"Call up the thirty winds 'til your persian rug flies..."
Sadie, with her steering wheel necklace and a gleaming tiara of shattered windshield gilding her brow. Prudence, grinning wildly with a seatbelt pageant-sash burned into her chest and shards of glass where her teeth should be.
Under the burn of frosted-glass florescent pressed into a pocked and stained ceiling, the veins of Jack’s upturned wrists coursed malic blue. He rode the acid highways with his eyes and thought of stripping them; wrenching them from his skin like roots to be cast onto butchers' paper to drip dry.
Spine drawn away from the back of his seat, forearms capsized by defeat and resting on his thighs, Jack was still. He had found that sinking into the waiting room chair, being cradled in its sickly coral vinyl and cheap, gleaming wooden arms made him feel restless, cagey, too aware of where he was.
He lifted his weary head each time the emergency room’s swinging doors discharged, nostrils seared by a spew of stale, antiseptic air. Doctors dressed in funereal white burst forth with purpose; gunslingers into a saloon wielding charts and stethoscopes in lieu of pistols and whiskey.
Jack stretched his neck, strained his eyes each time he was allowed a glimpse into those bright, aseptic hallways. He imagined he heard the vesper bell of his wife flat-lining, a hospital-drama hexapsalm of dear God, dear God, we’ve lost her.
He wondered what they must look like behind those doors, tossed onto tables. His wife and daughters, rag dolls with stitched up smiles and shrapnel lodged in their pale throats. Snap shots of a gruesome dress-up game; Sadie, with her steering wheel necklace and a gleaming tiara of shattered windshield gilding her brow. Prudence, grinning wildly with a seatbelt pageant-sash burned into her chest and shards of glass where her teeth should be.
“...an end to the rain, and it looks like tomorrow is going to be an absolutely gorgeous, sunny day. Back to you, Suzanne.” mocked the wall mounted waiting room television.
“We’re looking forward to it, Moe.”
Fuck yourself, Moe.
The anchorwoman, nothing but flashing teeth, continued, “unfortunately, this storm didn’t pass without causing some pretty heavy damage. A deadly bus crash on 495 this evening has left at least four dead and several others critically injured. We’re going live to the scene. Angela?”
Jack lifted his bloodshot eyes scornfully to the screen. Flashing lights, crippled cars, and an overturned bus made up the grisly Hollywood backdrop for a pristine blonde reporter. Under the shadow of an umbrella, her eyebrows were tilted upward in a practiced expression of compassion but Jack knew, Jack knew that behind those sympathy-bright blue eyes scrolled a player-piano script of who’s dick did that horse-face suck to get anchor? and fuck you assholes for making me miss my date. Learn to fucking drive.
“Thanks, Suzanne. As you can see, the scene here is horrific...”
Oh, Angie. Oh, Angie, you have no earthly idea...
“...several people have already been taken to the hospital...”
A slow motion, atomic-bomb blink of her lacquered lashes sent reality spiraling away.
“We have our own channel 7 Action Jackson there live. Jack, can you tell us? Jack, can you tell us...” She tilted her head at him with a grim-reaper’s scythe slash of a smile. “...do you come grieving for the deceit of your marriage, Jack?”
Jack stared dry-eyed, rapt and horrified. The television pulsed, perspired, the bright reflection of the waiting room's interior oozing from the screen and bleeding down the white walls. Jack's shoulder blades were drying concrete, he breathed sand. Her voice dropped an octave as she turned to address him directly, index finger extended.
A frothing
“...one generation does not set another free, Jack. A god brings it to ruin and it has no deliverance, Jack...”
Greek chorus,
“...for now the light which was over the last root in the house of Oedipus...”
Groaning a disquisition on his very tragedy in verse,
“...has been cut down by the blood-stained knife of the gods below, by folly of word and a Fury in the mind.”
from behind her ugly apple-pie mask.
Jack’s fingers curled inward, his nails stung his palms. He detonated the set with laser vision, summoned black magic, telekinetic will to turn her off, turn her off, turn her fucking off.
