You Only Live Once

by Haris Orkin

  “Q has developed almost all our state-of-the-art spy gear.” Flynn ticked them off on his fingers. “Mini-copters, laser pens, submarine cars, personal jet packs.”

  Ty sighed and looked at Dulcie, who’d clearly heard it all before. James Flynn patted the old man on the hand. “Q, tell us what you’ve been working on lately. Anything new?”

  Q raised his bushy gray eyebrows and offered them all a crafty grin. “Mind control technology.” He tapped his finger against his curly mop of white hair. “Invisible electromagnetic waves that actually change the structure of the brain. Bending the will. Molding the consciousness.”

  Flynn smiled, impressed. “That’s astonishing.” He glanced at Dulcie. “Are you working on this technology too?”

  Dulcie looked bored and aggravated as she stared at her cards. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

  Ty suddenly shouted, “Uno!”

  “N-no!” Q sputtered.

  “Fuck you!” Ty yelled. “I have Uno!”

  “Uno means you have one card left in your hand,” Flynn tried to explain. “Uno means one.”

  “And you have three cards,” Q said, clearly exasperated.

  Ty dropped two cards onto the table. “No, I don’t.”

  “You can’t do that!” Q shouted. “You need a match!”

  Ty seized the old man by the front of his shirt. “How ‘bout your face and a monkey’s ass!”

  Flynn gently grabbed the teen by the wrist until Ty let Q go.

  Suddenly, Ty jumped up, knocking over his chair. “Crazy fuckin’ motherfucker!” He hiked up his baggy blue jeans and backed away, screaming, “You can run but you can’t hide!” Ty bumped into an orderly before charging off down a hallway.

  Q sighed and set his cards down. He rose with effort, the strain showing on his face, and shuffled out of the room. He moved with a limp, the remnants of a stroke.

  Flynn looked across the table at Dulcie, who dropped her cards in disgust. “Now what do we do?”

  Flynn gathered and shuffled the cards. “We could always play a two-handed game.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Unless you’d rather do something else?” He raised a seductive eyebrow.

  “Are you coming on to me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? You’re beautiful, spirited, intelligent—”

  “Intelligent? I didn’t even finish high school.”

  “Did they send you straight to university?”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t fuck with me.”

  Dulcie’s long black hair framed a delicate face. Her skin was light brown and her cheekbones were high. She had an East L.A. accent and the cold, seen-it-all eyes of a chola.

  “If you work for Q, you’re clearly well-educated. You can’t be on the cutting edge of technology and not have a post-doctorate. In what? Physics? Engineering?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “Bright, beautiful, and self-effacing as well.”

  “Look, I have a boyfriend, okay.”

  “So why haven’t I ever met him?”

  Dulcie’s hard-ass attitude crumbled as emotion flooded her face. “Because he doesn’t want to see me in here. And anyways, it’s none of your fucking business.”

  “I’m sorry if I touched a nerve.”

  “It’s okay.” She scraped back her chair and stood. “It’s no big deal.”

  Flynn watched as Dulcie shuffled off, the bottoms of her frayed jeans skimming the linoleum. A burly orderly by the name of O’Malley sidled up beside her. He was sweaty and balding with a five o’clock shadow and close-set eyes. He smirked at her as she tried to get around him, invading her space with impunity, whispering something nasty in her ear. Dulcie gave him a dirty look and pushed past. O’Malley sniggered and winked at another beefy orderly who giggled like an idiot.

  Chapter Three

  Dulcie glanced around at the eight patients sitting in folding chairs. Most everyone wore sweatpants or jeans or shorts or baggy T-shirts, but not James. He was dressed in an old charcoal gray suit, a shabby white dress shirt, and a faded red and black silk tie. While the others wore slippers or flip-flops, James sported well-worn Italian loafers. The daily group therapy session was held in a small white room with bright fluorescent lights and nothing on the walls. Q was there too, along with Ty and an assortment of other lost causes. A female therapist in her early forties, with short soccer mom hair and an expensive red silk blouse, smiled at Dulcie sitting slouched in her chair, nibbling at the cuticle on her left thumb.

