Surreal Ecstasy (8 page)

"Are you freaking kidding me?"
I didn't know whether to burst out crying or laugh crazily. "I could get
her ass fired." Despite the negativity of my words, I suddenly felt
comfortable around her. At work I was never in her direct presence for more
than a minute, but right now, it felt like I've known her for years. Like I
could be rude, polite, talk about art history, or pass gas and it would all be
equally acceptable to her. I instantly felt a pang of guilt for thinking evil
thoughts about her, especially without bothering to get to know her.

"You could. But who would fill
dem bitchy shoes? Who can we possibly get that can simultaneously file her
nails, gossip about her employees,
and
play Farmville all day? That
takes talent and skill, you know. She had months of extensive training of
sitting on her fat ass and cackling like a witch."

I laughed—my first genuine laugh
since I'd been hospitalized. I saw Erica outside in the hallway, headed towards
my door. She wasn't easy to miss with that damned perfect blonde hair. She
poked her head in the doorway, smiling. "Ah! I see you have a visitor,"
she chirped cheerfully. I groaned with mild embarrassment. Oblivious (or
seemingly so), Erica closed the door again and continued down the hall.

Dess bit her lip as she tore her
eyes away from the hallway. "I'm the only visitor you've had, aren't I?"

"Is it that obvious?" I
sighed quietly.

She said nothing but sort of smiled
and bit down on her lip again. I was starting to see that it was her go-to move
when she needed to pause or think. Then she took a breath, leaned forward and
said, "It's none of my business, but I could tell."

"Huh? What are you talking
about?" I had a sinking feeling I knew
exactly
what she was getting
at. Without thinking, I shoved my right arm underneath the paper blanket. Part
of me wanted this conversation to end right here, right now. But a small voice
in my head told me that if I ever wanted to have a friend—a real friend—I would
have to deal with the ugliness of my life situations.

She blinked slowly and sighed
quietly. Then she looked directly in my eyes and said, "What that fucker
does to you. Has
been
doing to you."

I looked down toward the bed rail
on my right. I took a breath through my nose so deep, my shoulders rose and
fell.

"You don't have to say
anything," Dess continued gently, placing a timid hand on my bed's edge. "I
know the signs." She stopped and scoffed. "I know them too well."
A hard look graced her face for a moment, which confused me. Her husband
certainly didn't look the violent type. In the next instant, she was focused on
me again, the serious expression gone. She offered me a small smile and pulled
forward a chair that was next to the door, settling down in it. "I just
hope you left him," she added softly yet clearly.

I nodded before I began speaking. "I'm
trying," I said noncommittally. "It's a long story."

"I'm sure it is," she
agreed. "Just—you know—Don't feel alone. Okay? I know it's easy to think
you are, but…"

"Well… thanks, Dess. That's
really nice of you. It's just… we don't really know each other too well."

"Best part about it. Who cares
what a ruffian such as myself thinks about you?" She folded her arms
casually at the foot of my bed, smiling fully now, flashing a brilliant set of
teeth.

"Roofie-ann? What the hell is
that?"

"A badass. A gangta. Someone
like me, you know."

"Um… I'm looking at you now
and… sorry, Dess, although you don't look like everyone else, you certainly don't
look like a badass, gangta, or a roughie-ann."

She threw her head back and
laughed. "Ruffian," she corrected. "And you're right. My ass isn't
really that bad at all. It's a good ass," she added, winking. I laughed as
she continued. "People think that about me, though, so I'm used to it.
Kinda adopted the persona just to shut up the onlookers, you know?"

 "That doesn't make sense. You
just said you weren't really a ruffle-man or whatever the hell it is. So how
could you adopt the persona?"

 "Ruffian," she corrected
again, then considered and nodded. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that
when people think horrid things about me, I stand there and let them. You can
tell when they do it, too—they look at me like I stepped out of a B movie gone horribly
wrong."

"Don't you get pissed?" I
asked her before taking a sip of water from my plastic cup.

