Chapter 1

“You’re just not _______ enough.” (Tall, strong, big, heavy ... pack your adjective, I’d heard them all at some point.

My Highschool football team won Provincials, I played ‘AA’ hockey and was even heavily invested in the local boxing team for a while. Eventually the bigger members of the team moved on, or up, or were drafted. No team at university offered me a scholarship at 5’7” and since I’d spent most of my time on the rink, the court, the field or in the ring, I didn’t have the marks to get in there by myself. Money that could have gone towards an education savings plan was spent on fees, clinics, and training camps.

Here I was, janitor at age 22 still pulling out a step stool to drag the cleaner off the top shelf due to my stupid height.

I was pretty lucky to get this job though, it was unionized and paid well. Coach Ron had worked here in middle-management and drilled me on what the interview questions would be like. “Look Greg, they’re gonna ask you the same question in a few different ways at different times. You have to answer them in the same way each time.”

He was right. “Are you afraid of the dark?” followed later by “Do you feel nervous in low-light areas?” and even later with “Can you work outdoors at night?” and more nonsense like that. At 155lbs I’ve squared off against 185lb full-backs. The dark sure doesn’t scare me. After promising on my mother’s grave (that she wasn’t yet in) that I wouldn’t try to bang the patients (nothing was mentioned about the orderlies or nurses though) they printed me an ID card, signed me up for the union and put me to work (benefits pending an eight-week review).

Bob Dylan sang the line: “twenty years of schooling and the put you on the dayshift” and here I was, living it.

If the work was all that bad, I’d have left way before the benefits kicked in, but it really wasn’t that hard, just sometimes gross. Patients in a mental hospital can do some weird shit.

The initial plan was to save up for further schooling but having money in your pocket, free time (for the first time in my life I wasn’t on the ice/field/ring 10-12 times a week), and more than a little attention from bored nurses put the brakes on that idea.

“Shite kid! You’ve gone ‘n fallen into the roses me boy” These were the first words out of the mouth of Gerry, a 20-year vet of this place. As soon as the manager had left me in his ‘care’ Gerry got right to the point. “Yer gonna be swimmin’ lad, in both shite ‘n pussy! You just be sure to know which yer werkin on. These here ladies’ll wear you down to a nub ‘n throw away the carcass. Don’ be knocking any of ‘em up!” he said scoldingly, even going so far as to shake his big fat Scottish finger at me.

I laughed, both at his shockingly strong Scottish accent, and his antics. Women sure weren’t a mystery to me, and at nineteen I figured I’d seen more than most.

I was dead wrong. Turns out that any 30-year-old nurse can outlast any man she likes when she’s in the mood. I wasn’t there a week before the ladies we shall refer to as “the welcome wagon” managed to each “welcome” me as personally as they could. It was an eye-opening experience for a guy who had been used to chasing a girl for bit before having a one-night stand. The digital dating apps had long since taken over the bar scene, but high school girls were still mostly chased in-person.

Andrea was a single mom of two with shoulder length curly brown hair, a bit of a belly, and hairpin trigger. I’d been with girls who went off quickly (or so I thought) before, but Andy was in a league of her own and quickly became my favourite. I’d get a text with simply a room number and a 5 minute window a dozen times per month, usually on the night shifts. I learned to have condoms, baby wipes and lube in my cart at all times.

“Don’ be knocking any of ‘em up!” was a fair warning from Gerry, it was open knowledge that more than one nurse had ’accidentally’ gotten pregnant by Gerry, and his freckled ginger complexion had led to at least one divorce when a baby arrived with ‘surprising’ characteristics. The guy wasn’t even good looking, just mostly in shape and male in a predominantly female workplace where long shifts, boredom, and opportunity overlapped.

Without mentioning it to a soul, I booked a vasectomy (against the protestations of my GP) during my first two-week holiday that first winter. No babies for this guy! Besides, my sister just had her fourth and hadn’t mentioned stopping yet. Mom and Dad who were initially ecstatic at becoming grandparents (to a married child!) were fast becoming tired-out as Sara dropped off this kid or that, or asked if they could drive this kid or that kid to dance/swimming/choir/judo. I’d like to think that the odd quiet visit from their favourite (second) son without a gaggle of kids tagging along was a refreshing break.

I got to be the cool Uncle too, snowboarding, skateboarding and a cool truck that wasn’t a minivan got me declared the ‘FUNcle’ by the twin 6-year-olds Keith and Kevin. Spoiling them at Christmas with Nerf guns (that my sister hadn’t approved) didn’t hurt either.

I was three years into my ‘career’ before Mom started asking what I was going to do with my life. Sorry Mom but the truth was, I was having the kind of life that most of my married friends envied. I’d hoped to be a wealthy, famous, professional athlete who bedded hot models on a regular basis, but working an easy job with all the time in the world for sports and the gym, while bedding low-maintenance chicks was pretty damn close as far as I was concerned.

