Woman on the Edge of Time

“The same. But they’re even more bowled over by a Dr. Argent, who’s head of some institute.”

“Dr. Argent? There’s nobody around here like that.”

“Beats me. What bothers me is that the hospital’s been after them to sign a permission for something.”

She hugged herself, trying to summon up the nerve. Skip had his own clothes, he always seemed to have a little cash, even cigarettes. “Skip … could you loan me a little to call my niece in New York City? I haven’t had a visit since I got here. I know if I talk to her, I can get her to bring me some money and some of my clothes. They’re ashamed, and they’re pretending I don’t exist since they sent me up.”

“My folks guilt-trip over sending me to the state hospital. They don’t come either, but they deposit an allowance.” Skip fished out a pouch he wore under his shirt. He had made it in Occupational Therapy. She longed for OT privileges but couldn’t get them because Mrs. Richard had put down bad things in her record. OT was just an hour every other week (the men went one week and the women the next) playing with clay or cutting out leather, but it was something to do. Of course you couldn’t really relax because the OT had to justify her job by writing a report too (“patient withdrawn, made woman with overdeveloped sexual features”), but it was some kind of change. Skip stuck the pouch back under his shirt and slid a dollar into her hand. “Hope it does you something.”

She hid the dollar in the secret compartment under the bottom flap of her shopping-bag-within-a-shopping-bag—both wearing dangerously thin and mended twice on the handles. “Thanks, Skip. Listen, if I can get her, she’ll come through. She has to.”

“They don’t like us, you know, We’re lepers … . You know what the last experiment was they pulled on me? They stuck electrodes on my prick and showed me dirty pictures, and when I got a hard-on about men, they shocked me. Whatever they’re into here, it can’t be that painful, right?”

As they sat on the bench waiting for Acker, the denim psychologist, to give them some new test, she felt better. She had a secret key to the world, if only she got permission to use the phone that night.

The time they could make phone calls was fixed: after supper, before roll call. She waited in line to ask permission.

Sharma asked, “Please can I have some toilet paper?”

“Again? What are you doing in the bathroom, Sharma?”

“It’s the medication. It makes me have to pee all the time, Nurse, honest.”

“It doesn’t do that to any other patient. Why would it do that to you? If you didn’t play with yourself, you wouldn’t have to pass urine every five minutes.” Two sheets of toilet paper doled out.

“Please can I make a phone call?” Sylvia asked.

“Who do you want to call?”

The black woman shifted her feet. “My boyfriend.”

“What’s his name?”

“Duster.”

The nurse was still waiting.

Reluctantly Sylvia added, “Duster MacPhee. He’s in Yonkers.”

“You have the money?”

“Right here, I sure do.”

“Okay. The men’s attendant is on duty in the hall.” The nurse acted out permitting a great favor.

“I need a couple of aspirin. I have a terrible headache tonight.” A new patient, Mrs. Souza, held out her hand impatiently.

“Your medication is listed on your chart, and it doesn’t include aspirin,” the night nurse said.

“But I have a headache. I don’t need any … medication. Drugs. Just plain, ordinary aspirin.”

“You’re a doctor now, to prescribe for yourself, Mrs. Souza? Is that what you’re doing in the hospital—thinking you’re a doctor?”

“I’m not asking for morphine, Nurse. Just aspirin! Like we sell in the drugstore I own with my husband, by sizes up to one thousand! Aspirin!”

“Sweetie, you may or you may not own a drugstore, but you’re contused now. You aren’t the one who prescribes for the patients in here. Now go sit down! Now! Or I’ll have you sedated.”

Mrs. Souza could not believe it. She turned to Connie, next in line. “I was only asking for plain aspirin, for my headache! I’ll tell the doctor about this.”

“Better sit down,” she said softly. She could not risk saying more. She stepped past Mrs. Souza and in her best beggar’s manner pleaded, “Please, I would really appreciate it if I could call my niece Dolly Campos in New York City?”

“You have the money?”

She showed her the precious dollar, cashed into quarters and dimes from Mrs. Stein. “See? Enough to call her. Please. I would appreciate it, Nurse, ever so much.”

“I sure would like to know where you got that, Mrs. Ramos,”

“It’s mine. See? Please.” Again she held out her hand with the precious coins hot in her palm. “I would really like to talk with my niece, Dolly Campos, in Manhattan. You have her on the list of family, if you want to check it.”

“Go ahead. Though I’d like to know what you did for that money. Did you bum it in dimes?”