“It depended on what the incentive is. Esteban doesn’t like to be in class so he enjoys basketball in the gym, walks outside, going to the park. Things like that. He’s a kid that has a lot of pent up anxiety and energy and requires frequent breaks.” Garvey swiveled his chair to check the bing- bong, which I saw was an email notification. “He’s a kid that needs to be active as much as possible,” he added while glancing at his computer monitor.
He obviously wasn’t biting so I had to pull out the big net. “Does he ever get to help you with special things?”
“Not usually. I’m a big advocate of the students having to earn the right to be a helper or any other incentive for that matter. They have to learn that things aren’t just given to them. They have to work for it. Earn it.”
I wondered why he lied.
I thought about my conversation with Garvey and was convinced he was hiding something. One way or another I was going to get it out of him. At the same time, I didn’t want to have him connect the dots and get Lindsey in trouble for ratting him out. I was thinking about applying even more direct pressure but I was afraid some of the fat would start to ooze through the seams of his cheap suit.
Lindsey was in the middle of a lesson with her kids so I didn’t want to disrupt her. She knew I was coming by but she constantly reminded me how difficult it was to get her kids back on task after an unexpected distraction. I hate to think of myself as a distraction but, who am I to decide? However, I did peek through the small rectangular window in her classroom door and stood watching what I assumed to be Esteban’s empty chair. From the books the students had on their desks, it appeared Lindsey was doing some sort of science lesson. Angling my body, I could see a computer image of an animal’s skeletal system being shown through the projector onto the white board.
As much of a turn on it was for me to watch Lindsey in action, I quietly left without any further disruption.
THIRTY FOUR
Sharper was able to fit me in. She was willing to sacrifice her lunch to see me. I felt so special. Dr. Karen Sharper was a five- nine brunette with deeply set brown eyes. She usually wore her hair loosely draped around her shoulders and hung down to the middle of her back but today it was tightly wound in a ponytail, exposing her slender neck. When I walked into her office I instantly noticed the low- cut navy blue sleeveless sweater on top of white pleated dress pants. I thought it was too warm outside for a sweater but she never seemed to care what I thought. Rumor had it around the department that she became a cop shrink because her old man had gone off the deep end after serving too many years on the force.
“Hello, Mr. Barnes,” she said. It was the same professional greeting she gave me at the beginning of every session. Her legs were crossed and she didn’t appear to catch me staring because even through her white slacks I could still catch a glimpse of her athletic tone. Either that or she was immune to my ogling. I prefaced my request for this emergency session with a brief synopsis of the dream I had so she said, “Tell me more about the dream.”
Normally, this is the time where I’d be super resistant and act like an adolescent refusing to do chores but I actually wanted to figure this one out. “It was really bizarre,” I began. She could tell I was already invested in this session with the way I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees rather than assuming the usual laid back, resistant pose.
She was the only one knew most of what my dreams were about so we have to waste time comparing the two dreams. “I was the one wearing my sweatshirt. I was the one whacked out of my mind on acid. I the one wearing the rainbow sneakers. The sneakers. I was the one holding up the 7-11 and wildly wielding my gun.”
I knew Sharper was listening while paying attention to my over exuberant hand gestures as I explained the dream. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure if Jake was wearing my cop uniform or not. I don’t remember,” I added.
“What happened at the end of the dream?” she asked.
I froze. Deer- already- getting- hit- by- the- truck frozen. This is the point I was hoping to overcome today. I was hoping to march into Sharper’s office and lay it all out on the table. The full hand. No more bluffs and no more wheeling and dealing under the table. I knew it was time to be honest with someone. But now that the time was in the present I reverted back to my old ways. The cold sweats and stone- cold blood in my veins. The clammy hands and razor sharp hair standing on the back of my neck. The fear of finally revealing the truth.
I shook my head, “No can do, Doc,” was all I said and started to get up to leave.
“Chase.” Dr. Sharper had never mentioned my first name in isolation before and had never spoken to me in such a firm tone. It made me stop dead in my tracks. I’d just been scolded by my shrink. I sat down. She bore her tree-bark brown eyes through my face like a blowtorch through a paper plate.
She took a deep breath before continuing. “Look, I know what happened, losing Jake, was tough on you and your wife. And I’m here to try and help you. You come in here every session with the same I- hate- the- world- and- the- world- hates- me attitude and we end up running around in circles until your time is up. If you can’t tell me what really happened that night then we’re both going to end up dizzy from running these circles. And I think it’s safe to assume that if you can’t tell me what happened you sure as hell haven’t told Lindsey. Am I right?”
The question was rhetorical and we both knew it.
“You’re right, Doc. About everything. Lindsey doesn’t know; I can’t even remember the bullshit story I made up that she apparently bought because she’s been on my side and hasn’t asked any more questions. It’s just that between the guilt and the dreams I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“Ok, let’s start with the dream last night. How did you react when you woke up and realized it was a dream?”
This is where I usually became aggravated but that was the past and this is now and I need to figure this shit out.
