This appears in a pre-2010 issue of cc&d magazine. Saddle-stitched issues are no longer printed, but you can requesting it “re-released” through amazon sale as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book! Email us for re-release to order.

this writing is in the collection book Ink in my Blood (prose edition) (PDF file) download: only $4.95 (b&w pgs): paperback book $16.95 (b&w pgs):hardcover book $32.95 (color pgs): paperback book $64.95 (color pgs): hardcover book $74.95

get this writing in the collection book weathered Download (PDF file of the full book, in color): $4.95 paperback (5.5" x 8.5") w/ b&w interior pages: $18.95 hardcover (6" x 9") w/ b&w interior pages: $29.95 paperback (6" x 9" perfect-bound book) w/ color interior pages, for 89.95 hardcover (6" x 9") w/ color interior pages, for $74.95

The House of Escher

Joshua Copeland

    Most of them, they didn’t believe him. He told the kids he didn’t masturbate. They said 99% do it, 1% lie. He didn’t know how to convince them that, No, he really did not do it. Maybe if he had done it, as his former friend Stephanie had suggested, he wouldn’t have taken it out on his little sister.
    But he did. Six sessions of Doctor. She told mom: “Hey mom, did you know what this is for, right here? Chip showed me last month.” The Castle Valley cops arrested him. Because of his mental health record, they shipped him off to Provo Regional for an evaluation. And the doctors’ verdict? Chip didn’t know right from wrong: They recommended the state hospital, not the Grand County Jail. At his commitment hearing the public defender told Chip sentences to state came down as usually three or six months. The judge sentenced him to more than six months. The word they used to designate his sentence, he forgot that word. But he knew what it meant: there would be no cap on his time at state. They had custody of him until they decided him not to be a threat.
    Chip was anxious about the Utah State Hospital. At fifteen he had run away to Florida on a Greyhound bus. He had fantasized an easy, carefree life there. And at first it was okay. The palm trees were “kind of cool.” Then two thick-mustached cops pulled up to him on one of the many crowded boulevards. They smiled like dads and said, “We’ll help you, kid. Trust us. Don’t put up a fight.” He didn’t. They arrested him as homeless and in the squad car they both shoved their hands down his khaki shorts and fondled him and then dropped him off at Valley Southern, the Florida State Hospital, located in Bolivar—what looked to Chip to be a pretty bad hick town.
    “You know why the cops took you here, don’t you?” the blonde boy asked, the patient who always talked about surfing and wave tunnels.
    “No. Why?”
    “Destroys your credibility. You bitch to the techs here, ‘Hey, these two five-ohs, they yanked on my shlong,’ and the cops can just shoo it away. They’ll say, ‘Aw, he’s nutty. We didn’t do dick.’ No one will believe you. And apparently they did ‘do dick.’”
    “Oh. I didn’t really tell anyone anyway. No big deal.”
    Valley Southern was awful. The fights were constant, the techs were apathetic, the doctors were aloof. The hospital left the radiators at full blast, making the bedrooms and halls and TV room way too hot and way too humid. Chip sweated from sunup to sundown and always felt nauseated. House centipedes ran circles in the bathrooms and water bugs scurried over the food in the cafeteria. The grimy tile floors soaked your skimpy hospital-issued socks and slippers. The siren-red suits they made you wear were too rough and rubbed rashes into your skin. You could see through all the towels. The mattresses were rock hard. An unlaced black Doc Martin—someone had scribbled names and symbols all over it in white—hung out of the shattered TV, the only TV. There was nothing to do except play Sorry and Dominoes and read children’s books.
    His mother flew down to pick him up after three weeks and four days.
    “I would have picked you up sooner,” she said, “but I wanted to give you time to languish. Madonna’s brother, when they arrested him on a DUI, she didn’t pay him out of there, she let him languish.”
    So he was not looking forward to his time at state. Two Grand County deputies slung a leather belt around his waist and cuffed his hands to the front of the belt. Hard to carry my suitcase like this, Chip said. Just following transport procedure, they said back. The gates to State groaned with finality as they shut behind him. The deputies walked him up the main desk, uncuffed him, made some small talk with a chubby security guard, and passed him off to two muscle bound orderlies. One orderly had a narrow head with Mickey Mouse ears, the other had thick, brown, sandy hair—basically like an afro, but he was Caucasian—with a Pinocchio nose. Like a penis, Chip thought.
    They shepherded him into a roomy elevator and the doors closed loudly like falling timber.
    “Wow. These are big elevators,” he said.
    “For the stretchers,” the Mickey Mouse orderly said. “Get used to ‘em while you can, kid. You’ll only seem them once more.”
    “Really? When’s that?”
    “When you’re discharged,” the Pinocchio orderly said. Then, to his partner: “Isn’t he a Chomo?”
    “Yeah. See, it says right there. They’re starting to put it in capitals on all the Chomos’ files.” He said the word loudly and distinctly: “CHOMO. An R suffix.”
    “What’s a Chomo?” Chip asked.
    “Child molester,” Mickey Mouse said.
    “Oh.”
    Pinocchio sighed. “How old are you, kid?”
    “Eighteen.”
    “Damn. Comin’ in younger and younger these days,” Mickey Mouse said.
    “Who’s that?”
