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Nobody said anything to Trager as they ushered him into the shower cell. That was the weirdest part—the weirdest part of this whole incarceration thing—the complete lack of acknowledgement from people who used to be his subordinates. He used to pay their salaries for god’s sake. Now nothing. Nada. Just the echo of wet footsteps in the bath hall and the creak of a plastic chair he’s quickly pushed onto.
“I can sit down myself, thanks,” Trager grumbles.
The plastic hurts more than he’d like to admit on his rubbed-raw skin.
The nurse, as cold faced as ever, grabs a pan with a yellow sponge inside and squeezes it in the water before splatting it against his shoulder.
SPLAT
“Hey!” Trager yelps, and he jolts away.
It stings. Stings like a million wasps jack hammering their stingers into his arm. He inhales sharply.
“The fuck are you doing? This is a fucking shower, isn’t it?”
He talks like them now. He never used to be so vulgar; the Engine changes things. Makes you think in ways you never did before, pulling up all that shit from the deepest dark inside of you and vomits it out. It helps you fit in. Blend in. One big pile of mush being scrubbed by the coarse piss yellow of a sponge.
“Sponge bath,” the nurse says, shifting on his feet. “Don’t move. It’ll hurt less.”
“Sponge baths aren’t supposed to hurt, buddy. What’s in there? What crazy Murkoff bullshit are you using on me?”
“Soap. Water.”
With a huff, the nurse starts scrubbing his arm again, ignoring how tightly Trager grips the arms of the chair, the little hornets ceaselessly stinging and stinging and stinging. Then the nurse moves to the other arm, then the nape of his neck, his back, and he gets all the way to his chest before Trager finally shoves him away.
“Give it. I can finish washing myself.”
“It’s my job.” The nurse moves to start again.
“No, no, no—“ Trager pushes him a little harder this time and watches that little light flicker behind the nurse's eyes.
There’s a hint of panic in Trager’s chest—right where the nurse meant to attack. Cold, icy panic. Blue. Indigo, maybe—discolored.
—Because Trager can’t do anything anymore. Every word he says is met with more punishment, more torture, more treatment. In order to get a single thing to go his way, he has to kiss ass and beg like a dog. It’s worse than death. For him, at least.
He softens.
“…Could you just let me in a bathtub, buddy?”
There’s a row of bathtubs behind the nurse’s arm, some of them filled with a patient and the occasional rubber ducky, some of them empty and frigid.
The nurse inhales slowly. “Fine. Whatever. They don’t pay me enough to fight with you.”
Trager smiles a little at that, since he knows that’s his doing.
The nurse takes him by the arm and drags him to a nearby tub and turns on the water, fishing a bottle from his pocket of what Trager can only assume is soap and squeezing some out into it. He doesn’t check the temperature coming out, and keeps more of an eye on Trager than anything else, probably assuming he’ll try and fight since he’s oh so dangerous now. But he’d honestly like a bath, truly, unlike the majority of the animals here. He isn’t like them. Not deep down, at least. And not on the surface if he can help it.
Once the tub is about halfway filled, the nurse helps him step inside, taking his elbow in his soft hand and placing the other on his back as he eases him into the water. One step in and Trager hisses and retreats back onto the cold linoleum, met with that horrid, sharp sensation again. It’s scalding, seeping into his dried, melted skin like hot magma.
“Are you trying to boil me?” he groans. What’s left of his bottom lip sticks to his dry teeth.
The nurse shifts on his feet. Disdain and annoyance shroud his face.
“It’s barely even hot.”
“Fix it.” Trager’s tone, punctuated by a step towards the nurse and a finger to his nose, snaps against the tiles and echoes right back at him.
He sounds unlike himself. The voice that escapes him is weak, strangled in the lump in his throat before it emerges.
He blinks hard. God, what a pity he’s become. He can only pray the nurse recognizes who he was before and shows some respect. Things may have changed but he still has his past. That means something, right?
The nurse grumbles and shoves him away.
“Get your fucking finger out of my face,” he mutters.
He starts the faucet again, this time, flipping the water all the way to cold. He takes a purple bottle from beside the tub and squirts it into the faucet’s spray. Foamy white bubbles begin to form and grow at the top of the water, and Trager can’t help but be mesmerized by the way it moves like some sort of superorganism.
