Ultimately, his fingers and the secrets they carried remained his. The men went away. Virgil went back to sleep.
These people had no idea who he was.
***
Marc Virgil opened his eyes. He was awake and in pain. He saw the flickering shadow on the ceiling from the rusty old gray fan whirling by the window. He could see the nurse’s head when she walked past. He could see everything he’d ever done wrong with perfect clarity.
Clearest of all was his memory. He could remember much of what happened in the desert, and most of it shamed him.
He thought of how he had let Curtis bear the load they both should have carried. He thought of how he let Curtis die by himself. He was angry and embarrassed that he had finally passed out on his feet at the steps of the hospital. He wasn’t sorry though. He wasn’t sorry that his mind had finally relented, had shut itself down, and gone to sleep. He wasn’t sorry that he had fallen face first like a rag doll into the steps. He wasn’t sorry that he had lost teeth and broken his jaw in the fall.
He felt like he deserved it.
He was glad the orderly had stolen his drugs. The pain brought clarity and punishment.
The Mexican doctors had wired his mouth shut. He hadn’t uttered a word.
One day, a nurse came with the doctor. She was young and pretty. She dressed like a nurse from old times, prim and proper with a clean white nurse’s hat. The doctor spoke to her in Spanish, and she spoke to Virgil in English.
“Hello, sir, how are you?”
Virgil said nothing. He stared at the ceiling.
“Can you hear me?” she said it nicely. He ignored her.
“Blink if you can hear me,” she said. He tried not to blink at all. She turned to the doctor and shook her head. They went away.
At first, he slept all the time. The pain woke him whenever it got the urge. The burning skin was the worst. After a while, that went away like everything else, but there was a deeper pain in his face that emerged. He had his bandages. He found himself starting to worry about what could be under them.
At night in the hospital, Virgil didn’t have to pretend. He could hoist himself to his elbows and move his head. Though he was the only one.
It was an old and poorly cared for building near an industrial park. The air was bad, and the light was muddled by dirty windows. Heavy trucks rolled past at all hours. The ceiling had water damage and was rotting. The men in the beds were too. This was a ward for destitute patients with serious brain damage.
The moans bothered him at first. There was more than one moaner, and if their minds were being tortured, no one knew or cared. There was one doctor for an entire floor, and he was more like an orderly himself. He was always in a hurry with other places to be. After a few days, Virgil realized that he was the only doctor in a warehouse sized building.
A loud crash rang out in the dark.
“Go get ‘em, Thrasher,” Virgil whispered. His jaw was wired so tightly that he couldn’t understand himself, but he knew the substance.
The Thrasher fought them blindly and without anger. He was an instinctive rebel. He had to be strapped down, but he fought so hard that he routinely got loose. Thrasher would lay still for a while, then jerk to life with a thoughtless spasm, sending bedpans, pill jars, and food carts crashing to the floor. The orderlies hated the Thrasher, and for a long time, he was Virgil’s only entertainment.
***
He realized that young nurse was not a nurse. She was a nun. She wore a small hat that distinguished her, but it wasn’t quite a habit. She also wore a very small gold cross around her neck. She would sit and read to each man on the ward. He understood not a single word she said, for she only spoke in Spanish. Her voice was soft and lovely. She read for only ninety minutes a week, and Virgil pretended to be severely brain damaged the entire time. Each week, it was the best ninety minutes of his life.
In this young nun’s voice, Spanish was a beautiful, romantic language, and not so much a foreign tongue as the secret password to a seductive life where passions ruled and rules disappeared. She was in no hurry and spoke so slowly that he could savor each word. He told himself if he listened long and carefully enough, he would learn the language himself without ever opening his mouth.
The Thrasher barked, and two metal bedpans crashed loudly to the floor. There was a distinctive weight to the sound as the metal rang out, and there was no doubt the pan had been full.
“Oh, fuck,” said the young nun in English.
Virgil’s mouth was wired shut. He couldn’t speak. He also couldn’t smile. But smiles aren’t limited to the mouth. The young nun caught herself and looked about in terror. No one had seen her, and no one had heard her. No one except for Virgil. They made eye contact, and she saw the mischievous pleasure in his eye that was as obvious as a belly laugh. She also saw the recognition.
He put it away immediately. He stared at the ceiling. He played dead.
Virgil felt her study him. Then he heard the book close definitively. She left. Moments later, he heard the sounds of buckets and mops, but he kept his eye on the ceiling.
The next day, the young nun opened her book and began to read as she always did. A door closed in the distance. She shut the book, then opened it again at the beginning. She paused and cleared her throat. When she opened her lips again, the English language poured out.
She began to tell the story of an old man facing death who remembered a moment from his childhood when he had first discovered ice. It was more English than he had heard in months. He had no idea how much he had missed it, and the only thing he could compare it to was the thirst he had felt in the desert. She spoke naturally, without hesitation, and with only the slightest of accents. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to kiss her. Instead, he lay on his bed and pretended he was brain damaged.
But she knew.
Virgil heard lazy footsteps in the distance. Suddenly, the nun was leaning over him, so he couldn’t avoid her.
