Mental State

by M Gardner

  “Murray had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.” Steven could hear the smile as his cellmate whispered the altered nursery rhyme in a lilting singsong. Steven suppressed the shudder that ran through him. He clenched his teeth and refused to give him the satisfaction of a response.

  Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do to a bully? Steven thought. Adults always talked about how bullies needed a response. As if their slings and arrows could be ignored. When had bullies ever succumbed to logic?

  The man stood by Steven’s head for a few terse minutes. A belly laugh erupted, and the man said, “Careful, little lamb, the big bad wolf is always hungry.”

  Steven felt the unwelcome presence of his cellmate retreat, and he allowed the shudder to overwhelm him. A slight gasp escaped his lips when the bunk shifted, his cellmate settling on the bottom bunk. An eerie whistle sounded from below to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb.

  Steven closed his eyes tight and thought, what’s going to happen to me?

  Steven stumbled over unseen obstacles as he scurried backward down the hallway. Lindsay lurched with an unnatural gait. She smiled at him, her skin pale. The hallway stretched to infinity. The gash in Lindsay’s arm dripped little sprinkles of bright red blood with each step. Each crimson drop struck the floor and pooled like she had won the blood lottery.

  Inset into the long hallway were too many bathroom doors to count. Each one complete, but as Lindsay walked by, a cursory glance transformed them into the remains of the bathroom door he couldn’t forget no matter how much he wanted to. He grabbed the doorknob to the closest undamaged door and wiggled it with a desperate longing to get away from the ghostly apparition. It defied his efforts.

  “Steven!” Her voice echoed as if she called to him from across a chasm. “Why do you want to leave me?”

  Steven stopped his struggle against the door and stared into her lifeless eyes. “You’re not real!” Tears blurred his vision, and he squeezed his eyes shut to clear it.

  Lindsay’s happy smile turned into a scowl. “Are you happy now?” Bloody tears welled in her colorless eyes. “I did this to make you happy,” she whispered. “You didn’t want me around anymore.”

  “I never wanted this,” Steven pleaded. He squeezed his eyes shut again. “I’m not responsible,” he whispered. His eyes snapped open. “This isn’t my fault!”

  Lindsay’s face fell, and her eyes narrowed. “You did this!” she wailed, a strange wind blowing her transparent hair up to frame her face. “The voice said that this was what you wanted!”

  “No…” Steven tried to reassure the apparition.

  “You wanted me dead!” Lindsay interrupted, her voice a screech.

  “No, I didn’t!” Steven screamed the beginning of a tantrum and bolted upright in his bunk.

  He was drenched in the sweat of his night terror. He clenched his fists to stop shaking. With an unsteady hand, he pushed his soaked hair back and swung his legs over the side of the bunk.

  I didn’t kill her, he assured himself. I told her to ignore the voice!

  Steven took several breaths and descended from the top bunk. He stood barefoot in the middle of his cell, trying to regulate his breathing and pulse. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. I need to get out of here, he thought. I have to prove that I’m not a killer!

  “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?”

  A meaty hand clamped across Steven’s mouth. A bulging arm wrapped around his chest and pulled Steven into the bottom bunk. He bucked against his captor, but he was flipped over and forced onto the thin mattress, face buried in an equally thin pillow.

  Heavy breaths sounded in his ear. “Little pig, little pig, let me in.” The creepy rendition of the nursery rhyme was accompanied by a rough tongue that mingled with his earlobe. Steven almost barfed at the unwelcome contact and the smell of the brute’s fetid breath. For a moment, Steven almost welcomed the prospect of drowning in his own vomit.

  The pain of the backs of his legs being pinned down was suddenly absent, and Steven felt something touch the inside of his thigh. He screamed into the pillow and thrashed his legs. The brute slammed a fist into Steven’s kidney, and a rush of air escaped his lips.

  Steven felt his pants yanked down, undergarments torn, and his head twisted to the side, a hand covering his mouth again. Steven bit the hand, and he was rewarded with a growl of pain from his attacker and another punch in the kidney. The punch left him paralyzed; tender numbness settled into Steven’s body.

