Elizabeth Hand - 12 Monkeys

Jeffrey nodded. “Germs,” he repeated earnestly. “In the eighteenth century there was no such thing! Nobody’d ever imagined such a thing — no sane person, anyway. Then along comes this doctor — Semmelweiss, I think. He tries to convince people — other doctors, mostly — that there are these teeny tiny invisible ‘bad things’ called germs that get into your body and make you sick! He’s trying to get doctors to wash their hands.”

Jeffrey suddenly leaned forward, leering, eyes wide as he mimed astonishment. “What is this guy?” he said in a funny high-pitched voice. “‘Crazy?’ Teeny tiny invisible whaddayou call ‘em — germs?!”

Jeffrey cackled. Cole glanced at him, then back at his hand, trying to figure out what to do with the spider. Jeffrey continued, oblivious.

“Cut to the twentieth century! Last week, in fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I order a burger in this fast-food joint. The waiter drops it on the floor. The he picks it up, wipes it off, hands it to me — like it was all okay…”

Cole nodded absently, holding his hand up to his face. Jeffrey punched angrily at the bedclothes and hissed, “What about the germs?” I say. He goes, ‘I don’t believe in germs. Germs are just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soap.’” Jeffrey gave a triumphant hoot. “Now, he’s crazy, right?”

Suddenly Jeffrey turned and stared at Cole with huge eyes. “Hey, you believe in germs, don’t you?”

Cole stared back, his hand poised before his face. As Jeffrey watched, he popped the spider into his mouth and swallowed it.

“I’m not crazy,” Cole said after a moment.

Jeffrey nodded somberly. “Of course not. I never thought you were.” He tilted his head toward the moonlit window. “You wanted to escape, right? That’s very sane.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “I can help you,” he said, his blue eyes glowing. “You want me to, don’t you? Get you out?”

Cole shook his head. “If you know how to escape, why don’t you—”

Jeffrey sat up very straight. “Why don’t I escape? That’s what you were going to ask me, right?” He laughed, as though Cole were a child who’d said something clever. “‘Cause I’d be crazy to escape! I’m all taken care of, see? I’ve sent out word.”

Cole frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“It means that I’ve managed to contact certain underlings, evil spirits, secretaries of secretaries, and assorted minions, who will contact my father.” Jeffrey’s voice rose, his blue eyes boring into Cole. “When he learns I’m in this kind of place, he’ll have them transfer me to one of those classy joints where they treat you properly. LIKE A GUEST! LIKE A PERSON!”

Cole looked around nervously and edged into the center of his bed.

“SHEETS!” Jeffrey shouted, heedless of the other patients waking in the room around them. “TOWELS! LIKE A BIG HOTEL WITH GREAT DRUGS FOR THE NUTCASE LUNATIC MANIAC DEVILS—”

Cole glanced around to see people sitting up in their beds. A few whimpered. Most watched Jeffrey with the same blank interest they’d shown the television in the dayroom.

“THAT’S RIGHT! WHEN MY FATHER FINDS OUT—”

With a bang the door flew open. Patients huddled back into their beds as the night nurse and two brawny orderlies burst into the dorm.

“Okay, that’s it, Jeffrey,” an orderly yelled. Too late Jeffrey tried to calm himself.

“Sorry. Really sorry,” he announced, taking a deep breath. “I know — got a little agitated. The thought of escaping crossed my mind and suddenly—”

The orderlies grabbed him, one to each arm, as the nurse flourished a hypodermic needle.

“—suddenly I felt like BENDING THE FUCKING BARS BACK, RIPPINGOFF THE GODDAMN WINDOW FRAMES AND — EATING THEM! AND LEAPING, LEAPING—”

Cole watched, fascinated and horrified, as the nurse administered the medication and the orderlies began to drag Jeffrey across the room.

“You dumb assholes!” Jeffrey shrieked, trying vainly to shake them loose. “I’m a mental patient! I’m supposed to act out! Wait till you morons find out who I am! My father’s gonna be really upset. AND WHEN MY FATHER GETS UPSET, THE GROUND SHAKES! MY FATHER IS GOD! I WORSHIP MY FATHER!”

The door slammed shut as they hauled him into the corridor. For several minutes Jeffrey’s shrill voice echoed back into the dorm, then, at last, there was silence. Cole swallowed and looked around, his heart pounding.

The room was utterly still. In the window the moon hung, crisscrossed by bars of black and gray. From the other beds came the sounds of soft breathing, mumbled nonsense words as once more the patients slept, undisturbed. Only in one bed near the window someone still sat upright, his dark eyes staring with pity at the dorm’s locked door.

“You see, he, too, is mentally divergent,” L.J. Washington said, turning to gaze at Cole. “But he does not accept it.” He raised one hand and gestured gracefully at Cole, as though delivering a benediction, and added, “It is a better thing if you accept it, my friend. A far, far better thing.” And with a peaceful smile, L.J. Washington lay back upon the bed and went to sleep.

The next morning Cole ate with the other patients in the psychiatric wing’s common dining room, cold scrambled eggs and damp toast supervised by the cool gaze of Billings and another orderly. A nurse came around, administering meds. When she reached Cole she glanced down at her clipboard, frowning, then went on to the woman next to him. The nurse left; another patient nudged him and pointed to where they were to take their breakfast trays. Cole followed him, then under Billings’ careful scrutiny made his way with the other patients to the dayroom.

The television was already on, tuned to a morning talk show. Dull-eyed patients slouched in cheap plastic chairs and the frayed couch, staring blankly t the TV. Cole wondered if anyone would even notice if he turned it off. He yawned, scratching idly at his sleeve. When he’d gotten up this morning, he’d found that the tiny dresser beside his bed had been outfitted with several flannel shirts and worn polyester pants. The shirts were too tight and chafed at his chest and arms, but when he mentioned this to Billings, the orderly had only shrugged and said, “Hey man, this ain’t The Gap. Just get dressed, okay?”

Cole tugged at the collar of his shirt, wincing, then found an empty seat by a table strewn with magazines and coloring books, and a plastic bucket holding crayons and magic markers.

“Good morning,” a sonorous voice pronounced.

Cole looked up and nodded at L.J. Washington. “Morning.”

I wonder where he gets his clothes , he thought as Washington padded by, resplendent in three-piece suit and fuzzy bedroom slippers. Cole sank into his chair as more patients filed into the room. Except for Washington, none of them paid him the slightest bit of attention. For a few minutes he sat watching them, then began sifting through the pile of magazines. Pages were torn from all of them. In some, pictures had been defaced with obscenities or crudely drawn figures of men and women. Cole finally settled on a year-old issue of Women’s World : it had wide margins, and only a few pages were missing. He groped among the basket of dried-out markers and pencil nubbins until he found a purple crayon long enough for him to hold comfortably. Balancing the magazine on his knee, he began writing furiously in its margins, turning the magazine upside down and sideways when he ran out of room.

He worked like that for an hour, undisturbed. In the room around him people sat quietly, the near silence broken only by the door opening to let in another patient and L.J. Washington’s dignified greeting.