TITLE: Skinner and Gladys (1/1) R, VA by Medina
AUTHOR: Medina, written November 1997
E-MAIL ADDRESS: duffsan@aol.com
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Please forward to
ATXC. Archive at Gossamer. Attach my name if archived
elsewhere.
SPOILERS: None
RATING: R, VA
CONTENT WARNING: language
LENGTH: 25 kb
SUMMARY:  Skinner recalls his relationship with Gladys.

DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of the television
program "The X-Files" are the creations and property of Chris
Carter, Fox Broadcasting, and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have
been used without permission. No copyright infringement is
intended.

AUTHOR'S THANKS: To Miki, a beacon of light who continues
to share knowledge and supply encouragement. Both are so
gratefully received. Danke schoen.

FEEDBACK: Feedback gratefully received and promptly
answered. Please send to duffsan@aol.com

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Skinner and Gladys (1/1) R, VA by Medina


In the front lobby of my Crystal City apartment building I put
down my briefcase and unlocked the gold chrome door of my
mailbox. I check it every evening. Not because I expect anything
but because if left unattended, the junk mail overflows and jams
the door. Habit, not expectation spurred me to leaf through the
envelopes labeled with my name misspelled or simply replaced by
'occupant'.

I was nearly at the end of the pile when I noticed the ivory
envelope. Hand-written. Legible. Cursive. Elegant. Done by
someone who learned how to write when penmanship mattered.
Addressed to "Mr Walter Skinner." Everything spelled correctly.

I tucked this one envelope into my pocket and discarded the rest in
a bin provided by the superintendent anxious to encourage neatly
closing doors and a clean lobby.

In my apartment, I made the usual motions. Briefcase by the door.
Keys on the desk. Coat hung up. Tie loosened and top button
undone. Playback of an answering machine.

I let the tape rewind as I sat, burrowing a finger under the flap of
the envelope and ripping along the top edge. Inside there was a
small card. I opened the fold. More elegant writing. The words
were simple enough.

"My dearest Walter:

How are you? I hope everything is well and this letter finds you in
good spirits.

This is a short note to let you know that I retired this past June and
have moved back to St Louis. Both my daughter and son and their
families live in the area and now that Stanley has passed away, I
wanted to be near them.

I look forward to hearing from you soon. Take care of yourself.

With love and affection,
Gladys"

Gladys. I sat back and let the air out of my lungs, still holding the
card in my hand. Gladys. I didn't know that her husband had died.
Didn't know that she was planning to retire. Funny how you picture
some people perpetually in their prime. My mind drifted back in
time ...

~~~

We were at war the moment we met.

I was flat on my back in a stateside veterans' hospital. By all
accounts, I should have come home in a body bag. When they
shipped me out, I was virtually entombed in a body cast. The head
injuries seemed minor to me but only because they couldn't put a
cast on my skull. One minute I was an able-bodied Marine. The
next minute I was the sole survivor of my unit. I had a shoulder in
traction, casts on both legs, questions about ever walking again and
a family whose anti-war politics were more important than blood
ties.

Tubing and bags hung around me like the Hanging Gardens of
Babylon; some putting fluids in and others removing them. Each
had its own liquid pulse - a constant drip-drip-drip that had the
slow beat of a metronome. Catheters and bedpans collected my
body fluids and wastes and I railed against it all. The humiliation.
The embarrassment. The sheer inhumanity. Of not having the
dignity of clothes. Of being trapped in a bed. Of having other
hands touch me in ways I did not touch myself. Of needing help to
do things I had done since I could walk.

The first words she ever spoke to me were ones she used a
thousand, a hundred thousand times in her career.

"Hello, Walter. My name is Gladys. How are you today?" I hated
her instantly.

What was I supposed to say?

"Fuck you." I breathed each word slowly, through clenched teeth,
making every sound distinct and venomous. Not an auspicious
introduction to the new head nurse.

"Well, Walter. Your pulse is fine. Let's have a listen to your heart,
shall we?" After my heroic effort to convey my complete disgust
with her, she responded with benign professional habit and flicked
the ends of a stethoscope into her ears.

"Fuck you!" I hissed with universal profundity.

