Shadows of Ashland

by Austin,Robin

  “Again? That’s interesting. Well, I guess the article will have to run without their input. That’s a shame, isn’t it? For all concerned, I mean.”

  My mother’s tone slips from my tongue just before Fowler’s smirk disappears. I don’t give her time to comment, continue towards the main exit. My intended dramatic exit is only slightly diminished by the delay of the buzzer that allows me to throw open the door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  §

  The last story my father ever ran in The Stratton Star was about our town’s premiere showing of The Shining with Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Neither actor nor actress was showing up for our little unveiling of the horror flick, but the theater owner had plastered signs all over town proclaiming that Stephen King would be there signing autographs and introducing the movie.

  The whole town was buzzing, buried in a sea of black balloons that were tied to everything from trees and houses and traffic signs to dogs on leashes. Dad took Mom, me and Rick, and his cameraman, Buddy Johnson, to the Regal Reel that night. Carlson Daily, the owner, let us in early to meet Mr. King. It was the biggest event of my life, at that point anyway.

  The five of us waited in the lobby for Mr. King while Daily rushed to ready the lobby, concession stand, and film booth, while constantly checking his watch and the growing line that was forming outside the door. King never showed up.

  Years later, Dad said that Daily had made up the whole thing about King. “Just a bunch of hype to attract more customers.” He’d laughed like it was the best joke ever.

  The night of the movie, everyone was mad that the mighty Stephen King had snubbed our little town, but once the show started, King was quickly forgotten. Nobody though ever forgot Jack Nicholson.

  I call Ashland after dinner and ask if Eunice is available. Again, I’m told she isn’t feeling well. Figures. No one to blame but myself after those snippy words I’d tossed at Fowler.

  Lies are easy to tell if the motivation can somehow justify them. Carlson Daily’s only crime was wanting to sell more tickets. Despite my own vices, it’s Eunice I don’t want forgotten.

  The next morning, I contact the clerk at the Ruston Hospital and am told the records will be ready for pick up at three o’clock. That leaves me about two hours to decipher the doctors’ chart entries before heading to Ashland.

  Tonight, I’m not calling ahead. I know Rodham and his sidekick– Fowler– will be gone for the day and no one will bother to check if I’ve scheduled ahead. I just hope Aljala is still on duty when I get there because whatever I find in the records, I want to share with Eunice, maybe even Matilda.

  I stop at the diner and pick up an egg muffin, minus the bacon, to go. A young girl struggles to process my credit card. I’m smiling to ease her frustration when Kasey takes over the task, ordering her to get coffee for table two.

  “You still in town?” she says. I keep smiling as I sign the receipt and take my card.

  As much as I don’t want to, I need to refresh my memory about the Kaufman trial and look for clues I’d missed back then. I drive to the library, ready to face my failed past.

  Mostly, I recall that justice had been swift in that little courtroom in Ruston. A year after he was charged with the five rapes, Kaufman was found guilty and sentenced to eleven years in prison. If he served his full term, he was released in 1994.

  Even though I’ve been instructed not to mention the man or his dirty deeds, the thought of finding and confronting Kaufman has been in the back of my mind since the first day of this assignment. I know he’d never admit to molesting Eunice, but surely his ego would relish the opportunity to theorize the emergence of the beautiful belle.

  With that reasoning, it didn’t take long to convince myself that by not talking to him, I was leaving critical facts undiscovered. That couldn’t happen.

  Finding the man wouldn’t be a problem. Kaufman, the convicted rapist, is a registered sex offender for life and that means through the internet, his address is just a few clicks away.

  I finish my breakfast in my car and write a few notes. Leroyce Davenport came to Ruston in 1979, according to Shirley. I double check and see that was the same year that Kaufman started his reign at Ashland. I don’t like where this is going or that it took me so long to connect these two events on my timeline.

  If I’d been allowed to interview the nurses as originally agreed to by Rodham, I might have learned from them of the caring pastor. Then I wouldn’t have followed up on my own. Maybe I’m just being paranoid or maybe I’m searching for things it wasn’t intended I find.

