Chapter 20 "Jules and Roger"

Maria Colby arrived for her shift at precisely 6:45 a.m. She took off her coat and hat and placed them in her locker. She double checked the whiteness of her uniform trousers and sneakers and smoothed the nylon-blend scrub top with Mickey and Minnie Mouse images all over it. She washed her hands thoroughly at one of the lavs, checked her French braid and makeup in the mirror, grabbed her purse and headed out to the second floor nurse's station. Nancy Franklin had arrived a moment ahead of her and was checking med lists and night reports with Claudia and Benj, the outgoing night shift RNs. Maria walked over to where they were standing, shoved her purse in a file drawer, and greeted her colleagues, listening to the shift-change banter and catch-up instructions before grabbing two styro cups to pour fresh, fragrant coffee for herself and Nancy.

After Claudia and Benj checked out, Maria and Nancy passed on all pertinent information to the gathering group of LPNs, Physicians' Assistants and orderlies who had checked in as day shift got itself together and up and running. There was nothing new or shocking to report today, no new admissions yet this morning, and no one had expired during the previous night. Their subordinates received their assignments and scattered to the first order of the day: early meds and special instructions for appointments, PT, surgeries, hydro and the like. Then the chaos of breakfast!

In the wards, patients were waking up, doing morning ablutions and beginning to bleed into the hallways for another day of pacing, wheeling, limping, being pushed and pulled and guided; most bitching heatedly about one thing or another. Actually, the whole scenario marked the beginning of a very normal day for the residents of the second floor.

Across from the nurse's station, the stairway door beside the bank of elevators was being maneuvered open by a broad shoulder, and Billy Travis, just finishing his shift, emerged with a thump. Travis walked across to the counter where his fiancé and Maria Colby were still working at reviewing night shift's notes for addition to daytime charts and checking Attending's reports. Nancy looked up and saw him and smiled widely. "Hi, Sweetie," she said. "You look tired."

Maria also, looked up from their conversation and smiled. "G'Morning, Big Guy! Would you like a cup of coffee? It's fresh, and you look like you could use it."

"Ahhh … Maria … I'd shine your shoes for a month for a cup of that coffee. It smells wonderful, and my 'you-know-what' is draggin' my tracks shut."

She was pouring a tall cup as he spoke, smiling at his words. "That's a sorry old joke, Mister Travis. Shining sneakers is a lost cause, and your 'you-know-what' has been completely out of the running, since Nance came along! Do you give back rubs instead?" She handed the coffee cup into his waiting hands. "Black, right?"

"Yup," he answered. "Just like me! I have been known to give back rubs to die for, though." He took a sip of the hot brew and sighed in satisfaction, then leaned across the counter to plant a chaste kiss on his pretty girlfriend's forehead. "I need to talk to you guys about something."

They both paused what they were doing to look at him, both all ears. "What's up?" Maria asked.

"The boys in room 220. I took a sneak down here last night to see how they're making out … Jimmy's brother and all … and I find them both in the dayroom. Roger was half asleep in his wheelchair and Jules was getting ready to stretch out on the settee. Seems the other two idiots in their room keep giving them a hard time about being gay … and they were trying to avoid a confrontation, I guess. I told them to go ahead and go back to their room and let me know if they ran into anymore crap. I went back and told the two idiots the same thing. I just thought I'd let you two know what's going on in case the 'Brain Dead Brothers' decided not to take my 'advice'."

Nancy shook her head angrily. "The boys haven't said a thing as far as I know." She looked across at her supervisor. "Have you heard anything?" Then she shook her head again. "No, of course you haven't, or you'd have told me."

Maria corroborated Nancy's statement with the shake of her own head and a pair of angrily raised eyebrows. "No one from night shift said anything," she agreed. "Are the boys afraid to speak up? Poor little Roger couldn't do much against either of them if they tried to hurt him. I'm not sure about Julie … but he's not much bigger, and certainly not any stronger. They're both still in sad shape from living on the streets."

"That's what I thought," Billy said. "I think they were afraid to open their mouths before I talked to them last night. I also think they waited until after bed check before they went out to the dayroom, in case anyone wanted to know why they weren't in bed. Nobody on night shift knew they weren't there."

