The Good Listener

by B. M. Hardin

  “Kill her?”

  “How could I kill her? She was in a car accident. There were witnesses. The other driver was on sight.”

  “People and papers lie, remember?”

  “They absolutely do.”

  “Was it because she broke it off with you?”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No.”

  “No, that wasn’t the reason or no you didn’t kill her?”

  Blake hesitated.

  “No. That wasn’t the reason.

  Unable to play it off, I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands.

  No. No. No.

  “Like I said, people and papers lie.”

  “How? Why?”

  “How? Everyone was paid to be where they were at that exact time. Even the cop on the scene and the EMT workers had been arranged. Why? Because I wanted to; I had an itch that needed to be scratched. Why else?”

  I started to breathe heavily, and I stood up and headed towards the bathroom in my office.

  I wanted to scream, but I covered my mouth instead.

  Blake killed China!

  And it still hurt like hell.

  How?

  I splashed cold water on my face and forced myself to go back into my office and face him.

  I needed answers, and he was the only one that could give them to me.

  “I was kidding.”

  What?

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  “Really, I didn’t lay a finger on her. I wanted to see your reaction. And I wanted to show you how easily something like that could have happened. No one, not a single soul, can ever be trusted. Words, confessions, witness, don’t mean anything.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No. I’m not. Consider that as a mind exercise.”

  No teaching the teacher!

  I didn’t need him to give me any kind of mind exercise. He was the one that needed me.

  Not the other way around.

  My mental state was just fine.

  “I wanted to show you how important it is to look past the obvious and see what isn’t there. I wanted you to see how important it is to see what people don’t want you to see. Something else is always there. Most of the time the obvious is never the truth, and the truth is never all that obvious. You have to see what could be there if you looked at it from a different angle. From a new set of eyes. There is always something more to see Hannah.”

  Who was this guy?

  “And like I said, I didn’t do anything to her.”

  I was finding it hard to speak, so Blake took advantage of my silence to continue explaining his little exercise.

  “I didn’t do it. But if I had, that’s exactly how I would have done it. If I wasn’t so hands on of course. I would have paid someone to hit her and then paid witnesses. I’m very acquainted with a few crooked cops so I would have paid them and the EMT workers. You wouldn’t even imagine some of the things that people would do for money. You said that everything isn’t about money, but trust me, it is. Money is power. Money is respect. Money is getting someone to go against their morals for a paycheck. Money is trouble.”

  I was still trying to figure him out, but I was just becoming more and more confused as the minutes went by.

  “And all because of the love of money, just like that, if I had done it, I would have gotten away with murder. That’s how easy murder can actually be. But of course, you wouldn’t know that because you don’t think like a killer. You think like a therapist.”

  “And nothing is wrong with that. If it were, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Or would I? I chose you to help me. Maybe you are going to have to think like a killer instead of what you have programmed yourself to be.”

  I had an attitude, and it showed.

  “Everything that people, papers, internet and TV said about you, were false. They were all wrong.”

  “How? I am good at what I do.”

  “Maybe. But I’m better.”

  “At my job?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think so. You came to me for help.”

  “And have you helped me?”

  “Yes. Whoever she is still alive isn’t she?”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because you wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.”

  “Or would I?”

  He had my mind all messed up.

  I was the one supposed to be picking his brain, yet it seemed as though he was constantly trying to pick mine.

  “Is it your biological mother? That you want to kill?”

  “My mother is dead…remember?”

  “Remember I can’t trust what you say, so I thought to ask you again.”

  He smiled at me as though he found humor in my remark.

  “My mother overdosed. But if she hadn't done it, believe me, I was already working on it.”

  He eyed me to see if I caught on to his last statement.

  “And you are sure killed your mother?”

  “No. She killed herself. She bought it and I heard her tell him to give her all that he had because she was going to need it and that it was her last time. She asked for powder, heroin, she asked for it all. We were struggling back then and I’d always been curious as to how she’d managed to come up with the money to get it. I didn’t know whether she was going to sniff it, smoke it, and shoot it up or what have you. She overdosed on her own.”

  “And how old were you?”

  “Seven.”

  “You were thinking about killing at seven years old?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you found her?”

  “She sang to me. She made sure that I was bathed. And then she put me in my pajamas and even prayed with me. She told me that she loved me a hundred times, but I didn’t believe her. For months she hadn't shown me, love, she’d only shown me hate. And if she loved me, leaving me behind would have never even crossed her mind. Then she put me to bed. I remember hearing the radio come on, and I figured that she didn’t want me to hear her. But I wasn’t trying to. I rolled over and slept like a baby. I woke up the next morning and found her dead. I fixed myself a big bowl of cereal and dressed before I even called 911.”

