Loving Time

seventy-two

A light powder of snow filled the sky as Bobbie went over the wall into the garden of the house next door and disappeared. He didn’t think anybody had seen him come out onto the street six houses down, almost at the end of the block, and saw no shadow behind him. Somewhere behind him an asshole or two were huddled in the cold, watching the building he’d left. So he thought.

But he didn’t really care who was behind him. Like an animal seeking his lair, Bobbie was driven by a great urgency to get to the Centre, without any clear idea of what he would do when he got there. If only he got there, he knew he’d be all right. He was a survivor. He’d been trained in combat years ago and still knew how to fight and hide. If he got there he’d have some time to work things out. It would be many hours before anyone called Gunn. Maybe a whole day before anyone found her.

Bobbie hugged the side of the buildings on Riverside, keeping as far out of the lights as he could. He was still furious at Gunn for killing Dickey and then telling the Fed bastard he had done it. He was stunned by the magnitude of the betrayal. It was the worst betrayal ever, and now it seemed clear to him that Gunn had been at the bottom of all his troubles. Dickey hadn’t set him up a year ago. Dickey hadn’t gotten him fired from the job he liked. It was Gunn, all Gunn. She was the one they questioned about every case. She was the one who kept the files. She knew what was added and subtracted to every file and why. She had control of everyone through the things written in their files. She helped people get raises and get fired. She got him fired because it was a way to make him dependent on her, to need her. She even killed his helpless, innocent mother.

The wind picked up, whipping the fine, stinging snow into Bobbie’s eyes. The storm whirled inside him, too, as he tried to make sense of all the bad things that had happened to him. The dumb old bitch had ruined his life, but God had raised His hand against her and now she was punished. With this analysis made, Bobbie tried to calm down and focus on survival. He told himself that if he could just go back to where he used to be safe, he’d be safe again.

Habit propelled him to the Centre, where he’d gone year after year, day and night—where the patients liked him and he’d been in control. At night no doctors were anywhere near the north dorm on the sixth floor where he used to work. Behind the glass wall in the nurses’ station sat just one nurse. There were maybe two or three aides for the whole floor. From midnight to seven-thirty or eight all the patients would be heavily medicated and asleep. Nobody would go in there; there he’d be safe.

As Bobbie moved quickly through the snow, he began to feel better. He had some time. Hours and hours to collect himself, to think. He didn’t have far to go and kept his thoughts on the sixth floor, the community-service area, where he’d worked for so many years. He needed to sit on a chair in the fourteen-bed ward in the north dorm and feel the patients sleeping all around him. They had always liked and responded to him, even the really crazy ones. He’d taken care of them. Now he’d see them again, and they would protect him for a little while, give him the space he had to have to think things over and get himself together. He knew he couldn’t go home again, and couldn’t go back to the basement room where the two cops had found him this morning. He kept thinking of that chair in the middle of the unit, where his silent, crazy family would be sleeping, and no cop or FBI asshole would ever find him.

Bobbie entered the hospital complex through the loading dock at the morgue. The guard in the tiny office with the windowed door had seen him before and didn’t even bother to wave him through. He traveled the musty corridors two stories under the ground that twisted and turned and sloped downhill into the basement of the Psychiatric Centre.

No one ever challenged anyone at night There was no security on the graveyard shifts. Still, Bobbie played it safe and dropped into a supply closet to change into hospital whites. As he took his jacket and pants off, he noticed spots of blood on them. He changed, then buried the tainted clothes deep in a garbage can that was still full from the previous day’s waste. He checked his watch and came out of the closet. He felt fully in command of the situation. The halls were empty and silent; so was the elevator that took him up to the sixth floor.

The sixth floor was the community-service catchment area, the place where anyone could be admitted. People on welfare, homeless, beggars—all those who couldn’t pay for treatment or their stay in the hospital. They were admitted, stabilized with medication over a period of days or weeks. Then they were released. Out on the streets again, they stopped taking their medications and soon spun out of orbit again. Many of them had to be admitted over and over.

In Community Service they sometimes had people who couldn’t speak English, couldn’t speak a language anybody knew. Once they had some kind of illegal alien. No one knew where he came from or what language he spoke. No one could talk to him, and he didn’t even have a name.

Bobbie had chosen the last elevator on the bank, the one that wasn’t visible from the nurses’ station. He got off and saw a bent, graying head. He checked his watch. It was just after eleven. The nurse was probably going over the M.D.s’ order book. Eleven-thirty was the latest they gave medication. Most everybody was already juiced by then, but sometimes the doctors left special orders for problem patients. Before the nurse lifted her head, Bobbie ducked and turned left. He streaked past the small elevator hall. Then he straightened up, took another left, and strolled down the long, dim hallway, jubilant at being back where he belonged, safe and sound.

