Husk

by J. Kent Messum

  ‘Yeah, I hear you. I hardly ever have coins on me these days. You almost never see these old machines around. What are you having?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I got you this time,’ I say. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘Coffee Crisp.’

  I buy myself a Big Turk and select a Coffee Crisp for my new friend, who watches the steel spirals turn until both chocolate bars have fallen to the trap door below. He looks hungry. I retrieve the bars slowly to further whet his appetite. When I place the Coffee Crisp in his sausage fingers the orderly is all smiles.

  ‘Gee, thanks, man, I owe you one.’

  ‘I might have to call you on that.’

  He chuckles and peels back his candy wrapper. ‘I’ll be sure to keep change on me then, case I see you around.’

  ‘Maybe you could help me now actually …’

  ‘Yeah?’ His mouth is already full of wafer and chocolate. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’m looking for someone, a patient that’s been committed here I think, goes by the name of Cameron Tate. You know of him?’

  The orderly stops chewing, lips frozen in an angle of distaste. His eyes regard me coldly, unblinking. Eventually he gives a shake of his head and raises a hand, index finger pointing back the way I came.

  ‘Reception is down the hall, buddy. You can state your business there.’

  I look over my shoulder, and then back at him. ‘Yeah, I don’t really wanna go through official channels if you know what I mean …’

  ‘You Tate’s family?’

  ‘No.’

  The orderly shrugs. ‘Then I can’t rightly help you.’

  After a pause I pull the envelope of cash from my jacket and open it toward him, running my thumb slowly over the collection of hundred dollar bills inside.

  ‘Okay, what about wrongly helping me then?’

  The orderly stares at the grand in my hand and swallows the last of his chocolate bar with a gulp, licking sugary brown smears from fingertips in earnest. I hold out my unopened Big Turk to him.

  ‘You can have this too.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘A little information,’ I say. ‘I just need to speak with him.’

  The orderly hesitates, looks around, then takes the money and chocolate and stashes it in his pocket, telling me I must follow his every instruction to the letter. He leads me to an empty office where he grabs a tablet off the wall and finds me a visitor’s pass in a desk drawer. I clip it to my jacket and follow the orderly through security doors, up flights of stairs and down sterile hallways. I expect to hear shouts and wails from the incarcerated, but the psychiatric wing is practically silent. Only our footsteps on the hallway tiles and the buzz of fluorescent overhead lights can be heard. The orderly tells me the dope the patients get is stronger than ever, everyone sleeping like a baby or tranquilized like a beast. Eventually we come to a locked door with a small window. It is among many of the same, but on a placard below reads the name ‘Tate, Cameron’. I look inside and view the padded cell. A solitary figure lies strapped to a bed in the corner, wrapped in what appears to be a backward coat.

  ‘A straitjacket?’ I say. ‘You still use those?’

  ‘For some patients, yeah.’

  ‘Aren’t those a little, well, outdated?’

  ‘Whatever works,’ the orderly says with a shrug. ‘Cam’s partial to self-harm when his antipsychotics wear off and his limbs are loose. He needs to be restrained.’

  ‘Self-harm?’

  ‘He suffers from a kind of xenomelia, foreign-limb syndrome, except it’s more than just his limbs. The jacket stops him trying to remove parts of his body, like pulling out fingernails or ripping out hair. He’s tried to break off fingers and toes too. There are also occasional attempts at self-enucleation.’

  I shake my head and frown. ‘In English, please.’

  ‘He tries to tear his own eyes out.’

  I swallow hard. I can feel sweat beading on my forehead. Cameron Tate used to be like me, was of a like mind. He once gave himself over to those that I do now. I have too much in common with this lunatic, an affinity with the root cause of his diagnosis. Whatever truth lies inside that room, within that patient’s cranium, could eventually drive me mad enough to be committed to the cell next door, or worse. The thought terrifies me. That void over the edge of sanity, the one we become aware of when suffering from fever, the one we are wise not to look into. It’s beckoning. Take a peek. Look just long enough to see the outline of a new horror wriggling in the dark and take from it a fresh fear that will haunt half of your remaining days, reminding you that your old nightmares were never even close.