~~~

Once they started weaning me off morphine, the time I spent lucid
dragged on into infinite hours of staring at the ceiling; thinking,
remembering, hating. I was later told I brought the expression of
hatred to a new height, a pinnacle performance, since unmatched
in the annals of the VA hospital where I was confined. I was not
satisfied to steep in this acid bath alone and so I orchestrated
emotions around me; hatred, frustration, anger, humiliation. I
never took responsibility for them because although I had
instigated them in others, they were never really mine. It was a
relief to watch others suffer. It made me feel less alone.

I hurled words like grenades; pins pulled and intended to hurt; to
make someone else feel the pain I did - as if it would make my
own less acute. There wasn't a nurse I hadn't reduced to tears.
Some of them were into double digits. I used every weapon at my
disposal including my tongue to swear and rant and harass. If I
knew something was to be so, I would make it not. I had patience
and was driven by boredom and sheer defiance. With my one free
hand, I employed a dexterity of opposites. Near far. On off. Up
down. Inside out. I inflicted on an unsuspecting staff my dogged
persistence that made even the simplest thing an Act of Congress.
My reputation was widely heralded and the younger nurses were
intimidated long before they ever met me. I made one burst into
tears just by looking at her.

Then Gladys appeared. Someone told me she had served in Korea.
An army nurse. I should have taken it as a warning. As it was, I
hardly gave it notice except to think there would be one more
name to add to my list of tears.

~~~

Gladys was an irritant. A burrowing tick under my skin. My
universe had constricted to the four walls of my room. I had no
friends. No family. No future. No past. I could not even understand
them as concepts. All I had was an endless punishing present; a
purgatory where Gladys reigned like Florence Nightingale's chosen
disciple.

"How are you today, Walter?" She asked me one day as she flicked
the tubing of my IV. Gladys had a soft voice, gentle and inspiring
trust. In my twisted state, there was nothing more irritating than
listening to her soothing tone. It so conflicted with my own that I
despised it on principle. More than anything I wanted her to raise
her voice at me in anger. My life became one galling dare for her
to lose her temper. I craved it like an addict craves heroin.

"Fuck you." I had mastered insolence to enrich my vulgar
language.

She smiled at me warmly, immune to but nonetheless noticing my
first class scowl and smoothed her palm over my shoulder in her
habitual way. She was the only one who ever touched me. I was
astute enough to see that while I may have earned a blistering
reputation as an ass-hole, it did not win me any favors. I was one
of the lost and forgotten who had not the personality to garner
them that little bit of extra care and attention from the staff. Of
course it wasn't fair that others were blatantly fawned over and
favored. I was never mistreated but I saw how inequities arose
between those patients of better dispositions and those who lacked
them. It served to make my nasty outlook even worse.

While I told myself I absolutely loathed being touched by anyone, I
could never quite bring myself to shrug Gladys away. There was
something in the way she used her hands. Inexplicably, I began to
yearn for this hated attention. Human contact was something I had
precious little of yet I desperately needed it. Gladys would handle
me - a wrist for a pulse, an arm for blood pressure or simply
adjusting my body - with hands that were strong, firm, tough but
yielding. She possessed a strength that I thought I had lost. It was
in her hands and in her very character. She was the Rock of
Gibraltar and I was quicksand.

"Walter. What are you going to do when you leave here?" The
question was a shock and she did it deliberately to get a reaction
out of me. She could tell I hadn't given my future a moment's
thought. Natural for someone who didn't know he had one. My
reaction was classic. Predictable.

"Fuck you."

"Walter," she smiled at me fondly, "My husband Stanley might
have something to say about that. But back to my question. What
are you going to do? Get a job? Go to school?" She waited, then
tested a theory. "Re-enlist?"

My entire body convulsed. I would have hurt her if I had had the
means. "Fuck you!"

Gladys finished her notations on my chart with careful even
strokes of a pen then flipped the casing closed and set it aside to
straighten blankets, freshen the carafe of water and clear the
meager table - never once cluttered by flowers - of an empty
chocolate bar wrapper and gave me another fond pat. At least she
knew the third option was definitely out. "I'll let you think about it
for awhile."