“My name is Patricia,” she whispered.
The next time she came, he turned his head to look at her. She smiled, and then she read to him. She turned the page four times. He lost track of the story when he was thinking of how wonderful she was.
***
One day, he was propped up, waiting for her and staring straight ahead when the man who tried to kill him in the jail cell appeared before him.
Angel slid silently into his line of sight. Virgil saw him in profile, waiting. There was no turning away. Angel wore the same, emotionless expression.
Virgil’s one open eye darted about him. He was weak, and he was broken. He had virtually no way to defend himself.
Virgil decided to live in that moment. He accepted that it would hurt. When Angel came near him, he would play dead. He would wait for Angel to stab or choke him or do whatever he planned to end Virgil’s life. Then Virgil would rip his eye out.
He flexed two fingers straight and made a fist with the other two. This would have hurt the day before, but now, all he felt was his heart. He’d shove those two fingers through Angel’s eye and, with his other hand, pull him down to his level. Then, he would wrap his arm around Angel’s neck until he stopped moving.
The doctor appeared, and then the nurse. That wouldn’t stop Angel. Then Patricia came, and she looked at him and smiled. Then her smile disappeared. No one else paid Virgil any attention, but Patricia saw it. Then there was the orderly, and he realized that Angel was sitting. The orderlies stepped behind Angel, who was in a wheelchair, and turned him in the direction the doctor pointed. Virgil saw him in full now.
One entire side of his head had caved into itself. It was just gone. Stubbly hair formed a soft tender patch of skin ringed by silver staples. Underneath it, the bone was gone.
What was there was drool. A long, solitary strand hung out of his mouth and pooled on his gown. It shimmered in the light as the orderly turned him.
The doctor gave more orders. The nurse wrote them down. The orderly wheeled. Angel d
rooled.
Patricia looked again, and he could see her concern. He couldn’t tell her, and she couldn’t ask. Virgil realized he was sweating. He told himself to calm down and go to sleep. It didn’t work. Until it grew dark and then long after, he watched Angel.
***
Virgil sat propped up in bed, watching Angel shit himself and the orderlies changing him. When they were done, they dropped him roughly.
Patricia was reading to him. She was in mid-sentence when he reached out with one hand and closed the book.
For a man who pretended to be comatose, and who moved only one eye, this was the equivalent of an earthquake. Patricia looked frightened, and then nervous. One of her hands fumbled with her cross.
His voice was full of rust and the dry muscles in his throat hurt when they rubbed one another. His jaw was still fused shut. All he managed were grunts and hisses.
Patricia put the cross down and leaned over him. Her hair fell loosely onto Virgil’s cheek. For the first time, he could smell her. All he had known was the scent of chemicals and human bodies, covered up with harsh disinfectants. She smelled of warmth and of genuine health. He saw the cross sliding along the tiny band.
He tried again and again, and on the third attempt, she could hear Virgil whisper, “What’s wrong with me?”
Patricia sat down again. Her face showed deep concern. She fumbled with the cross again.
“You were shot,” said Patricia.
Virgil nodded. He knew that. That was old news.
“Someone treated you, but they treated you badly,” she said. That was the rough old woman they had met at the little house off the road. He remembered her well.
“Your wounds became infected,” said Patricia. “The doctor thinks you might have been poisoned.”
Virgil thought about that. It explained a few things, but not all of them. He gestured for her to come close.
“Why does it still hurt?”
Whatever it was, she didn’t want to tell him. Patricia seemed to understand that if she did not, no one would. When she spoke, her voice had lost its whisper.
“The flesh inside of you became infected. The doctors had to cut it out.”
Instinctively, he flexed his hips, and lifted his legs. Even that tiny movement ached. He wondered how much they had cut out of him.
“Can I walk?” he asked.
Patricia nodded. She pursed her lips. “But not like you did before. And it will hurt.”
He was sorry that Patricia had to tell him. She clearly had not wanted to tell him, but she had done it anyway. That was duty. He motioned for her to come closer.
“What kind of nun says the f-word?” he asked.
Patricia laughed. Her eyes smiled as wide as her mouth, even though they were wet.
“I’m not a nun,” she said. “I’m a postulant.”
“What the hell is a postulant?” he said. The word “what” came out intelligible and the rest was garbled. Patricia understood.
“A postulant is a woman who is training to be a nun.”
“You shouldn’t be a nun. You should run away with a handicapped American.”
“What?” she asked, still smiling. Virgil shook his head.
“Do they know who I am?” he asked as softly as he could.
She was serious again.
“They think they do,” she said. “The doctor will not let them come near you. The police say you are wanted for murder.”
“Here or there?” he asked.
“Both,” she said. Her eyes said she didn’t believe it or didn’t want to. He would miss this too.
“Patricia,” he began. He was getting the hang of talking this way. He touched his finger to the bandages on his face. When he did, he saw her smile disappear. Her eyes grew wetter.
“Why do I still have bandages on my face?” he asked.
He remembered the look she had worn when she didn’t want to answer the question about his hip. He would have killed for a look that promising now. Her fingers began to play nervously with the cross again, and he knew.
