by Tom Lally
“Relax, dick. Everything will be fine,” I said before going into the stall and taking a shower.
I went back to my room afterwards and waited for the others to go down to the cafeteria. The gothic girls sporting all black clothes and black boots slowly walked their way from the bathroom weight scale through the hallway with Helen and Natalie following behind. I watched until Lucky was the only one remaining in the hallway. He came into my room for the morning check.
“What’re you doing, Drew?” he asked.
“I just wanted to say goodbye to Leighton. Do you mind?” I asked him.
Lucky scratched his gray beard.
“You know you should be down in the cafeteria with everybody,” he said.
“I know, but I just wanted to see her before she left,” I said.
Lucky’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He took one deep breath and sighed. A smile overwhelmed his face and his eyes met mine. I watched as he turned back to the door and held it open. His blue jeans and white short-sleeved polo leaned against the wood frame. I stood up and started to walk towards him.
As I passed him, he continued to smile.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said.
I walked through the hallway to Leighton’s door. It was slightly cracked and I knocked lightly trying not to startle her. Shortly after, she opened the door entirely.
“Drew, come in,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said as I walked past her.
Her room was barren. I saw tape stains on the walls where drawings I had been hung. She was packing a few sketchbooks on top of her clothes in a suitcase. The books were heavily marked with pencil that had faded down into the side of the pages.
“You excited?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
Leighton stroked the navy blue, baggy sweatpants she was wearing and folded her arms over her plain white T-shirt as she looked at me.
“So what now?” I asked.
“I see you on the outside,” she said.
“Yeah,” I smiled.
“And I’ll bring some of my drawings,” she said.
“You want me to bring some more stories?” I asked.
She nodded with a smile.
“Why do you like reading them?” I asked.
“Because they’re good,” she said.
“Thanks for being nice. I wish they compared to yours,” I said.
She smiled, but it didn’t hide her embarrassment.
“This might sound weird, but I didn’t think this place would work in my favor,” she said.
“Why is that?” I asked.
She smiled at me and walked over. She reached with her arms and hugged me tightly. I did the same back. I felt her kiss me on the cheek and then move her soft lips to my mouth.
“I’m just happy I got to meet you,” she said.
“Me too,” I said. “Me too.”
I went with Leighton and Lucky as they walked down the hall towards the elevator. We walked quietly and I could feel a certain sense that Leighton didn’t know how to react to getting released. A chapter in her life had closed. It took a degree of understanding once you escaped the threshold of being a patient and then reverting to ‘normal life’. Leighton gleamed with nervous excitement as Lucky opened the doors with his keys.
Once he did, she dropped her suitcase and hugged me once again.
“I’ll see you soon,” I said.
“I can’t wait,” she said.
She let go of me and picked up her suitcase. Lucky held the door ajar and smiled at us. I watched as the door closed behind them and Leighton was no longer a psychiatric patient. I smiled for her and cackled out loud. I couldn’t wait for the day when that was me.
***
I started to walk back down the hallway to use the bathroom before eating breakfast.
As I passed Harlan’s door, I heard something fall. It sounded like it shook his dresser violently. I stopped and turned back to his door. I glanced down the hall. The recently power-washed floor shone brightly against the lights overhead. I looked at the nurses’ station and saw no one behind the glass. The radiator vibrated against the windowsill, but nothing else sounded until I heard one long breath from inside Harlan’s room.
I knocked on the door and waited, but nothing happened. I heard his suede shoes rubbing against the floor and he coughed until phlegm reached his mouth. I debated between calling for help or seeing what Harlan was doing. I chose the latter when I realized he could be looking for something under his bed. I didn’t want to jump to any rash conclusions. I knocked on the door and turned the handle. I kept my hand on the door as I pushed it so Harlan would hear the creaking and know someone wasn’t just sneaking in.
“Harlan, it’s me,” I said.
I didn’t hear anything except what sounded like his breathing. I finally opened the door entirely and let go so it hit the wall. I saw Harlan laying against his dresser. His arms were lying against his legs, covered in blood from the fresh cuts to his wrists. The blood spewed out like a ketchup packet and covered his jeans all the way down to his suede shoes. His green shirt was spattered with blood as well. I ran over to his side and leaned down next to him. I opened his bureau and found a pile of poorly folded T-shirts. My hands guided my actions as they reached for mid-section of one of the shirts and tore it into two pieces.
“Hang on, Harlan,” I said.
“Drew,” Harlan said, but I initially ignored him.
I wrapped the fabric around each wrist tying it tightly to cut off the circulation. I saw in between his index and middle finger was a strip of wire, purposefully crafted with sharp edges. Blood dripped from the jagged end.
“Okay, I’m gonna get help,” I said.
“Drew, wait,” Harlan said.