His contemplation is broken as quickly as it arrives, and Trager is pulled back into the tub. It still burns, maybe even worse than it did before—a layer of burning heat on his middle, and an icy cold flow beneath and between his legs—but he wants this done, so he grits his teeth and stomachs it.
After the bath is sufficiently filled to submerge Trager, the nurse turns off the faucet. Silence fills the hall, punctuated only by the other patients in their baths.
They splash about almost carelessly, a certain tranquility painting their mangled faces. Trager notices a bathing man two tubs to his left, humming to himself and watching a small rubber duck bob up and down over the murky waves.
“Ducky, Ducky…Oh, don’t flip over, Ducky. You’ll drown. No, Ducky, stay here…”
A nurse stands guard in front of the patient, face solemn and body unmoving. There’s no conversation between them.
“Now why does he get a duck?” Trager asks. Oddly, the question drips with jealousy.
Well, why should somebody get a rubber duck and not him? What does it take to earn a rubber duck in a place like this?
The nurse scoffs and tosses the sponge into the water, ignoring him entirely.
“Here you go, Mr. Independent. Let’s see you try to clean yourself.”
Trager huffs. “Just because I’m in treatment doesn’t mean I’m not capable, buddy. I’m not like the others. I can think and I can take care of myself just fine.”
The nurse waits with a stare, lips pursed.
“Ducky, you just don’t know when to quit! At least you’re having fun, Ducky. You know I love to see you happy. Nobody’s happy if Ducky ain’t happy.”
A pang of anger surges through Trager. How can this sorry excuse for a nurse be in charge of him? How is this happening? How could he be considered the same as that man with the fucking duck?
Why the fuck doesn’t he get a duck?
He sits up on his elbows, slipping on the old porcelain for a moment before gaining his bearings.
“You know, I used to pay your salary. I was an executive.”
“Wel…Funny how things change, huh?” The nurse smiles.
Trager inhales and squeezes the sponge into his fist.
“I suggest you do more washing and less talking, Mr. Trager, unless you’d like me to take over.”
Fine. Fine. Fine then.
Trager watches the sponge swell with water and presses it to his arm—it still smarts, even though it’s apparently nothing but soap in the water. It shouldn’t hurt. It should feel fine. But the pain is undeniable, worse now that he’s sitting in it.
What’s wrong with him?
…
He eyes his skin closely, how tightly it clings to the muscle and tendons, like somebody threw him in the washer and spun him on hot.
He didn’t think anything of it before—the melted flesh now coating his body. Why didn’t he notice that sooner?
The texture is akin to flaking leather, the color a sickly greenish-beige although he used to have a nice tan, and the hair on his body incinerated, growing in uneven, stubbly patches.
Maybe this is why the nurses don’t prefer them to take baths—they’ve too much time to reflect, and to see what they’ve become. The all-encompasing pain of the water in his wounds is sobering.
The water is turning brownish-red as he scrubs, masked beneath the pearly white soap. It smells like hot metal. His bath now looks identical to the man with the duck’s.
A deep voice cuts through his concentration before he’s done washing his arm.
“Mr. Trager,” it says. A security guard, no doubt.
It’s almost off-putting how they still call him by name but treat him like a disease. At this point, he’d rather be a number as to not soil his legacy.
“I’m a little busy,” he says. He doesn’t look away from his arm.
Did that pansy nurse really call for backup over something as simple as a little attitude in the bathtub? Is this the security that Murkoff pays out the nose for?
What a joke. That never would’ve happened when he was executive.
Unwavering, the deep voice continues. “You have a visitor.”
Trager turns over his shoulder and his stomach plummets. He drops the sponge into the water.
His savior. Finally.
There he is, after not seeing him for God knows how long, since that fateful day that he can’t decide was terrible or inevitable—Jeremy Blaire, standing in the washroom, hair neat and suit ironed—with a shit-eating grin plastered from ear to ear.
Trager grips the side of the tub and turns around further, thinking maybe the image would change, maybe he was really hallucinating. But then Blaire speaks, in a voice so familiar to him it’s undeniably him.
