These Halls Are Never Empty

The next morning, Simone went to wake Tom up for work, as his alarm clock had broken and they hadn't gotten a new one yet, but she found she got no response from merely turning on his light, which usually got him up. By six thirty, she walked into his room, determined to scold him for sleeping so late when he had to be in by seven. Her demeanor turned from disciplinarian to concerned mother in a heartbeat when she looked upon her pale son, sweat glistening on his skin. His bed sheets were soaked and his breathing was uneasy.

“Oh… oh my god, Tom!” She rushed over to him and pressed a hand to his forehead.

“Mom,” he moaned out, curling up and clutching his stomach.

His skin told her the whole story. “You’re burning up, you need to stay home.”

“Stomach hurts… feel sick.”

From concerned mother to doctor. “What else?”

“Achy. Hot and cold at once.”

“I knew it. Poor baby, you have the flu. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long without getting sick from that hospital.”

Tom made a face, then shivered. “Mom… bathroom.”

Needing no further instruction, she helped her sick child into the bathroom. He fell to his knees and, because of the perfect timing that most mothers seemed to possess, vomited into the toilet, coughing several times. Simone wetted a washcloth and pressed the cool, wet fabric to the back of his neck, stroking his dreadlocks lightly to comfort him and pressing down lightly on the soaked fabric, sending the excess water run in rivers down his clammy skin. He heaved again, but there was nothing left in his stomach to expel. He flushed the toilet and shakily stood up.

“I can’t work, Mom.”

Simone put a hand on his cheek. His skin was fire to her touch. “I know, sweetie. I’ll call the hospital and tell them. Now, I want you to take an aspirin and then take a cold shower to help get rid of your fever, then you go and lie down in the guest room, your bed is sopping wet.”

Tom nodded weakly and shuffled to the medicine as Simone walked out of the bathroom. He dug through the cabinet and found the bottle filled with the little brick-colored pills, popped the cap off, and poured two onto his palm. He threw them in his mouth, getting dizzy. Cupping his hand under the faucet, he turned it on and got a handful of water. He swallowed the water and the pills, then turned on the shower. He stripped out of his damp boxers and stepped directly into the icy chill of the water.

The cold soothed and bit at his skin, covering his fever and stabbing his nerves all at once. He sat down on the cold porcelain, his legs weak, letting the frigid water cleanse his body of the virus.

~+~

At the hospital, Bill sat upside down in his chair, his scraggly, dirty, black hair brushing the floor. His eyes were closed, but they were moving behind his eyelids, as if he were reading rapidly in his mind. His mouth was slightly open, exposing his small overbite. The nurse walked into the room at seven as she usually did, and, before she could say a word, Bill pressed a button on his Speak ‘n Spell.

It recited every answer Bill normally gave, a premeditated response. It also gave the statement: “Don’t you think if you haven’t figured what’s wrong with me from this questions yes, you’d choose a different approach?”

Bill didn’t open his eyes, but he could picture the shocked look on the nurse’s face. He heard her exit, and with a sigh, he opened his eyes, examining the room upside down. He felt a strange pulling at his stomach and he knew that Tom wasn’t coming to work today. He wondered why, as Tom had little more than a week left until his 300 hours were up.

It wasn’t as if Bill was a stalker, he was merely observant, and with no speech, he was an amazing listener. It was also his fascination with Tom that caused him to pay attention. He had no idea why he was so… so compelled by the janitor. Usually, he had reasons for things, but this one was aspect of his life that really had no description or reason. He was pretty sure it wasn’t any kind of physical anything, purely a mental thing. He wasn’t sure he could feel emotional feelings like that, of an attraction to another person.

His observations were caused by what he had termed himself, when he had learned the word when he was nine years of age, as voyeuristic inclinations. He chose, and would always choose, to sit on the sidelines and watch rather than get involved. It was just the way he was.

He flipped deftly to his feet and walked to his cabinet of art supplies. No one knew where his amazing talent in art had come from, only that he could express himself better through oil paints, watercolors, oil pastels, chalks, charcoals, and pens than he could through motions. Bill often times thought that his voice was taken because he couldn’t say exactly what he felt, where he could with art. Drawing and painting were his ways of escaping, his way of pretending that he had not been dumped in the hospital as a last resort.

