Shub

A gentle giant finds his way home after all

1

Shub flew. Fat feet pointed, tight white pajamas flapping in the wind. Shub darted through the clouds miles above the Earth. Sunlight pouring over him, warming his bald head, he shot skyward to the edge of space, lifting his eyes up to the sun as he reached the zenith of a tight parabolic arch, and fell slowly back to Earth, laughing.

He passed though the darkness of the outer atmosphere, picking up speed. He fell through clouds of rain and lightning, torrents of water foaming around him, until he broke through the last layer, trailing vapor and mist. The ground sped up to meet him. He could see the forest far below him, the trees getting closer and closer. Still he laughed and laughed.

The whole planet reverberated with his landing. It pushed out slightly at the equator. Dust rose from the deserts and the seas shook, swelling and collapsing like a giant heart.

“Wake up you dunderhead, you gonna sleep though breakfast”

Shub drifted back to consciousness, laying peacefully across his small bed, and merely opened his eyes. His smile was already there, but then it was always there. Happy Shub.

Graham was standing over him, his chicken neck working up and down, eyes that never seemed to be looking in quite the same direction. “Come on Shub, we get wapples today. And sassage. You biggies like your sassage, even I know that”.

“Shub” said Shub, thinking of waffles, and quickly got out of bed, padding after Graham and the others, his bare feet shuffling along the worn linoleum floor.

“Breeeeaak-Faaast!” Terry was saying to no one in particular, rattling his big key ring to drive the sleep from the stragglers heads, “Get your Breeeeak-Faaast! Best meal of the day, don’t miss it”. He rattled his keys and banged them on the plastic clipboard he was carrying. The white-pajama clad patients were wiping the sand from their eyes, stumbling forward on yellow-socked feet.

Shub ambled up to him, tapping him gently on the shoulder. Terry was all of six feet, and broad at the shoulders, but Shub loomed over him, making him look insignificant.

“Boy, you did miss your calling, didn’t you Shub. I think the Seahawks would never lose a game if they had you on the front line, am I right?” Shub just smiled and made a little noise a happy baby might make, if the baby weighed 350 pounds or so.

“Yeah, I reckon I am”, Terry said and motioned toward the door. “Come on, let’s get you to breakfast before it gets cold”.

“Shub!” said Shub, and turned, still smiling, heading out the door towards the cafeteria. Terry pulled the dorm room door closed and quietly locked it with the keys attached by a retractable line to his belt. He turned to Luis, the ‘new kid’ Mental Health Worker on the floor, seeing the look on his face, knowing what he was thinking.

“Look, I know he’s big, to put it mildly, but he’s just a little kid, really. In all my time here he’s never been anything but a sweet, pudding-headed little kid.”

“Yah, I know, but,…jeezus, jus’ think if he wasn’t. I’d say fuck it”.

“Yup”, said Terry thoughtfully scratching his greying goatee, watching the child-like giant shuffle down the hall. “I think we all would”.

Shub floated down the hall, hands swinging in little arcs at his side, a happy smile parting his features in a wide, toothless grin. Normally he would have gone shuffling right along past the wire embedded glass of the nursing station, but something caught his eye. Something new. There was someone he had never seen before, a girl with her head bent over a clipboard, her long auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, writing something, all her attention focused down. Shub wanted to see her. He wanted to say hello.

He stopped in front of the glass, staring. Waiting. Staring. Karla, the crusty head nurse noticed him and with a wry smile nudged Mary, the new Social Work intern, with her elbow. “Looks like you’ve made your first friend.”

“Huh?” said Mary, looking to her right. Karla merely pointed in Shub’s direction with her eyes and a small nod, which Mary followed. And there was all of Shub, just a few feet away.

“Oh” couldn’t help itself but to escape Mary’s lips, and she sat back just a bit, regardless of the tempered and wire reinforced glass between them. She saw Shub’s smile widen as he pointed to himself and said something she couldn’t quite hear, muffled by the window. Then Terry was leading him away gently down the hall, his arm trying to get around the big man’s shoulders. Shub patted his hands together like a happy baby.

Mary turned to Karla, putting her clipboard down. “Wow. Just what exactly was that?”

“Oh, that’s just Shub. “, said Karla, “Don’t pay him any mind. He’s harmless”.

“Shub?” Mary said, “That’s his name?”

Dr. Grieves spoke up from behind her where he had been standing, his laconic tone somehow not matching the unkempt thatch of anti-gravity hair that stood seemingly straight up from his head. “Eldon Shub to be precise, age 32, height 77 inches, weight, oh, approximately 345 pounds. He has been a client of this facility since the age of 15. Shub is what we call him because that’s what he calls himself. In fact, it is the only thing he ever says.”

“But what happened to his teeth?” she said, turning in her chair to face the elderly psychiatrist.

“Well, let’s just say that Mr. Shub’s focus on activities of daily living is not the greatest. He is not the most cleanly of individuals, and tooth brushing is just one of myriad activities he finds to be superfluous.”

“No shit,” said Karla, “if Terry didn’t scrub him down twice a week that boy’d grow mold in his ears, and everywhere else probably.”

