Uncle Elliot drove us over to Riverview Psychiatric Hospital for our scheduled visit. We passed through a front gate where we were stopped. A man in a gray uniform looked at clipboard to find our names. He gave us a hang tag for the rearview mirror and directed us where to park.
The place was huge. It looked more like a haunted castle than a hospital. It was red brick, five stories high. It had towers and turrets. The roof had a steep pitch, with small arched windows at regular intervals. The windows on the lower floors were huge, at least a story tall. The whole place looked clean and honestly, a little scary… It was not inviting. There was something ominous about the place. I could feel a sense of foreboding growing and tried to shove it deep down inside me and deny it.
With lead in our feet we entered the front lobby area where we were greeted by a receptionist behind bullet-proof glass. My uncle had to surrender his keys and we weren’t allowed to bring anything in with us to my brother, including the brownies my aunt May had sent. A burly security guard in an olive drab uniform was assigned to escort us. We followed him through a series of locked doors. With each succession of locked doors, I felt like we were going deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, even though an elevator took us up. We again passed through locked doors. Our escort, with his huge ring of keys, seemed bored as he walked us down the maze of hallways. I would never be able to find my way out. The guard didn’t speak to us. He didn’t even look at us. At the last door, I could hear a scream. I looked at my mother, who had turned white, and Uncle Elliot, who was fidgeting. At the edges of hearing, muffled, as if far away, I could hear strange noises I couldn’t quite identify. Moaning? We finally entered a hall and were taken to a windowless room. It had a hodge-podge of stick furniture. The guard stood at the door and instructed us to sit. We all sat in a line. One chair leg was shorter than the other and my chair rocked slightly side to side when I shifted my weight.
About ten minutes later, Daniel was led in, or someone who resembled Daniel. He had lost a tremendous amount of weight and his head was shaven. His cheeks and eyes were sunken. He was wearing blue canvas pants and a white T-shirt. On his feet were dirty brown slippers. There was an orderly on either side of him. My mother rose, instinctively.
“Sit!” the guard barked. “There is no physical contact allowed.”
“I can’t even hug my son?” My mother’s eyes were wide again, round and fearful.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said with no inflection in his voice. My mother melted back into her chair.
Daniel slumped in a chair across from us. He looked like he was thrown there by the orderlies. He did not look at us. His lips were moving but they made no sound.
“Danny, honey,” my mother looked at him, “it’s Mom and Gus. Uncle Elliot is here, too. We’ve come to visit you.”
There was a long silence. Dan sat there slumped deep in another world muttering soundless words.
“Danny, sweetheart...”
“How did you get in here?” he leaned forward speaking in a whisper. His eyes were wild; they shifted from side to side not focusing on anything. He glanced at the guard standing in the doorway, and then fell back in his chair mumbling.
“We’ve come to visit you,” Mom repeated, her voice weakening.
There was a long pause and then Dan tipped his head to the side as if listening to someone speak. He looked at us again.
“Do they know?”
“Does who know?” my mother said and then, “Of course they know. We had to sign in to see you.”
“Hum,” he grunted a little and started to rock.
“How have you been?” my mother asked. It was a stupid question but what do you actually ask in that situation? What do you say? Danny just kept rocking.
“Talk to us, sweetheart,” my mother was imploring.
He grunted again. My mom gently nudged me.
“Hi, Dan,” I said.
He lifted his head and looked at me. I faked a smile.
“You have to be careful,” he said to me, “because you’re next. You know it, don’t you? They got me. They think they got away with it. But they didn’t. I know what they are planning to do.”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked. I was both annoyed and frightened. What was wrong with him? This wasn’t my brother. What had happened to him? What had they done to him?
“Shhhhh,” he put his finger to his lips, glancing again at the guard.
“How are they feeding you in here?” my mother asked.
“I can’t eat this. I can’t eat this stuff. That is how they got the last chip in me. And I can’t take the chance they’ll poison me.”
“Honey, we want to help you but you have to talk to us,” my mother said.
“You taking your medication?” Uncle Elliot barked.
