“Wh-what happened to you, Kenny? Why are you so old?”
Kenny starred up into Mark’s eyes, his tears instantly turned to joy, and he laughed through astonishment.
“Mark, listen carefully,” Kenny said swiftly. “These men in this institution don’t personally care about you, but they will assist, so please communicate smoothly. You will also talk with some police officers, because last night you…almost murdered someone. There is talk that you may be charged with a life sentence in the Rester Institution, but there is always early release with good behavior. After the police officers comes the press. They will attempt to cause an outrage out of you. There is a chance that no one from the media will communicate with you today, but there is a crowd outside wanting anything they can possibly grab, and it hasn’t shrunk. The news of what you did is nationally known, so they will come. Believe me, it’s not like the media coverage that interviewed you when you shot those drug smugglers. They want you to crack. The reporters want to see gossip. They will throw you in a straitjacket and a pillowed room if you react. Ignore them.”
Mark’s heart monitor went off again, and Kenny quickly muted it. The nurse didn’t hear. “Why can’t I remember, Kenny?” he asked while pee began to trickle into his sheets.
“There was an accident. You have amnesia. Please trust me and don’t be afraid. Your heart rate is at one hundred twenty, and this type of machine won’t mute if it passes one hundred sixty beats per minute. I will be thrown out.”
“Where’s Aaron? Why isn’t he here?”
There was a knock on the door. Kenny quickly glanced behind and saw the outline of professional suits. They were the government officials. They opened the door with tremendous posture.
“Aaron is going to jail. He broke a few laws that aren’t easily forgiven,” Kenny whispered. Mark’s heart rate exceeded 160, and the monitor began to screech with a higher pitch. A few nurses ran past the government officials and Kenny in a panic, their pagers creating the same high-pitched noise. Mark began to sweat in terror and yelled one last comment before Kenny was completely gone, another man in a suit leading him out the door and whispering into his ear.
“Take care of Mary!”
After those words, he was surrounded by nurses fighting to lower his heart rate. Kenny’s excitement from Mark’s epiphany was extinguished. He didn’t respond or look back as his eyes fell to the floor, shamed beyond belief. I will, he thought, I will. Kenny then ran to the bathroom and cried, leaning over the toilet and knowing that everything he’d said was wasted.
Then his phone rang, and Kenny picked it up. He wiped his eyes and cleared his voice, doing a poor job of it. “Hello,” Kenny said. “So what’s the news?”
The voice on the other line responded, “You’re in.”
The doctor set forth out of the institution and toward the hospital. He was accompanied by two police officers for protection from the roaring crowd outside that seemed to expand with different news teams across the nation. They all had many questions, and as reporters flooded in front and behind him, a small crowd of rioters that were outside the reporters began to throw half-empty cups, small rocks, and screamed insults. “You an enthusiast for police brutality?” one twenty-four-year-old college student screamed. “You allow the mentally ill to protect our neighborhoods? Our children? You let them carry a gun?” He didn’t carry a gun, Kenny thought. We had it controlled. When he arrived to the hospital, Kenny was again assisted by police officers to pass through another riot of reporters attempting to thrust themselves inside, sneaking for a glimpse of inside, or a word with Kenny. He was escorted to the recovery room for surgery; no one walked in his path, every nurse disgusted by the sight of Kenny, most glaring at him, some whispering into each other’s ears, and a few, only a few, having no idea. Another police officer met with him halfway, allowing the other two to walk back and help restrict the crowd. This police officer led him to Aaron, behind a maroon curtain.
“How are you doing, Aaron? I heard the eight-hour procedure went well,” Dr. Kenny enthusiastically stated, a weak smile on his face.
Aaron mumbled something in gibberish.
“Mark was great. He remembered who I was, in fact! If we just pray for him and let God handle it, the outcome that was meant to happen will happen.”
Aaron muttered another sentence that was too sloppy to understand.
“Your lawyer said that they want to charge you with forty years in prison for harboring Mark on the police force. But there is always an early release with good behavior!”
Again, more murmurs were spoken through the thin man’s mouth, his chest, shoulders, and neck wrapped tightly with bandages.
“Did you ask how I was able to visit Mark? Well, I spoke the truth for once. For once I did what was right. It is going to be a very heavy fine because of my knowledge of Mark. I’m also going to probably lose my job, which means I will more than likely become an entrepreneur like before. I’m not certain yet if this publicity will be helpful or harmful, but I’ll find out very soon.” Kenny was very silent; then he spoke again with a warm yet tattered voice.
