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The Ward Page 2


  “I gotta go back. One minute, Baby, one minute.” Ben tiptoed in an exaggerated fashion over to the door and quietly let himself out.

  Keeping his hand on the door, once in the hallway he rotated the knob back into position, not allowing the latch to snap or anything like that.

  True to his word, he was right back. He snapped a can and handed it to her.

  “Sorry, Baby, all they had was Pepsi.”

  She took it, looking at him with wide eyes over the top as she sipped it.

  Rene had the insulated covers off their trays. Her room was neat as a pin, not like his, which was strictly temporary…he hoped. She had flowers by the window, in a clear green glass jug. She changed the water every day. Rene had lovely embroidered towels from home, in the bathroom, and a TV up high on the tall dresser at the end of her bed.

  Ben reveled in getting her to agree to this. Rene was terribly naive and had led an extremely sheltered life. She had been in here for the last six years, after one or two previous episodes. Apparently her mother called once a week, usually on a Sunday night. She had one or two sisters that called sometimes, and a brother that never did.

  She didn’t seem lonely. Ben desperately needed to get out. She didn’t seem particularly unhappy here. If anything, the reverse was true. She’d adapted too well, and that spoke of something. As for himself, Ben had hated every minute of every day right up until he started talking to Rene.

  That very adaptability, that malleability, might be her strength. He would have to go carefully, though. He went around behind the high, narrow bed and sat on his left hip, back to the wall so he could see the TV.

  “Oh, boy.” He set the lid aside. “Lasagna.”

  There were the usual plastic forks and little things in cellophane packages…a roll, hard as a rock and a pat of butter. Two slices of limp, dark green lettuce and a paper-thin slice of the usual flavourless tomato. Four ounces of milk in a waxed container was their idea of a beverage. He looked up at Rene.

  She was watching Jeopardy, perched on the other side of the bed. A chunk of her dinner clung dubiously to her fork and she was unaware of it.

  “Honey…your dinner.”

  She looked back at him, looked down at her fork and then absently put it in her mouth, eyes inevitably drawn back to the TV set. Whatever had been bothering her earlier must have been forgotten.

  Rene, with her fine eyebrows, crystalline blue eyes and that pale, silky blonde hair, looked devastatingly beautiful. The moment he first laid eyes on her, he wanted to know her, to know who that girl was. He wanted to speak to her.

  Not that that didn’t happen fairly often of course, but this one was different.

  This one was very different.

  Ben seemed to fall in and out of love on a regular basis. He could admit to himself in a private moment that he was promiscuous with his affections. But they were only affections. That was because nothing ever came of it.

  Somehow he had found the guts to talk to this beautiful girl, only to discover the mind of a rabbit or a lamb or something, and a kind of vulnerability he had never quite seen before.

  It didn’t take too long to realize she wasn’t quite normal, whatever that meant. There were some pieces missing, or more likely carefully squirreled away somewhere safe. He was familiar enough with the illnesses he saw all around him. She didn’t fit into any neat pigeonholes.

  It didn’t take too long before he realized it was happening again. Ben was in love—and this time the lady in question wasn’t the usual sort. She wasn’t to be listed among the unattainable, and meant only to dream about, and think about, and long for hopelessly like a puppy.

  This time he was in love, real love, with some girl who was actually there, on hand, and not just an airbrushed image on TV or on the cover of some glossy magazine.

  If only he could have escaped—gotten her out of his mind, and moved on. But of course he was stuck here just as she was.

  She was the most beautiful woman in the world to Ben. Not that he knew all that much about the world.

  Ben knew he was sunk, of course. After a while the realization came. She twitched a bit, turned and gave him a radiant smile, and picked at her food for a moment.

  Her shift was climbing and it had exposed a lovely knee. Ben wanted to kiss that knee so bad.

  It would be too much for her. She needed to trust him implicitly before anything like that could happen.

