by John Oakes
He closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of sinking into the bed like he weighed a thousand pounds, yet also feeling feather light upon it. He didn't think he was under the influence of any more sedatives, but something deep within him felt warm and peaceful. His pain was remarkably decreased.
Cody opened his eyes again and whipped them back to the window. The IV bag in the hallway was still moving, but no one was pushing it. Cody propped himself up on his elbow, not sure what he was seeing.
He checked for any wires or tubes hooked up to him. There was only that taped needle in his hand, but it was not attached to an IV anymore. He sat up, stretched and looked around the room until he spotted the set of clean clothes that Jason had fetched for him the day before. Cody removed his hospital gown and dressed gingerly.
He stepped into the hallway, but saw nothing in either direction. He walked as quickly as he could down the hall to his left, hoping to round the corner and find the phantom IV trolley. He came to another hallway and looked left, then right. He saw nothing except a nurse with a clipboard exiting the hallway into a room. He turned back to the hallway he had just walked down and frowned.
"The cafeteria is down the other way," a voice sounded to Cody's right. He turned to look for it. A face poked out from behind a janitorial cart, which was mostly blocking an IV trolley. Cody stepped cautiously forward. On a row of chairs sat a small man in a red robe.
A very small man.
"If that was what you were looking for."
Cody glanced back from where he had come, in the direction the small man had pointed, and then back at the man on the bench. He had pale skin, a crooked nose, a mess of black hair and a few days growth of equally dark but patchy facial hair.
"Are you looking for the bathroom or something? You ok?"
"Oh." Cody righted himself. "No, sorry I was just..."
He was just looking for a phantom IV trolley.
Cody smiled. It all made sense now. He actually let out a small laugh and ran his hands through his own unkempt hair.
"I was just looking for someone," he lied. "A nurse. It's no big deal." And then in an effort at cordiality, "I take it you aren't the janitor. What brings you out to the hallway on this fine morning?"
"Ah, I just needed out of my room. They got some old man in there with me one bed over. He snores like a wildebeest with a sinus infection and smells worse."
Cody wanted to ask how the small man could have even gotten out of the high hospital bed on his own. He thanked his dulled senses that he could not spit out words as easily as usual.
"You know, sickness is an intimate thing," the man said. "Sharing a hospital room feels like trying to sit on a toilet seat at the same time."
"That sucks, man. It seems pretty weird to share. I don't have anyone in my room, thankfully."
Cody was about to ask what the man was in the hospital for, but again his mouth was too slow for his brain.
"Yeah, I guess we ain't got the right kind of medical insurance that gets us into some fancy private room with a hot tub or something," the small man said.
If there were rooms like that in this hospital, then why hadn't Cody's medical coverage gotten him into a room with a hot tub? Cody decided that his Dad must have put him on some shit plan, hoping he'd die from substandard medical care so he could adopt Tagg and they could hold hands and skip down the beach together.
Cody sighed, then spoke.
"So that cafeteria is down yonder you say? A bite to eat sounds pretty nice. Are you hungry?"
"I could eat," the man said with a shrug. He shuffled off the chair to the floor, wincing all the while.
They walked down the hallway in the direction of the cafeteria.
"I'm Winton, by the way." The small man stopped so he could take his right hand off the IV trolley and reached up. Cody shook his hand awkwardly and said, "I'm Cody. Pleasure to meet you, Winston."
"Winton." The man corrected him, "No 's'."
He grabbed his trolley, and they started walking again.
"Winton. Sorry"
"Common mistake."
Cody noticed that Winton was limping as they walked and so slowed his gait. He struggled not to stride ahead of Winton, who could not have been much more than four-feet-tall.
They walked unhurriedly to the cafeteria in a comfortable silence like only the early morning hours can allow. At the buffet line, Cody said, "I'm buying, so go nuts."
"Great," Winton replied. "I'm ordering off the adult menu then!"
Cody wasn't sure if he should laugh or not.
