Jackie's Week

by M. M. Wilshire

"If you’re looking for a pet, I’ve got a perfect answer for you. She’s a large, handsome, white-and-gray cat with big golden eyes. She started hanging around my back door last week. My next door neighbor moved out and I think she simply abandoned her."

  "How cruel. I can’t imagine why anyone would abandon a helpless animal like that to die on the streets."

  "My neighbor was caught up in some kind of cult. She once confided to me that she talked to her cat."

  "Everybody talks to their cat," Jackie said.

  "No. She really talked to her cat. Every night, according to her, she and the cat did an out-of-body thing right after dinner. They’d channel themselves to this place in the universe that she referred to as a cat hive."

  Jackie smiled. "This is crazy. But all of a sudden I’m hearing this voice inside my head say take the cat. You know what? I’ll take her."

  "I’ll bring her tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll love her on sight."

  "I just hope I live long enough to enjoy her."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Viktor Bout sent a thug to my house last night. It’s obvious he’s going to kill me if he can."

  "What did the police say?"

  "The usual. And I thought I was safe. I was with a cop, and not only that, a bodyguard for the mob, as well as Bobby, were supposed to be protecting me."

  "How do you know they didn't?"

  Jackie thought about it. True, there had been a note, but that was all. No sign of the guy who left it. Maybe Nasturtium or Bobby had taken care of it.

  "I don't," Jackie confessed.

  "I know several ladies who can take you in until it’s safe, if you don’t feel safe with your sister."

  "That’s okay. I’ll stick with Donna. Her husband is practically a mobster. Nobody will try to get me at his home. I found out one thing, Dr. Black. There is no such place as safe."

  "Jackie, I want you to close your eyes for a moment. I want you to imagine somewhere in the future a new world, a world made especially for you, a world with none of the problems you now face. I want you to describe to me what you see."

  "Can I pet the cat while I imagine?"

  Black transferred Kali to Jackie’s lap. The feline was a laid-back, mellow beast, and settled right in, foregoing for the moment, a rampage. Jackie began slowly stroking the animal’s short rich fur. The room was quiet save for the rhythmic purring of Kali.

  "Where are you in your dream, Jackie?"

  "Me? If you must know, my dream has always been to be happily married ever after. Like a fairy tale. The princess in her castle on the hill. Not much of a dream, huh?"

  "It’s a beautiful dream. We must follow our dreams. God is a dreamer. Every religion speaks of how important our dreams are. Your dream to be happily married and live in the castle is the dream of your heart. It’s important for you to try and follow your dream. Even if your dream doesn’t come true. If we don’t follow our dreams, we slowly wither away until there is nothing left."

  Jackie opened her eyes. "Wow. I think your cat really put me in a serene mood. I’m going to name my new cat Moody."

  Black stood up. "I’ve got a surprise for you. Follow me." She picked up the baseball bat from its place in the corner and led Jackie out the door and down the hall. They entered another room. The walls, floor and ceiling were covered in heavily-padded canvas. The only light came from a single recessed spot in the corner. From the middle of the room, a life-size dummy hung from the ceiling by a chain.

  "A padded cell," Jackie said. "Has it come to this?"

  Black inhaled sharply and let go with a shriek.

  "Hey!"

  "Now you try it."

  "Me? Scream like you just did? I can’t."

  "You know, a good, sharp, powerful scream can do wonders."

  "I never screamed once when I was attacked," Jackie said. "I tried, but he grabbed me by the throat."

  "You waited too long. You deferred to him because he was a man. In a sense, you were actually waiting on him. In fact, you still are. You’re even following his orders about not picking him out of the lineup. You’re following his command to die. That's what your entire life has been the past six months. Being the perfect victim in your apartment, awaiting further orders from your abuser. It's a variant of Stockholm syndrome."

  "Oh. You’re right. That is sickening."