~~~

Once freed from the casts, I had to relearn to walk. First with metal
braces, then stumbling and feebly on my own - I shuffled around
like a small crippled boy. Everything had turned inwards; my
knees, my hips, my feet and I struggled against this physical
convergence of bone to place one foot in front of the other in an
odd co-ordination of hip and knee. Someone called me Tiny Tim
and I broke a crutch across a steel bed rail to demonstrate just how
the nickname suited me.

Once I became mobile, I was drawn to the couch in the TV room -
a place apart and isolated, hardly used because the set was broken
and the view of a scrawny leafless tree and gray cement walls
depressing. The furniture was mismatched, the room being the
dumping ground for the older, torn pieces of the main lounge. Lots
of chairs, empty chairs kept me company. In this hole in the wall, I
found a secret hoard of books - all boxed up and stacked in a
corner. Fiction. Non-fiction. Biographies. Travel. All obviously
read but still in good condition. These books were priceless. They
were my escape from reality.

I read indiscriminately - whatever I pulled out of the box next I
read. It became my constant occupation. Reading transported me
to another place and time and I could, for awhile, escape my hated
self. When reading, I could close off the entire world. I did not
have a past or a future, just a place where I could go to lose myself.
Interrupting one of my trances was both difficult and unwise and
once done, inevitably met with my extreme irritation.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"What are you reading, Walter?" Gladys had come in specifically
to harass me. She interrupted me daily and always asked the same
questions. How was I? What was I going to do with my life? What
was I reading? Her interest in my reading choices incensed me.
What business of it was hers? She seemed to have read every one
of the titles but I never failed to cut off any conversation offered
about the book at hand. Everyone else had understood except her. I
could find no way to convey to Gladys I wanted to be left alone.
Rage seeped into my joints and shortened my breath. The
possibility of throwing something at her swam around in the back
of my mind like a reptile waiting to strike. I knew I would
physically hurt her if I gave in to the impulse so the idea slipped
back under the surface but continued to lurk unattended.

"Why do you care?"

"I'm interested in you, Walter." She said it like she meant it and I
met it with a dark expression.

"Go away." I sank deeper into the chair and held the book close to
my face. I could not see her - not even from the periphery. It went
quiet and I found myself concentrating on listening for her despite
my pretense of reading. I could hear her breathing. Then the sound
of nylon-clad ankles uncrossing. Then a silence so absolute it
made my heart pound. I was in the jungle again and she was my
own personal stateside VC.

Finally the tension consumed me. I slapped down the book. She
was there; studying me, waiting. I snapped. "Why do you do this to
me?"

"What?"

"This ... this ..." I blustered, searching for words to describe my
torture, "This constant pushing and prodding and fucking with my
mind. You're a dog on a fucking bone!"

"You want me to leave you alone?" She supplied me with the
unspoken words. As soon as she said it, I had an overwhelming
fear that she might do so. I didn't want to be alone. I felt the blood
drain from my face. "Now Walter, I'm only doing this because ..."

The instant she began explaining, I knew she had been bluffing.
She would not abandon me. I read it as a weakness and instantly
returned to the attack. "It's your fucking *job*!"

"No one else will." She said it too quietly, hushed like someone
whispering a prayer. It stunned me.

She had settled on the edge of the chair opposite me. This
momentary silence of mine was unexpected and she made the most
of it. "You see, Walter. Everyone else is scared of you. You like
that. You like being alone and you use that vicious temper of yours
to push everyone away so you can lick your wounds and hide.
Well, I am the only person left on this ward who isn't afraid of you.
And I'm not going to let you wallow here and waste your life on
pointless self-pity. You have talents, gifts and a future and I intend
to see you don't waste them." After that, she rose and left.

