Christmas in Oz, on lockdown--everywhere, no exceptions. Not even up in the prison infirmary's main ward where Vern Schillinger lies humiliatingly face-down in bed, convalescing from the after-effects of that ill-fated Aryans-on-Muslims gym tussle with his back hurting, his head hurting...even THINKING about moving making him hurt, all over. And a fresh twist of pain spreading and contracting with every breath new, reminding him yet again how Chris Keller--
     (that fuckin' prag's prag backstabber)
     --actually *stabbed him in the fuckin' BACK*.
      This being Oz, though, there's worse to come--worse than this final betrayal, not to mention the fact that Vern won't be able to take revenge over it anytime soon, what with the back half of his kidney sutured up like a fuckin' Butterball turkey and his brain reeling from a steady diet of force-fed tranquilizers. Worse even than the infirmary staff's pathetically minimal attempts at holiday cheer--Nathan swanning by now and then with tinsel strung from her stethoscope, plus an endless stream of orderlies pretending to hump each other under the dusty plastic mistletoe--or "Poet" Jackson and that gangsta pal of his constantly chattering and giggling together like a pair a' bandaged-up schoolgirls .
     Worse than all this put together, the hands-down *worst* part of a worst-case scenario: The fact that every time Vern looks across at the next row of beds, the first thing he has to see is Tobias fucking Beecher curled up like a cat in a cream-pile, drowsing comfortably away like he isn't the entire reason Vern landed in here in the first Goddamn place.
      Pretending to sleep, and sleep *well*, without his usual whining, scrabbling nightmares. Making like he can actually...
      ...IGNORE him.
     Granted, Beecher's probably on some pretty heavy drugs, at this point--same shit Nathan has *Vern* on, and for almost the same reasons. But that shiftless rich-boy junkie brat has ALWAYS been lazier than any white man has the genetic right to be; he'd lie in his bunk all day if he could, as Vern recalls, snub nose buried deep in his pilllow at the least fuckin' excuse--
     (Huh. And fuckin' *was* his excuse--that first time, at least)
     Been in and outta here so much, one way or another--over the last two years--place must feel like a month in a spa to him now. Pudding and jello three times a day, people to change his sheets and bring him his pills whenever he wants 'em, help him to the john and wipe his friggin' BUTT for him while they're cleanin' his bedsores, for all Vern knows...
     But: Shaking himself, with an annoyed snort. And telling himself, sternly--
     You will *not* think about Beecher's butt, Vernon.
     (not right now, anyway)
     'Cause now is neither the time--nor the place.
     (As opposed to?)
     Beecher does surface, every now and again--like yesterday, in time for mail-call: That half-dicked dipshit Jim Robeson filling in for Vern and doing it as badly as he does just about everything else, ramming Vern's beloved truck around like the thing was a potential deadly weapon. Tossing Beecher a letter and an obscene little tongue-curl, met and matched by Beecher's sleep-drunk snarl. As Vern called over, keeping his tone typically benign:
     "Hey, *To*-by. Your KIDS send you somethin'?"
     To which Beecher flushed, but kept his temper. Replying, sweetly: "No."
     And adding, equally saccharine, after a pause--
     "Yours?"
     (*Bitch*.)
     In his own dreams, infrequent as they are, Vern has two arms, lit and fig--he's whole, hearty, bulky with a year's worth of retroactive flab. Self-satisfied to a degree he can barely recall now, consciously. None of this hollow ache that drains and refills him on waking, this everpresent pins-and-needles blaze of ABSENCE. Nothing of--
     (Andy)
     Andy, of whom there was almost nothing left, anyway; ashes in a bag, maybe a couple pounds' worth, shipped back to the Old Man at the State's expense. Bastard probably threw it in the trash soon as it came...unless he decided to save it for when Vern finally got out himself. A kinda--"welcome home" present.
     "Just wanted to know if you were enjoyin' your Christmas, cupcake."
     "I've never really been a Christmas kind of guy."
     Vern nodded. "Mmm. Christmas before last, though--now, *that* was choice."
     Beecher's eyes darkened, narrowing. "Fuck you, Schillinger."
     "Aw, you remembered. That's so NICE."
     And he does, of course. Much as he might like to pretend he doesn't.
     Trouble is, though--
     (in between insults and dope-doses)
     --so does Vern.
     Lying there, the weight of medicated lassitude like a dentist's lead-lined x-ray apron across his spine. And straining to surf these unmanning waves of fantasy-filled warmth as they rise and crest and rise again, over and over, threatening to suck him under--to recall his dead wife's lying eyes and busy tongue, that freak bitch Shirley Bellinger's thumb sliding spark-quick over his as the hack coughs, embarassedly, behind them. Anything but Beecher's mouth, his reluctant touch--his son's executioner pinned beneath him, spitting and scratching, hissing Vern's name: Oh, yes sir, sir, yes, yessss--
     Flash-cut to back in the gym, remembering the feel of his shank going in, that sudden thrust and give--mixed up, somehow, with this weird sense-memory of Beecher's nipple hardening beneath his toe as he playfully pokes him over the laundry bag: *You gonna play LAWYER, sweetpea? Get Keane off, and prove your balls're still good for something other than a hand-hold?*
     (That's just...so *cute*.)
     And the distorted half-circle of his own face grinning back at him, reflected in the lenses of Beecher's glassses: Bigger than life, twice normal size. Powerful beyond the dreams of most earthly kings.