    He looked at Chip. “You guys. The Chomos.” Then he frowned. “Stop fidgeting. You’re making me nervous.”
    “Sorry. I was in a state hospital once before. In Florida. It was bad. I’m worried.”
    “Eh...” Pinocchio mused, “We get a good chunk of the state budget here. I’ve heard a lot of our patients say this is the best state hospital they ever been in.”
    The elevator opened and the orderlies walked him up to a set of double doors made thick like a vault. Pinocchio opened them with a key pulled from a tangle of keys and they escorted him down a hall—bedrooms lining both sides—up to a shoulder-high counter shaped like a horseshoe around a desk. A pretty woman behind the desk stood up and grinned at Chip.
    “Hello there,” she said. “You must be Chip Roderick. I’m Beatrice.” He noticed she was squeezing a purple racquetball.
    Beatrice nodded the orderlies off. “Thanks, guys.”
    “He’s all yours,” Mickey Mouse said. “Good luck kid.”
    She put down the ball and walked around the counter and held out her hand, still smiling. Chip gave her the once-over: mid-30’s, hair auburn and cut short, glossy red lipstick, petite swan neck. Her cheek bones V’d into her chin like the girls on “America’s Next Top Model.” He saw the large breasts under the tight brown sweater as two exclamation points. “Your chest doesn’t match your figure,” he wanted to say. “You’ve got a narrow waist. Girls like you are pretty rare.” She smelled of suntan lotion. They shook hands.
    “I’m the head tech here. Follow me. I’ll give you a quick tour so you can get set up.”
    The place was nothing like Valley Southern. A set of thick brown leathery sofas sat huddled up to the tech desk. There was an exercise room with two treadmills and two exercise bikes (“Only one treadmill and one bike work,” she said) and a lounge—blue dandelions painted on the walls—with a big screen TV surrounded by loveseats, all lit by a skylight. The bedroom carpet was cushiony. When he threw his suitcase down on the bed it bounced pretty high: soft mattress. He unpacked and hummed as he left the room.
    He plopped down on the brown sofas by the tech desk and looked around. So this was his new home: not bad. Through the glass walls of the exercise room he saw a boy in his early 20’s on a bike. His hair was dark and spiked and shiny with sweat. His gray T-shirt was soaked. The boy looked up, noticed Chip, something registered, and the boy winked. Chip raised his hand and waved back, unsure how to reply since he knew the boy couldn’t hear him.
    Eventually the boy got off the bike and sat down loudly next to Chip, breathing hard. “Whew! My endorphins are kicking in!” He looked Chip over and smiled. “Aren’t you a little young to be on an adult male unit?” The boy’s left eye lagged behind the right; the two didn’t coordinate.
    “Why? I’m eighteen?”
    “You look fourteen.”
    “Yeah, that’s true. I only shave like every four days, not every day.”
    Beatrice yelled from the tech desk. “Kenny, please get off the sofa! You know you’re not allowed to sit there when you’re all sweaty! Go to your room and change!”
    “Cool. I hear ya.” He stood up. “What’s your name, dude?”
    “Chip.”
    “Follow me Chip.”
    ...In Kenny’s room a black banner bearing the name “GG Alin” in red lightning hung over the bed. Next to that was a framed and autographed photo of Timothy McVeigh, handcuffed and strapped into a bulletproof vest, armed deputies leading him. A medal—two swords enclosing a statue—lay on the dresser. By the door was a huge black and white poster of a stairwell. The staircases angled in different directions, contradicting each other and ignoring gravity. People with faces and bodies wrapped in bandages like mummies walked up and down them and into doors.
    Chip leaned up against the wall. “That’s a neat poster,” he said.
    “It’s Escher.”
    “What?”
    “MC Escher. He made it.” Kenny began to undress. “Many people, they live in houses like that. With the lights out. I used to. Lots of tripping and falling and broken shins and broken ankles.”
    “Oh. Okay. Whatever.” He pointed to the medal. “Your medal. What did you do to win it?”
    “Iraqi Campaign medal.” Kenny frowned. “Chip, I’ve only known you for about a minute and ten seconds and you’re already getting on my nerves. Does your mouth always hang open like that? I can hear you breathing through it.”
    “I’m sorry. The orthodontist said that’s why my lips are always chapped, cause I don’t ever breathe through my nose. The kids back home teased me about it.”
    “Good for them.” Kenny pulled off his boxers and was naked. “What are you in here for?”
    “I played Doctor with my little sister.”
    “Really?” Kenny raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Is she hot?”
    “I don’t know. Everyone’s like, ‘Why did you do that? Why did you do that?’ I honestly can’t think of an answer. I guess she just happened to be around.”
    Kenny stayed naked while he talked. He wiped himself with a towel, paced around the room, sprayed Tag body spray on his chest and arms, shuffled letters and envelopes on his desk, combed back his hair in the metal mirror, straightened the Timothy McVeigh photo, took a long swig from a can of Diet Coke, shuffled the letters and envelopes on his desk again, and dried himself with the towel a second time. His build was museum statue-perfect: well defined pecs, hairless chest, hairless legs, contoured arm and thigh muscles. Like the way mountains look on maps, Chip thought.
    “You Mormon?” Kenny asked. “You got the haircut.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Wonderful. You believe there’s a God, don’t drink caffeine, not allowed to watch “South Park,” straight A’s, all book smarts and no life experience, the whole package?”
