Page 16

A week passes and without my fangs, I become as malleable as clay, and docile as a three-legged cat. I’m just a scrawny kid whose only defense is his fingernails, and even those are now trimmed down to the point where the ends of my digits are as sore as the gums in my mouth.

I haven’t had the will to eat. Two days before, Dr. Finnegan came into my room and gave me another evaluation, worried that I’d begun a hunger strike. I nodded slightly in response to his questions as I lay on my bed with my back turned to him.

He determined I was no longer a threat and decided to let me venture out of my room in hopes that I will eat.

It’s my second morning sitting at a table in the mess hall. They say if I eat my breakfast, I will be rewarded with going outside into the yard. I still can’t eat. I’m not hungry and withering away seems to be my fate.

I became acquainted with this fellow named Bruce the morning before, who took a liking to me for some reason. I don’t mind his presence, and he sits next to me during breakfast as he did the other morning.

“Eat up, my man,” he says. “You don’t want to get too slim around here. Gives off the wrong message. I don’t think you’re ready to be someone’s boyfriend.”

I don’t reply and refuse to lift my head and make eye contact with Bruce. The oatmeal looks gross and the sprinkled raisins resemble roach eggs.

“Kid, you need to eat. You’re disappearing before our eyes. The staff’s gonna force-feed you with tubes and IVs,” he advises. “You want them poking and prodding you some more?”

I pick up the spoon and rub my tongue across my teeth, stopping at the sore gaps in my gums where my canines once were. I feel emasculated... cheated... mutilated.

“Don’t give up,” Bruce says. “Enjoy the bit of freedom you have now.”

Bruce has been here two decades. He has an easygoing disposition, despite being locked up longer than I’ve been alive.

He’s also a supremely talented artist who’s chosen to teach an art class every week as a reward for patients with good behavior.

His soft eyes, graying beard, and pleasant smile make him seem more like a benevolent philosopher than the drug-addled schizophrenic he claims to be.

And just like me, he has a depressing tale to tell that helps keep things in perspective.

“See these,” he says, lifting his hands, showing me his crooked and bent fingers.

One of them almost at a 90-degree angle and another on his other hand that looks as if it should’ve been put out of its misery with amputation.

“I still can draw, paint, and sculpt better than anyone in this hell-hole.”

I look at his hands and shake my head. “How’d it happen?” I ask.

“How do you think?”

“I don’t know. It happened here?”

Bruce raises one of his ratty eyebrows.

“Who did it?” I ask.

He then nods toward Don, who stands watch by the main door leading to the recreation area outside.

“Don?”

“Kinda,” Bruce says. “It was his father, Clive. The most brutal motherfucker to ever roam this hospital. Let’s just say I’m lucky I even have any fingers left.”

“Where’s Clive now?” I ask.

“Dead, dead as my left ring finger.”

Bruce’s eyes freeze as he dips his spoon for a giant scoop of oatmeal with his mangled digits. I can still see the fear in his eyes. Even though he says Clive is deceased, it’s as if his ghost still haunts the dining hall we’re in.

“Well, I hope for your sake he didn’t go out peacefully,” I add.

“You got that right; something got him. Something got him real good.”

“Something got him?”

Bruce doesn’t answer and freezes for a second at the table. He clears his throat and moves his eyes away and toward Don, who’s now approaching our table.

Don struts behind me like a peacock, and I hear his large hand grip the leather handle of his baton as he passes by.

“How’s Bitey doing?” Don asks Bruce. “Is he finally eating?”

Bruce shoots me a glance that says ‘play along’ before turning over his shoulder and saying, “I’ve seen him take a couple of hearty spoonfuls.”

I haven’t, but it’s nice having him vouch for me so I can head outside, too, for a bit of sunlight.

“Perfect. I think a little bit of sunshine would do the kid good.”

Bruce looks at me and nods before reaching for his spoon.

