Bogeywoman (21 page)

“Cheese,” I said, staring hard at the floor for this lie, “you don’t look
that
different from Foofer. You’re both old.” There, that shut her up. I stole a glance at her. Her crackly old lips were pursed. But then I had to come crawling back or maybe lose her altogether. “Course, you do got sumpm on Foofer. A little sumpm that everybody needs every once in a while. I mean a little of, er, uh, la beauté. Not much,” I added carefully, “but that’s what I need, some old person who’s got la beauté. Some old person to talk to who’s got la beauté like, like a piece of the lost chunkagunk, so I can stand to live to be old—cause what the hump, maybe, just maybe, I’ll turn out to be her not me.”

“The lost—excuse me, what it is?” Like I said, Doctor Zuk had a thousand cracks around her lips—she was beautiful but she looked maybe forty fifty years old—and they all cracked deeper on contact with the lost chunkagunk. “You have make up this word?” “Not exactly,” I said. “
Choleria
, English already has water from seventy-two valleys,” she muttered, “how I will learn if patients make up words as they go …”

“All I mean is, that’s why I need you instead of Foofer. Cause he reminds me of a fart, his walk is a fart for instance, his itchy brown suit is all puffy with hot farts and, and—” (Doctor Zuk’s face turned oddly stony and I saw she was getting disgusted with me) “—and farts are good, you need farts I know but I already got plenty of farts,” I hurried on weakly. “Enough,” she cut me off, “I am not interested to hear insults of Dr. Feuffer. These are matters to talk to Dr. Feuffer himself.” “But, see, you remind me of … of a silver weasel, which is sumpm I don’t have and never was …”
“Weasel,”
she said suspiciously, “please explain me what is
weasel
?”

This time I thought I knew my way through the woods. “It’s an animal, their spines are very elastic, you notice that right away. They look long on account of their backs though none of em are all that big—and they always seem like girlgoyles to me probably cause they’re so graceful and agile, but they’re ferocious. Give her a chance, a weasel kills lots more than she could ever eat—like the wood wizardess used to say,
A weasel is a catastrophe in a henhouse!
”—(this had gone all wrong; I could see I had better say sumpm to fix it)—“and—and she has a really nice coat—that turns silver in the winter.”

After a time Zuk said drily: “Is possibly true I am, what you say, catastrophe in henhouse.” “Don’t worry,” I said, sweating, “plenty of henhouses need a catastrophe.” “And who is, excuse me, wood wizardess?” “Course you wouldn’t know the wood wizardess—the greatest tracker of all time, Willis Marie Bundgus,” I cleared my throat, for somehow this name alone didn’t sound sufficient to her greatness, “of, er, Millinocket Falls, Maine.” Doctor Zuk acknowledged her fame—a slight bow with the chin—and then I saw to my amazement a faint twitch in the pond-green irises—could she be … jealous?

“So you want me for psychiatrist—and weasel.” She smiled a little coldly. “Have you never thought maybe the right one to ask for this, even if you don’t like—is Dr. Feuffer?” “I can’t believe you’re still trying to get me to talk to that old fart.” “Listen and maybe you understand, little bird with big mouth. Why I should care if you talk to Dr. Feuffer, if you don’t care? Now I make advice to you because you are grown-up woman. First you will have big problem because you are run away and cut your arms again. Big problem, but even big problem will pass. Then, if is something you want, talk to Feuffer, give him that—you want go back to school? You want neighborhood pass? city-solo? You want me for psychiatrist? This place is howyousay pushover for intelligent nut like you.”

My heart was thudding cause now I saw she wanted me for a patient. “I don’t know,” I said, “they might throw me outa the Bug Motels …” “That is rubbish and you know is rubbish.” “Anyhow I already talked to Foofer,” I hastened to add, “I’ve said around, lemme see, two hundred words to Foofer by now—depends if you count
hello good bye
as two words or three. Once he said: Ursie, I don’t think you like yourself much. I thought that was pretty smart. Hey, he’s not such a farty old fart after all, that was my first idea, but then I realized godzillas sake you could say that to anybody in the whole rotten bughouse or even the whole world and it would be true. If that’s all there is to being a dreambox mechanic, sign me up.”

