Wetlands (12 page)

I don’t want her to see
me. The mop snakes softly around the floor. An animal that’s coming in my direction. I hold my breath. People always think their breathing will give them away. But that’s stupid. I normally breathe very quietly. She starts at the door and works her way past the front of the wardrobe, toward the bed. Snaking lines. Back and forth. I see her corral some crumbs and push them around. I notice some hair, long and dark, probably mine—who else’s?—just before the wet mop gets them. The mop also pushes dust bunnies. Those things that form when hair or splinters or lint tangle themselves up into little bird’s nests. She slowly mops until she reaches the metal nightstand. She’ll probably slide the mop under the bed; I grimace as I pull my legs up. She does. Good prediction. I see the handle lean on the bed now. She’s stopped mopping. There’s a metallic banging. She’s opened the chrome trash can on the nightstand.

“Bah.”

What does that mean? Bah. She must have seen the towels in the trash can. She shouldn’t look so closely. There’s nothing else I could have done with them.

I hear the drawer of my nightstand open.

No way. What is she doing in there? Get out! There’s nothing to clean in there—only something to steal. Money.

The drawer closes again. I’ll look to see what’s missing. That was a favorite game for us at home. In a wardrobe or on a table, my father would make us look away and then remove something. Then we’d have to figure out what was gone.

I’m good at it. Just you wait …

I look at the newly washed, still wet, glistening floor. She leaves footprints on the freshly mopped surface. Right. Of course. She did it wrong. No way. She started at the door and then tracked dirt right back over everything. When she leaves, everything will look dirtier than before. Maybe she’s new. I could tell her how to do it, just a little tip. I see her leaving footprints as she walks toward the door. But she pulls the mop behind her, snaking it back and forth. Footprints gone. All upset for no reason, Helen. Interesting technique.

She pulls the door closed behind her. I’ve already started to hoist myself up onto the bed.

As fast as the plug in my ass allows me, I circle the foot of the bed and go around to the metal nightstand.

I open the drawer and look and look. I realize nothing’s missing. It’s a great relief. It would be horrible if the cleaning woman were stealing from hospital patients. I would have to have registered a complaint and she would have probably lost her job.

So why did she open the drawer?

Maybe she just wants to see what people have. Maybe it’s a tick or a fetish of hers. You could also call it a hobby, I guess.

I’ll never know. Even if I asked her, I know she wouldn’t answer honestly. That’s just the way people are.

I would divulge my fetishes. But nobody asks me. Nobody thinks to.

I scrutinize the drawer once more. Think. But it’s true. Not even the smallest thing is missing.

I get back into bed and ring the emergency call button. A nurse comes in surprisingly quickly. I tell her the cleaning woman has just been here but that she didn’t notice a big puddle of water in the corner. I lie and say I spilled a glass of water. Very believable, Helen. Sometimes you’re strange. How is that supposed to have happened? Unless you purposefully dumped a full glass over there. The nurse doesn’t ask any questions or show any signs of suspicion—at least I don’t notice it if she does. And she calls the cleaning woman back into the room.

She comes in and opens her eyes wide with surprise because I’m suddenly there in bed. I hold the sheet in front of my wet, see-through shirt.

The nurse points behind the bed and explains in a nasty tone of voice—like a command, in exaggeratedly simple words—what the cleaning woman needs to do.

The nurse disappears through the magic door. Without asking, the cleaning woman shoves me and my sickbed away from the windowsill. It’s a nice feeling, like being on a flying carpet. Or rather, what you imagine it might be like on a flying carpet—they don’t exist, right? But I don’t let myself show the pleasure of the sensation. You’re supposed to be upset when someone just shoves you around in your bed as if you were an object or you were in a coma.

Unlike when I’m in a car, I’m very sensitive to turns and stops here. When she suddenly stops the bed after the two-yard drive, I nearly fall out. I let out a high-pitched cry. I always do that when something happens to me, good or bad. I scream loud. If I stumble over something I let out a major scream. Let it all out, that’s my motto—otherwise you’ll get cancer. I’m very loud in bed, too. I’m in bed now, of course. But this is different.

