I want to argue, but I don’t. She knows better. I know the right thing to do is what she says, but I also don’t want to approach Eric again. I try not to look at him as I pour the salt water into the mug and then walk back into the cell. Finally I have to look. Eric is standing naked in the cell, his jaw open, his eyes oozing dark liquid over his face. His hair is tangled and crazy on his head, like a bird’s nest. With his gray skin, he looks like some troll or goblin out of a nightmare. His tongue hangs indecently out of his mouth. I step forward, holding my breath against his stench. Usually when you approach a living person, you can feel their heat, but with Eric it’s the opposite. He seems to radiate cold. I step forward without wanting to, and, putting a hand on his chest to steady him, I begin to pour the salt water on his tongue.
Immediately, Eric lunges toward the liquid. “Unh!” he cries. “Unh!” I make a face at his disgusting black tongue, and pour the salt water into his mouth. He swallows eagerly, making horrible gurgling sounds. When the can is empty, I go back to refill it. Eric stays where he is, his head pointed upward as if expecting water to drop from the ceiling. “Unh! Unh!”
He takes three cups of salt water before I begin to hear the deep, gurgling sound rising from Eric’s stomach. Eric turns his head away suddenly and then takes a step back. I watch with concern. Eric’s head jerks back and then I see the muscles in his stomach constrict. He coughs for a moment and then there’s another gurgling sound. I step back in disgust just as he leans forward and hacks up a massive ball of dark liquid, pocked with white balls of worms. They aren’t wriggling as usual. They’re coiled on themselves. The ball hits the floor and lands like a dropped scoop of demented ice cream. Eric hacks up another, this one even larger. It lands with a sickening splat on the cement floor. Eric picks his head up toward me, black bile running from his nose and mouth and even the corner of his eyes. He hacks up a third ball, this time it rolls gruesomely down his chest before it oozes onto the floor. I stumble back, and start vomiting in the corner, all over the clothes I took from him. The both of us are hacking and vomiting for a while then. When I turn back, Eric is covered with black bile and dead worms from his mouth all the way to his legs. My stomach painfully clenches, but there’s nothing left to come up.
“More salt water, honey,” the Good Prince says.
Without answering, I stumble to the salt water and fill the mug. Three times he drinks and three more times he hacks up the worms. The whole basement is filled with the stench of them. My eyes are stinging with ammonia. When I dry heave, little flecks of blood are in my spittle.
“Okay, that’s good for now,” the Good Prince says. “You can wash him.”
The mop water is warm and very soapy, smelling of flowers. When I approach Eric with the mop, he just stands there in his filth with his jaw open. I start at the top, washing the black bile from his face. Eric licks at the mop as I wash him. Soon I have to return to the bucket, but Eric is excited by the water and tries to follow me. I push him away, but he keeps coming.
“Unh,” he says, striving against me. “Unh.”
I feel his cold, soapy skin against my fingers. It’s like touching waxy leather. Turning back to the bucket, I quickly rinse out the mop, keeping Eric at bay with one hand. Then I pull him back toward the middle of the cell and begin to mop at him again. He keeps his head up, waiting. With his crazy eyes wide open and his dark tongue searching the empty air, he reminds me of a baby bird squawking in the nest to be fed. I walk around, scrubbing him with the mop. When I see him from behind, my stomach clenches painfully. I gasp and take a step back. A black, scab-like material is encrusted all over his backside. I never realized that all this time, he’d been going to the bathroom in his pants. I’m sobbing and gagging as I wash his buttocks and legs with the mop. The black, sudsy water gathers at his feet, emptying out through a drain in the floor of the cell.
I keep washing him until there’s no more soapy water left in the bucket. Eric stands in the center of the cell, no longer stinking, but horribly clear to my eyes. His cold skin gleams wetly as he stands naked in front of me. I’m trembling so hard I can hardly take the robe when the Good Prince hands it to me through the bars of the cell.
“You did good, honey,” she says.
After I throw the robe back on Eric, I walk shakily to the table and sit down heavily on the chair. Good Prince Billy shuts the jail cell and then walks over to me, her cane tapping on the floor. “Come on, now,” she says gently. “Eric will be okay. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
It’s then that I look down at myself. I’m covered with dark gore and specks of worms. That’s when the Good Prince lights the lamp inside a second jail cell that I hadn’t seen in the darkness. Inside there’s a cot with wool blankets and a thick, white cotton robe. In the corner, there’s another bucket of soapy water sitting next to a washcloth and towel.
“Now the same for you,” she says. She turns her back to me as I strip out of my clothes and begin washing, trembling, my lower lip quivering. “He’s lucky to have you,” she tells me over her shoulder. “He’s lucky he made it this far. You’ve done a good job. A real fine job.” I keep scrubbing as I listen to her walk away and struggle up the steps.
When I’m done, I sit down on the floor and begin to cry. I’ve never cried as long or as hard in all my life.
120
In the fire, I hear screams. There is a darkness at the edges of the fire, waving, undulating. Like water. I move toward the fire. I’m so thirsty. Waving flames and shadows and undulating water. I move close. I am surrounded in flames, but I feel cold and dying of thirst.
Birdie.
I reach out for the flames and watch as they wrap around my hand. My flesh is burning. But I’m so cold.
Birdie.
So cold.
121
“Birdie,” I hear. I realize I fell asleep after I cleaned myself. I’m on the floor wearing the thick cotton robe. When I look up, I see Pest gazing down at me with his expressive, dark eyes. He gives me a small smile when he sees that I’m awake. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get breakfast.”
I groan as I rise. My stomach and throat hurts from the night before. “I don’t know if I can eat.”
Pest doesn’t say anything as he helps me to his feet. He’s brought clothes with him too, new, clean clothes. Nothing fancy, just a pair of jeans, a t-shirt that has LAS VEGAS written on it in gold letters, a long-sleeved plaid shirt, and a pair of fresh socks. I take them gratefully, and walk into the shadows to dress myself. When I walk out of the cell, Pest is standing in front of Eric’s cell, looking at him. Eric’s kneeling in the corner, leaning forward so that his face is smooshed into the corner. I go to stand next to Pest and for a while we say nothing.
“He looks different,” Pest says finally. “Smaller.” I look over at Eric, and I struggle not to cry. I’m tired of crying. “You cleaned him?”
“I did,” I say. “And no, I don’t want to talk about it.” I swallow. “I don’t ever want to talk about it.”
Pest nods, and I see a flash of sympathy cross his face before he turns away. That’s all I need. Just that little sympathy. I couldn’t take more than that.
When we go upstairs, there’s a table with four chairs around it. It’s set at the head of the room, right where once the priest would’ve given his sermon, I guess. But there’s no sermon. There’s food! The table is practically groaning with the weight of all the plates. Although I said just a second I didn’t know if I could eat, just the sight of all that food banishes all the bad memories from my head. There’s eggs and fruit and pancakes and even…