  "Women are raised to comply with men’s orders. If you’re going to survive, you’ve got to stop waiting on men and learn to think for yourself. Next time, you’ll strike first, and she who strikes first, wins. It’s why I have this room set up like this. I want you to scream. Once your scream is well underway, go ahead and whack the dummy. Keep it up until you go into a frenzy. You are to scream and yell as loud as you can and beat the dummy to a pulp. Pretend you’re back in the parking lot at Gelson’s and fighting for your life."

  The bat was small and made of aluminum. The non-slip rubber grip was reassuring in her Bout.

  "I’ll see you back in my office when you’re done," Black said.

  Jackie couldn’t scream. Not here. The thought made her angry. It was okay for Bout to cave her skull in, but it wasn’t okay for her to scream. She tried a tiny little scream. It came out awkwardly, like the squeak of a frightened mouse. But in its own way, it felt kind of good. She gave the dummy an experimental tap on the leg. The leg took the shot with a satisfying crunch, as though the object was filled with marbles. She filled her lungs, gripped the bat tightly and let it rip. Midway through the piercing screech, a bolt of energy shot through her body, and she wound up and let fly at the dummy’s head.

  The satisfying crunch of the dummy mixing with the animal sounds from her throat overwhelmed her and tears began to flow—not the tears of a victim—but of righteous wrath. Her crying became an uncontrollable torrent as she issued one terrifying scream after another, followed by blow upon blow to the dummy’s face, chest, arms and legs. She leaped and spun in the air as the dummy began to swing wildly on the chain.

  The grief poured from her heart as the sweat streamed down her body. The screaming no longer terrified her—it transformed her from the prey into the predator. There was no safe place for the dummy, no place it could run, no place it could hide, as she rained upon it one strike after another. Her right arm gave out and she transferred the bat to her left and continued the bludgeoning, as her spirit fused into her arm and became one with the bat, one with the dummy, and one with the screams. At one point she collapsed but felt a force flowing through her from somewhere in the center of the earth, a force which raged through her limbs like lightning, and she was at it again, with an intensity and a power she’d never felt before.

  It was a power she recognized, a power very old, a power reaching to her from a part of creation history before the fall, a power rotating in the center of her body and imparting to her tired limbs a force she knew instinctively could not be defeated by man or animal.

  The dummy broke free of the chain and collapsed in a heap, a mass of plastic pellets pouring free from its torn canvas scalp. Jackie sank to her knees. She could not release the bat, which felt welded to her hand. From somewhere in the room a wind seemed to be blowing, a Divine presence which flowed freely through the rooms of her mind.

  A vision of her own face floated up before her, a vision of a face strong, determined, and peaceful. Gone was the grief she’d borne in her face and body. In front of her blossomed a new face and a new life. She had broken through into a greater presence. She had become a new creature. A warrior. A soldier, ready to fight.

  "Viktor Bout," she whispered. "You have a date with me—at a lineup."

  Chapter 25

  "The Chinese call it fa jin," Dr. Black said. "It’s a special energy or force, one which is lively and spirited."

  They’d returned to Black’s office, and were safely ensconced in soft leather, Jackie gulping heavily from a big bottle of Poland Spring.

  "If I’d had this kind of strength when Bout attacked me, things might have gone diff
erently."

  "The point of the exercise was for you to discover the connection between your fear and your strength. When you can do that, you’ll be stronger than Bout."

  "I thought I was trying to get rid of my fears."

  "Oh no. Because you’ll always have the fear. You’ll have it for the rest of your life. This is why the fear must become your ally. Fear can paralyze, or it can be the source of superhuman strength. You must make up your mind that you won’t let it paralyze you ever again. That if you’re ever threatened again, you’ll push past the paralysis and launch yourself into combat as a proud warrior, one who would rather die fighting than die whimpering. The dummy is just an exercise to bring out the beast. But it doesn’t cure anything. It gives you a new tool, but you haven’t built anything with the tool yet. But you will."

  "So the damage is permanent."

  "Yes. You have to respect that damage. But you can still have a life if you are willing to fight for it."

