III. The White Parade:
A day passes. I find myself in his room again, taking more pictures. I don’t even think about it anymore; right after the last class is over, I catch the subway to the hospital, take the elevator to the fifth floor and…knock twice on door 515. He never seems to mind. He never asks why I keep coming; he just lets me in when I knock and closes the door behind us--locking it to keep the unwanted medicals out…to keep the world away. I bring the scarf this time, hidden inside a black gift bag I found in my closet the night before. When I give it to him, he seems rather…shocked. Not because it’s a scarf, but because it’s a gift for him.

He whispers a shy “thanks”, and then we get down to brass tacks.  

Click.  

“Did you hear about the girl in 522?”  

It was only yesterday; how could I forget?  

“I was in Claire’s room when the doctors ran past.” Click. “They said it was a…a ‘code blue’, right?”  

The Patient grins, nodding. He sits curled up near the window, in an armchair we dragged from the lounge on this floor. A nurse caught us in our temporary theft, and I had been prepared to explain the situation. But he had given her this…this look…

“Got to see the White Parade, hmm?”  

“The what? And h-hold still. This is a new…”

Click.  

“Where’s your old one?”

Click.

“At the shop getting fixed.” Click. “Some idiot in a subway tunnel thought it would be funny to trip the girl with the expensive camera and Starbucks two months before she has her first actual show. So now I’m stuck with this…lovely antique.”  

“I see.”  

“Yeah.”  

Click.

“You have a show?”  

“Huh? Yeah… It’s…nothing fantastic. A friend of mine knows someone with gallery space in a good area. He saw some of my photographs and loved them so much that--”

Click.

“--he offered to host an exhibition for me, free of rental charge.”  

Click.

“Impressive.”  

“Thanks.”  

“So…any of them of me?”  

He grins, and even though he means to tease, I know it’s a serious question.  

“Maybe. Generally…it’s common artistic ethics to ask the model’s permission.”  

Click.  

“Well…just so you know…you can. I was…I was kind of hoping you would.”  

“The way things are going, I might just have to. All these pictures… But, um, what were you going to mention about the girl in 522?”  

Click.

“She’s dead.”  

Click.

I look up; he looks serious…and maybe even a little…disgusted?  

“Hanged herself with her bed sheet.”  

Make no mistake; that’s indeed disgust on his face. He pauses, tilting his face to the side in order to scratch along the jaw line, smiling with a strange bitterness--although from the sound of the shutter clicking or from the details of the suicide, I can’t be sure. His hand flattens out, transitioning from scratching to rubbing the back of his neck.  

Click.

“They found a signed DNR form pinned to her shirt.”  

“Did they?”  

He nods, hand dropping back into his lap. A DNR form is a doctor’s worst nightmare. If a patient goes clinically dead, the doctors have no choice but to let them stay dead. The forms are actually rather structured in the way they come into play, but…I guess in this case…

“Talk about an effective ‘fuck you’.”  

“Doctors tried to save her anyway--heard one of them yelling that it didn’t mean shit in a case like this, signed or not, but…” He sighs. “She was…smart enough to jump from her bed, so that she…broke her neck on the way down.”  

“Huh.”  

Click.

“So much for patient rights…damn.”  

“What?”  

I hold up the camera. “Out of film. I’ll need to change it out--unless you want to call it a day.”  

The Patient smiles. “Right, because I’ve just got such a full schedule…”

I chuckle, setting the camera on the windowsill--keeping it as far from the edge as possible. Changing out film is a breeze, even if it feels weird in an age where it’s more common to just change memory cards.  

“I just figured… You always seem so alert, so…so…”

“Well?”  

“I guess. Don’t you get treatment?”  

“When you’re not here,” he says. “I don’t like… I hate being seen at my weakest.”  

“There’s nothing wrong with…you know…with having someone with you. And I mean…I only ask because it’s been a month now and I have yet to see a doctor interrupt us.”  

“That’s probably because they’re finally getting around to respecting my privacy,” he mutters. “Took them long enough. I think it’s because you’re here.”  

“Really?”  

He doesn’t say anything, but I can practically feel the nod. “I spend a lot of time alone, in case you haven’t noticed…”

“No, not at all.”  

He chuckles, but it’s soft…almost to hide the fact that it’s forced.  

“They used to check on me a lot, because I’d wander around without talking to anyone. Or I would cause a loud fuss one day, and then just spend the next three here by myself. They thought I was…” The Patient sighs. “I’ve been watched a few times, because…because they were nosy and went looking where they didn’t need to.”  