"Well, I'll take care of this crap real quick, Billy. Thanks for the heads up. Pook and Joe are both a pain where a pill can't reach anyhow, if you know what I mean. Neither one of them is really sick anymore. As soon as Pook's blood pressure comes under control, he can be discharged. Probably in a few days. Joe may be here awhile yet. The foot infection from his diabetes needs to be kept a close watch on, or he's going to lose it. But he's not so sick that I can't give him royal hell …" Maria rolled her eyes and tossed her head angrily again and reached over to make a notation on both men's charts. "There! Now everybody on all shifts will be aware of their crap. Trust me, it won't happen again."

"Thanks," Billy said. "I appreciate that. "Try not to make a big deal of it to Jimmy Wilson, okay? He's worried enough about his brother. And he already has one big, tall, skinny millstone hangin' around his neck!" Billy grinned. "I don't have to mention any names, right?"

Both women smiled in understanding. Nancy reached across the counter and upward to touch her fiancé's cheek. "Thank you, sweetheart. Now get your big, handsome carcass back home and into the sack, okay?"

Billy Travis took her tiny hand into both his huge paws and kissed it gently. "I'm gonna do just that," he said. "See you when you get home." He let her hand fall from his and turned to go. "See ya, Maria."

"'Bye Big Guy!" They echoed, but by then he was gone.

Both women finished their coffee, turned off the machine, threw their cups in the garbage and began their day in earnest.

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Jules LeBeque was not the fragile flower that his outward appearance seemed to suggest. His small bone structure and diminutive stature hid a wiry body and taut little muscles that could certainly do their share in pulling his weight, however one chose to interpret that phrase. At the moment, he was far below par, but that would correct itself in a short time. Due to Roger's illness, their luck had been less than perfect for quite awhile.

Jules had been born of wealthy parents; influential people whose ancestors had been refugees of the disastrous earthquake in the late 1600s which destroyed much of the city of Port Royal. These people witnessed the birth of Kingston from the after-math of tragedy, and were among the first to begin an outward expansion and move their family businesses to the rich farmlands in the north, on the plains of Liguanea.

The farm had passed down through the generations until finally it fell into the hands of Jules' father, a lazy ne'er-do-well. Jaque LeBeque was an over-indulged only child who grew up to become a drunkard who beat his wife and abused his children. His excesses finally ran the family business into the ground. Jules' only sibling, an older sister named Freda managed to marry well and escaped to Discovery Bay by the age of eighteen.

Jules, not so lucky, and four years younger, landed on the streets of Kingston a month after his fifteenth birthday. There he was quickly made the darling of an underground group of clandestine men who preyed on young beautiful boys. These degenerates made easy money selling his graceful body to questionable clients. The shadowy transients they served were forever on the prowl for sexual favors as perverted as their predatory lifestyles.

Jules bided his time and waited for his chance. One midnight during a heavy rainstorm, he ran for it. He hid during the day and traveled at night. A steamer out of Montego Bay employed a purser with questionable tastes. Using the only tool he had at his command, his lithe body, Jules managed to charm his way on board by passing himself off as a member of a rich American family on their way home from holiday. His skin tone matched quite well, and his accent was flawless. As the ship docked in New York Harbor, Jules slipped into the cold, polluted water and made his way to shore. He had lived by his wits on the streets of America ever since.

At least, that was the story he related to Philip Roger Wilson when they met in Cheyenne, Wyoming years later.

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Phillip R. Wilson hated his German-Jewish heritage. He didn't know why; he just hated it. Very early on, he had shied away from everything to do with that faith.

"God stuff! Yuk!"

When his grandfather died, he watched his mother covering up all the mirrors and thought: These people are not right in the head! When his cousin got married, he saw no sense in smashing perfectly good crystal goblets to smithereens. They're all nuts! By the time he was nine, he had flushed five yarmulkes down the toilet. Plugged up the plumbing the last time. That's how his mother found out. She yelled at him and beat his behind with a yardstick, then went upstairs and cried over it. When his father came home from work, he yelled at his mother for crying and she screamed at him for yelling. She called him a "Putz". He called her a "Schmuck". And Philip laughed his ass off!

His brother Jimmy was scandalized. Jimmy was such a good boy, quiet and studious. But Jimmy never ratted him out. Jimmy understood, and he was the only one who called him "Roger". Jimmy was two years older. Their brother Tommy was the family security guard. He would have ratted out his own grandmother for putting her false teeth on the corner of the sink. Roger and Jimmy snuck around behind Tommy's back with everything they did. Tommy was a lot older than they were. He was seventeen. Too close to being a grown-up to be trusted!