  "I’ve discovered that a woman is worth fighting for," Jackie replied. "Especially if that woman is me."

  "One problem we will be working on is your guilt. That is an area where we can reclaim a lot of lost territory."

  "My guilt?"

  "Guilt is the biggest problem a victim has. It is corrosive. It is not only a physical force but a spiritual one. You’d be surprised at the role guilt has played in your self-destruction. Guilt presents you with a lopsided view of yourself. We have to counterbalance the weight of your guilt by uncovering your other personae." Black stood up and took her by the hand. "There’s plenty of time for that. First things first. We’ve got a little more work to do this morning. Follow me."

  She led Jackie back down the hall and into another room. The heavily draped chamber was dark and dimly lit, the flickering light furnished by a row of votive candles on a table. Incense burning beside the candles filled the air with a sweet but acrid scent. On the floor in the middle of the room sat a good-sized coffin. Black walked over and opened the lid to reveal a lining of shining, white, padded silk.

  "The manufacturer calls this model the Rose Taupe Victor," Black said. "An odd name for a coffin, don’t you think? I call her Victor for short. I picked her up from a casket company on the Internet. It’s amazing what you can buy on-line these days. Now, when I leave the room I want you to lie down in the coffin for awhile. When you come out, we’ll talk about it."

  "Dr. Black. I’m sorry, but there is no way in the world you’re going to get me to lie down in a coffin."

  "I understand your reluctance. The coffin is a symbol of our death. And our upbringing teaches us death is an unpleasant subject. But until we face our own death, we aren’t truly alive. Anyway, the coffin is merely symbolic. It can’t hurt you."

  "Dr. Black, I feel as alive as I need to be. I already faced my own death. Death came for me in the corner of a supermarket parking lot."

  "You didn’t face your own death. If you had, you wouldn’t be here today."

  "I faced death."

  "No, Jackie. What you faced was Viktor Bout’s idea of your death. You allowed yourself to be drawn into his sick vision. There’s a huge difference between the two. One is reality, the other isn’t. It’s up to you to discover which one is real."

  "Awww." Jackie stared at the stuffed-silk-lined box. The silk would be cold. The box would be suffocating, dangerous to her spirit, her mind. The box was like a black hole in space, sucking all the light into itself, light which would never shine again. The light of life which she possessed was transient, that much she knew, but she had no desire to rehearse what would one day visit her again, and which was even now, in the form of Bout, threatening an early termination to her existence.

  Many people were talking about the end of the world as conditions continued to decline, but Jackie, with her more intimate knowledge of death, understood that the true end of the world was when one found oneself lying on her back in a parking lot with a gun barrel tearing into her most sacred place.

  "Dr. Black, do I have to?"

  "No. But I think you should. All the women I work with have been in the coffin."

  "When my sister Donna was seeing you—was this part of the routine? Did my sister get in the coffin?"

  Black nodded. Jackie started out the door.

  "Jackie!"

  She looked back and was startled by the sight. Black had prostrated herself face down on the carpet, arms stretched towards her.

  "Jackie," Black said."

  Heaven help me, Jackie thought. What manner of lunacy is this?

  Still, she had to admit, never in her entire life had anyone—not counting Johnson’s clumsy genuflection in the park—thrown themselves to the ground for her the way Black was doing now. She understood without thinking that the one doing the groveling was stronger than the one standing and running away. The force of Black’s beseechment sucked Jackie back into the room and forced upon her a mantle of responsibility like that of a froward penitent returning to her Mother Superior.

  "Okay," Jackie said. "You can get up now. But you should know I don’t appreciate your helping me get over my fears only to start up new ones with this coffin routine. I suppose this is going to show me another facet. Well I think it is stupid."

  Black’s face, tear stained, slowly lit up in a way the sun would have envied. Jackie had never before been in the presence of such unearthly beauty. It was as though an inner light was shining throughout Black’s frame. Her face was almost too bright to gaze upon directly.

