Tara Part: Act one, Scene Five: Massion Builder
by Mark William Darus.
Continued from part four….
<“I’m still here with you, Tara. I love you and I will never leave you,” Bill says.
“Bill! This night was special, wasn’t it?” Tara begins to sob as blood vessels on her brow pronounce themselves.
“Yes, it was, m’love.”
The LPN, a second shift new hire, stood there wondering who Tara was speaking to her back-right. Looking over her shoulder as the single person holding both parts of a conversation with female and male voice ran on, had a feeling cross her about her latest job choice.
…turned a whiter shade of pale…
“Thank you for being real, Bill! I love you…” Tara said as the drugs wore off, happily facing a new day with Bill.>
Part Five.
“Tara, an attending will meet you momentarily. He’ll talk to you until Dr. Grimly returns his page. Please, just relax and don’t fight the restraints.” She tried to maintain a calm voice but feared she didn’t. Anya, the LPN, with unwashed dirty-blond hair and thick cheap glasses looked down at Tara. “you’re gonna be alright, hon. You’re in good hands.” ‘Damn,’ Anya thought, ‘how lame is that to say? Can’t I do better than a bad commercial tag-line?’
A thunderstorm splashes her room with brilliant light as thunder soon follows.
Tara’s face tightening as the sight of Bill departs from view in the slow motion of an old black and white horror movie. His legs, unmoving, his stance, unchanging, yet dissolving into the background of mental mists getting smaller and smaller with every second.
“Bill! Don’t go! Please, please don’t go away!” she begs aloud as his shape turns into murky shades of brown becoming the carved and abused closet doors of her tiny room. ‘Too good to be true, right?’ her mind begins to ramble. ‘I’m here for you, Bill.’
The door to Tara’s little world opens with a familiar creaking sound as an average looking man enters, wearing a suit to the 9’s and an easy going smile. This man holds a confidence in his studies of mental health reaching far and beyond his college degrees would acclaim. He is a follower of Dr. Robert Hare and Dr. Hervey Cleckley work in psychopathy, Eberhardt Gmelin, Pierre Janet, and Christine Beauchamp work in Multiple Personality Disorders. His name is Dr. Gerry Buckfeldt and he is very ready to meet Tara.
“Hello, Dr, here’s the current pressings,” Anya hands this evenings paperwork to him with frantic voice and tired eyes.
“I’ll read this later, thank you. What has she been given?”
“Well, Dr, we gaaaaaaaaaaaaave heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer aaaaaaa shooooooooooot offffffffffffff=“
‘ Damn it!’ Kara spoke to Tara. ‘Here comes another munchkin.’
‘Quiet, Kara! This ones dif-’ Phil tried to say.
‘Bitch, be still! Phil’s right. This one be different, mate,’ Ebony firmly finished Phil’s statement.
Taking every ounce of her energy to do so, she meekly opens her eyes to the new voice in the room. He appears to her as a silhouette against the blinding white background of her room. Longish hair falling over broad shoulders, over 6 feet in height leaning to his right.
“I’m Tara, dr.” she quietly speaks. “Well, what’s left of her that is.”
“Tara, just call me Gerry. I am glad to work with you. I am new here, but being new really doesn’t mean anything, does it?” As he spoke to her, his eyes never leaving hers, he reached down and removed her restraints. “It this better?”
Laying flat, bringing her arms together, hands grasping at opposing wrists, she stretches out. Finally making her fingers intertwine with joined hands, Tara raises them toward the heavens, her eyes sharing the smile on her face.
In a voice less stressed, she begins to sing in a single tone so sweet: “I reach out, you reach out, we reach out, TODAY!” she begins to sing a song by Stryper to Dr. Gerry.
Knowing this song quite well, Gerry responds with the bobbing of his head. Loving this song and how it brought he and his wife together many years ago at a Christian concert in Columbus Ohio, goes with the flow as he did then. His eyes closed, unthreatening stance, smile crossing his high cheek boned face.
Whipping his hair back, eyes never leaving hers, he sings with a weak tenor voice: “I was looking, never finding… Always feeling empty inside…..”
Tara, not sure how to respond, sings, “Needing a Light to see…..”
Gerry, feeling he’d hit pay dirt with Tara and her minions, continued. He shifted the gears that only a multiple could embrace as the rooms in their heads like the fast changing arenas that would bog down the normal mind. He’s head banging, eyes light in depth as he sings, “ Love can be so cold. And loneliness gets ollllllllld.”
Tara looks at her legs and begins to bend her knees to her.
“May I please stand, Dr?”
“Call me Gerry and of course you can!!
