After Hours (InterMix)(8)
* * *
Things got busy after the morning lull. Lunch meant more meds to organize and distribute, then Jenny took me through the exhaustive inventory rigmarole in the various nurses’ stations. There weren’t any more incidents after the UNO debacle, and by late afternoon I’d gotten most of the patients and their diagnoses and treatment plans copied onto a mental crib sheet, having spent a couple of hours studying their files.
Rattling off their histories and dosages couldn’t hold a candle to actually having relationships with them, though, and when dinner was getting underway, Jenny suggested I join her, eating with the residents in the dining room. I’d scarfed a banana for lunch, feeling pokey with my paperwork, so the promise of a sit-down meal was enough to steel my resolve.
Since breakfast I’d been hearing mutterings of “pizza day,” and now I could smell it. Ambrosia. I followed Jenny and we got in line alongside patients and staff at the S3 cafeteria counter. I grabbed two cheese slices and a root beer, and tailed Jenny to one of several large, round tables. I caught sight of Kelly not far away, eating with a group of residents, a circle of gray. He’d taken a seat with a view of the entire room, and I bet it wasn’t an accident.
“Has everyone met our new LPN, Erin?” Jenny asked brightly, glancing around our table.
There were three patients, and I tested myself on their names and conditions. Lonnie and Carl, both schizophrenic, and Les, a deceptively cheerful sociopathic type who’d served three separate prison sentences for arson. I remembered him easiest, as I’d employed the thoroughly un-PC mnemonic device of “Les be sure to not give that one any matches!” while quizzing myself earlier.
The three men murmured greetings, and Jenny nodded to a seat between Lonnie and Les, taking her tray to the other side of the table.
Conversations resumed, which meant Lonnie and Carl went back to arguing. Paranoid schizophrenics can be prone to that, and both of the men were clearly feeling a touch self-righteous. As best I could gather, Lonnie was insisting that the military had planted him here on the ward, and that they’d be coming any day to collect his findings. Jenny had told me he was what the Starling staff called a popper, meaning his illness was particularly potent and frequently “popped through” the bubble of civility created by his meds. Carl seemed simultaneously unnerved by the notion of a government operative in his midst and annoyed by Lonnie’s self-importance. He’d been distractedly cutting his pizza slice with a plastic knife for some time, so long he now seemed to be trying to saw through the tray. I stole a glance in Kelly’s direction, suddenly wishing he were at my table.
Jenny attempted to shift the topic. “I wonder what movie they’ll show in the rec room tonight.”
Carl dropped his knife, shooting her a patronizing look. “It’s Monday. On Mondays we watch the singing show. We always watch the singing show on Mondays.”
Lonnie wasn’t listening. He was studying me as I stripped the wrapper from my straw, hazel eyes squinting magnified skepticism through his thick lenses at my hands and face and the shiny new picture-ID badge clipped to my scrubs.
“Do you like the singing show?” Carl asked me earnestly.
“I don’t think I’ve seen it. Maybe I’ll check it out, later.” There was a TV in my apartment. I could watch whatever program it was, and have something to talk to him about tomorrow.
“I know what she likes,” Lonnie said, in a slow, snide, creepy murmur, loud enough for most of the table to hear.
I took a bite of my pizza, ignoring his attempt to affect me. He was only testing the new girl. Don’t take the bait. “Do you like the singing show, too?” I asked him politely.
Lonnie stood, fast enough to topple his chair. He grabbed a pizza crust, and jabbed it toward my face and shouted, “You’ll like this when I jam it up your cunt!”
The room went flat, panic reducing everything to soundless slow motion. Like being underwater. I lunged to the side, a second’s scrambling that felt like an hour’s swim. Smooth, cold tile found my palms, and legs rustled past from above—orderlies rushing to restrain Lonnie.
Sound returned. Someone was helping me to my feet. Lonnie was on the ground, face pressed in my direction, wild eyes locked on mine. One orderly held his ankles while Kelly Robak knelt straddling his waist, pinning his arms.
“She’s an agent!” Lonnie was shouting. “Don’t trust her!”
Jenny must have dashed for the nearest nurses’ station and prepped a syringe. She reappeared, offering Lonnie a seeming eternity to settle before deciding to give him a jab in the deltoid. “That’ll calm you down, Lon.”