    “Yeah.”
    Kenny rolled his eyes.
    “Aren’t you going to put some clothes on? Are all your clothes dirty? Where do we do our laundry?”
    Kenny walked up to him and looked him eye to eye and said, “I’d like to give you a blowjob.”
    Chip’s heart upped its beat. His eyes widened. “But I’m not gay.”
    “No you’re not. You’re bi...Don’t you know? Sex offenders, their libido is across the board. They’re into all kinds of things, not just children.”
    “No. No thank you. The Book of Mormon is against it. And I don’t think I’m a sex offender anyway. It was my sister. It’s not like I kidnapped some random girl. And she didn’t put up a fight.”
    “Oh yeah? What’s your sister’s name?”
    “Maddy.”
    How old is Maddy?”
    “She’ll be six in March.”
    “Yep. That counts.” He traced an R with his forefinger on Chip’s forehead. “You’ve got an R Suffix. You’re a Chomo.”
    He placed his hand on the wall just above Chip’s head, leaning into him, lowering his voice. Chip looked away. “You’ll like it here. Beat on the techs all you want. The DA won’t press charges. She said it comes with the job, getting worked over. And the patients, it’s open season on them too. You stomp the shit out of some retard or gimp here, yeah, they can make a report to Security, and Security is supposed to hand the reports over to the Provo police, but they never do...ASAP they throw it in the trash. Too many reports coming from the hospital, it looks bad. So they’ll cover it up, you know?” He opened his arms wide. “No repercussions, thus no laws. State of Nature, we are in. I bit Beatrice on the wrist like a month ago. All the way down to the radial artery. You know how much muscle you have to gnash through to get to that? The blood pumped everywhere. All over the walls.” Kenny grabbed the can of Diet Coke and jerked it at the wall, splashing it. “Kind of looked like that. I’ll show you the stains. Jackson Pollock on crystal meth. She squeezes that ball to get her wrist muscles back in working order.” He giggled. “They hate me here. They want me out so bad.” He moved away and began to get dressed. Chip’s shoulders fell.
    “About that BJ,” Kenny said, pulling up his boxers. “Give it some thought, kid. You won’t regret it.”

    “Hey: Lester the Molester...Want to know why TNT shows this movie unedited?” They were in the TV lounge, sunk into the loveseats.
    “Why, Kenny?”
    “Guantanamo. All those CIA secret prisons. Abu Ghraib.”
    “What about them?”
    “The moral of the movie is that it pays to break the Geneva Conventions. That was is a dirty business. When Upham breaks the Law of Land Warfare and shoots the Wehrmacht soldier at the end, you’re supposed to say, ‘Wow! He’s a real soldier now!’”
    Chip shrugged his shoulders. “So?”
    “So, you can find World War II Japanese soldiers who are still alive and unrepentant. When you ask them why they treated American POWs the way they did, they’ll say...” Kenny pulled his eyes into tight slits with his forefingers, “‘War is dirty business. It no pay to be nice. Thank God Emperor did not ratify Geneva Conventions.’”
    Chip scratched his lip. “But...I really like this movie. It’s got a lot of action. And you, you fought for us.”
    Kenny shook his head and stared at the floor. “The military lied to me,” he said quietly. “That Nam Vet recruiting officer said the Core’d make a better man out of me. ‘Maggot to man’ were his words. Why did the recruiter lie to me? Why do they lie, Les?”
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “Don’t know either. Liars control reality. Your church tells you blowjobs are evil.”
    Chip nodded. “Yes. Gay oral sex. Well, not evil. More like unnatural.”
    “Hmmm...Interesting. You know, in a few hundred years people won’t have to put up with goody goody two shoes dipshits like yourself. Religion, all religion, is losing its hold. Science is pushing it out of the way. We’ve gone from animism to exobiology. I can’t wait.”
    “One of your eyes...Did that happen in Iraq?”
    Kenny tapped his slow eye. “Want to know how I got this? My Stationary Occlua?”
    “How?”
    “In Fallujah. Me and two of my buddies—Tommy C and Eduardo—we were trapped in this one room house minus the roof, cookie cutter shrapnel all over the furniture and floor, and there were these—I think four or five of them, but I could be wrong—scrawny, malnourished 14 year olds throwing shit over the wall at us: smoked over chunks of concrete, chunks of porch, table legs, garbage cans, glass bottles, anything sharp or heavy you can think of.” Chip squinted and nodded his head to show he was listening intently. “None of us wants to shoot, right? We’re screaming, “Abdeck Hulus! Abdeck Hulus Habel!”
    “What does that mean?”
    “‘Curfew! Go home!’ It was midday, but that was like the only thing we could think of to yell.
    “So over the wall pops a Diet Pepsi bottle. But there’s no Diet Pepsi in it. Just, apparently, gun powder, old twisted rusty nails, glass, pieces of barb wire, shit like that. A tow for a fuse. A lit fuse.
    “TV babies like yourself think grenade tossing is a simple art. You guys think you throw it at the enemy, Boom! He dies. Nothing could be further form the truth. Ed dives for it and lobs it back over the wall. Those little bitches throw it over again. I dive for it and toss it back. It was like tennis. A third time, the bottle falls right in the middle of the place, on all the rubble. We dove for cover. I wasn’t fast enough. Knocked the bejesus out of me. Woke up seeing out only one eye. A tiny, tiny slice of shrapnel, bull’s-eye in my iris.”
