Keys of Babylon by Robert Minhinnick Read Free Book Online

the home to get comfortable with itself, the rules to relax.
    Finding the job had been easy. She was on time for the interview and said yes to every question. Welcome to the Sunset, the man had said. We’d like you to start soon. And remember. No chilli in the chilli con carne. Our clients don’t go for the spicy. So the Sunset doesn’t do the spicy. Set menu always.
    And he’d laughed. Then she laughed too.
    For the first six months she worked in the kitchen and learned to do everything. How to keep the mashed potatoes and meatloaf warm. How to ensure the rice pudding wasn’t wasted. Yoghurts were the problem. The staff waited till the tops started to bulge. Then waited one more day. Then disposed. It was her job to see all the wasted food ended up in the aluminium wheelie that was collected every other day.
    But it wasn’t her job, she considered, to stop staff pilfering. So she always turned a blind eye. To fit in, she took a little herself. But only apple sauce. Only salad leaves. Maybe some of those tomatillos that no one ate. Little green strangers.
    Yeah, no chilli, the head chef had said when she started. No cinnamon. No nutmeg. And he’d smiled a bitter little smile. No cilantro. No garlic.
    That first day he had told her to stand on a chair. Then he ran his hands up her skirt. Up and down the cool insides of her thighs. While he did this she regarded the bald patch on his head. The greasy comb-over.
    Thanks, he had said, eventually.
    You’re welcome, she said.
    He never touched her again.
    Then there was another interview. This took place in a corridor, everybody standing up. Again she said yes, yes, except to the query about using the defibrillator. Don’t worry about that, the man had said. Nothing to it.
    Now she taps in the entrance code and uses the antiseptic rub by the door. Really she knows she’s not supposed to wear her uniform outside, but all the staff ignore that, and she starts clearing away the lunches.
    Afternoons are pretty good. There are already some visitors in and the edge has been taken off the day. Off the residents too. There is a sprinkling in the television lounge, but most are already in their rooms. Doing what they do. Which is mostly sleeping. Or crying. Yes a lot of them cry. But then, she would too, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t anybody cry who wound up in the Sunset, watching that big fiery sky? Ending up. Ending up in BCC. Which was nowhere, everybody knew that. A scattered town on the way from somewhere to somewhere else. Ribs and a Corona in the Badass BBQ? French toast at the Amish Kitchen? Then what? You’d move on. Past the saguaros. Move away.
    No, of course she wouldn’t cry. Ending up at the Sunset was a Hollywood dream. The Sunset was one thousand dollars a week. She couldn’t have afforded one hundred. Fifty. Ending up was something she never thought about, like winning the lottery or UFOs in the desert. Ending up was nothing to do with her.
    On her way back from the dining room she notes the bell in 42 has been ringing for some time.
    Everything all right? she asks, entering.
    He’d like to urinate, says a tall, bald man, gesturing at another man in a wheelchair. We’ve been ringing for ten minutes.
    Of course, she says.
    While she pulls the old man’s tracksuit bottoms down and puts the plastic bottle in position, the bald man goes into the corridor.
    Never seen his father piss, she thinks. Never seen his father’s sweet little, dead little cock. Kind of mauve colour. Like a jalepeno.
    The spurt is rank and dark and there’s not much of it.
    Hey Larry, she says. I keep telling you to drink water. And you keep not drinking water.
    She pulls his pants up. Drinking’s good. Water’s good for the kidneys. Flush all those nasty poisons away.
    On the television screen is a freeze-framed DVD image. She has to look at it. For some reason it jumps into life. There’s a soundtrack too, a tune she