excerpt from A Soldier's Guide to Survival

My wife comes to visit me. I request a private room to avoid the horny gawks at my wife but they won’t give it to me. They tell me to show her around and introduce her to my friends. I tell them the only friend I got she can’t see. I tell them it smells in the dayroom and I don’t want my Rosetta exposed to the smell of old people farts. That’s her name, my wife. Like the Rosetta Stone. Her parents named her after exploring The British Museum on vacation.
“I’m seeing another man,” says my wife, a smoke dangling from her lips. She’s wearing lipstick today and it sticks to the cigarette. Her yellow sundress is a direct contrast to all the cold whiteness in the dayroom. For years Rosetta has slept around with men and now she finally decides to lay me in the face with the truth. About time.
“You unfaithful tramp,” I say with the utmost ease, then look away to pretend I don’t care. I don’t, after all, care. Do I?
“Oh Walter. You must have known this day would come. You didn’t think our ridiculous excuse for a marriage would last, did you?”
“I had some hope, now you’ve crushed it. At least now I have a reasonable excuse to off myself.”
She lets out a drag and I know she’s looking at my wrists. I follow her gaze and hide them under the table. “Dear Rosetta. I ain’t no cutter.”
“I trust they’ve done away with the plastic forks and knives.”
“They cut my meat. All they give me is a spork. You know, a spoon and a fork combined.”
“I know what a spork is, darling.”
“So what makes this guy so different from me.”
“For one thing, he doesn’t try to kill himself because he can’t handle a few corpses hanging around his house. But it’s very simple, really. He’s there for me. He provides. He has answered the five billion dollar question as to what women want and that is security.”
“Is that what they want? Life’s greatest mystery revealed. Quite a let down.”
“Yes, well it’s common sense. If you had some, you wouldn’t be where you are now.”
“Does he make you laugh?”
She stuffs her cigarette in the ashtray and smoke simmers out. “He doesn’t make me hate myself.”
We sit for a moment in silence, listening to the autistic moans from the heated card game. Howdy Doody Time plays quietly on the television. The little black girl watches us forebodingly under the oak tree, shaking her pigtails. The window blinds cast black shadows like in those detective films, my very own prison bars.
“How’s my sister?” asks Rosetta.
“Last time I saw her she was, you know, the usual, cold and pale.”
She doesn’t care too much for my sarcasm and looks away.
“But I haven’t seen her in a while,” I say in hopes of redemption. “In months, actually. That’s a good sign. It means she might have crossed over.”
A sparkle glints in her eyes, a sparkle that can only come with a tear.
“That’s good,” she says, then takes my hand and squeezes it hard. I caress her hand with my finger, then she pulls away and hides it under the table.
“You take care of yourself,” she says, standing up and grabbing her handbag. “Try to find the finer points of life.”
“Look around, sweetheart. This ain’t exactly the Sistine Chapel.”
“It’s all in the details. The little things. Like that man’s sweet smile.”
She was looking at Ronnie.
“Him? That’s not a smile. That’s a down-syndrome deformity.”
“That bad attitude will be the end of you, Walter Groman.”
With that said, she struts by the Go Fish game, her heels clanking on the tile, calf muscles flexing at every step. And as expected, heads turn, Ronnie’s rolling eyes scan my wife from head to toe, even the black orderly stares right at Rosetta’s ass as he opens the door for her.
“This is exactly what I didn’t want!” I scream.
The droolers at the card game laugh at me and I grab their table and knock it over. Cards and chips rain down all over us and the group of crazies scatter in all directions, screaming and thrashing like a pack of chimpanzees. The orderlies come at me but I put up my hands in surrender. You see, that’s what these orderlies want, a fight. But by surrendering I get to prove my sanity.
“That’s not very nice, Walter,” says the black orderly. “Now pick up the mess you made so your friends can keep playing.”
“All right, all right.” I bend down to pick up the table. “But they ain’t my friends.”
I look outside and the little black girl under the oak tree is crying. Jackie Boy is sitting at our bench, watching the birds. His uniform is unbuttoned this time and the smell of gunpowder creeps up my nostrils. He trembles like a Parkinson’s patient and looks much paler than usual. I sit down next to him.
“Way to keep your c-composure, padre,” he says, breathing into his cupped hands. His breath is visible in the cold. We stare at the little black girl who’s wiping her tears off with her pajamas.
“What do you think she wants?” I ask.
“I dunno.”
“Well ask her then. Don’t you dead folk have a network of communication?”
“There are limits. I can’t just waltz wherever I w-want to. I’ve tried leaving the hospital but I can’t.”
“Why here? Why don’t you go haunt your ex girlfriend or something?”
“I dunno how these things work. You think I w-wanna be here? I could be at a titty bar right now, but no instead I’m stick with your c-crazy ass.”
Jackie lets out an agonizing cough.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask, the smell of gunpowder growing pungent. “You look deader than usual.”
“I’m…I’m just so f-fucking cold.”
“You’re always cold.”
“No…b-but this time…this time it’s d-different. I’m not well.”
“Of course not. You’re dead.”
“I don’t feel so good, man.”
“That’s the afterlife catching up on you. About time too.”
“Ah fuck you, Walt.”
With a rush of cold air, Jackie Boy from EZ company is gone like a blown out candle. He does this magic trick when he gets angry. That’s how Jackie handles an uncomfortable situation, he bails. He’s a runner. Don’t worry, Jackie Boy, my weak friend. I’ll be joining you soon.