    Chip sat forward. “Wow! That’s cool! You were wounded for our country! You’re a hero!”
    Kenny lit up. “Let’s go to my room,” he said.
    ...Kenny sat down on the bed. Chip stayed standing.
    “Yep. That’s what they call me here. A war hero. Now if this was Nam, the citizenry would be spitting on me. But those days are over. Now we get laid. It’s all about sperm, not spit. Speaking of the former, you ever reconsider that hummer I offered you?”
    “What’s a hummer?”
    “Suck your dick.”
    “No thank you.”
    “Aw, come on Les...Don’t you ever get tired of jerking off under your covers every night?”
    “I don’t masturbate.”
    Kenny laughed and stomped his feet. “Bullshit!”
    “No, I never had any girlfriends, no one, nothing, My—”
    “Well, there was your little sister. Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
    “But she doesn’t count. My shrink on the outside had been prescribing me Luvox since the third grade. It’s impossible to have an orgasm on Luvox.”
    “Ha!”
    “She convinced my mom it was the best anti-depressant around.”
    “Luvox? Yeah, it’s an anti-depressant, but they also use it to chemically castrate sex offenders. Kind of ironic. Or coincidental. Or whatever.”
    Chip began to pace. “Kenny, I’ve never even had a wet dream.”
    Kenny laid back on his bed and stared at the ceiling, his feet still on the floor. “How can you go through life like that? You’ve never had an orgasm? Never? Never ever ever? Not even with your pretty kiddie sister?”
    “No. No orgasm. A lot of the time, I do actually get, you know, uh...erect.”
    Kenny looked at Chip and winced. “Okay. I see the problem now. No wonder you’re so anxious all the time. We have to fix this. Ask Dr. Elkind to put you on something else, like Wellbutrin.”
    “I already have. He won’t do it. He talked with my mom, and they both say Luvox is best for me. Dr. Elkind says it might be best to curb my sex drive for now, anyway.”
    “Can’t you ask daddy to intervene?”
    “I live with my mom. She has say over him.”
    “Alright. No problem. Do you know how to fake taking your meds?”
    Chip stopped pacing and faced Kenny and gulped. “No.”
    “It’s easy as cake. Cheek them. At the nurse’s station, when they give you your Luvox, push it under your tongue, walk back to the bathroom, spit it out in the sink. I don’t think Luvox has any withdrawal symptoms, so you should be okay.”
    “But Kenny, my brain will go bad.”
    Kenny sat up. “Go bad? Dude, your brain is bad. You’re at rock bottom. All your friends are out there going on with their lives, getting laid, moving from point A to point B. But you,” Kenny pointed at him with his forefinger, “are here.” Kenny pointed at the floor. “When do you think you’ll see the inside of those elevators, hmm? When shit sticks to the moon. Chippy, you don’t have much else to lose.”
    “I don’t know...”
    “You’ll be able to do it yourself! Hey, nothing beats a good jerk off.” Kenny grabbed at his own crotch and shook it. “Soon you learn to milk this baby for all it’s worth. Did you know that semen still moves once it’s out of your dick?”
    “Yes. It swims to the egg to fertilize—”
    “No. Like if you wank yourself. I tried an experiment once. Back home I spermed on my carpet and circled the sperm blots with a red magic marker. I went to the 7-11 and when I got back, you know what? The gobs of sperm had moved! Like four and five centimeters! What made it really weird is that they moved towards the radiator. You know how the vagina is supposed to be all warm and wet?”
    “No.”
    “Well, that’s what they say. So I guess sperm’s got the instinct to swim its way towards warm and wet places. Isn’t that interesting? ” Chip didn’t answer. He just looked at Kenny nervously.
    “For loners like yourself, masturbation will become the favorite past time. Your life will revolve around it. So what say you, Chippy? You gonna cheek the Luvox?”
    Chip looked around the room.
    “Well?” Kenny asked.
    “Okay,” he said.
    Kenny stood up. “Alright then. It’s settled.” He sighed and walked over to Chip.
    “Chip. Don’t look at the floor. Look at me.” Chip looked up. Kenny flat handed him just above his stomach. Chip blew out and hunched over. Kenny yanked him up by his hair, slid a leg behind him, and knife-handed him in the neck. He fell back over Kenny’s leg and slammed rear end first onto the floor. Kenny dropped onto him and pinned him—Chip smelled the Tag—and with his thumb and forefinger literally pulled Chip’s wind pipe out of place. Chip saw his own eyes bulge in Kenny’s bright irises. Kenny let go and Chip’s trachea snapped back into place like a rubber band.
    “Don’t panic. Take deep breaths, evenly spaced, from the stomach...That’s it...” Kenny stood, offered Chip his hand, and hoisted him up.
    “That was really uncomfortable, having my trachea pulled. I couldn’t breathe. Wow, they taught you a lot in the Marines.”
    “Ha. I could have killed you.”
    “Cool.” Chip smoothed down his shirt, retucked it, and pushed his hair into place. Kenny relaxed against the wall and stared at the ceiling.