“His teeth were pulled several years ago as a prophylactic measure; disease and whatnot.”, Dr. Grieves continued, making a small flapping gesture with his hand. “We thought about getting him dentures, but really, what’s the point. He would only eat more than he does already.”

Kwaze, the Nigerian med nurse took a seat next to Mary from where she had been working in the back of the nursing station. “And don’t you listen when they say he is not a harmful person. That boy is, how do you say it, batshit crazy”

“Oh Kwaze, don’t go scaring the girl now,” Karla piped in,” it’s just her first week, for crissakes.”

“Maybe you think he is just a baby”, Kwaze said in her thick west African accent,” but I was here when he ripped off the arm of Mr. Milton. Babies do no such thing.”

“He did what? He ripped a man’s arm off?” said Mary, now even more wide-eyed.

“Now before we get carried away, ladies, Milton Pearlman was a notorious child rapist, and our staff knew he had been trying to get into Shub’s hole for weeks. He had a thing for patients he thought were too simple-minded to resist. Shub merely defended himself, perhaps rather too vigorously, but that man got what the courts refused to give him, and I say good riddance.”

Mary didn’t know what to say to that, but she knew better than to second guess the facility’s medical director.

Kwaze went on undeterred. “Before that he murdered his whole family also. Do not forget that.”

“Well, that is true,” Dr. Grieves pensively paused for a moment, and lowered his voice, “but there was some ancillary evidence of sexual assault, and….other things. No one really knows what went on at the Shub family ranch, and the only witness we have isn’t talking.” He had a faraway look in his eye, lost in thought for a moment. “Anyway, what matters is that in his 17 years here he has not so much as lifted a finger against a staff member at this hospital. He has been a model patient, so I won’t abide fear mongering when there is no cause for it.” He checked his watch. “Karla, it’s about time for our staff meeting. If you will notify the others.”

“Of course Dr. Grieves,” she said while typing in her henpeck style, staring down at the keys over the granny-glasses perched on the end of her nose, “just let me finish this charting and I’ll be right there.”

“Fine. Good day ladies, Mary.” And with that he let himself out into the hall, walking briskly toward his office. The door locked quietly behind him.

2

Terry and Shub were the last ones in to the dining/recreation room. The barred windows overlooked a large fenced in exercise yard, empty and wet in the gray light of early morning. Beyond the fence was a greenbelt of about 100 yards, and then nothing but hills covered in fir trees. Nothing for miles and miles. The Ashcroft State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was remote for a reason. It held the sort of people that society never wanted to come back. Ever.

Luis was getting the patients into their seats at four long tables, something akin to herding cats. De’Lon, the third Mental Health Worker, was just raising the metal shutter that separated the tiny ‘kitchen’ from the dining room, getting ready to pass out the morning breakfast trays. It wasn’t a real kitchen per say, just a place where the food workers dropped off big carts of pre-made trays for the patients, each with their name and any special diet orders. It had a few refrigerators and storage for between meals snacks and a small table for staff lunches, but that was about it. De’Lon pulled the trays from the cart, calling out each patient’s name, while Terry and Luis helped pass them out.

Shub happily slurped at his plate of waffles and sausage, holding it up to his mouth and letting the syrup laden contents slide toward him and disappear into his ample, sucking maw. Other patients knew to leave their unwanted food items by his tray, and many did so without having to be asked, as if to get the gentle giant on their side in case they ever had need of him.

Shub heard a squeaking sound from below the table, and looking down he saw little Gallo peeking up at him. Gallo was tiny, so small in fact that he could walk under the dining room tables without stooping over very much. His pointy head was poking out next to Shub’s chair, and he was smiling. His little arm was offering a plastic wrapped bran muffin up in Shub’s direction.

“Eeeep!” said Gallo.

“Shuuh!” said Shub through a mouthful of waffle, gently taking the muffin from the tiny hand.

“Ooop!” said Gallo, disappearing once again under the table top.

About all Gallo ever said was “Eeep!” or “Ooop!” or sometimes “Aaap!”, but that was fine by Shub. Gallo was good and gentle. They would often sit together when the weather was nice and they were allowed to go outside, just sit on the grass by themselves. It didn’t matter that neither of them talked the way the others talked; they communicated in their own way.

Shub liked Gallo.

Soon it was time to clean up, clear the trays and get ready for group. There was always some group activity going on, even though Shub didn’t always understand what they were about. After breakfast it was exercise group, but because it was raining (like most every day) they would stay in the dining hall and do what few exercises they could do indoors.

Mr. Renfro was right on time as usual, today dressed in a green and yellow sweat suit with a big “O” on the chest for his Oregon Ducks football team. It was either that or a blue and green colored Seahawks colored outfit on the days he didn’t have to wear the dreaded office casual polo shirt and slacks for ‘real’ work, meetings and the like.

“Hey now,” Mr. Renfro said cheerfully enough, “let’s get those tables up and outa the way, we got work to don’t we now fellas. Hop it up, come on now.”

Most of the patients helped out, Shub sliding a whole table toward the wall by himself while Gallo balanced on top, looking like the world’s littlest sailor in a stormy sea. Mr. Renfro lined the patients up and got them to doing stretches while Terry and the others finished cleaning up the breakfast trays, sliding the garbage and uneaten food into big gray garbage cans.

