Mercy

There wasn’t a single inch of my body that wasn’t swarming with the pain or filth inflicted by Elliot’s touch, but I refused to let it show. Instead, I buried myself in the medical workings of dependent cancer patients, hoping that immersing myself in the tragedies of those so near to death would make my situation appear more like a lighthearted disagreement than a brutal rape. Unfortunately, I was not destined for such an effortless ticket to refutation. Every case, all so incredibly unique that they mirrored one another in calamity, increased my melancholy state exponentially to a point where I had to stop and ask myself, Why the fuck am I even here anymore? Nine times out of ten, the very patients who sought a cure from our hapless oncology ward migrated to the chilling depths of the morgue below. For some, that seemingly backwards migration was a much shorter voyage than for others, and more often than not, it was more difficult to watch the latter. A longer waiting period spelled out a longer, painful struggle between life and death where, in the end, it was inevitable as to who would prevail.

It made me wonder why Jakob hadn’t questioned my proposal to move his father into the hospice. So far as this hospital was concerned, the oncology ward was the fucking hospice.

The more I thought about it, the more I disgusted myself by being so fascinated with death that I felt the need to be a part of a section in the hospital where witnessing a person’s final moments was second only to the emergency room in how often it occurred. Perhaps such a fascination stemmed from a deeper desire within my slighted soul to be the deceased, especially when the deceased hadn’t lived more than seven short years on this earth. In a case as disheartening as a seven year old dying of acute lymphocytic leukemia, it was virtually impossible for the medical personnel not to secretly wish they could trade places with the unfortunate little girl. At seven years old, she was supposed to have unlimited potential, yet by some cruel twist of fate, the girl had already begun her rapid migration to a room much colder than the one she resided in for sixteen agonizing months.

As I stood gazing at the empty hospital bed she had been resting in mere hours prior to her untimely demise, I couldn’t help but wonder whether my daughter had taken a similar journey…or if she still claimed her right to unlimited potential.

“It never gets any easier, does it?” Dr. Shaw whispered from the doorway, instantly causing my body to tense at her unexpected arrival.

“No,” I agreed morosely, wrapping my arms around my abdomen in an effort to console myself, but no matter how tightly I hugged myself, I couldn’t disregard watching the death of a child.

“Would you like to know what I always have to remind myself after something like this?” she asked timidly. I turned to face her and noticed that she too couldn’t seem to rip her gaze from the empty hospital bed.

“Sure,” I replied emotionlessly. I doubted anything she had to say would aid me in the slightest, but something told me that humoring her would help her cope.

“Knowing that she’s in a better place. Evelyn’s no longer suffering, Mike. She’s at peace.”

With a sharp intake of breath and an automatic eye roll, I was immediately thankful for having my back turned to the naïve doctor in the doorway. How could the girl be at peace when the doctor who had treated her for twelve of those sixteen months persisted in calling her Evelyn despite how much the little girl despised the name? I’m sure Evi’s spirit, wherever it dwelled, was already plotting her afterlife’s revenge upon Dr. Shaw…or felt so insignificant that not even her own doctor remembered her name.

“Of course. Evi can’t feel any pain anymore,” I hissed through clenched teeth, putting heavy emphasis on the girl’s name to hopefully force Dr. Shaw to face her blunder.

“That’s right. Now, if you just focus on that, her passing will be much easier to swallow,” she stated.

“Right.”

“Look, Mike…none of us would be opposed to you going on break early. Just take as much time as you need, so long as you return with enough time to check on Billie Joe Armstrong once more before your shift is over,” she offered, her gentle hand on my shoulder signifying that sometime during her little speech she had silently advanced upon me. I flinched at the unanticipated contact, but she failed to notice.

“Thanks, Maggie,” I muttered, stealthily shrugging out from under her grasp so I could slink away from the ominously vacant hospital bed.