"I used to. I used to give
them dirty looks, especially the kids. Then one day I realized that there will
always be someone who would have a problem with what I look like, or how I act.
Conservative people think I'm an alien. Teenagers think I'm an uptight prude.
No matter how I decide to carry myself, there will be someone on this Earth who
will have a problem with me. Basically, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

"So what would be the point,
then? In caring about how they look at me? In worrying about offending someone
if I wear a particular piece of clothing? By being overly-conscientious about
all this, I was creating my own prison—a prison up here." She tapped her
temple.

She leaned forward and rested her
arms on her knees, clasping her hands together. "I figure, if people are
going to talk about me, I might as well be free to do what I really want with
my life." She paused and looked off in the distance.

I studied Dess momentarily, amazed
at her strength and fervor.

She noticed my distraction and
smiled. "What?"

I shook my head nonchalantly. "Nothing…
nothing." I was too embarrassed to say,
You're amazing. I wish I could
be like you.

She gave me what must have been a
knowing look. "You sure?"

"Yeah, ruffle-man. I'm sure."

She threw her head back and
laughed. "Sure. I'm ruffle-man, and you're Morgue. Hmm. I like that.
Morgue. It fits, somehow."

I threw out another giggle. "I'm
not sure it's appropriate. I'm not dead, you know."

Still leaning forward, she looked
up at me, her eyes registering surprise and pensiveness at the same time. Then,
in a grave tone, she said, "Morgan…"

"What?"

Her almond-shaped eyes darted
around the room as her mouth stood open and silent. Finally finding her voice,
she said, "I have something to tell you."

A knock on my closed door made us
both jump. Before I could react, Dr. Hearse was in my room, head hunched over
the clipboard that he was carrying. "Hi, Morgan, I'm just here to see how
you're feel—" He stopped short when he picked his head up and saw a cute
girl sitting in one of the chairs. His eyes grew big as he focused on her. "Oh.
I apologize. I didn't realize you had comp-"

 "My name is Dess," she
interrupted, facing the psychiatrist but otherwise not moving. "Before you
jump to all kinds of conclusions, yes, I'm a lesbian, but no, I'm not her
girlfriend. I am her only means of moral support, but that's all I'm going to
say on the subject because that's Morgan's personal business."

What? Dess was gay?

My mind whirled with that
information. Not because it mattered what she did in her private life, but
because…of
him
.

So…the man who used to pick her up
was…what, an old friend maybe? Were their similar last names a coincidence?
Rios wasn't exactly a unique last name, not around here, anyway.

My heart pounded and my spirits
lifted a little, thinking of the possibility that the beautiful man I'd been so
obsessed with lately could be…available.

How could I ask her about him so
that I would know for sure?

What would be the point, though? Do
I dare dream? I tuned back in to what was happening around me.

Dr. Hearse looked as if he were
bitch-slapped several times in a row. He appeared taken aback, but seemed to
recover quickly, his eyes still watching Dess, a look of admiration on his
face. "Well, hello there, Dess," he said politely, extending out his
hand to her.

She took it without hesitation,
giving him an 'I-approve-of-you-being-here-but-don't-push-your-luck' look as they
shook hands. Then she dropped his hand and went back to clasping her hands
together across her knees, focusing her attention back on me.

"I'm Dr. Hirsch," he
added without flair, talking to the back of Dess' head.

She turned to face him again long
enough to tell him, "How do you do, Dr. Hearse?"

I burst out laughing. The doc even
smiled a bit. Before Dess could ask, I revealed how I call him that very same
name.

She merely shrugged in response. "Hearse
is better."

"That's what
I
said!"
I shouted happily.

"I'm a psychiatrist at this
hospital," Dr. Hearse went on. Wow. He was really trying to impress her,
or something.

"I guessed that," Dess
replied in a tone that was not only pretty rude but suggested that any moron
would have been aware of that.

