Unlovable

By J.S. Hinton

UNLOVABLE is a story of Violet, a slasher victim, Buck, an Afghan war amputee, and Ryne, a cancer survivor. They do their best to cover their ugliness, but every stare is painful, each heard comment demeaning, and every mirror a reminder of their sorry fate. They are thrown together by happenstance and circumstance to fight the battle to find love, purpose, and a path to survival in their lives. The three don't have it easy, simple acceptance, which others take for granted, are for these three unlovables an unceasing struggle.

Why them? How will they find happiness in their lives? The answer comes in one word: Love.

Violet, Buck and Ryne find a love, which far transcends life and will live on long after death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.S. Hinton
• Release date: Apr 22, 2021

J.S. Hinton

Jim Stevens was born in the East, grew up in the West, schooled in the Northwest, and spent twenty-three winters in the Midwest. He has been an advertising copywriter, playwright, filmmaker, stand-up comedian, and television producer. He is also the author of the Reluctant Dick mysteries, which are available via on-line book sites.

Book preview

UNLOVABLE

by

Jim Stevens

Draft dated 2/14/2021

Copyright ©Creative Inc. 2021

CHAPTER 1

I’m ugly. I could be cast as the victim in a slasher movie, and not have to put on make-up to play the role.

At first sight people would think I’m a Muslim or a person allergic to the sun. I wear a Hijab-like headscarf, a yashmak, which covers my entire face except for a slit for my eyes. The reasons for this fashion choice: 1: I’ve come to appreciate an air of mystery. 2: I re-refer you to the first sentence of my story.

I stand in line at least twice a month with the rest of society’s uninsured and unwanted. It’s a real fun group to be with: drug addicts, alcoholics, diabetics with and without limbs, insane folk mumbling incoherent diatribes, coughers hooked up to oxygen tanks, plus people approaching death, near death, and those who should be dead. And, let me assure you, me and my buddies here are all really fun at parties. 

Today, it must be over one-hundred degrees with smog so thick I wheeze every time I seek oxygen. The line moves so slowly, by the time I get to the check-in desk, I’ll have another ring around my trunk.

Payne, Violet Payne. The check-in lady looks as bored as a six-year old at her grandmother’s bridge tournament.

The reason for your visit? The autocratic clerk asks in an automaton voice.

Theophylline with an albuterol chaser.

Been here before?

I’m in your system.

Broom Hilda pounds computer keys before she asks, Do you want to see a doctor?

Not particularly.

She reads off her screen. It’s required.

I’m handed a few sheets to fill out and a small plastic slip with a three-digit number. Go in, have a seat, and wait for your number to be called.

Ja voll, mein Kommandant.

I enter the waiting area.

Remember the scene in the movie Gone with the Wind, when the camera pans back over the railroad depot packed with wounded rebel soldiers, crying out in pain? Well, the waiting area of the County Hospital, is pretty much the modern-day version of that scene. The only thing missing is the tattered Confederate flag.

The hospital’s huge waiting area is SRO with enough maladies to fill a year’s worth of JAMA editions. Very little conversation is heard due to the sniffling, hacking, heavy breathing, farting, complaining, and cries of pain; all filling the room like cheers inside an arena. There is no place to sit, and few places to stand. The air conditioning is being stretched to its limit. I’m wheezing, so I make my way to the far back side of the room, to a spot where I’ve had previous success finding vacant real estate. I’m in luck. An older gentleman, I’m going to guess is a Marlboro man, has seen his number flashing on the overhead monitor, rises from a chair at a small square table, usually used by children, and begins to hack his way in the direction of the elevator bank. I head over, but have to hustle as I see another patient heading for the same seat. As we reach the table at the exact same time, I whip off my yashmak, meet him face to face, and look him straight in the eye. The man recoils like a rabbit from a rattlesnake, turns his head, and immediately returns to the opposite wall where he was standing. Mission accomplished.

I sit, take a few breaths to slow myself down, put my yashmak back on, and notice my table mates staring at me. Nice to see ya, I casually remark.

Neither responds.

The guy to my left is seated in a wheelchair. How he ever got it into this space is a mystery. Maybe he slept here last night. He seems to have somehow swallowed a globe, either that, or he’s carrying twins in his protruding tum-tum. Part of his left ear is missing, but this is the least of his maladies. His left arm stops at his elbow, his right leg stops half-way up his thigh. Oh, and he has one eye out, which he doesn’t cover with a pirate patch. The other guy, who is seated directly across from me, seems to be ok from the neck down, but one side of his face resembles a Picasso painting come to life. From his lip line down to below his jawline, it looks a chisel was used to chip out a canyon in his face. He’s the athletic type, handsome from one angle, but from the other, pretty scary. If he is ever arrested, he should ask for his good side to be used for his mug shot.