Something about that intrigues me, but I don’t push. I just finish reloading the camera and turn around. He sits there, staring off into space, looking rather…lost. It’s worth a picture, that expression, but before I can raise the camera to take the shot he looks up at me as though startled. It’s all probably just as well… Something about his gaze made me feel intrusive.  

Suddenly, The Patient unfolds and rises out of the chair, stretching his arms high over his head. Tired bones pop and make cracking noises about as life threatening as a numb foot from sitting on it too long. The hem of his shirt lifts a little, exposing a bit the flat paleness of his stomach, but the division of skin and fabric is a little hard to notice without getting caught in a stare. He looks…thinner than I last noticed; without his shirt, he must look more like a skeleton wearing skin. No…maybe not that exaggeratingly repulsive. Save that simile for the overzealous models who would be jealous if they ever saw him. He still somehow manages to look like he gets enough to eat, but without his shirt it would be obvious that something was…wrong.  

Nudes. He asked if I had ever taken them. If I would like to take them one day. Of him. That was a month ago, but I bet he still remembers. His memory’s too amazing not to, and yet…neither one of us has brought it up. He’s never taken his shirt off once in front of me, never so much as lifted the hem to do something as simple as scratch at a small itch the way some guys do. It’s…curious…

“Do me a favor,” he says suddenly, dropping his arms. “There’s a Subway across the street from here; it’s the one I can see from my window. How about bringing back a sandwich?”  

“A-a sandwich?”  

“Mm-hmm. Roast beef with Swiss on white. Six inches. Tomato, lettuce--”

“W-wait a second. Wait a second. Are you sure the doctors won’t like…freak out if I bring it up here or if they catch me?”  

The Patient grins sardonically, the look on his face implying that he knows more than I do in this situation.  

“On this floor, nobody cares what you eat--only that you’re not starving to death so that they don’t get busted for negligence.”  

It’s a sobering thought; it’s the sort of thing Claire would say about this place.  

“Roast beef.”  

I wonder why they haven’t met, yet. They’d get along great together.  

“With Swiss cheese, on white bread--six inches,” he says, ushering me to the door. “Tomato, lettuce, black olives, honey mustard.”  

“Honey must--”

“Don’t worry about your stuff, and don’t worry about paying.” Out the door and off to the elevator, with a pause to press the button and a wait for it to show up. “They’ve heard the order before; they’ll know who it’s for if you just tell them it’s for me.”  

“Will they? I-I mean, do they know your name or--?”

“They know me as you know me.”  

And it’s the first time that I realize…I don’t know his name. He’s never said; I’ve never asked. It’s just never really come up. Sure, I want to know, but somehow…somehow…

Ding!

A light goes on above our heads. The doors give way to let people out, and then he helps me in with a light shove. No time to ask him now. I’ll have to do it when I get back.  

“I’ll be waiting!”  

As the doors close, I can’t help but think he sounds…agitated.  

Anxious.  

Nervous.  

Scared.

But that’s silly. What could suddenly be so bad as to scare him?  

I mean…besides the obvious inevitability.  

Actually, I hardly believe that actually scares him. But the question of what does follows me all the way to Subway…to the point where I’ve forgotten the order.  

“What’ll it be?”  

What was it he wanted? What did he say to me, as he was pushing me out the door? I look into the sandwich-maker’s face, trying to remember, but The Patient’s eyes flash in my mind, their intensity offset by the strange waver hidden at the end of his words. He looks more panicked in my head. More afraid. More like he would rather tell me to--

“Hey! Kid! Are you gonna order something or not?”  

“P-Patient,” I say, startled.  

“What?”  

His nametag says “Barry” in white letters pressed into gleaming blue plastic pinned to the pseudo-cheerful yellow of his cotton shirt. Beneath the tag, spanning the breadth of his chest in a sick neon-green: “Is it Roast Beef yet?” The expression of his twenty-something face contrasts the advertising enthusiasm of his shirt; it orders me to run, to avoid getting trapped in this place like him. The annoyed impatience of his voice at my indecisive silence is, I realize, actually panicked boredom.   
“The Patient,” I repeat, louder. “It’s an order for The Patient. He-he said you’d know who he was?”  

“Ohh…oh, yeah, yeah. The Patient--the guy who lives on the fifth floor of the hospital, right?”  

“Yeah.”  

“Yeah, I should’ve figured. Someone usually takes it to him from here when he calls, but…he just called a few seconds ago to say he was sending somebody over.” He stares at me carefully. “He said she’d be wearing a scarf.”  

