Chapter 5 - Home of the Living Dead
I'm a
rabbit in your headlights
Scared of
the spotlight
You don't
come to visit
I'm
stuck in this bed
- "Rabbit
in your Headlights" by UNKLE (featuring Thom Yorke)
I think we
should get Thom and Tim Booth into a room and see who can twitch like
the bigger moron and let's all have a damn good laugh
- Murdoc
from the Gorillaz Top Ten Tips For The Summer article by NME
Pickles.
I'm allergic to them. They make my lips swell up like a Playboy
model's
- 2D from
Gorillaz Q & A - 2-D: July 05
It was the smell of the place that gave Murdoc his first clue that he was walking into Hell. He'd cultivated a suitably hellish scent in his Winnebago, but this was far worse. The smell of urine and faeces, mixed with institutional food, old, unwell, insufficiently washed bodies and disinfectant made Murdoc stop in the doorway of Alderman Bowers Nursing Home and gag.
"Disgusting, isn't it?" grumbled a voice behind him.
Murdoc turned around.
Behind him stood a tall, heavily built elderly man, grey haired and wearing a black suit with a white lab coat over the top. "It's a disgrace. This home is chronically understaffed. The folks here are lucky if they get a shower or sponge bath every second day and damn, the place smells like it too. Mind if I come through?"
Murdoc took an unwilling step forward into the home, letting the man past.
"The food is terrible too," the man went on. "There aren't enough staff to pay attention to who gets fed what and people with allergies get fed things that they shouldn't have. The kid in room 666 is allergic to pickles and someone's fed them to him again. That's why I'm here."
Murdoc tried to interject a few words into the flow of grumbling. He said, "You are?"
"I'm Dr Whinge. I'm usually at the hospital, but I get called out when they need me. They need me all the time," he grumbled.
"I'm Murdoc Niccals. I'm supposed to be looking after some little bugger called Stuart Tusspot. Do you know what room he's in?"
"Stuart Tusspot? That's the kid I'm going to see. The one with the pickle allergy."
Following the grumbling doctor deeper into Hell, Murdoc felt a cold sense of dread. He had dreamed about wandering a foggy moor handcuffed to a headless Stuart Tusspot every night for months and lately, he'd been searching through dark, hairy heath, looking for Stu-Pot's missing head. The thought of seeing Stu-Pot again in real life again was frankly eerie. And though Stu-Pot had what was left of his head in real life, there was a strong possibility that he still had that monobrow and beard, which were just as frightening.
The atmosphere of the nursing home didn't help at all. It was brightly lit, but Murdoc couldn't shake the feeling he was walking into a haunted graveyard. Faint moans or terrifying shrieks came out of the rooms as he passed. Unwatched televisions blared daytime game shows. Crabby voices babbled nonsense and shrivelled old bodies stirred under blankets.
Then Murdoc saw something that brought him up with a start. An old woman carrying a battered handbag shuffled out of a room and peered at him with dead, empty eyes. He jumped backwards in horror. "Zombie!" he shouted and scrambled around; trying to find something he could use to knock her head off.
The doctor stopped him as he was about to lift a fire axe off the wall and spoke quietly. "Not a zombie." Much louder he said, "Hello, Mrs Davies. How are you today?"
The dead eyes turned to the doctor. "My handbag. I can't find my handbag," the woman slurred.
"You're carrying it," said Murdoc, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the narrow corridor.
Mrs Davies gave Murdoc a bewildered stare, and shuffled back into her room. Murdoc could still hear her muttering, "Where is my handbag?"
"Alzheimer's patient," said Dr Whinge quietly. "The mind's gone but the body is still functioning. There are quite a few walking about in this nursing home. We call them happy wanderers."
The women didn't seem happy to Murdoc. Just empty. He averted his eyes and hurried after the doctor. "This isn't the sort of place a kid in his twenties should be," said Murdoc before he could stop himself.
The doctor gave him a wry look. "I know Mr Tusspot's case history. Weren't you the one who put him here?"
"Yeah," said Murdoc. "I put him here, but maybe I can get him out," he added.
"You can look after him full time somewhere else? Good show. I'll support you if that's what you want. This place isn't fit for a pig."
Murdoc grinned to himself. It looked like he'd be allowed to compress his fifty-seven year sentence of looking after Stu-Pot once a week into three and a half years of full time care. But his grin faded as they walked into room 666. He knew right away it wasn't going to be easy.
666 wasn't a private room. There were four other people there, all at least ninety and drooling with dementia. Their blank, bloodshot eyes followed Murdoc and his skin crawled under his grey, long sleeved t-shirt. One gave a wordless cry and stretched out a shrivelled, bluish claw as Murdoc passed, but Murdoc dodged around it.