I was tidying up after Danielle and I had made a mess of an empty bed, she was slightly overweight recent bride, who was angry with her new husband for something or other and had decided to screw another guy to get herself over it. She was eager, too eager in some ways, and I’d bet my boots that the condom she passed me had a hole in it. A little bit taller than I was, it gave me full access to her nipples in missionary position, and she egged me on to “bite ‘em as hard as you can!”.

Now I was playing a long game here, and angry cuckhold husbands finding hickeys and teeth marks on their wives had no place in my plans. I complied to an extent, and she got off as much from the thought of the act, as from the act itself.

She left with a smug smile and a skip in her step. I’d be seeing her again and again, that I was pretty sure of. (Side note, I found out later that I played lacrosse with her husband. He and I shared a lot of physical characteristics)

Not all of my “work partners” were repeat customers. Some of the ladies just liked to ‘try out the new guy’ once or twice and I guess it gave them something in common to talk about with the other nurses and orderlies. Nonetheless, after three years at Xavier’s hospital for mental health, my views on chastity, fidelity, and the sanctity of marriage was as low as you could go.

I was well ‘stuck in a rut’ when the day of the visions came to me. Unlike many in the center of the country and further west, I was fully awake at 6am. My rounds were done, and I was putting the finishing touches on one of my ‘pet projects’ that the civil maintenance crew were famous here for. One of the steel fire doors wouldn’t close. In truth, they were also security doors, preventing easy access to the different wings. Wandering patients might just want to see what’s around the next corner, or they might be up to no good at all.

I had just finished setting the upper hinge about 1/8th of an inch back into the door frame when my vision was clouded over with black and purple swirls. My first thought was that I was having an acid flashback. Like lots of others, I’d tried weed, ‘shrooms and acid when I was younger, but more lately I found they just dulled all my experiences, and I just basically gave up on them in favour of my new vice: Scotch. It still dulled the senses somewhat, but it was a nicer ride, and a dram of scotch in a crystal glass while relaxing in a leather armchair seemed more ‘upper class’ than smoking a joint out back by the garbage bins.

There was no weed, acid or even liquor involved, but what I was seeing looked like a large knife on a large plate. It was surrounded by the black and purple swirling colours and I reached for it, thinking my hand would just pass through the apparition. Whatever it was, it disappeared and then I felt like I’d been kicked in the balls and my bad shoulder felt like I’d dislocated it again.

I found out later I’d been relatively lucky in that it didn’t happen while I was driving a car, or bike. One Weapon I knew told me he’d been kayaking when it happened, he ‘ran into’ his staff and nearly drowned. A German I’d met later had been downhill skiing.

Passing out probably didn’t happen, but I can safely say that I was totally distracted from the world around me for quite some time. Getting kicked in the stones will do that to you. It was Gerry who found me, curled up into a tight ball moaning and trying to protect my favourite bits with both my hands.

“Fer fooks sake lad, there’s planty of girls here who actually chase ye ... who the hell’d ya proposition? Leslie?” He said, referring to one of the few nurses aids who once decked Claude when he’d asked here if she’d like a fuck. I’d shied away from her and she had so far totally ignored me. Word was she was a married mom of two to some lawyer, but she didn’t seem old enough to me for that to be true.

“Didn’t do nothing, saw something weird and I think someone snuck up behind me an’ hoofed me in the seeds. Gawd!” I managed to get out between clenched teeth.

“Well, git over it” he replied. “I can’na lift this here door back up by me’self an’ shift is just ‘bout over” he said as he picked up the driver and screws. I’d left them neatly together, planning to stand the door, jack it up with my pry bar, and re-attach the hinge. Just getting to my feet was a major effort and I nearly threw up from the pain. I stayed bent over with my legs spread a little wider than normal, but not too wide. Everything down there felt tight and hurt like hell if I tried to make any big movements. Gerry of course was laughing.

“Pissed off any of the patients have ye?” He giggled. “Didn’t you turn down Martha the other week? I heard about that”.

Martha was about 200lbs, shorter than me and nearly 50 years old. I had better, easier options even if she hadn’t been a patient (and therefore out of bounds per my contract). She’d snuck into the showers while I was cleaning them and stripped off, appearing nude and playing with herself when I turned around. Not a pretty sight.

I just groaned in response. My gag reflex suddenly threatening to return the cold pizza I’d brought for dinner.

We managed to get the door back up and in place, though it was pure torture for me and my poor abused nuts. Gerry had to put the screws in since lifting my arms that high threatened to tear apart my sore groin. I had no idea they were even attached that way. It was a small miracle that everything worked out and fitted just fine, since I wasn’t in any shape to rework the door.