The Widower Murders

Chapter 2 - Huron Valley Forensic Center

"Gosh, Fence, I said I wasn't gonna cry and I ain't.  No, sir, not me.  Not Floyd Hickumbottom.  'Cause the last thing you need on your way out the door is me snottin’ and slobberin’ all over yas like a goddamn idiot."

In a pair of jeans and gym shoes I’d ordered from an institutional catalog, and a t-shirt that read PURE MICHIGAN across the front, I stood in the center of the day room holding a single plastic shopping bag, not saying a word as Floyd bid me farewell.  To the nurse and orderly who had come to escort me, there was nothing unusual about my remaining silent.  Whenever they or the other patients were near, I often spoke as little as possible.  It was but one of many anti-social behaviors I’d learned to mimic.

"And I'm sorry, Fence, but I'm not gonna be around to make sure you take your meds anymore so you're gonna have to do your damnest to remember.  With any luck hopefully you'll find someone who won't mind lookin' afta ya from time to time."

For a moment the entire room went still, and the more Floyd talked, I knew the day would come when I would miss him.  A ward of The Valley from the age of fourteen, since my arrival the two of us had become the best of companions.  In a world of insanity he was more than a friend.  Floyd was family.

The nurse walked up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Time to go, Mr. Price.  Your driver's waiting."

Floyd's face immediately contorted.  "Bitch, whadaya mean it's time to go?  Can't you see Fence and me ain't done talkin' yet?"

Neither the nurse nor I were taken aback by Floyd's reaction.  Under the circumstances we both considered his response somewhat tempered.  Given the unlikelihood of Floyd and my seeing one another for a while, his unraveling was expected.  Had he not become emotional, chances were I would have.

I handed my plastic bag to the orderly and bent over to take Floyd into my arms.  "I'll never forget you," I whispered loud enough for only him to appreciate.

It was through our embrace I could feel Floyd's cold, rigid exterior soften.  A testament of intellectual abstractness, little did the ornery uncle figure know he'd taught me more than I could ever repay.  How life wasn’t exactly what I perceived, how a man of understanding will always be revered, how the past has no bearing on ones future.  These were but a few of the trinkets Floyd had imparted during the years we’d been together, and as I began to think my show of affection would be returned, the body of the wheelchair bound man tensed and the connection I enjoyed severed.  "Motherfuker!  What the fuck are you doin'?” Floyd hysterically exclaimed.  “Get the fuck off me?  Help!  Helllllp!  Somebody get'im off me!  Helllllp!"

Sadly, the last image I'd have of Floyd, who suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder, would be of him wrestled from his chair, to the floor, and shot up with Thorazine.