Someone Like Me

by M. R. Carey

  So she waited for someone else to speak first, and the someone else turned out to be Gil. He was still mad about the finger thing, evidently, because the look he gave Dr. Trestle would have stripped paint off a wall. “You’re pretty fond of your own opinions, aren’t you, Dr. Trestle?” he demanded in a voice that was one up from a growl.

  “Generally,” Trestle said. “Until I hear better ones.”

  “So if I agree to this, what? My daughter goes in to meet that man on her own?”

  “No. I’ll be there. But you won’t be, and neither will Dr. Southern. I’ll find you a room with a water cooler in it and you can watch the water cool until we’re done.”

  “With respect,” Dr. Southern said stiffly, “your duty to your patient doesn’t obviate my duty toward mine. I need to be present at this meeting for the same reason you do—to evaluate how Francine is coping and to pull the plug if I think it’s necessary.”

  Trestle puffed out his cheek. “I understand your feelings,” he said. “Still not negotiable. Sorry.”

  “That seems somewhat arbitrary,” Dr. S said stiffly, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Not at all. My client is a notorious criminal. I fend off book offers on a regular basis. Your first-hand account of a meeting with him would be worth a lot of money. I need to protect him from that.”

  “Then make me sign an NDA.”

  “There’s no way to make that binding on third parties. You talk, somebody listens, it hits the news and I have no control over that whatsoever.”

  Dr. Southern was as angry as Fran’s dad now, or maybe more so. “I won’t,” he snapped, “talk. To any third parties. I’m a professional, just like you are.”

  Trestle looked at him hard. “So your decision to take Ms. Watts on as a patient,” he said. “That wasn’t motivated by any possible desire to write up your thoughts and feelings about the Picota case and make a little nest egg for your retirement?”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  “And you were entirely honest with the family about your prior connections to the case?”

  Dr. Southern’s mouth moved but no sound came out of it.

  “Thought so,” said Trestle, deadpan.

  “What?” Gil said, looking more pissed off than ever. “What prior connections? What are you talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Fran said quickly. This wasn’t a good time to pull on that loose thread. “None of it matters.” She looked at Dr. Trestle until he looked at her. It didn’t take long. She sensed that she was the only person here he was even a little bit interested in. “I’m going in to talk to Bruno Picota on my own,” she said to him and to everyone else. “If I go in at all.”

  Dr. Trestle gave her a pained smile. “Well, that’s an interesting theory. But the last time I checked, I was still the senior clinician here.”

  “Bruno Picota wants to see me,” Fran said. “He told you that, didn’t he?”

  There was a moment of extremely brittle silence. Since nobody else seemed to want to break it, and since Dr. Trestle looked like he’d just bitten down on something sour, Fran went on. “You only said yes because he said yes. If he didn’t, you couldn’t make him do it. And I don’t think you’re allowed to stop him. I mean, not just by saying so. Not if we both want it to happen.”

  Trestle didn’t give her the schoolmarmish finger-wag, but he did stare at her very hard. If Fran had been in his class, there would probably have been a detention coming her way. “He didn’t say anything about seeing you alone, though,” he pointed out.

  “No,” Fran agreed. “It’s me that’s saying that.”

  Dr. Trestle went back to just looking again, as if a googly-eyed stare would make her back down after she’d gotten this far.

  “I believe she’s right,” Dr. Southern said. He seemed to have gotten his temper back under control while this exchange was going on, so his voice was much more calm and reasonable. “Assuming you already added her name to the approved visitor list. You can’t take it off again without due cause. This young lady just put both of us in our places, Dr. Trestle. I’d advise that you take it with good grace.”

  Fran looked to her dad—the one adult here who’d been left out of that equation. His eyes were wet, but he gave her a discreet thumbs-up, his hand staying down at his side. She knew him well enough to get both messages: that he was on her side all the way and that he wanted none of this to be happening.

