by A. F. Brady
Rachel nods. “I was the one who did his intake, actually, and I found the same thing. There was very little information available to us, but he was strangely insistent on coming here. He didn’t tell me much of anything at all, but he was polite, if standoffish. It’s a complete question mark. I got in touch with the teams at Revelations and Horizon House, the halfway houses, but they didn’t have anything on him. The staff turnover at those places is ridiculous, and they don’t seem to keep proper records.” She’s reaching around her desk and pulling at scraps of paper poking out of various in-boxes and out-boxes. She’s looking for something.
“Have you had patients like this before? I’m not entirely sure how best to proceed. He’s a giant question mark, like you said, so I don’t know how to properly place him in groups, and I’m not sure how to draw out the information we need to help him.” Rachel loves it when I ask her for advice.
“I’m looking for his original intake stuff. I gave him a blank sheet to write on when he refused to fill out the intake materials. I asked him about his goals for treatment and that kind of thing. I know he scribbled something down, but I can’t remember what it said.” She pushes her chair around the office, opening file drawers and checking inside a massive disorganized cabinet.
“For now, I’m just going to keep up our weekly sessions,” I reassure her, “keep him in some of the high-functioning, intellectual groups, and see if we can get him comfortable with me, and maybe then he’ll come out of his shell.” Rachel doesn’t seem to be listening to me anymore as she’s seeking this document.
“Here! Here it is,” she says, pulling a page with rolled corners from the back of a notebook. “See if this can be useful to you.”
I take the page from her hands and look over Richard’s handwriting. He was using a dull pencil and the lines of his cursive are blurry and uneven. He made a heading that says “Goals at Typhlos” and he filled in the section with bullet points: “To get better. To forgive. To reenter life.” He specifically writes Typhlos in various places on the sheet. He obviously wanted to come here in particular. There are several other sections, but the pencil lines have been smeared and I can’t read much. Under another heading called “Therapy,” he wrote something that looks like open up and something else that looks like Samantha.
NOVEMBER 14TH, 12:34 P.M.
It’s snowing outside. I’m up on the corner of my desk, staring out the window. The guys on the scaffold are still working, despite the change in weather. It’s been brutally cold, but for some reason, when the snow starts, it feels warmer. Like the snow is creating a blanket that covers the world and keeps it safe. The flakes are fat and wet and sticking to the cars parked on the street below. In the city, the snow only stays beautiful for a couple of hours. Once the plows come through, the perfect white shroud becomes a thick, gray sludge, sometimes piled to waist height. The only thing I miss about my house growing up is the way the snow stayed untouched.
My door is slightly ajar, and I hear the chatter of patients in the hallway. My office is across from the computer room, a popular spot for patients to try to break into porn sites or gather to chat with each other. There are two dilapidated couches and someone is always asleep in there.
I hear an unfamiliar voice outside my door, probably someone leaning against the wall outside the computer room. It’s a man’s voice, Brooklyn accent, and the hiss of missing teeth. His voice is loud and abrasive, but he hushes it down to a whisper scream to add a conspiratorial air to his story. I move to the crack in the door and listen to him without showing myself.
“It’s women—women get you into these places, man. No matter what you do, you can’t please ’em.”
“A woman got you in this place?” Another male voice I can’t quite recognize.
“Yeah, she did. My ex.”
“What did she do?” Whoever is telling this story is certainly commanding the attention of his listener.
“Well, she broke up with me, first of all. Then she went and started fuckin’ my best friend. Mmm-hmm. And you know that ain’t right. So, I had no choice; I had to get her back. Ain’t nobody gonna disrespect me like that.”
“How’d you do it? How’d you get her back?”
He hushes his voice back down to the whisper scream: “I killed the bitch.”
“You killed her?” The listener gasps.
“Man, shhhhhh! Shut the fuck up, yo. I ain’t gonna tell you nothing you keep hollerin’ like that.”
“How’d you do it?” the listener whispers back. I’m still eavesdropping from my office. I’m not concerned yet—these kinds of grandiose stories are not uncommon here. Some patients treat the unit as if it were prison, and the scarier they make themselves appear, the safer they feel, so bullshit stories about murders are rampant.