“Damned if these fuckers can’t make a mess” said Luis, trying to get syrup off his fingers with a wet rag.

“Aww, hell, this ain’t nothing,” said De’Lon, tying up a bag and pulling it from one of the cans. “Remember that bald headed prick we had a while back, Robert what’s-his-name? Asshole would walk right up to you and dump his whole tray on the ground, and then just look at you like ‘what the fuck you gonna do?’”

“Oh yeah, I remember that”, said Terry, chuckling to himself.

“Nah, this ain’t but a little bit o’ mess, Mr. Luis, so don’t you never mind it. Things done been a whole lot worse, and they sure will be again, you’ll see once you’ve been here a while.” He stopped and put down the garbage bag, looking Luis straight in the eyes and said, “What day is it today Mr. Luis?”

Luis looked at De’Lon like he didn’t know what he was getting at. “Tuesday, why?”

“Nah, it ain’t just Tuesday, it’s the best Tuesday ever!” De’Lon said with a flourish, and both he and Terry had to laugh.

“Damn straight brother, best fucking Tuesday ever,” Terry said laughing. He held out his fist and De’Lon bumped it back with his own. Terry pulled out two cigarettes from his breast pocket, lit them and passed one to De’Lon. They sat down on the empty vinyl chairs along the wall and watched the patients shuffling through the exercises in their white pajamas and yellow socks. For the life of him, Luis could not figure out what they had to smile about.

3

Terry walked the patients back after their exercise group, with Luis bringing up the rear. Shubb ambled along happily, only pausing briefly at the nursing station window to look for the new face he had seen that morning. Shubb liked novelty, he liked new things and he especially liked new people. He hadn’t seen nearly anyone new for years. Even when repairmen came out to change the light bulbs or to unclog the shower drains, Shubb followed them around like a puppy, eager to see just what they were up to. He had the same sort of peak in curiosity now about the new social worker. Having someone new who would be around for more than just a day or a few hours was an intriguing thought, but there was something else too. Shubb didn’t quite understand it himself. A sort of feeling he wasn’t familiar with. It was like a memory he couldn’t remember. An itch he couldn’t quite scratch. She reminded him of someone, and he wasn’t sure if that made him feel good, or bad, or both ways at the same time.

Shub followed the others as they meandered down the hall to the day room. It was TV time, at least until the mid-morning group. Carter was already standing in front of the TV that hung from the wall on a thick curved metal bracket, pushing the up button repeatedly, not really looking for anything in particular, just staring slack-jawed up at the pretty light.

“Come on Carter, have a sit and we’ll find something good” Terry said as he led Carter to the front row of padded wooden chairs.

“Batman!” Carter protested, but sat down and continued to stare up at the screen, his grizzled gray stubble bellying the fact that he was really still just 12 years old on the inside. Terry quickly flipped the channel to number 87.

“Lookit that! Sponge Bob!” Terry said as he got the channel he wanted. Carter just continued his wide mouthed stare, but others in the group gurgled their approval. Some even clapped a little as they watched the entrancing adventures of the boy sponge and his starfish friend.

Shub sat in the back on one of the couches. He didn’t really fit in the chairs, but that was ok, the room wasn’t all that big and he could see the TV just fine. Gallo waddled up and held out his little arms. Shubb picked him up easy as you please and plopped him on his ample lap. Gallo settled in like a cat on his favorite pillow, and they both watched the TV, happy without having to say a word.

Luis moved to the seat next to Terry, in the back where they could keep an eye on everyone without being obtrusive. “Hey, I think the Mariners are playing. Why don’t we switch the channel to that? This kids’ stuff is the pits.”

‘Nah, “said Terry, “they wouldn’t dig it, and they’d just get irritable and start acting out. Besides, there’s a world of knowledge in cartoons. You’d be surprised at the things you can learn.”

“Yah. I’m sure I would” said Luis, picking up a discarded newspaper and flipping through it, not caring what was happening around him.

4

Just before 10:00am, Karla stuck her head in the TV room door.

“Hey Terry, it’s time for Mr. Shub’s weekly with Dr. Grieves. Could you bring him down?”

“Sure, sure”, Terry said handing the remote to Luis as he got up. “And remember, cartoons are your friend. Don’t let them get out of hand, I’ll be back in a minute”. He walked over and picked up Gallo who was already asleep on Shub’s lap, setting the tiny man down on the couch without more than just one little “eep” between his snores.

“Come on Shub, time to get fixed.” Shubb knew the drill. It was time for him to sit with the doctor and listen to him talk. Shubb didn’t know why, since he usually just fell asleep anyway. He padded out of the room and followed Terry, through the big locked double doors and down the hall outside of the unit to Dr. Grieves’ office. Terry opened the doctor’s door for Shub, and shut it behind him after he went inside.

Dr. Grieves was seated behind his desk. The office was dim. He gestured for Shub to sit on the large leather couch to his left, then got up and narrowed the horizontal metal blinds covering the window behind him, blocking out even more of the already dim daylight. A green shaded lamp cast its light on the doctor and his desk, leaving Shub in the shadows.