Danny’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Uncle Elliot, “Who are you?”
“It’s Uncle Elliot,” I said quickly before anyone else could speak.
“They’re good. They’re really good,” Danny’s voice was deep and demonic. “Look at this, Gus; he even has you fooled. But this is not Uncle Elliot. It’s a changeling, a shape-shifter.” Without warning Dan screamed, “What have you done with my uncle!”
We all sat back and upright, shocked at his outburst.
“Hey,” the guard said, “no yelling or they gotta go. Got it?”
“Jesus Christ!” Uncle Elliot swore. “What kind of nut house is this? What did they do to him?”
And then everyone was screaming at once. My brother was screaming at Uncle Elliot, “I’ll kill you, you bastard! You can’t take my family!” and Uncle Elliot was yelling back, “What the hell is wrong with you?” My mother was sobbing, “Please, please stop,” and I was yelling, “Danny, don’t do this!” The guard alerted the orderlies and Dan was dragged out of the room, kicking and screaming. Foam and spittle was forming around his lips and dribbled down his chin.
“You’ll hurt him!” my mother jumped to her feet and the guard blocked her way to my brother.
“Stop it!” I yelled and the guard forcibly grabbed me as I lunged forward. A door was slammed in our faces and we could hear my brother screaming and cursing.
Our escort came back. He said impassively, “You can’t be like that or you can’t see him.” He escorted us back through all the locked doors. My mother sobbed quietly all the way back to the motel. My Uncle Elliot scowled. I stared out the window.
Chapter Eleven
Even with everything that had gone on, I never actually thought I would not be allowed to go back to school for my senior year. Actually, I had started to fantasize about going back to school. Even though none of my friends had contacted me all summer—I figured they didn’t know where I was—I never thought they would no longer be my friends once school started. I thought about Stacey Hollinder, too. Maybe if I could just talk to her she wouldn’t see that I was crazy like my brother. Maybe I could work up to asking her out again. We didn’t need to tell her father. For some reason, I didn’t think people would treat me differently in school. It was probably a coping mechanism on my part, but I thought once I returned to school, I would regain some normalcy back into my life. I longed for the routine. I needed the distraction.
I lined up for the bus at the Lumberjack Motel in my hand-me-down jeans and boarded the bus like everyone else. They were mostly elementary kids at the motel. Dottie and Georgie stood with my mother. Several of their little herd were dressed in regular clothes, as opposed to the diapered look, and clamored on the bus with me. My mom was finally out of her cast and smoked a cigarette standing next to Dottie and Georgie. My mother had a cup in her hand. I suspected it was not coffee. For a moment, as the three of them lifted their hands to wave at us it looked like all of them, my mother included, belonged there. The kids already on the bus snickered as we came on. The welfare kids had arrived. I ignored them and sat behind the driver with one of Dottie or Georgie’s little ones. I stared out the window and didn’t look up as other kids got on t
he bus.
The first indication that things were not going to go as I had planned was when I saw Gordon Martin at his locker. “Hey, Gordie.” I walked up to him.
“Hey,” he said and stopped and looked at me.
“How was your summer?” I asked.
He slammed his locker and said, “Great. I gotta run.”
He left me standing there alone.
Gordon and I had been on the baseball team for the last three years. We had gone to camp together. We studied together. And now, he left me standing alone in a crowded hallway. Until that moment I hadn’t really thought of Roddy Tillson or the football team. I hadn’t thought about all of that because I hadn’t participated in any of it. I hadn’t been to the funerals. No one came to our home with cookies and cakes. We had lived a life of suspended animation. This school year was just a continuation of last, as if there had been no gap between me leaving and returning. The stories of my brother’s heinous crimes were just some sort of bad gossip to me. You know that feeling you get when you leave a place, someplace familiar, like your grandparents’ or camp or you move to a new town. Even though you know things have changed, you somehow expect them to be the same when you get back, even though you know they can’t possibly be. There was a part of me that believed if I visited the pharmacy, Naomi Tillson would still be standing behind the counter, wouldn’t she? Phil Moretti was down in the gym, right at that moment, getting ready for the first day of school just like every other teacher, wasn’t he? I was still the same person I was when I walked out of here last, June, wasn’t I? I hadn’t done anything. Why would people treat me differently?