    “You know why I was committed?” he asked. “I broke some hick-bouncer’s shoulder blade up in Ogden. Barroom brawl.” He laughed. “That DA had love handles. Usually the female DAs keep in good shape. They’re razor thin. ‘Elegant.’ But not Jessica Pechersky. Love handles, tree trunk thighs, faux-pregnancy gut, etc. etc. etc. Anyway, she was really sympathetic toward me. She agreed with my attorney I had PTSD. Gave me three months here instead of jail time.”
    “PTSD...”
    “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
    “But you seem normal. Kind of.”
    “Duh. Of course I am. Just a bit uppity. There’s me pre-Fallujah and me post-Fallujah. That’s all. And that hick...” Kenny was far away, in a happier place... “He’ll have arthritis in his shoulder blade for the rest of his life. Oh well oh well oh well.” He patted Chip on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. It’s time for me to ride.”
    “I’ll ride next to you on the broken one to keep you company. You tell neat stories.”
    He squeezed Chip’s paunch and said, “Might do you some good. Get rid of this flab. You got a Woody Allen build. Short, a thin frame, and a gut, although a not too big gut. Still, it makes you look weak.”

    Kenny motioned to the TV with his face. “Lookie, Chip: Lindsay Lohan was only fourteen when she did this movie. Find her attractive? Probably not. Too developed for you.”
    Chip yanked at the crotch of his sweatpants, making room. “No, she is fine. Her shirt is so tight. She takes the biscuit.”
    “All the girls on the ABC Family channel—not just the afternoon movies, but, like, on every one of its TV shows, every one of its cheesy sitcoms—you think they’re all nice and sweet and pink with virginity? FUCK NO! All the kids on this channel, boys and girls, they’re having sex at like twelve and thirteen and fourteen. On ABC Family you get an early start. These kids on TV,” Kenny motioned again to the television, “They got it made. Sex in the dressing rooms between scenes, sex all Ex’d out at their underage parties, sex in restrooms at their techno clubs with the power drinks. I heard their parents even encourage the shenanigans cause it alleviates the ‘stress’ of their show biz work schedules.” He shook his head. “Fuck...”
    Chip pulled at his sweatpants again.
    Kenny walked over to the TV, shut it off, and sat down. “Back to what’s real: Lester, if I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell anyone, not the patients, not the techs, not Dr. Elkind, no one.”
    “No way man. I’ll keep my mouth shut. What is it?”
    “Come on to my room. And this time sit. Sit in the damn chair. Don’t stand, don’t pace, don’t fidget.”
    ...Chip sat in the chair at the desk. Kenny sat on the bed. He spoke quietly.
    “For my Stationary Occula sometimes they’ll throw me in the white van and transport me to the VA hospital in St. George for a couple of days. It’s really nice there. The food tastes so much better. And you can have seconds. And the nurses aren’t cunts like here, they treat you with respect. But it can get boring there, nothing to do but read Genet or Burroughs or Gertie Stein. So one day I was sick of reading, I was wandering the halls, I decided to take the stairs down to the basement.
    “I walked out into this dark room, only a few bare light bulbs hung off the ceiling. Stacks and stacks of pallets, all in this dark green slimy puddle of something, looked like kelp, but couldn’t have been. There were these contraptions lined up in a row, don’t know what they were, they looked like R2D2. What else?...The smell of mildew and rust. A furnace over in the corner, it rumbled and creaked and banged, a maze of pipes all along the ceiling shook in time with it and dripped hot water. Constant banging, like a hammer against steel. Hot. Wet. Loud and hot and wet. Ten seconds down there and I was sweating.”
    “That puddle: a puddle of what?”
    “Dunno. Just listen. There were these things on the floor by the furnace. I walked over to take a look. Rodent traps. Like ten or twelve of them. Big rat skeletons in each one, you could see the splits of the backbones. But there was one, the rat was whole, and it was alive and moving and this mini-wheeze came from it, the chest moved up and down. I undid the latch and it took off.
    “So I was about to get out of there—with that furnace going you could hardly hear yourself think—when I saw this one door behind the furnace. What the hell, I decided, nothing better to do, so I walked over, lifted up the iron latch, and shoved it open. It creaked loudly, like my granddad’s fingers. I felt for a light switch, found it, and clicked it on. House centipedes scattered. The room was small, but just as loud and hot and dirty. Rivers of brown water streamed down the walls, mold grew in the corners, the furnace outside shook the whole place. And—you’ll never fucking believe this—there was this bed with this, well, this object on it. All these tubes were attached to the object, and even though it was under blankets, you could tell the thing was bulging intermittently, like it was breathing. There was an IV stand, with IV tubes strung under the covers.
    “At the top of this, this thing, I’ll call it, there was what looked like a head, but without a face, just white and stained bandages taped over it. Then the head kind of rolled a bit, and the thing sighed, and I realized it wasn’t a ‘thing’ at all, but a human being. Or what was left of one.”
    “No way!” Chip’s mouth dropped.
    “I shit you not. No arms, no legs, no face, no ears, just a chest and a head!”
    “And it was alive? Oh no!”
    “Oh yes. So I walked over and it perked up and lifted its head, like it knew I was there—I guess from the vibrations of my footsteps—and it started to make this noise like when you sandpaper rough wood, or when you drive on gravel, almost like a gurgle, coming out where the air tube entered the trachea. It was excited I was there.”
