Far from All Else

by Tom Lally

  I stared down at my hands. I rolled them over and back so they were facing right side up again. They were pale and the medical tape made them look like an offensive lineman’s hands on Sunday. My hands along with Dr. Phillips’s office made me uneasy. I never thought I’d be sitting in a psychiatric ward under suicide watch. Every aspect started to sink in as my eyes rolled around the room. It felt like the night before had been a dream, but then it cemented itself in reality. I was a psychiatric ward patient.

  I tucked my fingers over one another, tightly pressing my thumb against them so the skin turned white as I thought about smoking a cigarette. Dr. Phillips noticed when I started grabbing my lips with my free hand after a few seconds of silence.

  “Jonesing?” she asked.

  I nodded. She pulled out her pack of cigarettes and slid it across the desk.

  “You sure I can smoke in here?” I asked before picking them up.

  “I do,” she said.

  I lifted a cigarette from the carton before pushing the pack back to her. She tossed a book of matches to me. I folded the flap over the match and ripped it out against the matchbox.

  “Why do you light it that way?” Dr. Phillips asked.

  “What do you mean?” I said as I slid the matchbook across her desk.

  “Why do you fold it over like that and tear at it?” she asked, pointing at the match I fanned myself with in order to expunge.

  “Just learned it that way, I guess,” I said.

  “You seem angry when you do it,” she said.

  “I’m not sure how I feel right now,” I said.

  “How so?” she asked.

  I took a long drag from my cigarette and exhaled the smoke through my nose.

  “I’m in a mental ward with scars on my wrist because I tried to kill myself, and yet I’m still here,” I pointed to the floor, “My own father disowned me through a letter. I continue to hurt my family, and yet again, I’m still here,” I said as I put the cigarette back in my mouth.

  “Yes, you are here,” she said. “And we’re going to try to get you out of here.”

  “What if I don’t want to be here,” I said and twirled my index finger to encompass the planet.

  “I’m going to show you that you deserve to and should be out there,” Dr. Phillips said and pointed at the window.

  Chapter 7

  I was walking back from Dr. Phillip’s office, past the common room and the man who leaned against the wall without looking at anybody. Lucky was talking to him, trying to get him to watch television. Music lightly sounded from one the patient rooms. I followed it to a slightly cracked door and peered inside.

  I saw Harlan sitting on the edge of his bed, strumming an acoustic guitar. His hand glided through the riff and I started to hear the melody he was playing. It was Audioslave’s ‘Be Yourself’. I watched while he played until I accidentally touched the door with my hand. The wood frame creaked against the rusty metal hinges. Harlan’s face turned quickly to the door and he stopped playing.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Uh, hi, Harlan,” I said pushing the door open.

  “How long you been out there?” he asked.

  “A couple of seconds,” I said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “No worries, kind of stupid to think I can play and be left alone in this place,” he said, smiling as he did so. “Come in.”

  I walked into his room and sat on the chair that jutted out from beneath his desk. I wondered if I was allowed to be in another patient’s room, though I would soon find out when Natalie came to check on me.

  “They let you have that in here?” I asked and pointed at the guitar.

  “It’s from the arts and crafts room, so I have to ask when I want to play it and then give it back when I’m done,” he said.

  “Gotcha. Song sounds great,” I said.

  “You like that song?” He asked.

  “Yeah, I have a record collection back home, well, sort of home, I guess. I got a few Soundgarden records and ’Out of Exile’ a while back,” I said. “I like Chris Cornell’s voice.”

  Harlan’s eyes grew calmer. He smiled at me. It felt like a certain wall fell between us and instead of being two patients in a mental ward, we were just two guys bullshitting about music.

  “Yeah, he might be my favorite singer. You play at all?” Harlan asked me and held out the guitar to emphasize his question.

  “I dabble. I mess around with it when I’m bored, but I only learned a few songs,” I said.

  “Which ones?” Harlan asked.

  “I’m not really good at any of ’em,” I said.

  Harlan laughed quietly and my nerves settled around him. Social interaction made me nervous, but for some reason I felt calmer than I usually would have. My mind wasn’t racing nor were my hands trembling. I was reacting like a normal person.

  “I know what you mean. I didn’t have a television or computer, so I had to teach myself from the radio,” he said. “It took me six months to learn the basic chords.”

  “No television or computer?” I questioned, “I don’t think I would have been able to cope,” I said, trying to laugh.

  “As if I did?” he questioned me, motioning his head around the room, inaudibly saying, “Look at where we are.”

  I sat silently, stumbling over the next few words. I grunted, incensed at what I had just said until I could hear a small crackle of laughter.

  “I’m just messing around,” he said while a cheeky grin crept across his face.

  “I really didn’t mean that,” I said smiling back to him.

  “It’s fine. Sorry for scaring you, it’s just nice to finally talk to someone who, I guess, I dunno, is okay,” he said.

  I could hear in his voice his dislike for what he was saying and I understood. Some of the other patients had serious issues that made them difficult to be around and the number of possible friends one could make was small.

