The Blind

by A. F. Brady

  My hands are shuffling the papers before I can finish reading, and I’m moving too quickly between the pages to gain a full understanding, but I can’t stop myself from trying to get to the bottom of this. I see words like manipulative and unstable. I see words like promiscuous and impulsive. I see sentences like “frantic efforts to avoid abandonment” and “possibly alcoholic.” The summaries have comments like “extreme emotional disturbance,” “consistent with assessment findings.” Please, no.

  I know this was all a mistake. I know this isn’t really my evaluation and I know that no one thinks these things of me. My hands collapse at my sides and my head falls back against the desk chair as the intensity of this conclusion washes over me. I feel trapped under the weight of a diagnosis, and I know I can’t escape.

  I’m imagining the consequences. What will become of me? Am I a danger to myself? Am I a danger to others? Will I be fired, or demoted, or politely asked to find new, more suitable employment? If I’m the most valued clinician at Typhlos, can they afford to lose me?

  I see vivid and colorful images of Rachel summoning security to watch me clean out my office and escort me out the door. I see trained professionals going through my handbag to ensure there are no stolen items I’m trying to take with me as I go. The scenes are playing out among the dirty ceiling tiles, and I have to furiously rub my eyes to make them stop.

  If anyone finds out about this, I’m finished. Finished at Typhlos, reputation destroyed. Everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve—the name I’ve made for myself, the way people see me—it will all be gone.

  As these menacing thoughts dance inside my head, I lean over my desk and try to grasp reality. I see myself from the ceiling of my office like I’m in a movie and the crew is using a wide-angle lens. This coffee doesn’t taste like coffee anymore. I’m watching my arm lift the cup to my lips, but it doesn’t feel like I’m the one drinking it. As I pitch forward to throw up in my garbage can, I see my hair fall over my face, but it doesn’t feel like I’m the one vomiting.

  I wander, dazed, into the hallway toward the staff bathroom so I can continue throwing up. The Out of Order sign is still on the stall, and I walk in again without a second thought. I wrap my shuddering arms around the bowl and violently heave into the gray water. The purge is bringing no relief, and the feeling of lunacy is creeping deeper into my bones. I see the lines that existed between my patients and myself mixing with the stagnant water and vomit in the toilet bowl, and as I try to flush it all away from me, the water surges back at my face.

  I jump up onto my feet and scramble away from the upsurge of vile liquid. I nearly crash into Sal the custodian as I slip out of the bathroom, still wiping the tears from my eyes.

  “Sal, hi. Um, we’ve got a little issue in the staff ladies’ room here.” I point at the door and hope he mistakes my tears for watering eyes.

  “Hi, Doc. Just running to a call in a group room with an accident, if you know what I mean.” He holds his nose with one hand and wafts his other hand dramatically in front of his face. “You know how to use a plunger?”

  “Of course. Where can I find one?”

  Sal tosses me a key from the giant ring clipped on his belt. “Grab one from the janitor’s closet. Just make sure to lock it up again when you put the plunger back. Leave the key at the security desk.” He’s hurrying away from me, calling these instructions behind him. I watch him head down the hall and watch myself walk toward the janitor’s closet. I feel like my eyes aren’t the only ones on me.

  DECEMBER 27TH, 11:22 A.M.

  Richard has been sitting in my office for almost a half hour yet it feels like he just walked in. I see him reading his newspapers, but I suspect he’s pretending. I’m terrified that he can somehow see through the walls of my skull and is looking inside my thoughts and he knows what happened. I can feel my psych eval in my desk blaring this diagnosis at me, and all I want to do is slam my drawer shut over and over again until it shuts the fuck up.

  Everything I have known forever is no longer relevant. I’m looking out of new eyes, and I’m listening out of new ears, and I’m pounding new fists into the desktop, and I’m crying someone else’s tears, and I’m wiping someone else’s face, and I’m noticing Richard noticing me, and I’m hoping all of this is a dream.