I trudged through the fluorescent glow of endless hallways, unaware that my arms were still tightly wrapped around my own body. What to do with the extra forty minutes I had added to my break was beyond me, so I was left to wander in an attempt to clear my head before the destination became clear. At once, I made a beeline for the locker rooms to retrieve a treasure deeply embedded within my tattered jacket: Cigarettes. If there was ever a time I needed the stimulating effects of nicotine to quell the thoughts and flashbacks racing about in my mind, it was then. My fingers shook as I worked the combination of my locker and snatched the jacket from its protective cage. Where to go from there was irrelevant so long as the destination was outdoors and not on hospital property. On autopilot, I found myself heading to the parking structure which held my junker, and soon enough I was perched, cross-legged, on the hood of my vehicle.

The view from the third level of the parking structure was enough to allow my mind a simple escape from all that had happened in the course of eight long hours. Periodically taking drags from the very cancer sticks that brought a raving Billie Joe Armstrong into the oncology ward, I got lost in the humbling glow of dawn and observed miniature cars maneuvering through the early morning traffic. The drivers of those miniature cars most likely hadn’t much more to worry about than being late to work and where the hell to get a decent cup of coffee in this part of town. Their day had just begun, automatically making their inner qualms somewhat laughable to one whose days never started or ended but simply meshed together in a constant stream of light and dark. The inner qualms of those who only had a fucking cup of steaming caffeine to worry about couldn’t raise a goddamn candle to the horrors I’d faced that day. To the horrors I faced every day.

As my third cigarette reduced to a length that made it impossible to continue smoking, I flicked the butt to the ground and for a moment, did nothing but watch it burn. With a groan, I jumped off from the hood of my car and crushed the cigarette regretfully with my shoe, wishing I could smoke just one more before facing Billie Joe a second time that morning. The mere thought of such a task brought my body to shudder uneasily in the early morning chill, and I suddenly found the short walk back to the hospital to be an unnecessarily daunting chore. I certainly did not want to return…but where else could I go? All that waited for me at home was Elliot and an inevitable second round of his twisted game of hide the pickle, and I didn’t exactly have friends or family to turn to for help. With Elliot so ruthlessly thrust back onto my lap, the only damned serenity and refuge I could find was in that hospital.

I wasn’t particularly fond of the irony.

As the bitterness reached menacing heights within my heart, I found myself hovering outside of the old bastard’s room, wondering wildly why he was the very first patient I’d ever had who actually brought me to root for death to reign supreme. Did that make me a horrible person, or simply…jaded? With a disgruntled sigh, I entered to find the old man violently hacking into a tissue reddening with the deteriorating tissues of his lungs. I found the sight to be abnormally calming, seeing as the premier time I witnessed this exact action from Billie Joe, I had to look away. In that instant, however, simply knowing the old man wouldn’t be harassing me much longer instilled a microscopic sense of peace in a mind so full of despair.

Once his coughing fit passed, the old man peered bleakly up at me with an expression so opposite the one he was accustomed to wearing I wasn’t sure what to make of it. For the first time since he arrived, he finally looked defeated, and that rebellious fire in his soul appeared to have been extinguished by round after round of chemo. For the first time since I reluctantly met Billie Joe Armstrong, I felt sorry for him.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” he muttered, wringing his hands in a telltale sign of discomfort.

“It’s not like I have a choice,” I shot back more harshly than I initially anticipated, though I didn’t regret it.

“Good point,” he chuckled sullenly, eyes dropping to the floor behind me. “Look, I heard about Evi, and I just-”

“We’re not talking about that,” I growled, sympathy for the old man rapidly fading. I did, however, note his usage of her nickname as opposed to her given name and was mildly surprised that he’d even picked up on that during his brief stay in the hospital. I also found it unsettling that, despite how Dr. Shaw insisted upon calling the girl Evelyn, Billie Joe knew to use the nickname.

“Why the hell not? You’re obviously bothered by it, and after what happened to you before you got paged in-”

“Knock it the fuck off. Whatever you’re trying to do, Old Man…just…don’t,” I hissed, the notion of sharing actual feelings with the bastard certainly not being high on my priority list.

“C’mon, Fairy. This is gonna eat you alive if you don’t at least acknowledge that Evi reminded you of your daughter.”

