by G. E. White
“I have two boys of my own,” Joan explained. "Breaks and bruises are to be expected from an active young boy, but that's not what I'm referring to."
Anxiety crept along Quinn’s spine; the two of them finally getting to the main reason why she was here: to see if Quinn was mentally unstable.
"Then what are you referring to?" he asked.
Joan readjusted her bun, her expression puzzled. "You honestly don't remember?"
"Remember what?" Quinn persisted, irritation starting to seep into his voice. Why couldn’t she just spit it out and get it over with?
"I was talking to Carol Thompson; you remember her, right?"
The woman’s name helped to calm him as he recalled her round, dark face. "She was one of my foster parents," Quinn said, a mild smile gracing his features. "I liked her; she always smelled of sugar cookies that she’d bake for us on our birthdays."
"Seemed she liked you too,” Joan observed. “Said you were one of the best-behaved boys she ever cared for; quiet, often kept to yourself, but still played with others... if reminded. You had a very active imagination and spent most of your time reading."
"Lots of kids did there,” he replied. “We didn't have cable but there was always the library."
"Yes, but unlike the others you didn't just read storybooks, or novels. You read textbooks, instructional guides, cookbooks, electronics manuals – not exactly light reading."
Quinn’s lip curled slightly as he shifted in his seat, attempting to sit taller. "So I like to know how to do things, is that a crime?"
"Not if it doesn't result in you breaking and entering, and assaulting a police officer," Joan warned.
Quinn hung his head, his defensive posture leaving him like a deflating balloon. "I didn't mean to do that," he said. "Is he going to be alright?"
"I'm not going to lie to you Quinn – you damaged a few of his vertebrae. It's going to take a lot of physical therapy for him to be able to walk normally again."
He huddled in the closer to himself, if such a thing was possible, as guilt swept his being. "I'm so sorry..." he whispered, every word sincere.
"I know you are Quinn, but I think that what happened that night wasn't your first episode."
"Episode?" Quinn echoed, not liking the sound of the word in the slightest.
"Ms. Carol told me about an incident that happened your first year with her. You would have been about ten. It was early March, spring break, the older kids at the house were doing spring cleaning – you were all very busy at it, most of you didn't have much time for anything else. Not even to read apparently. You were too tired each day to do much else but sleep. It took about five days to get the whole place clean. At the end of it you shut yourself up in the study for hours on end...” Joan trailed off as she noticed the confused expression marring the young man’s face. “You don't remember any of this?"
Quinn's eyes slid away from Joan, his thoughts far away as he tried to recall the incident. He shook his head.
"You wouldn't leave for anything other than the bathroom though the books came with you – in fact, you barely seemed to realize that anyone else was there,” Joan continued. “Ms. Carol brought you your meals which you barely touched and when she sent you to bed you took the books with you and continued reading through the night. When she found you still reading the next day and tried to make you stop you lashed out.”
Quinn tensed in his chair. He would have never hurt Ms. Carol. So why couldn’t he remember this? It disturbed him to think that he may have injured her, whether he was aware of it or not.
“You didn't hurt her,” Joan said answering his unspoken question. “But right after you fell into an almost catatonic state. You were taken to the hospital but they could find nothing physically wrong with you. You recovered quickly but were still kept there for a few days. The doctors concluded that you had just exhausted yourself. Similar incidents happened three more times during your time in foster care."
Quinn shook his head in denial. "I don't remember any of that."
"To be honest that's not surprising… Can you describe what you felt leading up to the night of your arrest?" she said, changing the subject.
He furrowed his brow as he once again tried to recall the events. "I was tired. I’d been helping Mr. Reynolds fix up some of the classrooms at the skills center. I have – had a job lined up with him after graduation, assisting some of the instructors. He said I might be able to teach a class of my own, come September..."
"What about the library?” Joan pressed. “How did you end up there?"
Quinn rested his hands on the table, playing with his fingers as he spoke. "I was walking back from the skills center and I suddenly felt... I don't know – anxious, restless."
"So you went to the library even though it was closed?"
"I saw it just up the block, so I went," he answered.
"Why?" she asked, prodding.
"Because I thought it would make me feel better," he replied honestly. He knew that it was strange, but at the time it seemed to make sense.
"And after that?"
Quinn shrugged. "That's when things get hazy."
Joan closed Quinn's medical file, shuffling it to the bottom of documents in her lap before opening up the next one, reading parts aloud.
"According to the police report you picked the lock using a paperclip. The door was pretty old; could have been simply kicked in with enough force. So why pick the lock?"
Quinn turned his gaze down towards his hands, seeming to be inspecting the long digits as he spoke. "Graham Peterson."
"Who?"
"Graham Peterson," he repeated, the man’s face coming to the forefront of his mind: dark skin, salt and pepper hair and a deep voice that shook the spare tire of flab around his middle when he laughed. "He was a guy who lived in the group home with me last year. A retired locksmith; don't know why he was living there but I’d often see him tinkering with old locks... I asked him to teach me."
"And that's how you knew what to do?" she asked.
