The Blind

by A. F. Brady

  I turn the corner and leave Rachel on the other side just in time to catch David and Julie standing too close together in front of his office. His door is open, and her hand is on his chest. Her back is to me, so I can’t see her face, but David’s is all smiles. He steps backward into his office without seeing me and waves his long fingers at her as she turns to walk away. I see her smile and sigh and clutch her files to her chest like the fucking head cheerleader after the quarterback asks her to prom.

  She blinks herself back to reality as she sees me thundering down the hall, and I startle her to attention. She stumbles with words and slows her pace, as if somewhere inside her puny little brain she understands that she’s fucking with the wrong person and owes me an apology. I’m picking up speed as she nears my office door, her mouth open, thinking of something to say, and I barrel right into her shoulder, never taking my eyes off hers. I continue to look her dead in the face as she staggers backward out of my way, and I shove my key into the keyhole. She stammers and lurches, attempts a statement, and I pat her hard on the shoulder as I open the door to my office. With a menacing grin, I slowly close the door and watch as she stumbles away from me with a smear of pink lip balm on her pristine white sweater.

  JANUARY 5TH, 5:34 P.M.

  I buzzed Rachel’s office twice, and she didn’t pick up either time. She must finally be down in the administrative meeting. Now’s my opening to drop the evaluation summary in her office without having to face her.

  I stack the evaluation folders in the crook of my left arm and lay the summary on top. The piece of paper looks as innocuous as an office memo, and I keep telling myself that’s all it is. With my sweatshirt concealing the pile of folders, I head down the hallway toward the entrance to the stairwell and gently close the heavy door behind me so it doesn’t slam and alert anyone to my presence. I can feel my heart beating in my ears, and it’s echoing down the stairs. I creak open the door and step gently into the hallway. I pass the body of a sleeping patient curled in the fetal position on the floor. Normally, I would wake him, but today I tiptoe by and hope I don’t rouse him. Rachel’s door is only five more yards away.

  I shimmy the summary out from under my sweatshirt, and my heart starts beating so hard I’m afraid it will wake the passed-out patient. I look it over one more time and bend quickly to shove it under her door. It’s over. No turning back now.

  Invigorated and empowered, I head toward the staircase to run down to the first floor and get rid of the folders. I stomp clumsily down the steps, clutching the railing with my right hand until I come upon the giant push bar to the first-floor exit. I open the door and walk into the sticky heat of the administrative-records room. All the way in the back, where the light doesn’t fully reach it, sits the old wooden filing cabinet with the Typhlos staff files. I shouldn’t have access to this filing cabinet, and I probably shouldn’t even be in this room, but no one bothered to change the access code since it switched from the staff lounge to the records room. I’ve worked here long enough to watch most of the secondary spaces get used up as the number of patients continues to grow.

  Now I’m standing here, with the last pieces of contraband in hand, alphabetically depositing each summary into the appropriate staff member’s file. I put away the file for Frank Ignacio, the security guard, and continue next to Mary Kinney, my favorite nurse. I have no J last names in this stack of folders. As I plop Julie Watson’s file into her thin staff folder, I wipe the dusty remnants on the front of my shirt and throw my sweatshirt over my shoulders. I’m finished. All the files that I’m going to put away are safely in the folders where they belong. And now I need a tall, strong drink to help me forget what I’ve done.

  JANUARY 10TH, 11:00 A.M.

  I’m filled with whizzing thoughts and worries, crashing into one another in my head. I keep seeing a blaring red sign that says Murderer across Richard’s face. I’m nervously glancing at him and then my mind skips over to wondering about Rachel. Is she going to look through the staff files for the original reports? Check to see if I completed the summary to her standards, or will she just trust me?

  As I’m evaluating the possible outcomes, Richard puts something in front of me and it breaks my concentration. I focus my eyes on this small object he has placed on my desk. It’s an airplane bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Nip. You got the shakes,” Richard says nonchalantly.

  “Richard, you can’t have alcohol on the unit. I could get fired for this. You need to get this out of here.”

  “No one knows it’s in here. No one ever comes in here. Your door is locked, and you need it.”

  “I don’t need… I don’t. Take this away, Richard. I can’t believe after all the concessions I’ve made for you—letting you sit in my office in peace while you don’t even bother trying to do your psychological assessments—you take advantage of it like this. Get this off of my desk.” I can’t look at him, and I can’t look at the bottle. He reaches in front of me and takes the nip away. How the hell did he get alcohol on the unit? My eyes are wide, and as furious as I am that he brought this to me, I realize how much I need that shot.

  He cracks the top and hands it back to me. I hold it in my hands and watch him. He takes off his hat and pulls another nip of Jack out of his pocket. He opens it, clinks my bottle and throws it back. Almost without thinking, I raise the bottle to my lips and feel the sweet burn as I chug the contents.

  He reaches over and takes the empty bottle that is still upended to my mouth. He carefully tucks both nips into his pocket and puts his newsboy cap back on. He looks back down at his papers as if nothing happened. I sit, stunned, for what feels like hours. When Richard peers over the top of his glasses at me, I right myself and reach into my top drawer for an Altoid. I offer the tin to Richard and he takes two without looking. We resume ignoring each other, although I’m more focused on him now than I’ve ever been.

