Richie

by Thomas Thompson

  George broke free. He dropped his hands to indicate he wanted no more fight. “Richie! Sit down! We’ve got to talk.”

  “I’m fuckin’-A tired of talking! I’ve had enough of this shit. I’m tired of everything!” Richie threw the scissors onto the end table. George watched as they gouged out a small chunk of wood and fell clattering to the floor.

  “Please, son. We’re killing each other.”

  Richie glanced at the fallen scissors. “I don’t know if I should do you in now, or let my friends do it later.”

  This time George fled the house. Richie sank to the floor and began to cry as he heard his father drive away.

  George drove blindly through the streets of his town, playing the scene over and over again in his mind. He drove past the precinct police station, almost stopping, then pressing the accelerator. Finally he saw a candy store and stopped and dialed his home. He wanted to try, once more, to talk to Richie. But the number was busy. He stayed in the telephone booth fifteen minutes, trying to get through.

  Hanging up in frustration, he began to drive to the junior high where Carol was working. Maybe she would know what to do. He glanced at his speedometer. He was doing seventy in a thirty-mile-per-hour zone.

  Richie first called Fritz and began to brag of the incident. “My old man was scared shitless. He thought he was dead.…” Then his words began to tumble out, dipping and diving like a radio fading in and out. When George heard them late that night, Richie seemed incoherent on the tape: “I kicked the shit out of some kid in the cafeteria today … because I heard he gave my name to the cops.… I said something to him.… I wouldn’t hurt him … but I grabbed him by the neck.… He wouldn’t answer me! They’ve got to listen to me, man!… I said, ‘Hey, motherfucker, you gonna answer me?’ He was like scared, man. I popped him in the eye to make him look at me … and he didn’t do nothing so I popped him again. And he started fighting and a bunch of people broke it up … some fuckin’ Jews.… I was holding my coat over my shoulders and one of them knocked it off and I said, ‘Can’t you say you’re sorry, you little cocksucker?’ and he said, ‘I am sorry, Richie.’ And I said, ‘Watch it,’ and … Did you ever pull a knife on your old lady? That’s the same thing as what I did …”

  Fritz was trying to interrupt the rambling monologue, but Richie gave him no entry.

  “I know you wouldn’t hurt your old lady,” plunged on Richie. “But that’s what I did today. I swear I couldn’t help it, man.” Richie paused briefly; his voice broke and his words were sobs. “He called me names in front of my friends. He called me a dope addict.… I couldn’t help it.… I was stoned on Amytals.… I only took one, but I was stoned from last night.… All of a sudden he smacked me in the face.… I can’t take that from him … so I picked up those scissors.… ‘If we’re gonna fight,’ I say, ‘it ain’t gonna be clean.…’ O God, O Godgodgodgodgodgod.…”

  The line went dead. Richie kept holding the phone in his hand. He sobbed for several moments—on the tape—before he dialed another number.

  Still sniffling, he waited for Carol to dry her hands and come to his aid.

  “Ma?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Ma. This is RICHARD.” His voice was full out, like a man shouting across an overseas cable from East Meadow to Moscow. “Ma … I got KICKED out of school today.”

  “Yes? How come?” Carol’s voice tensed.

  “Cause I wised off to a teacher. They can’t do that … just because I’m failing. Ma, I’m a senior. I’m supposed to graduate.” Richie could not keep his voice in check; it began to crawl sideways. “Then Daddy came home with two cops.”

  “Why, Richard?”

  “’Cause he thought we were having a POT party. And they came bustin’ in, and …

  “And?”

  “And we were just drinking. I’m at home now, and he smacked me in the face and I pulled the scissors on him. I didn’t … I didn’t touch him with it.… I just punched him in the face.”

  “Where are you?” The line crackled with static. Carol wanted to ask her son to hang up and get a new connection, but she feared she would lose him. She strained to hear his voice.

  “I’m right here. At home. This is where it happened. This is where it started. Two girls and two other guys. Daddy started getting loud, calling me names in front of these people. So I told him to shut up.…”

  “Richard … are you … on anything?”

