by SUZAN STILL
“Where’d that come from?” the giant asks, amazed.
“Rat thar,” says Pearl, pointin. “Rat in front a our noses.” Pearl laughs an the giant gots the good grace ta laugh, too.
She reaches out an Pearl thinks it’s fer the box, so she hands it ta her. She takes it, puts it t’other hand an holds out her hand again. Then Pearl sees she means ta shake hands.
“Sophia,” says the giant, smilin.
Well, Pearl cain’t remember if’n anybody ever done shook her hand. Maybe the preacher did, back when she done married Abel Johns. But that was a long time ago an she espects he done it in a spirit a irony.
So Pearl’s a bit slow, but when she gets round ta it, she puts her whole strength inta it.
“Pearl,” she says. “Name’s Pearl Johns. Pleased ta meetcha.”
Erika
Everything’s hazy. There seems to be a big commotion, but Erika can’t make out what it is. She hears screaming from someone near her, then it goes quiet. She hears that noise again, like fireworks, off in the distance.
She’s floating in a space that’s not unpleasant, but her mind keeps trying to kick start itself, to rev up some semblance of alarm over something. But she resists it.
Then, there are people bending over her, pulling at her. They’re hurting her! She tries to tell them to fuck off, but all that comes out is a groan. She can’t find her tongue. It’s sort of stuck somewhere in her mouth, lying useless.
God! Fucking cows!
They’re pulling her clothes off!
They’re flopping her around like a rag doll. Like one of those two black babies, a boy and a girl, her Gramma sewed for her, with the long, lank legs and arms. Jerry Huff tried to pull one away from her in third grade, calling it a nigger doll, and the legs were so long he seemed to be a yard away when the leg finally tore off.
Erika cried, then. She might be crying now. She can’t tell.
They’re talking and it’s too loud, and she still can’t make out a word – just the note of urgency. A weight like a pile driver descends on her shoulder and she distinctly hears the word pressure.
Something silver flashes near her face.
My God! They’re knifing her!
Her clothes rip.
She wants to run, but she can’t move.
She’s twelve again and it’s her father with his big KBar in hand, hissing, “You kick me again, you little bitch, and I’ll cut your nose off!”
She wants to fight, but instead she sinks down into herself, like always. She turns into the blackness like it was an old friend.
Heddi
Heddi just wants to sit here quietly and calm herself. Then, when she opens her eyes, she’s sure – she believes with all her heart – that this will all have gone away. She’ll be lying in her bed. The light off the Pacific will be flat and white, making little rippling, shadowy lines of the ocean’s wave pattern pass over the ceiling.
It’s this medication Dr. Copeland prescribed. It’s too strong. She knew it the first time she took it, but she kind of liked the fuzzy state it put her in.
But this is too much. Dreams like this show a severe disruption in the psyche. Instead of helping her, these meds are pushing her to nervous collapse.
Heddi focuses on her breathing, the way she teaches her patients to do it when they’re upset – ten long counts in, hold for five, five long counts out, over and over.
But she keeps being disrupted by voices; voices coming from nearby – all around her.
Two women are laughing. One sounds like a file drawn over raw metal. Closer, to her left, she’s sure she hears Ondine. How did Ondine get here? She never found her in Reception. Did she? She’s confused.
Then she hears the unmistakable voice of Betty. She’s asking, “Has anyone seen a broom?” and a voice Heddi now recognizes as the giant’s answers, “There’s one in the bathroom, behind the door...and a mop, too.”
Heddi decides at least to pretend that these are hallucinations, although by now she’s onto herself. Denial has always been one of her best defenses. It’s starting to look like this will be one of those times when it will be completely ineffectual against circumstances.
Sophia
The room’s beginning to reanimate. Women are moving, all around, looking white and shaky but otherwise fit. There seems to be consensus that, for the moment at least, danger has passed them by – although Sophia cautions them to speak very softly.
She looks around to see what needs doing next and what materials she’s got to do it with.
