God's Country

"Get out," said Rick. "I want fucking Brenda back."

"She doesn’t want you back," said Miranda, pulling on her medical gloves with a snap. "Now let’s see this abcess."

He reached for his nightstand, fumbling in the drawer. Miranda acted first, rolling the entire stand away and out of his reach while he swore at her. Inside the half-open drawer, she saw the gleam of a revolver. It chilled her and her voice was cold as she picked up one of the large-size blue-backed sterile absorbent pads from her pile of supplies and approached him again.

"I don’t think you heard me," she said. "So let me tell you again. If you pull a gun on me, or threaten me in any way, I will never come back. If I see you smoking, popping or selling drugs, I will never come back. If you swear at me, or throw things at me, or otherwise abuse my good will, I will never come back. No one else will come in my place. You will then have to rely on the fine specimens of humanity I have seen already in this house to clean you, dress you, evacuate your bowels, maintain your catheter, and care for your abcess."

"You work for the county, bitch, I’ll sue your ass."

"Go ahead. The average lawsuit takes two to three years to resolve. You’ll be dead in a month."
He glared, and huffed, and glared. She stood calmly, holding the pad, praying he didn’t have another gun under the covers. Or a knife.

"Hurry up, then," he said finally, peeling back the thin blanket and sheet. Miranda stepped closer and swallowed hard, nearly gagging at the stench. An abcess, a huge hole the size of her fist, appeared low on the left side of his abdomen, leaking a yellowish pus. She smelled feces as well. The catheter bag that collected his urine was overflowing, dripping onto the dirty linoleum tiles under her feet.

"How long has it been since Brenda was here?" She asked, appalled. He looked away, out the window.

"I don’t know. Coupla days."

"Has no one in this house done anything to take care of you?"

"That’s what the fucking nurse is for, man."

A huge and awful pity flowed over her. He was an astronaut, stranded on some harsh and lonely planet with aliens who might feed him in some absent-minded fashion, keeping him alive with one slimy tentacle while accidentally killing him with another, not understanding his simplest needs.

"First things first, then," she said. "Catheter cleanup." She drained the overfull bag into a portable urinal and dumped it in the toilet, mopping up the mess on the floor with the dirty sheet.

"Now let’s change this bed." He rolled over obligingly and she got a good look at the gaping bedsores adorning his backside, covered in fecal matter. He’d literally been sitting in his shit for days and Miranda suddenly felt bad about saying she’d let him die that way. She controlled her reaction, bundling up the soiled sheet and sliding the sterile pad beneath him. She repeated the action on the other side and dropped the messy bundle to the ground. Thank heaven he had a rubber sheet underneath – easy cleanup. He pointed out the clean sheets on the top shelf of the closet. She had to climb on one of the decrepit chairs to reach them, but they were, in fact, clean. She changed the bed quickly and competently, then got to work on cleaning him up. She obtained a basin of clean soapy water from the filthy bathroom and sponged him down from head to toe.

He had been tall once, over six feet, she could tell from the length of the bones in his legs, wasted after three years of paralysis. His upper body was still in reasonably good condition, but his legs and feet were shrunken and twisted. No physical therapy of any kind, obviously. She saw a couple of small free weights on the floor under the window.

"You work out?" she asked as she worked, handling him impersonally, keeping as much of him covered with the clean sheet as possible as she sponged off his legs and raw backside.

"Yeah, sometimes."

"Who are all those people asleep in the house?" she asked. He shrugged.

"My brothers, probably. Cousins. Friends. Who knows?"

"How many people live here?" He scowled at her.

"Why do you care?" He took the sponge from her and cleaned his own genitals, as well as his arms and chest. She took it back when he was done and scrubbed his back, dry dead skin flaking off in sheets, tangled strands of loose hair clinging. A large bottle of lotion stood on the bedstand and she used it copiously, smoothing it over his body until the skin glowed, soft and deep brown. She turned back to her supplies and started pulling out wound care implements, but Rick stopped her.

"Can you wash my hair?" he asked.

"Sure," Miranda said, "How do you usually do it?" Patients had their preferences and she tried to abide by them as much as she could. They had so little control over anything.

"Uh, dry shampoo," he said vaguely, waving at the bedstand. Miranda wrinkled her nose. That comb-through powder stuff was ok once in awhile, but it didn’t compare to having truly clean hair.

"Would you rather have a real wash?" she said. He met her eyes and nodded slowly. "Ok, let me take a quick look around your house and see what we can do. Be right back." She left the room and stepped across the hall into the bathroom. The room was narrow, the two sinks small and the tub far too low, and it didn’t have a showerhead on a hose. Miranda may have been able to maneuver tiny Claire Munton with that sort of setup, but Rick was too big for her. The kitchen maybe. She walked quietly on her rubber-soled nurse’s shoes past the sleeping man on the couch and into the kitchen.