I froze next to him. His pain didn’t reach his face. The horror I witnessed was not shared by Harlan. He seemed calm and relaxed. His face didn’t twitch and he smiled when he got my attention. His crooked rows of teeth didn’t grimace once he looked at his arms. His arms straddled his lower half gently and looked like they hadn’t moved since he let them fall there.
“I’m gonna be okay,” he said.
“Yeah, I know you are,” I said, sounding stupidly optimistic.
“No, I mean, I won’t die cause of these,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
“No, you don’t know. They’re running the wrong way,” he said.
He lifted his right arm for to me to grab. He let it fall into my arms while I reached under the makeshift bandage and cleared a line of sight in order to see the cut. Blood dripped from his fingertips and onto the floor. His skin was separated by a short gash running across his arm.
“Hospital?” I asked.
“Hospital,” Harlan said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Harlan,” someone cried from the hall. I turned to see Lucky standing in the doorway. “What the hell happened?”
“He cut himself. His wrists are bleeding pretty badly. Get help,” I said.
Lucky darted from view towards the nurses’ station where an alarm rang and I heard commotion in the hall outside.
“Why’d you do this?” I asked him.
“Honestly?” he asked me.
“Honestly,” I said.
“I like it here,” he said.
Lucky came barging into the room with a gurney and more nurses entered as well. Natalie appeared and led me away from the emergency staff who were attending to Harlan.
“What the fuck?” I asked Natalie as she led me to a seat in the common room.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Let me grab you some water.”
Natalie trudged down the hallway. Her pink scrubs swung back and forth as the sound of her sneakers connecting with the floor gave a subtle pop. I sat in the cushion chair bent forward with my elbows resting on my knees while my bloodied fingers rubbed my eyes. I brushed back my hair and saw small strands of brown follicles parachuting
down to the floor. I didn’t hear the medical staff talking nor did I want to see Harlan getting wheeled out on the gurney. Natalie returned shortly with a plastic cup of water.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her dangling it in front of me, but I couldn’t hear anything she was saying. My ears blocked out all sound and the only thing I could think about was the direction of Harlan’s cuts.
***
Dr. Phillips sat me down in her office. I still had Harlan’s blood on my hands. I’d tried to wash it off, but it didn’t work. My fingerprints were colored red and any object I touched stuck to the dry blood. Dr. Phillips noticed and handed me a small garbage can and a box of wet wipes. I needed eight just to get some of the blood washed from my right hand.
“How’re you feeling?” she asked.
Silence followed while I periodically glanced up at the ceiling light and then back at my gory hands.
“I don’t know,” I finally said.
Dr. Phillips sat down at her desk. Her nostrils breathed silently for her while her tongue licked her puckered lips as she thought of something to say.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
I dragged the wipes across my hand harder and watched them turn red as if I’d stuck them in cranberry juice. After only a few moments, the trash bin Dr. Phillips had given me from behind her desk was filling quickly with discarded wipes.
“Is he gonna be okay?” I asked.
“Yes. The doctors told me he’s stable,” she said.
“When can I see him?” I asked.
“He’ll be back in two days,” she said.
“I leave by then,” I said.
“I’ll make sure you see him before you go,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Did he say anything to you while you were with him?” she asked.
“I don’t remember,” I said.
I looked up from my hands and met Dr. Phillips’s brown eyes. They pulsated with red veins that made her look afflicted. She nodded at me. Silence returned and once I felt I cleaned enough of the blood off, my fingers had already begun to wrinkle. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette.
“May I?” I asked Dr. Phillips.
She nodded and flipped me a lighter that was sitting on her desk.
“Do you smoke when you’re nervous?” she asked.
“I guess. I usually crave them when I’m nervous,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Something to do with time, I guess. One cigarette means for two minutes I’m occupied by something else other than what’s bothering me,” I said.
“What else calms you down?” she asked.
“Writing helps. Leighton helped me too, for some reason,” I said.
“She’s a good girl,” Dr. Phillips said, “I saw you two over the past couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, she shared her artwork with me,” I said.
“I heard,” Dr. Phillips said. “Are you going to continue your contact when you get released?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure,” I said.
“Why are you not sure?” she asked.
“I don’t trust people too much. I always feel like they’re gonna hurt me,” I said.
“You know how to find out if people are trustworthy?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Trust them,” she said.
“Hemingway,” I said with a chuckle.
We smiled at one another. Dr. Phillips didn’t hide behind her lab coat. Her emotions were real, or at least I felt they were. She didn’t choose her words or work out vocabulary in her head. She was just giving me details she full-heartedly believed. Her voice remained soft and tender, but underneath there was a firmness, the kind that told me she wasn’t bullshitting.
“I know I have to trust people to find out. It’s just vulnerability. I don’t know why, but it freaks me out,” I said.
“Don’t worry about anyone else right now. You can open up to others. You choose who these people are, but you can open up to whoever you like. The decision is on you and whether you feel comfortable,” she said.