  “Be a good little lamb,” a voice whispered, and dry, cracked lips pressed against Steven’s cheek. “Mmmm, salty,” he declared, tasting Steven’s tears.

  Steven’s eyes tried to focus on his surroundings, but the figure on the stand was an amorphous blob. Thoughts raced through his mind – around and around they went. Like the carousel, he and Lindsay rode on a trip to a traveling amusement park. He wished he could silence them—the thoughts and the memories—but they were too loud; too vivid; too real. He felt dirty. He felt abused. Now, more than ever, he felt alone.

  “Mister Bass?”

  The cacophony in his mind collapsed into a single point of pain behind his left eye. His eyes focused again on his surroundings. The prosecutor, the judge, and everyone in the gallery fell silent. Their eyes focused solely on Steven.

  Steven cleared his throat. “Pardon?” he asked.

  “Please take the stand, Mister Bass.”

  Steven walked stiffly to the stand, placed his hand on the Bible, and promised to tell the truth. As if I could do anything else, he thought, his bitterness evident on his face. Voices in the gallery murmured, undoubtedly about whatever unknown slight he had just committed.

  The Prosecutor swaggered to the stand, a smug smile plastered across his face. Steven wanted to punch that smirk right off him. He crossed his arms across his chest and missed the prosecutor’s question. The prosecutor gave a theatrical sigh and repeated himself, and Steven heard the question this time. He knew the answer, but his mouth failed to form the words. He sat stoic, shifting to alleviate the pain.

  “Mister Bass,” the judge began, obvious annoyance in his voice, “answer the question.”

  Steven shifted slowly in his chair, winced at a tendril of pain that shot down his thigh. “I’m sorry I’m having trouble focusing but being raped by a criminal will do that to you.”

  The only sound was the steady rattle of a ventilation duct and Steven’s heartbeat. The prosecutor tried to respond but was apparently drawing a blank. Every eye in the gallery was focused on him, and even Robert had the dignity to appear outraged. The judge murmured something to Steven’s right. It was probably something about reporting the assault. As if the term ‘assault’ could sum up the experience. Perhaps they wanted a nice little label to make them feel better about locking up a seventeen-year-old with the worst humanity had to offer, but he wasn’t buying it.

  The attention was suddenly too much for Steven to bear. His eyes found his lap, and white noise was all that he heard. He didn’t know what he had expected with his revelation, but the odd numbness wasn’t it. Even his pulse decided just to chill for once.

  Voices clambered. The judge mandated that the trial would continue. Steven felt as if he were a spectator to his questioning. He answered all the questions presented to him without emotion, and the prosecutor seemed deflated. Steven wanted to wear a smug smile, but he just didn’t care anymore. Eventually, Steven was dismissed, and he gingerly walked to the defendant’s table and winced as he slowly lowered himself into his chair.

  Steven expected he would fidget in his seat as more witnesses took the stand, but his numbness masked the pain. He glanced up at the jury box and noticed that it was empty. He tried to recall the snippets of words aimed at him by the public defender. Words like “deliberation” and “sequestered” wafted up from the haze of Steven’s mind.

  A loud bang erupted from behind the jury box. Steven’s head snapped to it, and he saw the jury file out from wherever the
y had gone. This is it, he thought. He wondered how long he would be sentenced. Months? Years? Life?

  Steven watched intently as the judge rapped his gavel and said something to a matronly woman at the edge of the jury box. He watched her lips move as she finished what she was saying and made eye contact with him. She offered a small smile and sat down.

  The explosion of sound was deafening. Stomping feet were accompanied by shouts of “murderer!” and “retrial!” Something struck the back of his head, and the force pushed him forward. The judge banged his gavel, angry words directed at the gallery, and Steven was aware that uniformed officers poured into the courtroom. Still, his mind focused singularly on what his brain was insisting. His eyes saw the woman’s lips move in a pattern that he knew meant something, but he had a hard time believing it. Even his ears echoed their confirmation of what his eyes witnessed.

