Revival House Read Online Free Page B

to undergo a skin graft to cover the plate. The doctors removed a square of skin from her posterior and stitched it onto her head.
    That is the reason Uncle Sterling hates my emerald green tie. He hates everything green.
    I maintain, to this day— contrary to popular opinion— that the accident was not my fault.
    We visit her three times a week, Uncle Sterling and I. Sometimes, I drag Four along. He enjoys going around stealing desserts from the residents, surreptitiously slipping them into his pockets like some kind of devious magician. Four is like that, though. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why. A pilferer of the highest order, from one of the richest families in town. In any case, he would be distraught that he’d missed today’s visit. Paula Deen, whose brand new culinary compound sits just on the other side of the golf course, brought macaroni and cheese, deep fried Snickers bars, and sticks of salted butter for the enjoyment of all.
    I vacate Aunt Billie’s room so she and Uncle Sterling can enjoy some privacy. Taking a seat in the crowded community room, I try not to think about what my uncle may be doing to his wife in that dark and stuffy room filled with hissing and pinging machinery. Against my own will, I imagine him struggling to lower the bed rail and stepping on the plastic guest chair to mount the raised bed. I shudder and realize my head hurts.
    Plenty of interesting geriatrics, along with a bottle of Uncle Sterling’s Klonopin, divert my attention.
    Seated on a plastic-covered floral patterned club chair across the dark cherry coffee table from me is a lively old gentleman who repeatedly asks some apparition what has happened to his socks. I do not hear any answer, of course, but whatever he imagines makes him cackle like a tickled witch. I casually bend over, holding an ancient copy of Southern Living in front of my face, and check out the man’s ankles. He is wearing socks. One blue, one gray— mismatched, but socks nonetheless. Clearly psychotic, this octogenarian. I feel a sudden urge to pull out what little white hair he still has by the roots, shoving his ill-fitting dentures down his throat. Then, I consider slipping one of my business cards into the pocket of his moth-eaten cotton robe. But, I had probably done that on an earlier visit. Everyone in The Home has at least one of my cards. They probably dread my visits, now that I think about it.
    Next time, perhaps I’ll wear a long black hooded robe and carry a sickle. Just for laughs, of course. On second thought, maybe that would help business. Perhaps I could visit other retirement communities, too, dressed as the Grim Reaper, scaring people to death. These are desperate times, and Uncle Sterling sure as hell isn’t doing anything to save our skins.
    An unpleasant-looking stocky woman, dressed all in white, paper crown to orthotic shoes, drifts through the room distributing small paper cups filled with various medications. I assume she is a nurse. I hope so, in any case. She looks more like a prison warden or perhaps that nurse character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . She wears no nametag or any other form of identification. I think about questioning her position within The Home, but I’m not that interested. Perhaps I will get lucky and someone will ingest an overdose or be dealt the wrong meds and require my professional services. Wouldn’t that be convenient? My head throbs and I think about rushing the white behemoth and pilfering some narcotics, something stronger than Klonopin. My Seroquel and Imitrex are just not enough these days. I feel like someone shot me in the head. I feel like gouging out my own eyes.
    I wonder if anyone has a cigarette. Perhaps the woman with the tracheotomy, who is engaged in some complicated-looking card game with two other animated cadavers. The thought causes me to laugh aloud, though I do not mean any disrespect to the unfortunate tracheotomized, of course. I bite my lip and