The Blind

by A. F. Brady

  “And what goals are those? What does everyone else want out of treatment?” I poise my pencil to write down anything he gives me.

  “To get out of here.” More useless responses.

  “Okay, so if you want to get out of here, the fastest way to do that is by helping me to understand what brought you in here to begin with.” I poke the papers hopefully with my pencil.

  “Shouldn’t you be able to figure that out? Aren’t you supposed to be one of the best doctors here? I keep hearing all this chatter from other patients about how you’re the best, and ‘Sam this and Sam that,’ so shouldn’t you have the powers of perception to figure out what I’m doing here? You’re the professional, not me.” Asshole.

  “I’m not a psychic or a mind reader. I’m a psychologist. I can’t use an X-ray and see through your skull into your inner workings. You’re gonna need to help me out with that.”

  “Well, I thought you were supposed to be the best. I figured at least you’d be able to help me.”

  In the wake of Travis’s accusations yesterday, Richard’s words feel caustic and cutting and I want to stab him in the eye with my pencil.

  DECEMBER 7TH, 7:22 A.M.

  I’m staring at my face in Lucas’s bathroom mirror. He has dimmers on his lights, and it makes it easier to look at myself, especially at this hour of the morning. But I can still see lines on my forehead that I never noticed before, and my perfectly straight teeth seem crooked on the bottom row. The marks that Lucas leaves on me are usually obscured by my thick hair, or along my ribs and hips, hidden by my clothes. This morning I see the creeping blue edges of a bruise sneaking onto my right temple. There’s a matching bruise on the other side, but it’s higher up on my head, and if I pull my hair back right, it can remain unseen.

  I have a compact of makeup that’s used to cover tattoos. There was a patient at Typhlos once who had worked on movie sets. She fell head over heels in love with the star of the movie, and he completely dismissed her. This was the trigger that sent her over the edge, and over the bridge, as well. She came to Typhlos after four months in rehab learning to walk and talk again. She told me about the makeup, and I watched her use it to cover her own scars. I have it in three different colors—a light one for the long winter months, and two darker ones for when I’m tan. Usually I have to mix them together in the heat of my palm to get the color just right.

  I push the dimmer switch all the way up so I can see the details as I cover them. There are tiny blond hairs at my temples, and I have to be careful to avoid the cakey makeup getting caught in those, because nothing looks more obvious than matted-down baby hairs. I can’t believe I’m here again, going through this routine again. But if I can just stay strong, it will stop. He cares so much about me; he’s just not good at controlling his emotions. This isn’t his fault. As I repeat these lies in my head, I put Visine in my eyes to erase the traces of tears, and scrub the grime out from under my nails.

  Lucas is still asleep, and I’m dressed for work, prepared to walk out the door. I notice Lucas’s espresso machine on the counter. I know he sets it to brew his coffee while he gets ready for work, so on my way out, I pop the plug out of the wall.

  DECEMBER 7TH, 12:27 P.M.

  I am back in the same evaluation room I was in with Travis, waiting for the new shrink to arrive. I don’t have the same defenses geared up for the second wave of testing; instead I am exhausted and I desperately want to leave so I can smoke a half a pack of cigarettes in the warmth of my living room. As my eyelids begin to get heavy, the illustrious psychiatrist Dr. Brooks walks in.

  She is female, but beyond that, she bears no resemblance to the woman I imagined on Monday. Dr. Jean Brooks comes into the room, as tiny as a fourth grader. She is substantially more put together than Travis, and she skips the formalities altogether. I’m so much bigger than she is that I find it almost comical that I’m supposed to answer her intimate questions.

  Dr. Brooks is clearly reading over the information that Travis got from me on Monday. I wonder if she has already decided that I’m diagnosable, character disordered, a lost cause. She repeatedly clears her throat with a high-pitched, tinny squeal. She opens her mouth as if to start a sentence, then slams it shut and brings the papers closer to her face for a more thorough investigation. She seems both confused and interested, as if trying to decipher Travis’s notes is an exhaustive but intriguing task. I’m sure Dr. Brooks will be able to see that I don’t have a personality disorder like Travis seems to think I do.