“...and," the screen flickered, "of course, you’ll want to avoid the beltway if at all possible as things here are still...”
Jack had stopped listening, for a spoken-word funeral drum was pounding the walls of his skull; a distant, steadily crescendoing mantra of shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup as hazy, viscid and intangible as sweltry desert air. Jack sheltered himself against the impending collision, extinguished his senses by pressing his hands over his ears and compacting his eyelids.
Only when a nurse laid a stern hand on his shoulder and began to chide in tongues did Jack realize he’d been hearing his own voice.
“Jesus fuck!” inhaling sharply he jerked away from the nurse. He scrambled out of his chair and watched his shoes skate across the tile beneath them, patting himself down in desperate search of his crumpled soft pack as he neared the auto-open glass doors. He glanced up as they parted, just in time to miss his pale and plague-sunken reflection.
He stepped out into the rain-washed air and collapsed his spine against the hospital's brick wall.
He re-taught himself to breathe.
Precious Instant; that flick-suck-ahh relief that marked the first deep draw on a fresh cigarette was interrupted by the shrill insistance of the hospital’s Sisyphus, who had paused in her task of pushing an empty wheelchair towards the entrance.
“Hey. You can’t smoke out here, you know. This is a hospital.”
Ruined.
“No shit it’s a hospital.” Jack murmured, burning cigarette bobbing between his lips as he spoke. “That’s why I need the nicotine.”
“Sir? I’m being serious. There is pure oxygen in there, it’s not safe. Do you want to blow us all up?”
He took a long drag to distract his tongue from the question.
Deep furrows formed in his brow as he exhaled, "Listen to me for a second. My wife just got ravaged by a bus going maybe 70 miles an hour. Do you understand? A big. Fucking. Bus fucked her right in the sedan.”
"Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but-"
“No, I’m not finished. My daughters - they’re six and four - are in a room with some quack doctor trying to figure out which little limb belongs where. Six and four, ok?" At some point he had begun conducting his own increasingly animated tirade with a cigarette baton.
“And this blonde bimbo bitch Angela Hines on channel 7 news is the only person who is telling me fucking anything about fucking anything that’s happened tonight! So, if you will kindly fuck the fuck off...!"
She had huffed her distaste and disappeared through the glass doors before Jack had finished.
“Dumpy old cunt. Next time my entire family goes critical I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.”
“Jack!”
He turned his head to find Randy rushing towards him. They pitched themselves into a tight embrace.
“God, Jack. I am so sorry. Have you heard anything? How are they doing?”
Jack grimaced as he drew away, “whose cologne?”
"What?" Randy was perplexed, but only for an instant. "Oh, that. Just this Italian I picked up recently. When I heard you on the answering machine, I just went, left him hanging in my apartment.”
“Oh.” The words had bounced, unheard, off of Jack’s ears and clattered flatly against the sidewalk. He was staring at the entrance, expecting his girls to break open the hospital doors at any moment, to jump into his arms squealing gaily over their bright, cartoon-plastered bandages.
Randy plugged a cigarette between his lips, grinning half-heartedly around it, weakly attempting to inject levity into the dour air. “Don't you know I’d brave more dire things than a case of blue balls and the possibility of coming home to Italian expletives smeared on my wall--.”
“Don't. Please don’t be funny right now.”
Randy shrugged and ushered in a stoic silence with the flick of a match.
Clocks ticked the sound of Jack’s pacing sneakers, the wet rasp of passing tires, the whispered sweep of the glass doors drawing themselves apart to exhale disease. The rain beat a continuous SOS on the building's overhang.
“So, you drove past...?” Jack asked, pausing briefly to address his friend.
Randy’s solemn nod told him that it’d be in his best interest to drop that particular line of questioning.
Jack pressed his hands into his short, dark curls and peered through the glass again. Inside the doors, a rotatory white coat spun madly among the constant rock and moan of the waiting room. Jack tensed as he caught sight of this; that doctor was looking for him. He dashed his cigarette and set the glass doors screaming open once again.
