Day One
Today, she let me go.
Two years imprisoned in this Antiseptic Palace. Seven-hundred-fifty-seven days, to be precise. I apologize. I shouldn’t begin with a lie; it’s more. Strike the word ‘precise’. In the beginning, I wasn’t counting days. I couldn’t. Don’t laugh. If you’ve ever been so wasted, you can’t count the fingers on your hand much less the days strapped to a hospital bed you wouldn’t laugh. If you haven’t, then you are laughing because you don’t get it.
That’s good for you.
Let me begin again—
Today, she let me go.
“Today is your day one”, she informs me. She glances at the folded papers I hold in my hand but says nothing. I have never shown them to her, but she knows I always carry them with me. She wants to know what they are; I can see it in her eyes. She is a very intelligent and discerning woman. Always dressed immaculately in starched-white scrubs. No Scooby Doo characters for her. Imagine Nurse Ratched and Gloria Steinem fused.
I close my fist around the papers. She looks away. Hidden from her view, the papers contain one mark for each day I have been locked up in her Palace; disconnected from the world. Three sheets—college-ruled— covered with tick marks: front and back. Nothing else. I count them every night before making the next mark. The papers are tattered by time. Like me. The whiteness stained by sweat. Creases having surrendered their crispness long ago; the pencil marks are smeared from handling. But I can still count them.
Only pencils are allowed at the Palace, no pens. No explanations why. “It’s the rules,” Nurse Ratched-Steinem proclaims endlessly.
When I get out of here, the first thing I will buy is a new Bic™ pen.
“Today is your day one. An auspicious beginning, Michael. A new awakening.’” She removes a brand-new composition notebook from her desk drawer. Reaching across the relentless barrier she claims as her territory, she offers the black and white notebook to me with a smile on her face. As if doing something fucking fantastic.
“I know you like to journal, Michael. You will want to write down everything, beginning with Day One. Nice, clean sheets of paper.” She looks at my folded papers with disdain.
Thank you. I offer with a well-rehearsed smile.
“Do you have someone to give you a ride?” She inquires, stretching her smile.
“I do.” A lie.
“Who?”
I can’t remember their names, only faces. Faces I have no desire to see again. Not that I could find them, anyway.
“An old friend.” Another lie.
My life changed that night. We were so wasted. Most of the Faces ended their night in a jail cell. Who knew the cops would show up? We did; but didn’t care. So, fricking wasted.
But my dear mother, good old respectable Mother with her endless supply of rich attorney friends, made certain her son would not spend a single night locked behind bars. Mommy wanted only the best for her son, ‘the addict’. Her fingers would curtsy, dancing air quotes, twink-twink, whenever forced to utter the word ‘addict’. They carted me off to the Antiseptic Palace with hospital beds that include built-in restraints (for your protection, you know) and guards clandestinely posted at the front and rear doors (also for your protection). Mother never saw the beds or the leather straps or the stainless-steel toilets with no lids or the rooms with no windows or the plastic sporks and paper plates or powdered eggs and green jello or televisions with no sound or nurses with little white cups and attitudes. Dear Mommy, never saw because she never once came inside the hallowed halls of the Antiseptic Palace. Never once visited me. Someone, one of her minions, paid the exorbitant tab every month. Only the best for her son, the ‘addict’. Twink-twink.
Read the rest of the story by ordering your copy of A Red Dress Night A Collection of Short Stories by J Hirtle
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