  She made the hospital gown-thing look good. He wore his backwards, more like a housecoat, but Rene tied hers up at the back like a good little patient. The staff had given up on talking to Ben about his housecoat, the whole subject of personal modesty, and the fact that it was a mixed group.

  Rene’s breasts were high, small but not too small—just nice, and she had good shoulders. She carried herself with an unconscious grace. She wasn’t down on herself or anything like that.

  Comfortable with her existence and her fate, she needed a gentle shaking. She needed to see other possibilities.

  He was only going to be so patient on that score, but he wasn’t going to push too hard either.

  She would be ready when she was ready and not a moment sooner. Rene might be more resilient than she looked. He wanted it to be right for her. He already knew it was all right with him. No matter how insistent that urge became, he must not damage her. Rene was already damaged enough.

  So was he. He was already damaged—and Ben had caused enough damage in his own right. So much so that he did not want to cause any more. That was a promise to himself, and a secret from her or anybody. She wouldn’t understand that part. No one would. No one else could. She wasn’t unique in that. She didn’t need to know what she didn’t understand. He had that figured out. If you can’t explain it, then don’t.

  He had something serious to discuss with Rene. But all that could wait until after dinner. The trouble was they had never tried to talk of anything really serious before. He had no idea of how it would go.

  For the moment, he was content just to be with her. The traffic noises were light and far away up on this floor. Her curtains were open, although it was dark outside, and the lights of the town spread away below them.

  Somewhere out there, down below, was a fourteen year-old boy with a telescope, he thought morosely. Staring at that window, all through the night, waiting, hoping, praying that she would walk by that window.

  Ben wasn’t judging anyone. Snorting gently, he examined her but she was caught up in the show, which had reached a climactic moment.

  Rene liked her jell-o, and he smiled at her pleasure. He could take it or leave it himself, but it was probably better to eat everything they put on your plate. It’s not like you could just go to the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich anytime you wanted. His heart ached. What a completely different, completely dependent world they now lived in. It wasn’t right for him, he knew that much. He thought of Rene and her life so far. How could she remain untouched by it? It simply wasn’t possible.

  God knew his own perceptions were hard to manage sometimes. Maybe she just blocked them out, and lived in a cottony-soft dream world. In the process Rene had become a little bit simple herself. She was insulated from reality in a way Ben had never seen before, and so he couldn’t even really conceive of it. She had her meds, names and formulations he had looked up on the one and only accessible computer in the place. People used it to play solitaire and he’d snuck in after official hours or he never would have gotten a crack at it.

  “So what did you want to tell me?” She looked happy in that moment.

  His heart ached at the sight.

  The time had come. He had to be strong for both of them. She wouldn’t understand and wasn’t all that capable anyway. He must keep it light and cheerful.

  “I have a board exam on Monday. This time I think they’re going to let me out.”

  “Oh, Ben.” The heart-stricken look she gave, and the sudden gasp as she scurried across the bed, and the way she clung to him, pretty mu
ch said it all. It was almost more than he could handle.

  What a wonderful feeling. What a terrible feeling at one and the same time.

  Ben held her closely and tried to think about basketball.

  Scene Two

  The phone rang.

  Rene looked at it. It wasn’t Sunday night.

  She hadn’t been eating very much lately. They would be worried about her. But since they never called, how would they ever know?

  The phone rang.

  Her sister Mary had called yesterday. No, two days ago. Maybe three. Sue had called a week ago. She couldn’t think of anyone else who might call.

  The phone rang.

  Her pulse picked up a little. Usually, if one of her sisters called unexpectedly, it was some kind of emergency. Like when her Aunt Isobel died.

  The phone rang.

  Crazy old Mrs. Beck in the next room would be having a fit right about now. No one ever called her. She had to sit there and listen to it ringing. She hated that. But she should be at dinner now.

  The phone rang.

  Rene took a deep breath. She stared at it, and looked at the clock. Her hand moved, almost as in a dream.

  The phone rang.

