This week I have taken a mental illness theme. It is often a theme, in my mind. I wrote 'The Dishwasher' first, and then followed the Smelly Rose prompt with a similar story. (But much shorter.)
Here is the 100 word challenge story:
The smelly rose powder told Johnny his mother was going out even before he saw her wearing the dress that showed too much of her legs.
"Don't go out, Mom. Stay home and watch a movie with me." He begged.
Anger flashed momentarily in her eyes. "You know Mommy needs her medicine. My friend, John, said he can get some."
There was a knock at the door.
"Go to bed by Ten. I'll be out pretty late."
Johnny saw a grubby hand with dirty finger nails grasp his mothers arm as she left the house.
Johnny went straight to bed.
I began my recording of 'The Dishwasher' with some philosophy about harmonica playing versus playing the blues. If you want to hear that, you'll have to go to the Great Hites podcast. Here is the story:
The Dish Washer
He picked up the cup to put it into the sanitizer. The handle dropped off and broke into several pieces on the floor. "Why they don't change all these for plastic," he grumbled and bent to pick up the pieces. His hand reaching for the closest piece, he stopped and stood back up. He kicked the pieces under the sanitizer, then quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen him do it. They would make him move the heavy machine and clean underneath it, if he gave them the slightest reason.
He looked into the sanitizer, there didn't seem to be any room for the cup that he held in his hand. It was chock full with chipped and broken coffee cups, cracked and stained plates, and beer glasses so completely covered with hard water spots that they appeared opaque, even frosted.
He took out three of the glasses, moved some coffee cups and replaced the glasses, leaving enough room for the newly handless cup. The rack of cups, glasses and bowls was a fascinating and intricate utilization and conservation of space.
Unhappily resigned that the arrangement couldn't be improved, he pushed the rack shut and lowered the door of the sanitizer. He poked the green button to start the cycle.
Twice he turned from the deep stainless steel sink where the bus boy had dumped more dishes into hot, soapy water; he turned to stop the sanitizer and rearrange the cups. Instead, he stopped himself and went back to hand washing the dishes.
He had been warned; and he knew that they were watching; he could feel their eyes on his back, when they were in the room with him. They told him, "Do it fast. Just throw them in there and they'll come out clean." He heard it from them everyday, each time they caught him reorganizing the cups and bowls for greater efficiency. "Just thrown them in there", he muttered, reaching into the warm suds and rubbing the food off another plate.
He dipped the plate back into the soapy water and lifted it to watch the soap bubbles ooze off the plate and down from his wrist to drip off his elbow. He studied his deformed reflection on the wet surface of the cheap white ceramic plate. He watched his nose grow large and then small as a ripple of soapy water moved by.
"Robert Mc Feergan", the announcer said, and Robert got to his feet and walked across the stage. An honors graduate in Mathematics, he had continued his studies and received his masters and doctorate degrees in Statistics. He could see himself on that hot, June, Arizona day shaking the deans hand, receiving his diploma. As he turned and walked back to his seat, his young wife, with tears of pride in her eyes, blew him a kiss.
"Robert Mc Feergan," he suddenly said out loud to the plate, now mostly dry, in his hand. He held it up. "I present you with the plate of ignominy. The highest award for failure to perform to ones potential. For your outstanding service as a dishwasher, for the ability to clean even the grimiest of plates under the most favorable of conditions, I award you the plate of shame." His voice was raising in both fervor and pitch. "Take it you fool. Carry it with you, for all to see. So that all may no the limitless potential of your ineptitude and incompetence." The waiters were staring in through the open door. Customers were getting from their seats, trying to see the cause of the commotion.
Looking again at the plate, his image faint and deformed, he was revolted. As if suddenly realizing that he was holding rotten meat in his hands, teaming with maggots and roaches, he screamed, "No! I won't have it!" He threw the plate to the floor with such violence that it unbalanced him and he fell forward, striking his head on the corner of the stainless steel sink.
The shock and pain of hitting his head brought him out of his rant, to find himself on hands and knees, watching a pool of blood, on the floor, rapidly growing in size, as his blood flowed steadily from the gash on his head.
The hostess rushed over, "Oh, Bobby. Your head. Here, here is a cold towel. Sit down and hold the towel on your head." Her hand was on his shoulder, and he felt himself turning to sit, and taking the towel from her hand, pressing it to where he felt a sharply dull pain at the crest of his head.
"That's it Bob." The owner walked in. "I've had enough. No more broken dishes, no more screaming rants, no more scaring the customers. Here is your pay, plus an extra day. Take it and don't come back."
"I'm sorry, Jack." He could hear himself saying. "I'm sorry, my head is bleeding."
"I'm sorry, too, Bob, but you have to go. We've tried this and it's not working."
"My head is bleeding," Robert repeated as he got to his feet, he could hear the surprise in his own voice, as if he had just realized why he was holding the towel to his head.