Dr. Grieves took a gold pocket watch from his lab coat. “Now Mr. Shubb, I want you to look at the watch. Can you do that for me?” Shubb just nodded. He liked the watch. It was pretty. He liked to look at it.

Dr. Grieves let the watch swing just a little on the end of its chain, slowly back and forth. “Just look at the watch,.. follow the watch. You’re going to get sleepy. It’s all right, you can relax. I want you to think back on that day,…that day at the ranch. The last day. It’s safe for you to remember it. Nothing can hurt you here. All right. You are going to fall asleep as I count to zero, do you understand? 10,…9,…, getting sleepy,…8,…”. Dr. Grieves voice faded away.

Shub drifted back in his memory. He didn’t like to think about his life from before, but something about the watch made it ok. He remembered the way his home looked. Scrubby lowland, a small pasture with underfed meat cows and a few chickens. There was the barn, leaning over just a bit like it was drunk, the paint long since bright red, the roof with holes in it. The house, what there was of it, wasn’t much better. Ramshackle bare wood, tiny, just four rooms and a wisp of smoke coming up from the chimney.

He had been on his way back from the barn with what little milk their dairy cow could give when he heard Ruth screaming. He hurried inside. It was dark, but he knew where they were. Ruth was in their father’s room, with that girlfriend of his.

Darlene.

Shub hated her from the moment he saw her. She was everything his mother hadn’t been. His mother, who had disappeared without warning or explanation years before. Darlene was a sallow woman with a pockmarked face, who somehow managed to look emaciated and obese at the same time. Things had been bad enough before his mom had died, but they had gotten horrible when his father started bringing Darlene around.

He heard Ruth scream again from behind his father’s door. He set the pail down on the kitchen table, heaven forbid he spill the milk, and he walked the few steps from the kitchen to the bedroom door. It was locked, as usual. “Pa!”, he yelled, “let her loose. You can’t. She’s too young”. He knew what had happened to his older sister Esther, and why she left last year, but Ruth was only 7. Only 7.

He banged on the door.

“Get!”, his father said from behind the door, “It ain’t none of your business what I do. She’s mine, and if I say she’s old enough, then she’s damn well old enough”.

“Yah!” he heard Darlene chime in, cackling like the witch she was.

“No”, Shub said, almost quietly, almost to himself, “No”. Not this time. Not her. Not her too. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes. And with that, he kicked in his father’s door.

The air stunk of that stuff he and Darlene smoked in their little glass pipe. The stuff that made them crazy.

Ruth was on the edge of the bed, with Darlene sitting behind her, holding her arms back with one hand; her other arm wrapped around the little girl’s throat. Ruth’s dirty little flowered dress was pulled up around her waist. Their father was standing in front of her with his pants and underwear down, grinning like a fool, his erect penis covered in his own daughter’s blood.

“NOOO!”, Shub yelled, and took one giant step forward, pushing his father so hard that he crashed into the cheap sliding closet door on the far side of the bedroom, knocking it off its track, and his father to the floor. Darlene screamed and came at him, but he backhanded her to the floor without so much as taking his eyes off his father, who was fumbling in the back of the closet.

“So you a man now? You think you can handle me? Well we’re gonna see now, ain’t we!” He rose up out of the closet holding the old shotgun he kept around for hogs and such. “How ‘bout these apples you sumbitch! I brought you in this world, and now I’m gonna take your ass out!”

He tried to raise the shotgun up, but in his addled state he wasn’t enough. Shub grabbed the barrel and pushed it aside just as his father fired, leaving a six-inch hole in the roof, dust and grey light pouring through.

“No”, Shub said, almost calmly, easily holding the shotgun firmly as his father tried to jerk it back.

“No..”, Shub said as he pulled the gun from his father’s grasp and grabbed the older man by his shirt collar and pulled him close.

He glanced to his left, just enough to confirm what he’d already felt. Ruth was dead, her lifeless eyes staring up at the hole in the ceiling, her thighs covered in her own blood.

“No,….oh no…NOOOO!”.

He pushed his father down across the foot of the bed and held him there by the back of his neck. His father squirmed and yelped as Shubb put the shotgun barrel up to his asshole and pushed it in.

By the time it was a foot in, his father squealed like a pig.

By the time it was two feet in, his father screamed, just like the girls in the horror movies on TV.

By the time he pushed it all the way in, as far as it would go, with just the trigger and the stock sticking out, his father died, with his eyes bulging wide and blood streaming from his mouth and nose.

Shub was numb. He hardly noticed when Darlene stabbed him in the ribs. Apparently, she had been screaming the whole time. But he never heard that, or the ‘snick’ of her switchblade opening. He just felt the pain and looked down to see her stabbing him, over and over.

He grabbed her by the wrist and twisted, breaking the bones of her forearm. She screamed and dropped the knife. Then he grabbed her sagging neck with his right hand and shoved her head into the rotten plaster lathing of the bedroom wall, over and over. The police found her that way later, her neck broken grotesquely, and her body hanging from the hole in the wall he had made with her head.

