Prodigy

by Charles Atkins

  “No,” Barrett agreed, feeling badly that she’d never really noticed Marla after all these years. “You mentioned Jimmy’s sister, what did you know about her?”

  “Just that she called Gordon. He didn’t tell me a lot about it, and then some lawyers came around, basically saying that there’d ‘be problems’ if he used Jimmy’s case.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “He didn’t. He thought they’d get over it. ‘Old news’ he’d say. After a couple weeks he figured everyone would forget it. Plus, he couldn’t see the Martin family wanting to bring a case.”

  “Because?”

  “You read the article?”

  “Yes.”

  “Too much negative publicity. Martin’s family is big money. He didn’t think they’d want to rehash the stories about Jimmy, and all of the other stuff. Jimmy was the one they locked up, but the entire family was sick.”

  “Did you know Jimmy?”

  “I guess. Croton’s a big place, but not that big. He wasn’t on my unit, but I’d see him at assemblies. You could tell that he was having a hard time of it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, maybe I didn’t think about it at the time, but when I was writing up his case, I started to think about things,” Marla glanced at Barrett. “Like he was by himself whenever I saw him, and some of the things that didn’t make it into the article let you know that people were bothering him. I know what that’s like. And then people talked.”

  “About?”

  “That it wasn’t a good idea to mess with Jimmy; stuff happened to people who messed with him … bad stuff. Like there was this guy who supposedly tried to pimp him, and he ended up getting killed in solitary.”

  “Killed or committed suicide?”

  “There’s lots of ways to make things appear different than how they are. The guy ended up with a sheet around his neck.”

  “Things like that sometimes happen,” Barrett offered.

  “I suppose, but you don’t get sheets in solitary, just a rubber mattress.”

  “Good point.”

  “There were others, too; always with a good explanation, nothing that would get anyone to point fingers … like with Gordon.”

  “You don’t think he jumped.”

  “No.”

  “Did you say anything?”

  “What good would it do? He was dead, I wasn’t. Would my saying anything change that? And I’m too much of a realist. I know what would have happened if I’d said something.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  Marla shook her head, “What wasn’t I afraid of? One thing leads to another. I was seeing my parole officer twice a month and there were too many ways I could screw up and get sent back to Croton. Better to keep your head down and just hope no one notices you. Everyone assumed Gordon jumped because of his trouble about me. That’s bad enough. If I’d lost my job that could have been a violation of my release agreement. Just like they thought he jumped, they also thought he’d taken advantage of me. That’s a joke. If anything it would have been the other way around.”

  “You took advantage of him?”

  “In a way. I did what I had to. I mean I liked him well enough in the beginning. And then when the tears stopped … I guess I felt grateful. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why are you interested in all of this? If Jimmy Martin is your patient, I’d leave this alone.”

  “Is that a warning?”

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but yes. People who mess with Jimmy end up dead … even when he’s nowhere near them.”

  “Is that why you called me the other night?”

  Marla’s dark eyes narrowed and she pushed back in the chair, “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” She stood up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Barrett said. “And if you can think of anything else … anything, I’d appreciate it.”

  Marla reached for the door handle and then paused, “There was one other thing …”

  “Yes.”

  “Not about Gordon, it’s about Dr. Kravitz.”

  Barrett’s ears perked, “What?”

  Marla bit her lower lip, “I think there was something going on with him and Jimmy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not sexually … I think something happened right at the end.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I got a phone call a couple weeks before Dr. Kravitz died; he was asking me how he would go about getting bloodwork on Jimmy. At first I didn’t think too much about it because Dr. Kravitz doesn’t usually work with our clients. But then I realized that he should already know how to use the lab service.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “It’s sometimes what people don’t say. Dr. Kravitz was a pretty funny guy, he’d tell me stupid jokes on the phone; it was kind of cute. But this time he was all business, and if you ask me … he sounded scared.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Wearing her gold-flower wire on the lapel of a navy jacket, Barrett sat across from Jimmy for their third session. Prior to coming she’d contemplated a stiff drink; she needed something. The near-constant surges of adrenalin had made it impossible to sleep last night. She’d lain awake, heart racing, thoughts hammering. If it wasn’t Jimmy, it was Ralph, the morgue, the bruises beneath his eyes. Years back when she had gone to a psychiatrist about her panic attacks and the anxiety that surrounded them, he’d tried to put her on Valium and an antidepressant. She’d declined, and she’d made it through. But now, if she’d had one of those blue heart-shaped pills in her purse, she would have gladly taken it.

  It was Thursday; four o’clock, and she had a goal—she wasn’t leaving without something tangible with which she could violate Jimmy back to Croton.

  “How’s your week been going?” she began, taking a mental inventory of her patient, while trying hard to keep her nerves in check.

  He was neatly dressed in dark green khakis and an ivory turtleneck. He’d combed back his hair with some kind of shiny pomade and she caught the smell of a musky aftershave. In his lap, the blue-eyed kitten lay curled.

