We first meet in the smoking lounge. Ward 3C. Psychiatric. The only place in the hospital where you’ll find a smoking lounge.
You smoke du Mauriers.
I pull on a fat Romeo y Julieta. You like the smell so you ask for a drag. You joke I’m a juicer and wipe the nub dry. You close your eyes and pull. You blow out the smoke in leisurely whorls. I watch. I take back my Cedros Deluxe No. 3 as juiced as I gave it. But I don’t wipe it dry; I take it like a kiss pressed to my lips, my tongue, and I savour it.
I tell you my name. You give me yours.
I sit slouched — in jeans because I’m not so bad, just depressed. But you — you sit cross-legged in your undershirt and hospital blues because — I don’t know what you are. Only that you emerge by chance from the intensive observation unit for a smoke or a manic cruise around the ward.
Like a boy in a schoolyard I ask how old you are. Twenty-six. But this is no schoolyard and you don’t ask back. I’m thirty-five in case you’re interested.
We laugh together and share a joke. We bitch about the food and wonder what the fuck is wrong with that nurse — the one who looks like she was born with a scowl glued to her face. You get me giggling and I haven’t even had a drink. It’s the first time in weeks I’ve noticed somebody other than me.
You rise and dance around the room. You let your robe drop to the floor and stand there in boxer shorts. Your skin is robe enough — a burnished olive-coloured robe. You press a hand to your hard stomach then turn your gaze away from me to the window, to your reflection in the window, to the reflection of my face staring at your reflection in the window.
Our eyes meet. I don’t look away. I see the beauty that you were when maybe there was flesh on your bones. Do you see mine as just another pair of leering eyes?
I get a three-day pass and spend my Christmas at home cringing as children toss shredded paper everywhere. I crawl back to 3C one day early. I lie in bed for a few hours, staring at the ceiling, catching my breath after the whirlwind celebrations.
It’s time for another Cedros Deluxe No. 3 and so I plod to the smoking lounge half hoping you’ll be there with your joking and dancing. But the room is empty. Have you abandoned your favourite haunt?
I don’t know. I shake my head. I strike a match (how quaint you said) and set the flame to the tip of my cigar. I lean back in the vinyl covered chair and while the smoke curly-cues above my head I wonder where you are.
There is a bang against the metal door to the intensive observation unit. I hear my name. I rock forward and step to the door. Is it you? A muffled voice returns but I can’t understand even the sensible things you say. I wish we knew Morse code. How’d you get yourself back in lock-up? I almost add: damn you.
Another girl comes into the lounge with her cigarette lit before the door slams shut. She tells me all about it — about how you went AWOL after I left on my pass and how you slept over at a friend’s place until the police came and brought you back.
I stub out my cigar and knock on the door and yell good-night to you. I hear a knock and something back. I go to bed with your sedated voice wallowing in my head and strangely I find tears I never knew I had.