  “Did you get some bad news or something?” Richard sounds disgusted as he says this. “Are you sick?”

  “Sick? No. No, Richard, I’m not sick.”

  “You look sick. You look like you need some help.” He folds down the corner of his paper to look at me as he says this.

  “Thank you. I’ll look into that.” I pull away from him and collapse into myself.

  “You don’t have to be scared of me,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I’m not scared of you. Do I seem to be scared of you? Do I seem to give a shit what you think of me? Do I?”

  I’m holding my forehead. I’m not even trying anymore; I’m letting the truth hit me like a barrage of bullets and I don’t know how to fake it. This is not about him, but he’s in the path of a speeding train and is going to have to be the collateral damage.

  “You give a shit about something,” he says. He isn’t fazed by my outburst. He has seen this somewhere before, clearly. He isn’t worried that his therapist is unraveling in front of him. “It’s okay, you know. You don’t have to have it all together all the time.”

  “Of course I do,” I somberly respond. “My job is to have it all together. My life is supposed to be together… I am supposed to have everything together.”

  I can’t stop the tears from flowing. I can’t stop the liquid snot from falling out of my left nostril and gliding down my chin. I can’t stop my chest from heaving in erratic rhythms, or the veins in my forehead from coming to the surface like they’re trying to break free. I can’t stop my fists from clenching and unclenching like if I do it enough everything will go away.

  I can’t control myself, and I can’t stop Richard from seeing this. The collar of my button-down shirt is wet and it’s sticking to my neck and I can’t stand this sensation. Richard is politely shutting the fuck up, and all I want is for him to leave so I can throw up in my garbage can.

  I hear the doors to the group rooms closing outside my office, and as soon as all the voices are muffled, I open my door slightly and gesture for Richard to excuse himself. I’m hanging my head in case a stray passerby happens to peer inside and see my life collapsing.

  Richard looks at me, looks at the open door. He reaches out a Timberland boot and gently kicks it shut.

  “I still have time left.” Mercifully, he looks back at his paper and doesn’t acknowledge my state. “And I’m the only person you can lose it in front of.”

  I can’t defend myself; I can’t even remember how. I resign myself to managing this situation. I’m pretending that Richard isn’t even in the office anymore, and he seems to be pretending that I’m not in the office disturbing his paper-reading peace.

  As I ignore him completely, I try to wrap my brain around what’s happening. I am not the superhero I thought I was. I am not the girl I’ve been pretending to be. With my head in my hands and my elbows on my desk, I sneak a sideways look at Richard’s face. You’re the crazy one, not me. The lines that divide us fizzle and fade, and I see sane all over his face and crazy all over mine.

  I glance at my clock to see how much longer I have to sit with him, and I’m startled to attention by the phone ringing.

  “Good morning, Sam James?”

  Richard drops the corner of his paper to watch my call.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Rachel sighs into the phone.

  “Hi, Rachel. What’s up?” I’m performing for both Rachel and Richard at this point, and I feel like there’s a spotlight on my face.

  “What’s the progress with the OMH report? Have you gotten that summary together yet? I can’t wait any longer. Brooks and Young gave me their report two weeks ago. If you haven’t finished the revie
w, I need to do it myself.”

  Holy shit. “Yeah, I’m nearly done with that. What’s the next step? Just send it in to OMH? Or give it back to you or what?” I’m scrambling with the papers in my desk drawer, pulling together the notes from the evaluations. I haven’t decided how I’m going to handle reviewing my own report yet. What am I supposed to do? Tell the truth? Or lie on an official government document like an asshole?

  “Drop the whole pile and the summary up in my office when you finish. I got a call from the OMH representative this morning—all the summaries from the other New York City units and wards are filed. We can’t delay this; it’ll make us look incompetent and that could further affect our funding.” She’s exhausted, remorseful. Regretting letting me take this off her hands.