  “I get it,” I reassured him.

  Harlan’s door suddenly swung open, shocking Harlan so he dropped his guitar pick. Jared peeked his head through.

  “What the hell you two doing?” he asked loudly. “We playin’ cards, gents. Both of ya’s are playin’.”

  His shaved head matched with the gray strands of his five o’clock shadow gave him a domineering stature. I stood up and was about to walk towards the common room. I expected Harlan to follow me, but he remained seated. I stopped in my tracks as he locked eyes with Jared. The tension that boiled felt like watching steam funnel over a pot lid.

  “Not today, Jared,” Harlan said.

  “Well, why the hell not?” Jared asked.

  “Because we don’t want to,” Harlan said.

  “We? We? You want me to play asshole with them assholes?” Jared asked.

  “I guess so,” Harlan said whilst nodding.

  “Motherfuckas,” Jared said.

  He slammed the door. The doorknob raddled in its socket and we could hear Jared angrily bad mouthing us to the patients inside.

  “Those two assholes, Harlan and that newbie, ain’t playin’,” he yelled.

  Harlan shook his head.

  “You’re not scared of him?” I asked.

  “Who? Jared? Nah. I’ve been here awhile. He’s only been here six months. All of his shit gets old,” Harlan said.

  He returned to the guitar, fumbling through the bed sheets to find his pick.

  “He seems a little dangerous,” I said.

  “Nah, he’s fine,” Harlan said.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Because he’s here with us. He could very well be a sociopath or whatever, but the dangerous ones they move up to the farms and others, well, they get locked up,” Harlan said.

  “So why is everyone else afraid of him?” I asked.

  “Because Jared is loud. He feels this ‘jungle’, as he calls it, is his property. Most of the people in here don’t have the ability to combat someone like that, so they simply o
bey,” he said as he continued to sift through his bed sheets. “Ah, there you are.” Harlan pulled the guitar pick out from beneath the fabric and gracefully slid it across the strings so it played a note.

  “How long you think he’s gonna be in here?” I asked.

  “I got no clue. He could get moved if he keeps being the way he is, but I think he will be in an institution for the rest of his life,” Harlan said.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to pick your brain on this, but why do you think he’ll always be institutionalized?” I asked.

  “There are rumors about him. His uncle is Charles Manson. I’ve heard stories about him bare-knuckle boxing. I’ve even heard his parents found dissected cats in his room. I heard another one saying he tied a dog’s collar to a train and let it drag behind,” Harlan said.

  “Jesus,” I said. “How the hell are you not scared of him?”

  “Cause they’re just rumors,” Harlan said.

  “Who told you them?” I asked.

  “Jared,” he said with a smile on his face.

  He strummed another note and I took a seat where I had been prior.

  “How are your wrists?” Harlan asked.

  “Uh, good, I guess,” I said.

  “Weird question, right?” he asked.

  “I’m just not used to it yet,” I said.

  “I’m not trying to be a dick when I say this, but you might never get used to it,” Harlan said.

  “Yeah, I think I’m there already,” I said.

  “Same thing happened when I first got here,” Harlan said. “I tried to drive my dad’s car off a cliff. They said it was a miracle I survived. I think it was because I was so relaxed, my body didn’t get as banged up as it should’ve. My dad’s pickup though, that’s another story,” Harlan finished with a chuckle.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s not all bad, I guess,” he said.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Destroyed my dad’s baby,” he said.

  “Not a fan of him?” I asked.

  “Who? My dad? No, not one bit,” he said.

  The conversation started to weld itself into a familiar direction. I didn’t want to question him on something so personal, but his shattered familial relationship made me feel like I wasn’t alone. My dad’s letter ran through my head like bowling ball dispenser, each word creeping through just slowly enough for my spine to quiver as I heard his voice screaming at me.

  “I wish I could’ve ruined something of my dad’s,” I said.

  “Not a fan?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “What was wrong with your dad,” I asked, “if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “He was a mean son of a bitch. I dunno, me and him never got along,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  His characterization didn’t affect him as much as it did me. Harlan scratched his arms and pulled the collar of his T-shirt down as he turned back to the guitar. I didn’t like how forward I’d been, inquiring about his daddy issues, but his words left me feeling a strange form of kinship.

  “How about your dad?” Harlan asked.

  “Cruel bastard. He never liked me much either, hell he fuckin’ disowned me yesterday,” I said.

  I didn’t like divulging this information, but I couldn’t regress. It was something about Harlan, a weird aura that functioned like a bank vault. Anything I said was just part of the conversation.

  “Then you got something out of it too,” Harlan said.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “You’ll never have to see that cruel bastard again,” he said.

  I smiled at him and chuckled through my nose. I hadn’t thought about it that way.

  “How’d you get those scars?” he asked.

  “Nothing to tell really. I found some broken glass on the beach and then, you know,” I said and held up my arms to show him the medical tape. “And then I woke up in the hospital.”