Shub walked out of the bedroom, picked up the handset of the old rotary phone on the wall in the kitchen, and dialed ‘zero’. When the operator came on he just said, “Send the police. They’re all dead”. Then he lowered the handset and dropped it to the floor

It was last time he would talk like a real person. He just sat at the kitchen table, put his head down, and waited for them to come.

5

“…3,…2,…1,….you will awake”, Dr. Greives said softly. “Mr. Shub? Mr. Shub are you all right?”. Shub stirred on the couch and looked up. There was something there, a seriousness in his eyes, Grieves could see it. Was it a breakthrough? After all these years? Dr. Grieves didn’t like to hope for such things. Over the decades he had seen hope dashed repeatedly on the jagged rocks of the state hospital system, and he knew better than to let its dim light flourish.

“Well then, good,…good. I will have Karla see you back. Just one moment.” Grieves went to the office door and opened it just a bit, putting his head through into the larger ante-chamber area that used to be the workspace for a secretary, back when the hospital could afford such luxuries. Karla was sitting on the old green Naugahyde couch, thumbing through an issue of People. She looked up and saw the concern on Grieves’ face.

“Doctor? What is it, doctor? Is everything all right”. She put down the magazine and stood up, coming closer, as the doctor seemed reluctant to move from the doorway.

“He said something”, said Grieves quietly, looking down at the faded tile for a moment and then back up at her. “I mean, other than his name,…”. He was talking so softly, she moved closer to hear him better. “Just one word,…Ruth”.

“Ruth,…wasn’t that..?”

“Yes. His sister. The one he killed, although I remember that from the police reports there were some doubts, but in their fervor at the time… well, I imagine three bodies looks better on an arrest record than two.” He peeked back into the darkened office for a moment. Shub was still lying on the couch, his eyes staring up at nothing.

“It’s just that he sounded so mournful, so sad. Maybe it’s nothing, but best to keep a close eye on him. To think, after all these years,….”. He just trailed off, studying the linoleum again.

“I’ll take him back. And I’ll tell Terry, but I won’t make a big thing out of it. No point in getting Kwaze more to moan about.” Doctor Grieves stepped aside and let her push past him into the office. She led the big man back out into the hall, leaving the doctor alone.

“After all these years.”

6

Karla let herself and Shub onto the unit, as always checking that the heavy doors were locked behind them. She motioned to Terry who was across the room attempting to corral Carter and a few of the other slow kids into playing bean bag tic-tac-toe, and they both went to the quiet side of the room, next to the windows looking out on the greyness of a darkening afternoon. Karla whispered quietly to Terry, and he just looked up at Shubb in surprise, and then back at her, slowly nodding his head.

Shub just stood there in the middle of the floor. He saw Mary. She was standing by the nursing station, her back against the wall, looking nervously around as Luis tried to make small talk with her. Her eyes moved back and forth, obviously looking for an exit without being rude. Luis was oblivious and just kept talking, something about a friend who had a band, and some kegger party down by the beach.

“That sounds really nice, but I do have a lot of work to do here, and stuff at school, so I don’t know…” She tried to move to her right, towards the safety of the nursing station door, but Luis stepped a bit closer and put his left hand on the wall to block her from leaving. “No, no, it’ll be fun, you’ll like it, they’re really cool and…”.

Luis felt something grab his wrist and pull it away from the wall. He looked up to see Shub’s hand encircling his forearm. It felt like a vise. Luis worked out, lifted a lot of iron, and although he wasn’t the slimmest guy in the world, he had always thought he was pretty strong, but he couldn’t pull his hand away. He couldn’t even move it. He shifted his feet, just like he was taught in high school wrestling, and pulled again. Barely an inch.

Shub just looked into his eyes. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He wasn’t Happy Shub.

“What the fuck, motherfucker! Get off me you freak.” Luis pulled back his right hand to throw a punch, but Terry and De’Lon were already there.

“No, no, no, hey, hey buddy, hey Shub.” Terry stepped in between them, putting his arm around Shub’s shoulders, while De’Lon swooped in blocking Luis. He was surprisingly nimble for such a big man, still showing the moves that had made him a starting left tackle at WSU for three years straight.

“Come on now, ain’t nothing, not a thing, all right? Just let it go.”, said De’Lon as he tried to calm Luis.

“That mother…shit man, you just gonna let him do that?” Terry just turned away from Luis, his right arm around Shubb’s shoulders, not even looking back but holding his left hand out with his index finger raised in Luis’ direction, as if to say ‘shut the fuck up’. Luis got the message, but he didn’t like it. He shrugged off De’Lon and humphed off to the break room, slamming the door behind him.

De’Lon turned to Mary, whose eyes were as big as saucers. “You ok?”

“Come on sweetie”, Karla came up behind her and shushed her toward the nursing station door. Mary just let her open the door and went inside, sitting down behind the rows of outdated CRT monitors, still a bit shaken. Karla turned to De’Lon before going into the room herself.

“What the hell was that?”, nodding her head in the direction of the break room, obviously meaning Luis. De’Lon just shrugged and shook his head a little. He watched as Karla sat down and rolled her chair over close to where Mary was sitting, trying to smooth things over, then he turned and walked over to where Terry was talking to Shubb.