  “So,” she finally begins, “you’ve already had some testing this week. How did that go?”

  “It was fine.”

  “Good, good. Okay. Well, usually Dr. Young administers and scores various assessments and inventories, and then I take the second shift and focus more on interviews and discussions.”

  “Yes. And Travis took over some of the interviewing on Monday.”

  “Yeah—” She doesn’t know how to take the fact that I’m calling him Travis. “Yeah—so, now we will simply continue with the interviews. I have been reviewing his notes, so there is no need to cover the same material if you don’t feel it’s relevant.”

  “Do you feel the death of my mother is relevant?” I should have smoked a pack of cigarettes before this.

  “Not if you’d rather not discuss it. In fact, I am more inclined to take a structured approach to interviewing. Would you mind if I took the lead? We can take a ten-minute break at the halfway point of the session if you like.”

  “No problem, Dr. Brooks.” I’m sitting in a chair with a desk attached. I have my coffee and a bottle of water on the desk, a couple of pens that I pulled out of my hair, and my daily schedule. My legs are sticking straight out in front of me, crossed at the ankles. I have my elbows cocked out with my fingers interlaced behind my head. This position is hurting my back, but I want to ensure that I appear laid-back and nonchalant. I can’t be defined by these interviews. I can’t be categorized.

  “Dr. Young noted that you grew up in a single-parent home and that your mother passed away when you were at college. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever receive counseling or therapy of any kind?” She’s hovering a fat pen above a yellow legal pad, poised to jot down all the golden nuggets that spew out of my mouth.

  “I was required to go to two years of counseling when I was in grad school. Every PhD candidate has to. But I’m sure you know that.”

  “I’m a psychiatrist, Dr. James. In medical school there is no therapy requirement. But, yes, I am aware of the practices in PhD programs. Did you ever have any other therapy or counseling?” She’s already frustrated and competitive with me, and I wish I could care.

  “When I was in ninth grade, the school psychologist recommended I see an external therapist because I was one of the only kids in school from a single-parent home. My mother agreed, and I was sent to a local psychiatrist. I’m not sure how long I went—not long. Maybe a couple of months.”

  “Do you remember the kinds of things you discussed?”

  “Yes, I do. I remember that no matter what I came in with, what topics I had in mind to talk about, he would always steer the conversation back to my father. He had decided that the source of everything that was wrong with my life was the lack of a father figure. So, he would constantly tell me that I needed a father. But, of course, I didn’t have one. He presented a solution that was unattainable, and the day I realized I was smarter than he was, I stormed out.”

  “You stormed out?”

  “I tried to storm out. I stormed into the bathroom because the door was right next to the exit sign. So, then I had to storm back in and storm out properly. I forgot my jacket, too. It wasn’t a very well-executed plan.”

  “You remember the details pretty well for twenty years ago.”

  “Twenty-three.” Don’t antagonize me, medical doctor. “He’s one of the reasons I became a psychologist.”

  “This psychiatrist? How so?”


  “I felt the field needed someone competent and empathic.”

  “And you could provide those things?”

  “Precisely, Dr. Brooks.”

  “What happened next?” She is not amused.

  “After I left his office? He reached out to my mother to try to get me to come back to counseling.”

  “And did you?”

  “I didn’t, but she did.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes. In my place, my mother went. She took over my counseling sessions with my therapist and presented the problems that she believed I was having. She neatly and tidily extracted herself and her own behaviors from my issues and placed the blame securely upon my mystery father, who was not there to defend himself, because he existed primarily in her warped memory.” I’m leaning on the flimsy desk, practically snarling at Dr. Brooks. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Is that what you want to tell me?” I hate psychiatrists.

  At the close of the session, I hold the door open for her, towering over her, and I momentarily wish I could slap the papers out of her hands so my answers are mixed up in the shuffle.

  Desperation makes you do funny things.