  Dr. Trestle still wasn’t done. “There’s a security issue,” he said primly. “Especially if I’m not present. Bruno’s behavior is erratic and his health is poor. If he’s totally unattended, there’s a two-fold danger.”

  “This being the kind of institution it is,” Dr. Southern said mildly, “I assume you’ve got humane restraints and male nurses. Mitigate the risk however you want.”

  Dr. Trestle finally gave it up. “Fine,” he said. “If you’d like to follow me.”

  They went inside, through the blue gate, which closed behind them, and then through a red one that opened in front of them. Dr. Trestle led the way and Lady Jinx brought up the rear. She held Oatkipper in a two-handed grip. They were going into enemy territory.

  Dr. Trestle led Fran down corridor after corridor, through a building that looked increasingly like what it was: a prison disguised as a hospital. The walls were painted in institutional green and the floors were shiny linoleum with a pebble-dash pattern. It sucked at the soles of her shoes a little, so they made a clicking sound as she raised them again, a Morse-code punctuation to their walking.

  They had left Dr. Southern and Gil sitting on two straight-backed chairs in a bare hallway, between a fire extinguisher and a dispenser for liquid disinfectant. There were no luxury car magazines to keep them entertained.

  “He wants to say he’s sorry,” Dr. Trestle said to Fran as he unlocked a sally port and ushered her through. He sounded inexplicably angry.

  Fran glanced up at his intent face. He hadn’t looked at her once since they all went through the security gate. “Excuse me?”

  “Bruno,” Dr. Trestle said testily. “That’s why he wants to see you. So he can tell you he’s sorry. And that’s the only reason I agreed. I’ve worked really hard to break down his delusional systems, and the fact that he’s prepared to apologize to you is a huge accomplishment. The culmination of a lot of effort. But I can’t capitalize on it fully if I’m not there.”

  Well then, Fran thought, it sucks to be you. But her conversation with Bruno Picota was likely to be pushing in a very different direction, and after all that Picota had taken from her she felt entitled to grab this little bit back. So she said nothing and just walked beside Dr. Trestle to where they were going.

  Whenever she had imagined being face-to-face with Bruno Picota, the setting was always the same. She would meet him in a room whose walls had been upholstered like overstuffed sofa cushions, the padding held in by recessed studs so there were dimples every foot or so and ballooning swags of thick fabric between the dimples. The overall effect, in Fran’s imaginings, was kind of like a bounce house, mostly because she had been on plenty of those but had never set foot in a restraint cell. And Bruno was invariably slumped in the corner of the bounce house, in a straitjacket that had about a hundred or so leather straps all over everywhere, tying his arms crosswise to his chest. Sometimes he had a Hannibal-style muzzle too.

  The room that Dr. Trestle took her to was nothing like her imaginings. It was just a room, really. It had regular walls, with posters on them: nature scenes, mostly, along with one official notice listing rules for visits. Rule 11 stood out to Fran because it was at her head height.

  11. An inmate authorized a contact visit may be permitted a brief embrace and kiss at the beginning and end of a visit, but excessive intimacy shall be strictly prohibited.

  Shouldn’t be a problem, she thought slightly hysterically.

  Bruno was restrained, but not in a straitjacket. He was wearing a pair of handcuffs with a long chain between th
em instead of a hinge. The chain was threaded through a steel bar set into the table at which Bruno sat. There was a chair on the other side of the table so Fran could sit facing him, a long way outside the furthest reach of his arms.

  This place wasn’t a bounce house, clearly, and it wasn’t a padded cell either: it was more like a police interview room. But of course it would be, Fran thought. The Grove City Hospital was full of convicted criminals, after all, so this layout made sense.

  Picota didn’t.

  She knew her mental image of him was way out—crazily distorted and hyped up by memory and by fear. She had used the photos of him that she’d found on the internet to adjust the image back down to something a little closer to human, but real-world Picota had still been terrifying. As big as a bear, with dark hollows under his eyes and a stare that made you think he was looking at something horrible in his head that he wanted to do to someone.