“You are saying you would like to be a psychiatrist?” I stared at her. I had never thought of this possibility before, somehow I figured once you landed in the bughouse that disqualified you from ever running the dump, but suddenly I saw it in a different light, like rising to royalty the democratic way, from the bughouse up: “Cheese, why not? I guess so. Sure,” I said.

“Why you would like to be psychiatrist?” “It isn’t exactly that,” I said. “It’s more like—I’d like to be a particular dreambox mechanic. You. I’d like to be you.” “Ah.” I saw the light shift in her eyes, another backswimmer’s twitch in the green pond scum, and then—nothing—the pond froze over, just like that. “We see about that,” she said, “when I am your psychiatrist and sit many hours in front of you and say you what I think, soon I will not be cute weasel anymore, this I promise you.” I looked down at my feet, for certainly this much was true: already she was not as beautiful on her horse as she once had been, she had come down a great way already, or she would not be sitting here throwing her time away on the likes of me.

Had I lost her? She was staring over my head into the night sky as if she were bored, and suddenly she got up, looked at her watch and went to her desk. Had the end already come? Had she become my dreambox mechanic and quit the job again before I ever knew she was mine? In truth I couldn’t even be sure she was a dreambox mechanic. Maybe she was a reporter, or a novelist, or a commissar on mission from some foreign country that was just whipping up bughouses of its own. In which case she was probably that backward land’s most eminent dreambox mechanic, a sort of gypsy queen of the mind—that sounded right, yes, I was sure I’d hit it. “Just tell me one thing, Doctor Zuk, are you a bigwheel dreambox mechanic in Outer Hotzeplotz or what?” I blurted.

With every word she was further away from me. She picked up a pair of tortoiseshell glasses from her desk and balanced them halfway down her nose. “Why it matters for you to know this?” she said coldly. “Already you have foolishly asked me to be your psychiatrist. Now is too late to ask for resume.” “You mean you’re gonna be my dreambox mechanic?” “Come now,
Miss Bogeywoman. You know is quite impossible. You have psychiatrist. You have heard of patient changing one psychiatrist for other like used hospital pajama?” “But I’ll see you, won’t I?” She peered at me over the tops of her glasses as if I were very small print. I wanted to swallow myself for asking another bald-headed question, since I knew she never answered one. She stared at me until a cold beam of fear settled in my gizzard—I could tell she was sick to death of me—but in my rotten hand I found one more ace to play.

“I’ll talk to Foofer,” I said. “Is capital idea,” she said, with a tiny grimace of satisfaction. “And pretend he’s you,” I added. Doctor Zuk very slightly colored. At the time I was too green—too inex-spare-inced, as Chug had correctly put it—to know how often mismatched lovers employ that plan, but I sensed that I had struck a nerve. I was frightened to say anything more, and at first Doctor Zuk too was silent. She did not smile but finally she raised a finger whose fingernail, like mine, was bitten to the quick. “Why not?” she sighed. “As people like to say in old country where I come from, when water cannot be found, washing with dirt is permitted. I wish you luck of it.” And she gave me a little nod, then picked up a paper on her desk.

Uneasily I discerned that the interview was at an end, that she was finished with me, wished me out of her sight, in fact, but she didn’t dismiss me. Why not? I thought of backing out the door, remembered that telltale gnash of hardware. I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself by rattling a locked door. But maybe I could hurl myself right through it—that would wake her up. I glanced at it—never mind—ugly arms were one thing, I wasn’t gonna bust my dreambox by bouncing it off a steel plate. My eye fell on the bronze mukluks and all at once I knew, don’t ask me how I knew, she had worn them herself.

There came a knock. I heard a key scrape round the barrel, the door opened a little and Miss Roper and Miss Hageboom put their long faces in the crack. At once I snapped to the whole operation. “Dr. Feuffer is ready for her now,” Miss Roper rat-nibbled. “You were just keeping me busy!” I shouted at Zuk, “I hate your guts!” Doctor Zuk smiled. “Poor poor Miss Bogeywoman,” she said with an odd lilt. “Down there on rocky beach like orphan that seven seas vomit up. Is true no one in wide world wants you? Sob! sob!” “Liar. You like me whether you admit it or not,” I said, “I can tell.” She laughed. “Of course I like you. I even write book about you—
My Kid Was Teenage Frankenstein
—maybe you like to read?” Then she stepped out of the way and watched the two nurses lead me out, each buzzarding an arm.

