Thirteen West

by Jane Toombs

  Luba put water on for instant coffee. Let's see, he was pretty zonked now and he had been MOD last night, she'd called to check. She knew he'd traded Friday for Monday because Tony Newbold came by the apartment to arrange that. He was going to Frisco for his brother's Monday wedding. Which meant Barry would probably go out tonight to meet her, whoever she was.

  It wouldn't be hard to follow him. He'd never figure she'd do that, always thinking she was so dumb. It'd be worth it to see his face when she told him she knew about the woman, where she lived and all. Maybe even who, if she could find out.

  I don't care anymore, she assured herself. He's not worth caring about. But I'd sure enjoy bugging him, let him know he isn't fooling me.

  * * *

  Crawford opened bleary eyes and peered at the clock. Eleven. Must be morning because it wasn't all that dark. Some night. And that redhead. Jesus, he'd never done it before on coke—never even tried the stuff before, hadn't been that available back in Illinois. Not in his crowd anyway. Pot had been their shtick.

  Cocaine. Not physiologically addicting. You could take the stuff and not get your body hooked on it. Still illegal but the narc boys wouldn't be checking him for coke, who ever wrote a prescription for cocaine. Did they still use it in nasal surgery? He vaguely recalled they used to.

  Anyway, some party. The redhead rubbing it on his prick, telling him he'd last forever. He damn near had. But sniffing it had been a thousand times better than the sex and left him so clear-headed, not groggy like with the barbs. No danger of getting caught like with the Demerol, no getting so dependent your body went to hell if you didn't get any.

  He sat up and looked at the copper pitcher on the dresser. Two of the little plastic envelopes in there. He'd swiped them last night, picking them up when no one was paying attention. Wonder where Taylor got it? Must be easy to find a supplier. There were enough of those little envelopes around last night…white crystals, like snow. …to get him through this last miserable year in this god-awful, miserable place.

  * * *

  Grace heard the knock on her bedroom door but didn't answer.

  "Grace?" her father called through the panels. "Are you ill? I heard you up early this morning."

  "I don't feel good," she said, her voice quivering.

  "What is it?"

  Words stuck in her throat, gagging her.

  "Grace? What's the matter with you?"

  She didn't answer, lying huddled under the covers.

  "Grace? I'm worried about you."

  She could taste the bile in her mouth. Her father wouldn't come in. She could die in here and he'd never come in. She'd learned from him after her mother died when she was six that men didn't enter women's bedrooms. Women didn't enter men's, either.

  Except at the hospital. Grace retched, nothing coming up from her already emptied stomach—she had vomited off and on all night. She got up unsteadily and opened the door, pushing past her father to hurry down the hall to the bathroom, retching as she went, saliva and mucus dribbling from her mouth onto her nightgown.

  When she finished gagging, she rose from her knees and sat on the rim on the bathtub, dropping her hands into her lap. Her fingers encountered slime. She looked down and saw the whitish mucus on her gown and cried out. Frantically, she yanked the nightgown over her head and threw it from her. Dry, tearless sobs burst from her and she flung up her hands as though warding off an unseen attacker. She groped for the knob and fled naked down the hall. Her father stood waiting at her open bedroom door.

  "Grace!" he exclaimed.

  She saw the shock and horror on his face and fell at his feet, groveling and crying.

  "Evil...bad...I'm a bad girl, Papa."

  She jerked when the first lash of the belt fell across her bare buttocks. A warmth started deep in her abdomen, chasing away the nausea. She heard the swish of the leather before the second stroke hit her. The exquisite pain made her writhe. She moaned.

  Again and again the belt struck her. She began to pant, her father's loud breathing matching hers. The heat inside her grew all consuming and it rose and rose...

  "Papa, Papa!" she gasped.

  He groaned on a long expiration.

  After a time Grace got up from the hall floor. Her father had disappeared. She entered her bedroom, put on a clean gown and crawled back under the covers to fall immediately into the comforting darkness of satiation.