“I was freaked out just the same as waking up from any dream over the last six months. Lindsey was up already before I realized it was a dream,” I said.
Dr. Sharper continued to stare at me. “Did you tell Lindsey about the dream?”
“Yes.”
“How did she react?”
I thought about it a second. “She listened, as usual, and then told me to make the appointment with you.”
“And it was good of you to listen to her advice,” she said.
“I suppose.” I was beginning to grow frustrated but not at Sharper, just at life in general. I usually felt like Sharper never offered me the assistance I needed when I came to see her. Always questions followed up by more questions. I usually felt like I was talking to myself. I can’t count how many times I’d say to myself on the drive home, ‘If I wanted to offer myself psychological advice I’d stay home, save myself the hundred bucks a session, and talk to a mirror.’ But today was different. What do the people of the psych world call it- a breakthrough?
I wasn’t sure why but I was starting to get another headache. It wasn’t the typical sore- behind- the eyes or punch- me- in- the temples type of headache that I usually got after a session with Sharper. This was more of a dull tingling on the top of my head. Sometimes it would pulsate like I was receiving electric shock treatment on my brain. They’d happened before but I had never mentioned it to Dr. Sharper because I didn’t think it was anything to worry about but since they were happening more and more over the last couple of weeks I figured it was worth mentioning. “Hey, Doc. I’ve been getting these headaches the last couple weeks. They’re not like painful headaches but more like dull ones on the top of my head. Feels like my hair follicles are vibrating.”
She put on her deep- thought face. “How often does this happen?”
“Once or twice a week or so, I guess,” I said. Suddenly it was difficult to find what to do with my hands. Dr. Sharper made notes on her pad.
“Well, we’ve clearly discovered that you have been suffering from
post- traumatic stress disorder since September’s incident,” Sharper began. She knew I didn’t like to mention Jake’s name in therapy and the only way to get me to talk was to refer to it as the incident. Post- traumatic stress disorder, I remember Dr. Sharper telling me, is normal, especially after an experience like the incident. She told me I might feel frightened, sad, anxious, and even disconnected from other people and things I used to find enjoyable, which I’ve experienced at various times. She added that I should start to feel better over time, but I’m yet to see it. I feel like I am a wounded soldier returning from an Afghan battle but I had never even visited the Intrepid.
“Sometimes with PTSD patients will suffer these types of headaches called tension headaches. They are brought on by various stressors and we’ve certainly been dealing with quite a bit of stress lately.”
We? Since when did this incident become our problem?
“I can prescribe something for you to take whenever you feel one of these tension headaches coming on,” she said.
I thought about that for a second. The thought of having to take medication regularly as a result of Jake’s death might really send me over the edge.
“Have you been able to reconnect with Jake yet?” she added.
“How the hell am I supposed to do that? I broke my Ouija board when I was six.” I laughed but she didn’t.
“Have you been able to visit with him yet, spiritually or through fond memories that you two shared?” Dr. Sharper uncrossed her legs, stretched them out and crossed them again at the ankles. She rested her chin in her hand while she waited for my answer.
The flashback started before I could answer. The sweatshirt. The sneakers. The gun. I closed my eyes to shake the visions out. “Not yet. I haven’t had to sleep downstairs in a few weeks, which I take as an improvement but I haven’t been able to cross the threshold.”
Dr. Sharper smiled. “Well, that’s definitely all right. Have you had any thoughts about Jake aside from the shooting?”
“What do you mean?” She explained that some PTSD patients unconsciously avoid positive- or negative- thoughts about the victim of the trauma. Sort of blocking out the times before the traumatic experience occurred. I told her that I recently found myself thinking about Jake and I going to baseball games like we used to. Sharper appeared to be pleased but showed little emotion.
“Do you like video games, Chase?” No wonder I can’t keep my mind straight during therapy because Doc throws me all over the map.
“I did at one time, but I haven’t played any games in a few years. Why?”
“Well, there was a study done a few years back, according to the Journal of Psychiatric Research, that believes playing the puzzle game, Tetris, is a possible remedy for PTSD.” I listened as intently as ever to Dr. Sharper as she explained the study to me. I enjoyed puzzles and puzzle games. I still do but I just haven’t any interest as of late. The study was geared towards soldiers of war done by an Oxford research team. The team experimented with sixty volunteers and had them watch a graphically violent movie and thirty minutes following the viewing of the movie they were divided into three groups. One group played Tetris, another was given a trivia game to play, while the third group didn’t do a thing. All of the volunteers were asked to keep a journal for a week, tracking any possible flashbacks the movie might have triggered. The end result of the study showed that the group that played Tetris experienced the least amount of flashbacks. I liked what I heard. Any adult looks for any excuse possible, especially medically prescribed, to play video games is probably just fine in most books.
My hopes were crushed when Dr. Sharper U- turned back to my headaches.
“It sounds like you might be experiencing stress- related tension headaches. I’m going to give you a prescription. It’s a medication called Fioricet, used to treat these types of headaches. Take one whenever you experience one of those headaches.”