Under the burn of frosted-glass florescent pressed into a pocked and stained ceiling, the veins of Jack’s upturned wrists coursed malic blue. He rode the acid highways with his eyes and thought of stripping them; wrenching them from his skin like roots to be cast onto butchers' paper to drip dry.
Spine drawn away from the back of his seat, forearms capsized by defeat and resting on his thighs, Jack was still. He had found that sinking into the waiting room chair, being cradled in its sickly coral vinyl and cheap, gleaming wooden arms made him feel restless, cagey, too aware of where he was.
He lifted his weary head each time the emergency room’s swinging doors discharged, nostrils seared by a spew of stale, antiseptic air. Doctors dressed in funereal white burst forth with purpose; gunslingers into a saloon wielding charts and stethoscopes in lieu of pistols and whiskey.
Jack stretched his neck, strained his eyes each time he was allowed a glimpse into those bright, aseptic hallways. He imagined he heard the vesper bell of his wife flat-lining, a hospital-drama hexapsalm of dear God, dear God, we’ve lost her.
He wondered what they must look like behind those doors, tossed onto tables. His wife and daughters, rag dolls with stitched up smiles and shrapnel lodged in their pale throats. Snap shots of a gruesome dress-up game; Sadie, with her steering wheel necklace and a gleaming tiara of shattered windshield gilding her brow. Prudence, grinning wildly with a seatbelt pageant-sash burned into her chest and shards of glass where her teeth should be.
“...an end to the rain, and it looks like tomorrow is going to be an absolutely gorgeous, sunny day. Back to you, Suzanne.” mocked the wall mounted waiting room television.
“We’re looking forward to it, Moe.”
Fuck yourself, Moe.
The anchorwoman, nothing but flashing teeth, continued, “unfortunately, this storm didn’t pass without causing some pretty heavy damage. A deadly bus crash on 495 this evening has left at least four dead and several others critically injured. We’re going live to the scene. Angela?”
Jack lifted his bloodshot eyes scornfully to the screen. Flashing lights, crippled cars, and an overturned bus made up the grisly Hollywood backdrop for a pristine blonde reporter. Under the shadow of an umbrella, her eyebrows were tilted upward in a practiced expression of compassion but Jack knew, Jack knew that behind those sympathy-bright blue eyes scrolled a player-piano script of who’s dick did that horse-face suck to get anchor? and fuck you assholes for making me miss my date. Learn to fucking drive.
“Thanks, Suzanne. As you can see, the scene here is horrific...”
Oh, Angie. Oh, Angie, you have no earthly idea...
“...several people have already been taken to the hospital...”
A slow motion, atomic-bomb blink of her lacquered lashes sent reality spiraling away.
“We have our own channel 7 Action Jackson there live. Jack, can you tell us? Jack, can you tell us...” She tilted her head at him with a grim-reaper’s scythe slash of a smile. “...do you come grieving for the deceit of your marriage, Jack?”
Jack stared dry-eyed, rapt and horrified. The television pulsed, perspired, the bright reflection of the waiting room's interior oozing from the screen and bleeding down the white walls. Jack's shoulder blades were drying concrete, he breathed sand. Her voice dropped an octave as she turned to address him directly, index finger extended.
A frothing
“...one generation does not set another free, Jack. A god brings it to ruin and it has no deliverance, Jack...”
Greek chorus,
“...for now the light which was over the last root in the house of Oedipus...”
Groaning a disquisition on his very tragedy in verse,
“...has been cut down by the blood-stained knife of the gods below, by folly of word and a Fury in the mind.”
from behind her ugly apple-pie mask.
Jack’s fingers curled inward, his nails stung his palms. He detonated the set with laser vision, summoned black magic, telekinetic will to turn her off, turn her off, turn her fucking off.
“...and," the screen flickered, "of course, you’ll want to avoid the beltway if at all possible as things here are still...”