  * * *

  "What do you mean like before?" Alma demanded, staring across the kitchen table at Charlie.

  He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "The way we were," he said.

  "Man, I saw that movie, too, way back when," she told him. "No way am I trailing in your dust again. I'm a person. I've got a career."

  "Nursing? Catering to nuts?" he laughed.

  Alma jumped to her feet, glaring at his handsome brown face. "You better be joking," she warned. "And it's a piss-poor joke."

  Charlie let the chair back down. "Come on, sugar. You rile too easy. All I meant was when we go to living together, I expect a little attention."

  "What kind of attention?"

  "Sure not what I'm getting now."

  "Last time you had me cleaning up your place and washing your clothes and fixing your meals and I wasn't even living there. You knew I was working full time and yet you got pissed if I didn't wait on you like you owned me."

  "So you split."

  "You bet I did. And I'm not going back unless you stop thinking of me as a thing. It's I—Thou, not I—It."

  He rose, frowning. "Stop feeding me predigested psychology like I'm one of your patients."

  "You're so hung up on machismo, you could do with a little psychology. That macho stuff is ancient history. I can do anything you can."

  "Piss up a rope?" he asked, straight-faced.

  "Oh—you're impossible!" Alma broke into a reluctant grin.

  "But easily satisfied," he said, reaching for her.

  * * *

  From the day room, Simpson Jones scanned the workers in white uniforms. Two were black men but neither was the one he'd seen in that white girl's room, the one he suspected was an incarnation of Macardit. He knew the Black God had been in there that night. Then he'd seen the man come out, looking as human as anybody. Fooled him once, wouldn't again.

  But these were day workers. Macardit only appeared at night so he'd have to be patient and wait for the black man till darkness came again.

  "Serpent come," he said softly, almost under his breath. If he was heard, he'd be punished. "Serpent comes. He coils, coils in the bush. He waits, coiled he waits..."

  Dolph glanced at the black man they called the Preacher. He was mumbling something about serpents. Snakes. He hated snakes. His mind was getting clearer now, though, and he didn't get scared. This was a hospital. He'd been in one before and remembered some of the people were batty, didn't make any sense what they said.

  Pretty soon the tech would come to take him outside for a walk and he could hardly wait. He knew the man with his jacket, Tate, was out there someplace. He'd discovered Tate's room was on this ward and he'd tried to get into the room but the door was locked. All the doors were locked in the day time 'cause everybody was supposed to be down here in the day room or outside with a tech. But now that he knew the right room, he'd get in there sometime, find his jacket and what was in the pocket. It better be there.

  * * *

  Lew Alinosky threw Timmie up in the air and caught him, smiling at his son's squeals of joy. Playing with the boy, he almost forgot the jealousy churning in him, triggered by Becky's behavior in the bar last night. Making up to that fancy dancy guitar player like she'd known him for years. "Sexy music," she said he played, flirting her eyes at him and pouting when Lew pulled her back to the booth. Then she drank too much and was a sodden lump by the time they got home to bed.

  No better than Laura Jean lying unmoving in her bed. Laura Jean was supposed to start ECT tomorrow. He hoped to hell they didn't want him to take her over there
when he switched to days. He didn't go for that stuff.

  A picture of Uncle Sid slipped into his mind, blotting out the laughing face of his little boy. He lowered Timmie to the floor. Uncle Sid, who sat in the rocker hour after hour, day after day, year after year. Rocked and stared. Grandma had to take him to the bathroom and to the table for meals. He ate what was put in front of him, provided someone put a spoon in his hand. Never smiled. Never frowned. A blank.

  "Had his brain operated on," people whispered.

  Lobotomy. They didn't do that in this state anymore. "At least he isn't in that terrible place," Grandma would say, meaning the state hospital. "At least he's home with me and I can look after him."

  What madness did Uncle Sid have that was worse than a lobotomy?

  Lew shook his head to rid himself of the zombie-like vision. The ECT patients looked like Uncle Sid for a while afterwards, till they began remembering things. He'd heard if you gave people shock too many times, though, they got to be like lobotomy patients.