  The Ruston librarian smiles and waves like I’m one of the locals now. I ask to see anything she has on the Ira Kaufman trial of 1983. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t give me the curious glare I expected or ask any questions. She brings me newspaper clippings neatly encased in those plastic binding covers. My byline is the first thing I see as she places a stack in front of me. I cringe as she hurries off to get more.

  April 8, 1983, day one of the trial. I noted that Kaufman wore a gray suit and wire-rimmed glasses. His hair was short and very curly. He used something greasy to control the frizz. I laugh at my words. No wonder the story was reassigned.

  The jury was selected in just one day, the trial lasted for a total of six. The last day was closing statements by the prosecutor and defense counsel, whose attire I also thought it important to detail for readers.

  I flip through the clippings with dread. April 10, 1983, day three. I wrote that Kaufman was restless. He talked a great deal to his attorney, both were reprimanded by the judge on several occasions. Kaufman appeared upset by the prosecutor’s accusations; I listed none of them. The jury was excused while the attorneys met in the judge’s chamber. Heaven’s, I even wrote what the jurors were wearing.

  The rest of the clippings are Jimmy Paine’s accounting. He carefully detailed the charges, the witnesses, the prosecutor’s and defense counsel’s questions and objections, and the judge’s rulings.

  The Jane Does were allowed to give live testimony via closed circuit videoconferencing, their faces were never shown. As I recall, the testimony of all five comprised less than two pages of the trial transcript but took a full day and a half to obtain, and Paine missed not a word.

  Palmer, like Rodham, thought it important to tell me that Eunice was not one of the five. Although curious as to why they both thought it necessary, now that I’ve met Eunice, I believe they’re correct. Despite my obsessive focus on fashion, I’m positive I’d remember if the Southern belle had given testimony or if the courtroom had gone silent waiting for Eunice to speak.

  Kaufman didn’t take the stand. On day five, the defense called their only witness: Patricia Ann Fowler.

  Holy crap. Ashland’s head nurse. I can’t believe I forgot the name. I barely recall her– by then I was merely a gofer for Paine, trailing at his heels in and out of the courthouse. But I vaguely recall the young woman who sat nervously on the stand speaking in a meek tone, defending her boss to the end. That young woman did not age well.

  Not once did I see Fowler at Ashland. At the trial, I assumed she’d been one of the nurses who’d left the facility after Kaufman’s arrest. The defense must have stowed her away so her testimony wasn’t tainted by the whispered gossip, or perhaps it was to ensure her safety. I also recall that the Ruston natives were not friendly.

  The jury took only four hours to convict Kaufman. Paine’s story on the sentencing was brilliant. He captured the legal analysis without missing a drop of the drama. Then he wove it skillfully through the judge’s scathing words to Kaufman about his abuse of power, disregard for those without hope or options, and the man’s blatant lack of remorse for his sins. The judge ended with a promise that those sins would one day be extinguished in hell’s eternal fire. Small town justice doesn’t end at death’s door.

  My notebook is filled with Paine’s solid reporting and Kaufman’s demise but nothing about Matilda, Eunice, a pregnancy, or a lost child. Other th
an my new found curiosity about Nurse Fowler, clearly I’ve forgotten nothing worth remembering.

  The hospital is five minutes from the library. When I arrive, the clerk is anxious to hand over the records, thirty two pages of scribbles. I stop and buy a bag of Tootsie Rolls and a yellow scarf for Eunice then go back to the hotel.

  There’s a message from Rick on the room’s phone, which reminds me that I never called him back. Mother’s doing, I assumed and quickly forgot the both of them. He asked only how things were going. I almost feel guilty.

  On his office voice mail, I apologize for not calling him back. I tell him I’ve been busy running all over town. Reminiscing about the Kaufman trial. At this last part, I laugh although I doubt Rick will choose to remember why I find it funny. His advice then as it would be now is to let it go, learn from my mistakes, talk to the doctors about my vision problems.

  “I’m at the hotel until five then back to Ashland,” I tell him. “Call me later tonight if you want.” I know he won’t.