“Rick. Man…you have seen better days.”
“Jeremy?” Trager licks his lips. They don’t get any wetter, for his tongue is just as dry.
Blaire looks between the nurse and the security guard, sticking his thumbs in his front pockets.
“You boys mind giving us some privacy?”
The two—despite being called boys—nod with a yes, sir and move away. They stand around like a bunch of nobodies, while the most important man in the world stands in front of Trager, relaxed and calm in his demeanor.
And Trager is naked, burning, and hopelessly alone.
Blaire is his one and only chance at salvation. He carries a chance at freedom, his old life with his old buddy again, just like how it used to be.
He learned his lesson. Rape is bad, murder is bad, yada yada yada. He got the message. He caused a potential financial nightmare and a lot of legal trouble. Bad things, he knows. But he knows not to do it anymore. He’s been—what’s the word—rehabilitated.
He never thought he’d miss working. He never thought he’d miss living, or calling mom and asking about the weather. But oh, how he did miss it. He misses screwing around, and God, the cocaine, and golfing early on a Saturday morning. He misses going to strange clubs with coworkers whose names he could never remember, then hooking up with waitresses and call girls, or betting with Blaire on who can get in the new girl’s pants first. Or if she’s a lesbian. He misses getting up before the sun rises and taking a shower that feels normal. Ironing a shirt. Paying the maid and asking about her son, tuning her out just as quickly as she starts talking. Indulgence, ripped away from him.
He misses life—his life, perfectly curated to suit his every desire.
He’s ready to dive back into those cold waters. Even if he looks like this now. Even if it’s taken this long for somebody to come looking for him.
He knows that he doesn’t deserve this. Not after everything he’s done for these people, especially Blaire.
The punishment does not fit the crime.
Blaire now stands beside him at the tub, staring at him, his body, with a devilish smile. His teeth are shiny and white, just like always. He looks well-rested and clean.
Trager looks desperate. And he is.
He’d do anything to get out of here, out and away from the death and the stink and the violence and the pain and the degradation and the frigid heat of loneliness eating away at his heart.
Anything at all, he would do it.
He’s a good man. Blaire knows this. Blaire will get him out of here.
“Jeremy,” Trager says in a pitiful whine, craning to look up to the man who was never taller than him until now. “Jer, you gotta get me out of here.”
“I do?”
Trager’s heart beats in loud THUDS in his chest.
“Are you joking?” Trager’s breath hitches in his throat. “Not funny, buddy. You never were much of a comedian.”
This has to be a nightmare, some sort of karmic revenge on his psyche. He’ll wake up and his image will be anew. He’s not the person everyone thinks he is, if only somebody would believe him.
If only he can get through to Blaire.
Blaire kicks at the linoleum, scooting something away—Trager can’t tell what exactly. “I don’t know, Rick. I think this is good for you.”
“Good for me? Good for me?”
He shoots up onto his knees. Water spills out from the edge of the tub, splashing onto Blaire’s shoes, who recoils in disgust.
Trager bites his lip to keep from screaming. Blaire glances behind him, probably at the security guard.
For backup. Because now we need backup when interacting with Trager.
His stomach churns.
In what world is this good for me?
“Buddy,” Trager breathes, his voice dropping to a whisper, “come on. This is crazy. I don’t deserve to be here.”
“Well, it doesn’t look great for you on paper. You raped your coworker and then attacked her and her unborn baby—uh, your baby—in front of myself and several witnesses, one of which I found out you also tried to stick your cock in. I bet that guy over there did something like that, too. And him. And maybe him.”
“They lied. What did you expect me to do? What would you do?”
Blaire gets down to his level and touches his arm, feeling his flesh under his coarse fingers. He smirks.
“You are in a bad way, Rick. Oh, man.”
Blaire turns to the side to stifle his laughter. It’s nearly too much for Trager to bear.
“I’m serious. Look at me. Look at me!” Trager barks, slamming his palm onto the edge of the tub.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” Blaire retorts. “You never could—that’s how you ended up here. But you definitely can’t now. If you could just see yourself—how fucking disgusting you look now—“
“Jeremy,” Trager says, suddenly gripping Blaire’s hand in a white-knuckled grasp of desperation. His voice shakes. “I’m still me. You still know me. You still like me. You can’t just let this happen to me. You can’t put me in that fucking Engine again.”