“Ha. I’ll tell you how I did it. She had a house in the Bronx, right? And she would let her dog out the back to run around and piss and whatever. So one night, I went to her house, and I waited for her to let that dog out. Once I seen the dog, I jumped the fence and I grabbed him.”
I hear chairs from the computer room scooting across the floor, followed by a few short footsteps. The story is getting more listeners.
“He was some old shaggy piece of shit dog. I had a can of lighter fluid with me, and I dumped it all over that dog. He was so stupid, he started to lick it off. He liked it, too. Just kept lickin’ at that lighter fluid. But he stopped when I lit him up.”
“No shit? You lit the fuckin’ dog on fire?”
“Damn right, I did! And he starts barkin’ and yellin’ and shit, so I pick him up, and I throw his ass through the back window of the bitch’s house. It smashes the window, and the curtains got lit up, too. I could hear the dog, and it was screamin’ and then I heard Alisha, and she start screamin’, too. And she trying to put the dog out, and he dyin’ and the fire just getting bigger and bigger.” His voice is getting loud now, and I can feel my fists clenching.
“So, she says ‘fuck the dog, I gotta get out,’ and she runs out the back door, and where am I? Right there waitin’ for her. And it’s dark out, and she don’t even see me, so she runs right into me. I grab her and turn her around so she has to watch the house burn. I put my hand over her mouth so she can’t scream. You see that?” I can almost hear the craning necks looking to see what the storyteller is showing them. “Bitch started biting my hand. But she stopped biting when I popped her in the mouth.
“The house was going up fast, I mean fast, and it started to get hot and the smoke made it hard to see, so I pulled her back into the alleyway behind the house. She was kickin’ and pullin’ and she knew she couldn’t save nothin’, and so she stopped strugglin’ and just watched it burn. The fire was mad loud, and then when the trucks came, you couldn’t hear nothin’, not even screamin’. So I took my hand off her mouth, and I told her: this is what she gets for fuckin’ with me.”
“And no one saw you? You didn’t get caught?”
“Nah, man. Nobody even knew we was there. And she starts beggin’ and sobbin’ and slobberin’ all over, and that’s when I finished it. I just put my hand around her neck, and I squeezed. Didn’t even take that long.”
I feel my face contort into an angry grimace as I hear this macho bullshit. I find myself overwhelmed with disappointment at the pathetically appreciative response from the listeners. This sociopathic story, this admiration from peers—I’ll never understand this shit. The more I keep hearing it over the years, the more I feel like it’s seeping into me, disturbing my sanity. I keep listening and I hear some of the guys relaying bits of the story to latecomers. I even hear what sound like high fives. And then I hear raspy, almost panicked breaths. I hear a familiar voice now, shaking, furious. Tyler.
“You set a woman’s dog on fire? You threw her dog into her house and her house caught fire?” Tyler has obviously been listening, and he is appalled.
“Yeah, bro, and what?”
“And what? You murdered her? For cheating on you?” Hi
s voice is getting higher.
“You got problems, bro?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I got fuckin’ problems.”
“Hi, guys!” I shout as I open my door and pretend I haven’t been listening. “What’s happening? How’s everyone?” It’s clear there’s tension in the hallway, and various patients have fled to the safety of the couches in the computer room. Everyone’s eyes are glued to Tyler and the storyteller.
“Hi, I’m Dr. James. I don’t think we’ve met.” I extend my hand to the storyteller, who has his eyes trained on Tyler. He ignores me. “What’s your name?”
“Floyd.” He still won’t take his eyes off Tyler. Floyd is about a foot shorter than Tyler is, but has probably sixty pounds on him. Tyler is vibrating with anger.
“Miss Sam, I don’t think you should be here right now.”
“Really, Tyler?” Chipper, unaware. “How come?”
“This man got no respect for women.” Tyler is shifting his weight from one foot to the other, clenching and unclenching his fists. Floyd doesn’t move. He stares, unblinking, at Tyler, waiting for him to act.