  This Picota was like someone had let the air out of the old Picota, waited until he was two-thirds deflated and then put the stopper back in. He was a small man living in the ruins of a big man’s body. The skin of his face hung slack, and his mouth was lost in a sort of slow-motion treacly pour of collapsing chins. His skin was gray, except for a big red sore on his cheek that had its own hinterland of angry skin all around it. The shoulders of his green hospital-issued jumpsuit came quite a long way down his forearms.

  He licked his lips, where there was a fringe of dry skin. His tongue looked gray too.

  Two men wearing white hospital gowns over white shirts and trousers stood behind him, one on either side. They looked straight ahead of them, not meeting Fran’s gaze, and they kept their hands clasped behind their backs. One of the two was white and the other one was black, but they had the same stolid faces and the same build: they were as big and solidly built as linebackers.

  “Bruno,” Dr. Trestle said in a voice carefully devoid of emotion, “this is Francine Watts. Francine, Bruno Picota.”

  Picota nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  Dr. Trestle turned to the nearer of the two linebackers. “Lionel, if Bruno becomes upset or agitated, take him back to his room at once. Don’t hesitate, okay? I trust you to make that call.”

  The big black man nodded. “You got it, Dr. Trestle,” he said. He had a high voice that sounded strange coming from that deep chest.

  “Thank you. The same goes for you, Bruno. If you feel distressed or afraid, tell Lionel or Niklaus and they’ll make sure you’re okay.” Only on his way out of the room did he finally look around at Fran. “I’ll leave you to your visit,” he said. “Enjoy.”

  Fran would have loved to return those insincere good wishes with a sweet thank you, but she was way too keyed up. She crossed to the chair—on legs that felt slightly shaky—and sat down. Lady Jinx hesitated in the doorway for a second or two, then scuttled in behind her, keeping Fran in between herself and Picota until she could tuck herself out of sight under the chair. Once she was there, though, Fran heard the SHINNNNNNG sound of Oatkipper being drawn. Jinx wasn’t scared: she was just making intelligent use of the terrain.

  Fran did the same thing. She didn’t want to look directly at Picota. Not from this close up. He was still scary, even if he was all shriveled and fallen in on himself. Instead she turned to glance at the black man. Lionel.

  “May I please have a glass of water?” she asked.

  Lionel blinked twice, as if the unexpected question had just bounced off his nose. “I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “You most certainly can. Nickie, can you put your head out?”

  While Fran sat with her head down and her hands folded in her lap, the other man did exactly that. He went to the door, opened it partway and thrust his head and shoulders through the gap. “Pitcher of water in VS3,” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Please.”

  After which he returned to his place.

  It was a small thing, trivial even, but somehow it worked. Fran had imposed herself on the room. She had made something happen. Emboldened, she raised her head and looked straight at Picota for the first time.

  She was prepared for him to stare her out, but what happened was the opposite of that. He seemed to shrink a little under her gaze. “Bruno,” he mumbled. “I’m … you know who I am. They told you. I’m Bruno. And you’re Francine. I’m very pleased to meet you.” His voice was thick and gravelly, as though he had a chesty cough that had left his throat raw.

  In spite of everything—the setting, her residual fear and the urgency of what had brought her here—Fran almost laughed. I’m very pleased to meet you. It was just such a stupid thing for him to say.

  And she almost answered. It’s good to meet you too. Good manners were a trap you fell into, especially if you’d lived most of your life hiding what you were really feeling so people wouldn’t think you were a freak.

  The arrival of the water saved her from that pratfall. A third male nurse brought it, in a plastic pitcher with a hinged lid and two paper cups stacked on top of it. He set it down in front of Fran and she murmured a thank you. The man nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He just headed for the door and closed it behind him.