Tara reaches for Gerry’s hand and slowly rises her body once again.
Standing too quickly, a blurred head-rush encompasses her. Holding Gerry’s hand, she sees Bill face as she rises. She leans her willing mouth to Gerry and he angles to his left making her gesture a pure hug.
Taking Gerry into her life finally knowing he is not Bill, she sadly sings. “And you can’t go on anymoooooooore,”
They physically part.
“Tara, when did you first hear Stryper? Please, share this with me.”
“MTV. Loved them. They made sense to us. Warm, hopeful.” Her eyes set like that of a cows, totally deep, sincere and loving.
“Shit, G! These Yankees kicked ass here! Tossing bibles and jamming’, gotta love it!” Ebony added, her British accent most proud.
“I cried when I saw them do the Easter Song! I really did!” Phil spoke as eyes filled with tears. Slump shouldered, slowly heaving body between sobs.
“Phil, once again, you are wrong! The Easter Song was by Second Chapter of Acts! Christ, just once can you get something right?” Kara spoke plainly. A devote atheist, wonders much of those she’s shares a place with.
“ We all know what Phil meant, Kara, back off!” Bill cut in, making Tara feel more elated by hearing his loving voice. She looks about the room but can only see him with her eyes closed loosely.
“Gerry, I heard them when I was a kid. I had two brothers that loved their music. They played when they got ready for school and I loved it. I saw them in concert when my bro Heli was at college at Ohio Wesleyan. Did hours on a Greyhound to get there to spend a weekend with him.”
“Stryper played Ohio Wesleyan?” Gerry asked.
“No, Second Chapter did. It was around 1979 or so,” she peacefully said.
“What’s your favorite song by them?” Filled with energy, the attending DR. had to ask.
Tara, her smiling, gentle face innocently looking about, feeling no fear begins to say, “ I’ve always been fond of Mansion-”
BANG! A door is forcibly slammed shut cutting her off as well as the hallway world.
“I’m a Dr. Grimly. What are your observations, attending?” His voice is annoyed, perturbed. He was so close to scoring with a hooker til his pager went off.
“Good evening, Doct-”
“Yes, yes, very well. What did you witness?”
“Yes, sir! Here’s what I have seen,” Gerry began with and was bludgeoning cut off with the sharpness of a spoon.
“Did you chart it? What are your notes for me to review?”
“Dr. Grimly, you just entered and I haven’t a chance to chart or note anything.” Gerry is feeling tiny hairs rise to the back of his neck. ’you want to rock, idiot? Let’s rock!’
“Incompitent fool! Do you not know what I am dealing with?” Grimly’s impudent voice is all over the place.
“Oh, yes, Dr. Grimly! I know the ocean you’re swimming in, Sir”
“Yes, and so you should! Would you be kind enough to fetch me a triple espresso mocha from the lab dr. Bumfelt?”
“That’s Buckfedlt, Dr. Grimlly, and yes, I’ll hit the lab for you.” Smirking as he obliges, mentally adding to the “other wards’ charts of what others professionally speak about Dr. Grimly. Lowering his proud head, hands behind his back and away from Grimly, fingers clutch together and tighten. Bending down, stretching backward in motion meeting a firm, confident sigh, he again stands tall before Tara.
“Okay, Tara, I’ll be gone for a bit. It’s was nice to make your aquaintance.” Gerry, feeling vultures and predators at his back as he said this. Gerry’s hand resting on the Tara’s bed, taking note of the shape-shifter he wants to know.
“Dr. Buckenfald, you will never see my patient again!”
“Of course, Dr. Grimes!”
“My name is Grimly, sir”
“Yes, and mine’s Buckfeldt, Dr.”
Gerry’s right hand still on the bed is met with Tara’s sound left grasp.
Hoarse voice, seriously wanting water, Kara cocks her head and talks to Gerry. “Don’t you, forget about us….”
Grimly, checking his pager, disregards her words.
Gerry looks at Tara and the voices that rise from her being.
“I won’t forget you all. Count on it. I ---”
“I think I can deal with this, Dr. Buchenfeld. I am the Chief here, an I not?”
“Of course you are, Dr. Grimly.” Gerry spoke with the enthusiasm of an infomercial. “You are D’Man!” Gerry’s mind forgetting little, but if it did, having confidence in the video’s these rooms have to share the inquiring mind if all else fails.
Grimly thinking he controls all, tells Dr. Gerry to leave.
“Dr, my name is Bcukfeldt,”
“Don’t you think I know this? You think me a simple minded fool?”