    “So it was a soldier! It had to be a soldier!”
    “I’m getting there. So I stood over it while it got all fidgety and did that gurgling sound. You could see the tiny arm and leg stumps going crazy under the covers. Then it began to bang its head up and down on the pillow in this rhythm and—”
    “Aw, man. That sucks they keep him down there away from everyone! I hope he hadn’t been down there that long.”
    “Well, I wondered the same thing. On the covers, by the neck, there was a silver Victory medal. It was of this winged lady holding a sword and shield. I thought back to my USMC days and tried to remember which war the military gave out that particular medal. Wanna know what war it’s from?”
    “No! What war?”
    “World fucking War I.”
    “Oh my God!” Chip put his hand over his mouth.
    “Shhh. Keep your voice down!”
    “Sorry. He must have been old. Like, real old.”
    “Don’t talk. Just sit there and shut up. But yeah, man, was he old. His neck was all scraggily and withered and scrawny. When I pulled the covers off him—”
    “You pulled the covers off him?”
    “Hell yeah. When I pulled them off you could tell he was at least a hundred. His pec and crotch hair were white. Like Antarctica white. The stomach was all caved in. You could count the ribs. He was really out of shape. And the skin looked tough, like a lamp shade, and it was mottled.”
    “What’s ‘mottled.’”
    “It’s not important. But anyway, the torso rocked back and forth, banging its head like James Hetfeild on the pillow, going batty. I noticed a pattern to the head banging. Then the idea hit me: Morse code.”
    “He was trying to communicate!”
    “He was trying to communicate. So I tapped on the forehead, ‘What is your name?’ and we sat there having a fucking conversation!”
    “Holy frigging crap! Good Gravy!”
    “His name was, uh, Joe. Joe...Birnam.” Kenny shook his head. “It was rough in there. The heat was like a sauna, just totally nauseating. But I stayed. Joe said he’d been down there for decades. I was like, ‘This is 2008. You’ve missed quite a lot.’ It asked if the US had gone to war again. ‘Yeah, like four or five times.’ He sounded a bit incoherent, like he was fucked in the head, and I told him so. Then again, I’d be fucked in the head too if they made me a torso for that long.
    “It asked where it was. I lied. I tapped, ‘Hell.’ And Joe freaked. He started gurgling again, flailing his stumps, all that shit. It tapped, ‘What did I do wrong? I lived my life like a good Christian! I was a good soldier! Nooo!’ It—or he, he or it—asked who I was. I tapped back the letters B E E L Z E B U B.
    “Now he was more frantic. He bangs out, ‘I don’t belong here! Take me away!’ I tap, ‘Well, I can’t help you with that, but I can help you with your mood...Want a blowjob?”
    “Kenny, you didn’t.”
    “Don’t go pale Les. You’re weak. But yeah, I asked him that. He didn’t know what I meant. So I tapped, ‘I’ll show you.’ This house centipede skeleton hung in the cobwebs that strung from the catheter to the guy’s dick. I slowly pulled the catheter out—quit wincing—and that made him bounce up and down like a Mexican jumping bean, gurgling, making me sick. But after a bit I got it out and got to sucking, and...the son of a bitch came. Fast. The spunk tasted a bit funny, but I guess that’s to be expected.”
    “Ew. Wasn’t it disgusting to suck a guy’s penis that old?”
    “There was a bit of lint. But, you sucked one, you sucked them all. And he was big.” Kenny held his hands apart—palms facing each other—as measurement.
    “I’m supposed to go back there to see the ophthalmologist tomorrow. Be there till Friday. Maybe I’ll sneak downstairs and see how ole Joe is doing.” Kenny grinned, pushed his legs straight out, clasped his hands behind his head, and lay down flat on the bed, crossing his ankles.
    “Judas Priest! Why did you have to tell him he was in hell? That was mean.”
    “Maybe I’ll let him know you said hi. ‘My buddy Lester at State, he sends his regards.’”
    Chip ran his hands through his hair. “You’ve got to get him out of there. I know I’m going to have trouble getting to sleep tonight.”
    “I asked my nurse about him. She’s like, ‘You have no business going down there.’ She said he was brain dead. But the way she said it, it’s like she knew he wasn’t.”
    “Tell them he’s not!”
    “Why should I do anything for you? You won’t even get undressed in front of me...Hey! Wanna make a deal?” Kenny sat up, reached over, and drummed his fingers on Chip’s thigh.
    “Well, it depends. I mean...What kind of deal?”
    “You do something for me, I do something for you.”
    “Like what?...No, not that.”
    “Yeah. That! And I’ll tell the staff the dude’s alive and kicking. I free the torso, you let me blow you.”
    Chip felt his stomach upset. He put his head to his legs. “Okay...” he said into his knees, “You get him out of there, I’ll let you do oral sex on me. Oh man...” He lifted up and faced Kenny. “What makes you think I’ll even get aroused?”
    “You’ve been cheeking your Luvox, right? So you’re all primed, kid. Cocked and ready. An M67 minus the pin. You smoke? I’ll even throw in some rolling papers.”
    “I don’t smoke. Smoking’s bad for you.”