  Oh, my.

  I just didn’t know what to say to him anymore.

  “She killed herself. But mentally and emotionally she had died a while before she’d even overdosed. And it didn’t bother me at all that she was dead. I figured if someone wanted to die before their time, you might as well let them go without too much of a fuss. I didn’t cry. I didn’t shed one single tear. So, I guess you can say that I haven’t been exactly normal as you would say for a long, long time.”

  I was over being surprised by anything that came out of his mouth, but it still didn’t make it any easier for me to digest.

  “So her problems were mental? Was she ever institutionalized?”

  “Not that I know of. And she had all kinds of problems. She just let them win. All she had to do was take matters into her own hands. Just like I do.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means just what I said. Every pet that I would get, I would give them my biological mother’s name and kill it. Even if it wasn’t my pet, the family pets always came up missing. I would choke the cats to death and often burn the dogs. I’ve always liked “hot dogs”. Do you get it?” He laughed.

  I just needed to get away from him.

  I wasn’t sure if I could save him.

  I wasn’t sure if hospitalization or medication could save him.

  He was just a lost cause.

  “Watching them burn gave me such a thrill. I love fire. I always have. So, have you figured out what’s wrong with me yet?”

  I was licensed to diagnose of course, but I tried to keep that part of my sessions to myself.

  I hated for patients to feel like they were classified or in a certain category as though they were a d
isease or case study.

  But in his case, he was so far gone that I didn’t think that it really mattered.

  “You’ve displayed lots of different things from paranoia, neglect; a little bit of multiple personality disorder here and there, anxiety, depression, and even some signs, for lack of a better term, a psychopath.”

  He nodded.

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Oh, so this isn’t your first time attending therapy?”

  “Why would you think that it was? Considering everything that I have told you? Are you sure that you are listening?”

  “But you were running from my help in the beginning. You wouldn’t return the messages, and kept rescheduling as though you were scared to come see me for help.”

  “Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I was pretending to be scared or desperate so that you would make room for me. Of course, I’d called beforehand, and I knew that you were full and had people waiting. Maybe I just wanted a guaranteed spot. I needed this spot don’t you think? Even if I had to pay for it.”

  What?

  “Pay for it?”

  He looked at me as if he was waiting for some kind of light bulb to go off but it didn’t.

  “Isn’t it ironic that I burst in here the same day that Mrs. Whiteside said that she didn’t need your help anymore? Obviously, she still needed it because she still killed herself didn’t she?”

  What?

  “As I said, you came highly recommended. Her husband, James, used to work for me too. The job the Joel was initially hired for used to be his. He left for a better one. Anyway, he mentioned that his wife was in therapy here and there and one day she came to bring him lunch, and we had a little chat. She told me that she was seeing who they called “the good listener” and praised you from here to the other side of Texas. I told her that I was looking to talk to someone about all of the stress that I was under. I would go through every detail but I won’t. She expressed that they were having some financial troubles, which is why her husband had taken a better job in the first place; to hopefully get them out of debt. But I told her that I could help. And more or less, I paid her for her spot, although you still ended up giving it to someone else. I didn’t ask her for a refund, though. She’d done her part; I was the one who was tempted to have a change of heart.”

  He said it as though he hadn't cared that she had died as a result of it.

  “What? Why did you do that?”

  “I needed your help. She took the money. I didn’t force her to take it.”

  “But she really needed me.”

  “And so do I.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  But that was no excuse for what he had done.

  It was his fault that I’d lost her.

  It was his fault that Mrs. Whiteside was dead.

  And maybe partly Summer’s too; if she failed to give me correspondence.

  I exhaled and tried to refocus.

  “Okay. So about this woman that you plan to kill, are you ready to tell me who she is? Where she is? And why?”

  “She’s around, walking around, not knowing that I’m watching her and unaware of what I want to do to her.”

  “Does she work with you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Who is she Blake?”

  “That doesn’t matter. Just stop me. You’ve pulled some things out of me that I have never told a soul. I know that you are the right woman for the job, you just have to believe that.”

  For his sake, I hope that he was right.

  He had me so bent out of shape on trying to figure out his mental state that for the first time ever, I just wanted to walk away.

  I wanted to quit.

  I wanted to tell him to get out of my office and never come back.

  But I couldn’t.

  Or maybe it was that I wouldn’t.

  But I wanted to.

  “Okay. Let’s talk about fears. What scares you, Blake?”

  He didn’t comment.

  He appeared to be thinking about it.

  Or maybe he was trying to figure out how to lie about it.

  I waited for a while and then finally he spoke.