Her eyes meet with the fat woman’s with the broom. “Is there a way to boil some water?”
“There’s a microwave by the sink.”
“See if you can find some way to get me hot water. Then bring me that package of clean sponges and those rags that are in the bathroom.
“Is there any sugar here?” she asks to the room in general.
Pearl whips over to the table at the back of the room like a crow dive-bombing a dead gopher. She lashes out with one claw and from among a motley assortment of instant coffee and creamer jars, napkin holders and salt-and-peppers, pulls the little white plastic cubic box ubiquitous to all public places, with its hoard of sweetener packets.
“Rat here. I gots it rat here,” she caws victoriously.
“Look and see if there’s any sugar in it. We can’t use sweetener. Only sugar.”
A look of consternation flies across Pearl’s face. She moves toward Sophia, proffering the box, saying, “You better look fer yersef.”
But Sophia’s already turning away toward the couch, where her patient is still unconscious. “Just give me the sugar,” she says again over her shoulder, “and leave the rest.”
The woman with the long auburn hair is still at her post, holding pressure front and back, weeping soundlessly. She’s in an awkward position and Sophia knows that she’s probably already exhausted by it. She puts her hand on her shoulder, saying, “You can stop now. I’ll need to be where you are for awhile.”
The woman rolls to the right without hesitation and crouches there, watching Sophia’s every movement – either too stunned to move, or waiting to see what further service she can provide.
Sophia peels the blood-saturated scarf from the wound. Edema has already set in. What was a round, ragged hole minutes ago is already swelling and puckering like a pursed and bruised mouth. The blood flow, front and back, has eased to a slow seeping.
“I’ll need that water, as soon as possible,” she calls over her shoulder.
“It’s heating. Just 30 seconds more.”
She uses the time to assess her patient’s vitals: the pulse is weak and fast, but steady. If Sophia can get her patched up, she’s pretty sure she’ll make it.
A fat white hand reaches over her left shoulder, holding a Pyrex bowl of steaming water.
“Dip one of those clean rags in it,” Sophia says.
She hears her set the bowl on the floor, a tussling of plastic as she rips open the bag of cleaning cloths, and a splash of water being wrung out. Then, the fat white hand is there again, holding a steaming cloth.
“I’ll need another.” Sophia bends closely over the patient and begins wiping away the blood, clearing the field of operations. When the rag is saturated, she throws it on the floor and reaches for another – and then another. They go through five rags before she’s satisfied.
“Now, tear off pea-sized pellets of clean sponge and dip them in water. Then, sprinkle them heavily with sugar.”
Sophia turns to watch her tear the sponge. “No, too big. Here...like this. This size. Dip it. And then... where’s that sugar? Pearl? Where’s the sugar?”
Pearl approaches like a frightened vizier before a potentate, bowing and proffering as she comes. The cube of sweetener packets is in her wizened hands.
“Just give me the sugar,” Sophia says again, annoyed this time.
Pearl advances, just to the right of the fat woman, extending the holder. Sophia gives her a real
scowl this time. There’s no time to waste here.
“The sugar, Pearl!”
A look close to desperation clutches Pearl’s withered face into even deeper gouges and ravines. Then, in the voice of a terrified and ashamed child, she whispers, “Ye’ll have ta find it, yersef. I cain’t read.”
Ondine
Ondine doesn’t know who this giantess is, but she’s absolutely awed by her composure. She seems to know just what to do.
Some quality utterly lacking in Ondine – and in most women she knows – comes effortlessly to her. Ondine would have to call it command. She’s in command of herself, and not afraid to command the rest of them, either!
As she watches her minister to the injured woman, Ondine sees no hesitation, no self-doubt, just the forward momentum of self-assuredness.
She’s so fascinated by what she’s doing that it’s almost too late when Ondine looks at her assistant. This poor woman must be a hundred pounds overweight, and wearing a royal blue polyester suit so hideous that Ondine wouldn’t even use it as a Halloween costume. But she’s been hanging in there, right at the giantess’s shoulder.