  “One week is much like the next,” he fixed her with a stare.

  “You’ve been taking the medication?”

  “Can’t you tell?” holding out a trembling hand.

  “Does it do anything to keep away the voice?” she asked.

  “Not really, no.”

  “Is that the reason why Dr. Kravitz didn’t make you take them?”

  A smile slowly spread across Jimmy’s lips, “Whatever would make you say that?”

  “It’s pretty clear that you weren’t taking the medication, and I know that Dr. Kravitz knew that, and for whatever reason, allowed it.”

  “Dr. Kravitz was not as strong a believer in medication as you are.”

  “I see … And if they really don’t do anything for the voices, perhaps he had a point. Do they do anything for you?”

  “Not really, other than make me want to sleep all the time. Are you suggesting that I might not have to take them?”

  “No, at least not now, but later, we might be able to convince the board that they’re unnecessary.” She dangled the possibility like a carrot, wanting him to relax, to trust her.

  “I’d like that.”

  “Whose idea was it not to take them?” she asked.

  “I told him how badly it affected my playing; he took the hint.”

  “That’s understandable,” she replied, hiding her disappointment at his answer. The review board, she realized, might accept his explanation, if in fact Kravitz had colluded. Switching tactics, she infused her voice with warmth. “I wonder if we could try something different today …”

  “What’s that?”

  Barrett was about to head into ethically vague territory, but then again, this was all being recorded, which was illegal consideri
ng Jimmy didn’t know and she hadn’t obtained a warrant. “Because so many of your symptoms go all the way back to the traumas and torture you endured as a child and as an adult, it causes fundamental shifts in the way your mind works. These traumas can be the source for all kinds of painful experiences,” Barrett modulated her voice to be soft, with the words coming at a slow, even cadence. “This is why you experience things like panic attacks and flashbacks. Even the kinds of voices you describe may have their origin in traumatic things you’ve had to endure.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You’ve had a hard life, Jimmy, and even as a child were forced into horrible situations that weren’t your fault, were they?”

  “No,” his voice softened.

  “Of course not,” she continued, “what I want to do today is help you go back, and together we can look at some things, but always with the understanding that we can stop whenever you want, and that I won’t let anyone hurt you. Do you think you’d be willing to try? I’ll be right with you and I won’t go away.”

  “Okay,” sounding now like a little boy.

  The cat stirred, looked up at Jimmy and then across at Barrett. He jumped off Jimmy’s lap and rubbed up against Barrett’s ankle.

  “That’s good,” she said, patting a space on the chair beside her. Fred needed little encouragement to wedge his tiny body between Barrett and the leather arm of the chair. “I’ll be right with you, but to get there I’m going to need you to start by closing your eyes and taking a nice deep breath through your nose, like you’re sniffing in a beautiful flower.”

  Barrett watched as Jimmy slipped easily into a light hypnotic state. From there, she led him through an induction sequence that brought him to a deep trance state. She’d been correct in her hypothesis—Jimmy was a wonderful hypnotic subject, she almost didn’t need to use a formal induction. But like Mayfield before her, this was questionable territory—at least she wasn’t drugging him with Amytal.

  “How do you feel, Jimmy?” she asked, observing that his respirations had slowed and that his body appeared relaxed.

  “Good … floaty.”

  “That’s wonderful. I want you to feel wonderful, and we’re going to play a fun game. I’ll ask you questions, and if you answer them completely, you’ll feel more and more wonderful. Would you like to play?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, let’s start with something fun.”

  “Okay.”

  “When Dr. Kravitz used to come, was that fun?”

  “Yes. But he didn’t play very well,” Jimmy answered in his little boy voice. “Ellen was much better. You play much better. I wish you’d play with me.”

  “How do you know that I play?”

  “I saw you. You wore a velvet dress with lace around your throat and at your wrists. You have such pretty hands.”

  “Where were you?” Barrett asked, shaken by the accuracy of his memory, down to the detail of the dress that her mother had made for the recital.

  “Backstage with Ellen. She was mad.”

  “How come?”

  “Waterfalls of notes. You were supposed to play Für Elise, but we heard giant waterfalls of notes. You played the Revolutionary Étude.”

  “That made Ellen mad?”

  “Ellen had to be the best. She was so angry and you were so pretty. Do you still have the velvet dress?”

  His question surprised her; people under hypnosis tended to be passive and not ask questions. “I don’t,” she said. “I want you to take another deep breath and as you let the air out, it will be like riding down an elevator that makes you more and more relaxed. And breathe in … and out … That’s good. Are you relaxed?”

  “Yes,” he answered, still with the child’s voice.

  “I’d like you to picture Dr. Kravitz. Can you see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had fun with him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But at the end he wasn’t fun anymore, was he?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll find that by telling me about why it stopped being fun, you’ll get a wonderful feeling inside. Would you like to try that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So tell me, when did Dr. Kravitz stop being fun?”

