Goatie 16

Boner reminded me, Vic was a great believer in you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy. It could even happen to a friend, or someone not coming up with the goods.

‘Whit does he want me to dae?’ I asked.

‘Just do what you did the last time.’

‘But I don’t know whit I did the last time.’

He made a harrumphing noise and pushed his earpiece back into his ear. He fiddled around with bandwidths before lying back with his eyes closed. His body became more relaxed, but I wasn’t sure if he was sleeping.  

Fatigued. I needed sleep like a grizzly hibernating in a cave with the Rockies and tens of thousands of tons of cold banked snow piled on its head. But when I closed my gritty eyes, my body startled. My mind flying at high altitude between imminent threats and distant panic. Running low on oxygen. Wheezing and sucking air that wasn’t there. The stink of my own skin—

Droopy eyes loomed over me. Not helping exactly, but looking concerned. I was almost glad she was there. Boner must have created enough ruckus to get her into the medical room.

‘I dunno whit happened.’ I clutched the damp blanket, a damp shadow sticking to my thighs. The dimmed light made little difference. The stink was enough. We both knew it wasn’t good.

‘Let’s get you up and changed.’ She spoke with kind of breezy voice adults used with kids or cranky old men that have peed themselves, perhaps with a bit of follow through. The difficult geriatric nappy-unhappy squad.

I didn’t feel that old, but it was a short step to remembering that you never do. ‘Whit’s the matter wae me?’

She grasped my elbow to help me out of bed. I didn’t need her help, but somehow I was grateful. The stilted walk of shame to a drier place at the end of my bed, facing the wall. I tried to remember the last time a woman had touched me. But that was another blackout. We’d nowhere to go. I did a shitty little bee-pollen dance as I wiggled out of my hospital gown. She turned her head to give me privacy. I picked it up with two fingers and let slide into the laundry bag which was a black bag. I bundled the blanket on top. Naked, my flaccid little cock peeping out of greying pubic hair.

She handed me a packet of baby wipes to clean myself up as best I could. Boner sat up straighter in his bed watching us with a half-smile on his face. The smell of bleach, gritty underfoot near the stainless steel sink and toilet. I stepped around Droopy Eyes, dropped the wipes in the pan and flushed it. Washing my hands and trying to catch my reflection in the bit of stainless steel that was our make-do mirror. ‘I need a shower,’ I told her.

‘Later,’ she said.  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

It was always later. I washed as best I could. Drying myself with the paper towels. 

‘It could have been a fit,’ she said.

‘A fit?’ I looked around for something to wear. ‘Huv yeh got another wan o those gownies?’ I never thought I’d be grateful to wear a glorified paper bag with strings.

Boner smirked. ‘I’ve got a pair of boxers, you can borrow.’ He poked about a bag under his bed and flung me a pair of striped shorts.

I caught them and pulled them on. They felt nippy around the waist and gave my crotch the kind of bulge I hadn’t had since I was thirteen, but I wasn’t embarrassed about it now.     

‘Let’s see what I can do,’ she said, ‘I’ll have a look and get you something to change into—later. And a change of bedding. And have you had epileptic fits before?’ Quickly correcting herself. ‘Not that I’m saying it was an epileptic fit—it’s too early to say—and I’m not qualified to make such a judgement.’

‘For fuck sake, said Boner. ‘It was an epileptic fit. You seen him thrashing about. Foaming at the mouth. You had to pin him down to put him in the recovery position, and were practically lying on top of him. The bed bouncing. I’ve had less action with you fucking me. So don’t talk shite.’

Boner didn’t usually swear. She acted offended, like his maiden aunt. ‘I meant he’ll need to get some tests. I’ll have you know my father had epileptic fits too. There’s no shame in it. It’s more common than you think, especially around here, with withdrawal.

She squinted at me with dark eyes. ‘Have you been taking anything?’

I shifted from foot to foot. ‘Nah, nah,’ I reassured her. ‘But I wiz absolutely knackered. I mean.’ I shook my head.

‘Tiredness doesn’t usually come into it. But I don’t suppose we can rule it out.’ She changed tack. ‘Have you had any knocks to the head?’

Bonner answered for me. ‘For fuck sake, yah stupid cow. What do you think he’s in here for? You think the screws were having a pillow fight with him and serving him ice cream?’

She sighed and licked her lips. ‘Well, it might be that. Have any of your family, say your mum or dad, took epileptic seizures?’

‘Nah,’ I thought about it some more. ‘Maybe my da, when he was on the booze for a while and comin aff it. But that’s when we were younger.’

‘Interesting.’ She began to treat me like a collection of symptoms. ‘But you have these other blackouts or psychotic episodes when you think you’re a flying pig?’

‘It’s a goat. An it doesnae fly. At least I don’t hink so. I added, ‘I dae lose track of time, but it’s usually at night.’

She glanced at the dim lighting. ‘What time do you think it is now?’

I waved my hands to reassure her. ‘I don’t mean like that.’

But she was equally quick in answering. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Although it’s a little unusual for a man of your age. We’re getting far better at treating patients. Julius Caesar was an epileptic. Joan of Arc had visions like you, but not of flying pigs.’

‘It’s no pigs,’ I reminded her, but she was in full flow.

‘Edward Lear, Vincent Van Gogh.’

‘Yes, but didn’t he cut off his ear?’ said Boner.

‘That’s nothing to do with epilepsy and more to do with art.’

‘I’m alright sunshine then,’ Boner replied, tugging on the lobe of his ear. ‘I can’t draw.’

‘I think you’re being facetious,’ she said. ‘Then there’s Harriet Tubman. She heard God speaking to her and had visions after her slave owner beat her on the head with a metal bar and left her for dead.’

‘Yeh,’ Boner laughed. ‘But he was having visions before the screws beat him to death and left him for dead.’

 ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vladimir Lenin,’ before flinging in an American that put suicidal pills into words and called his dirges songs, ‘Neil Young’.

‘Fuck,’ I said. ‘It’s mair serious than I thought. I’ve no only Goat Man tae contend wae, but Neil Young. Perhaps I’m better goin wae the frontal lobotomy noo.