* * *
"Hector Graham?"
No sooner had the words escaped the nurse’s mouth than Hector was on his feet, bulldozing past the young nurse, through the door and onward to the examining rooms.
"Let’s get this over with," he said brusquely, stomping down the long hallway. He entered the last room on the right and climbed onto the table, his large ass crinkling the smooth butcher paper.
"Um, Mr. Graham?" the nurse said from the doorway. "You’re in room three. Follow me please."
"I don’t see what goddamn difference it makes," he mumbled loud enough for the nurse to hear. And she did hear, for she adjusted the clipboard in the crook of her arm and tilted her head to the side.
"Didja say somethin’, sweetie?" she asked, pleasantly enough. Her glassy doe eyes squinted the tiniest bit, though. Don’t be difficult, fatty was what she had meant to say.
He huffed on the dismount. A loud crackle of paper, then the staccato screech of sneakers on smooth hard tile.
Room 3 was the next room to the left (apparently the first room he had entered was Room 4), and as far as Hector could discern, it was exactly the same as the other one.
"Stay riiight here," the nurse purred over a forced smile. "The doctor will be with you in just a minute." She closed the door behind her, leaving Hector alone in silence.
Standing in the center of the white room, he took in the cold indifference of his surroundings. A plethora of posters smothered the walls—medical stuff, mostly. He walked over to one—a visual rundown of various diseases of the human eye—and traced its sickly circles with the tip of his right forefinger. Feelings its cool, laminated surface, he flattened his palm against it. Hector usually found exam rooms too cold, but this one was actually quite warm. He surmised it was most likely due to the open window blinds casting a zebra shadow over half the room. In the winter, one might describe the climate as "cozy." But it was summer, so "suffocating" was the better term. Hector tried not to think about it.
He thought about the nurse instead. That bitch. Who was she to tell him which room to go into? Especially when there wasn’t another soul in the building save his mother and the old fart in the waiting room, who, by the way, was still probably getting the best peep show in all his miserable life. Pervert!! But it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely. Give her thirty more minutes, and Debbie’ll drag him off to the back seat of the Monte Carlo. She’ll fuck anything, that slut.
Hector snapped his head up and looked around. He couldn’t remember doing it, but at some point he must have rested his cheek against the eye poster and dozed off. What woke him was the sound of his own muttering voice. He clearly heard himself say the word "slut" but couldn’t recall what he’d said before that. He thought he might’ve said something.
"Fell asleep standing," he snorted. "Like a horse."
[Or a…]
He walked over to the exam table, hesitated, then hopped on it. On the eye poster, a giant grease spot announced where he’d laid his cheek. Under most lighting conditions, he wouldn’t have noticed it, but the angle which the sun shone on it made it stand out like a birthmark. For some reason, he wanted to go back and erase it with his shirt sleeve, to rub it out of existence before the doctor came in and saw what he had done. But that would mean climbing down from the table, going through the trouble of wiping it clean (which probably wouldn’t work; the result being a smeared mess), and then climbing back onto the table. No. Forget that shit. Too much work. Plus, it’s way too hot.
[Something’s wrong here.]
"Huh?" Hector turned to the door, expecting to see the doctor standing with his stethoscope draped around his neck, maybe greeting him with a smile and a proffered hand.
But there was no doctor. The door was closed.
"Who said that?" Hector asked the room. A herd of heebiejeebies raced up the wounds on his back.
Intercom, he thought. Somebody calling on the intercom.
He looked up, but there wasn’t an intercom system. Only stippled acoustic ceiling tiles.
"Huh?" he repeated to the ceiling. "I coulda—"
[That was your voice, bonehead.]
"Pete calls me bonehead," Hector said to himself.
He decided to lie down. Easing back slowly, he focused on the sound of butcher paper popping like TV static under his weight. "I really need to lay off the Jack," he said, shaking his head. "Hearing voices…"
In the silence, Hector listened to the thumpa-thump-thump of his heart. They should put a radio in here. It’s too quiet. Then, from nowhere, a hum started in his throat. It was the love theme to Romeo and Juliet, the 1968 movie version.
Lacing his fingers behind his head, he stared at the dots staring down at him. There must be a billion of ‘em, he thought, letting his mind wander. No, a trillion!
But there wasn’t close to a million dots on those ceiling tiles, let alone a billion. And a trillion? That was just ludicrous.
But Hector thought there might be a trillion dots up there, all random and cluttered and spread out. And, to him, it wasn’t at all inconceivable for those dots to be the eyes of a whole bunch of cosmic voyeurs with nothing better to do with their time than to look down at a fat kid lying on an exam table looking up at them.
Such thoughts! And for such musings to come from the mind of Hector Graham was too much for even Hector Graham to accept. But he wanted to accept those thoughts, to claim them as his own. If Rusty can be creative, why not me? What makes him so fucking special?
As the minutes ticked by, he swore the dots were gradually drifting apart. Then he was sure of it. Picking up speed, the specks jumped and darted across the tiles like popcorn and—well—like shooting stars. After a while, vague, familiar patterns took shape. Hector was positive he’d seen a couple of the figures before, but the harder he tried to peg the images, the more the names eluded him. In the end, he shut his eyes. He knew from experience that if there was one easy out in life, it was shutting your eyes and refusing to open them.
Keep ‘em closed, big boy. The doctor will fix you.
[Something’s wrong here.]
I didn’t just hear that.
[Something’s wrong here.]
It’s all in your head, Hec. Just ignore it.
[Definitely. Something is definitely wrong.]
Sweet home Alabama…
[You refuse to see.]
[That’s your voice, bonehead!]
No it’s not, no it’s not, no it’s not, no it’s not…
[Rabies]
NO IT’S NOT. I DON’T HAVE RABIES!!!!!!
[Rabies]
SHUT THE HELL UP!!!
[RABIES]
My God, am I going crazy?
[CRAZY RABIES, CRAZY RABIES, CRAZY RABIES…]
No, I’m still hungover. That’s the problem. Besides, everybody knows O’Brien’s the crazy one, not me. I’m the leader, Pete’s the bitch, O’Brien’s the loon, and Rusty’s…well, Rusty is the…I don’t know what the hell Rusty is right now, but he’s somethin.’
[CRAZY RABIES, CRAZY RABIES, CRAZY RABIES…]
Maybe I am crazy…
[CRAZY RABIES, CRAZY RABIES, CRAZY RABIES…]
A whole bunch of little eyes. Voyeurs who look down at my fat, pathetic life from their comfort in the heavens. Judging me. Like little gods. Don’t they have nothing better to do? There’s gotta be billions—no, trillions of them up there. Whatever you do, Hec, don’t open your eyes.