“Pitchers and catchers report in a couple months, you know.” Talking Yankee baseball with Tyler is my ace in the hole to defuse this without security or backup. “Floyd, are you a baseball fan?” I ask as I move to the space between them, and the air is thick with perspiration and rage. “Tyler and I are huge Yankee fans.” I’m a little taller than Floyd, so when I’m up close to his face, he has to shift his gaze to make eye contact with me. I’m obscuring his view of Tyler, so he’s forced to address me.
“Yeah. I could watch some baseball, miss.”
“America’s pastime. It’s a beautiful thing. Now—” I clap my hands together “—where are you gentlemen supposed to be? I’m sure there’s something productive we could all be doing instead of loitering here in the hallway, huh?”
No one responds to me, but several patients observing from the computer room peel themselves off the couches and move on. Tyler is backing up slightly, but I can still feel his breath at the back of my neck.
“No? Okay. But I’ve got things to do. Tyler? Want to walk me to my next group?” I know Tyler is a gentleman and he wouldn’t let a lady walk by herself if she asked for an escort.
“Alright, Miss Sam.” I hear his teeth grind as he steps in front of me and starts slowly moving down the hallway. I pull my glasses down my nose and glower at Floyd.
Tyler and I walk down the hall, and I again ask him about baseball. Completely distracted, trying to shake the story from a moment ago, he falters and mumbles. When we reach an empty group room, I step inside and ask him to follow me.
“Tyler, when you hear something like that and you react, it just feeds the beast. He was telling that story to get a reaction out of people. Let’s not give him the satisfaction, okay? When you’re disturbed by somebody, you walk away. You don’t engage. Come find me or another staff member if you feel you’re not able to take it, okay?”
“He killed that dog. I just got so mad when he said he killed that innocent dog and that innocent lady.”
“Yeah, me too, Tyler. Me too. But we can’t let it get to us, okay? We have to rise above it.”
“You think it’s bullshit? He’s making it up to scare the other patients?”
“Maybe. Maybe he’s making it up. But even if he didn’t kill an innocent dog or an innocent lady, you and I both know that there are innocent ladies and dogs getting killed every day. But we can’t go to pieces and get in fights because of it. You’re here to take care of you, not to worry about anybody else. Right?”
“Yeah. I know you’re right, Miss Sam. I’m here to worry about me. And the Yankees, because, last season, our pitching wasn’t looking so good.”
“You’re damn right about that.”
NOVEMBER 14TH, 9:21 P.M.
I’m sitting on my couch waiting for Lucas to show up with takeout. He said he was going to be here an hour ago, but he’s not here yet. I’m trying to read a book, and I have to close one eye to see the words. I’m distracted and hungry, and I keep checking my phone to see if Lucas is going to text me. Nothing. I texted him thirty minutes ago, asking when he’s planning on arriving, but I didn’t get a response. I reread the same page over and over again.
My glass is empty now, and so is the bottle next to it. When I’m anxious, I drink faster than I should. Even though it’s cold outside, colder than the last few Novembers, I’m still drinking white wine. I carefully wipe up the condensation on the coffee table with the sleeve of my sweatshirt and tiptoe to the recycling bin. I plop the still-sweaty bottle into the bin and crack open the twist-off lid of another one. It’s better if Lucas doesn’t know that I already drank a whole bottle. As I’m tiptoeing back to the couch, my phone buzzes and my foot catches the leg of the coffee table.
It’s Lucas. Buzz me in, forgot my key.
I write back, You have to push the button first; it won’t work if you don’t buzz.
The buzzer blares a long and angry scream into my apartment, and I depress the button to release the door. I can see Lucas’s bad mood on the grainy security camera. He slaps the up button for the elevator. He usually takes the stairs, because I’m only on the third floor, but when he’s pissed, or drunk, or carrying something, he takes the elevator. Tonight, it seems he’s all three. I leave the front door ajar and return to the couch. I pour a small glass of wine and clutch it as I wait. I pull my knees up to my chest and hunker down into my pillows.
Lucas marches in the front door and promptly dumps the take-out bag on the floor. He shoves it into the kitchen with his foot and angrily peels off his coat.