"I guess, I told you I don't remember what really happened… Why can't I remember?" Quinn said, the last part more to himself than the doctor across from him.
The greying woman sighed. "You remember how I called the incident when you were ten an episode? Well I think that what you experienced the night of your arrest was another of these episodes.”
“Episodes of what?”
“That, unfortunately, is not as easy to diagnose. What people have witnessed and what you describe have the markers of several different disorders,” she explained. “First, you display overt obsessive compulsive tendencies when it comes to books, saying that you become anxious and feel unwell unless you give into your urge to read – it almost borders on bibliomania, though your focus is on the reading of them and not the collecting of them. But what really concerns me are your periods of catatonic excitement and the stupor that follows.”
Quinn swallowed heavily. “What exactly does that mean?”
Joan grimaced; whatever she was about to say next, Quinn was certain he would not like it.
“Your sudden compulsion to read books is not normal,” she stated. “When you enter into one of these fits of mass reading you become frenzied in your movements, talking to yourself, disregarding anything that doesn’t have to do with what you’re reading including necessary body functions, food, hygiene, sleep, even human contact.”
“You build a wall around yourself which you can’t seem to escape from. The only options are you continue feeding this compulsion until you crash, or someone pulls you out of it, leaving you manic and disoriented, which is what I believe, happened that night,” she elaborated.
The blunt nails of Quinn’s fingers dug into the soft tissue of his palms, leaving crescent-shaped wounds as his body clenched in tension, though the pain gave him no relief. “So what does it all mean?” he said.
Joan bit her lower lip, summoning the courage to say what had to be said.
�
�I’m of the belief that you’re showing the early signs of Catatonic Schizophrenia… don’t let the name fool you,” she said, stumbling over her words. “It doesn’t mean that you’ll become a vegetable. If anything, you seem to be displaying more episodes of catatonic excitement instead of stupors… at least to begin with.”
“What exactly do you mean by catatonic excitement?” he asked.
“Well it’s as I described – basically it’s how you become frenzied in your pursuit to read, your movements are harried and sometimes purposeless,” Joan said.
“Your susceptibility to agitation is high and you’re likely to turn violent when interrupted, but it’s only a symptom of Catatonic Schizophrenia,” she continued. “The disorder usually manifests in people in their teens to early twenties, but with the right-”
Quinn’s shoulders hitched in a sob as he cradled his face in his hands; his breaths escaping in shunting gasps. Joan fell silent as she listened to his hushed sobs; her own eyes watering slightly as she saw a stray tear slip out from beneath his hands.
It took several minutes for Quinn to regain his composure, though he was unable to shake the feeling of shame and despair that now clung to him. He wiped fruitlessly at his eyes, the tears continued to well and occasionally slip down his cheek.
“What do I do now?” he croaked out.
“You shouldn’t be in jail… You need help.”
“You’re saying I should agree with Mr. McMullin’s motion… take the insanity plea?”
The woman’s fingers twitched, as if itching to take the young man’s hand, but her professionalism kept her actions in check.
“I believe it would be the best course of action,” she replied.
He nodded, the motion lifeless, mechanical.
The guard by the door made eye contact with Joan and tapped his watch reminding her of the time.
“It looks like I have to go, perhaps I could come back,” she said, attempting to be reassuring.
“That’s okay, you don’t have to,” Quinn replied. This wasn’t her problem, he reminded himself. To be honest he felt another visit with her would only further depress him.
“Well I could at least contact Mr. McMullin if you want.”
Quinn bobbed his head in agreement. “Okay… tell him to do it.”
“You mean go through with the motion?”
“Yeah,” he replied as the woman stood and pushed in her seat.
She nodded her head in acknowledgement and turned to leave.
“Oh, and Dr. Lisbon?”
She paused. “Yes?”
“Thanks for being honest with me,” he said sincerely.
Joan couldn’t force out the ‘You’re welcome’, that was expected. Her lower lip trembled for a moment and she gave stiff bob of her head. Then without a word, she turned and left the room.
Quinn slumped further into his seat, all energy gone, but his heart continued to beat horrifically heavy in his chest.
~ Chapter 4 ~
A few patients in the Cedar Hills mental health facility shuffled aimlessly across the activity room in their hospital issue scrubs, dressing robes and slippers. Quinn stood beside Nurse Belamy, watching their slow progression and shuddered.
The aging woman gave him a pat on the shoulder that he supposed was to be reassuring. “Don’t worry honey, it’s not forever,” she said.
He nodded solemnly. No, technically it wasn’t forever, just until he was deemed to no longer be a threat to society or himself.
His public defender, Artie McMullin, had done a good job he guessed, as Quinn was found ‘Not Guilty’ on all charges of breaking and entering, destruction of public property and assaulting a police officer. Unfortunately, this was due to his insanity plea.
This was how he had ended up in the activity room or the Cedar Hills mental health facility just outside of town. The drained faces of the other patients filled him with mounting dread. Many reflected a deep-seated depression while others were painted with pained resignation.