I fit right in.

You know, I say to the two. When was a kid, we used to go to my grandparent’s house for dinner, they always had a big table for the adults and a kiddie table for me and my cousins. It’s kind of like that here, except it’s an ugly table, instead of a kiddie.

That’s not funny, the guy in the wheelchair says.

Humor is a personal choice, I retort. I’m Violet.

Ryne. The Picasso model says in a garbled voice, obviously due to half of his mouth barely working.

And you? I ask Mr. Bellyful.

Buck.

What are you in for? I ask.

Ryne says, Cancer. You?

Can’t breathe. I look over. Buck is staring at my covered face.

I save him the trouble of asking. My face is the least of my problems. You?

Parts.

Which ones?

Does it matter?

Evidently not, I say. Parts is parts.

My breathing is returning to its usual lousy normal.

How long have you been waiting? I ask.

An hour.

Too long.

You ever sit in here, look around, and say to yourself, ‘I should thank God I’m not as bad as some of these bastards? I ask.

No.

No.

Me neither, I add.

I ask Buck, Afghanistan or Iraq?

Afghan.

Shouldn’t you be at the VA?

One pill here, one pill there.

Why?

I don’t know, it’s the Army--you do what you’re told, Buck makes it clear.

Thank you for your service, Ryne says.

You’re not welcome.

We sit as numbers flash on the overhead monitors and the computer-generated PA speaks to the multitudes with an attitude so cold, the voice makes Alexa and Siri sound like phone sex workers.

Whenever I go to this god-awful place, I can’t help thinking there has to be a better way. Around the room are identical electronic boards, which flash out numbers with destinations attached, such as 123 Oncology 10:15am.  This signifies the number on the plastic card, the destination, and the approximate time to arrive. If your ticket reads 123, you got cancer, and if it’s getting close to 10:15, you might want to be making your way to the Oncology ward. Do people do this? No. They either wait until the clock strikes 10:15, ignore the sign, or sit until they hear, blasted out of the PA system at a decibel level equal to a July 4th firework spectacular, Last call for Larry Leukemia. If the patient finally gets the message, he or she rises, collects their stuff, plods off, and takes more time to get where they’re going than an elephant’s breach-birth in slow motion. By the time the patient arrives at Oncology or wherever I could be in and out of my appointment, transferred twice on the bus, and back in the room I’m renting, watching one of those Judge shows on TV. Although most days I have nothing to do and all the time in the world. I hate seeing time wasted. If the County Hospital had a Suggestion Box, I’d use it.

So why don’t you want to be thanked for your service? Ryne asks Buck.

It was a job.

But you got wounded, Ryne says.

If a guy lost a leg working the line at Ford, would you thank him for his service? Buck asks.

Probably not, Ryne says.

My point exactly.

"So, are you here for treatment of bad-career-choice disease?" I ask.

You’re a real wise-ass, Buck tells me.

Yeah, I’m quite the cut-up. Can’t tell by my face?

47 Pharmacy  11:17, flashes on the monitor.

Thank God, my turn, Buck says, starting to push his chair with an arm and a half.

There’s no way his wheelchair will maneuver through the gaggle of misery between us and the door labeled Pharmacy, which is seemingly at least a mile-and-a-half down the corridor.  Buck tries backing up to go around the table, but bangs into a lady breastfeeding her infant. Ryne stands, lifts the table up over his shoulders, allowing Buck to move forward, forcing me to get up and surrender my chair or get crushed by Buck in his personal, semi-Sherman tank.

Buck hits the narrow aisle, filled with patients, and stops. No way he’ll cut through this mountain of diseased flesh.

Ryne gets behind the wheelchair, takes control, and garbles, Coming through.

The hoi polloi refuses to move.

Tough times call for tough measures. I lift the shawl and, with my hideous face pushed out like the alpha dog leading the pack, I move forward, screaming out, All right out of the way. I part patients like Moses split the Red Sea. The three of us reach the Pharmacy line just as "Last Call… Chester Dudley Weblow, Jr… Pharmacy, hits the airways.

At least I know now why he wants to be called Buck.

Returning to the ugly table, Ryne and I lose our seats, but find separate spots against the wall. How long have you and Buck been buddies? I ask.

About an hour.

Always good to find a new friend.

Even in this place.

Maybe we could start an after-appointment mixer, so all of us could swap stories?, I suggest. Call it a ‘Germs R’Us Get Together.

Or Afflicted Anonymous.

He waits another twenty minutes before leaving for Oncology. I stand another hour until the Not-So-OK corral starts to thin and 123 Pulmonary 1:45, comes up on the overhead board.