I was speechless. Not even one of my ubiquitous profanities came
to mind.

~~~

It had not been a good day. Had Gladys been on the day shift, she
would not have allowed the situation to disintegrate to the extent it
did. As it was, she came in on the tail end of one of the worst days
I have ever had.

It started with a card game, was fueled by a well-nurtured grudge
over a nick-name and ended with a brawl between two very big,
very angry Marines. He was cheating and I called him on it. He
denied it. I pursued. The moments leading up to the fight were
pure adrenaline. I felt alive, sharp. Full of cock and shit. I had
fire
in my veins. I wanted a fight in the worst way. He stood up and hit
his knee, jiggling the card table. I stood up and touched my fingers
to the table for balance. Then he blinked and shoved me and I
knew I would kill him with my bare hands.

He lunged forward and I grabbed him by the collar. Having limited
leg coordination, I swung him around me in a tight pirouette. He
fell and I landed on top of him. For a cripple, I could hold my own.
In seconds, his face was a bloodied mess. Behind me I could hear
the shouts of the approaching staff. Their cries were no deterrent.
Euphoric with rage, I continued to pound the shit out of him.

One of the nurses - Elaine - no more than five feet three and a
hundred pounds was the first to arrive. She stooped down and
grabbed my shoulder and tried to peel us apart. I remember
swatting her away because she was interfering with my left hook.

Elaine let out a shriek. I heard more than saw the crash into the
folding table. Suddenly there was a shower of cards. A glass
ashtray shattered. Then a silence so complete it made my hair
stand on end. I looked over my shoulder. Cards and dimes and
burnt out cigarettes littered the floor. The card table had collapsed;
the spindly metal legs splayed at odd angles. She lay crumpled
atop the remains; unmoving and bleeding.

It was like looking at a still photograph. I was detached. Removed.
A mere witness. Not responsible. Then Elaine groaned and shifted.
The picture transformed into reality. It suddenly occurred to me.

I did that.

They took Elaine away on a stretcher. An hour or so later, word
emerged that she had a broken wrist, three cracked ribs, a slight
concussion and a gash on her forehead that required ten stitches. I
ended up with a slightly swollen lip and a bruised fist. My
opponent required stitches and had a black eye plus a new respect
for me.

I slunk around for most of the day, a heavy uneasiness following
me around. I could not get Elaine out of my mind. Disjointed
moments played over and over but I could not recollect the actual
moment when I struck her. I couldn't remember it. It was nothing
to me; a moment so primal it did not register in my conscious
mind. I could hardly have touched her. Then the image of her rag
doll body belied the conclusion. In the end it always came back to
three words.

I did that.

I knew Gladys would find out about this. I did not care about the
fight itself. They happened occasionally. That I was involved
would surprise but not shock. I knew Elaine was the concern. No
matter how I tried, I could not convince myself it had been her
own fault to try stopping a fight between two big Marines.

Even my precious cache of  books could not hold my attention and
as the clock drew towards four, I grew increasingly restless. As the
shift changed, I wandered close to the nurses' station. I do not
know what I expected to do. I just needed to see Gladys and her
reaction.

I was hidden from view, not meaning to eavesdrop but overhearing
nonetheless.

"How are the boys?" Gladys asked dumping her bag behind the
counter. Annie was tired and eager to go home. I was not the only
one who had had a long day.

"Jesus." It was a general statement covering a multitude of events.

"That good?"

"There was a fight today."

"Oh?" Mild interest. "What happened?"

"That bastard doesn't know his own strength. He broke Elaine's
wrist. Cracked her ribs. And she needed ten stitches at her temple."

"Elaine? What happened?" Gladys looked up sharply, her face
betraying a concern that startled me. Neither knew that I was
listening.

"Your precious son of a bitch threw her into a card table!" She
tagged me, lacing my name with frustration and disgust. "Walter
..."

"What?" Gladys had a seriousness in her voice that stirred me. "Is
he all right? What happened?" Concern. For me. It broke me open.

"Walter is too much of a shit to get hurt. He's violent, sullen,
unpredictable. I don't know why you waste your time on him. He's
never going to amount to anything." She added bitterly, "It's too
bad he didn't just die when he had the chance."

My gasp came out in a breathless hiss. Gladys leaned over the
counter and for one horrible moment, I met her eyes. Then I spun
on my heels and hobbled down the hall in that awkward just-
learning-to walk gait. I was in a hurry and it was an effort to go let
alone go fast and I used the rails along the wall to drag myself.

"Walter?" Gladys called after me. She knew I had heard the
exchange. Heard the diagnosis. That I was worthless. That I was
beyond hope. That I deserved to die. It had exploded inside me
with the same destructive force as a bullet at close range.
"Walter?" she called to me, her voice getting tight.

Putting my head down, I pulled along the wall racing away from
her. Pull. Step. Step. Pull. Step. Step. Faster and faster, covering
half the hall's length before she could get around the corner and the
other half while she negotiated around a gurney that rolled out of
the elevator.

"Walter!" She ran down the hall, knowing full well where I had
gone. I fled where I always fled. The door slammed and rattled the
glass. I collapsed on the couch. A few moments later, Gladys
knocked and entered, closing the door behind her.

"Walter?" She asked, moving closer.

My face twisted in a grimace. Tears were coming and it
embarrassed me. Humiliated me. A cry baby. I clenched my teeth
and my gut trying to hold them back. Everything started to tremble.
My hands, my knees, my shoulders.

She was inching nearer. Easing herself to the couch. Sitting beside
me. "Walter. Are you OK?" Her voice was hushed, caressing and
mindful of fragility.

I didn't have a voice to answer. So very softly, she touched my
shoulder and brushed her fingers down my arm. It opened up my
soul. I had no resistance left and crumpled in her arms and began
to sob; I held in the noise and was almost silent but each breath
was punctuated by a convulsion; a contraction of every muscle in
my body and in no time, my shirt was soaked with sweat, clinging
to me in folds down my spine and under my arms.

I was limp, unable to hold up my head and so she cradled me in
her arms like a newborn. She knew that holding me - not cursorily
but tightly - would let her ease the pain I felt and show me I was
not alone.

It went on for a time and then I began to fight again, to reign in the
emotion; to tuck it away in some dark place. It lasted for a few
moments - this effort to contain myself - then it spiraled free from
my weak hold. My breath came in little puffs, like an infant's
because my stomach walls ached from the prolonged effort - as if I
had been doing sit-ups forever. My face was slick; with tears and
sweat and snot but still she held me tightly. Nothing would turn her
away.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ..." Soft words, whispered in a throat
with tight vocal cords that made me sound like a young lost boy.
She held me and rocked me and quietly, patiently waited for me to
find more words. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't. I don't want to
be like this any more."

"I know you didn't mean to hurt her. It was an accident." Her voice
was in my brain; a cool cotton cloth on a burning fever. I needed
her to keep talking. I needed her to say what I could not. I needed
somebody to tell me I still had hope. I needed someone to dream
for me; to believe I could be something more than I was. "You're
going to be OK, Walter. Everything will be all right."