  “What?” It took him a moment to absorb his mother’s meaning. “No.…” Once more his voice went out of control. It cracked. A sob caught in his throat and dragged its way into the phone. “I think I’m crazy, Ma.…”

  “Who’s crazy?”

  “I’m crazy!”

  “No, you’re not.” Carol’s voice trembled even as she denied her son’s diagnosis of himself. But she feared it was true. Richie was going mad on the telephone, and Carol was having to listen to it.

  “I pulled a scissor on Daddy. Twice!”

  “All right,” said Carol, soothing as she had tried to be when the boy had come home teased and weeping a dozen years ago. “Now calm down. Just calm down. Go to sleep. You want me to come home?”

  “Stay at work. If you can work, stay there. Ma, I pulled the scissors!”

  “All right, please. Try and take a nap. I’ll get home as fast as I can.”

  The line went dead. Carol replaced her receiver. She thought fast. June would know. Her sister was working now as a secretary at Meadowbrook Hospital, or by its more formal name, Nassau County Medical Center. She called June and gave her a capsule version. June reached another secretary named Elsie Molinelli, who worked for the medical examiner.

  Carol rushed out the back door of the junior high school cafeteria toward her car. George was running at her. She flew into his arms. “I know,” she said. “Richie just called me. He’s ashamed. He’s crying. He’s got to have some help.”

  George hurried to the huge medical center. By the time he reached Mrs. Molinelli, she had already made an appointment for Richie with a psychiatrist, for the next afternoon at two. So distraught, so ashen was the man she knew from Carol’s charity functions as a “happy-go-lucky guy,” Mrs. Molinelli told George to sit down for a minute.

  “I’ve had trouble with a child in my family, too,” she said. “Don’t blame yourself for everything.”

  George nodded. “At this point, I can’t blame myself. It would be wrong to blame myself. I’ve done everything I know, everything I can for my son.”

  Late that afternoon, Joe Marck, Carol’s brother-in-law, dropped by the Diener home to see if he was needed. To his surprise, the storm seemed subsided. Richie was in the kitchen. He called out cheerily, “Hi, Uncle Joe.” Carol was preparing dinner.

  Still tense, George was reading the newspaper. He did not let on there had been trouble, nor did Joe reveal what his wife had told him.

  When he reached his own home, Joe told June, “Something’s wrong with that boy. He pulls a pair of scissors on his father and a few hours later he acts like nothing happened. He should be down in his room ashamed of himself. Something’s going to happen in that house. A catastrophe. Mark my words.”

  Carol prepared a special dinner—lasagna, spaghetti—the things Richie liked, and called her family to the table. Richie appeared promptly, his face and hands sparkling from a long shower, his hair arranged as best he could, his clothes neat and crisp. He ate with enthusiasm. He praised his mother’s cooking. Later that night George typed a next-to-last entry in his log:

  This evening everything went well. Richard sat down with us and talked with us and spent the whole evening with us for the first time in about three years without blowing up and walking away from us.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next morning Richie rose, showered, and took two secobarbitals to prepare for the session with the psychiatrist. When he felt them working within him, he called Mark.

  “I’ve gotta go to the hospital today to see if I’m �
� craaaaaaaaaaazy.” He stretched out the word and decorated it with a strained laugh.

  “Why?” asked Mark. He had not heard the story of the attack with the scissors.

  “I don’t know.… My father … I’m goin’ to this place … They want to see if … if I’m gone.… Some ree-taard place.”

  “Well, call me when you get home.” Mark accepted the news with little more interest than had he heard Richie was going to his grandmother’s house.

  “Why?” said Richie. “You gonna smoke?”

  “Yeah … Hey! I gotta get off the phone. My mother’s coming. Call me back in ten minutes. I can’t call out today.”

  When the conversation resumed, Mark suddenly began painting dark pictures of what might happen to Richie at the “ree-taard place.”

  “Who’s driving you there? Your old man?” asked Mark.