  JANUARY 12TH, 3:09 P.M.

  I just woke up on my office floor after another unsettling dream. I haven’t been sleeping well at night, so office naps are becoming more regular. This time the dream was that I was one of those models who holds up the big signs during boxing matches to show what round the fighters are in. I had a perfect body, and perfect hair, but I was miniature because the boxing ring was one of those Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots boxing toys from the ’80s. Lucas was the red boxer and AJ was the blue one, and every time either one of them landed a punch, their robot heads would fly off into the crowd. Maverick would run into the stands and return the heads to their bodies and I walked around the ring with my big sign. When I looked out toward the spectators, every one of them was Richard.

  I shake the dream out of my head and force myself not to look for meaning behind it. The OMH summary is done, and Rachel seems satisfied, so I’m trying to concentrate on every work-related task I have so I don’t tear my eyeballs out with the fear of what will come of me if I’m found out. If I keep my mind occupied and distracted, I can pretend that everything is going to be okay.

  Every week on Friday afternoons, we have family-visiting day at Typhlos. Patients who will benefit from interactions with family members give us the names of people they’d like to see, and after we properly vet and communicate with the individuals, they come in for visiting day. I have a list of names that my patients have given me but I haven’t bothered to vet, and now I’m rushing through it so these people can come in for tomorrow’s visiting day.

  I have the files of all my patients stacked on my chair, and I’m reading through family histories and psychosocials, looking for evidence to show that a requested relative is either a definitive yes or no. I recognize the names of most of these people, and it’s easy to stamp approved with my big red rubber stamp next to them on the request list. I continue working, happy to be doing something both mundane and useful, when I hear David’s office door close with a thud, followed by a prepubescent giggle that could only belong to one person.
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  My spine tightens with disgust, and a prickle of sweat forms along my eyebrows. I loudly clear my throat in an attempt to disturb their peace, but I fear it won’t be heard. Instead I cough dramatically, slapping the arms of my desk chair for added effect. I hear more giggling on the other side of the wall. Of course they can hear me. I could be choking in here. I could be dying on the other side of the wall and David would be too busy trifling with this empty sweater to come rescue me. Well, if I can’t stop them, at least I can make it unpleasant for them. I look around the office for something to throw at the wall—anything that would be a nuisance, a distraction. Nothing is calling out to me as the perfect intrusion, and then I look down at my right hand and see the big red rubber stamp.

  If I pull out my desk drawer and slam the stamp into the papers as hard as I can, it’ll make a loud bang and rattle, and that would be sure to tamper with their flirtation. If someone comes in, I’m innocently working, stamping my vetted guests; there’s nothing to say I’m trying to break up a fledgling couple, or save my former best friend from this terrible decision.

  I slam the stamp down on the first sheet. A satisfying clang rings out, and the drawer shakes and jangles. I hit the next page. I keep slamming the red stamp into the pages over and over again as I grit my teeth and move quickly through the sheets. The sounds and shocks are annoying and I’m sure to disrupt their bullshit conversation now. I gleefully crash the stamp down again. I hear David’s door creak open and the click of high heels on linoleum as Julie retreats, defeated. For good measure, I slap the stamp down on the last page of my list of family members. I look at a sea of ragged, red “approved” stamps and feel a warm blanket of success fall over my shoulders.

  JANUARY 13TH, 9:50 A.M.

  I’ve been plagued with thoughts of Rachel finding out I never filed my own evaluation summary, thoughts of David and Julie, and thoughts of Richard killing his mother. A crushing loneliness came with every text message David sent me. His words were almost good enough to fix this; they were almost convincing enough to make me feel like he still cared about me, and he didn’t transfer all his energies to Julie. Julie.

  Julie, with her genuine good heart and earnest attitude. Who would I be to hate someone whose sincerity is so apparent it’s practically scrawled all over her perfect face? What kind of asshole would I be to tell my best friend that he should stay away from her and return his undying affections back to me, even though he knows it’s a fruitless endeavor? Me! I would be that kind of asshole! But now it seems so useless. I’m not getting any benefits from hating her; nothing good is coming to me by being angry with David.

  I pick up my phone and buzz David’s office. He answers on the first ring.

  “Hi, David.” I realize I haven’t planned out what to say. “Can you, uh, come in here, please?”

  “Sure,” he sighs into the phone, and I hear him scooting his chair back. I know this self-righteous sigh, and I’m immediately pissed that I decided to forgive him. He walks in my door and stands behind me, leaning against my filing cabinet with his arms crossed over his chest. I have to spin my chair around to face him, and when I do, my knees brush against his shins because my office is too small for these kinds of games.

  “David, can you sit down?” Frustrated, uncomfortable.

  He stays exactly where he is, raising his eyebrows in anticipation of an apology. Like I broke the lamp and blamed the dog. I’m shifting in my chair, trying to get to an angle where he isn’t directly above me, so I have to look up at him and ask to be forgiven for clearly meddling in his affairs. He planned it like this. Asshole.

