Monsters | Page 9

the Kingdom of God. And charging me fifty bucks for the privilege.
You're not a believer, are you Henry?"
Henry hesitated, fighting a bad thought. If he touched her now, she'd
faint. He could whip the wheel over and they'd jump the median into
the oncoming traffic. "I go to church every day," he said.

"Oh." She turned pale, as if he'd said his hobby was drowning kittens.
"Me and my big mouth." She signalled for Exit 7. "Sorry. I guess I
fucked up." At the bottom of the ramp, Memorial loomed like a giant's
headstone. She pulled up to the main entrance. "See you tomorrow then.
Sorry."
"Yeah." Henry bolted from the car before the monster ripped her hump
off and stuffed it down her throat.
"You look like a bum." Roger West had been cranked into a
semi-upright position and propped in his hospital bed with pillows.
"You come in here again, you shave." Cancer had chewed on him until
there was only the wrinkled brown pit of a man left. "Why're you
here?" His eyes were bright with pain.
"I came to visit, Dad. I always come."
"Not before the pill, you don't. Time is it?"
Henry glanced at his watch. "Four-eleven."
"Jesus God, nineteen years until four-thirty. Go find the nurse, tell her I
can't wait. Service stinks in this lousy hospital you stuck me in, kid. I
keep begging them for the pill, but they don't bring me nothing." His
fingers curled and scrabbled at the sheet. "Why am I here? I hate this."
"You're sick, Dad. The doctor brought you here to take care of you."
"That's right." He licked his lips. "Okay."
"The reason I'm early today is I didn't take the bus. I got a ride over."
His dad closed his eyes. He sounded like he was breathing through a
straw; the arms that used to hold Henry were limp as wet cardboard. He
sat beside the bed and gazed out the window. At least his dad had the
view. The middle bed was empty. The privacy curtain was drawn
around Mr. DeCredico's bed near the door.
"What she say?" His dad didn't open his eyes.

"Who?"
"The nurse. My son's coming, don't you understand? I need my pill."
The room got very small then so Henry went to the hall. He leaned
against the doorway and listened to the florescents hum. Down the hall
someone was watching Jeopardy. The PA system chimed. He scuffed
the carpet. It was gun barrel gray. The wallpaper was beige and shiny
and easy to wash. Henry rubbed a hand through the stubble along his
jaw. It wasn't a bad thought to want to kill dad. He could do it with a
pillow; he wouldn't even need the Beretta. Dad would be grateful for
the favor. It'd be payback for everything he had done for Henry,
bringing him up all by himself. But this was the only murder the
monster didn't lust for and Henry didn't have the spunk to do it by
himself. He went back in.
"You're early," his dad said. "You didn't get fired did you?"
"No dad, I told you, I got a ride with someone."
"A ride? With someone?"
The monster hated Celeste and, for the moment, so did Henry. She had
done this to them by disrupting the routine. He should've taken the bus
and his dad would've scarfed the pill and none of this mung would've
happened.
"Time is it?"
"Almost four-thirty."
His dad's laugh sounded like a cough. There was a plant with long
shiny leaves like swords that he had bought for his dad by the window.
Snake plant, the florist had said. Nothing could kill it. Henry could see
the interstate, the bridges and the river glittering like the road to heaven.
His dad had a room with a view on the twelfth floor. All the fabric
snobs in the worsted wool suits he cleaned would kill for the chance to
sit behind a desk with a view like this.

"Know why I can't get a pill? I can't pay. If I still had a credit card, I
could charge all the pills I need." He swallowed painfully. "I know
what they're trying to do. They're hoping I'll get sick of the lousy
service and leave. I should. Just go home."
"You're sick, Dad."
"Don't tell me that. You don't know what sick is. You get a runny nose,
you take a day off. But I'm empty. Nothing inside me. At least the pills
fill me up." His mouth hung open as he gasped for breath. "But they're
not giving me mine because you sold the house. That's why I can't go
home, isn't it? I get sick and you let them take everything. I built that
house. Where's