I felt confused and shaken. I needed to get away, I needed to go somewhere and think. I looked down at my schedule and decided to head to my homeroom. Maybe there I could sit at a desk and gather my thoughts. I moved to walk down the hall. Brad Henshaw blocked my path.
Brad was big. He was the football center. He wasn’t too bright but he was a good ball player. He was a bully, too. He laughed too loud and pushed his weight around. He was always surrounded by a shoal of smaller players.
“Well, look who it is.” He shoved me hard. He was surrounded by his flunkies, football players who followed him around like devotees.
“Get out of my way,” I said. Brad didn’t usually scare me.
“What did you say?” he asked leaning down, pretending he hadn’t heard me.
“Get out of my way,” I repeated, looking up at him, unafraid.
I had never been in a fight before in high school. I was usually well-liked and got along with most of the kids. I had never done anything to get into a fight. This day seemed no different.
“You little fucking piece of shit,” he started to press up against me. “You have a lot of fucking nerve showing your face here, you know that?”
I shoved him back. I just wanted him to move out of the way so I could get to my classroom. The first hit came from behind. It was at the base of my neck and made me pitch forward right into Brad’s arms. I felt dizzy and lightheaded. Brad’s fist came down on my head. I didn’t fight back because I was too stunned. I tried to struggle to my feet. Brad grabbed the back of my neck, his thick fingers pinching at the sides, almost cutting off my air. He carried me like a scarecrow by the neck over to the lockers. He began to bash my face against an open locker. I was too dazed to help myself. I felt a searing pain shoot up through my face to the top of my head. I could see blood, spurting from somewhere; spraying across the lockers. Before I lost consciousness I saw Mr. Swan, the math teacher, his glasses at the end of his nose, peer, out from his doorway, look directly at me and then step backwards and close the door.
Chapter Twelve
I came to in the emergency room. I had a concussion, a broken nose and a broken jaw. I also had broken ribs even though I had no idea how I’d gotten them. It wasn’t until years later that I found out Roddy Tillson had actually jumped on my chest after I had already passed out. I had two black eyes and was missing my front teeth. My mother saw me and broke down again. It was the last thing we both needed. I stayed in the hospital for a week. They wired up my face so I could only eat through a straw. My ribs were sore and heavy making it hard to breathe. I had to keep my left arm in a sling and my ribs taped. They sent me back to the Lumberjack Motel with a couple of bottles of painkillers and prescriptions for refills. Frank Hardy, the school principal, called my uncle and said he thought it would be a good idea if I didn’t come back to school. They would arrange for me to be tutored at home. No one argued with Mr. Hardy.
About a week after my beating, Uncle Elliot finally gave in and allowed us to come and stay with him. I was glad to move out of the Lumberjack Motel, though at the time, I didn’t think much of anything. I knew my aunt May had a lot to do with the move. Aunt May drove over after Uncle Elliot went to work. I was helped to the backseat of the car while my mother, Aunt May, Dottie and Georgie transported things into the car. The children buzzed around the car like bees. I’m sure Dottie and Georgie stole more than they ever actually put in the car. When it was time to leave, each leaned in and gave me an alcohol-laden kiss on the cheek and told me to get better. I was in such a haze I simply sat there not even acknowledging them. They gave my mother long hugs and wished her well.
For the first few weeks out of the hospital, it didn’t really matter where I stayed. I just slept a lot. The painkillers kept me in a state of permanent sleep, almost like a coma. Once I could move around a little bit, I looked into the mirror and was surprised how beat up I looked. I’d like to say I looked worse than I actually felt but that wouldn’t be true because I felt like hell. The rib bothered me the most. I couldn’t take a full breath. The jaw made things like talking and eating difficult but it didn’t hurt as bad if I took the painkillers and didn’t move around too much. I didn’t really feel like talking and eating anyway. The dentist had fixed my teeth back into my face before my jaw had been wired. I don’t remember him doing it. Mom said it was when I was under anesthesia.
