Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

He crossed to her and sat on the bed. She found his hand and squeezed it so tight he could feel his wedding band digging into his other fingers. Carefully, he brushed the hair off her forehead, sweeping it back from her face. He took the stained gauze from her trembling hand, threw it out, and pulled a fresh pad from the box on the bedside tray.

He dabbed at the blistering on her right cheek, her forehead, around the socket of her right eye. Her hands went limp in her lap as she let him work, wincing from time to time. He shifted on the bed, moving closer to her. Her left cheek and chin were unmarred, the curved bow of her lips perfectly smooth. He moistened a clean square of gauze with some saline and swept it along the elegant line of her jaw, cleaning her.

Her breathing was sharp and shallow. Through the swelling around her eye, her iris shone, ice-green and pristine. She turned, a sudden shy movement, and her lips were against his, impossibly soft. He felt the gentle suck of her breath in his mouth and the room seemed to swirl around him, smelling of disinfectant, Silvadene, and a distant trace of her perfume. She cringed against the pain of her face moving against his. He started to pull back but she moved her face forward to keep it pressed against his, kissing him still as the salt tears burnt tracks down her wounded cheek.

Clyde had been taking the pills more and more, but they didn't do what the book promised they'd do. He stayed in bed mostly, rising to drink and piss and reheat beans in a dirty pot. He'd stopped feeding the cat. He took to urinating in jars again and carefully labeling each jar with the time and date.

The ancient Zenith TV in the corner got terrible reception. Now and then, if he angled the antenna just right, he could get the audio on a porn channel, though static still blotted the screen.

He gathered his dirty sheets in a ball between his legs and sat in bed, looking out the window and fishing pickle after soggy pickle from a wide jar. When he finished his sloppy crunching, he tilted back the jar and drank the sour, green-tinged juice. The juice left his lips stained a fishy gray, as it had his left hand to the wrist.

Leaning the mirror against the base of his bed so he could see his reflection, he smiled at himself and practiced talking. He spoke gently and softly, reaching out to touch his water-spotted reflection. Sometimes his voice was drowned out by grunts and groans from the TV.

At night, a few girls walked past the window, their giggles carrying into his dirty apartment, and he looked around, pupils jerking, as if seeing the room for the first time. The mounds of dirty clothes, the halved capsules piled on the pocked wooden table, the grease splatter up the kitchen wall above the stove.

He cried for a little bit without gasps, just a slow leaking of his eyes, then rose and stood in the middle of the room in his white underwear. He pulled on some loose scrub bottoms and his yellowed Adidas sneakers. Hunting around, he found an old button-up shirt under the bed. He pulled it out and shook it to rid it of cat hair. Laying it on the bed, he flattened it as best he could with a swollen hand.

He pulled it on and looked at himself in the mirror. He fixed the collar, twisting it back into place. He practiced a smile, then murmured a greeting to himself. In the kitchen, a jar atop the refrigerator was filled with change. He poured it on the floor and counted the few silver coins out of the wash of copper.

When he left the apartment, he made sure to turn all three deadbolts.

The bar at the corner had tinted windows and a torn green awning. He shuffled inside, eyes on the ground, and climbed onto a bar stool with considerable effort. He rested his hands on the bar, but then looked down at them-swollen with pitted nails-and put them in his lap.

The bartender, an older lady with wrinkles and blush, slid a rag up the counter. "What'll it be?"

He lowered his eyes, his hand clutching the ball of quarters in his pocket. "Water," he said. "Two waters."

She made a disappointed clucking noise. "We're not a welfare office. You don't order something soon, we'll ask you to leave."

A blush bloomed beneath his pocked cheeks. His button-up shirt clung to his body, dotted with sweat. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just thirsty. So thirsty."

"Then buy a goddamned beer," she muttered, as she filled two glasses with water from the tap.

An attractive blonde sat on the stool two over from him, turned toward a girlfriend. The water glasses banging down on the bar in front of him nearly startled him off his stool.

The bartender looked regretful when she saw his expression. "Look, I'm sorry. You can take some time and finish those up before you go." She moved down the bar to serve other customers.

He sat alone in his little bubble-a man on a bar stool at a bar-breathing heavily, murmuring to himself, counting down from three.

He drained one glass of water, then the other.

His thumbnail was so severely pitted it had begun to flake. The skin beneath it had reddened, like an enormous hangnail. He worried it with his teeth for a moment, head angled down, and chanced a look at the blonde to his left.

She turned with a jangle of bracelets, mouth open in a bark of a laugh from her girlfriend's joke, and then she spotted him.

Her face changed. The light in her eyes vanished. Her lips drew together and curled in disgust, distorting her nose.

Her eyes said: You do not have a right to view me.

They said: You are something soiled and rotting.

They said: You are not fit to mate.

He looked quickly back down at the bar, hand rising to his head to block his eyes from hers. He felt a clump of hair give under his soft fingertips and drift down, landing on his shoulder.

"Disgusting," she said.

A strong hand on his back. A male voice. "Hello, ladies, is this guy bothering you? Are you bothering these women, pal? Whew, how 'bout you go take a walk through a car wash?"

Laughter.

"What's the matter, you don't answer when someone asks you a question?"

Clyde's lips moved, but no sound came out. They mouthed: Sorry. I'm sorry.

He stood, sensing the large male presence, and stumbled toward the door, uneven on his feet.

"Drunk fool," the blonde said.

As he reached the door, he heard the male introducing himself to the two women.

Leaning on lightposts and mailboxes, he made his way to the Healton's Drugstore about a block and a half from his apartment. The large white sign with blue Gothic lettering glowed into the night. It was something of a neighborhood beacon; when sitting in his bed, Clyde could see it through his window.

He couldn't afford a carton of cigarettes, so he bought a pack, counting out the coins on the counter before a frustrated worker. The chiming bells on the closing door seemed inordinately loud.

He walked back to the bar and stared at the people inside, barely discernable through the dark window. A few weeks ago, he would have endured such a rejection, dissolved it in the blackness inside him. But not anymore. Now he made sure that someone answered to him. Answered with their own pain. Their own fear.

He wandered away from the dark window, his lips moving to keep up with the rush of thoughts through his head. He found himself before the two-story house for retarded adults. The house that was no longer his own.

He moistened his thick lips and whistled a few beckoning notes.

Some time later, he found himself within the protective shell of the scorched Chevy, sitting on the brittle and lumpy newspapers that composed the driver's seat. He watched the house ahead, waiting for the nighttime signs of life, waiting for her to come downstairs and discover what he'd done.

He smoked the pack straight through, two cigarettes at a time.