This room wasn’t as bad as the rest of the house. The wooden cabinets were worn, but serviceable, the orange laminated countertops clean. A new-looking pine kitchen table and six chairs decorated one end, large windows allowing the late afternoon sunshine to stream in. The dishes were done, the floor was swept, the food was put away except for a pot of beans simmering on the stove. The sink was a good size and had one of those hose extensions, which was ideal, but it was a little high off the ground. Nonetheless, she thought she could work something out. As she stood there, thinking, a shadow fell across her. She jumped, and the man who had startled her laughed, fine white teeth showing in a handsome brown face. His black hair fell almost to his waist, captured in a single braid that hung down his back. He was barefoot, wearing a pair of old, worn jeans and nothing else.

He walked towards her and she involuntarily took a step back. "I’m Miranda," she said hastily, "Rick’s new nurse."

He looked down at her, taking in the clunky shoes, the pulled back hair, the baggy t-shirt and jeans. "You don’t look like no nurse," he said, taking another step.

"Who are you?" she said, holding her ground.

"Donny," he replied. "Rick’s brother." He towered over her.

"I need a chair," she said. "With a thick cushion." To her surprise, he wandered off and got her a chair with a big piece of foam on top. It should work. "Thank you," she said, placing it in front of the sink and walking quickly back down the hall, aware that he was watching her go.

"I think we can wash your hair in the kitchen sink," Miranda said to Rick, hoping her voice wasn’t shaking. "Let’s finish up here and get you at least mostly dressed, then I’ll help you into your chair and we can do that last." He nodded.

She went through the rest of the routine quickly, cleaning the wounds thoroughly and bathing them in antiseptic before covering them loosely with fresh dressings. She wrestled on socks and pants, with his help, then it was time for the chair. It was folded up against the wall. She retrieved it and snapped it open. An empty beer can flipped out, hitting the floor. She rolled her eyes and threw it away, wiped off the chair, and then brought it next to the bed. He sat up with the help of a short bar suspended overhead. With practiced ease, he unclipped his catheter bag from the bedside and placed it in his lap. She leaned over and got under his arm, taking most of his weight as she levered him down into the chair. He smelled like lotion and old smoke. He was heavy and she was out of breath when he settled.

He clipped the bag to the chair, then looked up at her, still shirtless, and grinned. "I can have my brother do that next time, if you want." She stood panting, hands on hips, and finally grinned back.

"You might want to do that," she said. She wheeled him into the kitchen and showed him the chair and cushion setup. Donny had disappeared back into the depths of the house, for which she was grateful.

"I think I can get myself in that," he said, but she stood close, just in case. He managed. She got some towels from his closet and a bottle of Head n’ Shoulders from the bathroom, rinsing bathtub scum off the bottle before she brought it out to the kitchen. She put a rolled towel under his neck and made him lay back. The blacker-than-black hair streamed into the sink, a waterfall of night sky pouring down the drain.

"Remind me not to turn on the garbage disposal," she said drily, surprising a short laugh out of him.

She ran the water until it was warm and then pulled out the hose, carefully wetting the thick mass. It took a long time for the water to seep all the way through. It was almost like a pelt, thick and protective, shedding water like oil. She poured on the soap and worked it through, scrubbing his scalp gently but thoroughly. His eyes closed and she had the leisure to stare. She had never been self-conscious with a patient before, but she rarely performed this type of intimate duty, which was normally the province of family members or other caretakers. But Rick had no one else. And he was young, unlike most of her patients. Her fingers loved the feel of his hair, heavy as a blanket now as she rinsed out the foam. That took a long time as well, his hair now as reluctant to give up the water as it had been to accept it.

She towel-dried it and then helped him back down into the wheelchair. She combed it out there in the sunny kitchen, where it would dry faster. Handfuls of hair were left in the sink. She gathered them and threw them away so they wouldn’t go down the drain and clog it. She got him a clean t-shirt shirt which he pulled on while she cleaned up the sink. She sighed – one more task. She got him to point out where the mop was, then she cleaned the entire floor in his room. It was just a water mop, but it was better than nothing. She did the bathroom, too, while she was at it. Then she dropped the filthy sheet in the washing machine, outside around the back of the house, a rickety shed-type roof barely covering it. She set it on hot, poured in plenty of soap, added the clothes that Rick had been wearing when she’d arrived, and the towels she’d used in washing his hair.

She went back to his room to pick up her supplies, then back to the kitchen, where he still sat in the sun. "Do you want me to leave you any extras?" she asked him. He shook his head.

"These fuckheads’ll steal anything isn’t nailed down," he said.

"All right, then. I’ll see you tomorrow," she said. He jerked his head without meeting her eyes. She walked out
the front door and found Donny standing in the yard, hair dropped down over one dark eye, hands in pockets, staring her down.

"See you tomorrow, nurse," he said. The skinny dogs fawned at his feet and together they watched her pull out of the yard, dust rising behind her car as she headed off the res, back towards civilization. Her fingers tingled on the steering wheel, remembering the feel of Rick’s soft skin, his thick hair. His gun, she reminded herself sharply. I need to get laid, she thought. It’s been way too long.