  I spread the documents on the table. Thirty years ago, long before malpractice lawsuits, HIPAA regulations, and technology, medical records were handwritten, illegible, and incomplete at best. I find the December 23, 1981, entry that I found in Eunice’s Ashland file. I’m excited that it’s a better quality copy. She was seen by a Dr. M. Howard.

  Mentally retarded teen found in woods behind Ashland Asylum. Admit for dehydration, hypothermia, frostbite on fingers. Non-communicative– I’d written confusion when deciphering the Ashland copy. Unfortunately, this finding is a huge disappointment. What I thought was Xmas was ++mense. Does that mean excessive bleeding?

  Eunice was admitted at four fifteen that afternoon and released at ten thirty the next morning. Someone noted scratches on her hands, arms, legs, and face. Nurses’ notes state that her skin was cleaned, she was packed in thermal blankets, and given pain medication.

  The discharge summary provides little more information than improved color and temperature. There’s no indication that she was examined beyond superficial inspection. There’s no lab report that would show pregnancy, miscarriage, or delivery. No pelvis exam is mentioned, no discovery of cesarean stitches.

  Again, I know little more than when I started this day. Still I intend to talk to Eunice about going into the woods and her hospital visit. I expect either silence or hysteria.

  I gather the medical records and start to slip them back into the envelope when I notice a handwritten visitors list at the bottom of one record. Three visitors, three names I know well: Dr. Ira Kaufman, Fowler, RN, and L. Davenport.

  Chapter Eighteen

  §

  It’s after six when I finally get to Ashland. A young woman sits at the front desk, hiding that she’s painting her fingernails. Her interest in me is limited to how much my arrival annoys her.

  She checks the computer, presumably for my visit approval, glances in the direction of my ID, and tells me I can stay until seven only. “There’s no visiting after seven,” she offers as further explanation. After taking a phone call, she tells me Eunice is in her room. When I ask, she tells me Aljala is gone for the day.

  The green corridor appears gray under the flickering low-watt bulbs. A chilly breeze shakes the shopping bag I’m carrying, and I pull it tight before realizing there are no exterior doors or windows along these hallways. A door slams behind me. I turn around to see where it came from or who is coming. When I see nothing, I quicken my steps to Room 216.

  As before I knock three times, wait then enter, just far enough past the door frame for her to hear me.

  “Eunice? Hi, it’s Jan.”

  Eunice is sitting with her chair to the wall again and I want to scream at her to stop doing that– whatever that is. The single light bulb hanging from the ceiling is swaying though there’s no furnace, fan, or window in the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the shadow.

  “Eunice? May I come in?”

  I’m tired and desperate for her to stop being so damn weird. Still she sits and stares. There’s nothing to be afraid of, I tell myself. There’s nothing scary about Eunice, except the way she looks. There’s no shadow across the room, just the man in the moon.

  “Eunice,” this time I shout as if she’s on the other side of the building. She doesn’t waver. I take a step back. Down the corridor, there’s a scream and I think of Billy. I step into the room, closing the door behind me.

  I’m done with this, my patience is frayed. The woman can talk, can think, joke, reason. I’ve only two days left in Ruston. Three days more to send a draft to Palmer. I’m out of time without a story. I can write little more about Eunice than her fashion choices and destroy my freelance career as I destroyed the one I had at The Herald.

  I go too fast and impatiently to her chair then stop to steady my breath. “Eunice.” I put my hand on her shoulder and push it back to turn her towards me, to look at me. She doesn’t. I consider leaving, running actually, but instead drop to the floor beside her, place the shopping bag on her folded hands in her lap.

  “You see,” I say, leaning forward, flattening my palms to my forehead. “I can’t mess this up. I need your help. If I don’t send this very difficult woman the story she wants me to write, she’ll, well… she’ll get even. Professionally, she’ll get even. I don’t know what to write… unless I make the whole damn thing up. Great reporting is overrated and so is integrity.” These last words I mumble to myself.

  Coming from my scattered mind, the thought is nearly brilliant. I stand up and pace around the room, my problem is solved.

