Azaleas Don't Bloom Here

by Frank Klus

  “So you’re telling me the trail went cold.”

  “We’ll find them, and you better pay what you promised when we do.”

  Dennis marched into Casimir’s office with the bad news.

  “They’re smart. Tell Colderon to use every man he can get, and set up lookouts at all the motels west of their last known location. Forget about looking at the vehicles, look for our targets.”

  The next night there was even less peace in the Casimir household. Jaydan awoke to his wife’s kicking again. Sandy was talking in her sleep. She was muttering, “no, no, no, no….” Then she started calling Fernando’s name when she woke up. This time she remembered the name she kept calling out.

  “It’s just another bad dream,” he said, as he comforted his wife.

  “Who is Fernando?”

  “It must be someone who hurt you; maybe some old boyfriend who hit you. Don’t worry about it.”

  “But I am worried, honey. I started having these flashbacks, or something like it, about a week ago. I know I should have mentioned it to you, but I didn’t think much of it.”

  “What sort of flashbacks?”

  “I don’t know. They were just some bits and pieces; dreamlike.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll get you some sedatives that will help you sleep better.”

  Sandy took the sedatives that her husband gave her, but the dreams of another life would still come.

  “Sandy, I’m so sorry.”

  Sandy opened up the gift. It was a bracelet. “Oh, honey, it’s beautiful. What are you so sorry about?”

  “It’s our first anniversary and I wanted it to be special.”

  Sandy looked at the bracelet again and realized the base was a cheap material, probably tin, made to look like silver, and the stones were costume jewelry.

  Sandy was startled awake and realized it was the alarm clock waking up her husband.

  “How’d you sleep tonight? Any bad dreams?”

  “No, no bad dreams. I slept well.”

  She got up and put a house coat on, and then went downstairs to make breakfast.

  Sandy managed to hide the dreams from her husband; not to mention the flashbacks that were starting to become more frequent. After Jaydan left for the office, Sandy would sit in the living room with no television or radio. She would close the terra cotta drapes. It was quiet. She’d make a cup of tea for herself, sit in a chair, empty her mind, and wait for the next flashback. It usually didn’t take long.

  Jail? I was in jail? I will be in jail? Oh, this is so confusing. What does it mean?

  Sandy wished she could talk it over with a dear friend, but she didn’t have any. It seemed strange that she had no close friends, and yet the dreams and flashbacks seemed to indicate she had many of them.

  Every day was the same. Jaydan would wake up and Sandy would fix breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. He would go to work while Sandy would clean a little, watch television, read a magazine, and wait until he came home. They made love occasionally; ten minutes, and then he’d roll over and go to sleep. It was like this five days a week. Weekends were worse. He’d go out, rarely taking Sandy, and yet Sandy never felt like protesting.

  Did she love him? She felt like she did, but she didn’t know why. He was much older than her. She never felt used or mistreated, but there was no excitement either. Bev was the closest thing she had to a friend, but she was the wife of Captain Miller, and anything she told Bev would make its way to her husband’s ear.

  The more she thought about it, the more she wondered how she even met her. She would come over from time to time just for a chat. She was never invited over to her house or ever invited out for shopping, or to meet any of her friends. It seemed both strange and comfortable.

  How odd. She wondered how being alone with no real friends of her own could be comfortable. My dreams and occasional flashbacks are the only exciting things in my life, she mused.

  She took another sip of her tea. The weirdest dream was being in jail. I’ve had that dream twice. The second one is the one I don’t understand. I remember being released, but it was unpleasant. There was pain. Pain from what? But I was in pain. Tortured, maybe? Oh, I wish I could make sense of something.

  She took another sip of tea and tried to empty her mind, but thoughts about her dreams kept spilling out. She began reflecting on the dream she had the other night, when Fernando took her dancing. She was with friends, laughing, and having such a good time. Am I destined to meet this person? Did I know him in another life? I wonder….

  “OH!” She covered her face with her hands. It was a vision. A signature. Fernando Menendez. Menendez! I have a last name. Oh my God. I have a last name. Computer? Just the laptop. Jay has it. Should I wait for him to come home? No. No internet connection. Oh darn.

  Still, Sandy was happy. Is he real? I can still see his face. Maybe he’s in the social media.

  Sandy called a cab and went down to the Old Chicago Public Library. It was their busy time and she had to wait almost an hour to get on the internet. At last, it was her turn. She went to the search engine and typed in ‘Fernando Menendez.’ She got a couple thousand references. She went to the social media and got about a dozen references. Security was being tightened and she could only request being a friend before she could see his picture and bio. Then she’d have to wait for this Fernando to respond. She decided to go back to the search engine.

  It was quarter past two and she’d been on the computer for about forty minutes. It would shut off in twenty minutes and she’d have to schedule another sitting, and possibly wait another hour. Oh, dear. Everything is a dead end. Wait! What’s this? She started reading an article in the Old Chicago News about a Fernando Menendez who died under mysterious circumstances. Picture, oh picture, she mumbled. Please be a picture. Then she saw a picture of the dead man. Oh, how horrible. I need a picture of him alive. Oh, come on now. Then, Yes! Oh, yes. Oh my God, I think that’s him. Oh, I just can’t be sure.