  Fran poured herself a drink from the pitcher, framing words inside her head as she did so. But Picota spoke again before she could figure out an opening line.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said in the same uneven raspy tone that rose and fell as though his throat was a bumpy road, “that I hurt you. It was a long time ago, I know it was, but …” He licked his lips again. “I’m still sorry. I’ll always be sorry. It was a bad thing to have done. Especially to a … a … you know, a kid. I’m glad you got better.”

  For a second, Picota glanced at the black nurse, Lionel, as though he’d forgotten his lines and needed a prompt. When he looked back at Fran, his mouth and eyes had drooped a little more. She couldn’t tell if it was unhappiness that dragged them down or if he was just tired. “It was a long time ago and I was a different person. I had a lot of bad thoughts in my head, and sometimes I didn’t always know what was real. I imagined … all kinds of things.”

  “But you know now,” Fran said. It took a huge effort to speak. Her chest was full of something bulky and tremulous. She was afraid she might burst into tears, and she was afraid that her voice would come out as a Mickey Mouse squeak. But the conversation wouldn’t go anywhere unless she picked up her half of it. “You know what’s real, and what isn’t.”

  Picota raised his eyebrows. “Oh yes.”

  “So that means you know why you’re here …” She had no idea what to call him, settled for “… Mr. Picota?”

  “I do.”

  That was enough of a run-up. Fran got to the point. “When you kidnapped me, you did it because you thought I was some kind of monster.”

  Picota winced and glanced away, ducking his head below his shoulder. “I was sick,” he murmured thickly. “I was a different person and it was a long time ago. I’m not good at telling how long but it must have been a lot of years because look at how grown-up you are now.” He gestured vaguely, not turning to face her. The chain clanked as his hands came up, reaching the limit of its travel, which was very tight. “You were just a little girl before. So it must be a really long time.”

  He drew a long, snuffling breath. “I used to try to count but then I stopped counting because it was a big number and it made me scared. I haven’t seen my dad, you know? I used to see him every day, but since I came here I didn’t see him at all. They told me he passed, but even when he was alive he didn’t want to come up and see me. Not after what I did.”

  All of this came out at an even, inexorable pace—kind of like a slow rush. It seemed to be forced out of Bruno under pressure but it was sluggish because his mind was slow. Fran felt a momentary nausea at the thought of what might be going on in there. What it might be like to be a crazy man growing old in a hospital that was really a prison, all alone and forgotten and shunned by the people who used to love him. The person, rather. Maybe there ha
d only ever been the one.

  Lady Jinx growled from under the chair. Picota unfolded and turned, looking around in bewilderment as though he’d heard that animal sound. Most likely he just lost his train of thought. Fran suspected it was a very short train with no driver.

  “You mean because of what you did to me?” she asked him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lionel’s hand clench slowly into a fist, although the expression on his face stayed the same, solemn and calm. She knew that men who hurt children had a bad time in prison. She wondered if that was also true in places like this.

  Bruno closed his eyes and kept them closed for a few seconds. “Yes.”

  “Because you kidnapped me and almost killed me?”

  “Yes. That’s right.” He delivered that statement with strong emphasis, but stumbled over the next words and almost couldn’t get them out at all. “I d-d-d-did that, yes. I did that. I’m gl-glad it was only almost. Glad you … that you’re not dead. That you got better, after all. I was sick, in my opinion, and I was mistaking you. I thought you were … something. Something that’s not even real.”

  “Skadegamutc,” Fran said, and Jinx growled again. Picota moaned in his throat, a sound of undisguised distress.

  “I was mistaking you,” he said again. His face was more animated now, his forehead wrinkling and clearing as though thoughts were zigzagging around behind there and making a mark each time they hit. Fran thought maybe she could just wait him out because that sense of pressure was so palpable: she was almost certain now that Bruno Picota had some things he really wanted to say. But he just kept looking at the ceiling and then down at the tabletop, like he’d gotten stuck in some kind of loop and couldn’t get out of it.