Glue: Chapter 2

[verbal_kint]

Chapter Two: Movies

 

“Cell phones. Gimme.”

House reaches an arm out blindly, expecting his palm to light up at any moment with the blue shimmer of LCD screens. It doesn’t.

“What, do you need me to keep talking so you can follow the sound of my voice?” House almost chuckles, mentally picking out blind jokes from his repertoire of insensitivities.

“House…we don’t have phones.” Chase’s voice. The handy thing about being Australian is that you’re not American, and pretty much everyone can hear the difference.

“What, you can’t afford them? I understand, being a doctor and all, it’s so hard to make ends meet.”

“We leave them in our lockers,” says Foreman’s voice. “Like you’re supposed to.”

House looks around, stunned, like a trout when it realizes it’s made a mistake by eating the worm. “So stick them in your pockets or Chase’s purse for hot dates, or you know, life-and death situations involving vacuums.”

“Yes House, God forbid I miss a text message while doing a brain biopsy.” Wilson leans up against the door, nursing two twisted ankles and face full of spaghetti.

“Wilson, I forgot to mention that your right to speak was revoked when you got us locked IN THE DAMN JANITOR’S CLOSET!”

Chase, Foreman, and Wilson sit in silence while House catches his breath.

“Well, where’s your phone?” says Chase.

“In my jacket,” sighs House, “which is in my office.”

Wilson looks up. “So we’re stuck.”

“I’m sorry, Wilson. Could you say that a bit louder?”

“We stuck. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

It strikes Wilson that he apologizes too often. He’ll have to remember to be a bad ass later. He’s sorry he can’t do it now.

“What about our pagers?” says Chase.

Foreman scratches his head. “I’m not sure one-way pagers are going to be too useful.”

“Okay,” says House, “start knocking.”

Foreman and Chase scramble clumsily over to the door on their hands and knees, which presents a problem for House, as he can’t make lewd sexual remarks about possibly sexual situations he can’t see. Then they begin to knock.

Except for Wilson, that is, who sits still with his back against the door, subconsciously enjoying the massage created by the knocking and speaking in between Chase and Foreman’s open-palmed pounds. “It’s. No. Use.”

“Why?” says Chase, who continues knocking.

“Everyone’s at lunch right now. There’s also the fact that people tend to avoid this hallway…” He glares at House in the dark, his eyes probably fiery enough to create light. “…for some reason.”

“I know,” says House, “Cameron’s morning breath.”

Foreman keeps pounding away at the door until he comes to a realization, the same realization that hits the others at roughly the same time. “Come to think of it, the only other person I see in this hallway besides us, Cameron, and Cuddy is—“

“Ol’ Deaf Jeff” the chorus finishes.

So they sit there, now in the absence of knocking, wishing there were knocking, if only to get their minds off knocking in general.

Chase feigns a yawn because it’s almost as self-entertaining as the sound of his own voice. “You think the janitor keeps a Scrabble board in here?”

House scratches his head. “I was going to ask you. Cameron tells me you know your way around a janitor’s closet.”

Chase can sense Foreman’s lips curling into a smile. “Don’t ask.”

Wilson coughs. Twice. He’s now convinced that the awkwardness of a silence increases exponentially with any added participants in the silence. Therefore, if the very slight awkwardness of being alone is represented by the variable n, and two people increased it to n squared, then the awkwardness the four men now experience is n to the 4th power. Although, technically, the limit of awkwardness as n tends to infinity is always going to be infinity, so none of this really matters if one plans on staying in a janitor’s closet for a very, very long time.

And now his head hurts.

But they weren’t going to be in the janitor’s closet that long, were they?

Wilson thinks.

Lunch, that’s what? 45 minutes? People will come back in an hour, tops. We’ll bang on the door again then.

He opens his mouth to say this at the same time Chase says, “So what’s your favorite movie?”

Wilson uselessly points to himself, still rather foreign to the concept of not seeing and not being seen. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah,” says Chase, “anyone really. It’s not like there’s anything else to do.”

“Seeing as only one of us has superhuman mind-reading abilities,” says House, “I’d recommend referring to the person to whom you’re speaking by name, Dr. Chase.”

“Thank you, Dr. House, I’ll be sure to do that.”

