Believarexic
Page 10
“I’ll see you tonight, unless you’re already asleep.”
When Beverly leaves, the warmth leaves with her,
as if she tucked it into her coat and spirited it away.
Jennifer’s flesh is prickly with goose bumps.
She shivers from cold, and dread.
Ratched looks at Trendy.
“Did you check her?”
Trendy nods.
Ratched swoops toward Jennifer, patting her down anyway,
pinching her waist, first from the sides, then front to back.
“Okay,” Ratched says in a discordantly cheerful voice.
“Turn around and step right up.”
She takes Jennifer’s elbow,
guiding her as she moves onto the scale platform.
Trendy clanks the weights.
Jennifer holds her breath.
Bosom is watching from across the room.
Ratched looks at the scale,
her notes,
the scale.
“Come off and step back on,” Ratched says.
Jennifer does.
The clanking repeats.
Ratched looks at Trendy.
Trendy and Bosom look at Ratched.
They don’t talk.
They all stare at the numbers on the scale, behind Jennifer.
Why is this taking so long?
Her bladder is threatening to burst.
“Jennifer,” Ratched says.
“I need you to step off the scale and
jump up and down for me.”
“Jump?” Jennifer asks, mystified.
“Up and down?”
“Yes.”
“Is…is everything okay?” Jennifer squeaks.
She is scared.
This is starting to feel like yesterday.
Ratched tilts her head and asks, slowly,
“Should everything be okay, Jennifer?”
“Yes, I think so,” Jennifer says,
but she doesn’t sound convincing, even to herself.
“Hm,” Ratched says.
“I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t understand,” Jennifer says.
Does she weigh more than yesterday? Less? The same?
Jennifer doesn’t even know what to hope for.
What would satisfy them?
“Come off the scale and jump up and down.”
Jennifer steps down.
The tile is freezing.
“Jump.”
Jennifer gives a little jump.
“Higher.”
Jennifer’s bladder is killing her;
she’s afraid pee will come out if she jumps too high.
She jumps a little more.
“Why aren’t you willing to jump?”
“I’m sorry, I just really have to pee,” Jennifer says.
“What…what’s going on?
Is there a problem?”
“Let me see her room inventory,” Ratched says to Bosom.
Bosom hands Ratched a three-ring binder.
Ratched flips pages.
“Four rolls of quarters?” she asks.
Bosom nods solemnly.
Ratched looks at Jennifer.
“You need to show us those rolls of coins.”
“The…why?” Jennifer asks.
“Now,” Trendy says.
Bosom, Trendy, and Ratched follow Jennifer into her room.
One of them pops the overhead light on.
“What the hell!” Heather says.
“Go back to sleep,” Bosom says.
Heather grumbles and turns over.
Jennifer checks her dresser.
No quarters.
“They were—they were right here.”
She scrambles, moving her books.
“I had four rolls. They were right here.”
She gets down on her hands and knees,
presses her face to the carpet to look under the dresser.
“They have to be here.”
“Jennifer, where are your quarters?”
Trendy asks quietly.
Jennifer’s panic is rising.
If she doesn’t have money, she can’t call home.
She’s supposed to be able to call home today.
Two o’clock today.
She’s been counting the hours.
She has to call.
Her parents don’t know the pay phone number.
They can’t call her.
And Monica said they don’t let you do collect calls.
How will she call?
She’ll die if she can’t talk to Mom.
Jennifer opens her dresser drawers,
paws through her clothes,
slams each to go to the next.
“Could you be quiet!” Heather yells,
but it barely registers.
Jennifer looks under her bed,
through her clothes hamper,
on the nightstand.
She searches everywhere.
Finally, panting, she turns to the nurses.
“They were right here,” she says,
tears streaming down her cheeks. “They were right here.”
“Why don’t we go back
to the nurses’ station?” Trendy suggests.
“Yes. Leave,” Heather says into her pillow.
Back at the nurses’ station,
the stark light reflects off white tile floors.
Ratched says, “Jennifer. Your quarters are missing.
We think it’s quite clear what you’ve done.”
Jennifer weeps, “I need those quarters.
I need them to call—”
Ratched interrupts. “You’ve hidden rolls of coins
in your vagina.”
Jennifer blinks.
She swipes at her cheeks. “What?”
Ratched clears her throat.
“We didn’t give you the opportunity to tank this morning,
and since you can’t produce your rolls of quarters,
I have no choice but to believe that, at some point overnight,
you tucked rolls of quarters into your vagina.”