During the day, when Uncle Elliot was at work, Mom and Aunt May propped me up on the couch in front of the TV. Just before Uncle Elliot came home, they moved me back into the sewing room so Uncle Elliot could watch his TV. That’s as far as I moved for about a month; from the living room to the sewing room.
About four weeks after my beating, the school sent Mrs. O’Reilly to tutor me at my aunt and uncle’s house. She was a sweet old lady. Each time she came, she had on a matching suit and hat, little white gloves and an oversized purse which always matched her outfit. She had steel-gray hair which she wore tightly coiled at the back of her head. We would sit at the dining room table. She really didn’t do much tutoring. She would give me my work and watch me do it. I worked slowly. It still took some effort for me to lift my hand, hold the pen and move it across the paper. Mrs. O’Reilly would take all my finished work back to be graded. When she didn’t think I was looking, she took tiny swigs out of a silver flask she kept in her purse. After a few swigs she would start talking to me about just about anything: Mr. Riley (dead almost fifteen years), life as a citizen during World War II, the evils of rock music and her love of Shakespeare. I liked Mrs. O’Reilly. She was sincere, if not quite wound tightly. I don’t know if she knew anything about my brother, but if she did, she didn’t say anything. I sort of got the idea that she was clueless, and I certainly wasn’t going to fill her in.
A few weeks after Mrs. O’Reilly started to tutor me, my jaw was unwired. At the same time, all my casts came off. I was finally able to talk. I was very stiff but I was able to walk some by myself. The doctor said all this stiffness was normal and when I got back to my life, things would just come naturally, I’d start moving better. Really? Get back to my life? When was that going to happen?
Mrs. O’Reilly asked my mother if I could come to the library in the mornings to be tutored. She had another student who she met with there and she thought we could benefit from studying together. I’m sure she wanted to kill two birds with one
stone but I desperately wanted to get out of the house. The library was only two blocks away. I knew I would have to move slowly but I could easily make two blocks. The doctor had said that I could slowly start resuming regular activity. I begged my mother. She relented because she no longer had the strength to fight.
So, Monday morning, I headed to the Sawyer Public Library. I was kind of fascinated at being out in the world while other people were at school and work. I felt a little freer. Most of the people on the street during the day didn’t know who I was. It felt good to be outside in the fresh air. As sore as they were, it felt good to move my legs, draw in fresh air. I was so happy I wanted to bound up the library stairs, but the best I could pull off was a stiff-legged hopping. Even then I had to stop and catch my breath. Looking around inside the library I saw mostly women with very young children and retired people. I finally found Mrs. O’Reilly sitting at a table by the window.
“Well, hello, Agustin,” she greeted me cheerily. I could tell she had already started to nip. “I’d like you to meet Melinda.”
I look down at the girl sitting opposite Mrs. O’Reilly. My entire body jolted and to this day I cannot explain why. Melinda was not a pretty girl. She was thin, bone thin. I had never seen anyone, ever, so thin except for pictures in books. And those had been children in African refugee camps. She looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over it. Her hair was absolutely white and from my vantage point, I could see thinning spots at the top of her head. Her skin was pocked and lumpy. Her eyes were blue but they were rimmed in a pink lining. She seemed to have a bluish cast to her skin and lips.
“Hi,” I smiled. I smiled. Those muscles on my face moved into a smile, those same muscles that I had not used in months. I was glad the dentist had been able to fit the teeth back in my mouth.
“Hi.” She glanced up at me and then immediately looked away.
I pulled out the chair and sat down next to her. Her long fingers were resting on a book. They were pale with each joint articulated clearly. Her fingernails were chewed short and deeply imbedded into the flesh at the ends of her fingers. Her wrist was so thin her flesh hung between the radius and the ulna. She saw me looking and pulled down the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Her clothes were oversized and baggy; a gray sweatshirt with matching pants.
Ajar Page 5