Goatie 22

Droopy Eyes came back to work in a good mood. It was half-five before she got back to me in the medic room. And she’d soon be knocking off for another night. I didn’t say much. Let her take my blood pressure and dole out my meds. She watched me closely as if I was going to skip off or hide them. I felt like telling her to fuck off, but couldn’t work up the energy.  

‘Any episodes?’ she asked.

‘Episodes?’    

I chewed on the tablet before I swallowed, which you weren’t meant to do. It had an unpleasant aftertaste, which I tended to ignore, but I swilled lukewarm water in the plastic cup and swallowed it down. ‘Episodes as in epileptic fits? I glanced up at her face. ‘Or episodes in which some malign goat creature goes on an indiscriminate murder spree while taking a flamethrower to my brain and fucked-up body?’

‘They could be related, you know?’

‘Yed, fuckin know?’

‘Where you happy as a child?’

My back was sore. I sat up a little straight, stretched the bones and imagined them clicking into place and unlocking. Swivelled my neck backwards and forwards like I’d been watching a tennis match in which I lost. I bared my teeth in an approximation of a grin. ‘Let me put it this way. My da grunted when he wanted somethin or didnae want somethin. My ma was pretty good at working out whit he meant. But then she hud lots o practice. Lots mair than me. Nane o them lived wae any certainty that the morrow would be better than yesterday. An they were probably right. An nane o them got an O’grade in kidding on they gie a fuck, like you in the carin profession. So, for the record, my childhood was fuckin ecstatic. It went fae one joy tae another. So help me God’

I picked up a half-drunk mug of tea and put it down again.

‘You finished?’ she spoke lightly, tried to fix a smile on her face.

‘Probably not.’

‘What I mean by that is.’ She stopped and started again. ‘You don’t seem to get many visitors or much mail.’

‘Yeh, spyin on me?’

‘Yes,’ she assured me. ‘That’s my job. ‘I’ve been reading a bit about your condition.’

‘My condition?’

‘Epilepsy.’ She was sharper with me then. ‘If you can stop playing the fool for a minute. We know you suffer from fugue states. Me and my colleagues have been tracking them as best we could. The way you lose track of time. We’ll need to send you to hospital for some tests. Some people lose a few minutes. But yours seem to be considerably longer.’

‘Shite,’ I said. ‘That’s shite an yeh know it.’

‘We need to think of the future. The new governor is bringing in an initiative for prisoners with special needs. Long overdue with an aging prison population. We can offer more individual care. And things like bath-aid chairs to help with bathing. I was thinking of putting your name forward.’

‘I’m no a fuckin Mongo,’ I cried loud enough to expect wardens to come running and beat the shit out of me, again. ‘An I’ve no got special needs. So yeh can go and fuck yersel. Or anybody else that takes yer fancy. Ya fuckin cow.’

A ginger-haired warden did poke his head in the door. Droopy Eyes was breathing heavily, but waved him away. ‘I take it that’s a no, then?’

‘Aye, it’s a fuckin no.’ I calmed down and said in more placatory tone. ‘I don’t plan to be here that long. Not as long as fuckin you.’

‘Touché,’ she said. ‘You may have a point. I’m done. I don’t plan to stay much longer. But the point I was trying—and failing—to make was you should have someone you trust as your power of attorney in case something happens. And you can’t represent yourself.’

‘Why would that happen?’

‘Well, your seizures seem more prolonged. We could try tweaking the medication. But we’ve already done that. And it doesn’t seem to work.’

 I rubbed at the top of my scalp. ‘Nah, I don’t take seizures. An if I dae, they’re only wee wans that don’t really matter.’

‘You’re in denial, which is fine. To be expected. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross published a book On Death and Dying. She outlined five stages of grief. Anger, Denial. Bargaining. Depression and Acceptance.’

‘So, I’m dyin noo, as well?’

‘In a very real way, yes!’

‘In a very real way, fuck off. I’m no Special Needs and I’m no epileptic. Enjoy yer long retirement, fuck-face.’

She went towards the door and shut it behind her. ‘I thought you’d say that.’

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get back to sleep. But she returned about a minute later carrying an iPhone. We both knew that was illegal. I wondered if she wanted to play kinky games and have me send her pictures of my penis.

She seemed out of breath and kept glancing at the door. ‘This is highly unusual, but I’m going to show you something that may convince you of the serious nature of your problem.’

She scrolled down her phone and tapped the screen. Handing me her phone.

I felt distanced from the footage as if the person onscreen wasn’t me having a prolonged seizure. It seemed like one of those quirky shorts, a mixture of The Exorcist and a pub brawl with one character, levitating to a new plane.