That’s great, I thought. Now I’m even more of a pill- popping whack- job. The timer went off, indicating that we were done for the day.
“There’s one more thing, Mr. Barnes,” Sharper said, back to calling me ‘Mr. Barnes.’ I stood, expecting to take my prescription and leave but her last comment startled me. What else could there possibly be? I watched and let her continue. “Unfortunately, since you will no longer be an employee of the Paterson Police Department and you are newly self- employed, this has to be our last session together, I’m afraid. At least our last session on the department’s dime. I’d like to continue to see you on a regular basis. I really feel like we are starting to make some progress here. I’m pretty sure your insurance company would cover the cost.” She said it as if she were reading it off a card. The way I used to read the Miranda rights to knuckleheads we’d arrest.
Yeah, real progress. Do you really need some quack reminding you that Jake is gone? That’s what you’ve got me for.
“Progress, huh? You’ve really got some gig here, Doc. Thanks for the drugs but this is where our road ends.”
I put the prescription in my pocket, turned my back and left.
PART III- Recruits
THIRTY FIVE
Barry Klein was born and raised in Ringwood, New Jersey, a town dominated by nature. It was a hiker’s wet dream. Five thousand acres of trails and off- road biking located in the heart of the Ramapo Mountains. Klein lived in the section of town near Cupsaw Lake.
He came from a wealthy family and was given anything and everything he wanted since birth. Klein’s father made his money in the stock market and retired before he was forty- five. His mother didn’t need to work but took a part- time clerical job at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck just to maintain her sanity. She led the PTA, was the leader of her daughter’s Girl Scout troop, and was just your run- of- the- mill swell kind of mother. Klein along with his brother and sister each went to an Ivy League school. Stephen Klein, Barry’s brother, graduated from Princeton with a law degree and Colleen, Barry’s sister, graduated from Harvard with a biology degree. Barry chose Yale and was an English major, deciding to get into education.
As a kid, Barry loved sports, cartoons, and baseball cards but his true love interest was trains. He collected classic Lionel trains and found Christmas to be his favorite holiday, not for the presents and Santa Claus, but for the train tracks under the tree. He’d sit for hours and watch them go round and round. Eventually, each car was given a special magical power as if they were superheroes. Barry’s father was convinced his first words were ‘choo- choo,’ which eventually grew into a nickname. His family made the nickname stick through adolescence but once Barry’s social life grew he realized how stupid the nickname really was. He took it upon himself to shorten the nickname to toughen up his image. And when Barry Klein was fourteen “The Chooch” was born.
Klein tried as much as he could, throughout his entire life, to be nonviolent but certain situations called for extreme measures. His surveillance of Jamal’s own drug ring forced him to take his usual intellectual approach. He had been tracking several of Jamal’s drug runners over the past few months after collecting some pertinent reconnaissance information. Klein was one to manage his lucrative drug business down to the last cent. A trait he inherited from his father. The mathematical calculations, not the drugs. He knew something was strange when his runners would return from the streets with little or no cash in hand and virtually all of the stockpile of drugs they had been sent out with. Someone was invading his turf and he wanted to know who.
Klein had gotten interested in drugs in college, not as a user but as a pusher and a dealer. He experimented with his own supply from time to time but was more interested in the high of profit rather than the high from ecstasy or weed. His roommate freshman year had been the go- to person for the simple drugs: marijuana, caffeine pills, and ecstasy. Klein, instead of taking advantage of the accessibility, converted his inner beast into a competition. He bought up the majority of his roommate’s supply for double the street value and turned the small- tim
e gym- bag stash into a major illegal enterprise. Klein’s roommate didn’t like the fact that he converted his own half of the closet into an illegal medicine cabinet and used the shower curtain rod in the bathroom to hang his shirts.
Yale University, located in the heart of New Haven, Connecticut, is one of the most prestigious academic schools in the country for obvious reasons. The irony of having a university, which consistently churns out the nation’s power players, surrounded by a city riddled with poverty and crime consistently boggles many. To some, they see fear. To Klein, he saw opportunity. He pushed and sold to the local community as if his drugs were Girl Scout cookies. Teaming up with a guy named Tank, Klein was the go- to person for not only the marijuana and ecstasy but the cocaine, heroin, and acid in the entire state of Connecticut. A convenient way to pay off student loans and earn some start- up money. Tank started out as a local street kid running a few drugs here and there to make an extra buck. Within a few months, Tank had become Klein’s right- hand guy. The brawn behind the brains. That was until his brawn wasn’t enough to survive two execution-style shots to the back of the head.
Having to graduate at some point, Klein took his English degree and his border- line million- dollar drug ring home to New Jersey. His parents must’ve been so proud. Once in New Jersey, Klein found it difficult to locate runners to make deals for him. At Yale he had plenty of roommates and fraternity brothers to choose from. What college kid isn’t looking for a way to make some pocket change? He eventually went into some of the inner- city neighborhoods and bought up some of the small- time sellers and made them his runners. Over the years, some of Klein’s runners got pinched and some were killed ‘in the line of duty’ as Klein would say.
The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) Page 10