"Go Bob. There's a clinic down the road, you know where it is." Jack took him by the elbow, and lead him to the back door.
The light outside was brilliant and harsh. He squinted up the road in the direction of the clinic. He took several steps in that direction, then abruptly turned to cross the street. Amid the honking of horns and cursing of drivers, he made his way to the liquor store. He stepped toward the door but stopped just short of it, sudden horror turning his insides to water, and he felt a wet warmth running down his leg.
In the reflection of the glass door, he saw a monster. Equal in size and nature to the famous Frankenstein monster. It held its overly large head with one hand, blood covering its misshapen face. In its other hand it clutched a wad of $20 bills. The macabre image faded into that of his own, but as urine pooled around his feet, in shame and frustration, he realized that he couldn't enter the business, in such a condition.
He shoved the bills into one urine soaked pocket. He turned toward the clinic again, but after only a dozen steps he stopped. His head hurt, the world was starting to spin, and his wet clothing chafed his thighs as he walked. He swayed a bit and then sat heavily in the middle of the sidewalk trying to keep the world from spinning around him. However, he soon toppled to his side, vertigo and weakness sapping his balance.
Overwhelmed by his impotence, in pain and self pity, he lay on his side weeping, pedestrians careful to step around him, and careful not to look too closely at him.
He knew that he should go to the clinic, but he couldn't. They would ask too many questions. "What is your street address?" "Who is your next of kin?" "Do you have your insurance card?" "Are you taking any medications?"
Medication! That's what he needed, he shifted his body and looked in the direction of the liquor store. He felt for the money in his pocket. "I just need a drink," he groaned. If he could just get some whiskey he would be alright. He would feel even again, in control. That is why he washes dishes, after all; to buy alcohol. He was too proud to pan handle; still, he needed to get the whiskey, his medicine, to make him feel right, so that he could be himself.
He stood on the front porch of his suburban home staring at the door, the frustrations of the office, like a recent sunburn, persistently aggravating and refusing to cool, even with the passage of time. He stared at the faux antique door knocker, just below the peep hole and in his mind, as if it came directly from a Dickens novel, the knocker took the shape of a human visage. But it wasn't the ghostly visage of a deceased miserly business partner; it was his own. He pointed his finger at the door and shouted, "You know that I should be the one running that place. I'm the Vice president of production! If they would just listen to me, they could be so much more efficient. Instead it's, 'No, Robert, that would take too much time' or, 'Put that idea down of paper, Bob, and we can see if we can whittle it down to make it more cost effective.' It's been three years now, and they haven't used a single idea that I've presented. Why'd they hire me, if they won't implement any of my programs."
He rubbed his face with a sweaty hand, put his key in the lock, and turned it. Strange, the door was unlocked. He would have to talk with Karen; he had lectured her before on keeping the doors locked when she was at home, without him there. He had to lecture her a lot recently; leaving lights on, windows open, going outside in a halter top, and how she was raising their little girl; she was getting a bit spoiled, and only three years old.
He pushed open the door, "Kare?", he called out. "Honey? You left the door unlocked again, you know how mad that makes me," his voice trailed off, as he realized that there was nobody home. As he walked through the door to the kitchen he could see the piece of paper on the table. He stopped and stood just inside the doorway, as if not approaching it, not reading it, would make it not real.
The sun had set, and he had to turn on the light to read it, when he finally approached the letter. "We're gone. Don't try to find us, you won't be able to. I've taken all we need, you can have the rest." 'What more was there?', he asked himself in despair.
He sat at the table and wept. He only got up to go to the liqueur cabinet, filled a laundry basket with as many bottles as he could and returned to the kitchen table, where he stayed for days. The phone range, people pounded on his doors and windows, but he never answered, never even moved. Finally, weeks later, the police came; they broke open the door and took him; filthy, emaciated, barely coherent; to the hospital.
Here were the police, again. He looked up from where he lay on the sidewalk, holding his bleeding scalp. "What are you doing there, pal? Been in a fight?" A cop with a night stick in his had was asking. "You got an address, bum?" The second cop said, "I think you must be a vagrant. You know we don't want vagrants bothering the decent people around here."
He rose on one elbow, looking around, expecting to see vagrants chasing decent people around, threatening them with bad breath and body odor. 'Decent people', he thought. 'I'm a decent person, what about me.' "I'm bleeding" he shouted at the cop, "can't you see I'm bleeding?" He was getting to his feet, to speak to the policeman face to face. "I have more education than the two of you combined," he wanted to shout at them, and make them see that he was a decent man, as decent as any other citizen. All he got out was, "I have more," when the first cop hit him with the night stick.
Riding in the back of the police cruiser Robert Mc Feergan was about to reenter the American mental healthcare system; prison, limited counseling, even more limited medication, and then back onto the street.
'Well,' he thought, 'At least they use plastic cups in prison.'
Farmer's Wife Friday Week 1
9 years ago