Jennifer looks from Ratched, to Trendy, to Bosom.
This is a joke, right?
This must be a joke.
She waits for one of them to crack a smile.
Trendy crosses her arms over her chest.
Bosom sits.
Ratched waits.
“That’s gross,” is what Jennifer says.
Because, of all the thoughts in her brain,
she keeps coming back to the fact
that coins are filthy with germs.
“That’s so gross,” Jennifer repeats.
“I wouldn’t do that. That’s disgusting.”
“That’s your disease,” Trendy says,
with a hint of compassion.
“We need you to take out the quarters,” Ratched says,
with no hint of compassion.
“God!” Jennifer says. “Four rolls?
How would they even fit?”
She begins to laugh.
Not happy laughter; deranged laughter.
How spacious do they think her vagina is?
She uses tampons labeled Slender, for teens.
Her vagina is not a saggy, stretched-out balloon.
It could not hold four rolls of quarters.
Or maybe they think she put some of them up her butt, too?
Jennifer has to stop laughing;
it surely makes her look guilty. Plus,
a drop of pee is tr
ickling down her leg,
but she can’t suppress her giggles.
“If you won’t show us the quarters,” Ratched says,
“we’ll have to order a gynecological exam.”
That does it. A flip switches.
“NO!” Jennifer screams.
Her first pelvic exam is not going to be in a mental hospital.
It’s not going to be a forced body-cavity search.
“NO! NO! NO!” she yells.
“Jennifer, calm down—” Bosom says.
“I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!
I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG!
YOU CAN ALL GO TO HELL!
WRITE IT IN MY FILE, I DON’T CARE!
JENNIFER JOHNSON TELLS ALL STAFF
TO GO TO HELL!”
“Jennifer,” Trendy says, “calm down,
or we’ll need to give you something to help you calm down.”
Jennifer crumples to the floor,
and something wet and warm soaks her legs.
“Oh my God,” Trendy says, horrified.
Jennifer is wretched, and alone, and accused,
and now she has wet herself.
She cries, sitting in her own urine.
She hears Ratched say, “Call custodial.”
Finally Trendy says, “Come on, Jennifer.”
She helps Jennifer up, leads her to her room,
unlocks the bathroom, runs the tub water.
She waits while Jennifer takes off her wet paper gown
and shoves it in the garbage.
She watches as Jennifer sits on the edge of the tub,
puts her legs under the water, uses a washcloth to get clean.
Jennifer dries herself, silently,
hangs her towel up, leaves the bathroom,
puts on her nightshirt, gets back into bed,
hides under her quilt.
She holds Bearibubs close.
Heather snores.
Trendy leaves.
Jennifer cries.
Yesterday she thought it couldn’t get worse.
But today is worse.
She has managed to find a new low.
Ashamed, embarrassed, angry, alone, terrified.
• • •
Somehow, she’d always thought that she could do this.
Even at her most desperate,
with her monster at its most vicious,
a part of her thought she’d eventually find a way.
She believed that when she grew up, she’d be happy.
A grown woman, healthy, with a good life.
But now, the path from here to there is gone.
Obliterated.
There is only a chasm.
An expanse of nothingness.
No path, no labyrinth, no floor, no ceiling.
There is nothing.
It’s over.
The end.
• • •
And yet, scrunched under her quilt, she hopes.
Incongruously.
A tiny part of her. A still, small voice.
Maybe because there is nothing left.
Maybe this moment, right now,
is why her parents gave her her middle name:
Hope.
Jennifer Hope Johnson.
Maybe they gave it to her to get through this.
Is hope what you need, in order to take a leap of faith?
What is a leap of faith, anyway?
Does it mean flinging yourself into nothingness?
Does it mean you close your eyes and jump off the precipice,
and trust that you’ll sprout wings,
or someone will catch you,
or both?
She has no wings.
There is no one to catch her.
No one here except herself.
And Jennifer can’t do it.
This Jennifer can’t do it.
Unless.
What if this Jennifer isn’t the only Jennifer?
What about the future Jennifer?
The happy, healthy grown woman?
If that person exists, there must, necessarily, be
a thread from then to now.
Jennifer closes her eyes.
She makes herself a promise.
If I ever grow into that person,
grown-up me will come back here,
to this Jennifer, curled up, crying in bed,
humiliated, with no underwear on, and no money to call home.
Grown-up Jennifer will catch her, and set her down gently,
and hold her hand, and walk her through this.