The blood ran cold in my veins the minute the words were spoken, and my body was swiftly consumed with the icy unease of catching a Peeping Tom in the act, only that time it was my personal life that was being heavily scrutinized by a complete stranger. There was a reason I never addressed anything pertaining to my past while I was at work. There was a reason why I kept myself hidden away from anything resembling a relationship closer than simple acquaintances. I couldn’t bear to be hurt again, and with Elliot back in my life…the past was threatening to come crashing down on my shoulders thanks to a senile old bastard with a serious prying problem.

“How the fuck do you know about her?” I demanded, unwelcomed tears welling in my eyes as I advanced upon Billie Joe.

“I…I guess I heard rumors…” he mumbled, though I knew it was a bullshit answer, molding him into a shameless hypocrite in the back of my mind. Wasn’t he the one who called anyone out for bullshitting him?

“Bullshit, Armstrong. No one here knows.”

“Y’sure?” he questioned shyly, fear becoming evident in his weathered features.

“Beyond fucking positive. Now tell me how the fuck you know about her.”

Billie Joe was silent for a handful of seconds, urgently grasping at believable excuses for knowing too much about my life. At last, he opened his mouth to speak, but it certainly wasn’t anything close to the explanation I deserved.

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

“What the hell kind of answer is that?! Jesus fucking Christ, I’m sick of everyone thinking they can walk all over me and get away with it!”

“Fairy, I promise, I ain’t tryin’ to fuck with you. I just wanna help you,” he moaned, realizing with dread that I had him metaphorically backed into a corner.

“Don’t. I don’t need your fucking help, so just stay the hell out of my business. Got it?” I snarled, stomping off to retrieve his chart in the hopes of finishing whatever duties I had been ordered to accomplish before I left. What Dr. Shaw had scrawled haphazardly on a harmless little post-it was enough to make me want to vomit on the spot.

“What’s wrong?” Billie questioned, becoming increasingly alarmed by how quickly the color drained from my face.

“Fuck. I have to…you need…”

“Spit it out already!”

“I’m supposed to give you a fucking sponge bath.”

Billie’s mouth snapped shut at once as defiance showed its unsightly form on his horrified exterior. After a moment of stunned silence passed, he claimed, “There’s a goddamn shower in that bathroom, Fairy. I can take care of cleaning myself, thanks.”

“You’re a falling hazard,” I murmured, unable to peel my eyes away from the yellow sticky note.

“Bullshit! I ain’t a fucking falling hazard!” he hollered, further proving his point by hobbling gracelessly out of his bed and standing with his arms crossed disapprovingly before me. “Do I look like I’m about to keel over?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you! Why can’t one of them kinky nurses like they have on those smutty soap operas give me my sponge bath? This ain’t fair,” the old man whined, lower lip sticking out in a reminiscently juvenile pout.

“I don’t like this any more than you do. My day’s already been shitty. I don’t need anything else to make it worse.”

“Considering you’re a fucking Fairy, I think you’ll enjoy this more than I will,” Billie glowered.

“Yeah right,” I chuckled humorlessly. “You’ve got so many medications pumping through your body right now that I seriously doubt your ability to get it up, Limpdick.”

“You sayin’ I’m impotent, asshole?” the old man growled, fingers curling angrily into fists.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I sneered, thoroughly enjoying putting him in his place after nearly a week of his merciless harassments.

“I picked the wrong damn day to try and play nice with you, Fairy.”

“The only reason you started being nice was because I was raped this morning, Limpdick.”

“Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be now? You callin’ me Limpdick ‘cause I call you Fairy?” Billie inquired coyly, and by the contemplative glimmer in his eye, I could tell the old bastard was formulating a plan up in that manipulative brain of his.

“You bet your ass that’s how it’s gonna be.”

“Well, bring it on. We’ll see if I’m still the limpdick after your magical little sponge bath.”

I couldn’t decide which was more disturbing: the fact that I was intrigued by his unorthodox wager or how I was beginning to admire his audacity.

Oh, I definitely despised the irony.