Circe

by Jessica Penot

  “I’m not you. I don’t work until midnight every night and I spend most of my day puking. The patients like me, but I'm not always there for them and in physical therapy the patients like continuity of care. Sometimes, I have to call in sick. I’ve lost ten pounds. I can’t eat. What the hell am I supposed to do? They’re going to fire me.”

  "I really suck, don't I? I'm sorry. I hadn't even noticed all of this was going on. I knew that you've been having a rough time the last few weeks and that the pregnancy has been difficult, but I had no idea you were missing work"

  "You do suck. You don't call to check on me and you’re never home. Did you know that my sister Rachel is going to get married? No. You don't because you’re never here. What’s going on?"

  "I just got a little scared. I'm not ready to be a father. I don't want to be my father. I don't want you to end up like my mother. I have no real idea what parenting is. I took developmental psychology and that’s all I know about kids."

  "You could have told me that. You shouldn't have shut me out. I know kids. Hell, I have like thirty cousins and second cousins and nieces and nephews. I grew up on a kid farm. I know kids. We can work this out and if we can't, we'll deal with it, but don't run away." She buried her face in my chest. She put her arms around my shoulders. "Please don't leave me now. I'm afraid too. I'm afraid something is going wrong with the baby and I'm so tired."

  “You’re going to the doctor today. They’ll think of something.”

  * * * *

  We went to a little place next to the cathedral where they served the best brunch in the morning and afterwards we went to see Pria’s Ob/Gyn. He gave her new medicine for her nausea and told her it was nothing to worry about. He explained there was nothing wrong with her or the baby, but that she just needed to rest and eat what she could. The first trimester of pregnancy is notorious for nausea and dizziness. It will pass. Pria’s mood lifted visibly at the news and she held my hand happily.

  The exterminator came in the afternoon, so Pria and I decided to leave early to see my brother. I went into the house to pack her bags. She wouldn’t even leave the car. It was a blessing that Pria was so well organized, because I was able to grab her clothing without much trouble.

  Jeremy was happy to see us that weekend. We stayed in his guest bedroom, which was decorated in the best of ‘80s Florida chic. Everything in the room was a soft pink and the wallpaper was covered in large green palm trees. The carpet was green and looked like it was older than Jeremy. There was very little in the room except a wicker chair, a lamp, and the bed. Pria settled in happily, thanking Jeremy over and over again for his generosity. Jeremy’s wife had gone to stay with her mother, so we got the best hospitality his tiny two bedroom apartment had to offer. He made us scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. We spent the afternoon wandering the Gulf Shore beaches and went to the Florabama for drinks.

  The Florabama is a tradition in the Gulf. It’s a seedy little bar on the edge of Florida and Alabama. If you live in the Gulf of Mexico long enough you have to visit it at least once. Pria made us leave early, however, because she couldn’t stop worrying about how the secondhand smoke might affect the baby. She went to bed early, after taking her medicine, and slept like a mummy entombed in its sarcophagus.

  Jeremy’s apartment was well kept, but old. It was in a very run down complex and the only reason it had any value was because it was directly across the street from the beach. Jeremy loved it. The carpet was matted and gray, the walls were stained and the kitchen counters were dented. None of this mattered to Jeremy or his wife. They covered the carpet with huge, inexpensive rugs and put contact paper over the counter tops. They filled the apartment with trinkets and bobbles and a TV large enough to see half the night sky on. I hated his apartment, but when I followed him onto his tiny little balcony at night, I saw its value. The balcony looked over the road at the pricy rental houses that sat on the beach, and onto an endless expanse of topaz blue water and white sand. The stars met the horizon, tipping their hats to the foreboding beauty of the turbulent Gulf.

  “Congratulations,” Jeremy said blissfully. “Pria is really glowing. I’m sure you’ll have a beautiful baby. Do you know what it is yet?”

  “We have a couple of months, but I can see Pria praying for a girl.”

  “Is she okay? She looks a little green underneath all that glow.”

  “She’s been having a rough time, and the roaches last night didn’t help any. She hasn’t slept in a couple of nights, and she needs it.”

  “I’m glad you took some time off to be with her. She’s been pretty lonely.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She called me the other night. You have to know she’s gettin’ desperate if she’s callin’ me.”

  “What’d she call for?”

  “She couldn’t find you and wanted to know if I had heard from you. She needed someone to drive her somewhere during her lunch break. I can’t remember the specifics. I guess she’s having trouble at work. She really just wanted you. I told her that you never called me anymore.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “I’ve only heard from you twice since you moved down here. You called me more when you were in Detroit.”

  “You sound like a jilted lover.”

  Jeremy finished his beer and started another one. “A worried brother. You never call mom and your wife ain’t doin’ so well. I’m just beginnin’ to wonder if you’re fuckin’ your boss after all.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Yeah it is. I’m your brother. I’ve been taking care of you since you couldn’t use the bathroom by yourself. Hell, I was the one who taught you to pee standing up. How is you fuckin’ up your life not my business?”

  “I’m in trouble, Jeremy, and I just don’t need you yelling at me.”

  “It’s my job to kick your ass when you need it.”