“Great, Dr. Chase. Now please, continue letting Wilson gush over Hitchcock.”

House emphasizes a certain syllable of the director’s name. He does something similar when talking about Dick Cheney.

“Vertigo,” says Wilson, “my favorite movie is Vertigo.”

House laughs loudly and deliberately. “Liar.”

“What?” Wilson is genuinely taken aback. “I have the poster in my office, House!”

House stares through the darkness at where he supposes Wilson is sitting. “You were drunk. Probably don’t remember telling me.”

“Telling you what?”

House sighs dramatically and lets his voice rise a few octaves. “Oh Wilson, if he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day!”

Chase snorts. “Wuthering Heights? Your favorite movie is Wuthering Heights?!”

For a moment, Wilson is relieved no one can see the very guilty look on his face. This is when he realizes his silence is equally, if not more so, incriminating.

“I…” He starts. Then stops.

“I think,” recalls House, “you described it as ‘a work of cinematic love-making that stretches the heart so beyond average human emotion that it’s like having sex with Jesus in a non-sexual way.’”

Foreman blinks. “You were that drunk?”

Wilson shrugs. Yet another pointless gesture in the dark.

“So what’s your favorite movie?” Wilson quickly adds, “Dr. Chase,” for fear of any more drunken secrets spilling out as punishment for not following ‘the rules.’

“I’d have to say Trainspotting,” says Chase, rather quickly.

Wilson nods silently. Screw the dark.

House frowns. “Interesting,” he says.

“Why? It’s a brilliant film.”

“I know. It’s just interesting that while Wilson chose the lie that seemed plausible, you pick the lie that makes us respect your taste in movies and your ‘history.’”

“What d’you mean my history?”

“Non heroin addicts don’t call movies about heroin addiction their ‘favorite movie.’ I mean, you can love Darren Aronofsky all you want, but at the end of the day you’re always gonna pick Pi over Requiem For A Dream.”

Somewhere over to House’s right, Foreman and Wilson both sigh.

“So,” he continues, “you’re lying because your favorite movie doesn’t fall into what the modern world would call ‘good taste.’”

Chase clears his throat guiltily. “No, it’s good…just a bit…odd. It was one of the only movies available to me. It—“

“You were in seminary school for a while weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Were there…mountains nearby?”

“Uh, no.”

“Streams?”

“I don’t—“

“Rainbows?”

“Occasionally.”

“Dreams?”

Chase groans, flailing his palms and looking rather like Wilson in doing so. But of course, who can tell? “Okay, okay. Yeah.”

“Yeah what?” House’s mouth twists into a downright wretched smile.

“My favorite movie is The Sound of Music.”

“Cute,” says Foreman, who, based on his tone, very well might be asleep.

“Thanks,” says Chase boldly, “and I suppose you’re holding off judgment until they make Cats into a movie?”

“I’m actually a big fan of The Shawshank Redemption.”

House can feel the suspicious eyes move from Foreman to himself, awaiting a verdict on Foreman’s claim. “What?” House says, “I believe him. It’s not too black like Get Rich Or Die Tryin,’ and it’s not too white like...The Crucible. I’d say Morgan Freeman is just the right amount of black.”

Foreman frowns confusedly. “Thanks, but—“

“And,” House continues, “if you consider Shawshank Prison as a slightly harsher version of the hospital, it makes perfect sense. Foreman just needs an escape, fellas.”

“What, I—“

“Or maybe the prison is just a metaphor…for your deeply, deeply troubled mind, in which case, the only escape is…” House makes a colorful gesture involving knives or guns or bayonets, which is accompanied a bizarre sound that presumably comes out of his mouth. It sounds like the distress calls of a hoarse caribou who clicks his tongue…but who really knows what that sounds like?

And nobody talks for a minute.

“So, this is really what we’re going to do? Shoot the breeze about suicide and all of our favorite things?” Wilson kicks himself for the unintentional Sound Of Music reference. “This is what we’re gonna do while we’re locked in a pitch black janitor’s closet with no food, no water, and no phones?” Wilson has never thought of 45 minutes as a particularly long time…until now.

House shifts next to the trash can and rubs his leg absently. “Depends. What’d you have in mind when you got us locked in here?”

In the dark, Foreman swears he can see steam burst out of Wilson’s ears.