  “David.” I’m slamming my chair into my desk, trying to create more room, and it’s making my skin prickle and my collar starts to feel tight at my throat. “David, can you please just sit down?” I’m raising my voice now, looking directly at the floor. I hold my hand out to my patient chair, inviting him to sit, but I don’t raise my eyes to look at him. With a frustrated sigh, he takes one large step to the chair and sits down.

  “What can I do for you, Sam?”

  “Look.” Flustered, annoyed. “I’m pretty fucking pissed that you decided to pull this shit, but in the interest of avoiding a nuclear holocaust, I’m going to forgive you.”

  “You’re going to forgive me? For what?” He leans forward and huffs his moral superiority right into my face.

  “For Julie, David. She’s literally the only person I can’t stand in this entire place, and you decide to start dating her? And you don’t even talk to me about it first? It’s ridiculous! It’s completely unfair, and you should have bothered to consider my feelings before you embarked on this stupid adventure. I mean, Jesus Christ. Do you even know how it feels to share you with her? How could you like someone like her and someone like me at the same time? You’re making my stock plummet.”

  “Are you done?” If I had a father, I imagine this is the face he would have given me as a child when I royally fucked up.

  “Yes.” I lean back, satisfied that he should be able to understand his egregious misstep, and he will now apologize profusely and set things right between us.

  “Sam, you’re completely out of line.” The lecture begins. “First of all, I am not dating Julie.”

  “Ha! Yeah, right! I can hear through the wall, you know!”

  “Shut up and let me finish. Like I said, I am not dating Julie, and you have absolutely no say in whom I choose to date anyway. You’re not my girlfriend; you’re not even my ex-girlfriend. Your opinion is irrelevant, so of course I didn’t consider it when I had several innocuous conversations with a coworker upon whom you have completely unfairly dumped your vitriol.” David used one huge breath to launch all this at me, and as he reloads with another breath, I roll my chair back to the door and pull my feet up onto the seat to keep a protective layer between me and David.

  “You’re so malicious when it comes to anything that you think could compromise my feelings for you. But then you treat me like I don’t even matter! I’m tired of it, and if Julie wants to pay me some attention, and I engage with her, it doesn’t mean anything. But don’t begin to imagine that I will tolerate your contempt. It’s bullshit. You need to grow up and take some responsibility for yourself. You can’t have your fucking cake and eat it, too; keep me dangling by a string, and then pitch a fit if I decide to look elsewhere. You’re really losing it, Sam. You have got to get your shit together.”

  “I just—I just don’t like it when someone comes between us.” My ego deflates as I admit this. The scorn and the fury are settling down, and as I put my feet back down on the ground, I can feel the cruelty seep out into the carpet.

  “She’s not coming between us. But you can afford to open up a little and let her in.”

  “You know, I wanted you to come in here so I could tell you that I forgive you, and now it’s all twisted.”

  “Well, I forgive you, too. And I’m glad you forgive me, even though there’s nothing to forgive me for. Can we get back to normal now, please?” He stands up and offers me a hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet. He wraps me in a warm hug and reminds me to stop being so hard all the time. I remind him to stop being such a pussy all the time. And with a grin of self-satisfaction, I slip back into David’s number-one spot; exactly where I belong.

  JANUARY 17TH, 11:08 A.M.

  Today, Richard is running late, and what I’m coming to realize, as I wait for a man who murdered his mother, is that I have never felt safer with any other man in my life.

  “Okay, no papers today.” He hasn’t even sat down as I say this, or put his stack of newspapers on the corner of my desk.

  “No papers?” he says, looking hopefully at his handful.

  “Yeah, no papers today. We need to discuss what happened here.” It’s my duty to remain professional, and I never should have allowed us to drink in our last session. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

  “I’m not telling anybody about the nips, Sam. We don’t need to talk about it.” He sits.r />
  “I’m not worried about you talking to people about the nips. We sat in my office drinking together, and that can’t happen. I am your therapist, I am a professional and I am in my place of work. I can’t behave like this. You can’t behave like this! You’re here for treatment, for help, and I’m the one who is supposed to give it to you.”

  “How you gonna help me when you can’t even help yourself?”

  His words cut me; the truth in them is almost too much to take.

  “I can help myself, I do help myself! You have no idea about my life. You don’t know what I’m going through. You have no idea.”

  “Okay.” He pauses, still looking at me but not saying anything. When I fail to continue, he reaches into his jacket and pulls out four mini-bottles. They’re all Grey Goose, and like a gentleman, he opens my bottles before he opens his own. He puts two nips in front of me, and I look at my computer screen. The cursor is blinking at me accusingly, pushing me to finish all the paperwork I need to complete Richard’s file. Pushing me to talk to him about what he told me, pushing me to put down my fears and not pick up the bottles.

  “I can’t drink these, Richard. I can’t drink at work with a patient.” I lower my gaze, not looking directly at him or at the bottles.

  “Who do you think you’re fooling, exactly? I’ve been watching you since I came in this place, and you’ve got alcoholic written all over you.”

  “Alcoholic? How do you figure I’m an alcoholic?” My head snaps back up.