  “Seriously.”

  Jeremy turned to look at me. He smiled and handed me a beer. “If it is that serious I guess you’re gonna need this.”

  “What happened between you and Brooke, Jeremy?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You used to be so close and now I never see her.”

  “She couldn’t have a baby and that was it. She had three miscarriages and after the third one it was over. She never touched me again.” He shrugged dismissively and lit a cigarette. “Why are you askin’?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel like I haven’t been paying attention. I went away and you were thick as thieves and now you can’t even look at each other.”

  “You haven’t been payin’ attention, but I been payin’ attention to you and I think you need to stop dodgin’ and tell me what’s goin’ on. I’m probably the only person in the world that really cares about you, besides Pria, and if you don’t talk to me you aren’t gonna have anyone left after Pria finds out.”

  “I slept with Cassie and, before you say anything, you should know I never meant to. I really meant to be straight with Pria after New Orleans. I gave up the other women. I swear to you, I really don’t think this is my fault.”

  “How can it not be your fault? Did she rape you?”

  “You’re going to think I’m crazy when I tell you this.”

  “I already think you’re crazy.”

  I told him the entire story with all the bloody pictures. It felt good to talk about it. Cathartic. I felt all the worry and anger drip away into the ocean before me. “You see, I didn’t want to have sex with her,” I said. “I hated her. Look, I still have the bruises.”

  “That’s the most fucked-up story I’ve ever heard.”

  “Even more so when it’s your story,” I added dryly.

  “You aren’t really gonna go on this trip with her this weekend.”

  “I have two weeks left with this woman and I want stellar reviews. I’m going to the conference because she told me to.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “You couldn’
t leave a piece of pussy alone if it was on fire.”

  “Has Brooke left you?” I asked in a desperate attempt to change topics of conversation.

  “She ain’t been here in five days now. She didn’t tell me when she left. I didn’t ask. She didn’t take all of her stuff so I don’t know.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Do you care?”

  “Yeah. Of course. I know I can be an ass sometimes, but I still care. You know, I may not call you, but you don’t call me either.”

  “I know.”

  It was late when I crawled into bed with Pria and I was a little drunk. The apartment was cold and Pria was shivering under the covers. She pulled herself close to me and muttered something under her breath. I wanted to tell her everything. I needed her to know, but fear overwhelmed me. The weekend passed with muted happiness. How could I tell her? How could I break her heart?

  * * * *

  Roy from the third floor snuck a note to me through a mental health worker that Monday. I was a little dismayed and didn’t quite know how to react. The note didn’t say much and he wasn’t my patient, so I wasn’t sure what the procedures were. I talked to Cassie about it and she indicated that their therapeutic relationship had suffered some difficulties. She very nonchalantly told me I could take over visiting him a couple times a week if I wanted to. She threw his chart at me and walked away.

  I hadn’t spent much time on the third floor and wasn’t used to the network of security procedures, but once I got through them the environment was a little more relaxed. Roy was out of his room, sitting on a chair in front of the window. He was fairly well groomed and presented himself as oriented to his environment.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Roy said. He stood up to greet me and shook my hand. “Can we go to my room to talk? It’s a little more private.”

  “Of course.” I followed him back to his room and sat down. “So, what’s going on?”

  “I know I’m crazy and I know what I say doesn’t mean anything, but I can’t take this anymore and I just have to talk to someone so if you want to blow it off, or whatever, that’s fine, but I’m tellin’ you that I may be crazy but that doesn’t mean what I’m sayin’ isn’t true.” He spoke the entire sentence without taking a breath.

  “Okay. So what are you saying?”

  “You know why I’m here?” He was agitated. Nervous. He began to bite his nails.

  “Yes. Do you?”

  “Of course! But what I never told anyone but Dr. Allen was that I didn’t really kill them. Ok. I know, I killed them, but I didn’t kill my family. I hated my mom and dad sometimes, you know? They were really Christian and didactic and I had to go to mass like every other day and prayer groups and I could never go out. I hated that and I wanted to get back at them so I started hangin’ out with this bunch of guys who were into Wicca. You know witchcraft?”

  “You were rebelling against what they believed in?”

  “Shit yes. I started doing spells in my bedroom. Tryin’ to summon spirits and demons. Nothing ever happened. I tried to cast this one spell so I could go out to this bar and listen to a band. That was a complete crash and burn.”

  “How were you doing otherwise? Were you depressed, anxious, having any peer problems?”

  “Shut up. Just listen. None of that matters. Nothing worked until that morning. My mom had just went to drop my sister off at ballet and my dad and my other three sisters were upstairs listening to Christian rock or whatever stupid shit they did, when he came to me. Clear as day he just popped up in my summoning circle. It was like space ripped. The air tore and he just climbed out of the hole. He was the strangest thing, more like an animal than what I thought the devil would be. He was like a cat or a snake or if a cat and snake mated this is what their baby would look like. It said its name was Caal. The thing didn’t say anything else and the only thing I remember after that is waking in that fuckin’ jail cell.