Right until she hands her the first sugar-dipped sponge, that is. When the giantess turns and shoves the sponge straight into the wound and blood spurts out and the patient shrieks, Ondine looks over just in time to see the fat woman swooning. Her face has gone the color and waxy consistency of library paste, and she sits back on her big bottom with a plop.
Ondine jumps up and dashes to her. “Are you okay? Can I help you?”
The fat woman shakes her head and Ondine can see that if she opens her mouth to speak, she’ll vomit.
“Here. Take my hand. I’ll help you up. You need to go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on your face. I’ll take over, here.”
She’s dense as iron. It feels like it’ll take a fifty-ton crane to winch her up from the floor. But Pearl comes forward and hefts an elbow, and between them they get her up.
The giantess seems oblivious to all of this. She’s reaching her hand over her shoulder, calling for another sponge. Ondine slips into the fat woman’s place, tears off a bit of sponge, dips it in water and then sugar before handing it to her. The transition is almost seamless.
The big woman packs the entrance and exit wounds as deeply as possible with the little sponges, and then says, “I’ll need another of those clean rags in hot water.”
As Ondine hands it to her, she says, “Thanks for taking over. I could tell that other one wasn’t up to it. Some people just can’t take the sight of blood.”
“I’m glad I can help.”
“Do you know what I’m doing?”
“Well, my husband’s a doctor. My ex-husband. I know a little. You’re packing the wound. But I don’t know why you’re using the sugar. Won’t that cause sepsis? Isn’t it a medium for bacteria?”
“No,” she says, wiping up around the wounds. “Just the opposite. Sugar’s an end product, metabolically. It’s clinically sterile and the body recognizes it as something of its own. It’s used as an emergency field dressing in combat zones.”
She wipes the wounds clean again.
“Are you a nurse?”
“No.”
“Then, how...”
“Now, where’s that needle and thread? Can you thread it for me?”
Ondine struggles just to break the thread off from the spool. It’s thick and brown and very tough. Without a word, the giantess whips her knife toward her, blade up. Ondine cuts the thread against it and threads the needle.
Without hesitation, the giantess turns to the wound and runs the needle directly into the ragged skin. For an instant, Ondine feels light-headed. It’s the other woman’s voice that keeps her focused.
“I’ve learned the proper suture stitches,” she says, matter-of-factly, “but I still prefer the buttonhole stitch. It’s quick and strong.” She makes the familiar looping, over-and-under stitch, deftly. She works neither slowly nor quickly. Time is not the measure here, but patience, exactness and care.
“We’re so lucky she’s still out cold. Otherwise, I don’t know how we’d get this done. It would be brutal, having to hold her down. And the shock might kill her.”
“You must be a surgeon?”
The big woman doesn’t answer.
Finally, she finishes. The wound is neatly sutured and there’s scarcely any blood still seeping from it. Then, she pulls the woman forward to reach the exit wound. “Can you hold her, like this?”
Ondine nods and reaches to support the unconscious weight.
“Good. This exit wound is nasty. See how the skin is more ragged? This will take some time. Can you do it?” Ondine doesn’t even waste the energy on words, just nods, and the big woman bends to her task.
At last, it’s done. She cleans the wounds to her satisfaction, and says, “Now, hand me a couple of those clean sponges, whole. Wet and sugar them first.” Ondine does and the woman slaps them over the wounds.
“Now, open that first aid box and get out the gauze.”
When she has the gauze in hand, she says, “Hold this end here, on the top of her shoulder.” Then, she begins expertly winding the bandage in a diagonal, cross-woven fashion, trapping the patient’s arm to her side in the process.
“Got to have it good and tight, but not too tight.” She glances over her shoulder. “I need a sling,” she says to the room in general.
But no one responds. From the bathroom, they can hear retching, accompanied by the caws of Pearl, meant, they are sure, to be soothing.