As I scream I can see the corner of the cleaning woman’s mouth twitch—upward, not downward. Ha. She’s taking pleasure in my misfortune. That pisses me off. I promise myself that if she’s ever in the hospital, lying there helpless, I’ll push her around like Aladdin and when she screams I’ll let the corner of my mouth turn up like that so she can see how it feels. I swear I will. Helen. Very impressive.

While I’m dreaming up my
One Thousand and One
Nights
revenge fantasy, she’s already set about cleaning up the puddle. She’s quick with the mop. She keeps moving it
over the same area in the form of the sign for infinity we learned in school, soaking up the water. A figure eight. Again and again.

Something suddenly occurs to me. My lungs, or my heart, or something else in there, makes a sickening jump. My gaze wanders up the radiator and there is my bloody wad. Oh no. Forgot about that. She hasn’t noticed it up to this point. The slots of the built-in radiator are probably not a main area of focus for her duties. I might get lucky and she’ll just swish around in the corner and never raise her eyes above the level of the mop. I try to calm my fears with this possibility. I really hope she doesn’t see the bloody wad. Funny how things can sometimes be excruciatingly embarrassing and other times perfectly okay. If she said “Bah” to the contents of my trash can, how will she react if she spots that? Please, don’t let that happen.

I say thanks and ask her to push me back toward the windowsill even though she still hasn’t stopped mopping up. She can just push me back like a patient in a wheelchair and then leave.

She leans the mop against the wall at the foot end of the bed. She grabs the rail that runs around my bed with her strong hands and rams me and the bed far too hard toward the window. Bam. It smacks into the wall and I scream again.

Yep, all her resentment over cleaning up after filthy patients packed into one motion.

She grabs the mop and heads out. Just before she closes the door behind her she says, “Funny—if the glass fell over, why is it sitting there full?”

My heart skips a beat again.

I look over at the metal nightstand and see the full glass of water. I’m terrible at making up fake explanations.

The time between when I hit upon the idea to masturbate in the corner and this moment feels like hours. Very stressful and not at all relaxing as I had imagined it would be.

I toss the bloody clump into the chrome trash can.

Don’t be disappointed. Your next self-fuck will be better, Helen.

I look around the room. Have you forgotten anything else you don’t want to reveal to others?

Nope, everything’s back in place, where it all belongs.

I just need to get out of this wet gown. Undress first and then ring the buzzer, or ring first and then undress? Helen? You wouldn’t be Helen if you were to ring first.

I take off my top and cover my breasts with the sheet. It feels nice. The crisp sheet against the skin of my chest. I wonder if the sheets are put through a heated roller press? Is that what it’s called? I always read the signs of laundromats as I go past. I know this cool feeling on my chest from home. Mom places a lot of importance on perfect linens. Only for me to sully them.

Now I ring the buzzer.

Please. Let it be Robin instead of somebody else.

Sometimes I get lucky. Robin comes in.

“What’s up, Helen?”

“Can I have a fresh gown?”

I hand him the wet one in a bundle and make sure the sheet slips down enough so he can catch a glimpse of both nipples.

“Of course. What happened? There wasn’t bleeding, was there?”

He’s worried about me. Amazing. After all he’s had to listen to from me. And to look at. I can’t believe it.

“No, no. No bleeding. I would tell you immediately if that happened. I tried to masturbate under the bed and I accidentally knocked over a glass of water and it spilled on me. Everything got wet.”

He laughs and shakes his head.

“Very funny, Helen. I get it. You don’t want to tell me what happened. I’ll get you a new one anyway. Be right back.”

In the short time it takes Robin to go to some cabinet somewhere and find a new tree-top angel outfit, I get bored and lonely. What to do? With one hand I push down the pedal that opens the chrome trash can on my nightstand and with the other I reach in. The homemade tampon’s no longer red from fresh blood but brown from old blood. I open
the Tupperware container on the other side of the bed and put the lump of bloody toilet paper in with the unused hygiene articles. I hope my bacteria multiplies and spreads in there and—invisible, as bacteria is—gets all over the gauze bandages and pads. The box is steamed up from sitting in the sun. For my purposes it has perfect petri-dish conditions. I’ll have to remember to get rid of it at some point. When I’m released, the next patient will be able to further my experiment by proving to me and the world that nothing bad happens when you use bandages with other people’s bacteria on them to stop the bleeding in your open wound. I’ll keep track of the experiment as a candy striper, knocking on the door, daily, and opening it at the same time, catching ass patients masturbating on the floor. You get to know people fast that way.

