Chapter 2
Six-thirty in the morning in Ward B was no place for a lady. The pink sky peeking through the iron bars cast striped shadows in the central lounge now slowly crowding with grumbling patients ready to be escorted to breakfast. Satchmo had stashed his empty pint bottle in the bottom of the trash can and left on Nurse Hanson's heels. The morning nurse, Dottie Tomkins, a tall full bosomed woman with a starched appearance and shapely body pulled in tight behind a no-nonsense brassiere stomped in to take her place.
Like most nurses in the Rehabilitation Ward, Dottie had begun the job with an open mind. These men were no animals; simply victims of society's cruelties, men who needed love and understanding to set them straight. With time her emotions had been trodden upon and dragged through the muck of four-letter abuse until her compassion had crystallized into a keen contempt for these deranged men who tortured her to the limits. They openly defied her, acting like a bunch of mentally retarded kindergartener's playing bad to get attention. That irked her, grated on her nerves ... especially those three.
Dottie stood stiffly inside the nurse's station, dragging long and hard on a cigarette, her gimlet eyes glaring at the room gathering with sexual deviants, as the law kindly labeled them. Her dark eyes locked on Butch, a handsome man, except for his lizardy lurking eyes. The sleeves of his T-shirt stretched across his bulging biceps, his square jaw set determinedly, defiantly. "Dirty rapist," spat Nurse Tomkins, glaring at him through the protective shield of glass. Something about that man's disgusting stare made her reach up to her throat and make certain not an inch of naked flesh showed. The man was utterly unapproachable.
Hundreds of times she vowed to quit this job and return to emergency, but their disgusting abuse of her womanhood had opened a beehive of seething contempt for men, misaimed as it was, towards her milk-toast husband.
"Disgusting." She gnashed out her cigarette and with cocked eyebrows fixed her eyes on the darkly mysterious man. Statutory rape, wasn't that his charge? Her red lips drew into a tight smirk. A ripple of excited fear shot through her veins. Despite these depressing circumstances, there was something oddly stirring about giving orders to and taking abuse from these virile bodied, sex-fixated male animals who exuded a defiant strength most ordinary men sorely lacked. Like her Roger ...
Lord if she could borrow a little of Butch's fighting spirit and implant it in her weak-kneed husband, maybe he could work up the gusto to take her as a man should ... forcefully, masterfully, accepting no excuses. A burning frustration reddened her cheeks just thinking about the sterile years of marriage. Sterile as these damned walls ...
Dottie knew she was still a beautiful and desirable woman despite her thirty-seven years. Her hair wasn't smeared with a strand of gray and her well-molded hour glass figure was still in perfect symmetry, despite her attempts to smooth the contours with her loose fitting uniform. Roger hadn't even kissed her since she could remember when. If she were Amy's age, she would leave that excuse for a man and find a husband who knew how to treat a woman. Still, she rationalized that her iron-fisted control over that flimsy man was better than no man at all.
Her thoughts trailed off to Amy ... poor thing. She had looked so bedraggled and dreadfully unhappy when they passed in the hallway this morning. Why a beautiful young widow like Amy would deliberately seclude herself in the glum atmosphere of Ward B from nine o'clock at night until six in the morning was beyond Dottie's comprehension. No husband ... what a shame that her sole social contact with men was limited to these perverted rowdies who made her the target of abuse. Was it because Amy was young? Or was it the blatant fact that Amy Hanson was one hell of a gorgeous woman hidden behind a plastic veneer of unscratchable composure, never succumbing to rage.
One by one the men dressed in white T-shirts and white ill-fitting pants, filed into the lounge from breakfast, milling about out there, settling down at the television and game tables. Sure enough, Butch and Josh and Ben, the incorrigible triumvirate were pulling up their chairs and dealing cards, lining up their cigarettes like a pile of poker chips.
"Seven card stud ... " Butch called the game and squinted around the smoke from the cigarette dangling from his lips, his forehead wrinkling as he dealt the cards.
Josh snickered. "Stud ... yeah." He nodded his balding, coal black head toward Nurse Tomkins who was glaring at them through the glass looking at him as if she wanted something. "I'd like to give her stud service. That cunt reminds me of this little white chick I had workin' the streets ... had to beat the livin' shit outta her to get 'er in the mood."
Ben picked up his card. "It's 'er naggin' and bitchin' that gets my goat. Shit, how'd ya like to be her ol' man? Bet the poor sonofabitch ain't got a cock left to pee outta." A diabolic glimmer lit up his gray eyes and he unzipped his pants, fumbled around for his penis, drew it out and wagged his stubby flesh at Nurse Tomkins. Her hand flew up to her face. Ben guffawed. "Bet she ain't seen a cock for ten years." He stuffed it back into his pants, looking to Josh for approval.
Josh made his bid and threw a cigarette into the ante. "Never make a workin' girl, that's for damned sure. But that night nurse ... that pink headed blonde could make five a night. Christ, those tits! Any man'd pay a hundred bucks just to bury his face in 'em." The convicted pimp scratched his head, a wide grin slowing off a row of perfect white teeth. "Anybody wanna make a bet on those tits? I say they ain' all her."
"Hey, no way, man." Butch rubbed his square jaw with a heavy calloused hand, a far away glint in his eye. "One pack of Camels says them's her tits."
Ben looked at Butch then at Josh. "How ya gonna prove it man? Only way to tell is to get them juicy boobs in yer hand squeeze." He held up his hand and slowly clenched it into a fist.
Butch looked smug, cigarette ashes crumbling from the fired end onto the table; he didn't brush them away. "You know who yer talkin' to, man. I could talk the panties off a nun."
"Yeah, so what if you do get close enough to cop a feel? I don't trust no rapists." Josh raised the bet one Camel.
"Tell ya what ... I'll bring ya back her bra. How's that?"
Josh raised his eyebrows, his eyes laughing. "Yer on, man. Give me five!"
They slapped hands and went through the back alley ritual of a sealed bet.
Three heads turned as Nurse Tomkins picked up the microphone and in a starched voice interrupted the piped in Montavanni music. "Butch Hotchkins, Dr. Ballard is expecting you at nine o'clock. The guard will escort you to his office."
"Hear that, man?" beamed Josh. "You get to talk to the shrink. That dumb-ass asked me yesterday, he says, 'Do you masturbate?' And I say, jack off, man! You kiddin'? I had me a stable with seven bad lookin' babies beggin' for me to fuck 'em in the asshole ... "
Ben snickered and surreptitiously stole a cigarette out of the ante and lit it. "Bet that horny ol' fucker got hard jes thinkin' about it."
"Hey, right on, brother." Josh' black eyes glistened; he slapped the table with his black paw. "I start tellin' the dude about my black mommas, describin' 'em right down to the pussy hair and he jes' sit there droolin'. Then I notice he's got but one hand on his desk and by God if he weren't playin' around down there between his legs, gettin' red in the face!"
"Pompous assholes," sneered Butch, glaring at the nurses' station where Nurse Tomkins puffed on a cigarette. "My luck to roll in the sack with the Chief of Police's daughter. When I get outta this loony bin that little bitch'll be twenty five and I'm gonna fuck her brains out and send pictures home to her daddy."
"Don't feel bad, man," empathized Ben. "My ol' lady found out I had this chick on the side and so she and her hot-assed lawyer she'd been fuckin' put me behind bars. Looking at that bitch ... " He returned Dottie's cold eyed stare, "is punishment enough, but shit, it's bettern' fightin' off faggots."