When he was nine-and-a-half, Philip contracted polio. Infantile Paralysis. The muscles in his legs turned to concrete and he could not stand, he could not walk, he could not even crawl. He screamed from the pain until his throat was raw, and then he screamed some more. He was in the hospital for a month. The drugs they gave him to stop the pain were highly addictive, and they allowed him only small amounts. His parents coddled him, spoiled him. Indulged him. He got used to it and played it to his advantage every chance he got. But the meds kind of screwed up puberty for him later on and confused him about who and what he was. That sucked! He was already confused about some of his thoughts and feelings. You could get too much of a good thing!

Doctors, nurses and his parents, spent hours and hours bending his legs … and straightening. Bending and straightening. He had to take hot baths, as many as four times a day. The heat helped, but he was still in pain.

The pills they gave him were yucky. He began to spit them all out the hole in the screen in the window beside his bed. A few weeks later, the neighbor's yappy little dog, which always wandered into the Wilson's yard to take a shit, fell over dead. Ker-plop! Philip quickly figured out why, but it was a mystery to everyone else. The neighbors got another dog that yapped if the leaves rustled or a car door closed. It also wandered into the Wilson's yard to poop. It went "ker-plop" too.

Those neighbors, thereafter, eyed the Wilson family with suspicion, but they didn't get another dog. Instead, they soon moved away.

Sometimes Philip snickered into his armpit after he had spit all the rest of the pills out the window. Nobody ever found any of them. Or if they did, they never told. No more yappy little dogs moved into the neighborhood.

He hated the heavy metal braces on his legs with a purple passion. They hurt. They rubbed. They sometimes left open sores. But they were necessary in order for him to walk.

He did not pray to God for divine intervention in getting well. He cursed every "God" which had ever sprung forth upon a gullible world, and swore on a Gentile's bible, (how insane was that?) that he was through with religion forever!

His legs got better eventually, but he knew that no "God" had had anything to do with it. His parents had frightened the hell out of his stiffness and pain with their sheer veracity, and it finally gave up and went away to find some other little kid to torture. He was in a wheelchair for months. Then he walked with braces and crutches for months, and with braces and arm canes for more months, and a cane with no braces for even longer. Then, finally, he was pronounced "well". He limped slightly after that, but the worst of it was over. Philip had just turned twelve.

On his thirteenth birthday they expected him to do a Bar Mitzvah. On a Saturday morning, for Christ's sake! (He always caught hell for saying "Christ", and caught hell for saying "hell". Injustices for kids were legion!) Saturday mornings were sacred to thirteen-year-olds!

Instead, he broke into his savings bank, stuffed fifty one-dollar bills, plus change, into a jeans pocket and sneaked off to the Bronx Zoo by bus with Meeko, a colored friend who went to a Baptist church somewhere on another block. Happy Birthday to me! Philip hadn't studied any of that boring Bar Mitzvah shit they wanted him to memorize anyhow. He'd put all the religious crap in the burner barrel out back. Lit it and ran! Philip loved sneakery and excitement. The more dangerous, the better!

After six-or-so hours, his parents were frantic. Their youngest son was missing and they called the cops. Philip and Meeko came home from the zoo to see about a half-dozen squad cars lining the street. "What's up?" They asked one of the cops.

"Who are you?" A cop asked suspiciously.

"I'm Roger," Philip said.

"I'm Meeko. Somebody rob the cigar store?"

He got his ass whopped for that incident. But after that, everyone left him alone where religion was concerned. Except that Tom kept calling him a shiksa. He clammed up and did not dignify the insult with a reply. It pissed Tom off, and he clammed up too.

Philip finished high school and went to college. He thereafter insisted on being called "Roger". He received a B. S. in Education. He straightened up some during his college years. He never "got religion", but neither did he continue to decry the beliefs of anyone else. He was different, but he still did not understand what that difference was. He preferred the company of men to that of women. It drove him crazy.

He enlisted in the Air Force and took OCS training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. He had lost most of the limp, and the bout with polio never came up. There, he met men he liked very much and did not have to associate with women if he didn't want to. He didn't want to. He was beginning to understand a few important things about himself. Sometimes those things frightened him.

His permanent assignment was Francis E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was a training base, and he met someone special. When he got the flu and didn't show up for duty one morning, an Air Police Sergeant found him passed out and naked on his bunk in his quarters.