The only one not occupied is Heddi.
“Heddi?” Ondine says gently. She’s got her head down and her eyes closed and Ondine hates to disturb her. “Heddi?”
Nothing.
“Heddi!” The giantess snaps, like a pistol going off.
Heddi’s head jerks up.
“I need your scarf for a sling!”
Heddi stares at Sophia dully, and then with dawning realization. “But...” she finally manages to stammer, “this is Hermes!”
Sophia turns to squint at her in astonishment. “So?”
“So...I bought it in Paris. I mean...I can’t just...”
“Take that scarf that’s lying on the floor then, and wash it out. Now! I need it.” She turns back to her patient with a look in her eye that makes Ondine draw back.
Heddi pushes out of her chair like a sleepwalker and comes to rummage in the pile of bloody rags. She finds Betty’s scarf and wanders off with it, her face blank.
The giantess sits back on her heels and surveys her work with satisfaction, then turns to Ondine and says, “My name’s Sophia. Thanks so much for your help.”
“I’m Ondine. I’d shake your hand, but I’m pretty sure that’s forbidden in operating rooms.”
Sophia smiles a big, radiant, warm smile – totally unexpected from someone who’s just performed a medical miracle.
“Aren’t you exhausted?”
“Me? No. All in a day’s work. There’s still a lot to be done. I’ll be tired tomorrow. Or next week. Whenever we finally get out of here.”
“Do you really think we will?”
“Oh, yeah. I think we will. If we can keep our wits about us and the door barricaded. Sooner or later, the Powers That Be will prevail and they’ll come for us. Our job’s to survive until they can.”
Heddi wafts back, clean scarf in hand. She’s even managed to dry it in the microwave.
“Thanks, Heddi. Sorry I was so gruff. I’m Sophia.” She smiles up at Heddi, then turns to fold and apply the sling.
Heddi looks at her as if observing her with field glasses from a mile away. She nods slightly, then turns, sinking back down in her chair without a murmur.
Betty
Well, Betty can’t remember being that sick in her entire life – ever.
It felt like all the bile in her liver, plus all the toxins she’s ever inhaled or ingested as a resident of the bedeviled City of Angels, just came out in one swell foop.
Sitting here, with her back to the wall, the smell of her own vomit rank around the toilet, Betty’s just trying to gather her wits. Some part of her can’t believe what’s just happened, while another part knows full well they’re all in deep doodoo.
She’s shaking like a leaf. She’s got to collect herself.
What to do? What to do?
Her mother used to say, When in doubt, clean.
So she pulls herself up by the sink, grabs a handful of paper towels, wets them and commences mopping up after herself.
The door opens a crack but the room’s so small that the doorknob whacks her in the rump. Pearl’s claw, like a hand from the grave, reaches through holding a mug that reads, SANTA MONICA in big red letters and is emblazoned with a lurid decal of Pacific Ocean Park with its ancient rollercoaster.
“Here. Water. Drink it. Ye’ll feel better.”
Betty takes the mug in trembling hands. The surface of the water is agitated, as if by an earthquake. She manages to get some into her mouth, swishes it around and spits. Then, she sips some – and it actually tastes good to her, despite its overburden of chlorine and salt.
Slowly, methodically, she cleans around the base of the stool. She wipes down the walls. She gets fresh towels and cleans the seat. Finally, she feels there’s nothing left to do and she’s left with the same dilemma: what to do? What to do?
She needs to empty the wastebasket, but where? Into a bigger one in the other room, where the stink will infect everything? There’s nowhere else. Maybe there are some garbage bags under the sink in the other room.
That means she has to go out there.
She doesn’t want to go out there.
It’s got nothing to do with the other women, her fellow captives. Going out there means facing their situation: seeing them all trapped in a tiny little room full of shattered glass and pooled Coke, with bullet holes in the walls – and in at least one of them, too. It means facing the full devastation of their situation.