “I
’ll see you bright and early, Uncle Zain.”
“Yeah, bright and early,” I choke out, holding in the emotion as I raise my beer in the air as he leaves. He waves goodbye and starts the truck. The horsepower grumbling the air is almost as impressive as a Harley’s. The tires roll back as he leaves, crunching against dead bushes and rocks. The headlights blind me for a second and I turn away, blinking toward the sky. The floating circular rings take over my vision for a second and Reaper gives one last honk before vanishing into the dark.
It’s just me out here now. Everyone else is asleep. I inhale the air, letting the smells of the earth and the hint of cold drape over my lungs. The world smells so good after breathing the same damn air in the mental institution. I swear there was something in it that helped make the crazy stay and linger in you.
I lean back on my elbows and stare up at the sky. The stars twinkle and blink, and the endless abyss is a blanket of black, with slight hues of dark blue. The open space that allows me to see the countless constellations has me a little more mesmerized than I ought to be. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to see something that hasn’t been blocked by bars on the outside of a window.
I’ll never take anything beautiful for granted.
“It’s such a gorgeous night!” a sweet, harmonic voice says from out of nowhere.
I sit up and glance around, staring back and forth to see if I can spot who the voice belongs to. I don’t see a damn thing. “Shit, maybe Reaper is right. I don’t need to be drinking right now.” I set the beer down and rub my eyes, fucking exhausted. It’s hard to sleep when my mind is always on, constantly with the thoughts, and battling the urge to not fucking lose it.
A giggle from my left wakes me up. I stand and run down the steps, wondering where the hell it is coming from.
“So much space!” The angelic tone is a song filtering through the exhaustion.
She’s getting closer now. It’s cold out here, and dark. What if she’s lost? She’ll need help. I spin around again, staring over the outline of the cactuses, but then the scuff and grind of sand sounds from behind me. I turn, holding my breath when the faint glow of the porch light illuminates against platinum blonde hair. Her arms are above her head, and she’s smiling as if she isn’t in forty-degree weather wearing a black dress that blends in with the night. Her skin is the color of cream, the kind someone puts in their coffee.