  She printed out the article with the picture. The picture was bad enough on the screen. It was worse printed out. She remembered that she hadn’t checked the date. She perused the article again and found it. Only a few weeks ago.

  Ten minutes left. She went back to the search engine and typed ‘Sandra Menendez’. There were about a hundred references. She thought she was getting warmer, and then the internet cut off. She was out of time.

  About forty minutes later she was back on another machine. She typed ‘Sandra Menendez’ in again, and after about a half hour she was nowhere. Nothing about her was in there; just a bunch of junk files like ‘find Sandra Menendez’, ‘read about Sandra Menendez’, ‘we found Sandra Menendez’. All were dead ends. Then she remembered the two dreams when she was in jail and went back to the search engine.

  She typed, ‘Sandra Menendez in jail’. She struck pay dirt. There was an article about Sandra Menendez being released from jail by Commandant Jaydan Casimir.

  Oh my God! Jay! Her heart was beginning to race now. She printed out the article. Now she was feeling fearful. Did I live some other life? She felt confused, nervous, and not sure if she wanted to know any more. She decided she didn’t, and ran out of there.

  The dreams were coming every night now, and they were getting more insightful. The flashbacks came and went, and were largely like a snapshot of some event in her memory. She began going out after Jaydan left, exploring her dreams. She went to the fortress and the Old Chicago police and asked if they had a police record on her. They didn’t. She dreamed she was in Joliet Prison so she called their personnel office to see if she was there. They wouldn’t release that information. She answered an ad on the internet telling her that they could find any police record on her, but they couldn’t. What to do? muttering to herself.

  She thought about asking Jaydan about it. If somehow I was in jail, and Jay got me out, and there was a Fernando that I knew, would Jay acknowledge it? Would he insist that I take the sedatives agai
n? She decided to wait to see if the dreams and flashbacks would unveil new information. She didn’t have long to wait.

  Hell House? It was a flashback. She began to remember a dream she had a while back. She didn’t understand it and just forgot about it. She dreamed she was in a medical clinic of some kind and hooked up to machines. There was a lot of pain involved, but she dismissed the dream. After all, she reasoned, she never liked medical clinics or hospitals. Was this a real fear? She couldn’t remember ever being in such a place before. Was this an irrational fear? I had never had irrational thoughts about anything before. She decided on the library again.

  She typed in ‘Hell House’. She was disappointed. There were mostly references to books and movies with Hell House in it. There were religious references; even a motel, an amusement park, and a gift store—nothing that helped her.

  There wasn’t much time left. She was about to give up when she saw a strange reference to Jaydan Casimir. There wasn’t much else, but once again, her husband became front and center with her dreams. Why? What is going on?

  Another week passed and another week of dreams, then a few flashbacks. It was sweet dream week when most of her dreams were about Fernando. A strange familiarity began to develop in Sandy’s mind. The dreams began to seem more real than they did before, while, at the same time, her life with Jaydan Casimir seemed less real.

  The phone rang. It was Bev. “Oh, hi, hon. I’m glad I got you.”

  “What’s up, Bev?”

  “Nothing too much. Just a message to relay to Jay.”

  “Oh! Let me get some paper…. Okay. What’s the message?”

  “The Alt House will close in two weeks.”

  She repeated the message. “Is that anything like Hell House?” She didn’t mean to mention it. It just blurted out.

  “Oh, you know about Hell House?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, of course, you’re Jay’s wife. Why wouldn’t you know? As a matter of fact, they’re pretty much the same thing, but Hell House in Old Chicago got destroyed. That’s where they were treating Eugene Sulke until his friends engineered his escape.”

  “Jay tells me a lot of these things, but I haven’t paid much attention. Is that what they sometimes call the House of Pain?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of that name before, but there’s certainly a lot of pain going on in there.”

  “Thank you, Bev, I’ll relay that message.”

  I didn’t mean to ask her about Hell House. Should I be even more reckless? I’ve gone this far, and so how about a little closer to the edge?

  “Lightning Squad Headquarters, how may I direct your call?” came the voice at the other end of the line.

  “I’d like to speak to Dennis O’Reilly please. This is Mrs. Jaydan Casimir.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Casimir. I’ll put you through.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Casimir. What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Mr. O’Reilly. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to forward a message to you that I received from Mrs. Beverly Miller. She said that Alt House would be closing in two weeks.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did call me. Your husband is out of the office and this is information that we need right away. I’ll make sure he gets the message.”

  “Thank you, Mr. O’Reilly. While I’ve got you on the phone, I’m wondering if I could ask you something?”

  “Sure, anything. What is it?”

  “I’ve been trying to remember if I was ever in Hell House before?”

  Dennis was silent a moment. “Uh, not that I know of Mrs. Casimir. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, Jay talks about it sometimes and it seems I’ve been there, but I guess I was mistaken.”

