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Three

After questioning Benny during dinner, I found out my love’s name was Abigail. She was still too new to join us, being sedated and all, but Benny had seen a guy who knew a guard who had helped find her a room, which is how we knew her name was Abigail, or just Gail. It might have been just Gail, but Abigail was a prettier name so I decided to stick with it until I knew better.

After dinner, Benny and I hung out in the rec room, watching other people play ping pong. There was a line, so we couldn’t play for a while. I got us some cups of juice, orange, and wandered around waiting for some chairs to open up. Two did and we wandered near them, except Benny spilled his juice, and while looking for the spill managed to slip in it and fall on his ass, missing the chair by a few inches. I tried not to laugh and gave him a hand. He muttered angrily and wiped at his pants while I got him more juice and some napkins. After that we sat and talked about what Benny had learned today.

“John, you gotta know, they’re gonna come any day now.” Benny nodded as he spoke, constantly. A big white bobble head doll, Benny was.

“From the radio still?” I thought Benny was a bit crazy, but I didn’t want to tell him that. He was my friend. If Benny thought that the radio sent sentient waves out disguised as sound, then I had to accept that as part of who Benny was.

“Of course from the radio! John, don’t you listen to anything I say? They’re biding their time…”

“Like Lincoln,” I said, trying to be helpful and show Benny that I really did understand.

“Lincoln is dead, man. Dead. He isn’t going to kill you, because he’s dead.” I sighed and shook my head, stopping to sip my juice. I knew Benny was my friend; he just had trouble being as accepting and open-minded as I was.

“Benny. Benny. Lincoln is as real as the radio thing. I mean, maybe the radio waves are just radio waves? That’s what Doctor Pinser said isn’t it? But if you really think it’s true, then I’m willing to extend you that friendship, right?”

“Of course you are, because the radio waves are out to get us…”

“No see, but then I need you… I mean Lincoln scares me Benny, he scares me bad.” Benny was about to say something to me when Doctors Lensher and Vandrell stopped their rounds to look at me. They talked to each other in hushed tones, the tones that we all knew meant they didn’t want us to hear them at all, and came over, all smiles.

“John,” Doctor Lensher began, consulting a chart in his hand, “do you have time to meet with us?” His voice was polite and eased, and Doctor Vandrell winked at me. I shrugged and stood up, giving Benny a neutral, goodbye wave.

They took me to one of the big white labs and asked me to sit down. I sat and Doctor Vandrell handed me a fresh cup of juice, apple this time. I thanked him and he smiled and nodded at me, taking a step back as Doctor Lensher took a step forward.

“How have you been feeling, John,” asked Doctor Lensher. I considered the question while I took a big sip of my juice and rested the cup on my knee.

“All right. I mean, sometimes I still can’t find words, or I need to know the time. I just talked to Doctor West this morning. You can ask her, she takes good notes I think. I always see her writing, and she has a really nice pen, too.”

“Yes, Doctor West does take good notes,” Doctor Vandrell agreed with a smile, “and we read them over before we met up with you. I think Doctor Lensher was asking if there was anything,” his eyes flicked over to Doctor Lensher for agreement, which Lensher gave with him with a small smile, “you didn’t think to mention to Doctor West. Have you been depressed recently?” I shook my head and thought about the question at the same time, something that Doctor West always asked me to not do. Then I shrugged and smiled at them. “Ok, well, John, we wanted to try a new treatment on you, so it’s important that we know.” I nodded again at Vandrell.

“Not that I know of. I was sad today, but it wasn’t depression, I was just sad. That new woman who came in. She didn’t seem happy, and that made me sad. The day was so clear and bright before that, but she didn’t enjoy it at all.” The doctors exchanged a look and both started to talk at once. Vandrell stopped and gave Lensher a small turn of his hand.

“Well, our new friend just moved here. You remember how you felt when you first got here, don’t you?” I did, and they were right. I hadn’t put it in the right context, like Doctor West encouraged me to do more often.

“Yeah, so what’s the new procedure?” From past, not always unpleasant, experience I knew that if they were asking me they had already asked my sister and she had already agreed. I didn’t mind, it worked that way here at McGee’s, and more often than not it worked out pretty okay for me too.

“We want to recharge your clock,” Lensher said with a quick look at Vandrell. I liked clocks. They really helped me keep track of things, time for example. More than time, though, clocks helped me know where I was supposed to be and when and what time it was. Clocks were good, and helping my clock would be good, I decided. I smiled and nodded, giving Lensher a thumbs up.

They both worked to find a good time and gave me a slip of paper to remember it by. I knew they would come get me if I did forget, but I wouldn’t. I didn’t like to let them down if I could help it. There was no reason to.

I left, giving both doctors a happy goodbye wave and wandered the hallways for a while, just seeing who was around. I went out for a smoke, and sat by myself on one of the benches. There was still a small breeze but it had cooled down, and I smoked quicker than I would have liked, staring at the sky and thinking. I ground my cigarette carefully into the ground and tried to watch the breeze carry it away, but it was too dark and the remains too small to see really well. I watched anyway, as best I could, and went back inside, straight to my room and to bed.

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Crazy Little Thing is copyright Adam P. Knave.