In line with the bully he is, Don abruptly changes the topic of our conversation to prod us a little more as he asks Bruce, “Doesn’t that thing get in the way?”

“What thing?” he asks in a slightly perturbed tone.

“That mangled-up worm you call a finger.”

I can see the anger in Bruce’s eyes as he keeps quiet and continues to eat.

“You know, I can order that removed for you,” Don says.

Bruce is used to the abuse. He shows a tremendous amount of restraint, more than I ever could. I take someone’s life in the heat of passion, and I can’t imagine what I’d do to Don if I were in Bruce’s shoes. I’d probably be dead by now.

Don plods around the end of our table and creeps up on Bruce, who still works on his bowl of oatmeal. He then catches my glance.

“What?” he asks me. “You think I’m gonna hurt your new friend or something?”

I give Don another quick and cold glance before lowering my stare toward my bowl of oatmeal, which I begin to stir.

Don then reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a four inch by six inch photograph and lays it out on the table in front of Bruce.

Bruce then says, “Nice boy.”

“Thank you. He looks exactly like Pop when he was Tyler’s age.”

“Very nice. I had no idea you had a son,” Bruce says.

“He’s three. Drives his momma crazy. He took her lipstick the other day and scribbled it over every door upstairs and then gave himself a pair of devil horns, too.”

“Boys will be boys,” Bruce says as he catches my eye.

There’s a sudden awkwardness to Bruce. Gone is the meek submissiveness I see him display around Don. He apparently doesn’t know what to make of Don’s sudden bout of humanity after showing him a photograph of his young son.

“I know I’ve given you shit,” Don says, his brows easing into a tranquil flatness, “but since you’re the best artist I’ve ever seen and all, you think you can stencil something out of this photo? For a tattoo? I wanna get some ink of my son Tyler’s mug on my chest.”

“Yeah. Sure. I think I can make this work,” Bruce says. “When do you need it by?”

“Take your time. No rush. Bring it to me when it’s done. I want to make sure it’s your best work.”

Don nods and looks up out over the dining hall and catches a couple of patients arguing over a biscuit. He hurries over to them and that leaves me alone with Bruce to discuss what just transpired.

“Let me get this straight,” I mutter. “This guy treats you like something he scraped off his shoe, then expects you to play Picasso for his kid’s portrait?”

Bruce shrugs. “You want me to tell him to take his commission and shove it? That’d go over real well during my next parole hearing.”

“Could’ve at least negotiated. Made him sweat a little.”

“How about basic human privileges? More yard time? A cell without rats? Maybe some biscuits that don’t taste like sawdust?”

Bruce wipes his pencil on his jumpsuit. “Better to be the good little artist now and cash in favors later. Ask for too much upfront and suddenly my ’masterpiece’ looks like a kindergarten doodle... and we know how that ends.” He mimes snapping a pencil in half.

“True,” I concede. “Something tells me you’ve had the occasion to bargain with Don once or twice before.”

“Maybe,” Bruce replies, swirling his spoon through the glue-like oatmeal with a humorless smile.

He takes an exaggerated slurp before continuing, “See, this place runs on a simple rulebook. Page one says ‘learn fast.’ Page two, well, that’s where Don and his crew demonstrate what happens to slow learners.

” He leans in slightly, the plastic spoon pointing at me like a warning finger.

“My free advice? Take the temperature down from boiling to simmer. Keep your ears open, your eyes sharper, and for Christ’s sake.

.. learn before you end up as the next object lesson. ”

“That’s not me, though, Bruce,” I say. “If I’m going to make it out of this place whole, I have to stay true to myself.”

“No, you don’t,” he snaps back. “That’s the quickest way to making sure you never get out of here. A smart person would give them what they want so they’ll give you what you need.”

With that, the crooked-fingered man stands up, picks up his tray, and walks away from me and the table. I’m left alone to think about Bruce’s words. I hate myself for it, but I can see the logic in what he says.