I even took a sip of my drink. Just like she asked me to.
“Get those clothes off so we can wash them,” she yelled through the door. I looked at myself in the wall-length mirror, saw my matted hair, my baggy sweatshirt and knee-length athletic shorts. I set the drink down on the counter, sat on the toilet, and began peeling off my socks and shoes, shaking my head the whole time at what a complete and total idiot I was being.
I put my clothes in a small pile next to the sink, turned on the water, waited a few moments while it heated up, then stepped into the tub, pulling the two sections of the blue plastic shower curtain closed around me.
The water was hot, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good.
“I’m coming in, hide your penis!”
The door opened and I froze. What the fuck?
The room was immediately invaded by the not-so-distant blare of the television. I heard her rustling around just a few inches away from me in the narrow bathroom. She’s getting my clothes, that’s all. Just getting my dirty clothes. I knew I was being stupid. Of course I needed clean clothes. They had said that.
I waited for the sound of her exit. For the door to close behind her.
There was nothing.
I continued to wait, not moving, breathing shallow, as if not wanting her to hear me. To know where I was hiding. The sound of the water hitting the tub seemed explosive, like thunder. I closed my eyes tight. Why wouldn’t she leave?
“Peek-a-boo.”
I turned so fast my heels almost slid out from beneath me. I steadied myself, put a hand on the while tile wall.
Her face hovered there, stuck into the cut of blue plastic, the two sides tucked tightly beneath her chin, as if she were sneaking a peek at the audience from behind the heavy red curtain of a stage. She appeared as the visage of a playful god slipping its broad head through the fabric of space, or a creature rising, pale and bloated, from some dark body of water, surfacing with wide alien eyes, a sharp mouth jammed with ragged teeth.
“Christ!” I yelled, startled and embarrassed.
Her eyes moved up and down my body. Her smile distant now. Not faltering, not exactly… but absent. A melting mask dissolving due to the carelessness of its wearer.
“Crystal, what the hell?” I said, not knowing how to begin to cover myself, only able to turn away to give her a view of more ass than anything else.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she said slowly, “that I brought you clean clothes. They’re by the sink.”
“Okay, fine…” I said, and then, because the thought struck me so suddenly: “Whose clothes are they? Not yours I hope.”
She didn’t laugh like I’d expected her to. Her face just sort of… went blank. Her mouth hung slack. Her eyes continued looking at my body, as if confused. Confused or, possibly, thoughtful. The way you’d look at the photograph of someone, or something, you missed very much.
“No,” she said, finally. “Bobby’s.”
Before I could respond her face disappeared.
More shuffling outside the curtain.
I heard her mother come into the bathroom. They were whispering. I heard the word Bobby more than once. Her mother laughed and I thought if that wrinkled sad face poked itself between the shower curtain and whispered “peek-a-boo” ala her daughter that I would scream and possibly punch that crazy bitch square in her fucking red-toothed mouth.
I turned away from the curtain and looked at the white tiles lining the wall, breathing heavily. Anxiety and panic tightened my chest. I stared hard at the tiles, tried to focus, prayed they’d just leave.
Then something emerged from between those slick white pieces. Where there had previously only been clean, white grout, there was now a seeping blackness. Like spilled ink being absorbed through white fabric.
I lifted a hand, ignoring the women’s scratchy murmurs, and touched the bleeding black with puckered fingertips. When I rubbed my fingers along the edge of one tile, it loosened, as if stuck to nothing but air; as if it were a child’s tooth, dangling by a single thin fiber, ready to leap from the gums with just the slightest tug.
I did so, and watched in amazement as it fell away. Then the black began to spread more quickly, seeping through the grout between a second row of tiles, and then sinking to cover a swatch of ten, now twelve, forming a bizarre mosaic – an image of a white checkerboard. I pulled each one away from the wall, tearing the puzzle apart, carelessly flicking each smooth ceramic piece backward into the tub, where the cooling water still sprayed. The inky dark leaked down the wall in runlets, splattered into the churning water at my feet, blackened it.
When the opening was big enough, like that of a window, I stared through to what lay beyond. I recognized it right away.
The Blue Ward.
It was the rec room, the one lit in dull blue, with the concrete floor and cinderblock walls. I stared at the patients who laid on the floor or were sunk into corners; at the ones who stood facing a wall, hands roaming the porous surface, speaking as if in prayers.
I thought of stepping through, but I was already there.
I stood not too far away, wearing the same smock and pants of the ward’s other inhabitants. That version of me studied the back of his hands, which moved rapidly over open air, as if putting together an exceptionally large puzzle. I was talking out loud, yet calmly, to no one. I strained to listen to what this “other-me” had to say. Once I tried, the words he spoke became so clear I didn’t need to focus at all.
“Put it together, put it together, put it together…” the other-me said, over and over and over again. A mantra.
The door to the bathroom slammed shut and I jerked my head away from the vision. I turned off the water.
“Crystal?” I said, not too loudly, but loud enough so she would hear me if still inside the bathroom.
There was no response. I clenched the split in the blue curtain with wet hands, paused to take a breath and steady my nerves, then jerked it open.
The bathroom was empty.
A fluffy green towel sat on the counter. Next to it, folded neatly, was a T-shirt and what looked like track pants. A pair of athletic socks lay balled-up next to the clothes.
I grabbed the towel, began urgently wiping myself down. When I was relatively dry, I stepped from the tub and went to the closed door. Quietly as I could, I pushed the button in on the knob, locking it.
After I finished drying off, I picked up the T-shirt, put it on. I glanced into the mirror. I could still see the Blue Ward rec room hovering behind me, past the curtain, past the fallen tiles.
