Dobyns - The Burn Palace

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright 2013 by Stephen Dobyns

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dobyns, Stephen, date.

The burn palace / Stephen Dobyns.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-61104-3

I. Title.

PS3554.O2B87 2013 2012028038

813'.54dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

N URSE SPANDEX WAS LATE, and as she broke into a run her rubber-soled clogs went squeak-squeak on the floor of the hallway leading to labor and delivery. It was two-thirty on a Thursday morning, and if Tabby RobertsTabitha, she called her to her face, because shed never liked the head nurseever learned she had left those two babies alone, shed be royally screwed, which made her laugh because that was why she was late, she had been getting royally screwed back in 217, where that poor colored woman had died in the afternoon. Thats where Dr. Balfour had pushed her, and thats where shed goneto a bed stripped of sheets and padsbecause shed worked hard to get Dr. Balfour motivated and once she got him unzipping his fly, she wasnt going to complain where he took her; shed let him screw her in the toilet since thats what he wanted, like Dr. Stone last March, but then Dr. Stone took a job at Providence Hospital and so nothing had come of it except a few teary phone calls with her doing the crying, but it didnt do any good because Dr. Stone had stayed where he was.

Nurse Spandex was a full-bodied woman in her mid-thirties, but dont call her fat, full-bodied was how she described herself, big-boned, and her scrubs had spandex at the waist and a spandex-and-polyester V-necked top with a pattern of pink and purple flowers. They werent loose like most girls scrubs, because shed had her mother fix them a little on the new Singer she had bought her online for Christmas two years ago, so her scrubs went further in showing off her figure, which was why some girls called her Nurse Spandex, which Alice Alessio (her real name) didnt like.

The rooms in maternity she hurried past were mostly empty. Only two were occupied with mothers, because October was a slow period and it was still a week till the full moon, which always motivated things and created a fuss. Tonight only two tater-tots were in the nursery, so she didnt see why Dr. Balfour couldnt have used one of these rooms instead of one in cardiology. But he had said cardiology was where he had to be, because he was the chief resident and didnt want to get in hot water, which he should have thought about earlier. Anyway, she was the one whod get in trouble if Tabby Roberts, the bitch, ever heard shed been getting laid in cardiology. Shed lose her job.

The ceiling lights hummed and an elevator dinged; there were distant bubbling noises and buzzing noises, a few moans, a few night mumbles, and an announcement for Dr. Schmitt to come to the ERlinking them all together was the squeak-squeak of Nurse Spandexs white clogs as she ran toward the nursery. One of the lights had gone out, so shed have to call maintenance, which always meant calling half a dozen times before theyd do anything, down there smoking weed and listening to rap music, most likely. So the nursery was dim, as if the two babies needed the quiet darkness, which they didnt, because sleeping was what babies did second best, right after slurping at their mommies boobs.

There were eight cribs, bassinets with Plexiglas sides and stainless-steel cabinets beneath, and in Nurse Spandexs four years in labor and delivery they had been full to capacity only once and thatd been during tourist season, with out-of-towners dropping their tater-tots far from home instead of in Hartford or Springfield. During the year five babies was the most they had had together, because this was a small fifty-bed hospital in a small town and most girls were on the pill, the sluts, and Nurse Spandexwho went to Mass every Sunday, or pretty nearthought if shed really got knocked up in cardiology, then Dr. Balfour was in for a surprise. Hed be putty in her hands, is what she told herself; but then she saw something was wrong, and she stopped as if shed hit a wall. It wasnt the Petrocelli kid, he was fine, all wrapped up like an Indian papoose. It was the other baby, the Summers baby, hed gotten unwrapped somehow, and his little yellow blanket with the ducks and chickens and rabbits had gotten on top of him and he was kicking and squirming, because he must be smothering, maybe even dying, and he was kicking to get free.