| Monsters |
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Page 6 of 9 "You look like a bum." Roger West had been cranked into a semi-upright position and propped in his hospital bed with pillows. "You come in here again, you shave." Cancer had chewed on him until there was only the wrinkled brown pit of a man left. "Why're you here?" His eyes were bright with pain. "I came to visit, Dad. I always come." "Not before the pill, you don't. Time is it?" Henry glanced at his watch. "Four-eleven." "Jesus God, nineteen years until four-thirty. Go find the nurse, tell her I can't wait. Service stinks in this lousy hospital you stuck me in, kid. I keep begging them for the pill, but they don't bring me nothing." His fingers curled and scrabbled at the sheet. "Why am I here? I hate this." "You're sick, Dad. The doctor brought you here to take care of you." "That's right." He licked his lips. "Okay." "The reason I'm early today is I didn't take the bus. I got a ride over." His dad closed his eyes. He sounded like he was breathing through a straw; the arms that used to hold Henry were limp as wet cardboard. He sat beside the bed and gazed out the window. At least his dad had the view. The middle bed was empty. The privacy curtain was drawn around Mr. DeCredico's bed near the door. "What she say?" His dad didn't open his eyes. "Who?" "The nurse. My son's coming, don't you understand? I need my pill." The room got very small then so Henry went to the hall. He leaned against the doorway and listened to the florescents hum. Down the hall someone was watching Jeopardy. The PA system chimed. He scuffed the carpet. It was gun barrel gray. The wallpaper was beige and shiny and easy to wash. Henry rubbed a hand through the stubble along his jaw. It wasn't a bad thought to want to kill dad. He could do it with a pillow; he wouldn't even need the Beretta. Dad would be grateful for the favor. It'd be payback for everything he had done for Henry, bringing him up all by himself. But this was the only murder the monster didn't lust for and Henry didn't have the spunk to do it by himself. He went back in. "You're early," his dad said. "You didn't get fired did you?" "No dad, I told you, I got a ride with someone." "A ride? With someone?" The monster hated Celeste and, for the moment, so did Henry. She had done this to them by disrupting the routine. He should've taken the bus and his dad would've scarfed the pill and none of this mung would've happened. "Time is it?" "Almost four-thirty." His dad's laugh sounded like a cough. There was a plant with long shiny leaves like swords that he had bought for his dad by the window. Snake plant, the florist had said. Nothing could kill it. Henry could see the interstate, the bridges and the river glittering like the road to heaven. His dad had a room with a view on the twelfth floor. All the fabric snobs in the worsted wool suits he cleaned would kill for the chance to sit behind a desk with a view like this. "Know why I can't get a pill? I can't pay. If I still had a credit card, I could charge all the pills I need." He swallowed painfully. "I know what they're trying to do. They're hoping I'll get sick of the lousy service and leave. I should. Just go home." "You're sick, Dad." "Don't tell me that. You don't know what sick is. You get a runny nose, you take a day off. But I'm empty. Nothing inside me. At least the pills fill me up." His mouth hung open as he gasped for breath. "But they're not giving me mine because you sold the house. That's why I can't go home, isn't it? I get sick and you let them take everything. I built that house. Where's my furniture, Henry?" "Take it easy, dad. It's safe in the warehouse." "You think I can live in some damn warehouse?" "Don't swear. When you get out, we'll rent an apartment." "I'm not getting out. You're just like the nurses. Here I'm dying and you want to wait until four-thirty. I don't know why I had you, you useless bum. We would've been better off buying a dog." "Why Mr. West, good afternoon." The nurse carried a tray with a clear plastic cup of apple juice and a tiny paper cup with the pill. "You're early today." Her acrylic uniform dress was whiter than anything Henry had ever cleaned. There was so much pain in the room, it was hard not to touch her. He flashed on the monster hurling her through the window. There'd be stains on her uniform that would never come out. "He wants his pill," he said. "Of course he does, it's four-thirty." "Don't mind him." Roger West lifted his head off the pillow. "He's having a rough day." He opened his mouth for the pill as if he were taking the sacrament.
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