“I can. And I will.”
Trager blinks. He can’t believe it. He can’t fucking believe it.
“You think just because I worked with you and we got together a few times means I liked you? I don’t like anybody. You were company. You were like-minded, sure, but I never needed you. You stepped out of line. You caused me problems—cost me money. Squeaky wheel got greased. That’s just how it is.”
Blaire yanks his hand out from under Trager’s loosened grip.
This all hurts more than Trager would have ever guessed he could be hurt.
“Don’t say that,” he begs. “Don’t say that, buddy. We…had something good.”
Blaire examines Trager’s chest, his abdomen, his…
“And we can have it back. I’ll be better. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Anything. Just don’t leave me here.”
“It’s too late,” Blaire says with a chuckle. “You made your bed, now lie in it. You really never saw this coming?”
Trager looks away. That stings more than any of his injuries, and more than the shit in the water.
He’s never getting out of here, is he?
This is his future. The guy with the rubber ducky, splashing helplessly, dumbly, brain dead. That will be him. No Richard Trager left in sight.
“Now it’s your turn to look at me,” Blaire says, his voice gruff, a threat. “Don’t get shy now. You don’t get to refuse me anymore.”
Blaire grabs him by the chin . Trager looks to the side until he can’t fight it anymore and looks into Blaire’s unforgiving face.
“I wish you could see yourself, Rick. I wish you could see just how fucked up you are. God.”
Trager shifts, trying to hide his lower half beneath the soap.
“Every inch of you just…ruined. That Engine sure is something. Hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Like a bitch,” he says, utterly defeated.
Blaire touches Trager’s hair. It sounds like sandpaper between his fingers.
“I almost feel bad for you. Almost.”
“Come on, buddy,” Trager pleads, reaching for his hand again.
“No, no. My turn to talk.”
But Blaire is silent as he thumbs the scars on Trager’s hairline, still not healed, aggressively worsened by the Engine’s brutal attack, and now by the touch of Blaire’s hands.
After he’s examined Trager to his satisfaction, slowly, he starts again. “Pauline. She’s a real spitfire, huh?”
“I regret nothing, if that’s what you want me to say.”
“I figured as much. You really are sick.”
“It’s all I have now, isn’t it?” He stares daggers into Blaire. “What choice have you left me with? What am I supposed to think now?”
Blaire sighs. With a nod, he stands up. “I think we’re done here. I just wanted to get a good look at you. It’s hard to see the nitty gritty when you’re in the Engine, you know?”
Trager’s done begging. It’s clear that it’ll do him no good—only make him look even more pathetic.
That’s his newest fear. Submitting.
So fine. Let him leave. It’s clear what has to happen now, what Trager needs to accept, and who he no longer needs.
Blaire starts to walk away. “Anything else you want to say to me?”
Trager thinks for a moment, his eyes turning back down to the murky waters in front of him. Every nervous pang in his heart is gone, an empty black void in its place. Real numbness. Loss, leaving his soul gutted and scooped clean by rage.
Without looking back, he starts, almost shyly, “What happened to Michelle and the kid?”
Silence hangs in the air like fog. The man with the duck has stopped his chattering, and is drying off over one of the floor drains. Trager almost misses him already.
He hears Blaire’s shoes shuffle a step closer on the wet tile, but doesn’t dare meet his eyes.
“Dead. Bled out on the way to the hospital. Baby didn’t have a chance.”
Trager nods. He reaches for the bobbing sponge and submerges it, watching the air bubbles float to the surface and dissipate.
“Hope it was all worth it, Rick.”
Trager nods again. He listens as Blaire leaves him behind, again, with a second pair of footsteps—presumably the guard—following close behind. The room quiets as they exit.
Another pair of footsteps nears the tub.
“Let’s finish this up,” the nurse says.
“Alrighty,” Trager breathes. He smiles, and squeezes the sponge beneath the water one more time, letting all the gunk and blood and puss seep into the holes.
He presses the sponge to his chest. It doesn’t hurt anymore. He doesn’t imagine anything will ever hurt him again.