  Jimmy’s eyes opened and he looked at Barrett with a soft expression. “I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  “How come?” Barrett asked, feeling anxious that his eyes were open.

  “I’d lost all of the weight, and had gotten good again on the cello. I was ready to see you.”

  “Did you tell him that?” she asked, shocked by the deliberateness of his answer.

  “No … just that I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  “What did he say?”

  Jimmy’s lower lip curled downward, “He got mad.”

  “That’s not fun,” Barrett said, modulating her tone to be the kindergarten teacher to his eight-year-old boy.

  “No,” he shook his head. “He tried to trick me.”

  “That wasn’t very nice of him, was it?”

  “No.”

  “How did he try to trick you?”

  “He sent Kelly and Hector and they made me give them blood.”

  “That wasn’t nice at all. Especially since you hadn’t been taking any pills, had you?”

  “No. He wanted to trick me, because he was mad.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Jimmy blinked. His pink tongue flicked between his lips, and his pupils narrowed. “Dr. Conyors, this isn’t fun,” his voice shifted lowering in pitch. “Just what is it we’re trying to do here? Where’s my wonderful feeling?” he said, aping her hypnotic suggestion.

  The cat stirred, and looked warily at Jimmy.

  “It’s a light hypnosis,” she answered, feeling a chill, and worrying that he’d pulled himself from the trance.

  “Just a light one? Like a small martini or a touch of fine-Moroccan hash?”

  “Something like that,” she answered, leaving her school-marm voice behind while trying to gauge Jimmy’s current persona.

  “So you’d like Jimbo to tell you what happened to the good doctor, is that it?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Aren’t you supposed to tell me how wonderful and relaxed it will make me feel, to divulge all of his nasty secrets?”

  “That’s not what you want,” she replied. “You want something else, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” he answered, “I want what everyone wants, what you want, what Dr. Kravitz wants.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, noticing how on edge this other Jimmy made her feel.

  “Love. Admiration. A good fuck now and then. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “No,” she agreed, as the cat squirmed out of the chair and bolted beneath a bookcase.

  “Can you give me that? If you can give me that I’ll tell you about Dr. Kravitz.”

  “You can give that to yourself,” she said.

  He laughed, “That was lame. But I like watching you, so maybe I’ll tell you anyway. It was simple. Morris was upset because the gravy train was leaving the station—without him.”

  “So he ordered bloodwork. Why?”

  “He wanted leverage. Even Jimbo could see that.”

  “The bloodwork never made it to the lab.”

  “No, there was an accident. Oops!”

  “And Dr. Kravitz?”

  Jimmy smiled, “Oops, oops. Diabetics have to be so very careful.” He leaned forward in his chair, his movements sinuous, like a python sidling up to its prey. “What is that perfume you have on?” he asked. “Here, let me breathe it in deeply like a flower, and as I do, I may feel wonderfully relaxed.”

  Barrett tensed.

  “You do this so well, doctor,” he closed his eyes and sank back into his chair. “And you didn’t even use a shot. So talented, so filled with fun and games. It’s no wonder he likes you so much.”

  “Who?”

 
; “Jimbo. I can’t blame him. I think the boy may finally be growing some taste.” He closed his eyes and his tongue lewdly circled his lips.

  “Is Jimbo there?” she asked.

  “He’s hiding. He’s such a little fool, never could come out and ask for what he wanted. Perhaps we should enroll him in some assertiveness training? We did a lot of that in the hospital.”

  “And who are you?”

  “James Cyrus Martin, of course.”

  “Which one?”

  “Yes … he did pick well. I can’t tell if it was the velvet dress, your flawless skin, your lips, your exquisite eyes, or that hint of a Southern accent you try so hard to hide. Did he ever tell you about his first love?”

  In spite of her fear, Barrett felt a surge of excitement. Was he about to tell her the truth of what happened to Nicole Foster? “No.”

  “It was his nanny, a dark-skinned woman from Georgia. So sad what happened,” he leered at Barrett.

  “Tell me.”

  Jimmy chortled, “She was terminated.” A shudder passed through him, he blinked and started to tremble.

  Jimmy feels the red-hot heat from the furnace on his face. He hears the crackle and hiss of black coal. And there’s Maylene, but why does she have that look in her eyes? So frightened, and Father’s hands around her throat as she kicks and claws at his fingers. Father smiles and clamps down harder making her eyes grow big, like a plastic squeeze toy.

  “Jimmy, what’s happening?” Barrett asked, noting a look of wall-eyed terror in him.

  “He’s doing it again,” the voice shifted pitch, the tone was now gravel-tinged and adult.

  “Who is?”

  “Father.”

  Tears stream down Maylene’s face, her legs kick spastically and her white nurse’s shoe falls to the cement floor.

  “Make him stop.”

  “What is he doing?” she asked.

  “He’s in the basement. Please, you said no one was going to hurt me.”

  “Tell me what he’s doing.”