Bones

Before Stuart was my client, we got to know each other one day. He had a doctors appointment. The sun was warm and we had the windows down while I drove. Stuart starts talking about cheese and tuna. Starts saying how he's a real man, “can handle lady business.”
He is a younger client. Likes to listen to the local pop station on the radio and alter the lyrics while he sings out loud. It almost always has to do with sex and drugs. But despite the content, he does a good job.
Coming down the slope towards his appointment he looks over at me. “You know,” he says. “I believe that even the spirits in the graveyards still make love. They climb into each others caskets and do the bone thing.”

The Halls

Every other week, Stuart goes in for a shot of psychotropic medication. The clinic is in Gresham off the max line in a 1970's building, very retard chic. There's cushioned chairs that have seen their days of struggle and urine, freak-outs and hysteria. The woman behind the plexy glass are nice enough. I stand in front of the speaking hole while my client lurches over into my bubble. We wait for her to fill out the slip and he speaks to me soft and low, “Welcome to the halls of medicine, where you come in feeling anxious and leave feeling relaxed.”