“Hey, look, you want some Oreo’s? Double stuff, I think we got some of those double stuff peanut butter ones, I know you like those, been saving ‘em for something special, I can go get ‘em, ok?” Shub just glanced over his shoulder toward the nursing station window, and then turned back to the reinforced glass on the North wall where the rain was just starting to splatter again.

“Ruth”, he said, so quietly that both men barely heard it. But they did hear it. Terry’s eyes widened, and he turned to De’Lon and just mouthed the words “what the fuck?”. De’Lon just shook his head and shrugged again.

7

“I don’t know man. Not just that he’s new, but after that shit today, man, I just don’t know”. Terry was standing by the locked unit doors with Karla. “Do you wanna stay then”, she said.

“Hell, you know I can’t. I got my kids, gotta feed them, and their mom,…you know how it is”. He sort of faded out. Karla knew. Terry’s wife was in rehab. Again. They all knew, it was just that nobody talked about it.

“It’s ok, Terry. I get it, but someone’s gotta cover the shift and Luis said he’d stay. We don’t have anyone else”.

“Yah, don’t I know it.” He turned and let himself out the doors just as Richards, the other night shift floor worker, was coming on. Terry called him Rictus behind his back. He was big but kind of sickly looking, with greasy rocker hair and a pock marked face. The word is he used to be a junky. Terry wasn’t so sure about the ‘used to be’ part.

Karla motioned Richards toward Luis, who was on the other side of the room stuffing dinner leftovers into a large garbage bin, but Richards didn’t wait to be introduced.

“Hey, I know this bro,” Richards said walking up to Luis, “We were in orientation together last month. Now we’re gonna rock the night shift. Wooo,..ooo”. Richards made some strange air guitar moves before fist bumping and bro-hugging Luis.

“Great”, Karla said sarcastically to herself as she walked out of the big security doors, “the confederacy of dunces in the flesh.”

Luis watched her leave, and looked around, making sure no one else was within earshot. “So, check this shit out. You know that big fucker, Shub? Mother fucker attacked me”

“Bullshit, dude, you’re shitting me”, Richards cocked his head to the side and smiled a bit crookedly, “I still see four limbs and a face. “

“No, for real he grabbed my arm and tried to jack me up. I was gonna let him have it but Terry and ‘Lon pulled me off him.”

“Well, hell, maybe all that shit about him offing people is just a bunch of nonsense. I mean he does just act like a big baby all the time; how scary can he be?” Richards narrowed his eyes and smiled slyly. “You wanna fuck him up?”

“Hell yeah, and I’ve got just the thing. Check this out.” Luis reached into the cargo pocket of his pants and took out a collapsing metal baton, flicking his wrist to extend it to its full eighteen inches. “This’ll break that fucker’s shit.”

“Hey, people try to escape all the time, right bro? Who’s to say? But still, we might need some help. How ‘bout 20 milligrams of Haldol? That way he won’t even be able to fight back. Check this out.” Richards reached into his pocket and pulled out a large key ring, and finding one small, innocuous looking key, he held it up between his thumb and forefinger, shaking it back and forth and giggling.

“Med cart! Wooo,..ooo!”

Richards led Luis around the corner to the reserve medication and storage room, using one of his copious keys to grant them both access. “So, if you’ve never been on NOC before, it’s pretty chill. Leonardo’s on meds, but he’s usually sleeping in the linen closet because he works days at County General. He lets me pass most of the meds even though I’m not…” Richards paused to make air quote signs with his hands, “qualified. Like whatever, it’s just derps anyways so who cares. Other than that, it’s just Warren and Fred on the other unit. Just so you know, Fred’s a trans. He’s got a big red wig and beard stubble, and these giant fake tits, but don’t laugh ‘cuz he’ll kick your ass. Just say ‘Yes, Mamm’, and ‘No Mamm’ and he'll be chill. If you even see him, umm, her, shit, whatever man, ‘cuz they usually just stay over there with the anxiety cases anyway.”

Richards bent down and opened the bottom drawer of a large medication cabinet with one of his keys, and fished around inside. “Here we go.” He pulled out a dark glass bottle and a large syringe in a plastic wrapper, placing them on top of the cart. “Haldol for our friend. Very effective stuff. Aaaand…. “, he bent down again, shuffling through cardboard and plastic blister packs of meds, folding and stuffing one of the cards into his pants. He patted his pocket, looking at Luis. “‘Expired’,… perfect. Something yummy for later. Man, I really love this job.”

8

Shub woke up in his bed. Everything was quiet. Maybe too quiet. He looked over at Graham, the only other person in the tiny room they shared. He was sleeping, at least as best as he could, muttering something to himself between snoring. Sometimes he would cry out in his sleep, saying “mom, mom”, but he usually didn’t wake up.

Then he heard someone call his name.

“Eldon.” No one here called him that.

He turned toward the door, and there was his sister, Ruth, standing barefoot in a simple white dress. Her auburn hair was clean and long, and she was smiling. It didn’t make sense, but nothing had made sense for so long.