Quinn stepped away from Nurse Belamy to wander over to the window, her earlier words ringing in his ears.
“This will be your room,” she said, as she swung open a door revealing a sparsely furnished room with two narrow cots and a pair of rickety dressers. “We’re a little over crowded at the moment so you’ll be sharing with Jeremy.”
“And why is he here?” Quinn asked.
She shot him a curious but wary look.
“I’m just wondering if I’m sharing a room with Hannibal Lecter or something,” he said.
She gave a dark chuckle. “Jeremy may have an eating disorder, but it’s certainly not a taste for human flesh.”
Quinn placed the small duffle bag, with the few meager possessions he had been allowed to bring, on the end of the sterile-looking unused cot.
“Now as you’re not yet an adult the doctors have decided to refrain from prescribing any anti-psychotic medication for the time being. They will review this decision when you turn eighteen or should any of your episodes turn violent again.”
Quinn’s stomach lurched at her words. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he might be put on a powerful medication or that he would be here until he was at least eighteen; a date that was several months away according to his made-up birthdate.
“All meals are served in the cafeteria down the hall; Breakfast is from seven-thirty to nine, lunch from noon till one and dinner from five till seven. You’ll be having group therapy sessions every other day starting tomorrow in the Wittman Lounge at eleven o’clock. The dress code is casual, though we would prefer you be out of your pajamas. We know that you don’t have a lot of clothes so we’ve provided scrubs for when you need them.”
“You’ll also have one-on-one therapy sessions with Doctor Salazar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at one-thirty. Other than that, you’ll be free to roam the halls or make use of the activity room, courtyard, lounge or library… as long as you behave yourself,” she added as an after-thought.
Quinn had only been capable of nodding numbly, unable to even defend his actions as he was lead from the room to have a tour of the rest of the facility.
Now having been shown all of the areas accessible to him, Quinn took the time to study the other patients.
They varied in age, race and gender. A frail looking Japanese woman with pure white skin and raven hair silently worked on a jigsaw puzzle, while her visitor, an older man, also Japanese, looked on encouragingly. An elderly Caucasian man in his eighties was parked in front of the television in a wheelchair. His head was thrown back and his mouth gaped open as he slept through the cold opening of Law and Order. Another man, probably not much older than Quinn, paced the room muttering to himself. Outside in the courtyard two women sat on one of the benches. The older of the two, a black woman probably in her late thirties, nursed a cigarette while the other, a weary looking blonde, kicked dispassionately at the soggy grass beneath her feet.
Quinn saw his future-self reflected in their faces and grew cold.
He trudged back along the corridors, back the way he and Nurse Belamy had come to the room he was to share with the still-absent Jeremy.
He lay on the covers of his bed, his head turned sideways on the pillow as he stared at the muted wall before him.
It was over. Everything that he had worked for: his good grades, his job at the Skills Centre that would have helped him go to University one day - all gone. It might not have been much, but it was a job that would have supported him. God knows when he would get out of this place, so any hopes or aspirations that he might have had were permanently on hold. Even if he got out of here in record time, there would be few doors still open for a man who had at one time been in a mental facility.
The teen felt the back of his throat begin to close up as he thought about the future he no longer had. He buried his face in the pillow and choked back a sob, willing sleep to take him. Perhaps then he would wake to find all of this was no more than a horrific nightmare.
The cold city wind whipped against Quinn’s cheeks as he was pulled through the streets by the older man. The man’s features were hard to discern as he continued to face forward, his hand clasped tightly around Quinn’s as he tugged the boy along.
And a boy he was, Quinn realized, as he had to look up to see the back of the man’s head. Small legs pumped hard to keep up, as his equally small body huffed and puffed to get air.
His other hand squeezed something soft and fluffy. Looking down he could only make out a small white and yellow figure – a stuffed animal perhaps?
“What’s going on? Where are we going?” asked his child self.
The man didn’t answer as he continued in his flight, though he occasionally glanced back anxiously as if they were being chased.
Quinn checked behind them, but saw nothing, just an empty street tapering off into darkness.
The man put on a burst of speed as the two approached a long bridge jutting out of the harbor and onto a island. A dog growled ahead of them and the man stopped short, halting Quinn.
Quinn saw the vague outline of a large dog and a figure standing behind it.
“Please,” the man pleaded, “You don’t need to do this - you can pretend you never saw us.”
The shrouded figure silently stared the man down, unwilling to move.
The man grasping Quinn’s hand faltered.
“That’s not all you’re here for, is it?”
This time the figure looked away, almost ashamed, as the dog’s growl dwindled into a whine.
The man bowed his head. “That’s okay. I’m ready, but please, pretend you didn’t see him.”
The sound of other pursuers approaching from behind caused the man to tighten the grip on Quinn’s hand. They would soon be there.
The figure with the dog lowered its head for a moment, but then waved a hand towards the water in a dismissive gesture.
“Thank you,” the man said, before crouching down to Quinn’s level.
Quinn could make out the stubbly chin of his protector, but not much else as the man seized the child in a fierce hug and brushed a kiss on his head.