“I only feel comfortable around a select few and two of them are sworn to secrecy by law and the other is biologically related to me,” I said.
“You know something, Leighton hasn’t shown any of her work to anyone else other than me, with the exception of the things she hung on her wall, and those she didn’t even draw while she was here. She’s not toying with you, Drew, I promise. She actually enjoys you and trusts you enough to give her something she is passionate about. All I’m saying is you have to try to change your thinking because if you don’t, then your progress will stall. That is a certainty,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“You’ve made great progress,” she said, “and I don’t want to see it stop.”
“Me neither,” I said, “I’m still working on it, but I know the responsibility is mine.”
“Good,” Dr. Phillips said. “Change is the key. Just keep an open mind and the rest will follow, I’m telling you. Please trust in me that I’m telling you the truth.”
“I trust you,” I said, “honestly.”
Chapter 17
I could barely sleep the following night. I was excited to leave the ward. Yet one thing lingered on my mind as I paced around my room checking the sky to find the morning light.
“I like it here,” I repeated Harlan’s words to myself.
The thought of a friendly relationship between this place and myself seemed unimaginable. I didn’t want to be there any longer than my treatment required. I wanted to know Harlan’s reason.
I closed my eyes for a few minutes before nodding off for what couldn’t have been more than an hour. I lifted my head and finally found the early morning lights, pink as the sun slowly lifted through the cloudless sky. I watched birds flap their wings up and down as they glided through the air, never once interrupted by walls or chain link fences. Instead, they just went wherever it was they felt like going. Wind rattled the window as it whistled by. I looked at my pack of cigarettes sitting on my desk. I wished I had a lighter and an openable window. Instead, I sat in my bed and grabbed my lips. I bit at my fingers, tearing off a slab of my overgrown thumbnail and chewing on it until the morning alarm sounded.
Once it rang, I stood up and put on my clothes, including my old, tattered sweatshirt and stepped into my lace-less sneakers for the first time since I’d been admitted.
“Drew,” Natalie said as she knocked and pushed the door open simultaneously.
She saw me standing in the center of the room.
“Oh, great, you’re up,” she said and scribbled something quickly on her clipboard.
“Yeah. Hey, I was wondering if they brought Harlan back today,” I said.
“Yes, they brought him in a few hours ago,” she said.
“Can I talk to him before I leave?” I asked.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” she said, “Olga is posted at his room right now. I’ll let her know you’re stopping by.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And if I don’t see you before I leave, thank you for everything.”
“Thank you, Drew. Stay safe,” she said with a wave before closing the door.
I turned back to my armoire and opened it. My gym bag sat nestled in the bottom underneath the empty coat rack that lacked hangers. I ran my hand through the top shelf, knocking over the partially empty shampoo bottle they’d supplied after my first one ran out. I only felt the toiletries I’d been given when I arrived, and so I closed the doors. I didn’t feel like taking anything from the ward except the drawings Leighton had given me.
I wasn’t trying to forget my tenure as a psychiatric ward patient, but I didn’t want to remind myself of it either, even if it was just the smell of their soap.
I then went to the dresser sitting underneath my bed. I opened the drawers and took out th
e remaining clothes. I didn’t care where they ended up in my bag, just as long as they were in there somewhere.
I went to my desk, grabbed my remaining cigarettes and placed them in my bag. Then, I picked up my notebook and opened it to the green folder resting inside. I opened my desk drawer and found the drawings Leighton had given me. I went through each of them and when I was satisfied I hadn’t lost any, I folded them in half and stuck them in the folder. I felt bad about the creases that had formed in the middle of the pages, but I didn’t want them to rip in my bag. I wanted to make sure I could hold onto them, whether it meant they were my lasting memory or the first of many. I placed the book on top of my loose clothing.
The final contents were the pair of moccasins Dougie had given me. I grabbed them by the heels and placed them at the bottom of my bag, covering them with clothes so the dirt embedded in the soles wouldn’t get all over my notebook and more importantly, so they wouldn’t ruin Leighton’s drawings.
As I zipped my bag shut, I placed it on the desk chair and took a step back. I scanned the room a few times and checked under the bed and desk to see if I’d forgotten anything, but only dust bunnies and pencil shavings were strewn about on the floor. I looked back at my gym bag. Those were my only possessions at that moment. No more, but it could have very well been less. I leaned on the edge of my bed and remained there for a moment while I took everything in. It just felt hard to believe that I was ever in here, much less about to be released.
A knock startled me. It lasted slightly longer than I expected.
“Drew, are you decent?” I heard Dr. Phillips ask.
“Yes, I am,” I said.
Dr. Phillips smiled as she walked into the room. I heard the morning chatter along with the stampede of the others who were heading downstairs to the cafeteria.
“How’re you doing? All ready to go?” she asked.