    Later that night Chip wrestled around in bed, the sheets between his fists. Dr. Elkind had ordered him on fifteens since he arrived. Every fifteen minutes a tech had to look in on him. Around midnight Beatrice opened the door and peered in. “Can’t sleep yet, hon? You want a PRN of Trazadone?”
    “No...Um, do you have time to talk?”
    “Sure I do.” She sat down on his bed. Her gray and white wool sweater wound tight around her chest.
    “You ever watch “Sabrina: The Teenage Witch” on the ABC Family channel, Beatrice?”
    “Ah ah.”
    “You look just like the mom.” He smelled her perfume and was instantly hard.
    “Why can’t you sleep?”
    “Something Ken told me. He said at the Veterans Hospital in St. George he found a patient with no arms, legs, or face. From World War I. Over 100 years old. The hospital kept him hidden in the basement. Kenny blew him.”
    “What?” Beatrice laughed loudly, then frowned. “Hon, he shouldn’t be telling you those things. Kenny is an out and out frigging liar.”
    “He’s making it up?”
    “The military would never treat one of their own that way.” She smiled. “Plus, last I heard, orgasms are extremely rare at that age. That’s Kenny for you.” She sighed and shook her head. “He lies all the time. Like all the time.”
    “Well, like what has he said?”
    “Oh Lord, let’s see...” she shrugged and looked around the room. “...He told Miriam he was boss over his cube at the Montana State Penitentiary. He told her he raped an inmate. All that’s well and good, except he’s never been in prison. Only County. It would have been in his file. What else...He told Joshua the cops arrested him after they found Sally Mann’s jpegs on his computer. Another lie. Again, it would have been in his file. Plus, her stuff is legal. Evil, but legal. He told Dr. Elkind that his dad’s a famous author and was best friends with Allen Ginsburg. Kenny’s first memories—according to Kenny—are of sitting in Allen Ginsburg’s lap.” She checked her watch.
    “Well what if it’s true?”
    “We’ve met his dad. We see him every Tuesday night. He’s no author. He owns a construction company. Kenny’s going to work for him when he’s discharged next month.”
    She brushed his forehead, instigating a rush of lust in him. And he looked at her hands: beautiful fingers, piano fingers. “Hey, is that your wedding ring?”
    “Yep. Been married fourteen years now. Knock on wood.” She knocked three times on his dresser.
    “I hope I can get married some day, Beatrice.”
    She stifled a yawn and smiled again. “There’s some lucky girl out there with your name autographed on her heart. But for now just concentrate on getting better. And stop hanging out with Kenny. He’s a bad influence.” She ruffled his hair.
    “Yeah.”
    “On you, on the other patients, on the Southwest Unit as a whole. I can’t count the number of times we’ve had to call the posse on him. All of the techs, we want him out.” She shook her head again. “He sucks the life out of us.”

    Into his dreams: “Wakey wakey.” Someone nudged him. Chip opened his eyes. Kenny was sitting on the bed. “I’m baaaaaack,” he said, like the little girl in Poltergeist. “Miss me, Les?”
    Chip sat up and rubbed his eyes.
    “It’s done,” Kenny said. “I told the heads of the hospital. They smacked their foreheads.” Kenny smacked Chip’s forehead like he was healing him. “They’re like, ‘We got to get him out of there!’ So now they push Joe around the hospital grounds in a wheelchair. Out of that musty room, enjoying the cool dry mountain air, all the nurses patting him. There’s always a chaplain with him too, tapping on his forehead in Morse, talking to him, getting him up to date on world events. The dude, he can’t believe the cocaine is gone from Coca-Cola! Oh, and the generals that put him down in that room are in big trouble. The military’s going to court martial the shit out of them!”
    Chip regarded him. “You know, I talked with Beatrice about you. She said you’re a bull crapper. She said the military would never do anything like that.”
    No pauses, Kenny replied right away, that smile grilled into his face: “Are you kidding me? You know how corrupt these people are? You ever hear of collateral damage?”
    “Ah ah.”
    “That’s right. Cause they keep it to themselves. It’s where they bomb the fuck out of civilians and cover it up.” He snickered.
    “Yeah, well, okay, but Beatrice said most 100-year-old guys can’t sperm.”
    “Beatrice is a stuck up cunt. There’s something those of us in the know call Spermaculus Lingerus.”
    Chip knitted his brows. “Sperma-what? What’s that?”
    He spelled it out. “Men who spend most of their lives immobile, their metabolism slows down, and they retain the ability to ejaculate late into their life. I’ll show you in my medical dictionary one time.” He raised his right hand. “Swear to God, dude.”
    “Well, Beatrice says you get your lies mixed up. Beatrice says—”
    “Beatrice says Beatrice says Beatrice says yeah yeah yeah. Chippy, look at the quick work I make of the techs here. Of course they hate me. They’ll lie about me to ruin my rep. They are the liars. You saw Beatrice squeezing that racquetball, didn’t you?”
    Chip collapsed back onto the pillow and sighed. “Yes, Kenny.”
    “So you know I wasn’t lying about nibbling into her radial artery. Now come on. You owe me. A deal’s a deal. You were brought up to be a man of your word, right?”
    “But, but you...Okay...I’ll let you do this to me.” He sat up and grabbed Kenny’s arm. “But you can’t tell anyone! Please! No one will like me!”
    “Lips sealed,” Kenny said, running his forefinger across Chip’s lips.