“The flesh inside of you became infected,” she began. “The doctors had to cut it out.”
He stopped listening. He knew before she said another word. His eye was gone.
***
One day he woke and found the orderlies whispering about him.
It was the orderly who routinely helped himself to his drugs. Up close, he was emaciated. He wore long sleeve shirts when the others’ were short. His skin was discolored, and he had a sore on his hand that wouldn’t heal.
The other was fat and greasy. His hair was tied back in a bun and he had small ferret eyes. They both held mops. They both pretended to be doing this or that, but they weren’t. They were looking at him and whispering. The junkie looked particularly intent.
A door closed down the hall. The orderlies both turned. Virgil held his breath. The junkie approached and began to frisk him. There was nothing to be had. They pulled down the covers. Virgil tried to stare at the ceiling, but it was impossible. They paid him no attention.
“Aqui,” said the orderly when he came to Virgil’s arm. There was obvious excitement in his voice. The other joined him. They spoke in hushed tones. Virgil understood none of it and all of it. The orderlies covered his arm again and tucked him in neatly. The junkie gave him one last look, then nodded with confidence.
It was the tattoo on his arm, the everlasting symbol of his years in the service.
Virgil had been made.
***
When Patricia sat down to read, Virgil reached over and closed the book in her hands.
“I need a mirror,” he said.
Patricia stayed in her seat, and he saw defiance in her. Then she left. He listened to her clicking down the hall. In a moment, she returned, carrying with her an oval vanity mirror.
She held it up, but Virgil took it from her. It no longer mattered who saw him or what they thought. He sat upright in bed, and saw his new face for the first time.
He had grown a beard in the hospital. It had come in thick, which it never had before, and it covered him. He had lost weight. Virgil always thought of himself as healthy and vibrant. This man in the mirror was sick and emaciated.
“No,” she said when he reached for the bandage. She tried to take the mirror, but he pulled away from her.
“Yes,” he told her.
He pulled the bandage away and didn’t see himself. He saw someone else. There was a gaping, terrible hole in his face. The flesh above his eye was shriveled and scarred, having been transplanted from his backside. What skin remained, all over his face, looked as if it had been ripped off and left raw.
He stopped looking at himself, and instead he looked at Patricia. She had never been there when the bandages had been changed. This was her first time too.
Her face, lovely and honest, answered all of his questions. No, she would never love him. No, no one ever would. He was a cripple now, a figure to be pitied and avoided.
He put the bandage back in place, then handed her the mirror. He cleared his throat and, though it hurt, made his jaw move. This was the last thing he would say to Patricia, and he wanted her to know it was sincere.
“Never look at me again,” he said.
***
He waited until an hour after dark. With one arm, he threw his blankets to the side. He sat up, and his whole body creaked.
He rested at the edge of the bed. He knew it was going to be painful, and he wanted to prepare himself. Slowly, he pushed himself from the bed until his feet touched the cold tile floor. Then he stood for the first time in months.
Virgil took his first step and thought he had been stabbed. His body crashed as if a few inches were unexpectedly gone from his leg. Virgil caught himself with a bed on each side.
Virgil hobbled that way into the hall. He stopped to rest on a rail with one hand and for just one second. He could do this, he knew, and he kept walking in his painful, uneven way. He limped until he came to Angel�
�s bed.
There was a chart. He found what he thought was the Spanish word for name, and next to it was nothing.
Angel had the most vacant eyes of any man on the ward. They were open and staring into the abyss above him. His lips and chin were chapped and raw. Virgil flicked a finger against Angel’s cheek. He did it hard. There was nothing.
Virgil pulled the covers off gently. He was a small man in person, and now genuinely frail. This was the man who had come to destroy him once. Virgil hugged him. He hugged him around his upper back. He hugged him through his knees. Then he stood with the notorious Mexican killer cradled in his arms.
Walking was slow and painstaking. When he put his left foot down, it kept going. He compensated, but it never flattened out. He moved in a Frankenstein waddle, his arms burning, his shoulders tearing. His back didn’t want to help. Virgil put his chin in the air and looked at the ceiling. The floor wasn’t so cold, and his bare feet felt slippery.
Angel’s center of gravity was sinking. He was losing him. Virgil could almost touch his hands. He hurried. He tried to run. It was a frenzied waddle. He felt his knees strike Angel’s backside and he flung him, artless and aimless, as far as he could, and he landed on the edge of Virgil’s bed. His body landed and bounced coming off the hard mattress. Virgil saw him rolling. He saw the body moving toward the edge. He thought of the pain he was in, and he understood that if Angel hit the floor, then he was staying on the floor. Virgil dove on top of him. He held Angel’s body with one arm. He grabbed the railings and dug in with his slippery feet until he slid into the next bed and held fast.
He went through the little nightstand and found the roll of gauze. Then, he began to unspool the bandage around Angel’s left eye. He didn’t stop there. He rolled until he covered the eye, the forehead, and the collapsed skull and all its signs of surgery. When he was done, he examined his gift wrapping. Virgil pulled the blankets up to his neck, left Angel’s arms free, and folded the blanket neatly as Patricia would have done.
South of Evil Page 30