Depending on what the subject matter was, a drawing could take him anywhere from minutes to hours to complete. Some of the meaner patients on the fifth floor, the ones who thought they were above the other psychopaths there, called him an Idiot Savant, saying he was the retard who wasn’t smart enough to speak but could draw ‘little faggot-ass pictures.’ Bill drew them with a flaw of theirs enlarged and focused on, like a vindictive caricature. Those were the ones he taped on his wall with the strengthened medical tape he had been given.

This time, however, he was not being vindictive or retaliatory. He was being reminiscent, picturing Tom’s sharp features. He let a memory flood his mind, of when Tom looked the most distinct, in his opinion, and he began to draw Tom as Bill saw him yesterday morning, when he caught Bill mucking up the floor.

His charcoal flew across the page as he drew everything perfect and accurate, right down to the way Tom’s dreadlocks spilled over his shoulders.

Four hours later, his right arm screaming in pain from the constant movement, Bill looked at his drawing, finding himself pleased with his work.

So what if Tom was a criminal?

So what?

~+~

Tom woke up dizzy, with chapped lips, and with the smell of toast in his nose. He looked to his side and saw a mug of tea, still steaming, and a slice of toast that looked nearly soaked with butter. His stomach gave a painful gurgle and he grabbed at the toast, chewing it almost savagely, his hunger intense. He grabbed the mug, and before he swallowed the tea, looked down and noticed a bucket on the floor with about a half-inch of water in the bottom.

Puke insurance he thought with a grin and tilted back the mug so its contents could flow down his throat. He finished the tea and lay back on the bed, the contents of his stomach settling. He stared at the ceiling, letting his mind wander. His hands itched for his guitar, but he was still dizzy, and did not want to move from his soft bed.

As he lay there, his thoughts turned to Bill. Obviously a schizo, Tom decided. After all, he did show signs. Paranoia is a huge defining factor there, isn’t it?

But something at the back of his mind told him that that wasn’t true. Something about Bill was clearly wrong, but there had to be something that caused it, some outside force that had made him scared. Maybe that’s why Bill called me criminal, just to let himself know that he was brave by being with me or something, he thought.

Whatever the reason, Tom decided that he was going to find out.

~+~

“I think you’re finally getting over this,” Simone said about a week and a half after Tom’s sickness outbreak.

“How can you tell?” Tom asked. He felt no different, other than no dizziness or fever.

Together, they sat at their dining room table, the urge to play a random game of Scrabble overtaking them. Tom’s vocabulary was a little lacking to his mother’s, but he was crafty and could read his mother like an open book. They always either tied or came within points of each other.

Simone playfully pulled the hood of the baggy black sweatshirt Tom had on over his head. “You’ve stopped talking in your sleep.”

Tom pulled the hood farther over his face and blushed. It was his curse: whenever he was sick, he talked in his sleep, either saying the words of a dream he was having or about the day’s events.

He had never really fully lived down his very vivid wet dream he’d had that his mother had heard when he’d come down with an ear infection five years ago.

“So you think I’ll be better soon? I feel bad making Dmetri and Seth pick up my slack. I mean, Seth has a kid at home.” He laid down a few letters and turned ‘quit’ into ‘mosquito.’

“Oh you little… I was going to use that!”

“But you didn’t. Give me my points.”

Simone rolled her eyes and wrote down Tom’s points. “Don’t worry over Dmetri and Seth, honey. They did it before you got there, and they’ll do it after you’re gone.”

Tom played with an E tile. “Well, I was thinking… I kind of wanted to stay at the hospital.”

Simone turned ‘pace’ into ‘spacer.’ “Really?”

Tom shrugged. “Just until school starts again. As a summer volunteer job, or a real job, if they’ll pay me, I don’t care. I just… I don’t know. I think it’ll be good for me, and my record speaks louder than any impressive job application.”

Simone placed a hand on her son’s knee. “I’m glad you’re turning yourself around. You’re going back to that little boy I raised.”

Tom scoffed jokingly at his mother’s thick voice. “Ah, Mom, don’t go all puddle mass on me now! I’m just starting to beat you!”

She wiped at her eye. “You are not beating me and I can’t help it! You can’t imagine how happy I am that you’re changing your ways when I’ve seen you turn into a person I didn’t know.”

Tom realized, in that moment, the anguish he must have put his parents through when he was the little shit that got himself arrested. The relief Simone must have felt could never be described with words.

Tom put an L on ‘idea’ and made it ‘ideal.’ “I’m trying my hardest, Mom.”

She smiled both at her son and the implications behind the word he that created. “That’s all I can ask, honey. That’s all I can ask.”