  “Were you looking for the hospital or the morgue?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t hoping to wake up in a hospital bed,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I get curious sometimes. Some people try to be put here. It’s like a vacation away from their troubles. Others want their troubles to be gone entirely,” he said.

  “How can you tell the difference?” I asked.

  “The scars,” he said.

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Across the wrist means the hospital. Up the arm means the morgue,” he said.

  I swallowed the air that was in my mouth and darted my eyes away from his.

  “Sorry,” Harlan said. “I get carried away. I just haven’t had a conversation like this in a while.” His voice grew quiet, though it felt like I could hear him screaming at himself in his head.

  “It’s fine, really, no worries about it all,” I assured him, “I’m just, you know, new to it, I guess.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot,” Harlan said and paused for a few seconds. “You wanna play?”

  A change in conversation lingered like the smell of cigarette smoke, but a segue evaded us. Harlan held out the guitar to me with the strap dangling behind it.

  “It’s fine, I don’t really play too often. I like listening more,” I said and waved my hands hesitantly.

  “Come on, Drew. I’m not judging, just loosen up a bit,” he said.

  I smiled. Once again, he seemed to be correct. Harlan might have been all of twenty-three, but he seemed like the old man in your neighborhood. Quiet and wise, as if he had seen it all, from storming the beaches at Normandy to the Beatles arriving in America, to JFK getting shot, to reaching the moon, to the end of the Vietnam War, and so on.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I grabbed the guitar from his hands and placed the strap around my shoulder.

  “Here you go,” Harlan said with his hand extended, holding the pick in his palm.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  It felt strange holding the instrument. My wrists hurt from the odd angle I took to hold the guitar. I sat back in the chair and let the guitar rest on my knee.

  “Play something,” Harlan said.

  I chuckled with anxiety and took a deep breath in an effort to calm myself. I started by hitting the first note, three strums downward, onto the ‘g’, up, down, up, down, down, and so on until the song repeated itself.

  “Wonderwall,” Harlan said after the first few notes.

  I nodded my head and stopped playing. A smile emerged across my face.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t play that well?” he questioned me.

  “I mean I can play a few things, but I can’t do anything outside of a few chords and easy songs,” I said.

  “So what? Doesn’t mean you can’t play,” he said. “What other stuff do you know?”

  And so we played guitar for the next thirty minutes and I felt better. Natalie checked up on me, but only poked her head through the door and waved. I wanted to thank her for just letting us be. It was a kind gesture that allowed me to forget about my predicament and simply relax. Harlan tried to teach me some basic power chords, the southern rock noises that audibly allowed you to envision Memphis to New Orleans, and the blues. He played Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry, almost to perfection, at least to my ears. His hands glided effortlessly up and down the strings like a moth perching itself towards the light from a window. Smooth barely seemed like a fair word to describe his ability. It was harrowing. I leaned back in the chair and just watched him. Then he’d give the guitar back to me and try teaching me the notes that would allow me to play every song, little tricks along with a capo to make the strings sound crisper.

  “Drew,” I finally heard Natalie say over the music.

  She stood in the doorway and Harlan stopped playing.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but you have a visitor,” she said. “Morning, Harlan.”

  “Mornin
g,” he said.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  I was confident it was my sister, but if it were my brother or father, I wanted to be prepared.

  “I don’t know. They just told me you have a visitor,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said and turned back to Harlan, “I’m gonna see who this is. I’ll be up in a bit.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  Natalie guided me to the stairs.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Visiting room,” Natalie said.

  Chapter 8

  The visiting room looked like it had once been a cafeteria. Lunch tables were lined up with stools welded onto the bottom bars. The corners of the room had chairs decorated with flowers, others with stripes. There were a few other patients in the room. Some I’d never seen while others I’d seen in the common room the night before.

  “She’s right there,” Natalie said. Her finger pointed to a table in the center of the room where a woman sat wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a pair of running sneakers on her feet. She turned her head and smiled. It was Riley. I walked over to her while Natalie silently wandered her way to the corner where she could watch me interact. Riley stood up and ran over to me. Her arms tightly wound themselves around my back and I could hear her trying to control her weeping by resting her head on my shoulder.

  “I’m so happy to see you,” she said.

  “Here I am,” I said.

  “I’m sorry I missed you yesterday,” she said.

  “It’s fine. I was sleeping for most of the day anyway,” I said.

  Riley slowly began to regain her composure. She finally released me so we were both looking at each other.

  “You look like shit,” I said.

  “Yeah, you look like a star yourself,” Riley said back.

  We laughed together and it eased the sadness brooding over us like a thunderstorm.

  “Let’s sit,” I said.

  We walked over to one of the lunch tables and sat on opposite sides.

  “How’re you doing?” Riley asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Stupid question,” Riley said.

  I scratched my wrist where the medical tape had annoyed my pale, Irish skin and left a red indentation.

  “Why, Drew? Why’d you do it?” she asked.