  “Is that why they fired you?” the therapist probed. “Because you called your supervisor a bitch?”

  Dulcie shrugged. “That and the fact that I was totally fucked up on crank.”

  The therapist tried to catch Dulcie’s eye, but she wouldn’t look at her. She was too busy chewing on her cuticle. “Were you still living with Mike?”

  Dulcie nodded.

  “Was he abusing you?”

  She nodded again.

  “But you didn’t see an out?”

  Dulcie shook her head, her eyes shiny with tears.

  “So, you OD’d?”

  Dulcie shrugged and sucked the blood off her bleeding thumb.

  The therapist patted Dulcie on the knee. “Thank you, Dulcie.”

  “Hey, Dulcie,” Ty said. “Fuck him. Fuck that fucker. Just fuck that motherfucker.”

  The therapist smiled at Ty. “Thank you, Ty.” A chubby guy with dark beady eyes giggled. The therapist glanced around the circle. “Does anyone else have anything to add?” She looked at Flynn, who was trying to catch Dulcie’s eye. “James? You seem very quiet today.”

  “Maybe because I have nothing to say.”

  “You have nothing you’d like to share with the group?”

  “I’ve said it all, haven’t I? And no one is listening. While we sit here blabbering away, our enemies are making plans. And what do we do? Nothing.”

  The chubby, beady-eyed guy enthusiastically nodded in agreement.

  The therapist smiled at the man. “Bob? Is there something you’d like to say?”

  “I know what they’re planning. I know what they’re making.” Bob motioned for everyone to lean in and when they did, he whispered, “Turkey Loaf.”

  A slab of turkey loaf covered with gelatinous beige gravy plopped onto a plate next to a perfectly spherical scoop of mashed potatoes. An elderly cafeteria lady with a hairnet handed the bland-looking meal to James Flynn, who set it on his bright blue tray next to a tiny bowl of creamed corn and a stale dinner roll. Flynn moved down the line, grabbed a Styrofoam cup and filled it with ice and Diet Coke. After grabbing his plastic utensils, he scanned the cafeteria for a friendly face and spied Dulcie alone at a table. As he moved towards her, he saw O’Malley put his hands next to her plate and lean down right by her face, his big ugly mug invading her space.

  “You know you want it.”

  “Fuck you,” Dulcie said.

  “That’s right. I know you want to. I can see how you look at me. You must be horny as hell, a hot little piece of ass like you.”

  James stepped between them, put his tray down and sat next to Dulcie. “Mr. O’Malley, may I make a recommendation?”

  “Get the fuck out of here, Flynn.” O’Malley whispered.

  “Perhaps you should try a different approach?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “A little subtlety, a little romance, less penis and more panache.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Unlike us men, who prefer getting to the point, women require a little more finesse.”

  O’Malley grabbed James by the tie and pulled him to his feet. With his other hand, he grabbed James by the balls. Flynn’s eyes went wide with pain and surprise, his voice tight, “An interesting technique.”

  He grabbed O’Malley’s wrist and casually turned, twisting it back, using his weight and momentum against him until O’Malley grunted and released Fl
ynn’s package. Flynn continued to twist the man’s arm up and back, forcing O’Malley to gasp.

  “However,” Flynn added. “I would recommend starting with something more subtle.”

  Barker, the other beefy orderly, suddenly appeared. “We got a problem here?”

  “Not at all.” Flynn released O’Malley’s arm, the burly jerk’s face now red with fury. “I was simply instructing Mr. O’Malley here in the finer points of seduction.”

  O’Malley pulled out a pair of plastic handcuffs. “Grab his arms.” Barker nodded and reached for Flynn who effortlessly evaded him. Both orderlies charged forward, pushing Dulcie out of the way. A small Hispanic man stepped between them, grabbing Flynn by the arm.

  The man was in his early twenties and wore the lime green outfit of an orderly. He was short and stocky, verging on chunky. His kind face and warm smile belied skittish eyes. “James, what are you doing, man? Are you annoying these gentlemen again?”