  “No. He’s the reason I’m going. My old lady’s taking me. I don’t have to go, you know.…” But Richie’s show of strength trailed off.

  “They could commit you, you know,” suggested Mark with an air of experience.

  “What? Commit me to where?”

  “To some mental institution.”

  “Fuck that. I’m leavin’ the country before that.”

  “You know what you’re getting into? Everybody running around in sheets? You’ll be in there for life.” Mark found his remark funny and laughed until Richie’s serious voice stopped him.

  “I’d kill ’em.”

  “They could put you in there for surveillance.”

  “What’s that? For how long?”

  “For a couple of months. They have the power, man. They can do anything they want. They can say, ‘Old Rich takes narcotics … and narcotics cause brain damage.’ They can make that up—and they can lock you up for two months and shave your head bald.”

  Richie made a gagging sound. “Fuck that,” he said. “I’ll kick the shit out of all of ’em. I’ll kill ’em. Why can’t everybody just leave me alone?…”

  On the drive to the psychiatrist, Richie told Carol he was glad to be seeing a doctor. During recent weeks, his health had worried him. Every time a small cut or sore did not heal promptly, Richie showed it to his mother and wondered if he had diabetes. He felt his heart was pounding irregularly. Carol jested with him over becoming “something of a hypochondriac,” but she realized he was perhaps concerned over what drugs were doing to his system.

  “Only one thing, Ma,” he said as the hospital came into sight, “I don’t mind seeing the shrink today—but if he wants me to come back once a week, I couldn’t stand it.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Carol.

  At the psychiatric clinic, Richie was handed a questionnaire and asked to circle statements that he felt pertained to his problem. Out of sixty-five questions, he put “yes” circles after the following:

  —Do you often suffer from an upset stomach?

  —Are you often sick to your stomach?

  —Do you bite your nails?

  —Do you wear yourself out worrying about your health?

  —Do you feel alone and sad at a party?

  —Do you have to be on your guard even with friends?

  —Are you easily upset or irritated?

  —Do little annoyances get on your nerves and make you angry?

  —Does it make you angry to have anyone tell you what to do?

  —Do you often get into a violent rage?

  When Richie was called into the psychiatrist’s office for a private talk, he gripped his mother’s hand tightly. Carol smiled gently and patted his arm and let him know silently that she would be waiting for him.

  A third-year psychiatrist resident from India, A Dr. Kuruvilla, conducted a brief clinical examination of Richie, consisting of little more than questions and conversation. The doctor made the following notes:

  Patient has court hearing coming up on assault charge.… Smokes pot, uses LSD, heroin and down pills.… Patient spends time with friends, boys and girls, smoking pot, going to bars and drinking. Usually he is not interested in studies. Mother tried to find him a job, but boy did not stay with it.… Patient feels angry, aggressive and confused toward others, especially his father, who criticizes him. Patient says he likes pot and down pills very much. Uses them more or less regularly, especially when he is with groups of boys and girls, and before going to bars. Patient says he has no sexual problems with girls. He goes out with different girls to have fun with them, but he has no close relationship with girls.… Patient has a buddy named “Bob”* whom he trusts. No homosexual tendencies.… Does not like school, does not want to study, unable to get interested, likes history and science.… Complains about his health all the time. Weighs 140 pounds, is 5′ 7″ tall, thinks there is something wrong with his heart, not sure what. Sleep is often disturbed. Wakes up in early morning, but has no nightmares or disturbing dreams.…

  Next Dr. Kuruvilla spoke privately with Carol for a few minutes. He asked if she was strict or lenient, if she and George had a “good” marriage, if she approved or disapproved of marijuana. Carol responded that she was lenient, that her marriage was good, that she firmly disapproved of marijuana. The psychiatrist excused himself to consult with a senior psychiatrist. When he returned, Dr. Kuruvilla announced that Richie would be accepted as an outpatient, but that nothing could be done until the assault charge from the Walgreens incident was cleared away.

