Leaving a single guard, they must think him pretty well incapacitated, Rufus figured; only he wasn’t. The monitors with their numbers and jumpy lines meant nothing to him. They were metal-cased buzzards waiting for him to fade before moving in. But he could feel his strength returning; that was something tangible. He curled and uncurled his hands in anticipation of being able eventually to fully move his arms.
Two hours later he heard the door swing inward, and then the light came on. The nurse carried a metal clipboard and smiled at him as she checked his monitor. She was in her mid-forties, he guessed. Pretty, with a full figure. Looking at her wide hips, he figured she had been through several childbirths.
“You’re doing better today,” she said when she noticed him watching her.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She stared at him openmouthed. “You better believe a lot of people in this place would love to have that kind of prognosis.”
“Where exactly am I?”
“Roanoke, Virginia.”
“Never been to Roanoke.”
“It’s a pretty town.”
“Not as pretty as you,” said Rufus with an embarrassed smile, the words having slipped through his lips. He had not been this close to a woman in almost three decades. The last woman he had ever seen in person was his mother, weeping at his side as they carried him off to serve his life sentence. She had died within the week. Something exploded in her brain, his brother had told him. But he knew his mother had died from a broken heart.
His nose wrinkled up as the scent touched it. It seemed out of place in a hospital. At first, Harms did not realize that he was simply smelling the nurse’s scent, a mixture of slight perfume, moisturizing lotion and woman. Damn. What else had he forgotten about living a real life? A tear started to tremble at the corner of his right eye as he thought this.
She looked down at him, her eyebrows raised, a hand on one hip. “They told me to be careful around you.”
He looked at her. “I’d never hurt you, ma’am.” His tone was solemn, sincere. She saw the tear barely clinging to his eye. She didn’t really know what to say next.
“Can’t you put on that chart that I’m dying or something?”
“Are you crazy? I can’t do that. Don’t you want to get better?”
“Soon as I do, I go right back to Fort Jackson.”
“Not a nice place, I take it.”
“I been in the same cell there for over twenty years. Kind of nice seeing something else for a change. Not much to do there except count your heartbeats and stare at the concrete.”
She looked surprised. “Twenty years? How old are you?”
Rufus thought for a moment. “I don’t know exactly, to tell you the truth. Not over fifty.”
“Come on, you don’t know how old you are?” He eyed her steadily. “The only cons who keep a calendar are the ones getting out someday. I’m serving a life sentence, ma’am. Ain’t never getting out. What’s it matter how old I am?” He said this so matter-of-factly that the nurse felt her cheeks flush.
“Oh.” Her voice quavered. “I guess I see your point.”
He shifted his body slightly. The shackles pinged against the metal sides of the bed. She drew back.
“Can you call somebody for me, ma’am?”
“Who? Your wife?”
“I don’t got no wife. My brother. He don’t know where I am. Wanted to let him know.”
“I think I have to check with the guard first.”
Rufus looked past her. “That little boy out there? What’s he got to do with my brother? He don’t look like he can go pee-pee by hisself.”
She laughed. “Well, they sent him to guard big old you, now, didn’t they?”
“My brother’s name is Joshua. Joshua Harms. He goes by Josh. I can tell you his phone number if you got yourself a pencil. Just call him and tell him where I am. Gets kind of lonely in here. He don’t live all that far away. Who knows, he might come on over and see me.”
“It does get lonely here,” she said a little wistfully. She looked down at him, at his tall, strong body, all covered with tubes and patches. And the shackles — they held her attention.