"It's a joke. Kids menu...Get it?"
Cody laughed uneasily.
"That's one of my favorites for messing with waitresses."
They worked their way through the breakfast buffet, Cody paid, and they sat near a window. They had their pick of tables, as the cafeteria was almost empty. Cody reached for the hot sauce and dumped it generously on his food. He held it out to Winton with raised eyebrows. Winton reached for it happily and doused his food as well.
"It's sacrilege to say this at home, but I wish they had Cholula."
"Where you from?"
"New Orleans. But I've lived here since college."
They ate in silence for a bit. And then Winton took a sip of his water and said, "So looks like you've seen better days. Did you overdose or something?"
Cody chuckled, not sure how serious the question was.
"Why do people keep assuming I'm on drugs?" Cody mumbled in frustration. "No drugs for me I'm afraid. Just beer. But you're not too far off. It ain't been my best run lately." Cody took another bite and explained more as he chewed. "Went out like a light yesterday on account of being concussed in the testicles by my step-grandmother and passing out in pain in the driver's seat at an intersection."
"You didn't shit yourself did you?" Winton asked dryly. "That happens sometimes."
"It couldn't have made the situation any more embarrassing."
"You live an exciting life," Winton said.
"I'm barely keeping it together from all the excitement."
"You can't bottle that stuff up, you know," Winton said, waving a utensil in thought. "I think you're supposed to scream into a pillow now and again or something."
Cody had no idea what he ought to do.
"Once I was having some troubles and a friend told me I'd find peace if I took acid with him."
"Did you?" Cody asked hopefully. If that was the answer then he could be tripping balls with Ricky in an hour's time. "Find peace and all?"
"Hard to say. Police found me naked in a tree in a public park. Still have no idea how I got up there."
"Did you get arrested?"
"Oh no. I just told them I wanted to know what it felt like to be tall and then couldn't get back down."
Cody laughed out loud. He realized he was going to like Winton.
"Can I ask what happened to you? Are you ill or...?"
"I got thrown out a window," Winton said and scooped a spoonful of eggs into his mouth.
"Shit man!" Cody said in amazement. "Shit!" Cody tried to think up a more eloquent way of expressing concern, but Winton just shrugged.
"Wish I could say it was the first time."
Cody stopped himself from cursing again. "How...Why...Are they in jail?"
"No, no."
"That's terrible! The cops will find them right?"
"I hope not. It was my wife."
"Jesus Christ, you gotta be kidding me? She threw you through a window?"
How the hell could she have thrown him? Cody tried to imagine the scene with great difficulty.
"Well, maybe it was more of an unfortunate shove. The window was open, a first floor window, but in my split level, so pretty far up. A big bush broke my fall."
"I hate when that happens," Cody said.
Winton barked out a laugh. "Gross. I'm eating."
Cody smiled at that, but he was still having trouble picturing the situation.
"Missy and I have our ups a
nd downs like any couple. Ours are just more...dramatic."
"Is she in jail?"
"Good God no. No, not at all." Winton put down his spoon, turned his hands over in the air and tried to explain further. "We have a..." Winton paused, "...a passionate relationship. We know where each other's buttons are. This is usually a good thing, a very good thing."
Cody tried not to choke on his hash browns.
"But my wife and I both have a couple of tempers, and sometimes, well, we just get to pushing each other's buttons in the bad way and it can..." Winton did the hand waving thing again. "...sort of escalate. My mouth gets going and then so do her fists."
"So, why do you need that then." Cody pointed to the IV trolley. "Does it have medicine in it?"
"Oh, this is just saline. I'm wicked hung over. This is the best cure known to man. My state last night might have contributed to our passions spilling over."
"Must be nice to have that sort of passion," Cody said honestly.
Winton laughed. "It pays off in the bedroom, let me tell ya."
"Yeah, I got that part," Cody said.
