mostly nonfiction and bakersfield news | November 13th, 2009
Witch Black and Baby Blue
By James Michael Blaine
Chaos everywhere in the five county area and by the time I creep into the last ER I’ve had more than my fill of manic-depressives and opiate suicides gone awry. I drop my gear and sift through the patient fridge for a Gatorade G2.
“No Grape?” I ask Jody, the nurse.
Swiping her name tag, she ducks into the doctor’s lounge and returns with a purple drink.
“Thanks,” I say, twisting off the top. “So what you got?”
“Well,” she sighs, puffing bangs from her eyes. “By the time she got here she’d already shucked off all her clothes and throwed them out the cop car window. Then when they dragged her through the double doors she stripped off the sheet they wrapped her in and shouted “I AM THE ARK OF THE COVENANT - do not touch meeeeeeeeeeee….” Jody claws up her fists and screeches the last line.
“Alright then,” I respond, pulling deeply against the grape.
“Bed nine,” she grunts, tossing over the chart. “Took six of us but she’s in four-point restraints and a hospital gown. For now.”
I knock against nine’s wall and pull the curtain back. The girl is mid-twenties maybe, with witch black hair, baby blue eyeshadow, and a face ravaged by acne scars. She’s upright in bed, latched at the wrists and ankles and scowling me down with the cackle of the damned.
Jody’s on my tail. “I wanna see this,” she clucks.
I stride forth and offer my hand. She flinches back and pulls against the straps. “I do not shake hands with the devil’s son,” she says with disgust.
Jody lets out a short whoop and leaves the room.
I pull a stool over and sit by the bed. The patient turns her head slowly towards me, as if rotated by gears. “You,” she commands. “Look into mine eyes and know what it is to be loved.”
I slide in. We lock eyes. “OK. Sure.”
She stares intently, like trying to bend metal with her mind. God’s love, I think, Try not to smirk. Monster be nice.
A minute seems endless when you are staring into the eyes of a stranger. The monster is me, I consider, toying with those acutely psychotic. Love of God, I recall. Be nice, be kind, do no harm.
Time crawls and two minutes pass slowly as the waters beneath the Silver Creek Bridge. She moves closer. Her breath is hot and faintly smells of SweetTarts. Peace of God. Mercy, I pray. Lord, let the straps hold.
Three minutes, four. Silence, save for the soft hum of florescents and sirens far away. Closer still, she comes, until our faces nearly touch. Enough.There is a sadness. Leave. Go. I cannot fathom. No. Stay.
The emerald of her iris flickers in the light. Somehow I know the hell she has been through. Stop the melodrama. I want to tell her that we are all so damaged. The darkest heart hopes for beauty still. But sometimes there’s just no words. Somebody’s baby, somebody’s sister, somebody’s friend.
“Anna, c’mon.” I say softly.
She looks away, as if staring through windows only she can see. “You can go now.”
Imprints of the buckles and leather mark her arms. Her gown is torn and falling away. I stand to leave. “Is there anything I can do?”
She shakes her head.
“Want something to drink?”
“Juice,” she says quietly.
“Juice?”
“Juice.”
“That it?”
She shrinks into herself and in a tiny voice asks: “Do you have any extra underwear?”
There is no rush to speak in jails and emergency rooms. Words can breathe. Questions linger. It’s never awkward.
“Juice. Underwear. See what I can do.” I turn to go. At the door she calls out to me.
“Hey mister.”
“Yeah?”
“So. Do you feel any more loved now?”
Sometimes the job is a blessing, other times a curse. Sometimes it’s sport, other times all too serious. Sometimes I know why I’m here, other times I don’t have the first damn clue.
“Yes ma’am,” I reply. “I do.”
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JAMES MICHAEL BLAINE is an accidental psychotherapist, bass-playing rapper in Music City’s third most popular party band; personal fitness trainer and prize fight manager (permit good only in the state of Georgia). As likely to quote Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach as Saint Augustine, he’s a licensed suicide specialist who helps break southern rap artists and writes songs for secretly gay Nashville cowboys. He has worked in libraries, haunted houses, megachurches, radio stations, roller rinks and may or may not have been the infamous Japanese masked wrestler “Sir Pink” who was booed lustily in auction barns and National Guard armories across the rural South. JM has been welcomed into the Vanderbilt MFA program, just as soon as he can more efficiently channel his “inner Yeats.” He is happily married to a Vandy med school student and former ballet dancer. They have no children, no pets and no yard.
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3 Responses for “Witch Black and Baby Blue”
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This post leaves me breathless every time I read it – and I've read it a few times by now. Something about the juxtaposition of that witch black hair and the baby blue eyeshadow. Perfect metaphor.
It was striking to say the least.
She was very exorcist looking in a totally sad manner though.
Wonder what she's doing now?
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