A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames (popular books to read TXT) 📗

do. I couldn’t count on Thode and Mullen, though I was still praying they’d find us.

But until they showed up—if they showed up—I had to try something.

Finally, Ben came back to the room to feed me lunch and when he got near me, he knew what happened. “Smells like somebody went,” he said happily. “That’s good. Got you back on real food.”

Then he put my lunch tray down and pulled back my blanket to remove the bedpan. He saw the mess I had made and said, “Damn,” and I moved my chin as much as I could and tried to talk behind the ball gag, indicating I wanted him to remove it, which he did.

“Can you bathe me again?” I asked. “I’m sorry that happened; the bedpan shifted or something.”

“It’s all right,” he said, and then he took the blanket all the way off me and threw it to the floor. Then he took the bedpan to the bathroom, ran some water in there, and came back with the bucket and the sponge. The mess was all over my paper gown, which stuck out the bottom of the straitjacket, and so he was definitely going to have to take the jacket off. This was my chance.

He released my chest strap and then unfurled the right side of the straitjacket, just like before, and grabbed my wrist, which is when I pulled it away hard, with everything I had, and it did surprise him, did catch him off guard, and my hand was free and then I grabbed his wrist—it was going just as I had visualized it—and I tried to pull him down, and that’s where it all fell apart.

He simply grabbed my wrist with his left hand—he was standing and he was powerful and had all the leverage—and he yanked my hand away, got it in the cuff, and locked it. “Everybody starts off a fighter,” he said, not really annoyed. “But then they learn.”

I was out of breath. But then I said: “Who’s everybody?”

He unfurled the left side, grabbed my wrist violently, and got it cuffed. I asked him again: “Who’s everybody?”

“The donors. People like you. In the beginning, they fight and then they get tame, become good patients.”

I felt sick and I said: “Is that why you have this straitjacket?”

“Yeah. At first we thought we’d pay people—you know, illegals; whores if they had good blood work.” He threw the straitjacket on the floor and ripped the gown off me. “But then we realized pretty quick that paying them was too dangerous. They’d talk if we let ’em go. So we had to trick ’em.”

He took off all my straps, spread-eagled my legs, and cuffed my ankles to the railing at the end of the bed. I was naked and cuffed to the bed like the letter x. “How’d you trick them?”

“We’d show ’em the cash, make them feel secure.” He yanked the sheet out from under me and threw that to the floor. “But then when we got ’em here, we’d hold on to them. Harvest them, like you. And then when they realized what was going on, they’d all fight.” He squeezed the sponge in the bucket and started cleaning me between the legs. “So we got the straitjacket and the restraints so you don’t hurt yourselves. But everybody learns. Better not to fight and I’ll take good care of you.”

“How many donors have you had here?” I asked, and what I meant was: How many other people have been in this jacket and never gotten away?

“Only twenty-three,” he said as he sponged me. “But they saved a lot of people. The doc says that if it was mandatory for every motorcyclist to be an organ donor there’d be enough to go around, but there isn’t enough. Not even for rich people. Which is where we come in. With us they don’t have to wait on line, but everything’s fucked now. Things are too hot. But I can’t complain. We’ve made plenty.”

He straightened up from his work and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together and gave me a gruesome smile.

“You’ve killed twenty-three people?” I asked.

He nodded and resumed cleaning me.

“You’re sick,” I said, craning my head to look at him.

“Don’t be mean. You’re hurting my feelings,” he said. His little eyes were merry on top of his flattened nose, and he pushed his jaw out even farther, pretending to pout.

I looked at him and a terrible hopelessness pushed down on me, and I said, a weak man: “Just don’t do this to Monica. Please.”

He didn’t say anything to that, but he put the gag back in my mouth—suddenly he was tired of talking—and he continued to bathe me, as gently and as patiently as he had before.

5.

When he fed me lunch a little while later, we didn’t speak. I was fully restrained again and I forced the food down—tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich—to keep alive my illusion that I had to maintain my strength to stay ready…but ready for what? How could I possibly get out of this?

After lunch, he gagged me, lowered the shade, hooked me to the IV for hydration, and left the room. I lay there and began to play in my mind, on an endless loop, my failed escape attempt, and then I came up with a new plan.

I’d pull my hand away—I had done it once; I could do it again.

Then I’d shove my elbow down to the bed, bringing my hand down alongside my chest. I’d extend my fingers out hard, turning my hand into a knife, like I did when I got Carl Lusk in his eye, and then Ben would have to bend over a little to grab my wrist. That would bring him in range, and I’d dart out my hand, my fingers firm, and I’d jab him hard in the throat, collapsing his windpipe and putting him out of commission. I visualized the move over and over. It could work!

This went on for