  DECEMBER 8TH, 4:17 P.M.

  My phone vibrates and when I see it’s a text message from AJ, my palms get sweaty like a teenager. He writes Miss you followed by a suggestive series of emojis. Everything he does is sexually charged, and it gets me every time. I feel no remorse that we superficially communicate almost exclusively in emojis and the exchange of bodily fluids. Just as my mind starts to wander, there’s a knock on my door.

  “Sssssammmm, it’s an important day today, and I need to talk-to-youuuuu.” Eddie pulls open my door and wiggles his way inside my office.

  “Okay, Eddie.” I tuck my phone into my desk drawer and shake the fantasies from my mind. “I have a few minutes between other important things I have to do. Why don’t you come inside, and I can give you about fifteen minutes? How does that sound?” I’ve turned him down too frequently, and I owe it to him to listen.

  “Yyyessss, Ssssammmm… Thhhank youuuuuuu.”

  Eddie shuffles into my office and composes himself on the patient chair. He takes his grimy trucker hat off his greasy hair and places it on his bent knee. He smooths his hair down on either side of his head, seemingly trying to make himself presentable. Once he gets what he wants, in this case some time and attention, the desperation in his voice begins to dissipate, and his strung-together words begin to disconnect.

  “How come today is an important day, Eddie?”

  “Anniverssssary.”

  “Oh, yeah? Anniversary of what?” I sip my coffee.

  “It would have been my ten-year anniversary with my girlfriend.”

  “I didn’t know you had a serious girlfriend. Tell me about her.”

  “It’s hard, hard, hard to talk about her now.” He shakes his head.

  “Do you ever talk to her?”

  “No, I can’t talk to her because she isn’t alive anymore.”

  “Oh, no, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize she passed away.”

  Eddie shifts in his seat and moves his cap up to the windowsill behind him. He leans in closer to me before he begins his story.

  “She, she, she was depresssssssed for a long time, and sometimes there were days and weeks when she wouldn’t get out of bed at all, and she would just lie there, and she wouldn’t even read books, and I couldn’t help her. She would look at old pictures, from when she was little. She had a ssssmall ssstack of old pictures, and she would lie in our bed, and she would look at the picturesssss, and she would only have one little lamp next to her bed, and she put a ssssscarf on top of the lamp and it made the light in the room really orange, and she would look at those picturesssss.”

  He shifts again and wiggles his butt back in the seat as far as he can. He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees, bends his head down and smooths his hair again.

  “I was working then, and I was working long hours, and she was home alone all the time. We didn’t have a big house, just a little apartment in east New York, and she didn’t even get out of bed unless she had to go to the bathroom. She wasn’t eating, and she got to be so skinny. I had to work. I was working for the MTA, and my cell phone didn’t work underground. She didn’t work, and she was at home all the time.”

  “How long ago was this?” I’ve known Eddie a long time, and I’ve never heard this story.

  “Before I came here. I’ve been here eight years. So eight years ago, I guess. Or maybe more than that. I don’t know. But you weren’t here yet when I came here. And you came here six years ago.”

  “That’s right. You were here first, and you have always made me feel very welcome.” Eddie prides himself on his long tenure at Typhlos.

  “Good, me too, Sssam. Me too, welcome here. But with the MTA, you have to do your work underground, and I didn’t have my phone working underground, and my bosses just talked to me with the walkie-talkie, but my girlfriend couldn’t get me on the walkie-talkie, sssssooo she was alone.”

  “What was your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Allison, Allissssssson. Allisssson and Eddie.” He singsongs her name.

  “That’s a nice name.”

  “Yeah. And she was a nice girl, too, but too depressed. She would sleep all the time. And I would try to talk to her when I got home, but she didn’t want to talk because she was too tired. I think she was tired and weak because she didn’t eat enough and she didn’t get any fresh air. I would make her some dinner, but she was asleep already when I took the dinner to her.”

  “What did you used to make for dinner?” Sometimes when I ask detailed questions, the patients can better pull up their memories.