“Well, you could offer to give me a hand.” He huffs at me. I pop up off the couch and greet him with a kiss on the cheek. I pick up the take-out bag, which is filled with something that has gone cold, and I lift it onto the kitchen counter. Lucas is very obviously on drugs. His hair is matted down to the back of his neck and his collar is soaked with sweat. He is clenching and unclenching his jaw, and he has thick white spit gathered in the corners of his mouth. Cocaine. He doesn’t say anything else to me and instead walks to the bathroom to tidy himself up. As I hang his coat on the back of a barstool, I reach into his pockets to see what I can find.
A half-smoked pack of cigarettes next to an unopened pack. A black Bic lighter with gouges at the bottom from using it to open bottles. A crumpled credit-card receipt from First Wok with today’s date on it. The time stamp was from two hours ago. I stuff the contents back into his pockets and reach into the breast pocket. A rolled-up fifty-dollar bill with one end wet and the other end powdery, and a tiny empty bag that used to house a gram of cocaine. Adrenaline burns in my stomach as I drop the contraband back into his coat.
I sit down on the couch and take a big gulp of wine. I light a cigarette and wait to hear the toilet flush. He usually muffles the sounds of his snorts by flushing the toilet. He probably has another bag in there with him. My building is old, and so is the plumbing. He overflowed the toilet once from flushing too many times because he was snorting so many lines. Somehow, he still thinks I haven’t figured out what he’s doing in there. I hear the telltale flush, and then he appears outside the bathroom door.
“Whew, sorry about that,” he says as he plops down on the couch next to me. “Been a long day, and I’m lugging this Chinese food here, and I can’t find my keys, and I just got frustrated. Hi,” he says, turning to me and kissing me on the mouth. “How was your day?”
I can taste the coke and it immediately makes my lower lip numb, so I pull away from him and wipe my mouth. “My day was fine. How was your coke?”
“Oh, Sam. I don’t want to get into this.” He rolls his eyes and flaps his hands at me. “I had a long day and I needed a pick-me-up. Brian from the office was holding and he gave me a bag as we were leaving. We were working on a very important merger, and it was sort of a celebration. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I knew you would make a big deal out of it.” He reaches do
wn and takes a sip of my wine. He is leaning forward on the couch, hovering over the coffee table, picking at the label on the wine bottle. He’s not looking at me. I’m not responding. Instead, I stand up and walk to the kitchen to get him his own wineglass. The adrenaline kick sobered me, and I feel like I haven’t had anything to drink at all.
He keeps picking at the label until I sit back down and pour him a glass of wine. I refill my own glass and lean back, silent. I know the coke isn’t going to let him stay quiet for long, so I wait and give him the rope to hang himself.
“I’m not trying to lie to you,” he implores me. “It’s just that we’ve had this coke conversation so many times, and I told you that I was going to cut down, but honestly, it just comes with my business.”
“This isn’t the ’80s, you know.”
“Maybe not wherever you live, but in the finance world, the ’80s are the revered decade. Everyone is hoping to get back to that, and sometimes, we behave as if we are back to that. It’s not a big deal; it’s not about you.”
“Lying to me is about me.” We are both smoking cigarettes now, and the smoke is hanging in the air like a gray aurora borealis.
“I shouldn’t lie to you, you’re right.” He turns to look at me and squeezes my knee with his left hand, his cigarette tucked between his fingers. He holds his wineglass with the other hand and continually slurps tiny, noisy sips. He is looking at me with wild eyes between his little sips, and he begins rubbing my thigh.
“Why were you so late tonight?” I ask.
“Because Brian and I were doing drugs, Sam. How many times do I have to explain this to you? You don’t need to punish me; I’ve already admitted it. Can’t get anything by Detective Sam.” He pulls his hand back, and his cigarette leaves ashes on my pants.
There were about thirty seconds when I had the upper hand as he was apologizing, and now I see it falling out of my grasp and rolling under the couch. Of all the things that Lucas does and then lies to me about, for some reason I have attached myself to the cocaine. The Serenity Prayer has taught me that there are some things I cannot change, but for some reason, I think his coke use is one of the things I can. Baby steps. I’m chipping away at the vices. One day I’ll have the strength to stop him from all the other damage he does, to me and to himself.
