Page 17

It isn’t until I stand in the middle of the fenced-in half-acre the hospital designates as an exercise yard that I understand Bruce’s advice.

I feel like someone just put me in front of a huge blood bag buffet as I soak in the bright sunshine.

It warms my pale skin and the blood beneath it, making me feel tingly and happy.

I’m sitting with Bruce in a corner of the yard, watching him sketch out the beginnings of Don’s tattoo, when the guards push a guy through the gate, lock it and turn away.

He seems harmless enough, hugging himself in the straitjacket they’ve left on him.

Quietly, he moves over to a bench and sits.

“That’s Kevin,” Bruce says, looking up briefly from the sketch pad. “He’s harmless enough, but if they don’t get the meds in him on time, he turns into a real firecracker.”

“Hmmm,” I reply. “Firecracker, huh?”

“Yup, and trust me, it isn’t pretty.”

I feel relaxed, recharged, and completely calm by the time Don and Terry escort me back to my cell.

It doesn’t seem to matter to Don that my canines are long gone; all he has in his mind is the picture of what Dr. Carter’s neck looked like after I took a bite out of it.

I guess that’s where the not-so-clever nickname ‘Bitey’ comes from; as far as Don’s concerned, I’ll always be ‘Bitey,’ teeth or no teeth.

As they lead me down the corridor back to my cell, I notice the Clorox smell has been somehow diluted with the scent of pine disinfectant; not much of an improvement by my standards.

While I stand outside the door waiting for Terry to open it, I glance across the corridor into the room where Corn Dog Guy suffered his self-induced coma; the floors are spotless.

There’s a new guy in the cell, and he paces just as much, like a caged wolf.

Lunch comes shortly after, and as I eat, the quiet of the ward adds to my pleasant demeanor, but the calm doesn’t last long.

About fifteen minutes after the orderly collects the lunch trays, ‘werewolf guy’ starts his antics.

I rush to the door, not wanting Don to come down there to hush him up.

I’ve seen what a one-on-one with that bad man earns an inmate.

“Keep it down, dude,” I hiss, hoping he hears me. “You don’t want Don beating the silence into you. Believe me.”

He must hear the urgency in my voice because he sobs himself quiet after a few moments.

I slide down the wall beside the door and keep talking to him.

I’ve never admit it to anyone, but after the time I spend outside in the yard, I realize I’ve missed having people to talk to other than attorneys, orderlies, and doctors.

“Hey, buddy, do you wanna talk about it?”

There’s only silence from the cell across from me punctuated by his soft huffs.

After about five minutes, I give up and stand to go lie down on my bench.

I’m pleasantly surprised to see a bare mattress on it; of course, there are no sheets.

I lie down with my head to the door and after a little while longer, I hear a voice.

“You still there? My name is Richard. What’s yours?”

“Aaron,” I say, trying to feel him out. Some of these guys try to manipulate you for contraband right out of the gate. As it turns out, Richard just wants to talk and talk he does, all through the night.

I stay awake, alert, and listen. In this place, it’s as good as a Saturday night at the movies.

Richard’s story is a fantastic one by any standards, but for me, it holds a glimmer of validation.

I sit with my back to the wall by the door of my cell for hours, listening to him.

From what he describes, he was camping on a mountain trail near an old ranch when he witnessed what could only be described as an old-school rumble.

Richard says, “At first, about twelve vehicles drive past the ranch about a mile up the trail and park. Then several people, about thirty to forty individuals, walk down to the grassy field at the north end of the ranch. They wait there until around 1:00 a.m. when another dude shows up. He doesn’t look anything like the others in the group, and it’s soon clear that he’s gone there to confront them.

I swear I’m about to witness a murder, so I decide not to move or make a sound.

I’m not going to get myself killed for watching the whole thing go down.

When the guy steps onto the field, they all seem amused, as if he just walked into his own execution.

In the middle of the mob stands a seven-foot-plus beast of a man.

‘You alone?’ I hear him ask the new arrival.

They call him a Mani, but I’m not sure that’s who he is, or more like what he is. ..

“Yes,” the Mani man says. He’s staring directly at the big guy who seems to be growing increasingly anxious.

“You have serious balls to come out here all by yourself,” the big one laughs. The rest of the group laughs like a grisly choir of deadheads.

“You dogs all deserve to die after what you have done,” the Mani says plainly, walking a little closer to him. About sixty to seventy feet separate them.

“I can’t keep track of what I’ve done. Please refresh my memory.” The big one turns to the others and laughs.

At that, the Mani takes off his shirt and throws it to the ground. The big one snorts.

“What?” he says. “I should be impressed by your pale body.”

“From where I’m hiding, I stare at the grisly mob. The pale Mani dude is seriously outnumbered. I can’t help it. I’m itching to fight and am out of my hiding spot.”

“You were itching to fight?” I ask, taking Richard out of his story. He’s 125 pounds dripping wet. This guy could be my body double. ‘Itching to fight’ isn’t in my physical makeup. Some guys have it, no matter what their size. Apparently, Richard is one of these scrappy, skinny guys.

“Fighting has never been a big deal to me.” Richard returns to his story...

“I jump out of my hiding spot and join the pale Mani man.”

Goliath nearly buckles over laughing when he sees me. “Is this what Mani vampires are recruiting these days? I could sneeze and knock this kid over.”

“Mani vampire?” I ask, once again cutting into Richard’s story. “This pale man was a vampire?”

“Those guys at the ranch sure as hell thought so.” Richard takes a deep breath and continues…

“Try it, you big dope,” I say to the behemoth of a man.

Goliath says, “It’s showtime, you meddling piece of shit.” Goliath charges at me like a bull.

“So, I figure a little force will knock him down. As he comes up on me, I bend down and sweep my left leg, and trip him. I hit his leg with an extreme amount of force. He does a face-plant into the grassy dirt field.

“Goliath pushes himself out of the mud and climbs to his knees. He hollers out, ‘You Mani little shit.’ I’m not a Mani. Up until this night, I’ve never heard of Manis or vampires.

“The Mani man touches my shoulder. ‘Move aside,’” he says.

“I duck out of his way. Then he proceeds to beat the crap out of Goliath. Goliath is so big, he won’t go down.

So, the vampire turns and attacks the mob.

Within minutes, the mob leaves in a wave of cars.

Goliath is one of them. There are three men left behind, however.

They aren’t quick enough to get to the trucks.

“I think my new vampire friend will just beat the living tar out of these guys and leave them for dead, but, he doesn’t.

“‘You can handle these werewolves,’ the Mani vampire says to me and changes his body into a black bird and flies off. He leaves me there alone to deal with the three men who are apparently werewolves. They circle me and I fight them off as well as I can. These crazy motherfuckers bite me. All three of them do. I fight them off until I completely black out.”

“You blacked out?” I ask. “They didn’t kill you?”

“I’m not sure where those assholes went.

The next thing I know, I’m strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance.

At the hearing, they tell me I broke one officer’s nose, grabbed another’s gun and was threatening to shoot them if they didn’t listen to me.

I was apparently babbling about werewolves and vampires at the time… but can’t recall any of it.

“I tell the judge what I saw at the ranch, and he orders me to receive a mental evaluation. The quack doctors dope me up before they interview me, and the result of all this is twelve months at minimum psychiatric observation and rehabilitation in this place.”

All I can say in response to Richard’s amazing story is, “Do you think that dude really was a vampire?”

“He was something different. I saw him change into a bird and fly off. I’m not crazy, man. I know what I saw.”

I look over at my new neighbor and say, “I believe you.”