Chapter Four
Desperation
Talk travels. The hallways, the classrooms, word gets around like a botfly on its last day to live and procreate. It impregnates the mind and sends wiggling babies into the ears of every walking deathtrap ambling about his school. That's who came to see him at the end of his classes; a walking deathtrap.
Sure his day had been surprisingly good. He'd essentially bitch-slapped Ester for thinking she could humiliate him, highlight of his week so far. He'd conquered his Spanish teacher's attempts to fail him by claiming he now had a Spanish tutor afterschool, in his fantasies Edgar spoke a variety of different languages, and all physical confrontations with his bright and shiny peers had been avoided. That last one seemed to surprise and disappoint the security guards.
He'd made snarky comments of course but it would seem that he wasn't the only one on thin ice.
As he stood near the bus stop in front of his school for his the Doc to come pick him up Jimmy noticed that the few people still hanging around simultaneously wandered away until only he was left standing on the hard concrete of the courtyard. For a brief moment he questioned the collective look of panic until he realized that someone familiar was walking towards him. When their eyes made contact a dark sense of wariness came over Jimmy.
He wasn't a student and didn't go to class but was Jimmy's age and could be seen roaming the halls regardless. Teachers hardly paid him any mind, the point to his generally generic appearance, but most of his classmates knew who he was. There were a variety of other people who claimed to be like him or who expressed an interest in his particular field of business but anyone with the brainpower of a tomato knew that being that kind of a person wasn't easy. Jimmy refused to even try.
Drug trafficking was a risky trade, one that overlapped into some really dangerous habits and some serious lawbreaking. To some it looked cool, until you met the people successfully involved in it. Jimmy liked drugs, but not enough to get cut open for them. Some guy named Sammy, he thought from his old math class, was found about thirty miles outside of the city months back with his innards in a dirty mess around him. Bags of cocaine had been removed from his stomach by some dealers who liked to cut corners and middle men.
And besides all that he'd decided a long time ago to go it alone, he was solitary by nature after all and darkness don't run in packs. Only dumb mother fucking dogs did that.
Jimmy was no one's bitch.
That's why he held himself high and took deep even breaths as the other teenager walked up to him and held a small white index card out in his hand. The voice he heard speaking to him shouldn't have come from such a deceptively normal looking mouth, his tongue should have been black and pointy or something.
"I saw you this morning, you're Jimmy." Like ooze that voice, it made him itchy in strange places. Jimmy tried to distract himself from shuddering in disgust by imagining the soft tenor of someone else, someone who was really late to pick him up. "I like you, if you want to end your sentence early give me a call." If Edgar had ever said that to him he'd have jumped the man with how suggestive it was. But coming from this guy it just sounded fucking creepy.
Briefly he envied that kind of creepiness, that without looking like a psycho he could still come across as one.
"I don't mix with your kind." Was all Jimmy could conjure up from his stuck throat before turning back to face the street. He saw some big guys loitering by the parking lot. One thing always leads to another in the same way taking Ritalin sometimes leads to doing Heroin and he wasn't going to get caught up in that. I'm no one's bitch, I'm no one's bitch, I'm no one's bitch . . .
"Mixing wasn't something I had in mind." Fucking amusement in that Dracula voice, "I was thinking along the lines of an exchange, I help you and you help me." That's how it always starts, that's how it always starts . . .
"Fuck no."
"I know how we can have that ankle monitor removed, I know how to get you out of that clinic you're being held at as temporary housing." Jimmy knew there were ways and until recently figuring out those ways had always been his top priority. Now something nagged at him, Edgar's voice ticking away at whatever might have encouraged him to accept the offer before he started living at the clinic.
"Jimmy, you don't have to say anything to me. In fact I would rather you not say anything if all you're going to do is blatantly lie to my face. Our meetings aren't torture sessions. I'm not going to force information and trust out of you. If you don't want to talk about something yet feel free to keep it to yourself but please remember that I'm not here to try to be your friend or parent or parole officer. I'm not going to follow you or talk to anyone else about what we talk about. I'm just someone who's here to listen and offer different ways to handle and deal with any situation you come across."
'What if a drug dealer approaches me with an opportunity to leave this shitty place permanently in exchange for either a simple drug run or my life in the most extreme case?' Jimmy asked the imaginary Edgar in his head. For a moment there was silence before he heard a 'reply'.
"I'd like to someday meet the person who randomly tells kids these days that life is supposed to be peachy-keen. I want to find that asshole and punch them in the face. It's making life difficult for the rest of us."
Jimmy smiled at the memory of that one session. Edgar had been surprisingly catty that day.