  “He-hello?”

  “Hi, Baby, how ya doin’?”

  “Ben!”

  “Yeah, Baby, who did you think it was? What, you got another boyfriend already?”

  “Hi, Ben! Oh, Ben.”

  “So how are you doing, Rene?”

  She stared wildly at the back of the door.

  She stared at the window. She stared at the TV set. There were no answers anywhere.

  “I—I—I’m all right.” She hadn’t seen Ben in three whole days, not since they booted him out which was what some people said around there.

  She wondered where he was. She was so sad to see him go. She missed Ben terribly.

  “Good.”

  She clung to the phone, holding it tight to her head so as not to miss a thing. Loud voices moved past her door and down to the open wards at the end of the hall.

  “Ben? Ben! Are you there?”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that.” She heard murmuring and muttering sounds over the phone.

  He came right back.

  “Mister Sullivan is letting me in.”

  “Who—Mister Sullivan?” The security guard?

  Her mouth dropped open. Ben was here to visit her?

  She was lucky to get a visitor once a month, plus Christmas, birthday and holidays.

  “Okay, hang up, Baby. I’ll be there in a minute. I’ve got a little treat for you.”

  “What? A treat?”

  He could imagine her look.

  “Do you like Micky-D’s?”

  She didn’t even have to think about that one. Her eyes lit up and she began to speak.

  But Ben was already at the door.

  ***

  “Oh…my, God. Oh, that’s good.” Sitting cross-legged on the bed, face to face with Ben on the foot of it, she slumped through the middle.

  She chewed in sheer bliss. Not even really hungry one minute, and now this, fully sated.

  “I forgot how good it was.” Her sister had taken her out for Micky-D’s a few months ago, which was a fairly long time when every day was the same.

  “Everything is so bland in here. You tend to forget what real food tastes like.”

  “Whew. I’ll say.” Rene looked in the bottom of the French fry box and pulled out the last two crunchy brown ones, laden with sparkling grains of salt. “Oh, my, Ben. Whatever possessed you?”

  “You possessed me.” It just slipped out, a line he could be proud of perhaps.

  She gagged a bit on something going down and then waved her hand in front of her mouth as if to get more oxygen.

  “Ben.”

  “Rene.”

  She smiled impishly, and they exchanged a long look. Ben let it go on as Rene’s smile faded and the girl searched his face, looking for new meanings.

  Her mouth closed.

  “It’s okay, Rene. I understand.” Ben took a sip of his chocolate milkshake. “You figured I wasn’t coming back. But I, I, uh…I’m serious about you, Rene.”

  Serious about something for the first time in my life. But he couldn’t really say that, could he?

  That was no way to win a girl.

  Her eyes went down low. They went left, right, left…right. She looked up at him.

  “I came back for you, Rene.”

  “Thank you, Ben.” He watched her work it out in her head. “I really missed you.”

  He let out a breath and smiled again, and tried desperately not to let her see the tears welling up from somewhere deep inside.

  ***

  He sat in the one and only chair allotted to this particular room, a low grey leather thing with slab sides and high armrests. She lay across him and the chair, half in and half out of his lap. Her arm was around his neck.

  “So what I really want to know, Rene, is ah…whether I can say that you are my girlfriend, or not. I mean, you know…in case anyone asks. And, oh! If anyone asks you, why, ah…you could tell them you have a boyfriend. That would be me. Right?”

  “Okay, Ben.”

  “But only if you want to, right?” What a guilt trip he was laying on himself. “Honestly? If I was you, I wouldn’t trust a guy like me one bit. And rightly so—guys like me ain’t going too far.”

  “Aw.” She put her head on his shoulder. “Sure you are. You got out, didn’t you?”

  That much was true. Ben was out now. Ben stood a chance. It was all he had ever asked, and even that wasn’t often granted.

  Turning to the left, she was right there. He pulled her in and gently kissed her, lips only, as the clock on the wall ticked inexorably ever onward.

