Cue the Dead Guy. H. Mel Malton
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seen the circle of dope-smokers. They thought they were alone. The blonde man suddenly stopped trying to stumble down the stairs. He straightened and pulled Rico towards him.
“That’s far enough, babe,” he said in a husky voice. Ruth Glass coughed, delicately, just before Pacey thrust his hand between Rico’s legs.
“Holy fuck!”
It all happened very fast. I was watching, not out of prurience, I swear, but grinning to myself, thinking that Rico had, you know, found someone he could have some fun with—God knows he doesn’t get much fun in Cedar Falls. I saw the lust on Shane Pacey’s face turn to utter disgust and horror. I saw that horror turn ugly in a fraction of a second, before it became something I hope I’ll never see again. He grabbed Rico by the shoulders and with all of his strength, threw him down the stairs towards the open pool of freezing water.
I stepped in the way, as did Tobin and Ruth, all at the same time. It was weird, all slow-motion arms and legs. I don’t know whose arm or leg hit my nose—it doesn’t matter, anyway. We ended up in a tangle at the bottom of the stairs, just inches from the black water. Pacey was screaming filth and scrambling down the stairs to get a second chance at Rico, and Tobin disentangled himself from the bodies to hold on to him. I was hugging Rico, and my face was inches from Rose’s, which was perched oddly on top of Rico’s shoulder.
“You’re bleeding on me,” Rose said to me.
“You fuckin’, fuckin’ faggot. Come on to me like a bitch in heat. Whaddya think, I’m a fuckin’ queer? You fuckin’ make me sick!” Pacey’s words washed over all of us in a stream of abuse. Rico’s eyes fluttered open.
“Polly, take me home, please,” he said in a small, frightened voice.
Three
CAT: It’s just a scratch, young man, but don’t you see? / It’s safer to stay out of it, like me.
-The Glass Flute, Scene v
The Sikwan District Hospital admissions nurse just missed getting nominated for the Tactful-Locals Award. She didn’t bat an eyelash when the big black guy in blackface, accompanied by a blood-spattered goat, staggered up to the admissions desk after midnight, May 13. She did, however, display mild shock when she saw Rico, tagging along behind us. Rico had refused to remain at the party after Tobin offered to drive me to the hospital to have my nose looked at.
“I’m not staying in the same building as that animal,” Rico had said. He meant Shane, who had been escorted forcibly up the stairs and into the lobby by Ruth.
Rico had been crying, and his careful eye makeup was plastered all over his cheeks. His wig was askew, and one of his breasts (water balloons, I found out later) had burst, leaving a wet patch on his nice red sweater. The harsh fluorescent hospital lighting did not help. Rico looked dreadful. So did I, I realized, catching my reflection in the glass separating me from the admissions nurse.
Both hospitals in Kuskawa had been renovated in the late eighties, thanks to a burst of pre-election spending by a provincial government trying to convince us that rural healthcare was high on their list of “Important Issues”. Someone had seen fit to replace the homey, country hospital atmosphere with a design scheme that had all the ambience of a Manhattan bank. There was bullet-proof glass all around the reception area, and the nurse’s face gleamed eerily green in the light from her computer screen. As I handed my health card through the little hole at the bottom of the window, I saw my swollen schnozz outlined right before my eyes, framed by the floppy brown velvet ears of my goat-costume. I snatched off the headpiece quickly and held it by one ear at my side. Tobin snorted.
“You’re lucky you can snort, buddy,” I muttered. My voice sounded muffled, as if I had a thundering great cold, and my head ached abominably.
Luckily, there was no-one else in the waiting room, so the doctor on duty could see me right away, which meant a thirty-minute wait while the nurse paged him. I guess if I had been bleeding to death with a severed artery, the service might have been a bit faster—at least I hope so. I had been triaged, and had factored in at less than critical. When I was ushered into an examining room by a cheerful young intern with coffee breath and muffin crumbs on his tie, I tried not to feel resentful.
“Well, what have we here?” he said. I swallowed an urge to tell him that the baby was due any second and instead pointed wearily at the purple turnip in the middle of my face.
He examined my nose gently, which hurt, sent me for an x-ray (although I figured that if any splinters of bone had slipped up to lodge in my brain, I would have been blowing spit-bubbles at that point), and then he packed my nostrils with cotton, gave me a couple of pain-killers and washed his hands.
“It’s broken all right,” he said, “but we can’t put a cast on it, ha-ha-ha, and it’s not bad enough for surgery.” He seemed to be quite taken with his little nose-cast joke and I tried to smile to show my appreciation, but every time I stretched my mouth in that direction, the cotton up my nose shifted weirdly. I compromised by offering a hoof and muttering my thanks. It seemed to surprise him. I guess doctors don’t get thanked much these days.
“When the swelling goes down, you’ll find the shape has changed a bit,” he said. “Not drastically, though.”
I was resigned. I’ve never been particularly vain about my looks, which aren’t anything to write home about anyway. My nose was, before this, just a blameless blob. It might have been a bit long, perhaps, but not out of proportion with the rest of my face. I wondered what the Doc meant by “the shape will change a bit,” but I figured I’d just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I’d avoid mirrors.
The cotton stuffing in my nose felt strange, but oddly comforting. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, and I’d taken one of the painkillers as soon as they were handed to me. It worked fast, dissolving like a double scotch under my tongue. I was grimacing (the closest I could get to a grin) as I emerged from the examining room, to find Rico and Tobin sitting side-by-side in the waiting room, having what appeared to be a serious conversation about a recipe in Canadian Living.
“Hi, guys. The vet says I’ll be okay.”
Tobin looked at Rico.
“You’re okay to drive her home?”
“I don’t drive standard,” Rico said.
“I’m fine,” I said. “We’ll take the back roads route, and I’ll go slowly, don’t you worry.”
“You sure you’re fine?” Tobin gazed with concern into my face. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks, chum. Listen, I had a watery scotch about three hours ago, which has certainly worn off. The tiny pill I just took has erased my headache, but it’s not like I’m seeing kangaroos on the ceiling or anything.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Look, we’ve got to get you back to the theatre, anyway.” Tobin had driven us to the hospital in George’s truck, because his own Neon was hemmed in by cars in the Steamboat parking lot. “I’ll drive back,” I said. “If I start weaving or nodding off, you can take the keys away and we’ll crash in the lobby.”
“I’d rather be set on fire,” Rico muttered, but I ignored him.
The party was still going on when we got back. The music was still blaring out into the parking lot, and through the windows of the old boathouse, you could see the outlines of people dancing, like Balinese shadow-puppets. It would apparently take more than a little accident on the shop stairs to dampen the partying instinct of a bunch of theatre people.
I pulled up to the front door to let Tobin out.
“Do we see you at rehearsal tomorrow?” he asked. “Juliet will probably understand if you can’t make it.”
“I’ll probably be in better shape than most of the cast,” I said. “At least I’ll get some sleep.”
“And