"So I take it you'll consider my proposition. Good." A card was pushed into his hand and just as suddenly the Deathtrap walked away. After a moment though he paused and turned back to say; "Oh and the offer stands until 12 o'clock. I need an answer by then." Shit. Jimmy could barely hear his fucking footsteps on the concrete. Dead silence followed the guy's departure until one of the secretaries from the clinic pulled up in Dr. Vargas's place. Jimmy hardly blinked through her explanation of why the older man couldn't pick him up. They were off in a flash, heading towards the clinic just as his home-arrest-nightly deadline was coming to a close. The secretary smiled at him saying she had been afraid Jimmy might try to walk to the clinic instead of waiting for her. He listened to the jingle of genuine relief in her voice as she cheerfully joked about how depressing his school looked and budget cuts.
Not sure why it was so important Jimmy wracked his brain for her name. He thought it might have been Mayra.
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"Does it hurt at random times or only when you strain yourself?"
"If it does hurt is there anything you could actually do to make it better?"
"Not really, no."
"Then why are you asking?"
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Jimmy felt strangely unsettled when he was dropped off a few feet from the front doors of the clinic. It took the form of an eerie silence in the parking lot that rushed him into the safety of the doors and whitewashed walkway of his new home. Uncannily enough the feeling didn't go away even as he made his way towards Edgar's office.
"He's not in right now, sweetie, he's examining another patient in a private room down the hall. You'll have to wait until he's finished." The pure irritation in the 2nd shift clerk's voice was almost tangible and made Jimmy want to raise his hackles at her like a cat. Rolling his eyes he realized that he must not have been the only one feeling the weird vibe.
Silently he wondered who the patient was.
Normally if Edgar was talking with someone he did it in his office and no one really used proper nurse code around him anymore. They used names.
Hmn
Knowing better than to ask the obviously busy woman at the front desk who the person was Jimmy decided to figure it out himself, surely he could go to the patient rec rooms and just see who was missing from the daily activities. It was the perfect plan. Step 1: Drop off Education Gear and Excess Baggage.
See! Stalking Edgar while he was working did help improve his vocabulary. He'd have to rub it in the man's face later.
Jimmy made it to his room with a crash that sent his door flying into his wall and giggled when one of his high strung neighbors started crying again. A passing nurse demanded he stop doing that and he lied and said he would try. Edgar once told him that having a daily ritual could be soothing on a rough day. Boy was he right.
Distantly something nagged at him, something he should be worrying about. He brushed it off.
He closed the door quietly behind him to satisfy the irate girl trying to calm the hysterical man who had wandered into the hallway after being frightened by the loud noise. His bag made a satisfying thud when he threw it down and he waited for the tiny wail from outside that always put an extra wide smile on his face. Sure enough the man's voice started up again and the nurse screamed his name along with a few choice obscenities about his choice of clothing and possible sexual preference.
The familiarity of the situation made him sigh with relief. He flopped down on his bed and for a brief amount of time things didn't seem so complicated and shitty. He just breathed and concentrated on the air going in and out of his lungs, vital and smelling of fine dust and the slightly acrid odor of an old ventilation system. Jimmy noticed that every time he inhaled one of his shirts pulled lightly on his jeans, that his pants were starting to get a little short on him and that the ankle bracelet made one leg feel just a bit heavier than the other. His pillow was lopsided, his blanket softer than the one he'd had back at his parents' house. Right at that moment of hyper physical awareness he noticed that the small index card in his pocket was digging into his thigh and it for some reason really fucking hurt. Jimmy's eyes snapped open and he shot up so he was sitting to dig the offending piece of hard paper out and chuck it across the room. That feeling was back full force and it made him insanely fucking uncomfortable.
'I'm not going to be a fucking lap dog.'
Breathing heavily he stomped into the hallway, barely noticing that the nurse and emotionally scarred patient had disappeared , and headed out to find the patient responsible for taking up so much of Edgar's god damn time. He furiously pushed at the swinging door that lead to the TV room and mentally ticked off names from his personal patient list. But even after checking the game room, the sitting room, and foyer area he couldn't think of a single person who wasn't accounted for. For a good few minutes he thought maybe that fucking slut Kacy had been the one until he found her pacing back and forth in the tiny library that essentially no one used near the back of the building.
Completely frustrated out of his mind he started to run towards the front of the building, intending to ring it out of the desk clerk just who thought so highly of themselves that it was okay to monopolize the doctor when one of his real patients needed for a very important reason.
He nearly slammed into a male nurse who grabbed firmly onto Jimmy's wrist and demanded to know why he was running.
"I need to talk to-" he paused, panting and feeling light headed "to Edgar." He wrenched his hand away and started to go again but the back of his shirt was jerked and he spun around infuriated. Nothing and no one was going to get in the way of what he wanted.
Wanted to do. Yes, what he wanted to do. Not what . . . he . . . wanted . . .
Fuck.
"There's no point, Jimmy. Dr. Vargas is with someone right now. He went into one of the examination rooms and said to hold off all of his appointments. It must be really important if he had Shannah cancel all of them."
