Angel

“That’s disgusting,” Paul said.

“Yeah, but it’s kind of poetic too, don’t you think? You’ve never checked into a motel and found, like, a used syringe in the middle of the floor?”

“Uh, no.”

“That doesn’t happen so much at the Hilton, huh?”

“Hardly ever.”

The elevator arrived at the third floor. “Come on,” Ian said, “let’s go show Fido his new home.”

Ian’s room was also hospital-cold and antiseptic. It had its own bathroom, complete with wheelchair railings. There were two hospital beds with a pair of small rolling tables designed for bed-ridden and post-operative patients to eat their Jell-O. Ian’s bed was on the far side of the room near the window. He set the fly-eating plant down on his rolling table. “Here you are, Fido. Look for flies! Go on! I don’t think he sees any. Do you think I have to feed it if it doesn’t catch anything?”

“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “But you can feed it hamburger if you want. It will eat that.”

“I don’t have a great history of taking care of things.”

Ian talked about the channels on the television, his roommate, Gary—an aging rock musician—and the controls that made the bed sit up and recline. Paul’s mind was still back in the elevator with hypodermic needles and pubic hairs on soap. He was trying to reconcile who he believed Ian to be with the life he must have led. Ian had such a warm and open energy. He was playful and exuded a childlike innocence. How could someone like that have seen the kind of ugliness he described? How had anyone let that happen?

“You wanna see the grounds?” Ian asked. “It’s the best part. Anyway, I need a cigarette. They don’t let you smoke in the building.”

“Imagine that.”

“I know. They’re a bunch of fascists, right?”

“Maybe you should quit.”

“Well, one addiction at a time. I have to kick my heroin habit first.”

Paul’s jaw dropped.

“That was a joke,” Ian said.

“Right. Sorry.”

Once they were outside of the building, the clinical nature of the property disappeared. The grounds were quiet and serene, with a long winding path through flowers and trees. It circled around a gazebo and ended at a duck pond full of lilies, surrounded by weeping willows. It seemed like an exclusive country club or a vacation retreat. Ian took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a long drag. “Fresh air,” he said.

“It’s beautiful here,” Paul said.

“Enjoy the shakes and hallucinations in a lovely natural setting,” Ian said. “I think that’s what it says in the guide book.”

“Did you have that? Shakes and hallucinations?”

“The first week I was cursing you the whole time,” Ian said. “Fucking, fucking bastard do-gooder, son-of-a-bitch minister. Why couldn’t he mind his own fucking business?”

Paul smiled. People hardly ever swore in front of a minister without apologizing. He found it refreshing.

“You see the duck pond?” Ian asked. “When I was still in the medical wing, the ducks somehow got in, and I came out of my room and there was this parade of ducks walking straight down the hall. There was this other guy standing there, and I looked at him, and he looked at me. He said, ‘Do you see ducks?’ I thought, ‘Thank God!’”

“So it was bad?” Paul asked.

“I’ve had better times.”

“Are you still cursing me?”

“Well, you brought me a plant that eats flies, which is kind of weird, so I guess you’re okay.” He took another long drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke out through one side of his mouth.

“You could have checked yourself out if you wanted to.”