“You know why I became a doctor? When my wife found out she had colon cancer, it was the mid-eighties, and a cure was like roping a fly. There was more of a chance to kill it with the rope than to catch it with a loop. So she decided to do nothing at all and tell no one. While she began to grow ill, we all made up a lie that it was meningitis, to cause worry but not the loss of hope. While I watched my wife slowly lose her strength, Mary did as well. She believed that her life was only going to be as long as her mother’s and fell into a depressive spiral. I promised my little girl that I would become a doctor and find a cure. That lifted her spirits, and her color came back, so I broke open the books and learned as much as I could about the disease while earning my doctorate and continuing my entrepreneurship. When Mark was diagnosed, I was afraid to lose this perfect son-in-law. I felt like if I failed to help him, I’d also fail my daughter. So my visits were very limited with him, as every spare second was spent staring at those college library books and theories. Then Mary became ill with the first lie I ever made.” There was a silence. “I knew almost nothing about meningitis except what is essential for a doctor to understand. Then my lies spiraled out of control. I believed you. I believed that a lie would help my son-in-law just like my wife thought a lie would help her friends. I repeated the exact mistake my wife did. I destroyed the person I wanted to protect. The truth became even worse than if it had been told with honesty. True, Mark was in a deep depression that would have needed professional help and a suspension from the station, but if we let him be, only waited one more week and didn’t jump to conclusions, what a world it might have been,” Kenny said with wonder. “You know what’s ironic? Out of everything in Mark’s life, the poverty, the cancer, the death of Tom, the memory of his wife’s warmth that was enough to create a depression so strong, insanity was the only out. Insanity was the lucky ticket in our cruel, spiraling lies that brewed a maniac through the course of decades. Maybe Mark knows she’s dead but can’t ever accept it. Although, if he ever remembers, let us hope he is furious enough to make up a punishment for our mistakes. But I warn that if Mark doesn’t fuel up in rage, let us throw on straitjackets and buy rocking chairs to pass the time, because the guilt will drive us mad.”
◆◆◆
Every day was the same. Mark was strapped down in the mornings because of the panic attacks and outrages, and he would eat breakfast with restraints in his white room because the doctor knew there was no avoiding them. His first screams were almost always commented on by a neighboring younger woman who was very annoyed by him, who would scream back as if she were the sanest person in the facility.
“Oh, shove a sock in it!” she would yell. Mark would ask her questions immediately, always surprised that there were other human beings present. The woman only answered a few while being very annoyed, since h
e’d asked the same questions yesterday, and a week ago, and the week before that. She’d look at the time, see that it was a minute before 8:15 a.m., and sigh. “It’s almost time for the rooster to crow,” the woman yelled with a slight slur. “How’s Mary? ‘Oh, I just saw Mary the other day and we had a play date with Johnny Rodgers and Bruce Springsteen!’”
She was a regular.
Mark would then be questioned on what he remembered, then left to reflect on the situation for an entire hour, with the news playing on the TV that hung in the corner next to the glass door; it was on mute. The doctor left it on to allow him access to the date, so he might admit his insanity sooner than later, so he would be able to sneak in some exercise.
The same old and wrinkled nurse that cleaned his room at 11:00 p.m. asked him the same question before she left.
“Would you like anything to drink, dear?”
Mark responded the exact same way since his admission more than three weeks ago. His nose was light purple, with the swelling almost gone. The bandages for the bullet wound that had scraped his right arm were reduced to only one thin cloth, the stitches on the side of his head were finally out, but he continued to experience mild headaches at night. The only injury that hadn’t been improving was the concussion from the car accident with Tyler Castillo, the boy Mark believed was a drug addict exactly a month ago, although he had no memory of the incident.
“Why am I here?” Mark asked the old nurse. “I need to see Mary.”
Of course, these reactions were all too common for her, so no emotions were attached to his words. She would smile and walk out thinking about the next few routines that needed her assistance.
The woman next door was named Whitney. She stomped on the ground in the mornings while sucking on her chewed-up, irregularly curled blonde hair, while reading the newspaper comic strips the nurse gave her. Then afterward, she’d stuff her bed with the colorful cartoons, as she had been doing for the past six months. “If only that selfish nurse would give me more than these damn government brainwashing cartoons!” Whitney would scream while stuffing her secret stash, watching the door and hoping no one would hear the sounds of the gathered, hoarded comic strips. But this was not news, as the nurse always heard her taunts and, every morning, would offer her the newspaper like she demanded, since the doctors promoted the practice of reading. Yet every time Whitney would turn her head in disgust and say, “I am disgusted that Dr. Mac brainwashed you to give me that newspaper, and I liked you, Nurse Trinity.”
Her plan was to burn down the institution with the plastic bed as a diversion, during the rush of lunch. Then she’d pick the lock on the far right door in the wide, dull, white lunchroom, which led to the cafeteria where the lunch ladies were. With the way the air vents ran, and how vast the institution was, the woman believed she could crawl through a vent and reach the front desk behind the cafeteria in under three minutes. There was a police officer always stationed there, but she told another inmate that she would play a board game with him if he created a riot to attract the police officer away from his post. “Tomorrow, tomorrow’s the day!” she would yell unknowingly, every day as dawn cast dim lights across the rooms. “I can feel the freedom!”
