Chapter 25

Breakfast came up at the usual time. Cereal, cold toast, bananas, milk, coffee. The Hatter was mercifully unable to eat or he’d choke. New faces appeared around the table, gloriously appointed to Dance’s eye. Dance recognized the shaking woman from 316 Larimer. Long auburn hair, light blue eyes and slender with average breasts. Full lips for pouting, a delicate nose, neatly dressed and smelled gorgeous.

   “Hi. I’m Dance McBride. Now let me guess…Ann Boleyn, right?”

   “Deidre Thompson.”

   “And with whom else are we graced on this fine Saturday? Room 308, is it?”

   “It’s Friday. I’m in 308, yeh, you been sniffin’ around in there?”

   “I think we can all agree that it’s Saturday, Mr. Balfour?”

   “Yes, Mr. Fff…Dance.”

   “And I wouldn’t need to sniff around in your room to smell it. I can smell it from here, like farm animals copulating, I’d say.”

   “Well, now that we’ve established that you sniff farm animals copulating, would you pass the fucking Cheerios?”

   “Can I eat you out when you’re done?”

The woman got up and left the room, returning a moment later with Bovary.

   “Mr. McBride, if you can’t control your profanity you’ll have to leave the lunchroom.”

   “I’m just calling a fuck a fuck.”

   “Leave the lunchroom now or I’ll get the attendants and put you in room 306.”

    306. 306. 306. It echoed in Dance’s mind with the painful isolation and his holy spirit still streaming blood from Jane’s rejection. Dance got up and went to his room.

   Balfour, Ann Boleyn, ....Saint John...., the Joker, Galahad, Magdalene, and Megan White proceeded with breakfast in a normal manner. Boleyn gave the Joker some help.

   “Is he always this belligerent? I could have gone to the cafeteria,” said Megan White.

   “I think he’s just hungry,” said ....Saint John.... followed by a whinny.

   “You little wincing toad! Aced out of the Marine Corps for jerkin’ off in the face of the enemy?”

   “Come on, come on,” said Balfour, “let’s be nice like little puppies. Now isn’t that more pleasant?”

   “Thank you,” said Magdalene. “But how can you pass up an offer like that, Megan?”

   Megan feigned deafness. Balfour’s mouth was shlocking a bite of banana.

   “We have OT today?” asked Galahad.

   “Can you go?” asked Magdalene.

   “OT’s on Wednesday,” said Ann Boleyn.

   Dance walked back into the lunchroom.

   “Cleopatra, I’ll help you clean your room,” he said, looking at Megan.

   “I don’t want you in my underwear.”

   “You do the underwear. I’ll fold the shirts and sweaters, and then I’ll brush your hair if you want.”

   Cleopatra mulled the offer, slowly crunching Cheerios and nipping a corner of toast.

   “Okay. Let’s go.”

   The pair walked to ..

   “You take this side, I’ll get the other,” said Cleopatra.

   They heard a crash as the Hatter fell off his bed across the hall in a fit, flat on his back and holding his stomach to contain the rage of laughter.

   Cleopatra had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She went through spells when she felt the television was reading her mind, all of law enforcement was conspiring to murder her, her father was Satan, her brother was the anti-Christ, and numerous other delusions. Most recently, she had taken a train to ....Florida.... to escape her father. She was picked up by the ....Tallahassee.... police in the middle of the night aimlessly wandering the streets half-naked talking in tongues.

   “This is a nice sweater,” said Dance.

   “Good for a tit show,” said Cleopatra.

   Dance hadn’t really looked at her before then. She was about 5’2” tall, narrow-hipped, black-haired, blue-eyed, with disproportionate breasts. She wasn’t too pretty to Dance’s eye, but she had some mastery with makeup.

   “Still want to eat me out?”

   Dance was a bit startled to be on the other end of a startler.

   “Well…er…maybe I should try out some of your underwear first.”

   Cleopatra had a delightful, happy laugh. They folded and chatted and giggled, all the while blocking out the Hatter. When they finished, the room was in perfect order. Then Dance brushed Cleopatra’s long black hair slowly until there were no snags and it curled like ribbon candy.

Chapter 26

Dr. Stoukides’ shadow shafted Dance’s bed at ..10:00...

   “Telemachos! Come in my son!”

   “Hi, Dance. I see from the notes you persist in using expletives.”

   “Not that fucking much.”

   “You continue to address people with incorrect names, as I have seen again for myself.”

   “I find people here are improperly named. I’ve given them names that ennoble their holy spirits and rescue them from bingo.”

   “And you’re Mr. ‘F’ word?”

   Dance became silent and suspicious. Balfour was gabbling away the game.

   “In the beginning, there was ‘fuck.’ You don’t think God hangs around jacking off? Not with Aphrodite tied up in the bedroom.”