“Oh.” My fingers close around the end of my scarf as he starts building the order. “Y-yeah…that’s me.”  

The girl with the scarf. That’s how he knows me. He knows my name, but he doesn’t use it--not often, anyway. He doesn’t call me Al like everyone else does. He calls me…

(“So what sort of name is ‘Al’ for a girl, anyway?”  

“I don’t know; what sort of name is ‘The Patient’?” A pause. “It’s just a nickname.”  

“So is mine.”  

“What’s your real name then?”  

A pause.  

“I asked you first.”  

“Why do you want to know?”  

“Because I’m curious. And I mean, you’ve been photographing me for three weeks.”  

“And?”  

“You owe me something.” Another pause. “Come on. Who am I gonna tell? I’ll take it with me to the grave.”  

“Don’t joke like that…”

“Sorry. But really, what is it?”  

A sigh. “It’s Allys.”  

“Allys.”  

“Yes.”  

“Spell it.”  

“A-l-l-y-s.”  

“Now there’s an unusual form of spelling a classic name.”  

“Someone screwed up my birth certificate by putting a letter where it didn’t go, so…”

“It’s pretty. I like it.” A longer pause this time. “You need a better nickname.”  

“Is that so?”  

“Something more descriptive.”  

“And what did you have in mind?”  

“Scarf Girl.”  

“What?!”)

“Hey! Scarf Girl!” He shakes the bag practically in my face, snapping me out of my thoughts. “His sandwich is ready.”  

“Th-thanks.” The bag feels heavy in my hand; there’s more than a sandwich in here. Cookies, probably. “What do I--?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s been ordering this so long I don’t even ring it up anymore.”  

“That’s…that’s nice of you.”  

Barry waves it off. “He used to come in here a lot and order this particular sandwich, before he got sick. Guess it was on the way or something, but he used to make his order, sit in a corner booth and work until he had to leave. Always left at the same time, so…”

“Wh-what do you mean? What kind of work?”  

“I don’t know. He never said. He always seemed like the shy, quiet type of kid, y’know? Lived in his head a lot. Kind of like you.”  

“Like me?”  

“Yeah.” He grins. “You seem like the kind of kid he used to be, before he got sick.”  

“Did you--?” I pause. “Do you happen to know what his name really is?”  

Barry shakes his head. “Sorry. Couldn’t tell you. But hey, make sure the docs don’t spend all day trying to stick him, will ya? He hates that.”  

“What?”  

“You mean you don’t know?” Barry frowns. “I guess I understand why he wouldn’t tell you, but…”

“What wouldn’t he tell me?”  

He won’t tell me a lot, but something about this… That was panic I saw in his eyes; that was fear.  

“Every week…he orders one of these after the docs get done with him. Usually he has one of the guys deliver it, but I guess with a visitor…” He shrugs. “Don’t be so shocked if you go back while he’s hysterical; one of the guys made the mistake of delivering it early, without waiting for the phone call and--”

Whatever else Barry the Sandwich Guy is saying goes unheard, forgotten. Horns blare--drivers yell and make gestures at the crazy kid racing across traffic--but none of it registers. My heart suddenly feels like its going to explode. Something feels very wrong. Everything is moving too slow; everyone seems to be frozen in place, ignoring the panicked art-school student in black racing through the calm white sterility of the hospital. The image of yesterday, of the “white parade”, jumps into my head, the metaphor finally clicking into place.  

Doctors…

Nurses…

Patients…

The White Parade.  

That’s what he said, with enough inflection to give the words a proper-noun weight. And if I believe enough of what I heard Barry says, then it’s on its way to visit The Patient now.  

Second floor.  

Third floor.  

Fourth floor.  

Fifth--

His screaming, cursing voice has drawn a large audience into the hall. Everyone with enough strength to stand or with a working wheelchair is out here, lingering near the doors as they watch the scene unfold. Claire stands by her door, eyes briefly catching mine before they drift back to the circus. Nurses walk up and down the hall, trying to usher everyone back into their rooms with little success. It’s relatively easy to push past the sea of sick and healthy bodies alike. Let them stand around and stare all they want--

“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” a nurse says, catching my arm, “but you can’t go any further.”  

The grip she has around my arm is unusually tight. She’s trying to make her voice sound firm, but something in it lacks. I yank my arm away with more force than I need to. There’s probably a glare on my face, or something close to it. Something that looks indignant…or tries to, anyway.  