  “Okay, no problem. I will get it to you right away.”

  She huffs a long exhale and hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. I hold the receiver to my face, pretending that Rachel is still talking so Richard gets the impression she didn’t just hang up on me. I feign a cheerful goodbye and gently return the receiver to the cradle. No emotions show on his face, and he looks back at his paper for the last five minutes of our session.

  DECEMBER 28TH, 3:20 P.M.

  Rachel has called a last-minute meeting today, and she almost never calls for last-minute meetings. We’re all supposed to convene in the conference room at 4:00 p.m.; we’re supposed to end our groups and sessions early to have a staff discussion about something—about what, I have no idea. Is it the OMH evaluations? Am I about to be outed in front of the entire staff? Is this where I’m given my outright release and told that I’m not fit to treat patients? I haven’t even given Rachel the summary results yet. Is it possible she was informed? Has she known my diagnosis all along?

  The minutes are taking hours and I check my desktop clock every ten seconds, trying to will the time to pass so I can get the humiliation over with and drown my sorrows. My heart stops when there is a knock on my door. A panicked, rapid-fire knock. I open the door before I can think to make up an excuse to keep it closed. Julie is standing in front of me—she’s shuffling into my office, she’s collapsing into my patient chair, she’s shaking.

  “What? What happened?” I ask.

  “We have a meeting. We’re supposed to go to the conference room and Rachel is going to fire everyone.” Completely disoriented, trying to sort out the gossip.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Julie? Who’s getting fired?” Oh, my God, I was right, here it comes, everyone knows.

  “I heard from David, who was on the phone with his friend at OMH, and this has happened before. After they finish the evals, if people don’t pass, we all get restructured and laid off.” Julie is absolutely vibrating with fear, and she is behaving like she would have nowhere else to go should she lose this job, when in fact she has a trust fund bigger than most college endowments, and she will land safely on her Manolo Blahnik-ed feet. But I’m not supposed to know this information, so I play along.

  “Your eval is fine. Nothing is going to happen to you. Calm down,” I say as I turn away. She doesn’t know I’m the one writing the summary.

  “No, it’s not fine. It’s not fine at all. I know my performance at work could use improvement, and my service plans are postdated.”

  “Julie. You need to stop freaking out—nothing is going to happen. I promise you, you need to relax.” I should leave well enough alone and let her wallow in her shitty patient files because if I can get it done, then a monkey can get it done.

  “You’re fine! You’re going to be fine, no one can mess with you. Rachel loves you, so you have nothing to worry about.” Julie flatters me. “But me…”

  This is what I want everyone to believe. Somehow I have been able to keep up this appearance for my coworkers, but apparently not for OMH, and now I am found out, and everyone will know.

  “I’m definitely not fine.” I try to commiserate, but will never tell Julie the truth of the situation.

  “Oh, whatever, you don’t have to worry about getting fired.” She sighs and slides from the chair to the floor dramatically. The hem of her skirt is pulled up by the edge of the chair and I can see her underwear as she lays her head back against the radiator and rubs her temples. Her underwear is powder blue. For some reason, I’m surprised by this.

  David hears the conversation through the wall and comes to knock on my door and join in the panic. He scoots Julie over and scrunches himself into the office chair, and as his pant legs lift, I can see he has mismatched socks. Julie is using the distress of the situation to be unusually flirtatious, a move with which I am familiar. She’s leaning on David’s leg, and he’s gently touching her hair. Again with these two.

  “You both have nothing to worry about,” he says to appease us. “I’m sure this has nothing to do with anyone getting fired.” Julie looks up at him with Disney-princess eyes, and I want to throw my stapler at her face. “My friend at OMH, he seems to believe that there’s some issue with funding, so maybe Rachel is going to talk to us about that. Maybe layoffs are coming, but I imagine the ancillary staff will be the first to go. Don’t put the cart before the horse here.”