  “Actually, Sancho, I was about to offer Mr. O’Malley a few tips on how to talk to women without making them lose their last seven lunches.”

  Barker and O’Malley moved forward, but Sancho put up his hands, holding them back.

  “James is just having some fun with ya, man. He knows you two don’t need no tips to get lucky.”

  “Absolutely,” Flynn agreed. “What these two need is major plastic surgery.”

  Barker shoved Sancho out of the way just as Dr. Nickelson walked by with a tray.

  “Sir, I see you’re trying the turkey loaf,” Sancho said, offering Nickelson a smile. “You’re a brave man.”

  “Indeed, I am,” Nickelson said. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  O’Malley and Barker mumbled greetings as Sancho grabbed Flynn by the sleeve and pulled him away. Dulcie quickly followed. They pushed past the cafeteria line and outside into the commons area.

  “That O’Malley is a menace,” James said.

  “So, don’t mess with him,” Sancho said.

  “How he made it into her Majesty’s Secret Service is a bloody mystery.”

  “You okay brother?

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Sancho smiled, shaking his head. “No reason, man. You take care, okay?” Sancho headed back into the cafeteria, leaving James with Dulcie.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Dulcie demanded.

  “I just thought—”

  “I was handling it. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Of course you can.”

  Angry tears filled her eyes. Flynn pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She wiped her tears and noisily blew her nose. When she went to hand him his hanky, Flynn recoiled, holding up his hands. “Consider it a gift.”

  Dulcie laughed.

  “There you go. That’s better. You’ll be fine. You just need to mingle with a better class of gentlemen.”

  “You can say that again.” She looked at James with real affection. “It’s too bad you’re such a loon.”

  “Come again?”

  Her smile faded into something sad. “You’re almost the perfect man.”

  James Flynn’s muscular torso was drenched in sweat as he kicked and twirled and punched the air. Wearing nothing but gray sweatpants, he performed a complex karate kata in an outdoor patio area. A pretty Filipina nurse stopped to watch, mesmerized by the elegant, powerful, menacing dance. Flynn did a front jump kick, turning, punching, spinning, leaping, slashing the air with his hand. His unseen opponent beaten brutally into submission, James returned to the ready position, eyes closed. He inhaled deeply holding the breath for a count of two and then exhaled, centering himself. His eyes slowly opened and James saw the young nurse staring at his glistening body. Color rose to her cheeks when Flynn offered her a charming smirk.

  Sancho, sitting at a nearby table, watched all this as he sipped an orange soda. The flustered nurse continued on her way and Sancho rose from his chair, chuckling. “Dude, you are something else. How the hell do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get all those women to give it up.”

  “They want to give it up, Sancho. The trick is to allow them to.”

  “Allow them to? How?”

  James wiped the sweat off his face with a towel he then draped around his neck, and put on a white cotton kimono robe. He slipped on a pair of Japanese sandals and said, “Is there anyone you’re interested in right now?”

  “Well, there’s this girl that works at El Pollo Loco over on Vineland. In the drive-through window. Her name’s Alyssa.”

  “You know her name. That’s a start.”

  “She has a name tag. I haven’t actually, you know, talked to her. I try to, but there’s always people in line behind me and she’s on the headset and she’s all distracted and I just, you know...What do I say?”

  “Ask her out for coffee.”

  Sancho sighed and smiled shyly, shaking his head. “What if she has a boyfriend or something?”

  “Then she’ll say no. But there’s also a chance that she’ll say yes.”

  Sancho looked a little dumbfounded.

  “Sometimes you have to take a risk. After all, my friend, you only live once.”

  “I guess.”

  “Taking a chance shows that you have a certain amount of confidence. Women like men who exude confidence.”

  Flynn clapped Sancho on the shoulder and ambled off. He smiled at two nurses, sitting at a table, sipping coffee. The nurses blushed and smiled back, whispering and giggling as Flynn left the patio.

  Chapter Four

  James Flynn slept next to the shy Filipina nurse who had checked him out on the patio two weeks before. She was petite and slender with long dark hair that cascaded across the frayed white pillowcase. Morning sunlight flooded through the blinds and fell across their intertwined bodies.