  “Love. I’m scared of love because everyone that has ever told me that they loved me lied. They didn’t love me at all.”

  “Maybe they did and it just wasn’t the way that you wanted to be loved. What about in your adult life?”

  “As I said, no one has ever genuinely loved me and the ones that said that they did left me.”

  Hmmm…

  “And there’s no real point in wasting time on being in love these days. True love no longer exists.”

  “But it does Blake. You just have to find it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Do you want it? Do you want real love?”

  He started talking again, but he didn’t answer my question.

  “I fear for the kids that will end up like me because they are hurting. Because they are broken and confused. Because they are motherless, fatherless, and will never have a chance at being normal.”

  I could hear the hurt and pain in his voice, but I didn’t want to interrupt him.

  “I fear all of the things that everyone else loves. Love blinds them, and they can’t see past it in order to see the truth, but because I don’t love, I can always see. I can always see the truth. I can always see what is and what isn’t. I don’t love anyone. I don’t even love me.”

  “But you must love someone.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “And you don’t love yourself? Self-love is the most important love a person will ever know.”

  “Would you love me if you were me?”

  He waited for me to answer the question.

  I started to lie, but he cut me off.

  “No. You wouldn’t because love doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’m incapable of loving and incapable of being loved.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes. It is. People fear me. Even though I walk around here in a $300 suit, people somehow fear me. I am fear. And fear is me.”

  Blake took a deep breath.

  I opened my mouth to respond to what he’d just said, but he hurriedly spoke first.

  “What did you say your favorite color was again?”

  Oh no!

  Not this again.

  Blake was done for the day and after thirty minutes more of irrelevant questions, he was gone, and I was busy writing down everything that I could about him.

  Joel called my phone over and over again, but I ignored it.

  He was going to have to go to the doctor all by himself.

  I was so close to a breakthrough with Blake, and I had to get my all of my thoughts down while they were still fresh in my head.

  I ignored Joel’s call one last time before placing my cell phone in my purse, and I gave all of my attention to the computer screen in front of me.

  I would just have to face the music once I got home.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. And as long as Blake was my patient, it wouldn’t be the last.

  ~***~

  I watched Joel as he mopped around.

  “We need to go to the doctor.”

  “I’m fine. Besides, you don’t care about me. You care more about that damn job.”

  “No I don’t and no you’re not.”

  “Says the woman who ignored me for hours instead of coming home to see about her sick husband and see to it that he got to the doctor.”

  “Well, I’m here now.”

  “I’m surprised.”

  Not only did Joel have a nasty cough, but now he was weak and had been vomiting.

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. Worry about your patients just like you always do.”

  He was as sick as a dog and still so nasty.

  But as usual, I overlooked his comments.

  “You need to get better so that you can go back to work. You’ve already be
en out for a while. You haven’t been in that new position all that long. Or did you forget?”

  It seemed as though hearing the word “work” gave him some type of reality check, and it was all the encouragement that he needed to go see about his health.

  “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  We headed to the emergency room.

  Joel was so weak that he could barely even stand, and they had to get him a wheelchair.

  They took him to the back almost immediately.

  “How long has he been like this?” The doctor asked.

  “For about two weeks now. But he has had that cough for months. I told him to get it checked out a long time ago. It has gotten ten times worse than what it was.”

  The doctor rechecked his vitals although the nurse already had.

  “Let’s get some test going and we will see if we can figure out what the problem is.”

  I shook my head as and sat beside Joel.

  He wasn’t talking.

  It almost seemed as though he was barely breathing.

  I thought about what life would be like for me if I lost him.

  I didn’t have any parents.

  I didn’t have any siblings.

  I had one best friend that was dead and one that was suspect, so without him, I would have been all alone.

  Maybe he was right.

  Maybe we needed to start bringing kids into the picture.

  But I still needed to wait until after I fixed Blake.

  From my sessions and talks with Blake, my mind went way left field, and I wondered if Joel knew that he was dying or something and didn’t tell me.

  Was that why he was so in a rush to start a family?

  He had better not be keeping something like that from me.

  We were waiting in the hospital for hours before the doctor came back in.

  “So, we have a few test results back. Not all, but some. We found a few things that I’m concerned about. For starters, we have reason to believe that he has been poisoned. And it looks as though it has been going on for quite some time. Maybe in small doses. Maybe it picked up here lately and made the symptoms worse.”

  Poison?

  Joel opened his eyes at the news.

  “Poison? What kind of poison?”

  “We aren’t able to tell. How often have you been vomiting?”

  “Only a few times. At first, it was just a cough.”

  “Do you work around chemicals?”

  “No. I work in advertising, but I haven’t been to work in a little while now. Not since a family member of mine passed away.”