A photograph of his naked boyfriend was found next to his bed on the floor. Questions were asked, and that was the beginning of the end. Second Lt. Wilson never made First Lieutenant! His polio had posed no problem. Being gay in the military, however, had gotten him a general discharge. Go figure!

Roger took a job as a short-order cook at The Owl Inn in Cheyenne. Old timers used to call the place "The Dirty Bird". The Air Force used it as a hangout.

It was there he met Jules LeBeque.

It was a match made … somewhere. Definitely not heaven!

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Saturday night:

James Wilson used his own key to unlock Gregg House's front door. He let himself into the entryway, then moved to the darkened living room and stood still until his eyes became adjusted to the gloom. A quiet voice called out to him softly.

"Over here …"

House was on the couch. He was smoking one of his smelly cigars and … surprise … no booze. He had a can of Pepsi in his other hand. He was wearing sweat pants. Grey ones, not blue like Wilson's, and a plain white tee shirt. His left leg was cocked against the back of the couch and there was a bed pillow beneath his right knee.

Wilson walked across and sat down at the opposite end of the couch. He placed a hand casually on top of House's bare foot. "Hurt?"

Gregg nodded; a haze of shifting shadows in the half-light. "Some. Better than it was, I guess." Which meant it had hurt like hell earlier.

"You should have said something. I could have brought the moist pad …"

"I forgot."

"Me too … but I got it for you, you know."

"I know."

A comfortable silence curled around them for a time. Just the quiet. No TV, no stereo, no traffic sounds. Wilson could smell the faint scent of the cigar. Fading. House had let it go out in deference to his friend who didn't care for them much.

"Are there more Pepsis in the fridge?" Wilson asked finally.

"Yeah. Help yourself."

"Thanks." Wilson got up, removed his coat, kicked off his moccasins and padded silently to the kitchen. He came back presently and they heard the crack of the can popping open in the stark silence. He sat down again at the end of the sofa and put his cold, wet hand back on the top of House's foot. Gregg grunted, but didn't move. Wilson reached his thumb beneath the arch and began to massage the tendons on the sole of House's long, slender foot.

"Your feet stink!" He declared in a teasing tone.

House glared. "They do not!"

"Oh yeah! They do! Feel good?"

"Yeah … feels great … but you're full of shit. My feet don't stink. I just had a shower."

Wilson drank his soda and continued to work House's foot with his thumb, but he was smiling inside. Their silence stretched comfortably … almost like a lullaby … between them.

Finally, Wilson asked, "What's wrong, House? You sounded a little 'down' awhile ago."

"I'm not sure 'down' is what I am."

"Meaning?"

"More like … 'spooked' … if that makes any sense."

"Spooked how?"

"Spooked about … 'George and Gracie'."

"'George and Gracie'? You mean Rodge and Jules?"

"Um hum."

"You're going to have to give me more than that."

"I keep getting this chill in the marrow of my bones. Something is off … and I don't know what it is. You know how I get when there's a mystery."

"Oh yeah. I do. What bothers you most?" Already Wilson was asking questions. Helping him dig.

"There's a sense of gloom and doom I can feel. Something is off … like I said … but I can't put my finger on it. Something's warning me that you're going to get hurt. I don't like that much."

"I think you're wrong, House. I think you're nervous about these huge sudden changes in our lives. It's like that old song about an irresistible force pushing up against an immovable object. 'Somethin's Gotta Give'. Please don't worry. It'll be fine. Once I get Roger discharged and get the guys out on Ridge Road, some of it will ease up … and then maybe we can figure out what's going on between us!"

"I hope you're the one who's right this time, Buckaroo. I'm just telling you …"

"I know. But it'll be okay. Look … I'm tired. Can we go to bed now? I'd like to hold you … if you'll let me."

"I'll let you, I think. I'm tired too. It's been a weird week. My damn leg hurts."

"I know."

They settled carefully onto the disheveled bed together, House on his left side, Wilson spooned tight against him. Wilson's right hand gently cupped the sharp angle of House's right shoulder. It was 1:00 a.m.

"House?"

"What?"

"I have a mission tomorrow. Do you think you'll be up to driving from downtown to Ridge Road?"

"Probably. What's up?"

"I'll tell you in the morning. Go to sleep, House."

He did. They both did.

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