It's Kind of a Funny Story

He looks about like what you’d expect for a guy named Muqtada: big; straight gray beard; wide, wrinkled dark face; glasses with white plastic rims. He doesn’t have any clothes, apparently, because he’s in a dark blue robe, which smells intensely of body odor. Not that it’s easy to notice any of this stuff at first, because when I go into the room, he’s burrowed into bed.

Smitty flicks on the light. “Muqtada! It’s almost lunch! Wake up. You have a new roommate!”

“Mm?” He peers out from his sheets. “Who is?”

“I’m Craig,” I say, hands in my pockets.

“Mm. Is very cold here, Craig. You not like it.”

“Muqtada, weren’t the men in here to fix the heat?”

“Yes, they fix yesterday, very cold. Fix today, tonight very cold.”

“It’s spring, buddy; it doesn’t get cold.”

“Mm.”

“Craig, that’s you over there.”

The bed in the far corner is made up for me, if you can call it that. It’s the sparsest bed I’ve ever seen: small and pale yellow with a sheet, a topsheet, and one pillow. No blanket, no stuffed animals, no drawers below, no patterns, no candles, no headboard. This reflects the style of the room, which basically has a window (encased blinds again), a radiator under paneling, two beds, a table between the two beds with two funny-shaped hospital pitchers of water on top, lights, closet, and a bathroom. There aren’t any patterns on the wall; only the ceiling has porous tiles that could be fun to look at. I check the closet. Muqtada has a tired pair of pants on the bottom shelf. The rest of the space is mine. I take off my hoodie and stuff it in there.

“Okay?” Smitty asks. “Lunch in five minutes.” He leaves the door open.

I sit down on my bed.

“Please close door, please,” Muqtada says. I close it, come back. He looks right through me. “Thank you.”

“What do we have for lunch?” I ask.

“Hm.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that. I asked him a what question. “Ah . . . Is the food good?”

“Mm.”

“Ah . . . Where are you from?”

“Egypt,” he says in a clipped voice, and it’s the first word I’ve heard him say that he sounds happy with. “Where are you from? Your family?”

“White. German and Irish and Czech. A little Jewish, we think. But I’m Christian, I guess.”

That reminds me: in this sparse room, is it possible that the Gideons have placed a Bible? They put one in every motel in the world; they should have gotten to this place. I check the drawers, under the pitchers of water: nope. Out of range of the Gideons. This is serious.

“Mm,” Muqtada says. “What you look for? There is nothing.” He keeps staring.

I want to lie down, to get the sleep I couldn’t get last night, but something about the way my roommate is lying there makes me want to leave, to walk around. Maybe it’ll be good to be with someone like him, someone who seems worse off than me. I never really considered it, but there are people worse off than me, right? I mean, there really are people who are homeless and can’t get out of bed and are never going to be able to hold a job and, in Muqtada’s case, have serious problems with temperature, all because their brains are broken. Compared to them I’m . . . well, I’m a spoiled rich kid. Which is another something to feel bad about. So, who’s worse off?

I go out into the hall and almost bash headlong into one of the giant metal racks of trays. The rack gives off heat and smells of fresh cooked salty food and is being wheeled along by an attendant in a skullcap.

“Careful!” he yells at me.

Oh, no. Now I have to eat. This will be the first time that they’ll see how bad things are with me—I couldn’t eat that egg downstairs and can’t eat anything now. What if I get stressed and the man pulls his rope in my stomach and I throw up in the dining room? That’ll be a fine entrance.

“Lunch!” the little man with the almost harelip calls down the hall. He pops out of the dining room, walks down to the far window and back, and knocks on everyone’s door, even if they’re awake and right in his face. “Come on, Candace! Let’s go, Bernie! C’mon, Kate! Time to eat! Come on, Muqtada!”

“That’s Armelio,” a voice says behind me. I turn; it’s Bobby in his Martian sweatshirt. “They call him the President. He runs the whole floor.”

“Hi, who’re ya?” Armelio asks as he passes.

“Craig.” I shake his hand.

“Great to meet you! All right! People! We have a new person here! Excellent, buddy! My new buddy. Tha’s great! Time for lunch! Solomon, come out of your room, don’t give any trouble, come and eat! Everybody’s gotta eat!”

I move into the dining room with Armelio bellowing and cast myself at a seat next to the bald man, Humble, who is still talking about psychologists and yachts.

twenty-two