  “You call us for an appointment as soon as that is taken care of,” said the psychiatrist in his crisp, faraway accent. He handed Carol a card.

  Numbly she looked at it. Had Richie mentioned the scissors attack on his father, she asked? Yes, said the psychiatrist. Well, then didn’t the doctor feel treatment was needed immediately? No, the best thing to do was wait until Richie was not entangled in a court action.

  Nodding, silent in a moment of helpless disappointment, once more doing as she was told, once more unwilling to go against the voice of authority, Carol thanked the doctor for his time and went outside to take her son home. Richie was pleased that his treatment would not begin until an indefinite future time.

  Later that day Dr. Kuruvilla made three alternative provisional diagnoses of Richie’s condition: (1) Sociopathic with drug abuse; (2) latent schizophrenia with drug abuse; (3) passive aggressive personality with drug abuse.

  Within two weeks, questions would be asked of a Dr. Pasternak, the senior psychiatrist at Nassau County Medical Center, questions that wondered why Richie was not accepted immediately, that very afternoon, and treatment begun.

  “Whenever we’re faced with a court situation,” Dr. Pasternak would answer, “we usually wait. We get more than enough people who need immediate care. If a patient isn’t climbing the walls when we see him, we usually let the court take precedent. Besides, you get to the point where you say, who is the boss? The court? Or the doctor? The court usually wins.

  “There weren’t any flagrant psychotic disorders here. I reviewed Dr. Kuruvilla’s report and okayed the delay. If I had personally seen the boy, I might have recommended a detoxification program to get him free of drugs, or I might have recommended a separation of the boy and his father, sending Richie to a relative’s house to live for a while.”

  Dr. Pasternak would respond to one further question. Was any attempt made to find out how serious was Richie’s drug use, the amount of his daily barbiturate intake?

  “This was a clinical examination. A preliminary talk. In other words, no.”

  Strike three, thought George, when Carol told him of the psychiatrist’s decision. The court lets me down, the police can’t do anything, the psychiatrist says wait. I am a man falling from the top of the Empire State Building, but I am not close enough to the pavement for somebody to stick out a net.

  There was but one particle of hope in George’s day. While Carol and Richie were at the clinic, he had gone to East Meadow High for a conference with Barbour, the principal. That night, when his house was quiet, George
played the last tape and made the last entry in his journal:

  Today I went to see the principal of Richard’s school and told him that Richard felt so bad about being thrown out of school that he went off the deep end and threatened me. The principal said he had to worry about the safety of the rest of his students, but that if Richard promised to stop acting the way he had been, and start working and making an effort, he would take him back on a trial basis.

  The principal also told me that Richard has been reported as being one of the top pill pushers in school and that he was the one who sold pills to a girl who overdosed on them in the school a couple of weeks ago. This girl became violent and had to be carried out of school on a stretcher to the hospital across the street. They had to tie her down with straps to keep her from running out screaming into the street. Richard admitted that he was the one who sold her the pills, and he said he has talked to the girl since then and apologized and that she doesn’t blame him.

  Richard was glad he was taken back into school and promised to stop with the drugs and to apply himself in school. But one thing makes me wonder. He got on the phone this afternoon after going to the psychiatrist and called all of his friends—Mark, Peanuts, Brick, etc—and bragged about calling the police PIGS yesterday and of making his father turn white and shit in his pants by holding a scissor to his throat. He also called Fritz to buy some pot. It doesn’t appear as though Richie is as sorry as he says he is.

  * Richie did not mention Mark, Peanuts, or Brick as friends.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Richie was readmitted to class on Tuesday morning, February 22. The week stretched to its very end without trouble. Richie did not cut class, nor did he go out at night. He stayed home, he studied, he ate dinner with his family, he called up Sheila and said he was through with drugs and determined to pick up his grades so he could graduate, he even engaged his mother in a long, tender conversation about the enduring comedy of Jimmy Durante. It seemed to impress him that a man at whom his mother had laughed twenty-five years ago was still funny, that there could be a continuity to life.