“I’d like to see you try to stop me.”  

“Ma’am, no--!” She catches my arm again with that same tightness. “The doctor is trying to--”

“Fuck the doctor. Let him try to fucking stop me.”  

The words come out soft, forceful; the nurse gasps a little, taken aback by the reaction. It’s a sign that she hears me. A sure sign, really, that she hears my voice. A sign that I’m probably just too caught up in the moment, because while I feel my lips move…it’s The Patient’s voice I hear coming out.  

“Let him think he can try.” Still, it’s his voice I hear, not mine. “I’ll give him reasons not to.”  

She wants to exert authority over me. She wants to restrict and see me restricted. It’s what she’s used to from her patients and from their families. She’s used to them following her directions; she’s used to people doing what she says, and if they don’t listen to her the first time, she’ll use “The Doctor” card. The doctor is her ace in the pocket. It’s her trump card, and it always works.  

“The Doctor said this…”

“The Doctor said that…”

“The Doctor wants…”

I’m not some vulnerable family member. And I’m sure as hell not some fucking patient!  

Her fingers loosen enough for me to wrench free again, and the move jolts her enough out of her daze. Her lips move…but no sound comes out. She wants to say something--anything--but nothing comes out. And her expression… It makes me think of the other nurse--of the expression she had earlier this afternoon, when The Patient had given her his look… Is that what she sees on my face now?  

I’ve been spending too much time with him…and off I go to spend more! To get in the fray when I should just stay out of his business. I step into the doorway to his room--where the screaming has, for the moment, stopped--and the first thing I see is a skinny, scared ghost scrambling towards me, blind fear in his wide hazel eyes. If he had more weight to him, more bulk, he probably would have knocked us both over with his collision, but built as he is…

“Allys! A-Allys, Allys… Do-don’t let them-- Don’t--don’t…” He clings to me with the tight, sobbing panic that I might shove him away, that I might shove him towards the dangerous man with the syringe standing near the window…and my stuff. “Don’t--don’t let them touch me. Please, Allys, please, don’t--!”

“It’s for your own good,” the doctor says quietly. “You need to--”

“No! No…no… I’m fine, I-I’m fine! I…I’ll sleep, I will…I will… I p--I promise…”

“This will help you sleep. This will--”

“I said NO! Get away!” The more panicked he gets, the stronger he clings. “K-keep away! Stay back!”  

“I think you’d better not try anything stupid and stay back,” I mutter, wrapping my arms around the shaking boy. Almost instantly, he quiets to whimpers. “He’s not going to let you get close to him, at this rate…”

The doctor frowns. He’s young--a resident, at best. Still idealistic and genuinely caring for his patients. He’s thin, too--but in a healthy, “fast-metabolism” sort of way. With short brown hair and genuinely kind (but currently troubled) hazel eyes sitting behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses, he almost looks too young to be here.  

“He wants to kill me,” The Patient breathes beneath whimpers. “Th-they want--”

“We just want you to be well,” the doctor says.  

“Shut up! Shut up! Stop telling lies!”  

“Shh…shh, it’s okay. It’s okay. I got you, so just try to calm down, okay? Just breathe…breathe…” Again, he drops down to soft, trembling whimpers. Attention shifts to the nervous-looking doctor, to the ready syringe in his hand. “What’s in the tube?”  

“D…Diazepam. It’s a sedative,” he says. “It’s to help him sleep.”  

Diazepam, Diazepam… Where have I heard that before…?

“Diazepam…”

Of course! I’ve never heard it, but I have seen it. Printed in neat, typed letters on bottles in my Aunt Marie’s medicine cabinet… Diazepam. The stressed, suburban housewife’s best friend. A friendship so close, they know the drug by another name--a nickname, if you will. Diazepam is too formal, too hard to remember…too medically obvious to be discreet. But…with a nickname, it’s only too easy to go to your neighboring housewife when supplies are low and ask, “Excuse me, do you happen to have any extra--”

“Valium. You’re giving him Valium?”

“It’s poison!” The Patient spits out. “Poison!”  