  The woman had said, “Not Guilty.”

  Lindsay’s parents cried out in rage. They screamed at the jury and Steven. The jury was amoral, they said. Steven had gotten away with murder, they said. He knew he should feel happy. Vindication was supposed to embolden him. He wasn’t going to prison. But he sat there numb as the gallery rioted. The sound of chairs overturned and wood splintering was just something that existed below the numbness.

  Someone leaped over the low wooden wall that separated the gallery from the defendant’s table and crashed into Steven, knocking him and his chair to the side. The impact of his elbow against the wooden floor was just more pain below the numbness.

  The numbness didn’t take away the sensation of fists pummeling his back and side; it just made it so he didn’t care. A pair of guards peeled a student off him. That student tried kicking at Steven but only ended up kicking one of another pair of guards attempting to pick Steven up off the floor.

  A hand darted out of nowhere and clenched Steven’s suit jacket. The cheap suit started to tear at the shoulder seam before another guard wretched the hand away. More guards shouted at Steven, and they hauled him to his feet. They shared the abuse and objects hurled from the rioting crowd, but they didn’t have his numbness. The numbness protected him from further injury. The guards tried, but there were too many people. Steven’s feet trailed on the floor as a pair of guards held him by the shoulders and led him out of the sea of angry humanity.

  Steven closed his eyes and embraced the growing numbness. The features of passing offices and guards wrestling rioters to the ground were merely a shadow soup. The winding route through bureaucracy ended at an ugly white van. A guard told him something, but Steven didn’t care what words he had said. The trial was over, and he didn’t care about anything anymore.

  6 Alone/Sleep

  With the trial more than two weeks behind him, the time had come for Steven to return to school. The parade of therapists and councilors was infuriating, and he yearned for the glorious monotony of the classroom instead of the constant hovering of the staff at the halfway house. Although he was emancipated, the state stepped in and decided, based on his “involvement” in Lindsay’s death, Steven needed to become a resident of a halfway house. It was the same halfway house he and Lindsay volunteered at during their first date. Instead of the warm feeling the memory brought him in the past, this time, it brought only numbness. His eighteenth birthday was in the summer and was after the school year would end. He hated suddenly having to answer to someone, even if that someone practiced indifference. After being on his own for so long, Steven despised the constant attention. A high school diploma was a requirement for staying at the halfway house. The system demanded more from him when he had so little.

  His rent-controlled apartment wasn’t his anymore. The owner fixed it up like nothing had ever happened and rented it out right away. He had stood outside the door, yearning to see the spot that Lindsay had died, but Missus Nesbitt, his former neighbor, had threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave. He didn’t even have the wherewithal to be offended. Numbness was the only thing he felt now.

  His employer decided that the attention Steven was under was no good for her business, so she gave him a generous severance package and sent him on his way. Jobless, Steven had to rely on the social programs in his city, and they were fanatical in their insistence that they knew what was best for him.

  Pundits on television dissected the courtroom riot after the “not guilty” verdict. The leaked closed-circuit video showed a wave of anger flow over the gallery. It was as if a miasma of hatred rippled through them. The animosity didn’t end when the police arrested half the gallery. People yelled unkind words at him when he walked down the street. Their frothy vehemence made it clear what they thought of him. More than one person had mysteriously “stumbled” into him, and he found himself on his back, looking up at the sneering face of his attacker. It was odd how clumsy the population had suddenly become. The example random people set on the streets bled into the classroom, and his schoolmates were no longer interested in veiled insults or simply staring. They saw the aftermath of the courtroom riot in their homes as their brothers and fathers returned late or, in some cases, the next day. They wanted their revenge for their neat little lives being disrupted. Their bigotry was somehow Steven’s fault.

  Steven walked into his first classroom of the day. He intentionally got there early to avoid the slings and arrows of his classmates, but David and Leonard waited for him in the otherwise empty classroom. Steven froze at the threshold and backed away slowly from a pair of crooked grins.