"Trust me, I've been injured far worse in the throes of passion than just denting my wing, falling out a window." Winton rotated his arm demonstrably and raised his head from his plate to wink at Cody. The picture of Winton and his little wife pumping away on each other was not sitting well with the bad hospital food.
"Well, I guess it's good to be forgiving," Cody offered.
"She is a good woman, really. The absolute best in the world. I just came in to get checked out. They kept me for observation, gave me meds. Good cooling off period too I figured. Nothing broken that wasn't broke already. Just sore."
Cody heard a sharp squeal from the double doors leading out to the hallway. He looked over and saw that it had come from a woman. She met Cody's gaze and began to walk quickly toward him.
"Sugar bear!" she cried. Her red stiletto heels click-clacked across the linoleum floor.
She wore black tights and a red, sleeveless top that was cut to reveal an ample bosom. Her shoulder length, bleach-blond hair expanded voluminously to frame her well-made-up and rather beautiful face.
Cody did not know how to react.
She extended her arms toward him and no, wait, to Winton! The six-foot-tall blond bombshell in the stiletto heels was running to Winton, all squeals and declarations of love. She suddenly dropped to one knee beside him and threw her arms around him violently, knocking the food that was on his spoon into the window blinds.
"Oh, Winnie! Oh, my little lamb chop! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Winton wrenched his chin above her arm, and tilted back so he could breathe. He nodded his chin up at Cody and muttered, "Cody, meet my wife, Missy."
Winton was now being rocked back and forth in her embrace. It was like seeing a giant child hug a very large doll.
"I don't know what is wrong with me!" Missy squealed. "I promise to get better. I'll go see a therapist, whatever it takes!"
"Missy," Winston said, trying to unlock her embrace before she strangled him or gave him whiplash. "Missy," he declared louder. "It's alright. Stop."
"Oh, sorry," she said, releasing him. She clutched his face in her hands, which had long ruby red fingernails. Her eyes welled up again with tears.
"Oh, Winnie!" she cried out again before throwing herself at him, lips first. They began making out furiously. Cody felt the urge to look away, out the window or at his food. He took a bite of his hash browns and tried not to listen to the lip smacking and tongue-lashing that was happening just across the table. It was like hearing a starving golden retriever go at a can of wet dog food.
The spectacle ended, mercifully, when Missy mentioned that she had parked illegally and had to go move her car. Winton turned his lipstick-covered face back to his food.
"Sorry about that." He looked up at Cody's somewhat stricken face. "Like I said...passionate."
Cody took a slow sip of water and considered how to broach the issue at hand.
"Your wife is very..."
"Tall?" Winton said.
"...Beautiful," Cody corrected.
"It's ok. I'm just joshin' ya."
"How tall is she, now that you mention it?" he ventured to ask, feeling that Winton would respect him more for being plainly curious.
"Six-foot-one." Then after a pause, "Go ahead. Ask."
"And how tall are you?"
"Three-foot-eleven and a quarter. But be a pal and just give me the bump to four even."
"Are you a midget?"
"Normally I would just say sure. But in reality it's complicated."
"Complicated?"
"Well, I have a medical condition which made me small. It has a very long name you wouldn't remember. Midget is more of a general term for short people or people with certain forms of dwarfism."
"Dwarfism? Like, that is for real? Like, there are actual dwarves?"
Winton just laughed. "You are like a little kid, man. If you could only see the expression on your face right now. You're refreshingly honest, Cody. "
"No, I just meant, I thought they were only in stories."
"Well, some things in stories have their basis in reality."
"So are there..." Cody trailed off not wanting to sound stupid again. But he had to know. "...Are there real life hobbits?"
Winton looked at Cody with an expression of disbelief that turned to something bordering pity. "Sorry. No hobbits. No oompa loompas. No magical powers. More's the pity, really."
"I dunno about the magical powers, dude. I'm six-four and I couldn't ever get a girl as beautiful as Missy. Height aside, that is a job well done."