   “Dance, I’m going to increase the dosage of your Thorazine. I want to get you well and back to school.”

   To Dance, being ‘well’ meant being subject to the frequent pall of despair. Now Janeless, the pall would go deeper still. And the medication queue---..8:00.., ..2:00.., ..8:00.. like a merry-go-fucking-round. Haggard bread line. Dance had flushed his “wellness” and would continue to do so.

   “Yes, yes, I want to be well, well again. By the way, can I get some clothes and a shave?”

   “We have some community clothing,” said Telemachos. “One of the attendants can get some for you. There is a razor and shaving cream at the nurses’ station. Dr. Berger will be on this weekend, and I hope you will remain calm and get along well with the other patients. We’ll see Monday about letting you go to the cafeteria.”

   “Thank you, my son.”

   Telemachos disappeared, and Dance reared gracefully on his bed, putting his legs up straight against the wall (perpendicular to the earth). “What more charade?” he asked himself in stupor praying obscenities to a starless ceiling, Jane-gone and forlorn. Who would come and go and trigger final and universal recognition ending the war and loneliness? What did this black and laughing God plan for his only, only son?

   Wild Bill rode in and set a pile of clothes on Balfour’s bed.

   “These should fit you, and here’s your belt. Let me know when you want to shave. I have to be there with you.”

   “Well, thank you kindly, Wild Bill.”

   Dance got up and went through the clothes. Two pair of faded denim jeans, a lighter cotton blue denim shirt, a maroon turtle neck, three pair of underwear, and two pair of white socks.

   “Chain gang threads,” whispered Dance with pleasure.

   He changed immediately. Dungarees, denim shirt not tucked in with the belt outside for a biblical look. He swaggered down to the nurses’ station and asked Dumpty if he could shave. Dumpty got a fresh razor and a weird tube of shaving cream, and they repaired to the men’s room where the ritual began.

   “You know why we shave, Humpty? Because women like little boy faces. I’m surprised they don’t make us shave our dicks, too.”

   Dumpty laughed. “You may have a point there, Dance.”

   Dance finished shaving, and it hurt like hell from a week’s growth.

   “Tell the women their thighs are now safe. Would you stand guard while I shower? I don’t trust a one of ‘em.”

   “Just give me the razor and the cream back. I’m sure you’ll be safe.”

   Humpty left, and Dance disrobed and turned on the water in the shower stall. He kept his hand to the spray till a comfortable temperature was reached. He stepped to heavenly warmth with visions of saints spinning in his naked mind. He soaped himself and lathered his curls, rinsed, and shut the water off. He dried with the towel Dumpty left. He dressed and stepped back onto ..

   “Where’s the Hatter?” Dance asked Wild Bill.

   “Mr. Walker has gone downstairs for treatment,” answered Wild Bill.

   “Electrical work,” interjected Beelzebub on his way to the lunchroom.

   Dance walked down to 302 and found his father chatting with Balfour. Balfour was pontificating on unidentified fucking objects, and Dance’s father, familiar with mad tales, was listening attentively.

   “Hi, Dad. Like my fiefdom?”

   Balfour got up to go watch the quiz show Beelzebub had on.

   “How are you feeling, Dance?”

   “Well, Jane couldn’t take the pain, but I’m feeling very heterosexual and chained to the mast.”

   “We’re all worried about you.”

   “Telemachos and Captain Ahab seem to have a good grip on making the mad sane and the sane mad,” said Dance.

   “Dance, you have to get well, get back to school. You got a letter from the Navy accepting you into OCS. It says you should report to ....Newport.... in August.”

   “I don’t think they’ll want a Christ-figure Marxist insulting the admirals.”

   “Dance, you’re not a Christ figure. You’re not a Marxist. You’re not well.”

   “You are my earthly father, and the Spirit will inform you and name names in time. The mass delusion will lift soon, and the love of my heavenly Father will ascend and descend for the atonement of the kingdom of the living dead. No one will be lost. Not a one. No one will be held accountable for the mindless cruelty of matter or be blamed for the ignorance due to misinformation from the Spirit. Assholes will be humbled and raised up. The lonely, the lost, and the unloved will be made whole as immortal gods subject only to the supreme God forever nameless and invisible. I would advise people to congregate on street corners and listen for the distant ring of the ice cream man.”

   “Dance, I have a case I have to get to in ....Shrewsbury..... Your mother and I will be up Sunday. I’ll bring you some clothes and a few snacks. All I ask is that you take your medications, get plenty of rest, and keep your thoughts to yourself. I need my son to be well.”

   Dr. McBride stood, Dance stood, and Dr. McBride hugged his son with hands trembling. Dance walked him down Larimer to ....Pennsylvania...., where Wild Bill unlocked the door and left to unlock, unlock Dr. McBride back to the received world.