Bobbie had always liked the unearthly quiet of night on the wards. There were rules here. No TV, no radio after ten P.M. On either side of him, doors were closed on silent double and triple rooms. Everyone had to follow the rules. Bobbie felt ever more confident as he headed down the hall.

The north dorm was a large circle with no doors at the very end of the long hall. There, too, the lights were low but not off. Bobbie could see everything clearly. He checked his watch again and assessed the situation. Several patients were up, but only one was on his feet. An angry-looking guy paced a five-foot area. He was wearing only pajama bottoms, and even in the dim light, Bobbie could see this one was trouble. The patient had a web of scars on his chest. His eyes burned in what looked like a death’s head; half of one ear was missing.

That was the only bad one, though. Most of the other patients were in their beds, staring at the ceiling or snoring. Two were playing a silent game of checkers. One guy was reading a nudie magazine, fondling himself under the covers. Bobbie pulled up a chair and sat down facing the pacer. He wanted to keep an eye on him.

As soon as Bobbie sat down, the guy stopped pacing and bunched up his fists. As if hit by an electrical force, the man in the next bed sat up. Then the one next to him rolled over onto his back and sat up. Bobbie ignored them. The man with the scars started punching at the air in his direction. Bobbie sat in the center of the dorm and watched him. He checked his watch. As he expected, at 11:20 a nurse came in.

At first she didn’t see Bobbie. She walked over to the patient punching the air. “Seamus, how are you feeling?”

The man stood still, his eyes on Bobbie. “I’m feeling … tense.”

“Really? What’s bothering …?” Slowly the nurse turned around. She saw Bobbie and looked confused. “Seamus, excuse me for a minute. I have to find out something.”

The nurse headed across the ward toward Bobbie, her brows knit in puzzlement. Bobbie ignored her. The two checkers players started chattering in Spanish.

“I need to pee—” A short bald man got out of bed and started crying.

“Get back in bed, Alberto.… Excuse me.” The nurse stood in front of Bobbie, a puzzled expression on her broad face.

Bobbie ignored her.

“Who are you?” she asked softly.

Bobbie couldn’t think of a good answer, so he looked the other way as if she wasn’t there.

“Excuse me, I don’t remember having a need for anybody here tonight.” The puzzlement turned into a frown. “Do you speak English? I need some clarification here.”

Bobbie didn’t move. He wanted to stay frozen in time until the nosy bitch left. She didn’t seem to get it. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t have anything to say.

She persisted. “Are you specialing somebody?”

Without meaning to, Bobbie snorted and spoke. “Yeah, I’m specialing. That’s it.”

“I got to pee!” Alberto cried.

“No, you don’t. Get back in bed.” The nurse spoke automatically, her eyes narrowing on Bobbie. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you. Who are you?”

“I said I’m specialing, so you can beat it.” Bobbie was getting really upset. He’d worked on this floor for almost fifteen years. And this nosy nurse had to humiliate him by demanding to know who he was.

The nurse flushed at his tone. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“I don’t need this, okay? I don’t want trouble, so just go away.” Bobbie bit off the words.

“I’m in charge here. I have to know.”

Bobbie tried to keep the pressure down, tried to think of something to say to make the bitch go away. Seconds passed and then she spoke again.

“Look, where do you work? Who do you report to?”

Bobbie made an angry noise. He’d warned her. He didn’t want to have to warn her again. He didn’t answer. Alberto shuffled over to where she was standing and raised his hand to her arm.

“Alberto, please get back into bed.” The nurse had her hands on her hips now. She didn’t want to be bothered by the senile man. Her face was red and angry. “What’s your schedule?” she demanded of Bobbie. “Show me your identification.”

For the first time in his life, Bobbie didn’t have one. He didn’t have any ID at all, not for any department. The nurse’s insensitive treatment of the senile patient and her humiliation of him joined forces. He lost his concentration.

“Fuck you.” Bobbie half rose, then slammed his butt down on the chair. None of them needed this shit. Finally he made up his mind and stood up. He was a good eight inches taller than the nurse. “Get out of my face, you hear me, bitch? Get lost.”

The nurse gasped. “I’m in charge here. You’re in the wrong place. You get lost. Now!”

That was it. There was no negotiating with this bitch—no way was he leaving. Bobbie raised his arm. In one quick motion, he backhanded the nurse, knocking her down. Alberto just missed getting knocked down with her. The old man backed away from her still form, whimpering. Then he dropped his pajama bottoms and peed on the floor beside her.

Seamus stopped punching the air. In two catlike leaps he was across the floor, pummeling Bobbie, kicking him, biting whatever he could reach with his teeth, and tearing at his ears.