  “Soup. Ssssoup in a can on a hot plate. We didn’t really have a kitchen, just a hallway with a mini-refrigerator and a hot plate, and some cabinets for spoons and bowls. We had a little sink there, too. But she didn’t eat the soup. So I ate it.

  “But then there was a time when it started to get better. She had this doctor who she would talk to on the phone sometimes, and he sent her medication to the pharmacy. And I would go and pick it up on my way home. I asked them at the desk for the medicine for Allison Swift, and they gave it to me, and it was ten dollars because of Medicaid.

  “When she started to take the medicine, she didn’t look at the pictures so much anymore. And then some days, she would be awake when I brought her the soup. And sometimes we would just talk, but sometimes we would talk and she would eat the soup, too.”

  “What kinds of things would you two talk about?” I’m actually very interested in Eddie’s story. I get frustrated with him sometimes, and tired of trying to find time in my day for someone else’s patient, but I have a soft spot for Eddie. I see him, and I want to be here for him.

  “When she started to take the medicine and eat the sssssoup, then we could talk about getting married one day because she thought that if we could get married one day then she would be better. So, when I would leave work, and she was getting better, I wouldn’t always come straight home. Sometimes, I would go to a store and look at rings for her. Engagement rings. And there were big ones with diamonds and gold, and there were silver ones with lots of little diamonds, but everything was so much money, so I was only looking.”

  I absentmindedly fiddle with my bare left ring finger.

  “Whenever we would talk about getting married, she sssseemed to get better, so I knew I had to go and get her that rrrring. And I was saving up and trying to work harder at the MTA, but it’s hard work. Allisssson was all the time at home, and she couldn’t work, so I had to pay all the bills and it was hard to keep up. She was getting some disability, but it wasn’t much, and we had to eat, and we can’t just live off of soup, so it was hard to save up for the ring. I told her I was gonna get her one.”

  Eddie turns around and pulls his hat off the windowsill. He smooths his hair down and puts his hat back on his head. He stands t
o hike up his pants, then returns to his seat.

  “So, one day, I bought one. It cost $275 and it was probably too big, but the guy at the shop said that he could fix it if it wassss too big. It was gold and it had one diamond in the middle with a big ice-cream cone holding it up. It was sssshiny, and he put it in a dark blue box with silver writing that said ‘Tony’s,’ and the box was soft and fuzzy. I brought it home with me, and I hid it in one of the cabinets high up in the kitchen so she wouldn’t find it there. I knew that when I gave it to her it would be all better, but because our two-year anniversary was coming up, I wanted to wait and give it to her on a special day.

  “We stopped talking about getting married because I was ssscared that I would get too excited and spoil the secret that I had bought a ring. But then she started to get depressed again. She put the scarf back on the lamp, and she took the pictures out again. She stopped eating the soup I brought her. But I knew she would get better when I gave her the ring, and there were only a few days until our anniversary, the sssspecial day I was going to give it to her.

  “On our anniversary, I had to go to work like I had to do every other day, but I didn’t want to because I knew she would be so happy. I remember during lunch, my boss told me that my cell phone was ringing in the office, and I wasn’t allowed personal calls at work. I said it must be an emergency, and he said if it was an emergency, then they would have called the office phone, and I thought he must be right. When the day was over, I wanted to rush home and surprise her. I was excited. She was going to be better now.”

  He squirms in his seat. I put a hand on his knee to steady him and gently nod my head.

  “I got to the house and I took the ring out of the cabinet and I dusted it off and made sure it looked shiny in the box. I walked to the bedroom, and the door was closed. She never closed the door. But today the door was closed, so I opened it, and I walked into the room. She was lying in bed, as usual, so I went to wake her up. But when I tried to wake her up, she didn’t move. She wasn’t moving. Then I saw the medicine bottles on the table with the lamp. And they were empty, and there was a flask, and that was empty, too. I put the ring down next to the bottles, and I checked her neck to see if her heart was beating, but I didn’t feel anything.”