Jack had stopped listening, for a spoken-word funeral drum was pounding the walls of his skull; a distant, steadily crescendoing mantra of shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup as hazy, viscid and intangible as sweltry desert air. Jack sheltered himself against the impending collision, extinguished his senses by pressing his hands over his ears and compacting his eyelids.
Only when a nurse laid a stern hand on his shoulder and began to chide in tongues did Jack realize he’d been hearing his own voice.
“Jesus fuck!” inhaling sharply he jerked away from the nurse. He scrambled out of his chair and watched his shoes skate across the tile beneath them, patting himself down in desperate search of his crumpled soft pack as he neared the auto-open glass doors. He glanced up as they parted, just in time to miss his pale and plague-sunken reflection.
He stepped out into the rain-washed air and collapsed his spine against the hospital's brick wall.
He re-taught himself to breathe.
Precious Instant; that flick-suck-ahh relief that marked the first deep draw on a fresh cigarette was interrupted by the shrill insistance of the hospital’s Sisyphus, who had paused in her task of pushing an empty wheelchair towards the entrance.
“Hey. You can’t smoke out here, you know. This is a hospital.”
Ruined.
“No shit it’s a hospital.” Jack murmured, burning cigarette bobbing between his lips as he spoke. “That’s why I need the nicotine.”
“Sir? I’m being serious. There is pure oxygen in there, it’s not safe. Do you want to blow us all up?”
He took a long drag to distract his tongue from the question.
Deep furrows formed in his brow as he exhaled, "Listen to me for a second. My wife just got ravaged by a bus going maybe 70 miles an hour. Do you understand? A big. Fucking. Bus fucked her right in the sedan.”
"Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but-"
“No, I’m not finished. My daughters - they’re six and four - are in a room with some quack doctor trying to figure out which little limb belongs where. Six and four, ok?" At some point he had begun conducting his own increasingly animated tirade with a cigarette baton.
“And this blonde bimbo bitch Angela Hines on channel 7 news is the only person who is telling me fucking anything about fucking anything that’s happened tonight! So, if you will kindly fuck the fuck off...!"
She had huffed her distaste and disappeared through the glass doors before Jack had finished.
“Dumpy old cunt. Next time my entire family goes critical I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.”
“Jack!”
He turned his head to find Randy rushing towards him. They pitched themselves into a tight embrace.
“God, Jack. I am so sorry. Have you heard anything? How are they doing?”
Jack grimaced as he drew away, “whose cologne?”
"What?" Randy was perplexed, but only for an instant. "Oh, that. Just this Italian I picked up recently. When I heard you on the answering machine, I just went, left him hanging in my apartment.”
“Oh.” The words had bounced, unheard, off of Jack’s ears and clattered flatly against the sidewalk. He was staring at the entrance, expecting his girls to break open the hospital doors at any moment, to jump into his arms squealing gaily over their bright, cartoon-plastered bandages.
Randy plugged a cigarette between his lips, grinning half-heartedly around it, weakly attempting to inject levity into the dour air. “Don't you know I’d brave more dire things than a case of blue balls and the possibility of coming home to Italian expletives smeared on my wall--.”
“Don't. Please don’t be funny right now.”
Randy shrugged and ushered in a stoic silence with the flick of a match.
Clocks ticked the sound of Jack’s pacing sneakers, the wet rasp of passing tires, the whispered sweep of the glass doors drawing themselves apart to exhale disease. The rain beat a continuous SOS on the building's overhang.
“So, you drove past...?” Jack asked, pausing briefly to address his friend.
Randy’s solemn nod told him that it’d be in his best interest to drop that particular line of questioning.
Jack pressed his hands into his short, dark curls and peered through the glass again. Inside the doors, a rotatory white coat spun madly among the constant rock and moan of the waiting room. Jack tensed as he caught sight of this; that doctor was looking for him. He dashed his cigarette and set the glass doors screaming open once again.