  They broke off after a while

  “Honey. I got to go.”

  “Can I tell the nurses?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. Tell anyone, and everyone, Baby.” Ben grinned from ear to ear. “Now you’re getting it.”

  The next ten minutes were engaged in more light petting and a lot of mutual eye-gazing and soft whispering and except for the parties most directly concerned, really wasn’t all that interesting.

  Nine o’clock came and visiting hours were over.

  Ben’s first day on the job was tomorrow. He would be mopping floors and doing handyman work in a small drinking establishment in the seedier end of the downtown core business area.

  ***

  It was a month later and Ben was having a follow-up visit with Doctor Aloysius Gordon.

  For whatever reason people called him Gordie or even just Gord. That might have been a bit of a play on gourd.

  “So. Tell me what you’ve been up to. Enjoying your freedom?” Gordon was a breezy man in his fifties, perpetually sunny in disposition and easy enough to talk to.

  Ben had never been all that shy about his problems and saw no reason to hold anything back.

  The doc might even be helpful.

  “Uh, yeah.” That seemed a little guarded even to Ben.

  “So, what does that mean?” The doctor’s quizzical blue eyes were not without warmth and humour.

  “Well, I mean. I’ve been busy as hell. Sitting around in here isn’t good for you.” This was a good tack, with Doctor Gordon. “I was really hurting the first few days at work.”

  The doctor had agitated pretty hard for a small exercise area, some free weights, and then the treadmill and some other equipment. Quite a few of the patients availed themselves of the opportunity and he had no qualms about Ben’s point. It was accurate enough. The institute was supposed to rehabilitate, and provide both employment and life skills for the small number of those lucky enough to get in somehow. In that sense it wasn’t your usual mental health facility.

  “I heard you got yourself a job.”

  “Yeah, doc. Two jobs. I work at the bar from eight until twelve, and then I go to the car-wash for one o’clock. They’re always short-handed so I can stay as
late as I want. I try to get in as many hours as I can.”

  “What’s the name of the place?”

  “Edward’s.”

  “Edward’s?” Doctor Gordon had never heard of it. “Just…Edward’s?”

  Ben shrugged.

  “Yep.”

  The more cars you cleaned, the more tips you earned.

  “Wow. I am happy to hear that. So how do you think you’re doing so far?”

  “Living at the homeless shelter, yeah, that really sucked, doc. But I got a room now, although I still owe them some money at the end of the week.”

  Doctor Gordon nodded. It was early days yet but Ben seemed pretty engaged.

  “And are you taking the meds?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Yup.”

  “Okay, good man.” The doctor got up and went to his closet. “I’ll see if I have any free samples in here. That’ll save you a few bucks. So, any big plans for the future? Any ideas?”

  Ben took a deep breath and spat it out.

  “I’ll be inviting Rene over to my place for the weekend.”

  He’d lost Doctor Gordon somewhere with that one. His head popped back out the closet and he stared.

  “Rene? Who’s Rene?”

  Ben took another deep breath.

  “Rene Silvers. Our Rene.”

  Scene Three

  “I see.” Doctor Gordon was back in his chair, a handful of foil and cello-wrapped packages strewn on his desk.

  Ben wondered about that, but the man had his job to do.

  “Yeah. Well. I mean…I mean, ah, hopefully, ah, she will say yes.”

  “Hmn. I hear that you’ve been visiting her a lot. It seems to be doing her a lot of good. So have you asked Rene about all this yet?” The doctor was careful to avoid picking up his pen or sounding in any way negative.

  Doctor Gordon really hadn’t foreseen this. It required some examination. Ben was a free man now. Reviewing what he knew of Rene’s case, he recalled that she had signed herself in originally. There was nothing stopping her from signing herself out if she wanted to. If so, then more power to her; at least that was his cautious first appraisal. But this was an interesting development, in both patients’ cases. It could have a lot of ramifications. There were some obvious perils.