“I’m sorry! For the last time, I’m sorry! I didn’t know the glue was the only thing keeping the door open. I didn’t know ours deaths would by my hand.”

A few seconds later, he revises, “or my foot.” He chuckles bitterly.

“And people think I’m the cynical one. Relax, Wilson. We’ll get out of here.”

Wilson shakes his head, letting a smile escape. He’s forgotten the last time he let go like that, but it felt good. Great, liberating, verbal sex, that’s what it was. Now he wants a cigarette.

“I know,” he says. “I know.” He loosens his tie and allows himself to slouch down a little. “So House, what’s your favorite movie?”

“Pay It Forward.”

“What?” And nobody can identify who just spoke, as everyone said the same thing.

“Kidding.”

There are three annoyed sighs next to House.

“It’s uh, actually Groundhog Day, he says.”

Foreman’s the first to ask, “Why?”

“Because,” replies Wilson in House’s stead, “the main character has to accept things the way they are before he can change them, a feat House has mastered gracefully…without the grace, or the Jesus-like rebirth.”

House puffs out his cheeks thoughtfully. “Actually, I just think it’s funny that Bill Murray kept waking up to Sonny and Cher singing ‘I Got You Babe.”’

Chase casually sticks his hand in his pocket as he listens, then removes it, quite distraught, if one can be over a pocket. “Uh, guys?”

“What?” says…one of them.

“Wait, uh, you promise not to be mad?”

House and Foreman don’t reply. For them the request is about as ridiculous as promising to dress like a fruit bat for the rest of the year.

“Yes,” says Wilson, “we all promise we won’t get mad.”

“I…sort of just realized I still have my penlight in my pocket. I forgot, sorry.”

“That’s great!” says Wilson with enough enthusiasm that he comes off angry.

“Yes. Yes it is,” says House.

Chase knows what’s coming next.

“And it would’ve been even greater had you remembered this fact earlier!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even—hey, what are you doing?”

Chase slaps away Foreman’s wrist, which is in pursuit of said penlight uncomfortably close to Chase’s pants.

“Getting the light.”

“Here,” says Chase, who quickly flings the penlight out of his pocket and in Foreman’s direction. “Now what are you doing?”

“Reading.” Foreman uncrumples a balled-up piece up paper that also happens to be folded in half, and turns on the penlight, making everyone else feel like ill-equipped spelunkers.

“What exactly are you reading,” says Wilson, his voice rising with his stress level.

“I tell you after I’m finished.”

Wilson lunges for the paper for the second time that day as Foreman turns off the penlight, plunging the closet into darkness once again. House scoots closer to the trashcan as the sounds of grown men rolling around in three year-old Pine-Sol bounce throughout the room. Chase laughs until he too ends up in the scrap. Fifteen seconds go by before a long-winded “OW” fills up the room. House guesses it’s Wilson based on the sheer wussiness of the victim’s tone, if such a thing can be measured. The penlight rolls to House’s feet, and he picks it up, trying to find the switch.

“Crap, you okay?” Foreman’s voice. House needs to get that light on. He’s missing valuable Wilson-suffering.

“No, I hurt my—psych!”

House flips the light on in time to see Wilson swipe the paper out of Foreman’s guiltily limp hands. Foreman gives up with a scowl and scurries back to his original position to catch his breath, and perhaps prepare to battle again. House, however, scoots closer to Wilson.

“Aww man,” he says, indicating Wilson’s Pine-Soled shirt. “That’s definitely gonna leave a stain.”

“What is?” Wilson looks down and searches fervently for the stain. House easily swipes the paper from his hands and flicks on the penlight.

“Hey!” Wilson’s arm flail impatiently like the middle child he once was. “That’s…personal.”

House’s eyes dance across the crumbled sheet of stationary like a rabbit testing his luck on the highway.

The note says:

Lisa,

We’ll meet at the same place tonight, now that we’re sure about this .I want to show you a nice house I saw yesterday while I was getting food for Hector. House still has no idea, and I’d like to keep it that way if it’s even possible. I’m still not sure how he’ll handle it.

Can’t wait,

James

House stares at the paper for a minute, reading it just a few times more. “Well,” he says, turning off the penlight once more, “at least you didn’t sign it ‘xoxoxo.’”


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