  "Don’t you see? I didn’t kill them. I loved those fuckin’ girls. I hated them, but I loved them. The worst I wanted to do to my parents was maybe steal some of their shit and pawn it for weed or fuck my girlfriend on the dining room table before the priest came over for dinner.”

  “You never had any hallucinations or fugue states before this?” I asked.

  “Can you just stop being a fuckin’ shrink for five minutes and listen? I never told any of you assholes this before because I knew that I would sound crazy. I’m not stupid. I just said what my lawyer told me to say. I didn’t fake any of the emotions though, you know, I acted crazy because, how can I live with myself now. I tried to kill myself three times. I’ve given up now. Maybe I could forget killing my parents, but they said I hit my two-year-old sister three times in the head with the back of an axe. I see that every night. Every night I see her crying. She’ll never be the same. She can’t talk right.” He began to cry.

  It was several minutes before he could talk again. I leaned over and put my hand on his shoulder. His entire body heaved with the depth of emotion that was pouring out of him. The bed shuddered under the enormity of his sobs.

  He wiped his eyes and nose on the back of his sleeve and looked up at me. “I never told anyone this. Who the hell was I going to tell? But she knew. She even knew his name.”

  “Who?”

  ”Dr. Allen.”

  “Whose name did she know?”

  “For a fucking shrink you don’t listen worth a damn! Caal. She knew Caal!”

  “Is this why you don’t want to see her anymore?”

  “He left me alone. He got what he wanted, but now I see him all the time. He sits right where you’re sitting and stares at me all night. She brought him back. She listened to all the details about everything I did and she brought him back. She wants to kill me.”

  “Why do you think she wants to kill you?”

  “She brought him back to kill me!”

  “This isn’t real. You’re projecting your delusions onto her. Why would she want to kill you? She’s your therapist. She wants to help you.”

  “Yeah. That’s why she took me to her fucked-up temple in the basement and fucked me on the floor.”

  “What?”

  “She took me to the basement and we had sex on the floor.”

  “Look. I think I should bring her up here and we should all talk about this together. The allegations you’re making are very serious. I’m not comfortable talking about them with you without her here to defend herself.”

  “Of course she’ll say it never happened.”

  “Is it possible that you’ve been having fantasies about Dr. Allen and you’ve projected her into your delusions? You seem very intelligent. You know what’s going on despite your illness. What do you think is more likely: that you were possessed by the devil and forced to kill your family and that your therapist has now summoned the devil to kill you, or that you have a disease that is making you think these things and see things that aren’t real and that you’re fixated on Dr. Allen and have pulled her into your disease?”

  “Fuck you. I thought you might help. But you’re just bullshit!”

  “I want to help. I really do. Let’s assume that everything you’re saying is true. What can I do? What can I do that is realistically within my power?”

  “Just come up and see me. Don’t leave me alone with her. Please! Just don’t leave me alone with her.”

  “I can do that. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No. But there is something you should know.”

  “What?”

  “This place is wrong. There is something wrong with it. Not like ghost story haunted, but something deeper. There are ghosts here, everyplace. One talks to me. One is nice. Her name is Jane. She told me to tell you to send your wife away.”

  “What!?” I asked in violent desperation.

  “I don’t know. That’s just what she said.”

  “Look, I’ll help you, but if you ever mention my wife again, that’s it. I won’t ever see you a
gain. Do you understand?”

  “Sorry, man. Sorry.”

  I stopped by his psychiatrist’s office on my way out and talked to him about Roy’s medication. I told him I would be taking over Roy’s treatment, so I was invited to his treatment team meetings on Mondays. His doctor said he would up his medication and make sure they kept a close eye on him. That was all I could do. I penciled him into my schedule for biweekly visits and tried to ignore the content of everything he said.

  I couldn’t forget what he said, however. The coincidence was too much. I had never been afraid in my life. I had rock climbed and almost died. I had backpacked alone in the most remote deserts. I had faced everything I thought there was to fear in life without so much as a tremor, but as I sat there writing my report my skin crawled with some unknown emotion I could only describe as fear. I wasn’t sure what I was afraid of. I couldn’t imagine being afraid of Cassie and I couldn’t convince myself to believe Roy’s hallucinations—or my own, for that matter. Maybe I feared Circe herself, her long shadows and cold walls. The endless wailing from the unseen corners of her broken heart.

  I sat in Cassie’s cluttered office, surrounded by her endless book shelves, and tried to convince myself that I was just having some kind of anxiety attack because of all the pressure on me. This wasn’t real. A beetle crawled across the desk. I carefully picked it up and opened the window, releasing it.

  I looked out at the white chipped walls of the original fort. Bathed in the daylight, it seemed benevolent. It looked like a historical site where you might spend an afternoon with your family. From a distance, the patients who clustered around the cantina seemed like happy tourists discussing their daily adventures. I shook my head and told myself that being surrounded by so much madness was wearing me down. It was normal for male patients to have delusions about their female therapists. It had nothing to do with what happened between Cassie and me. I couldn’t believe Cassie would be corrupt enough to seduce a patient.

  A cool breeze passed through the office, forcing me to close the window, but I stood there for a while watching the wind blow. The tower gazed out at the hospital from its omnipotent elevation.