East Five was the mirror image of East Six, with one big difference: it was uninhabited. Or so it looked on its steely face. O there were loonies there all right, maybe on the average loonier loons than any of the Bug Motels, but they were hidden behind locked doors most of the time, just like me. The rooms were quietrooms. No ping-pong balls flew.

Now that I had lost the society of the better-than-nothing Bug Motels, I noticed, sister Margaret, how cleanly you had deserted me. And for that blueblack-mustachioed horse trainer, yet!—Tod Novio, Boyfriend Death, the scary hustler with torn silk shirts and English boots, rugged neck and squeaky voice, face like a charming rake in a Classic Comic. I radioed you, for want of other conversation.
Hey Margaret, here’s the latest: The
lamebrain dreambox mechanics think I tried to off myself and now look where I am, in a quietroom on Semi-Suicidal Observation. Or is it Suicidal Semi-Observation? Either way the fun has gone out of this place, and where the hump are you when I need you Margaret
, I radioed you via the radio crystal in my posterior nose bulb.
Come get me get me get me outa here, forget that fuddy libertine and get me outa here Margaret
. When the medications cart rolled by me and my keeper Gloria, I palmed a little pleated dixie cup with a green pill in it. The green pill I let bounce off across the floor, and back in my quietroom I tried to cry into my paper cup, no luck. Finally I spit and spit in it until it was full, and in the exact center of the padded floor I poured a slimy libation.
Come to me come to me get me outa here. Margaret!
You were always easy to radio—but now who knew? That fuddy racetrack tout had captured your tower.

Anyhow for me, for now, the dinky old school bus was over—o well it was summer anyway—and likewise I was missing the latest caper of the Bug Motels, which, I reflected sadly, was going to be its best ever. We were starting up a Rohring Rohring rock band with one hundred percent medical instruments, I mean we were about to execute the real, original mission of the Bug Motels—to play bughouse music. We weren’t going to dress in matching sequined uniforms, either, even supposing we could get em in this dump. Though of course we practiced kicking together like the Four Tops, we saw a band as a loose confederation of eternally solo flirters with dementia. In that, we were before our time. The first stage, already under way, was junking around the hospital for anything loose. Next we would whip up five sonorous contraptions of medical parts and work on our numbers, each one starring a different Bug Motel. Then one of these days we’d give a bughouse concert.

But a bughouse band never stays the same or it rots: now one Bug Motel was in the burn unit swathed head to foot in whatever miracle wrap they roll you in after you try to barbecue yourself. And another Bug Motel was on ice in a quietroom—stuck in Suicidal Semi-Observation. The Bug Motels still had their mastermind Bertie, and Dion, and O. But how far could they get without the Bogeywoman for muscle? or Emily loyal-to-the-death-by-starvation for guts?

So here I found myself and was it queer or what, to pace the exact same layout that was in a warped sort of way home to me, only deserted, as though every other member of the Bug Motels had died and gone to a worse place. For that’s what I did for exercise and pastime, whenever they let me—paced the green linoleum halls, past rows of green steel doors, day and night. I had a sort of itch: just keep moving it said and I did. At first I had to have a nurse’s aide with me all the time. Gloria dragged behind, grumbled about her feet, twisted her fingers in the back of my hospital gown and rode me like a hand puppet. She was short and slow, with the build of a sumo wrestler. “I ain’t took this job so I can wear my stems to stumps,” she panted, “hold up, ants-in-you-pants, this ain’t the infantry.” “I can walk by myself,” I told her, “what am I going to do? tear down the walls with my fingernails?”—because the halls were gleaming nude, no furniture, no pictures, no knobs rails hooks sticking out, no nothing. Even the nurses’ station was wrapped in chicken wire, the chicken wire in turn sealed up in (probably) bulletproof glass, everything slick as the glass mountain. “You mine your bidniss, I mine mine,” Gloria huffed and puffed and kept up with me as near as she could, or yanked me backwards when she couldn’t take it anymore.