  At some point while I’m on autopilot in this conversation, I begin to realize that I’m insanely jealous that David and Julie are using each other for comfort in this moment. I have no recourse, no one’s leg to lay my head on and no one to touch my hair. Why are they using each other and not using me? David is my best friend, and Julie wants to be my best friend, so why the hell are they flirting with each other and not with me? Should I feel happy that they both chose to come to my office to feel better? Is it the fact that I’m in here that helps soothe them? Why isn’t anyone touching my hair?

  David checks his watch and taps the glass face. “Let’s get going, ladies. The meeting is in two minutes.” He helps Julie up off the floor, and I hold the door open for them. I momentarily wish I could stick out my foot and trip Julie so that her mouth smashes into the ground and her orthodontic work gets destroyed, but instead I calmly close my door and walk down the hall.

  Now we’re in the meeting, and it’s clear that there have been several cliques who’ve been speculating in their offices about what’s going to happen here. Rachel is huddled over a stack of papers at the head of the conference table, and each staff member is sitting unusually close to the person next to them.

  I’m sandwiched between David and Shirley, and Julie is to David’s left. I’m still reeling, ever so slightly, that I wasn’t being touched and my hair wasn’t being pet in my office. The stress of the impending conversation helps me to move away from the irritation of being left out, and I try to read Rachel. She isn’t looking at any of us, which means that we either collectively did something terrible and she’s debating the punishment, or she’s about to clobber us with news that even she doesn’t want to hear.

  I’m bracing myself for the inevitable outing. The force of the panic is rising in my chest, and I have to keep swallowing to keep it down. I’m waiting for Rachel to open her mouth and look at me. I’m waiting for her to pull me aside after the meeting and explain that her hands are tied. I’m waiting for her to use the DSM diagnostic criteria to clear up any questions the other staff members may have as to why I was deemed unfit to care for a psychiatric population.

  Finally, after what seems like hours of deafening silence, Rachel begins to address the group. I white-knuckle the arms of my chair.

  “Thank you all for coming here today. I know it’s last minute and I know how hard you’ve all been working, and I do appreciate it. I’m sorry to tell you this, but I brought you here to share some sad news.” I can hear Julie draw in a sharp breath and I watch her clutch David’s arm, and this immediately makes my head pound and my neck sweat.

  “All of you have been here for long enough to know that sometimes we have a patient we can’t help. All of you have witnessed the sad side of our business, and today is another example of this. I’m so sorry, folks. W
e’ve lost Eddie.”

  A collective gasp fills the room. The air gets warm suddenly, and we all look around at mouths agape, seeking answers from one another. A wet wave of shock hits me like a ton of bricks, and I fall back into my chair. I want to feel relief that this meeting isn’t about me, but I can’t.

  No one knows what to say or how to proceed. Julie’s hand holds David’s, and he turns to me. His face is stoic, but his eyes are brimming. He takes his hand back from Julie and puts both his hands on my knee. He drops his gaze and over his shoulder, I can see Julie turn away and steeple her fingers over her face. David and I have a connection to Eddie that no one else has, or knows about, and although we took him for granted then, we can’t take him for granted anymore. I think to when he pushed his laceless sneaker into my office to try to talk to me. When I promised I would see him in an hour.

  He had been relying on us, and we let him down, but instead of ruining ourselves with thoughts that we should have saved his day, we find comfort in each other, and we whisper that there was nothing we could have done.

  “He has passed from an apparent suicide.” Rachel continues, “Sal the custodian discovered his body last night in a janitorial closet downstairs. There was no note on him or in his room, but we believe, based on his prior attempts, that this was likely a suicide.”

  Gary can no longer hold it in and bursts into projectile tears. His neighbors console him with back rubbing and cooing and promises that he couldn’t have done anything to stop it. I put my clammy left hand on David’s hands and he looks up at me like we’re a hundred years old and we have all the answers.