Because there’s no other way.
She is alone. But
she cannot do this alone.
• • •
The mattress dips,
and a hand settles on Jennifer’s back.
Someone is sitting on her bed.
Jennifer tenses, but does not come out from under the covers.
She has heard the sounds of Heather getting up
and breakfast being served in the lounge.
“Jennifer.” Jenny-fah.
“Jennifer,” the voice says. “It’s Dr. Prakash.
Please come out so we can chat.”
Jennifer’s life has hit rock bottom,
lower than she thought possible,
and Dr. Prakash wants to chat.
Jennifer doesn’t move.
“You do not want to come out of hiding?”
Dr. Prakash’s voice is light, almost chuckling.
“I am sure my voice can carry through your blankets.
All I ask is that you listen to what I have to say.
Can you do that for me?”
Jennifer doesn’t move.
“Are you alive in there?” Dr. Prakash asks.
Jennifer nods.
“Is that a yes or a no?” Dr. Prakash asks.
“It’s difficult to tell from here.”
“Yes,” Jennifer mutters.
Her voice is hoarse, her throat sore from yelling,
probably as loud as Jesus Lady.
She is mad, and humiliated, and frightened.
What happens now?
Will Dr. Prakash make her submit to a vaginal exam?
Will her parents be called?
What consequences will be forced on her?
Restraints? Tranquilizers? The ICU?
“Very well,” Dr. Prakash sighs.
“Sheryl and the other nurses have filled me in
on what happened—”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Jennifer shouts.
“I hate it here!
No one believes me!
This is torture! Torture is illegal!
I didn’t do anything!”
Dr. Prakash’s hand is still on Jennifer’s back,
which is now heaving.
“Jennifer, you will need to please calm down.
Please, just breathe for me. Can you do that?
Just take deep breaths and listen?”
Listen. Why should she listen?
Dr. Prakash will side with the nurses.
Jennifer clamps her hands over her ears.
She doesn’t care that it’s juvenile.
She hates this place and everyone in it.
And if the nurses tell anyone that she peed herself,
she will die of mortification.
Dr. Prakash’s hand moves on Jennifer’s back.
Jennifer tries to shrug her off,
but Dr. Prakash starts to rub gentle circles.
A psychiatrist giving a back rub.
; Isn’t that a breach of medical ethics?
What kind of doctor is she, anyway?
The back circles continue.
And continue.
Dr. Prakash is taking all this time for Jennifer.
Just sitting here on her bed,
rubbing her back,
like a mom or a grandmother would.
Despite herself, Jennifer is comforted.
She is still mad and scared.
But more important than her anger
is her need for an ally—
the promise of grown-up Jennifer notwithstanding—
she needs someone who is actually here,
who can actually help, who actually cares about her.
Eventually Jennifer loosens her hands from her ears.
“Do you feel like you can listen a little now?”
Dr. Prakash asks.
Jennifer nods.
“Is that a yes?” Dr. Prakash asks.
“Yes,” Jennifer mumbles.
“Good. Thank you. First, deep breath in”—
Dr. Prakash takes a deep breath herself—
“and out.” Dr. Prakash blows an exaggerated breath.
“Once more, Jennifer. In, and out. You keep doing that, yes?”
She continues rubbing Jennifer’s back.
“I have been informed by staff of what transpired,
but I would like to hear it from your perspective,
when you are ready.
For now, just keep listening to my words.
Can you do that for me?”
Jennifer nods,
then remembers to say, “Yes.”
Dr. Prakash’s voice is calm and reassuring.
She has probably had extensive training
in pacifying patients.
“I want you to keep breathing,
but I would like to ask you something.
I need a yes or no answer. Can you manage that?”
Jennifer nods under the quilt, then says, “Yes.”
Her voice sounds pitiful.
“Excellent,” Dr. Prakash says.
“Please do not get upset with me, Jennifer.
I do not wish to accuse you.
But I need for you to tell me the truth.
Did you use rolls of quarters, or anything else,
as weights this morning?”
“No!”
“Again, I am not accusing you, Jennifer.
But I would not be a very good physician if I did not ask.
So, once again, are you sure you are telling me the truth?”
Such an important word: truth.
With Dr. Prakash’s accent, it sounds like troot.
“I’m telling the truth,” Jennifer says.
“All right,” Dr. Prakash says.
Jennifer waits for more, but Dr. Prakash just says,
“I am relieved to hear it.”