  Laura Jean? But she was shut away in her catatonic state so maybe they didn't have any choice. Dr. Jacobs was okay. He cared what happened to the patients. Not like some of the doctors.

  Lew could hear Becky singing to herself in the bathroom. Did she remember how he'd shoved her away last night? She'd been on her back snoring by the time he got in bed and he was going to screw her anyway but when he began it seemed like he was doing it with a zombie. He thought of Laura Jean and her nightmares, that everyone now figured were really rapes, and he lost all desire for Becky, rolling off her and pushing her to the far side of the bed.

  Would she care if she did remember?

  * * *

  Naomi Cobb sat hunched over the smooth plastic chair, her gaze darting right and left. They were all around her, whispering, aiming their death rays out of the TV set. Other people sat in the chairs like she did and she wondered if she should warn them of the deadly light pouring from the TV. But then she decided they were dummies left there to fool her into thinking she wasn't the intended victim.

  Otherwise, surely they would hear the voices whispering. "Die. Feel your blood boil away and your brain shrivel. Die..."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The day was beautiful, Sarah thought—a blue Northern Nevada sky with the puffy little cumulus clouds that meant fair weather. The sun warmed the cool fall air to summer temperatures that would last until sunset. Sunset came early because of the Sierras looming to the west.

  She and Frank were sitting in her back yard, under the shade of a cottonwood. Looking over at him, she sighed. Though there was no doubt he was greatly improved, he still seemed to be in his own sunset world much of the time.

  Oh, if she told him to do a simple, specific chore, he could and would, but he had no initiative. She'd asked him several times if he knew who she was and he'd nodded and said, "Sarah." Since she'd told him that was her name, what more did she expect?

  "Frank," she said impulsively, "why do you think you're here with me?"

  He glanced at her, then fixed his gaze on Solo, her gray tom, half hidden by a lilac bush while he watched for birds. "I'm like him," Frank said. "Waiting. You're waiting, too."

  Surprised, she took a moment to frame another question. "Why are we waiting?"

  "For the story to finish. Then we'll know." He shifted in the chair to look at her. "It feels like we're coming to the bad part."

  Sarah knew he must be referring to their nightly session of rehashing her six weeks on Thirteen West. He'd begun to fill in a bit here and a bit there but nothing really remarkable. He was right—they were inching up to the bad part.

  "I lost my Corvette," he told her, surprising her anew. He hadn't mention that red car until this moment.

  "Lost it?"

  "Yeah. Don't know where it is."

  "But you do know the day and the year it is?"

  He grinned. "Told you this morning. You only get to ask me once a day."

  Since he'd taken to reading the Reno Gazette every morning, he'd gotten the date right for the past week. It amazed her that he was now able to joke about his faulty memory. He'd come a long way.

  "She died," he said after a short silence.

  "Who?"

  "Doris."

  Sarah had never forgotten that name. "Your cousin Doris?"

  "My wife." He rose and began striding across the back lawn toward the gazebo.

  She stared after him, shaken by what he'd said. Frank had married Doris? Was it true or a pipe dream?

  Solo slithered from under the bush and padded after Frank. After a moment, Sarah got up from her chair and trailed after them both. She paused at the gazebo where Solo sat on the bottom step watching Frank run his hand over the stair rail.

  "Needs to be scraped and painted," he told her, looking directly into her eyes. "Like you're doing with me. I sometimes wonder why."

  Her pleasure at the progress he was making faded with his words, words that reminded her she often wondered why herself.

  "If I do wind up all shiny and new," he added, "then what?"

  Damned if she knew.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alma made a really hot chili on Sunday, letting it cook all day in the crock pot. She and Charlie bundled up in the late afternoon and jogged along the foggy beach so they were both hungry when she served supper.

  "Good," he said, taking a second helping. "Possibly even great. You ever make that brown bread anymore? Would've been great with the chili."

