“Where's Alice?” I asked Carol. I was looking down at my mystery meat, which the cafeteria had told us was Swiss steak. It was slathered in a brown paste that was supposed to pass as gravy.

“She asked for an aspirin last night and the Nurse from Hell wrote her up for being difficult.”

“Ya don't mean....?”

“Yup. Electroshock therapy, courtesy of Nurse Worthily.”

I remember the first time I saw Alice. She was covered in bruises. Her husband beat the hell out of her, then brought her here to Club Head. Thought they could make a docile woman out of her. She was so meek, so helpless, so defenseless.

“Damn...”

“Now, Chuck, don't let that temper of yours get the better of you. You do wanna get out of here, don't you?”

How long had I been in here? I looked around at the white walls and the steel table. So sanitary, so pristine, so clean. Hell, that rookie cop deserved the punch in his balls. He was feeling up my girlfriend on the pretense of searching her for drugs. Damn bastard had a smile on his face.

“Chuck, hey, earth to Chuck...Where'd you go?”

“Nowhere, Carol. But I got an idea to scare the bejesus out of Nurse Worthily. You in?”

“Tell me what it is first.”

“Hey, Nurse Alain, you got a minute?”

“Chuck, I told you to call me Mary. Go put your shirt on.”

“Gimme me a break, Mary. It's hot in here. This'll only take a minute.”

She looked at me like I was a fine filet mignon to be savored. Good.

“Me and some of the other patients were thinkin'...”

She smiled at me. “That's always dangerous...”

“Not in this case. You know I've been doin' well. You know, at the end of the month, it'll be Halloween and all. We were thinkin' we could mebbe have a party...”

“Well, I don't see any harm in that, as long as you all don't hoard your meds for that night.” She laughed.

I tightened my naked chest muscles and abs.

“Ya think that for our next field trip, we could go to the costume store and get some costumes? It'll be a good way for us to act our fantasies without harmin' no one..Mary? Did you hear what I said?”

She unglued her eyes from my upper body. “Yes, I don't see any harm in that, so long as your costume isn't a pirate one with a saber...”

“Hell, I mean, heck, no, Mary.”

“You havin' fun this Halloween day, Alice?” It was the first time I'd seen her smile in a while.

“Yes, Chuck.”

“Come on, Alice, ya can talk a little more with me. We're friends now.”

“I don't know; I don't really trust men. You seem nice and all that, but Nurse Worthily told me to stay away from you. She said you're violent.”

“Alice, ya ever seen me raise a hand to no one?”

“No, but I know you have a temper...”

“Yeah, I do. Listen, I had an idea. Wouldya trade costumes with Carol? I already talked to her about it.”

“Oh, I don't know if I could go as Cinderella. I much prefer being a troll.”

“Look, Carol don't want no one of the men to even think of hittin' on her. She got enough of that on the streets. She wants to be ugly for a night, so she can be herself. She don't even want no one to know she's a woman.”

“Really? She's so pretty.”

“Yeah, and for a while, that's all she had and she had to make a livin' off of it. She don't wanna remember that. And you'd be so pretty as Cinderella.”

Alice had almost a childlike smile on her face. “Well, since you put it that way...Okay...”

“Great.”

“Carol, you got the plan down?”

“Yeah, I think so, Chuck. After socializing a while in Alice's troll costume, I tell Nurse Worthily I have a headache, and she gives me an aspirin, and then writes Alice up for being difficult. Later, we assume she finds the doctor on call and tells him I—I mean Alice—needs more electroshock therapy. There are an awful lot of assumptions in this, aren't there, Chuck?”

“Yeah, but it'll work. That bitch is the most predictable person I know—predictably cruel.”

“Then what happens?”

“Come on, Carol, we went over that. You knee the doc in the groin just like he was a john who didn't pay and the rent was due yesterday.”

“You thought of everything, didn't you?”

I grinned. “Yup, and I'll take care of Nurse Bitch.”

“I meant to ask you what you were going as...?”

“Nurse Alain gave me the idea. A bare-chested pirate covered in tattoos.”

“You sure you never hustled? You sound like some of the...”

“Come on, Carol. I just wanna make sure everybody's preoccupied and I got the body to distract the nurses, even the nelly male ones. Hell, there's nothing to do here but eat and talk shit to the shrinks and work out.”

“That's what I admire about you, Chuck—your modesty.”

“Well, it looks like everyone's having fun. I don't like it,” Nurse Worthily said to Nurse Alain.

“Lighten up; they're human beings,” she responded.

“They're animals; they're in this psycho ward for a reason.”

“How did you ever get into nursing, anyway?”

A patient in a troll costume came up to them.

“I don't feel well; may I have an aspirin?”

“Sure, honey,” Nurse Alain said.

“I'll take care of this,” Nurse Worthily said.

“No, that's fine, I'll do it.”

“I said I would do it, and I outrank you. You know that.”

Nurse Worthily left.

“Alice, I don't have a good feeling about this; why don't you get lost in the crowd?” Nurse Alain said. “I'll keep watch over you.”

Carol, underneath the troll costume, didn't say anything.

 Since I had been listening from a little ways off, I came up to the group. Nurse Alain couldn't take her eyes off the tiger tattoo on my chest.

“Chuck, you certainly outdid yourself,” she gasped.

“Yeah, I found some magic marker. You like it?” I flexed my pecs and the fake tattoo moved.

“I think I need some air,” Mary choked out. She left the room.

“You are so bad,” Carol said, laughing.

“Maybe you'n'me can hook up later. I never been with a troll.”

“Dream on, Studly.”

Nurse Bitch returned with a doctor. 

“Alice, we have the room all set up for you.”

“But all I wanted was an aspirin,” Carol said.

“Come on, you don't even sound like yourself.”

“Well, maybe I'm not!” Carol kneed the doctor in the groin. He doubled over in the pain. 

I took my left hand and put it over Nurse Bitch's mouth. With my right hand I secured her hands behind her back.

“You got any questions, bitch?”

I released my hand.

“You get your hands off me. Where are we going?”

I put my hand back over her mouth. “To that nice little room you prepared for Alice...”