In the Pulmonary Unit, the doctors are either really old or very young. The young are residents, who couldn’t get into more prestigious residency programs. The older docs are there, usually part-time, to pump up their pension plans. Since I’ve been a patient at County, I’ve met many physicians, mainly because you seldom see the same one twice. It’s probably good for my social life, but bad for my extended care because most of the doctors do something different than the doctor before. Everyone has their own opinion, especially in medicine.

The procedure is always the same. I fill out the standard forms, get led inside to a small exam room, strip down, put on a backless hospital gown, and the doc-of-the-day arrives and asks a few standard questions. If I pass the test, which I always do since they are the same queries each time, I get hooked up to a breathing machine, an airtight mask is placed over my nose and mouth and given the order to breathe. In my opinion the order is pointless, since I’m going to breathe no matter what they say.

"Now deep…shallow…faster…slower," the doc tweaks the initial order as he listens though his stethoscope at different spots on my chest and back.

The test lasts about three or four minutes. The doc then pops the buds out of his ears and swings the stethoscope over his head and rests it on his shoulders and neck. I’m always amazed it never falls off.

Feel any different? he asks removing my breathing mask.

No, my misery quotient stays pretty much in the same range.

After he pulls a computer printout from the back of the testing machine, and gives it a quick read he, and every other pulmonologist I’ve seen, takes a long gaze at the scars on my face. They can’t resist. Moths to a flame, maggots to a wound, kids to candy…you pick.

Sorry you didn’t go into plastic surgery? I ask.

No, he says.

To placate his embarrassment, I ask, Do I get the goods, doc?

Sure.

And a refill?

No problem.

Another foray into the intricacies of modern medicine comes to a close.

It’s well past 3 PM, by the time I’m handed two vials of pills and two atomizers. The waiting room patients are down at least 50% from the morning rush. Although most of my time is spent sitting while at County, it’s always an exhausting experience. If my lungs don’t kill me, the appointments at County will.

I head down the long corridor, approaching the front door, worried that the heat and gunk in the air will make for a painful trip home on the bus. I suddenly stop seeing Ryne standing and Buck, sitting by the door.

Hey, wise-ass, you wanna get a beer?

CHAPTER 2

County hospitals are seldom in neighborhoods with fancy restaurants and stores specializing in designer fashions. The areas are more attuned to tire shops, junk food grocery outlets, liquor stores, and storefront places of worship. Evidently, the idea is you drive in for a new used tire, and while it is being installed you buy a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, pick up a quart of Mad Dog 20/20, and finally stop in to pray to God that you don’t get a DUI driving home.

The three of us musketeers walk and wheel off into the unknown. We have to stop three times for Ryne to throw-up or dry heave. Chemo’s a bitch, he explains.

So am I, according to some, I add.

Buck leads us a few blocks from the hospital and we stop under a sign that reads: Brother’s Bar a Div. of Jo-Jo’s Lounge, Inc.

This place looks fun, I remark.

The BB, a division of JJL Inc., is shabby, dark, and smells of week-old beer. Adding to its charm is a décor of mismatched tables and chairs, poorly illuminated by neon signs advertising something named Brew 102. There are four or five older brothers seated at the bar, all nursing two-dollar beers. Buck is the only one of our group who fits in.

Come here often? I ask Buck.

No.

I’m a Libra, how about you?

You never quit, do you? Buck asks.

Try not to.

We sit. We wait. We wait some more.

It becomes common knowledge the bartender is in no way interested in expanding his duties to include table service. Ryne stands, You want a beer?

I got to tell you upfront, unless they take a Transit Pass card, I won’t be able to buy my round.

Why not? Buck wants to see me suffer.

Cash flow problem, I explain. I’m waiting for my broker to sell my Google stock.

Ryne heads off to fetch brewskis.

There is an uncomfortable silence at our second ugly table of the day.

How’d your appointment go? I ask my chubby buddy.

I was only there to get pills.

What kind?

Pain killers.

Are you an addict?

Probably. You?

Used to be.

I look over to see Ryne having a difficult time getting the bartender’s attention. Funny, I’ve never had a problem getting someone to notice me.

How long have you been a black person? I ask Buck.

Buck looks at me unfunny.

And would you like to be referred to as Black or African American?

You pick.

This sure has been fun so far. I ask, I’m a little amazed you wanted me along for your party.

Why?

Well. Let’s just say you don’t seem to be enjoying my company.

Must be a ‘birds-of-a-feather’ type thing.

Yeah, must be.

Ryne returns with three Miller High Life bottles. Sorry, no craft beers.

Welcome back, I greet. Buck and I have been sitting here having a most wonderful chat.

