Edward Lee - Ghouls

“Right.”

“What about medication?” the doctor asked. “Your chart says—”

“Imipramine, four times a day,” John answered. From his pocket he withdrew a container of tiny off-orange pills and held them up for Herman to see; they made a sound like a baby rattle. He’d been spitting them out in the ward toilet for two years now, what universal psych-ward idiom knew as “dogging the meds.” “But, really, the depression hasn’t been a problem for the last year or so.”

“I understand that, but to ensure that it doesn’t become a problem in the future, you must continue taking them, and you must continue out-patient check-ups at least a couple of times per year. Now, your ward doctor has indicated that you’ll be going to Florida, to your original hometown.”

“I feel strange calling it my hometown, since I haven’t actually been there in a long time—probably ten years. But it seems as good a place as any to settle. I may hang around the area for a few weeks to look up some old friends. Eventually, though, I think I will be heading south.”

“Just remember that wherever you do settle, check into the nearest VA hospital and establish out-patient status; that way you’ll be able to continue with your medication free of charge. If you have any problems, any doubts whatsoever, don’t hesitate to come in.”

“Right,” John said. But it was more whimsy. The last thing he’d ever do was come back.

Herman initialed the checklist and the VA Routing Form 10-2875-2; smiling, he said, “I won’t keep you any longer; I’m sure you’re itching to leave. Just follow the directories to travel and baggage claim.”

They both stood up and shook hands.

“The best of luck to you, John,” Herman said.

“Thank you, sir.”

John left. Moments later he was back amid the confusion of the corridors. This time he passed the automat quickly and with caution, holding his breath to avoid the stench of microwaved plastic. The travel unit waiting room was packed; everyone looked irritable and very tired. John hated waiting. He decided he’d pay his own bus fare rather than stand jammed like a canned mackerel.

He took the elevator to the basement. Behind the caged counter in the baggage unit a lean black man with short hair and beard sat atop a stool. He was reading a book called Night-lust and seemed electrified.

John flashed him his VA card.

“Out-process?”

“Right.”

Next, John handed him the claim stub. The man disappeared for less than a minute, and returned shouldering an OD-green air-freight bag with a brass lock on its clasps. Apparently the bag had been fluoroscoped and sniffed, not opened. John was sure, though, that the additional string bag tied to the top had been opened and searched by MAC MP’s. But it didn’t matter; if they wanted it that bad, they could have it.

The man took out a ledger and said, “I need some info before I can turn over your stuff.”

“Sure,” John said. “Just don’t ask about my sex life.”

The man chuckled. “What ward are you coming off?”

“2D West.”

“And that’s the—”

“The psychiatric ward.”

The man nodded, disinterested. He paid no mind to John’s disfigured face. “Pay grade at time of separation?”

“E-7.”

“MOS?”

“I have ten.”

“Give me the two highest.”

“11 Echo 40, 45 Bravo, Lima, and Zebra.”

“Hey, how do you like that,” the black man said, at once enthused. “I was 11 Echo, too. ‘Clank, clank, I’m a tank.’”

“Hell on fucking wheels, man. We ride in style.”

This time the black man laughed hard. “Give me your C number. I got to make sure it matches the stub.”

“C29541313.”

“Legal first name?”

“John,” John said.

“Not Jonathan?”

“Not Jonathan. John.”

“Middle name?”

“Victor.”

“Last name?”

“Sanders.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER TWELVE

He punched the radio buttons one after another. On one station was a talk show hosted by a botanist. “Root stimulants, such as indolebutyic preparations, exist to increase root-to-soil area ratios, to reduce production time of roots, and to extend the overall mass of the root system itself.” The next station played music that sounded like a sawmill. The next station played reggae. And the next—hip hop. Kurt switched the radio off with a vengeance.

He drove through Annapolis directionlessly. At least the rain had stopped, but the weatherman promised clear skies for the next two or three days, which meant that it would rain again in a few hours. Last night when he’d taken Vicky to the hospital, the doctor had been vague and had not disclosed the seriousness of her injuries. Kurt would return today before his shift, and he hoped he’d get some answers. He hoped she would be all right. And he hoped this time she would press charges.

Meanwhile, he drove dizzily through strange streets. He lit cigarettes and let them burn down in the ashtray. Several times at traffic signals he found himself stopped at green lights. He’d driven first to the Anvil, and informed the manager that Vicky had had an accident and would be out for at least a week but probably more. The manager had muttered some dissatisfaction, to the effect of: “I got a business to run, you know? If she misses more than two days, I’ll fire her.” Kurt had smiled then, assuring that Vicky’s excuse for missing work was legitimate, and he’d raised the possibility that if Vicky lost her job, the Anvil might very well lose their liquor license through some entirely unrelated quirk of fate. After that, Kurt had gone to Glen’s, for what purpose he didn’t quite know. But Glen hadn’t been home.

Lenny Stokes hadn’t been home, either.

The midday sun made him squint. Downtown Annapolis had become a maze, and he was the rat seeking a way out. Buildings and old shops seemed to lean inward at incongruous angles. Streets were very narrow and paved in cobblestone, which made the car ride like a trolley on bad tracks. He turned left on Cornhill Street, passed Harbor Square and the Market House, and suddenly the entire city smelled of salt and fish. Jagged fragments of sunlight lay flat and cold on the Chesapeake as he glimpsed the City Dock in the rearview. As his concentration lapsed further, the city appeared more grim, more abandoned. A girl in a pink shirt stood on a corner selling flowers; she was deathly thin and gazed ahead glassily, as if drugged. Another girl stood mannequin-like in the window of a shop; she stared at him as he drove by, her features bled of color through the glass, but when he looked again, she was gone. Four midshipmen in summer whites loped surreally slow along the sidewalk, their faces bright by nefarious, sun-diced grins. It was all a freeze-frame from a Dali print, to mirror Kurt’s despair. He thought that if there were such things as ghosts, this city was full of them.

He’d frittered enough time here. The drive was only upsetting him, fraying his nerves. He’d hoped a leisurely drive might take his mind off Vicky, but the city’s drear only made her easier to see. Last night’s final glimpse of her made him cringe now, as though lanced in the neck by a needle. She’d been placed immediately on a stretcher and covered to the chin with a shiny white sheet on which warped splotches of scarlet quickly formed and grew. He could picture her face, which somehow seemed very small despite the swelling. One eye remained shut by a seam of black matter; it looked daubed with tar. Her hair lay in strands, caked by blood, and a bruise on her forehead had swelled to the size of an oyster. He knew how foolish he might seem, and how presumptuous, to fend for her now. He was in no position to enact himself as anything more than a concerned friend—but still, he would not allow this to happen again. She had suffered enough. And that reminded him, the Ford now cruising on West Street, toward 154—before checking on her at the hospital, he had something to do first, something he’d wanted for years.