“Eldon. Come and see.” She held out her hand to him, and he got up and took it. She turned and led him out the door, but instead of the hallway they were suddenly in a field with flowers, sunny and bright. There was a small house not far away, and he could see others like it spread out through the small valley lined with trees. It was clean, and nice, nothing like what he remembered of the outside world.

“Come and see.” She led him up a small path to the house. There on the porch were his mother and his sister Esther, sitting in rocking chairs, smiling and talking to each other. They were both dressed in white, just like Ruth. They didn’t seem to notice him. They just carried on. It didn’t matter. They were happy. He couldn’t remember a time when they were happy.

“Come and see.” Ruth took his hand again, but when they turned the world was suddenly filled with darkness. He could see rocky wastelands all around, with jagged mountains in the distance. Smoke curled up from the ground, and the place smelled of sulfur and death. She pointed ahead.

Just below them he could see his father, crawling on his hands and knees in a pit of filth that smelled like pig shit. He still had the shotgun handle sticking out of his asshole. Every time he stopped crawling Shub heard the sound of a whip cracking, and even though no one else was there his father winced and continued crawling in the filth, tears of blood running down his face.

“Eldon.” He turned to Ruth and the darkness was gone. They were surrounded by light, nothing but light, so bright, but it didn’t seem to hurt his eyes.

“Soon, Eldon. But there is something you must do first. You have to wake up.” He didn’t understand. He was awake, standing with her in this place. He looked at her and shook his head slightly, but she just put her hands on his shoulders, looked straight into his eyes, and said, “You have to wake up.”

9

“WAKE UP MOTHERFUCKER!”

Shub was back in his bed. He felt something pulling tight across his neck, holding him down, choking him. He looked back through the metal slats of the ancient hospital bed headboard, and he saw Luis. He was pulling on a sheet that was looped around Shub’s neck and through the legs of the bed, so that when Luis pulled, the sheet tightened around Shub’s neck.

Luis had the sheet wrapped around his wrists, and his feet braced on the bed frame, straining, pulling as hard as he could. “Stick this motherfucker already!”

Shub looked up and saw Richards taking the safety cap off a large syringe, grinning maniacally. “Nighty night, douchebag.” He stuck the needle in Shub’s hip.

Shub knew what the needle meant. He had felt it before, seen what it did to others. He knew he couldn’t let it happen, or the evil fat brown man would kill him. He twisted to his right and kicked out with his leg. Richards flew backwards, landing on his ass and skidding backwards into the wall of Shub’s room.

“It’s not in, man. I didn’t get the shot in.” He scrambled to his feet and ran out of the room, yelling for help. Shub reached down and felt for the syringe and pulled the long needle out of his leg. The liquid, at least most of it, was still inside. He threw it across the room. He could hear the man grunting, and felt the sheet tighten around his neck. His vision was getting dark at the edges, and he couldn’t breathe.

Shub reached up and tried to grab the sheet. It was tight around his neck but he managed to get a hold of it just a bit with his fingers. He pulled, hard, and felt it give just a little. Just enough to get a better grasp. Then he pulled again, as hard as he could. He saw Luis jerk forward violently, his head colliding with the metal headboard with a clang. The sheet loosened and Shub pulled it away from his neck.

In one motion he got up from the bed, turned and grabbed the headboard, sending the bed sliding across the room and into the opposite wall. Luis was slumped, sitting against the wall, shaking his head. Shub grabbed the fat man’s wrist with his right hand and placed his left hand on the man’s shoulder. Shub knew about butchering animals, he knew where the ligaments and tendons and bones were, and how they worked. In truth, a man was not very different from a pig.

He pulled the man’s forearm behind his back, holding him at the shoulder, and then pulled the arm up. Luis moaned and then yelled as his shoulder dislocated. Shub kept turning the arm around like a clock hand. Luis screamed. He could feel his muscles tearing, his tendons rupturing. Shub twisted until there was just a ravaged knot of skin holding the arm to Luis’ body. Then he pulled hard and tore the arm completely off.

Blood splattered the room, and Shub himself. He licked away the droplets that found his lips. Luis looked up at him, utterly still other than his eyes and his lips. “Please…”, he croaked. Shub was repulsed. A few seconds ago he was shouting about death, but now that he was on the receiving end he was cowed and weak. Like all bullies, he was a coward deep inside. Shub felt a kind of pity, but he also knew this man was evil, just like his father. And that he would do more harm to the world, even with just one arm.

Shub pushed Luis’ own hand into Luis’ mouth. “Pleeth….”, he pleaded. Shub gripped the elbow and pushed the forearm down, until Luis’ neck bulged with the strain. “Pluuuhhh…”, he managed before his larynx and bronchi were crushed. His chest worked up and down violently a few times and then he was still, his open eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling, part of his elbow and his torn bicep hanging out of his distended mouth.

“Jeebus, Shub.”, it was Graham sitting up in his bed, his bug eyes even bigger than normal. “You done done it now! Ohhh, no!”. Graham just sat there, staring, the covers clutched about his neck. “Moooom…... Moooom!”, the chicken man yelled.