~~~

When I was discharged, they had a party for me. To be more
precise, they had a party for them.

I did not entirely object to the celebration. After that fight, things
changed. Not quickly, not miraculously but they did change and
for the better. Gladys finally had what she had always sought - my
trust. Once I started to listen to her the world opened up. I found
interests and opportunities. Inevitably, I started to think about my
future. Gladys nurtured me and gave me - in equal doses -
encouragement, hope and honest opinion. When that wasn't
sufficient, she gave me stern, unforgiving lectures and several hard
kicks square in the ass. By the time I was well enough to leave, I
had received an acceptance letter from an eastern college. I had, at
last, direction to my life.

"I've brought you something." Gladys slipped a present across her
lap to mine. She was pleased at my reaction of discomfort.

"You didn't need to get me ..." The box was small but heavy.

"Yes. I did." She waited. "Open it."

I tugged off the bow and pulled the ribbon past two corners then
removed the slackened strands. Next came the wrapping. Then a
brown box and tissue paper. I removed the wads of white and dug
into the center then removed a brass bull dog. I turned it over once
the light glinting off the high polished surface, then held it in my
hands as if it were made of something more than brass.

"Thank you." I said, not having much of a voice.

Gladys smiled, and patted my arm. "You're welcome. I am proud
of you, Walter. And I'm really going to miss you."

~~~

I never told her what became of the bulldog, why it has had a
prominent place on every desk I have ever had or how it has
become my touchstone; a symbol of hope and persistence in the
face of overwhelming odds. I re-read the brief letter twice more.
Each time, different words surface and speak to me. Good spirits.
Take care. Love and affection. Gladys. She is there in every word.
I shook my head. It all seemed like yesterday.

FINIS

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