“Of course not, Dr. But if you were to have an error occur on your fine paperwork, with spelling perhaps, it could mean much.”
Yelling freely, losing control: “ARE YOU TELLING ME WHAT I DO NOT ALREADY KNOW? WHOM DO YOU THINK YOU ARE???”
“Uh, Doc, do you know where you are?” Kara asks plainly hearing Guns n Roses Welcome to the Jungle in her mind.
“I gonna watch you scream!” Ebony fills the silence.
“Hmmm, yes, that is all well and good, but how does this help you, Johnny?” Grimly verbally shits.
“D-d-doc, we’ve got fun and games. Learn to live like an animal in the jungle were we play…” Phil’s voice so weak yet hitting home with Gerry’s mind.
A proud professional LPN, albeit overweight, chops Phil asking: “Dr Grimly, no disrespect intended, who is Johnny? I’ve, well, been keeping track, sir, there is no Johnny.”
“I did dismiss you, didn’t I, uh, nurse, “
“Fatima, Dr, yes you did. Leaving.” Anya gives Gerry a nod as she leaves.
“Yes, Dr, Grimly! I will get you the triple expresso mocha from the lab you asked for!” Gerry nods to his senior, thinking of Tara and how they might help her to become whole again, or perhaps for the first time in her life.
the hiss of air from the convectors fills the moments of silence with white noise greatly meaning. An FTD florist, thinking of his lovely wife, strolls the halls with a gift for a nurse at least someone wishes to bed, and splendid fragrance of the flowers sharing before they perish. Figureless humans behind shower curtained glass, walking as they mutter with faces straight ahead, distantancing themselves from decisions to yet create as their hearts grow heavier than ever known before.
“Who’s here?” Tara eyes locking on nothing. Her hive-mind community forgotten her, such a tiny child in a land of millions. Forsaken.
“I am here, Tara! You’ve taken swims in pavements hard. Have you seen my coffee, dearie?” His sound was as tough as sandpaper.
“S’ry, shitheels! Hmm, do you remember where you last placed it?” Ebony and Kara spoke in Tara’s defense, strongly siding with her as she stood alone once again.
A tall crow lands at Tara’s window. Taking in the trapped flies caught in the spiders web, it feasts without worry. Spider in dwelling, patiently knowing, ants and other things will come.
The lord will provide…
“Tara, I am here to help you,” Grimly says to her. His voice carries all the power of a paper bag against a hurricane.
Stopping at the threshold of Tara‘s shred of life, Gerry looks back at Tara and asks, singing a Second Chapter of Acts song, dropping to both knees:
“So why should I worry, why should fret?” he asks totally out of tune.
Stopped dead, the LPN is blank, the clock in the room still does what it does, and Grimly is still an asshole.
“b--because I have a Massion Builder that ain’t through with me yet?”
“No! This hospital is not building anything in the near future.” Grimly coughs and takes Scripto to paper and emotionlessly writes.
…there are those who will learn how to fly… Gerry.
Looking up, seeing all the stable of minds can comprehend, Tara takes in vivid seas of black dots and on white horizon. Tara, watching the orderlies attempt to shuffle Gerry away, she fights against with frail frame.
“Hey, Grimly, Chapter of Acts, live, EAT THIS!
What’cha say, Second Chapter of Acts blasts from her mind as her body moves in the rhythms unordinary.
Not isolated from Tara, Gerry gyrates with her as one though separated.
‘Oh, we are not done here, brothers! No WAY!’ Gerry thinks as he walks to the cafeteria for breakfast. With tray in hand, smelling what could be cardboard eggs and really bad sausage, Gerry hears her voice.
“Wow, I watched ya, there buddy. Somethings hit y’net, ain’t it?”
Gerry holds his tray without sitting. Looking at his woman, he asks, “want to take a walk?”
Elevator ride north, cold stainless steel box ascending, ending at Tara’s floor. Door opens as Gerry motions then to hold back.
“You do her no good, Dr. Fuck your name it is not important. She is Tara and I am Dr. Grimly!”
“You are so very wrong, Asshole! “
“Then who is she may I ask?”
“She, we are many! You’ve such a tiny mind….”
“my education has taught me-”
“Nothing! It has taught me with those like us.”
“Gerry, “ the voice of Tara tells him, “go, get yourself a coffee.”
And Gerry will do this, but not after setting his knives into Grmily’s back.
Hearing her voice, singing as he walks down the dimly lit tile floored hallway, " I have a mansion builder that ain't finished with me yet..."
"he's broken through, hasn't he Tara?"
"We believe so, "
Gerry walks on.,...
Mark William Darus 09292012