  The door squeaked open and the sounds from the corridor prodded Flynn awake. Yawning, he opened his eyes to see Nurse Durkin poking her head in his room. James abruptly sat up and strategically arranged himself so Durkin couldn’t see the beautiful young nurse naked in his bed.

  “Nurse Durkin!” Flynn exclaimed. “What a wonderful ray of sunshine.”

  The young nurse slowly opened her eyes. At the mere mention of Durkin’s name, her face filled with terror.

  Nurse Durkin regarded Flynn sourly. “Time to get up.”

  James glanced at the imitation Rolex on the side table by his bed. “Isn’t it a tad early?”

  “There’s a new hospital policy starting today,” Durkin said gleefully. “Everyone up at 6:00 a.m.”

  “Why the change?”

  “Chop chop, Mr. Flynn. Up and at ‘em!” She clapped her hands and continued on down the hall, leaving Flynn’s door wide open.

  James Flynn donned a threadbare, thrift store tuxedo that was a trifle too large for him. It was long in the sleeves and a tad baggy in the seat. Nevertheless, he wore it with aplomb as he strolled into the activity room.

  Immediately, he sensed that something wasn’t right. The previous day the room was alive with laughter, angry words, and off-key singing. Now, however, the room was strangely quiet. The television was on, but the sound was turned down and no one said a word.

  People sat scattered around the area, staring straight ahead, separate, isolated, lost in their own heads. Durkin handed out pills in little plastic cups. Flynn watched as everyone docilely swallowed pills, washing them down with Dixie cups full of water.

  Ty, the rotund, black nineteen-year-old, stared at the TV in a stupor. He sat slumped on the couch next to a slack-jawed older woman. Everyone, in fact, seemed sedated. Flynn sat beside Ty who didn’t even look at him. He just stared at “The Price is Right.” Drew Carey was talking to a large married couple dressed like teddy bears. Ty watched this grimly, eyes dull.

  “Ty,” James shook the teenager’s beefy leg. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?�
�

  “Nothin’,” said Ty as he stared straight ahead.

  “Where’s Q?”

  “They took him away.”

  “Who took him away?”

  “Don’t know. They took Dulcie too. And Lisa. And Julie. Frank. Julio.” Ty seemed to lose the thread of what he was saying and slowly swiveled his head to look at James. His energy, his personality, everything that made him Ty was trapped inside his sedated body. Only his eyes offered a glimmer of who he used to be. They were fearful and shiny with tears.

  Nurse Durkin stood behind Ty and glowered at the back of his head. The teenager turned away from Flynn to fix his gaze back on the television. Flynn tapped Ty on the thigh, but he wouldn’t look back at him.

  Barker, the beefy orderly, handed Nurse Durkin a little plastic cup filled with pills. Durkin loomed over Flynn and offered him the meds with a chaser of water in a Dixie cup. “Time to take your meds, Mr. Flynn.”

  “But I’ve already taken my medication.”

  “This is a new prescription.”

  Flynn rose to his feet and offered Durkin a pleasant smile. “Nurse Durkin, have I told you how lovely you look today?”

  She glared at him. “Time to take your meds.”

  “Perhaps later we could retire to my room where I would be more than happy to help you free yourself from this obviously overburdened brassiere.”

  Immune to his charms, she thrust the Dixie cup in Flynn’s face. Flynn stared at the pills and then raised his gaze to Durkin’s dark brown eyes. “No thank you.”

  “Doctor’s orders.”

  James sighed, took the little cup and spilled the pills on the floor.

  James Flynn barreled into the anteroom outside N’s office and stopped cold when he saw that Miss Honeywell wasn’t behind her desk. Instead, the disagreeable face of a dried-up looking lady in her early sixties greeted James.

  “Yes?” the lady said, clearly irritated by the intrusion.

  James sat on the edge of her desk, much to the dried-up lady’s consternation. “Is Honeywell in?”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Honeywell. This is her office.”

  “Honeywell?”

  “N’s girl Friday.”

  “N?”