  “Come on in, murderer,” Leonard sneered, giddy at the prospect of doling out his version of justice.

  David pushed a chair out from the desk he was sitting on with his sneakered foot. “Have a seat. We want to welcome you back properly.” David looked at Leonard and snickered.

  Steven took a step back and collided with another body. Leonard rolled his eyes and glanced at his companion. Robert stepped around Steven and dropped his backpack on the nearest desk. He glanced at David and Leonard before turning his attention to Steven.

  “So,” Steven said after a long silence, Robert’s eyes locked with his and the duo watching from deeper in the classroom, “I’m innocent.”

  “I’m innocent,” he repeated when Robert didn’t respond. His voice wasn’t boasting; it was more like begging. Steven had watched his oldest and best friend go from defending him to standoffish behavior and finally to ignoring him outright. Steven didn’t need a champion; he just wanted his old friend back. He wanted to rally him to his side. He wanted to know he still cared. He reached for Robert’s shoulder, and Robert stepped back. Steven stood there, mouth agape, arm outstretched. Robert’s eyes flickered from Steven to over Steven’s shoulder.

  “Robert, please…” Steven whispered, clutching the proffered hand to his chest. His vision blurred at the edges, and he looked up to the ceiling to stop the tide.

  “Steven,” Robert finally said, after staring with such intensity that Steven was forced to ignore the snickers and whispers from Leonard and David and focus on Robert’s next words. “We’re not friends anymore.”

  Steven felt as if he had swallowed a heavy stone. Even David and Leonard fell silent at Robert’s words.

  “But,” Steven stuttered. “But, I didn’t…”

  “Don’t,” Robert declared and held up his hand to stop Steven from continuing. His eyes were glassy, and he, too, looked up at the ceiling before meeting Steven’s eyes. “Don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.” He paused and picked up his backpack. “I can’t…” Robert took a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t know what happened between you two. You guys didn’t make good choices, and I’m not sure what to believe, but I can’t be your friend.”

  Before Steven could reply, Robert hefted his backpack over one shoulder, walked past wide-eyed David and Leonard, and took a seat at the front of the classroom. Now, he didn’t hide his tears.

  “Out of the way, psycho,” a voice sounded out behind Steven. He felt a shove, and another student bru
shed past him into the classroom. A steady flow of accusing eyes filed by and took up the empty seats, a wide buffer zone between them and their pariah. When the doorway and the hall were relatively free from interlopers, Steven staggered into the hallway and leaned his back against the row of lockers. He felt himself sag, and he slid down the metal, drawing his knees to his chest. Someone walked by and kicked his backpack out of his reach. He didn’t care. He wasn’t sure if his shaking hands could retrieve it if he tried. No tears came this time; Steven was beyond crying. The numb feeling that had overwhelmed him was dissipating, and a new sense of hopelessness was replacing it.

  Steven accepted the overwhelming truth: He was now truly alone.

  Steven sat staring at a blank screen. His mind’s eye played images across its matte features. Lindsay smiling; her blank stare when he found her; angry faces, yelling at him; and Robert’s tear-filled eyes when he declared that he couldn’t be his friend anymore. The ghastly apparition that was his girlfriend that haunted his dreams was the worst. Even his happy memories of her were replaced with wailing and gnashing of teeth.

  Steven’s fists clenched, and his knuckles blanched. He didn’t know what to do now. Lindsay killed herself, and now everything was sideways. Steven lowered his forehead to the cold surface of his desk. He took a deep breath, and then another. What would he do? Was he responsible for Lindsay’s death? Did he miss some sign? Was it really his fault? If even Robert thought he’d done it, maybe he had…

  The instructor shuffled by and placed a bundle of paper on Steven’s desk. He mumbled his thanks, but the teacher scowled and moved on. He wondered why she even bothered. He hadn’t done any homework since his release from jail. Robert sat stoically with the rest of his classmates.