Really? Ryne says passing the bottles out. Before sitting, he searches his pockets and finds an accordion-like tube, which he stretches to eight inches in length. Cheers, he says and reaches his bottle out to clink a toast.

I watch Ryne place one end of the tube into the bottle and the other into the good corner of his mouth. Before sipping, he tilts his head slightly to his good side, then sucks.

Buck empties half his bottle in his first swig.

What were you talking about? Ryne asks.

I was just about to ask her how she got that face. Buck is out to fight sarcasm with cruelty.

Excellent conversation starter, don’t you think? I suggest.

Not really, Ryne says.

Go ahead. Tell us, funny girl.

Sure, you want to hear?

You don’t have to if you don’t want to, Ryne assures me.

I nod at Ryne and remove the covering from my face; to assure my story is both tell-and -show.

"I was returning to my apartment after months of being on assignments or with my so-called rich boyfriend, when I was met at my front door by Serge, my semi-literate landlord. In not so subtle terms, says he wants his money, and he wants it now. ‘What?’ I try to explain to the Russian behemoth, who sports a tool belt over butt-crack jeans and a wife-beater tee-shirt sweat-stained beyond belief. ‘My boyfriend was paying for me. Didn’t you get the checks?’

He answers not with a comment, but a fist to my left cheek. Most maniacs would have probably thought an unblocked right cross enough to make their point, but not Serge. After my pathetic attempt to fight back, Serge throws me to the floor, sits on my chest, pins my arms down, pulls out a utility knife from his tool belt and proceeds to carve up my face like a Thanksgiving turkey. I can’t see. The blood is cascading down my face like an open spillway, but I can scream, which I do to no avail. At some point between his Russian invectives and possibly his reciting of a favorite recipe for hot borscht, I pass out.

Was this any way to treat a fellow countryman?

Neither drinking buddy is laughing at my story, even though I think the line about hot borscht is a real killer. The good half of Ryne’s mouth has flopped open and Buck sits motionless with one eye as wide as a deer-in-the…you know what.

I have no clue how long I’m out; but when I wake into semi-consciousness, I lay in a pool of blood, which will take Serge hours to scrub out of the wood floor. Talk about making work for yourself.

What did you do? Ryne asks.

Being a good millennial, my cell phone was in my hand. Somehow, I dialed 911. Three hours later I was on my third pint of blood, while two doctors were finishing up sixteen sets of stitches, which resembled train tracks going nowhere across and down my face.

Whenever I tell this story, and I don’t tell it often, there is always a period of sink-in time, before anyone has the guts or the stupidity to ask for further explanation.

I take a sip of beer, then another, waiting to see who will be first.

It’s Buck. What happened to Serge?

Before he could be enrolled in an Advanced Anger Management program, he rushed a policeman with utility knife in hand, and was shot six times at close range. In the newspaper they called it ‘suicide by cop.’

Unbelievable, Ryne says.

You know what the funniest part was? I ask.

Neither answers, but I know they want to know.

’They said it would have been much worse if he wouldn’t have used a new blade in the knife.

More sink-in time passes.

Anything happen to the rich boyfriend? Ryne asks.

Well, he wasn’t rich. In fact, he was a con man who thought a fashion model on his arm gave credence to the people he was swindling.

I can’t pick careers and you can’t pick boyfriends, Buck concludes.

Touché.

I sip my beer. That’s my story and I’m stuck with it. Who wants to go next? I ask.

I think we need another round, Ryne says.

Add a shot to my order, Buck says pulling crumpled bills from his pocket.

Shot of what?

I don’t care.

I’m good, I say. One’s my limit. Which is because I don’t like beer.

Ryne takes Buck’s money and heads to the bar.

Do you still hate him?, Buck says to me.

Who?

Serge.

I used to. Not anymore. What would be the point? Hate only brings on more hate.

I’m sorry, he says.

About you or me?

Both.

Ryne returns with the libations and chooses to go second.

"When I was playing double-A ball in northern California, I started putting a pinch of snuff between my cheek and gum to help keep me alert at second base. It worked so well, when I got to Triple A in Iowa, I went for a whole chaw of tobacco in my cheek. After two seasons kicking ass at the plate in Iowa and off-seasons in Mexico I was scheduled to go to spring training with the Cubs in Arizona. An infield spot had opened up and I was the heir- apparent. The big show was only a great spring training away for yours truly.

I was batting four hundred with six homers when the headaches started. I didn’t mention them at first, but when my average dropped to two-sixty, I needed an excuse. Two days before spring training ended, I was ordered to take a physical.

Inconclusive, the report read. If that wasn’t bad enough, the news that the Cubs traded for a utility infielder was devastating. I went back down