     Then coming suddenly awake, mid-night--breathing hard, covered in sweat. Hearing the erratic slap of flesh on flesh from somewhere to his left, and growling--
     "Jackson! You wanna leave that coon-snake of yours alone for more'n five minutes? *Some* of us are tryin' to SLEEP."
     Poet's voice, snapping back: "Yo, fuck YOU, Schillin-jah. Just 'cause y'all can't *reach* it no more..."
     "Christmas Eve, fuckwad. Little common decency, here."
     "Yeah, you REAL decent, Moral Majority man."
     And: Decent...-er than you, Vern thinks, feeling impotent rage run up and down his pain-wracked frame like an all-over fit of muscle-cramp. You fuckin', fuckin', nigger...
     (...cock-knocker.)
     A snuffly sigh from the other side of the ward: Beecher, momentarily roused, but quickly turning away from the distraction--curling bad side up, hugging himself. Digging himself down into that nest of sheets again, 'till all Vern can see is the rumpled gold crown of his head.
     "Beecher," he calls, on impulse. "Hey, BEECHER. You awake?"
     Muffled: "Am *now*."
     Vern turns himself, hissing as his back wrenches. But continuing, nevertheless--the sheer effort of forming sentences enough to keep him muzzily active--
     "So here's what I keep wondering, ToBIas..."
     "'M all--ears."
     Without pausing: "All these good tidings and cheer floatin' around--just how the hell can you live with yourself, thinking of everybody *you*'ve fucked over? That little girl you killed. Your WIFE. Andy..."
     No change in Beecher's posture--just a slight, but visible, stiffening. And his voice, sharpened by pain, or maybe guilt. Replying, oh-so-carefully--
     "Imam Said told me I had to forgive to be forgiven; I made my gesture. And you--made *yours*."
     "YOU made me kill my own boy, you whore."
     Beecher sighs. And points out, quieter:
     "Since when did anyone ever *make* you do anything, Vernon?"
     (Really?)
     Vern takes a breath, swallows. Hears it ring in his ears, shamefully liquid--a *gulp* of repressed feeling, twisting in his gut like that slow-forming new scar keeping him prone, drugged up and tied down. Keeping him HERE, within teasing striking distance of the man he desires--and hates--more than any other single thing he's ever owned, or lost; closer to the object of that throbbing, driving urge than he's been in over a year, one way or another. And Beecher himself, with his shape, his *smell*, the lullingly familar wheeze-and-hum of his breath: An itch Vern can never scratch, an unending, mosquito-bite sting to Vern's wounded pride. Like some bad outtake from a horror movie, played so broad it seems comic--a missing limb waving teasingly at him from across the great divide, mocking his incompleteness, practically fuckin' *daring* him to recapture it and sewn back on--by FORCE, if necessary--
     (Andy)
     Uuuugh.
     Another sigh, more ragged. Beecher's feeling something too, obviously.
     Christmas Eve withdrawal shakes, Vern thinks, feeling his rage start to build again.
     And what do you know: "Fuck," Beecher mutters, into his pillow. "How many hours 'till meds?"
     "Five and a half."
     "Fuuuuck."
     Pain in the back, pain in the head. Pain in the--
     (heart?)
     --like blows from a hammer, one after the other: Bang, *bang*, BANG. Vern furrows his brow, snarls back:
     "You think I hurt less than *you*? Fuckin' DEAL with it, you junkie slut."
     "Words to live by: Thanks, *sir*."
     "Kiss my ASS."
     That cat-sneeze laugh, a dry sandpaper rasp. "Not in your lifetime."
     "Sure. 'Cause you'd rather kiss Keller's."
     Silence, a *long*-ass chunk of it. Then:
     "Keller...saved my life."
     (Yup.)
     And what a great fuckin' achievement THAT was.
     "Well," Vern says, voice sliding back down into the--all-too-intimate--lower range of his normal rumble, "I'm sure you'll pay him back, soon enough...the only way you know how."
     More silence. Above the ward's main door, Vern can see that chintzy fake mistletoe catch the light dully--a hint of poison apple-red, a suggestion of flat and prickly green. Hears Beecher's breath slowing, falling back into the rhythm Vern once lulled himself to sleep by: The almost coital in-out, like a shadow of what he used to be able to do to Beecher any time he wanted, anywhere, any minute of any given day.
     Like being home, and *knowing* you were. Like knowing what's yours is--yours...
     (mine)
     ...again.
     (Forever.)
     Someday, cupcake. Someday--
     (--soon.)
     And then, slicing his sudden surge of certainty open wide, like a fridge-cold knife--Beecher's voice: Not angry. Not scared. Not even--
     (sad?)
     Just...Beecher, at his most restrained. Dismissively civil. Saying, simply--
     "Goodnight, Vern." A beat. "Oh, and--Merry Christmas."
     Vern shuts his eyes, squeezes them tight. Feels SOMETHING boil up over him, lead-apron heavy--squash him down flat, submerge him entirely. Mind gone white with--whatever. And unable to think, unable to breathe, unable to form one single word; just echoing the same phrase, repeating it in his head like a riddle with no answer, good *or* bad. An unsolvable knot, too tight to loose, too strong to cut: Barbed-wire tree-trimming, back-lit bright with sparkler flares of rage, lust, loss...
     *Merry...Christmas.*
     And a fucking Happy New Year.
     (Sweetpea.)
THE END