During lunch, Mark would ask the nurse who brought the food into his room if he could get up and walk around. Since it was routine, the staff was aware of his thoughts to escape. It was nearly impossible to restrain him after allowing this request, as both times Mark was inches from the automatic front doors, his neighbor drooled with jealousy. So the nurse would ignore his plea, turn her head, and walk out. They couldn’t loosen his restraints until it was past three in the afternoon. Once that hour passed, Mark fell under the illusion that the following day had more fortune, and a strategic escape plan was the only solution. The problem was that his mind never saw tomorrow.
A day after the narcotics wore off Aaron from the assault, he was interviewed by a reporter named Brody Johnson for the HFA (Highlights for America). Since he was a part of a national newsroom, Johnson was given first dibs on the story. In that interview, Aaron decided to speak the truth, beginning the day they met. The magic tricks they performed and those childish dreams of performing in Los Vegas. Mark and Mary’s relationship, with Aaron’s secret passion toward her. Tom’s death in the Middle East. Mark’s cancer in their town, and his notoriety across the town as an outstanding police officer, a marine, and a survivor of cancer. Then Mary’s illness, Mark’s insanity, and Aaron’s secret to keep his sanity. Then the days past Mark’s memory, with Mary well and healthy for five more years. Their normal love until the accident, and Aaron believing that he was an astonishing friend because of Mark’s continuous job at the police station. Then Johnson’s final question for him was what his final request would be for America. Aaron lost his control.
“I deserve everything I receive for my punishment as everything I did was wrong,” Aaron cried on his hospital bed, “but Mark, he’s my best friend. This is all I ask for in America, all I ask is to see him one last time. I want to calm him down, I know what he needs.”
The interview went viral, and Aaron’s words moved many in the homes of the United States. There was a national statement a few days later from the Rester Recovery Facility and Institution’s owner plainly stating, with his ghostly white face and acne scars under his grimly white hair, that Mark was too unstable to have any visitors because of his attempts to flee and the outrages in the morning. Then the nation shook with rage; every station continued to interview Aaron to refresh their audience’s minds, and they all skyrocketed with views. Each new interview became a sensation, as families digested them like People magazine, hearing about each individual story coming from Aaron’s lips. He spoke about his abusive father, how he would walk miles from his house as young as seven years old, full of fear and anger as his classmates used to also call him “Angry Aaron.” Then Mark approached him with a handshake and humility, saving his life and showing him that compassion existed.
The interviews didn’t yield results. The owner stood firm on his answer, hoping late-night talk shows would laugh about the matter and it would pass through time. Then Aaron told one of the many newscasters about how, at eighteen, Mark willingly signed up for annual colonoscopy tests with his girlfriend, as the cancer for her was hereditary. He described the way Mark looked at her, the gentleness in his gaze, the humanity in his touch, and how they held hands before they went under, staring into each other’s eyes with completeness. The news stations then began to bribe the owner. Lucky for the news stations, his crescent smile showed, and the old man asked for the highest bidder, greed being the key to his heart. The HFA felt the anxiety and need to win this story, since it was their video that had begun the excitement. So they won the bidding, this overwhelming trending story with the highest bid of $4 million, giving it away happily and gleefully as if they were writing history and doing a favor for others. The HFA swiftly cut as much as needed out of their normal TV schedule to broadcast this event live without commercial breaks, beginning with Brody Johnson casually stating lines he’d half memorized, while pretending to personally pick up Aaron from the police station. Aaron was given one-liners to respond with, but he didn’t care—he was thinking of Mark, not about the media that to him was a pain. Aaron was severely irritated with Johnson as well, his phony smile toward the camera with his shiny, gelled blond hair and a dash of foundation on his face, in a very professional suit.
Brody didn’t have any care toward anyone but himself. Behind the camera he snapped at the interns, yelled at the filming crew with a spoiled, and had an impatient need for everyone to bow down to his greatness. He carried a tiny spray bottle that could have been used as a perfume sampler in its life before, full of half lemon and half onion juice as a spray he rubbed on the bottom of his palm. Therefore, when the time came, he could rub his eyes with the residue on his skin and break down in tears behind Aaron if the interaction came to be emotional.
His legs were weak from being bedridden for half a month, and the infections made them even weaker as he couldn’t walk. Aaron also adopted a fear of high fevers and vomit, afraid that the shivers, dry hacks from an empty stomach while his body continued to vomit, would come again. But the doctors told him that those were over. He had begun therapy in the prison to learn how to walk again, though he wasn’t anywhere close to normal. This was his second day in the small-town prison, and once therapy was over, Aaron would be transferred to Arizona’s most secure prison. Brody pushed Aaron in a wheelchair while smiling with his sparkling teeth. Aaron couldn’t stop thinking about Mark.
My Hand Mitten Page 20