  “It’s not like you’re going to out me for writing a fictional account. One of how you went fourteen years without speaking more than a few words to being a proper Southern church lady with a dazzling vocabulary and more travel adventures than James Bond.

  “I’ll credit Rodham, Pastor Davenport, hell, even Nurse Fowler. Ashland will get the accolades Rodham’s certain it deserves, and Palmer’s advertisers will get their case for institutionalizing troubled teens, violent schizophrenics, psychopathic serial killers, and the vastly undermedicated homeless population. The truth is always a letdown anyway, and my efforts searching for it is wasted time. You must agree. Don’t you?”

  I look back at Eunice who is still sitting in her chair, still staring at the wall and now… holy crap, wearing the yellow scarf.

  “Eunice.” I nearly whisper her name. Then I go back to sit on the floor beside her. “Eunice, is that the story you want? A story that tells people what they want to hear? If you’re satisfied with that, it’s okay. It’s your choice… but your real story can help you and other patients. It can help others get things right for everyone.”

  I laugh at my words. That’s not what this is about. Helping may be on the list, but it’s at the bottom. I circle the room again. Pick up my things and set them back down, stare at the woman staring at the wall.

  “Tell me about the day you ran away into the woods. Did someone hurt you? Touch you? Did you run away because you were scared? Do you remember going to the hospital? You don’t have to be scared anymore. Matilda doesn’t have to talk for you. You can tell me anything.”

  I wait, walk around again, then sit across the room in the matching plastic chair. “Of course, if this is it, if I’m writing that made up story, it means no more gifts. No more yellow scarves or gloves or gummy candies. No blueberries ever.”

  I take my phone out just to watch the minutes click by. “Eighteen minutes to closing time,” I tell her. We sit in our plastic chairs in silence.

  “You know, I read once that mirrors are portals to other dimensions. It was years ago, and I remember laughing because it seemed so ridiculous. Now, I don’t think it is. Ridiculous, I mean. Maybe that’s what the wall is for you. A portal out of this place. The only way you have to escape. Is that it? Is that why you do it?”

  Eleven minutes left.

  I gather my things. No need to overstay my welcome. When I look up, I see the shadow in the corner, this
time the little one. My purse slips from my hand and the contents spread across the linoleum.

  Don’t look, I tell myself as I drop to the floor to grab my things and stuff them back into my purse. “Don’t look,” I whisper, as I stand up and turn away from the corner.

  “Goodbye, Eunice.” My breath is choppy, sharp pain jabs my temples. I want to tell her that I won’t be back, won’t ever see her again, but I can’t speak the words. Instead, my notebook falls to my feet as if jerked from my hand. I make a sound I don’t recognize then bend to pick it up.

  “Don’t look.” I tell myself as my fingers tighten around the leather binder. Then I feel bumped by a burst of hot air. I stand quickly, stumble towards the shadow next to me, and scream.

  Eunice is beside me, so close I can hear her breathing. Her eyes are frozen in a world I hope never to see or maybe I’m already there with her. Her half smile’s grown, puffed out her cheek, shifted her entire face sideways. My hands are trembling, my notebook is shaking and I squeeze it tighter as I inch my way to the door.

  Eunice darts by my side and I think she’s about to attack me, but she goes to sit on the edge of the bed. I refuse to turn towards her, but I can see her feet swinging wildly from the end of the bed, just as a kid would do.

  “What about Ruby?” I hear Matilda say.

  I reach for the door handle to have something to hold on to. “You tell me, Matilda.” Silence. “You tell me, Eunice. Don’t play games with me.” I’m still facing the door, but I can hear shoes hitting the bed frame.

  “Eunice knows nothing. You waste your time talking to that one.”

  I turn not wanting to, not intending to look but I do. The shadow is gone. Matilda is still Eunice, still wearing the yellow scarf.

  “Why is that? Tell me what happened to Eunice. Matilda, tell me why Eunice, why you, went into the woods that day. Tell me how you were educated. Tell me about Dr. Kaufman. You remember him don’t you? I know you do.”