Shub moved out into the hallway. He could hear the alarm screaming. Shub knew he had to go. Where, he had no idea, but it was over here. He started to move toward the big door, but he felt a tug at his pant leg. At first, he thought it was the hippy with another needle, but when he looked down it was only Gallo.

“Eeep!” He held up his little arms, and Shub picked him up, cradling the little man in the crook of his left arm. Gallo just looked into Shub’s eyes and that was enough. Shub couldn’t leave him here. He moved to the big doors, grabbed the handle and pulled. The bottom of the door pulled away maybe five inches, but the top, where the magnet was, stayed shut. He stepped back, held Gallo tightly, and jerked the door towards him. The 1000-pound magnetic lock popped open, the door slamming into the hallway wall.

On the other side was a large person, very broad and very strong looking. They had a bright red wig and lipstick, gigantic breasts and a full beard. Shub stopped for a moment, not understanding, but as the person came at him, yelling, Shub merely put out his arm, walked forward, and pushed the person to the floor. Fred didn’t try to get up.

In the nursing station, behind the wired glass, there was another man, smaller than the first, that Shub had seen before. He held a phone to his head. “Security? Fuck security. It’s Shub! Yah, that fucking Shub. Send the fucking SWAT team! Shit, send the national guard!” Shub looked at the man and then back at the main lobby doors. The small man just shook his head, still holding the phone up to his ear.

Shub took two steps towards the nursing station door. The man pressed the button inside and the buzzer sounded. Shub turned, opened the unlocked door, and walked out of the building for the first time in years.

10

Gallo stood up a little on Shub’s arm, his little hand on Shub’s neck, and looked around, curious. He was eager to be outside, to see what he had only seen for years through the windows and fences. Unlike Shub, he was oblivious to the dangers there were.

It was pouring rain outside, and dark. Shub could hear the alarm sounding from within. He ran through the parking lot, past the guard gate with its ineffectual wooden arm. If he could make it to the forest, to the trees, maybe he could find his way home. Somehow.

“EEEP!” Gallo squeaked as he bounced along on Shub’s arm. He was peering around, his excitement finally mixing with fear. Shub ran, his cheap cotton sneakers flapping on the wet pavement, down the driveway and to the street. There were no streetlights after the hospital grounds, and soon they were in the darkness of the moonlight, what little got through the heavy clouds and tall fir trees.

Shub remembered from taking the facility van that there was a bridge on the way to town. If he could make it to the river. He heard a sudden rush of noise, and looking up, saw a helicopter fly overhead, its search light shining towards the hospital. He knew he didn’t have much time.

He held Gallo tightly, picking up his pace. Ahead, around a curve in the road, he saw the bridge. It was an old wrought iron construction, older than Shub himself surely, maybe even older than his father. As he got closer he realized the water was further down that he had thought, maybe forty feet to the raging river below.

He didn’t see a way down from this side. Maybe from the other. He started across but he saw lights on the other side. Red and blue lights. He wanted to turn back but there was nowhere to go in that direction but the hospital. Suddenly the ground was lit up all around, and the world was drowned out by the helicopter’s roar.

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST! LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS OUT TO YOUR SIDE! DO IT NOW!”

The helicopter pulled up, the sound getting slightly more bearable, the light flashing back and forth. He could hear the police at the end of the bridge running and yelling, their heavy boots ringing on the metal grating.

“GET ON THE GROUND! DO IT NOW!”

Shub peered over the edge. Only darkness with brief reflections of the water rushing below. He took a step back from the edge and then ran towards it, holding Gallo tightly.

“STOP!”

He heard the shots ring out. It seemed they came from everywhere at once. He felt like a bat hit him, in his arm, and then his leg, and then his chest. Only he knew there wasn’t a bat. He heard Gallo scream and felt something warm across his face. Then he was falling. He seemed to fall forever.

The water was cold, rolling fiercely over the rocks. He struggled to get back to the surface, to find the shore. He never let go of Gallo, not one inch. He pulled himself up on the shore, just above the waterline on the cold, wet stones. He tried to get up, but his legs were weak, not responding the way they should have. He could hear them yelling, coming closer, their hard black boots scrabbling over the river rocks. He held Gallo close, his fingers finding the hole where the back of Gallo’s skull should have been, and he lay back on the riverbank, breathing heavily. He could feel the pain in his side, feel the blood filling his lungs. The roar of the helicopter drew nearer, hovering directly over them, its spotlight shining down into his eyes. He shut them against the brightness of it.

Brighter and louder, brighter and louder, and then…...nothing.

Shub could still see the light through his eyelids, but the sounds of the whirling rotors, the screaming turbine engine, the men yelling, all of that was gone. He heard the call of a robin, and then the laughter of children. He opened his eyes and saw the sky, bright blue, with clouds scattered around it. He sat up in a meadow of grasses and flowers. He felt his side, and then his arm, but there were no gunshot wounds. There were no wounds at all.

“Eeep!”

He looked across the meadow and saw Gallo playing with some young boys, not his age, but about his size. He was wearing a clean white button-down shirt and overalls, and a white straw hat that covered his small, pointy head. He looked happy, running and laughing in the meadow.

“Eldon.”

He turned his head and saw Ruth sitting on the grass next to him.

“Welcome home.”