Ian Swenson .com

Why is it always taupe? Nathan stares at the wall. There’s a small crease meandering up the wall like a river of piss. Cheap government contractors. But the wrinkle in the sheet rock has Nathan fixated, as it has for hours. His eyes scale the wall and his focus now shifts to the ceiling, as it has done dozens of times previously. Smooth edges. Sprinklers covered. Nothing to latch to.

His lackadaisical thoughts are interrupted by the voice of a rotund, whiny woman. “Nathan,” she pushes the door further ajar, bordering on open. “You have a phone call.” Her slippers scuff the floor as she waddles away from Nathan’s room, leaving the door near-open.

Nathan needs no internal debate as he saunters barefoot out of his room toward the phone. The cold linoleum gorges on the heat being sucked from his feet. His pace does not increase, yet he dare not linger. He reaches the phone area: a public Bell Atlantic payphone transplanted indoors and mounted on a support column. Grabbing a chair from a nearby table, he drags it, scraping, toward the phone area. Nathan notices, but consciously ignores the hard stares from the regulars. He butts the chair up to the column, facing the phone. The arms of the chair force him to climb over them and rearrange his gown to cover any spots which may cause him embarrassment. The receiver is grasped by his hand as he nods to the shrill lady behind the glass.

“Hello?” He phrases it as a question of unfeigned importance. There are certain people he would rather not talk to at the moment.

“Hi, sweetie.” It is his mother. She falls into the category of people he would prefer not to speak with. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine.” Small. Foreign. Distant. He was sounding exactly as he chose to.

“I just want you to know that me and Paul are here for you. We’ll fly out if you want us to.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” Then there is silence. Not uncomfortable, every seven minutes, normal conversation silence. The kind of silence that ends relationships. After the incredible, stifling lack of sound, Peg manages to speak again, “How long are they going to keep you there?”

“I don’t know. I need to go.” Nathan doesn’t even bother to hear the inevitable “love you’s” which were to follow as he hangs up the phone. He gets up, puts the chair back in its place and begins the journey back to his room. Just one room into that journey, an odd sight beseeches his eyes witness. One of the patrons, a two hundred fifty pound black lady stands stark naked in her room. She’s staring outside, through the grated, security reinforced window. Nathan cocks his head slightly to the right as he passively stares at her. One of the nurses sees his musing and waltzes to his side. “Oh, Belinda!” and off she goes to enrobe the nude marvel. The oddity over, Nathan determines it is time to return to his room.