"You flatter me, sir." Winton smiled and waved his spoon over his plate. "What can I say? I have a gift."
"So dwarves are real." Cody pondered the thought.
"Yeah, I can say that with some certainty." Winton removed a prescription bottle from a pocket in his robe and took a small oval pill.
"But it's a medical condition."
Winton swallowed his pill dry. "Yep. One with dozens and dozens of variations and permutations."
"And not all dwarves are midgets."
"Right. But still, it's subjective." Winton reached for his glass. "That means it's a matter of who you ask."
"I do know what subjective means," Cody said. He thought he did anyway.
Winton continued, "Truth is Cody, people don't really know much about us. People feel sorry for us, but it's human nature to avoid things that are different. I find that most people have never really even met a midget or dwarf, let alone felt the need to study the intricacies of our kind."
"Yeah, I haven't ever known anybody with it."
"Well, now you do. Winton P. Chevalier," he announced with flair. "Ambassador for Wee Folk and lover of leggy blondes, at your service."
He made a small theatrical bow of his head that almost dipped into his eggs.
"I think that concludes our first lecture on Dwarfism 101. Tell me about yourself, Cody. What do you do?"
The dreaded question.
Cody would prefer that people ask him the meaning of life or where socks disappear to in the wash. He had realized with horror, the day after he graduated college, that he could no longer tell people he was a student. For a few years he had struggled to find ways to avoid just telling people the honest truth: that he mostly sat by the pool drinking.
But then the economy had taken a hit and all of a sudden it was pretty normal to be unemployed. Cody had jumped on that bandwagon real fast. The collective misfortune was actually a blessing to him.
"I'm between jobs right now."
"Lot of that going around," Winton said sympathetically. "What did you do before? Before you were out of work I mean. What field are you in?"
Shit.
"Emmmm, I..."
Sometimes Cody would tell women that he was a consultant. It was unclear and sounded cool. But this wasn't some bar where it was too loud to hear one another properly.
"I guess the
truth is I don't really have a field. I went to college but I've never really had a career."
"You do a lot of odd jobs then?"
"Some," he said, sounding entirely too vague.
Uncertainty came over Winton's face. Cody scrambled for an out.
"I'm actually looking to go into business for myself."
Winton laughed. "Tired of slaving for the Man, eh?"
Cody was fairly certain that he was the Man, or at least was the son of the Man.
"You could definitely say that."
"What kind of business?"
"Haven't decided yet. Just hoping the right idea will come along."
Tired of being on the defensive, Cody asked Winton, "And what do you do?"
"Me? I'm an illusionist. I have an act. Missy and I met when I was hiring for my "beautiful assistant." Winton made air quotes to bracket the term. He smiled and continued, "We hit it off right from the start. She's still in my act with me. It's nice not to have to pay her." He gave a coy smile. "But maybe I'm the one not getting paid."
"Magic? That's awesome!"
"Ha-ha, kid you should see your face. How old are you?"
Cody scrunched up his face. "I'm 28. And who you callin' kid?"
Cody realized how that sounded. "Shit, I mean you can't be much older."
"Ha-ha. Settle down. The kid thing comes with the job I guess. But be glad you have a baby face. I'm 34."
"What kind of magic do you do?"
Winton closed his eyes. He opened them again with a hint of annoyance on his face. "At the risk of being pedantic, I do illusions, not magic. Remember? No magical powers."
"Oh right, whatever...well, do a trick then!"
Winton sighed. "It's a losing battle, isn't it?"
He looked around the immediate area.
"I shouldn't be doing this you know. Do I come to your place of work and ask you to work for free? Huh?" Despite his complaint, he straightened himself, picked up a sugar packet and with a wave of his hand, made it disappear.
Cody whooped his pleasure. "Oh man! Do it again!"
Winton shook his head. "Listen, man, if you like it so much, you could come see a show sometime. See the whole act. Much cooler than making a sugar packet disappear."