"So what, he can just decide that the rest of us aren't worth his time? That maybe our shit isn't as important as this fucktard he's seeing now?" 'What the fuck am I supposed to do now?' he thought to himself. The air that had come so freely into him in his room was being ripped from his body and was making him light headed.
'What do I do now? What do I do now? What do I do now?'
"You know that's not true Jimmy. Give him some credit kid, he deals with people like you every day. One evening to yourself isn't going to kill you. Just tell him tomorrow." But the invisible threat didn't leave room for tomorrow and reality hit him like a heavy stone.
"Can you at least tell me who he's with?"
"Some outpatient. Like you until you moved here. I can't seem to remember his name."
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"Johnny, is there something you're not telling me? Something I should know?" Like quiet like silk like soft and poisonous velvet that was thick and heavy with water and implications implications . . .
Suspicion
Wonder
Curiosity
He looked into those carbon copy lenses and tried to see the eyes behind them but couldn't, he tried to see the seedy soul filled with lies and deceit that should have been there but wasn't. Could he tell?
Could he tell him his secret from the world?
Could he tell if he was honest? Would Edgar understand?
Could logic understand the illogical?
Logic makes no sense to the senseless and Dr. Vargas seemed to be someone unable to feel sensation. Touch was touch, neither bad nor good and for some unfathomable and incomprehensible reason the knowledge that this man couldn't be human was a comfort to Johnny.
"How strange is it that I'm the only one who survived the explosion?" The other man paused, his hands gripping the edge of the table behind him. Johnny was glad the examination of his permanently damaged leg was over and that there was really nothing to report. It had healed the best it was able and that was all there was to it. Edgar had said he was lucky it hadn't gotten worse.
What was worse than a permanent limp? As far as he had experienced it was a bad as it could get. Would he miss the near dead weight if the doctors had just removed it? Probably not, the doughboys could help him fashion a working replacement.
Huh.
"I wouldn't call it strange. Lucky more like. You were very lucky to survive."
"Do you believe in luck? I don't." and the doctor adopted a strange expression. He couldn't decipher it. Like a mix of confusion and keen awareness is such was possible, which he doubted.
Suspicion
Suspicion
Suspicion
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Jimmy had a lot more freedom than some of the other patients, so the clerk didn't even register that he walked by her and towards the examination room hallway. Very slowly he checked the doorknobs, looking in on the empty and nearly identical rooms. With each one he didn't find Edgar in a painful mass started building in his chest. Eventually he reached the last one. There were 11 in all and each and every one was empty. When he reached the hall that intersected with the one he was in he crossed it and leaned heavily against a pair locked double-doors that lead to the group therapy room. Panicking always made him feel like he was going to pass out.
As he turned to walk back to his room and wallow he noticed another door, positioned carelessly off to the side. It was out of the way and inconspicuously named examination room 12. He thought there was no way Edgar could be there, the clinic already felt empty of his presence so as soon as he would pull up the nerve to test it he was sure it would be as empty as the others had been.
He walked right up to the door but as he reached it he hesitated. What if it was empty? What would he do then?
What if Edgar had left for the day?
For some reason, telling him about what had happened outside of school seemed important. This had to be one of those things Edgar had mentioned that he'd help Jimmy deal with if he told him. Normally letting it get to him would have felt childish but the idea that he now had someone he could run to, he had someone to protect him . . .
But that was all falling apart for him now for some reason. He reached out and gently twisted the freezing cold metal of the lever doorknob . . .
Oh thank the Lord's Divine Ass. It was locked.
Edgar was there, just on the other side of the door.
Jimmy felt nauseous now with relief and slowly stumbled to the cold space of wall across from the room. He would wait until the older man was done with the other outpatient and then he'd finally tell him everything. He'd give Edgar what he wanted in exchange for that now welcomed sense of security.
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"Do your other patients normally sleep on the floor?"
"Jimmy? What are you doing down there?"
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Foggy. His eyes were cloudy with sleep and the hand on his shoulder moved to help him sit up. A familiar voice asked him questions but he couldn't pick out any particular words. After a few seconds he registered that Edgar was the one gently shaking him.
"I need to tell you somethin' important." His eyes cleared and he saw brown eyes peering at him worriedly. Movement snatched his attention from the doctor and through his sleep goggles he saw a dark shape moving away from them towards the front of the clinic.
"Can it wait? I have to drive someone home really quick."
"It's important." He repeated. Pleaded almost. Edgar seemed to grow even more concerned but the sound of something heavy hitting the floor near the front and yelling distracted him.
"I'll be back soon. Have someone let you into my office and wait for me there. I'll be back as soon as I can." And with that Edgar raced after the other outpatient, whoever he was. Jimmy's eyes finally cleared and he was left staring at that empty examination room.
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End chapter 4
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"How funny that you would survive. I had a feeling you'd be perfect."