Robin comes back in.

He hands me the gown, smiling. I drop the sheet into my lap. I act as if it’s nothing to me for him to see me completely topless. I strike up a conversation, more to keep myself from losing my cool. I pull the gown over my arms and ask him to tie it in the back. He ties a little bow in back and says he has to get back to work. But he also says “unfortunately.”

He’s gone for a while and then there’s a knock at the door again. He must have forgotten something. Or he wants to tell me something. Please.

Nope. It’s my father. Surprise visit. I’ll never get the two of them in the room together at this rate. My parents, that is. If they come and go as they please without listening to the visit coordinator. My father has something strange in his hand.

“Hello, my daughter. How are you doing?”

“Hi, dad. Have you had a bowel movement?”

“You’re outrageous,” he says, laughing. I’m sure he can figure out why I’m asking him this question.

I put out my hand the way I always do when dad’s supposed to have something for me. He puts whatever it is he’s brought in my hand. Some strange thing made out of clear plastic.

“Is it a balloon? A gray balloon? Thanks, dad. I’m sure it’ll help me get well soon.”

“Open it. You’ve jumped the gun, my daughter.”

It looks like an uninflated neck pillow, but instead of being horseshoe-shaped it’s round, like a life preserver for really small people.

“Stumped? It’s a hemorrhoid pillow. So you can sit without it hurting. The sore part goes in the middle of the ring so it floats in the air. If it’s not touching anything, it can’t cause you pain.”

“Oh, thanks, dad.” He’s obviously spent a lot of time thinking about me in pain and wondering what he could do to help. My father has feelings. And feelings for me. Nice.

“Where can you buy such a thing, dad?”

“One of those stores that sells surgical equipment and health-care products and whatnot.”

“Aren’t they called medical-supply stores?”

“Yes, that sounds right. A medical-supply store.”

This is already a long conversation for us, given the circumstances.

I rip open the plastic wrap. And start to blow up the pillow ring. I guess lying around and imagining having sex with the nurse doesn’t make your lungs any stronger. After a few puffs I’m seeing stars in front of my eyes. I hand the pillow over to dad so he can finish the job.

I left an extra gob of spit on the inflation valve on my last puff. Dad puts it in his mouth without wiping it off. That’s the precursor to a French kiss. Wouldn’t it be considered that? I can definitely imagine having sex with my father. Years ago, when I was young and my parents still lived together, they would always walk naked to the bathroom in the morning. A thick club grew from my father’s groin. Even as a kid I was fascinated by it. They thought I didn’t notice. But I did. And how.

I didn’t know about morning wood back then. I only learned about that much later. Even after I was fucking boys I still thought for a long time that morning erection was because of me. It was a big disappointment to learn men have them to keep their piss from running out. Major disappointment.

I watch my father blowing up the pillow and have to laugh. The way he’s concentrating so seriously and putting his all into it reminds me of earlier times. We were on vacation at the beach and he blew up a bunch of huge inflatable animals and air mattresses for me and my brother—he was completely exhausted. That’s fatherly love. He was also supposed to put sunscreen on my back to protect me from getting burned. I rubbed it onto all the places I could reach by myself. I never got burned in those places. But my back, which my father was responsible for, was always burned. Sometimes really badly. When I would look at my sunburned back in the mirror in the evening, I could tell dad had done a lazy job. There was a big white question mark on my back, and everything else was fiery red. He had obviously squirted a blob of sunscreen into his hand and just made a quick arc across my back and called it a day. I always thought it took him far too little time. So much for fatherly love. Maybe he was just too depleted from blowing up all those inflatable toys to be able to properly cover me with sunscreen. Maybe it was just too much to ask for. Probably. I do that all the time. Ask for too much.