    “So when do you want to do it, Kenny? How about—”
    “Now. How about now. Kenny ruffled Chip’s hair and stood up. “Let’s do this.” He pulled a light blue pill out of his pocket and dropped it in Chip’s hand. “Swallow that. It’s Viagra. It’ll help. And gulp down a whole lot of water at the water fountain. Chug till you can’t chug anymore. It’s easier to stay hard if you’re bladder’s about to explode. ” He looked at his watch. “It’s ten after eight now. In fifty minutes come to my room.” His eyebrows arched. “And I’ll take it from there.” He left.
    Chip stared at the pill. He dropped it onto the dresser next to the envelope, the envelope, the one he hadn’t opened in weeks because of the name on the return address.
    He ripped at it and pulled out a letter. The page was inked in dark crimson. Green and blue orchids spangled the four corners. The paper itself was lemon yellow.
    So, My Dear Chipper:
    I’ve thought a lot about you. (And not in a good way, heh heh). What to say, what to say, what to say? Molestation stays with you for life. FOR LIFE!!! I can show you 40-year-old women who have never had an orgasm, ever! That’s what it does! So, because you are the Antichrist, I decided every month I’ll write you to let you know all the cool stuff you’re missing out on. Well, to start with, I got into Duke!!!! I’m kind of jealous Philly got accepted to Cornell, but I guess he deserved it. He did get 1450 on his SATs. PROM IS COMING UP!!! Misha Kapler and Jess Franco are still going out. I saw them at Davey Solin’s kegger last Saturday. WE ALL HAD A BLAST AND GOT SUPER PLASTERED!!! Marcy and Smakoz were ALL OVER EACH OTHER in Davey’s brother’s tree house and...
    He looked in the envelope and pulled out four more pages, writing on both sides. At the bottom of the last page was a pink kiss imprint—Bubblegum lipstick?—and under that:
    Sincerely, With Hugs and Kisses and All,

Your friend Steph
    Someone yelled down the hall, “Hey! Southwest! It is 8:15! Vending machines are now open!”
    Chip popped the Viagra.
    ...The AC in Kenny’s room gave Chip goose bumps. Kenny was sitting on the bed looking intense, breathing quickly. A towel sat neatly folded up next to him. Out his window morning snow fell like shredded cotton. Chip stood in the doorway feeling like he was about to take a test he didn’t study for. He self consciously covered his groin.
    “You know, you’re not going to be able to do that once I start in on you.”
    Chip pursed his mouth. Kenny patted the spot on the bed next to him. “Sit down next to me, Les.” He did.
    “I don’t want to kiss, Kenny.”
    “Who does? I hate kissing, man.” Kenny got up, shut the door, kneeled in front of Chip, and untied his sweatpants. Chip felt the loosening around his waist. He lifted himself off the bed a bit so Kenny—his face fire engine red—could pull down his pants and boxers, peppered with Donald Ducks.
    “Try and relax, Les. Pretend I’m a girl if that’ll help. I mean, this isn’t that big a deal.” Kenny shook him by the thighs. “Eject that performance anxiety, cadet! It’s just oral sex, nothing major, everyone does it. At least all of us ‘liberated’ types. To most of us this is like picking up the daily paper, or taking a leak, or washing the dishes. Forget your dinky church.” He put his hand up under Chip’s shirt and felt his heart. “Chill out.”
    Kenny began. For a while, nothing. “Chip? What the fuck? Don’t sweat the small stuff. This is not a big deal!”
    He continued.
    All wet and slippery and random, Chip noticed—and almost said, like being inside a fish or a Jacuzzi: not bad, getting better. And he saw there was a rhythm: the guy’s head goes up and down. “Hey, this isn’t bad,” Chip said. Then he giggled: “You’re breathing through your nose like a horse! Ha Ha Ha!”
    Kenny stopped. It was the first time Chip had seen him look even a little embarrassed. “Etiquette, Les. Don’t make me mad. I’ll rake.”
    “Um, what? Rake?”
    “With my teeth. Rake.” Kenny bared his teeth.
    “Sorry sorry sorry!”
    Kenny went back at it.
    Chip sagged like a marionette let go. It—the whole thing, everything—almost felt “right.”
    “Judas Priest! You mean to most people this is like nothing? Like an every day event?”
    Chip paced in an elevator. He didn’t know it was an elevator. He didn’t know he was in a skyscraper. He didn’t know he was stuck at the top of it on the 115^th floor. All he knew was he was trapped in a small room. The Muzak grated. Mangy rats gnawed at the elevator cable above him. Their mouths wrought the tiny din of incisors against braided steel. He paced as the rats ate away, ate away, and...The G Forces pancaked Chip into the ceiling, squeezing him literally into it, turning him flat. He was TV. Not flesh, not blood, not bone, but pixels. An ABC Family sitcom. Uproarious laughter. Cheering. The elevator’s control panel blinked furiously. Chip spread wide his arms and legs, making an X. His stomach was up in his throat: a rollercoaster. From point A to point B. He was moving.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...

This appears in a pre-2010 issue of cc&d magazine. Saddle-stitched issues are no longer printed, but you can requesting it “re-released” through amazon sale as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book! Email us for re-release to order.

This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book!
Email us for re-release to order.