  "Help me," Jackie said, sinking to her knees. Black stood above her, and placed a hand on her head. A current began to flow into Jackie’s mind and soul. Inside the current, she could hear a voice speaking.

  "None of us wants to die. We can’t imagine ourselves without our bodies. But until you make death your friend, you’ll always walk in fear."

  Jackie realized the truth. She had always been afraid to die. The feeling had been there, just under her skin, her entire life. Bout had not introduced anything new into her system. He had merely tapped into what was already there. He had been the dark priest and she his unwitting acolyte. But she realized, as she remained kneeling beside her mentor, that things might be about to change.

  "Do I have to shut the lid?"

  "Well it’s not like it’s locked or anything. I’ve punched a few holes in the top. You won’t suffocate." Black left the room, shutting the door quietly behind the still figure on the floor. The minutes ticked by, Jackie’s soft breathing the only sound in the room save the occasional hiss of burning wax from the candles. Her eyes snapped open. She stood up.

  "Hail Mary, full of grace." She made the sign of the cross and sat down in the coffin. The tears began to flow as she stretched herself full length onto the shining silk cushions.

  She slid into a supine position, reached up, grabbed the underside of the lid and pulled. It shut with a click and she sucked in a breath as everything went dark. Where was the light? It was supposed to be shining through the air holes Black had punched into the top. She’d have to open it a crack to stem the tide of claustrophobia, to keep it from flooding her system and overwhelming her sensory apparatus to the point where she’d leap forth screaming in panic.

  Pushing upward, the lid didn’t budge. Her arms were exhausted from clubbing the dummy, and legs were of no use, they being effectively hemmed in by the narrow confines, to the point where she couldn’t draw them underneath her in any sort of effort to shove the jammed lid open.

  For a moment, everything within her stopped and there was a signal silence. But not the sort of silence generated by interior peace, rather, the final few seconds of shock as the organism realized it was in a trap. The silence shattered and she began to scream.

  Chapter 26

  "Dr. Black, has anyone ever sued you for pulling these kinds of stunts?"

  "Not yet," Black said. "But some never return."

  "I’ve never felt such fear in my life," Jackie said. "Not even when I was attacked. Not even i
n the months after the attack have I felt what I felt in that coffin. Dr. Black, all I can say is your methods are cruel. There was no value in putting me through such an ordeal. That was downright kidnapping. Holding me against my will."

  "On the contrary," Black said. "There was great value."

  "Not hardly. What, did you think you’d scare the fear out of me? That the shock would somehow cure my mind of its prior fears?"

  "Like putting a bag over one’s head cures hiccups? No. But it seems to me you needed to confront your fear of suffocation, since Bout pepper sprayed your throat. You needed to learn that you can still fight even if you are suffocating. That you still have several minutes of vigorous fight left in you."

  "If that’s true, then why am I more afraid than ever before? I feel completely defeated. Doomed to have the past dominate my mind and heart for all eternity."

  "You’re not more afraid. You’re just starting to allow yourself to really feel things again. And don’t be fooled by your prior obsession over the past," Black said. "The past is not where the fear comes from. All human fear is about the future, even if it’s a future death that’s only seconds away. Since the future never comes, all human fear is useless. A simple concept, but hard to understand with the finite mind. Now let’s go get in the car. We have to go visit the scene of the attack.

  They returned to the scene of the crime, sitting in Black’s air conditioned Suburban near the back wall of Gelson’s parking lot.

  "Dr. Black, I’m afraid. Still. Of this stupid parking lot. It’s no different than yesterday."

  "You’re not afraid because of what happened here six months ago—you’re afraid of the transformation you must make to be able to face the world again. The truth is, you've gotten comfortable playing the victim. You must change, and begin operating in a whole new world."

  She put the Suburban into gear and exited the parking lot, heading west into the pleasant hills. They drove for awhile in silence until they crested on Mulholland, finally stopping at a turnout to admire the view of the sprawling Valley below.