  "What'd you come up this weekend for anyway?" she demanded. "Me or the bread?"

  "Both would've been nice. When you move to the city permanently, I'll expect the bread, too."

  "If."

  "Come on, sugar, you know you can't get along without me."

  "I've been doing very well."

  He raised one eyebrow. "Who with?"

  "I don't ask you any questions."

  "I'm asking you one."

  "None of your business, man. I'm not living with you. When and if I do, then you can expect exclusive rights. Maybe."

  "No maybe."

  "Okay, long as it works both ways. Remember, I'm going to be working. Don't give me any static about how tough a law student has it. I'll concede you work as hard as I do. So we split the scut stuff."

  He shrugged.

  "You don't talk about it, I don't move in. The agreement has to be up front."

  Charlie thrust himself away from the table, upsetting his coffee. He stood. "Damn it, woman, I never asked anyone else to live with me. Ever. Why're you thinking you get to set conditions?"

  She stood, too, hands on her hips. "'Cause you're looking to run me again—King Charles and his maid-in-waiting. No way do I fall into that trap again."

  "What's with you? Crazy talk about being owned and overworked—you sound as paranoid as those loonies you take care of."

  "Will you discuss this sensibly or not?" she demanded. "It's a matter of either/or, and that includes anyone on the side—I don't, you don't."

  "I see it was a mistake to come up here."

  Alma blinked back tears. "Perhaps it was," she said, raising her head high. "If you expect a one-sided commitment, don't bother to stay on."

  "Damn straight, I won't." Charlie turned on his heel and strode across the room, picking up his belongings on the way. "I forget anything just send it COD."

  After he'd roared off in the MG, Alma sat back down at the table, staring at the dirty dishes and the spilled coffee. "Bastard," she muttered. "Not going to cry over him. No man's worth my tears."

  She wiped her wet eyes with the heels of her hands and set her teeth together. After a moment she got up and began clearing the mess on the table.

  She washed the dishes, cleaned the house, changed the bed sheets and bundled all the dirty clothes to take to the Laundromat in the morning. Then she took a shower and got into her terry-cloth robe.

  It was too early to go to sleep. Unearthing the macramé twine kit she'd bought and never opened from u
nder her bed, she curled up on the lounge reading the instruction sheet. "Next thing is a cat," she told herself. "Little ole gal living alone with her fancy work and her cat."

  When the knock came, she arrested her quick movement upward. Charlie back to say he was sorry? Let him wait and wonder if she meant to let him in.

  Another thought brought her to her feet. Could be Barry, even though she'd told him not to come. She opened the door.

  "Well, hello there, Momma A," Willie said, pushing past her to enter. He closed the door while she stood staring at him. Looking around, he added, "Nice place. On the beach, too. Living right, gal."

  "Get out!" she snapped.

  He grinned. "Aw, that's no way to greet an old friend. Better be nice to old Willie."

  "I'm warning you."

  "About what? Ain't no house real close by and I'm stronger than you, babe—remember? We got a lot to catch up on." He reached for her.

  Alma twisted away. "You touch me and I'll kill you." She grabbed a long-bladed knife from the drying rack. "I swear I'll kill you."

  Willie backed away, then lunged toward her. She stabbed desperately at him but he avoided the trust, caught her hand and forced her to drop the knife. It clattered to the floor by the lounge.

  "Shit, babe, that wasn't nice." He bent her arm back. "You gonna be nice?"

  She screamed and kicked at him, earning a backhand across the face. When she tried to bite him, he hooked his arm around her neck from behind, choking off her screams and her breath until she slumped against him.

  "Learned to do this right at the hospital," he said, his words seeming to come to her down a long tunnel. Black specks danced before her eyes. "You won't be the first one I choked out, babe. You gonna play nice, now?"

  Barry saw the second car in the slatted carport by the house and sighed. Stupid damn thing to do, come rushing over here hoping the guy had left. Acting like an adolescent with his first piece of ass. He stared at the fog shapes drifting by. So now what? Back to the apartment and Luba?