  “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Jay tells me a lot of things, but I have such a silly head; it goes in one way and goes right back out. Is it true they can change a person?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if I should be talking about this, but since that crazy guy selling behavioral changes on the children, I guess it doesn’t matter. Yeah, they can change people’s behavior. If you’re interested, I can give you the address of that guy’s website. It’s toughlovecamp.com.”

  “Thank you, Dennis. Would you do me a big favor?”

  “Sure, Mrs. Casimir.”

  “Please don’t mention our conversation with my husband. He’ll think, ‘Oh sure, she can talk to you about this stuff, but she can’t talk about it with her own husband?’”

  Dennis smiled. “Oh, sure, Mrs. Casimir. I understand perfectly. Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “Can they change memories?”

  “They can pretty much do whatever they want.”

  “Thank you, Dennis, and don’t forget to keep this just between us.”

  Sandy was deep in thought, and then she began frowning. Oh my God.

  Doc Grifton was at the Mercy Psychiatric Institute. His mind was deteriorating. The hospital chief was a man named Schmidt. When Commandant Jaydan Casimir told him he needed to talk to Grifton, Schmidt thought it might help.

  “Thank you for letting me see him, doctor,” Casimir said.

  “I hope you can be of some help,” Schmidt said through his rather thick German accent. “His mind has been deteriorating since the accident.”

  “Accident? Hell I’d call it attempted murder.”

  “At any rate, Commandant, since the attempted murder he continued to relive the pain-induced incident. He doesn’t sleep without a sedative, and when he does sleep he wakes up in a cold sweat, or screaming.”

  “Is that when he was brought here?”

  “He checked himself in voluntarily. We brought him to Mercy Hospital for an fMRI. It showed neurological damage which appears to be spreading.”

  “From that brain probe?”

  “Exactly!”

  “How is that possible? It’s not supposed to have any effect on the brain. Wasn’t it Doc Grifton who invented it?”

  “I worked on it as well. It does no physical damage to the brain, but it most certainly affects the neurons. The reason why patients come out of there much better than before is because of the expertise of trained doctors and the technicians who set up the machine.

  “Let me explain. When a patient is first brought in for treatment, the first step is to map the brain. This is necessary in the adjustment of the probe settings. The brain probe has two functions. Most people believe it’s just used as punishment, but that’s wrong. It is not meant to be used to induce pain as punishment. It is used first, to break up certain neuron connections that aid the patient in losing whatever malady we’re trying to cure him of. Secondly, it prepares the patient for the cure that follows.”

  “Why does the probe cause so much pain?”

  “It’s because of the electromagnetism of the brain probe. Moving the neurons around induces a certain amount of pain. Some people described it as a boring in or out of the brain, while others describe it as rats trying to claw their way out. It’s an unfortunate side effect, but we can remove their memory of it.”

  “Okay, but what do you mean by ‘moving neurons around’?”

  “Of course, what I’m saying is a bit simplistic, but essentially I’m talking about creating new neuron connections, and breaking off old ones. The purpose of it is to change the person. You can change their personality, character, and memories. You can erase memories and certain behaviors simply by breaking the neuron connections. Furthermore, you can create new behaviors, personality traits, or character traits simply by creating new neuron pathways.

  “Grifton’s genius was his ability to map the brain by getting the patient to exhibit their traits to see where in the brain these neuron pathways were, and then breaking them. Through dozens of treatments he was able to know where to make the new connections. He could then erase the memories of the entire treatment. The patient thinks he’s the same person as always; whatever we want him or her to be.”

&n
bsp; “You can see where the neuron connections are that need to be broken or reconnected?”

  “Well, sort of. With Dr. Grifton’s machine he can get rather precise locations of the affected neuron connections. Then it’s a matter of trial and error. That’s why there are so many treatments.”

  “And there’s no way the old memories come back?”

  “How can there be? Those connections are gone.”

  “There’s still one thing I don’t understand. If the brain probe merely changes one’s memories and the other stuff, why is Grifton’s brain deteriorating?”

  “Because Menendez didn’t know how to use the machine, and was only interested in inflicting pain. He used the highest settings, and just moved the probe around so as to inflict as much pain as possible. It caused physical damage—not just neuron changes, but he may have destroyed his brain.”

  “Can he be cured?”

  “If we can stop the spreading deterioration the brain could heal itself. It wouldn’t be unheard of, but the prognosis is not good.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. I think I’ll see Grifton now.”

  They walked down the hall to Grifton’s room.

  “Fred.” Grifton looked up. “Do you remember Commandant Casimir of the Lightning Squad?”

  Grifton looked over to the Commandant. He had a curious look on his face but said nothing. Schmidt excused himself and left Casimir with him.

  “Dr. Grifton, do you remember when I talked to you about Sandra Menendez?”

  There was still no reaction from him.

  “You treated her, convinced her to divorce her husband, Fernando Menendez, and to fall in love with me. Do you remember?”

  Grifton struggled with his words. He finally blurted out a quick, “yes.”

  “She’s been having nightmares and I think she’s starting to remember. She keeps shouting ‘Fernando.’ I was giving her sedatives, but she was still having dreams of her former life. She woke me up the other night kicking and murmuring. Then she called the warden at Joliet. What should I do?”