“It’s a small enough dose that puts him to sleep for several hours,” the doctor tries to explain. “We inject him with it once a week to--”

“You mean you have four of your brutes hold me down while you poke around for the right spot!” The Patient screams, beyond hysterical now. “Every week…every WEEK! They hold me down…and they spend five minutes…! FIVE! Five minutes…five minutes, looking for the right spot…for a good vein…”

He holds out his arms, and I notice for the first time what I never quite noticed before--small, fading bruises along the inside of his arms. His breathing picks up in my ear; if he doesn’t calm down soon, he’ll start to really hyperventilate and pass out…which, I suppose, would make the doctor’s work easier…

“And when they find one… When they find one, they just…jam the needle in! And it hurts…it hurts s-so bad. L-like fire…like… And I scream for them to stop! I beg…and-and I scream! ‘G-give me…give me something else…a-any-anything else… P-please…give…’ But every week it’s the same! Every week… And when I wake up…when-when I wake up…”

He collapses to the floor so quickly that for a minute I wonder if someone snuck up and jabbed him with a needle from behind. But his broken sobs say otherwise the same way his tight embrace around me proves otherwise. No one says a word; no one moves a muscle. The entire hall is still and dead quiet, save for the sound of The Patient’s sobbing hysterics.  

I’m pissed off.  

Very pissed off.  

More pissed off than I’ve ever felt in my life. Even more than when those thieves in high school stole my camera junior year and returned it in pieces. Even more than when they ruined my portfolio two days before it was due for submission, forcing me to slave all night without sleep to get a new one put together in time. Those times pale in comparison to how I feel now.  

“What the fuck do you people do to him here?!”  

He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve…

“We just…we sedate him once a week.”  

“Yeah. I can see why.”  

“You don’t understand--”

“They…they strap me down…” he murmurs softly, staring into space. “Don’t let-- Don’t let them… Please…”

“Shh… Don’t-- Just calm down, okay? Don’t worry about that.” I crouch down to his level, meeting his eyes with mine. Taking his face in my hands, I catch falling tears with my thumbs. His thin fingers curl around my wrists. “Look at me. L-look at me… Nobody’s gonna hurt you today, okay? I’m here now; no one’s gonna get close enough to hurt you. But I need you to calm down…okay?”  

Slowly, he nods, biting his lower lip. “I-I’m just-- I just… I’m scared. I’m s-so scared…”

“I know. I know. But you have to calm down, alright? Just breathe, honey…breathe…”

He nods again, eyes fixed squarely on mine. Persistently quiet terror dulls their naturally intense brilliance. Tears give them an awkward shine. These aren’t the eyes of an angry young man; these are the eyes of a scared young child. He doesn’t put up a struggle when I wrap my arms around him again--in fact, he huddles closer, holding on to me as we get to our feet. The crowd around us… You’d almost believe no one else was around. The doctor stares at us, at him, unsure of what to do. Unsure of…of something; the syringe is still in his hand.  

“I’ll make sure he sleeps. I doubt he’ll want to do anything else today anyway, but…but I’ll stay with him.”  

“Yeah,” The Patient whispers as he leans against me, eyes closed. “Yeah, stay… Stay…”

“V-visiting hours--”

“There are no…‘visiting hours’ on this floor, Doc,” The Patient interrupts. “You know that. People come…and go…whenever they please. No one says a damn thing…”

The doctor doesn’t answer; the uncertainty on his face seems to exaggerate. He steps forward--rather, he almost seems to…slide forward, really--and I tighten my protective hold. The doctor stops, and again the uncertain look… Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong. Maybe not so much wrong as…off. Something seems very off.  

A soft sound from behind us makes everything clear. The doctor isn’t confused or unsure. He’s trying to signal.  

“Al, behind you!”  

Everything happens in a blur; The Patient lets out another scream as the orderly grabs him around the arm. I hold him closer, tighter, trying to shield him from the needle before it pierces his skin. The doctor yells something in the negative and… There’s more going on--more shouting, more struggling--but the clearest feeling is the brief flash of pain piercing through the fabric of my sleeve…piercing through the skin of my forearm. It’s no more painful than a pinprick, and then a sudden rush of fire burns its way through my veins. The pinprick pain suddenly retreats, leaving only the dull fire spreading under my skin. Silence settles again; the world seems a bit less real than a few seconds ago. Everyone’s staring at me, waiting for something.  

“A-Al?” It’s The Patient, sounding nervous.  

Carefully, I pull back the sleeve. Sure enough, it even looks like a pinprick--and the blood is proof of a lucky-as-fuck strike. The reality of the world is less; I blink, and colors drift in and out. The floor tilts, first one way and then the other. And I feel…

“Al?”  

…rather sleepy.  

“‘O true apothecary… Thy drugs are quick.’”  

“Oh my God…”

“Someone catch her!”  

“ALLYS!”  

This is what we’ll call a fade-to-black.