He almost bought it this time, my least favorite nurse
cheerfully informs me. And it’s true, I don’t see Jack playing
cards with Caesar. Crazy Eights.
Every day this joke is newly hilarious.
Instead, Caesar is busily coloring a poster of the Hulk
using florescent markers. He doesn’t look up.
Nice dress, the nurse says. You look a little like Angie Dickinson.
I read where she’s gonna direct a movie.
I find Jack in the quiet room.
It’s the usual day-after-digs for suicide attempts.
From the neck down, he looks like hell —
fly open, only one shoe on.
But he’s smiling the smile of the truly tranquilized.
I ask the obvious question.
Why ?
The cops know I killed that hooker last week.
When the newsy said they had a lead,
he looked straight at me.
In seven weeks, Jack has gone no farther
than the the bathroom at the end of the hall.
He’s the same age I am.
After high school, he was drafted. I went to college.
He did two combat tours. I twice changed my major.
We both stayed stoned from morning till night.
There’s nothing left to say. We pace in a circle,
each of us taking half the room, so it won’t
seem as if one is following the other. Soon I’m dizzy and furious
but there’s nowhere to sit in the goddamn quiet room.
Then Jack steps away and stares dead at me.
Look, he says, Can’t we stop now?