Another second of silence. Dr.
Hearse cleared his throat quickly, turning to me and saying, "Well,
Morgan, I was stopping by to see if you wanted to have that chat with me. It's
pretty important, you know, for your—"

"No!" Dess murmured in
that same rude tone, putting her flattened palm out to him in a universal 'stop'
symbol. "She's not going to do that now. Visitor's hours are almost over
and I don't think you should take up any of
my
time doing whatever the
hell you gotta do."

Clearing his throat again, looking
back and forth from Dess to me—clearly embarrassed—he nodded quickly and left
my room, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible.

"Wow. You do
not
like
that man," I told her.

She visibly relaxed, her shoulders
sagging in. "I don't like guys like that," she said obscurely. "They
evaluate you and say that if you don't think exactly the way they do, you
suffer from some sort of delusional distress and must take daily medication to
assimilate to the masses."

I replayed what she said in my
head, nodding in agreement after it all sunk in. "How did you know he was
a psychiatrist?"

"I know people. That's all."
Dess scoffed and shook her head.

"So, you had something you
wanted to tell me?" I prompted, choosing to ignore her sexuality
declaration just moments ago. I so wanted to ask her about the guy—her possible
brother—but something told me I needed to pay attention to what she was going
to say instead.

"Yes," she agreed in a
relieved tone. "Morgan," she said, standing up and walking closer to
my railed bedside, "I'm from the God Generation, and I need your help."

Chapter 6

That's not something you hear
everyday. Especially since I had no idea what it meant.

But Friend had said that phrase to
me in one of my dreams. Hadn't he? What did he say about it? I tried to
remember, but as I looked at Dess, I realized she was waiting for my response.

I nodded and smiled slowly, giving
her an 'I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about-but-I-respect-you-enough-to-not-make-fun-of-you'
look.

Dess gave a brief, sincere chuckle,
sitting back down on her chair but not before pulling it closer to where she
had been standing. "Look," she began, her voice sounding friendlier
than the words she chose, "I don't have a lot of time to explain. I'm
telling you because I need your help. I can't figure this out alone."

"Well, what does it mean? What's
a God Generation? Is that like one of those people who feel they can do
whatever they want?"

"No, that's a god
complex
.
A little different. I'm pretty sure you've never heard of the God Generation
before."

I paused. "No, Dess, I…"

She had been looking down at the
floor, but her head snapped up to look at me. "You know something. Tell me
what it is." Her eyes shone with excitement.

"No. I don't know anything,
really." I laughed in spite of myself, and looked into space, trying to
remember what Friend told me. "It's just… I… he… someone told me something
possibly relevant not too long ago. It was a dream, and I didn't understand it…"

"Ohmigod! It was your angel.
Your guardian angel warned you, right? She told you I was coming, didn't she?
Tell me everything!"

"How—? But it wasn't a 'she.' 
It was a 'he.'"

"Okay, well, what did
he
say? It doesn't sound as crazy as you think it does, Morgue. You've gotta
believe me."

I pulled out whatever meager memories
from that dream I could. It was mentally straining. "He said you were odd,
but a… jewel?"

She threw her head back and
laughed. "Odd," she said, clearly amused. "He doesn't even know
me."

I was getting impatient with not
understanding, not being able to put the pieces together. "Dess… can you
explain this all to me, please?"

She smiled again, studying the
palms of her hands as if they would give her a clue about how to finish this
conversation with me. "We're low on time so I'll give you the cliff-notes
version, and you can try to commit me later. I first heard of the God
Generation from my family and other people from L.A. I was a god in a past life
and don't know anything much about it. I think there are others like me out
there, and that there are people that can help us—people like you."

A god. In a past life. Sure.
Cuckoo-Land, here we come. Right after we stop in Dr. Hearse's office. Briefly,
I wondered how I'd be able to slip him a note without Dess seeing me, one that
said
I'm being held hostage by a muttering crazy chick. Please help, and get
out a strai
t jacket
!

"What? What are you talking
about, Dess? I mean, first of all, how do you even know you were a god in a
past life? What god could you possibly have been? Secondly, why me? How do you
think I can help you?"