Stu-Pot lay huddled in a dull green hospital gown, in the furthest bed from the door. The tubes and needles of Murdoc's intensive care nightmare had gone; retreated like a medical tide. Stu-Pot looked small and frail, despite being over six foot. The muscles he had had when healthy were shrinking away from lack of use, leaving him skinnier than ever. His black hair, shaved off during numerous head operations, had grown back and had rubbed into points against the pillow. The points suited him; the black beard and monobrow did not. Nor did the swollen lips. He was bruised on the arms and his demurely closed eyes were blackened.
Murdoc gazed at Stu-Pot, comparing him to the Stu-Pot of his nightmares. "He hasn't changed that much really. He still has a head like a toilet brush. How'd he get those bruises?"
Dr Whinge reached into his bag and started preparing an injection for Stu-Pot. "A nurse dropped him in the shower. I told you they couldn't get good help here." He wiped Stu-Pot's arm and started filling a syringe. "It's a pity you didn't see him when he came here a few weeks ago. The hospital kept him shaved. I'm no judge, but even I could tell he looked better without the beard."
"Why did they let it grow back?" asked Murdoc.
The doctor slid the needle into Stu-Pot's arm. "His Mum likes it. She comes in to visit him every Saturday and she kicks up a stink if anyone shaves him. I believe she's going to cut his hair tomorrow. Big mistake. All his operation scars will show." He withdrew the needle from Stu-Pot's arm and pressed his fingers and a cotton pad down on the wound he'd made.
Murdoc's hands clenched involuntarily. "Hell no! Not that mullet haircut again! If I see her cutting his hair, I'll..."
The doctor, who was putting a bandaid onto Stu-Pot's arm, made a face and interrupted. "Don't go scaring his Mum away. She's his only visitor now."
Murdoc looked at Stu-Pot and his anger faded into something like a pang of regret. "What about his friends?"
Dr Whinge closed his medical bag. "He doesn't have any. Not anymore. He used to get a few friends visiting. A man called Uncle Norm. Wasn't his real uncle, though. A few musicians from the Conservatorium used to visit too, but they haven't lately." The doctor gave Murdoc a wry look, "Being comatose puts a damper on the conversation, Mr Niccals I guess they didn't think there was much point turning up."
Murdoc squirmed.
The doctor relented. "Why don't you take Stu-Pot outside into the garden? His clothes are in his bedside table."
"OK," said Murdoc, glad to be doing something. He opened the cupboard in the bedside table and saw the clothes that Stu-Pot's mother had left. It was a chamber of horrors in there. First, he pulled out a pair of high-waisted, ugly jeans that looked like they'd come from the cheapest chain store imaginable. Then a tank top (pink - horror!) which seemed designed to show up Stu-Pot's shrinking muscles. Murdoc looked at the clothes as if they'd been wiped from the nose of the anti-fashion monster and he spoke to Stu-Pot, not caring that he wouldn't get a reply. "Stu-Pot. What the Hell are these?"
Dr Whinge chuckled. "Arguing with a comatose man, Mr Niccals?"
"The medical report said Stu-Pot was Level III on the Rancho Los Amigos Scale for the comatose. That means he's got some awareness," said Murdoc. "Haven't you, Stu-Pot," he shouted at the still figure in the bed.
Stu-Pot stirred slightly and Murdoc looked at the doctor with vindication.
"He has some awareness, I'll grant you that, but you're not going to get much conversation," said the doctor, amused.
"I can handle the lack of conversation." He turned back to Stu-Pot and spoke louder, "But pink tank tops I CAN'T handle." He waved the offending item over Stu-Pot's head. "I'm in charge now, Stu-Pot, and things are going to change around here. Starting now." Murdoc tossed the pink tank top into the bin.
"Now wait a minute," said the doctor.
"He's having all new clothes. I wouldn't be caught dead with a bloke wearing a pink tank top."
Dr Whinge frowned, "This isn't about you, Mr Niccals, it's about Mr Tusspot."
"But don't you see? This is what he WANTS," said Murdoc. "Stu-Pot ASKED me to give him a makeover. It was the last thing he said before I, err, ran him down. I guess I owe him one now." For the first time that day, Murdoc felt hopeful. There was something he could do for that miserable creature in the bed, after all.
Dr Whinge looked hard at Stu-Pot in the bed, then back at Murdoc who was running for the door with an enthusiastic look on his face. "Where are you going?"
"Just got to nip down to the chemist. Back in a minute," Murdoc called back over his shoulder.
The doctor watched him go and wondered if he'd come back.