  ‘When was he admitted?’ I ask.

  The orderly brings up his tablet and checks. ‘Mr Tate was brought to Bellevue just over a year ago after he suffered a series of psychotic breaks.’

  I gesture for the tablet. ‘Mind if I take a look at his file?’

  He hands it over reluctantly and makes sure to hover close as I read. On the admittance report a familiar name is listed as one of the contacts: Kirk King. No address, no email, just a phone number provided. I try calling, but no one picks up. No message service either. The orderly gives a loud sigh, making a grabby motion with his hands, impatient for the tablet’s return. I hand it back without a word.

  ‘So, do you want to see the patient, or what?’ he asks.

  I nod. The orderly unlocks the door with his pass card and ushers me inside. I hesitate, reluctant to go any further, which is met with impatience.

  ‘You don’t need to worry. I’ve never seen Tate be a threat to others, but I’ll be in there with you anyway. You got five minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be fine alone.’

  ‘No way, pal,’ the orderly shakes his head. ‘Not part of the deal.’

  Cameron Tate is asleep when we walk into the room. The orderly clears his throat loudly. Moments later the patient is wide awake, looking at me with unease. His eyes are watery and grey, his button nose has been broken multiple times. I know he was handsome once, but the scars and scratches around his sunken eyes and cheeks have negated that. There are bruises on his forehead, probably from Tate bashing himself in bouts of self-injury. The pallid skin of his face is a canvas displaying the ugliness within leaking out of every pore like watercolours. I look upon the effects of his inner torment and outer brutality with wonder.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asks.

  I glance at the orderly. ‘My name isn’t important, Mr Tate.’

  ‘Are you another doctor?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Let’s say I’m a friend of a friend, someone we mutually know.’

  ‘Who?’

  I ignore the question. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I don’t want any more pills,’ he says, cringing. ‘No more pills. I won’t eat them. You can’t make me.’

  The orderly puts on a soft voice. ‘Now, Cameron, they’re for your own good.’

  ‘I don’t like them. They put me in a fog, obscure the truth.’

  The orderly rolls his eyes and gives a snort. He’s heard all of this before, probably can recite Tate’s ramblings from memory.

  ‘What truth is that?’ I ask, the question directed at either man.

  The orderly shrugs. Tate looks around the room, seeing or sensing things I cannot. He pushes against his restraints, testing their strength and resiliency. His voice becomes agitated, pleading.

  ‘Please untie me.’

  ‘You know we can’t do that, Cam,’ says the orderly.

  ‘Please, quickly, I have to pull out my teeth.’

  I grimace. ‘Why do you have to do that?’

  ‘Because these aren’t my teeth,’ he says, as if this should already be clear. ‘This isn’t my tongue either.’

  I exchange a look with the orderly who merely raises an eyebrow. Tate’s talking, and that’s good. I feel I should play along, try to soothe him a bit before I get to my point.

  ‘Your teeth are yours alone and they are ju
st fine, Cameron.’

  ‘Please,’ he says again. ‘They’re not mine. They have to go. I can’t keep what isn’t mine.’

  ‘Well, what is yours then?’

  ‘My voice, I think,’ he says. ‘My breath, my blood, my heart, my soul.’

  He repeats my breath my blood my heart my soul several times, eyes fluttering and then closing. When they reopen, Tate regards me strangely, as if seeing me for the first time, like I haven’t existed in the room for the last two minutes. I wonder if I’ll have to go through our introduction again for his benefit. Five minutes with Cameron Tate suddenly seems like a fraction of the time I’ll need to get anything out of this poor man.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asks.

  I take a deep breath. ‘I’m … currently in the line of work you used to be in, Cameron. I’m here to ask you questions about a former client of yours named Mr Winslade.’

  His body writhes under the straps, trying to burrow into the mattress. His chin wobbles. I watch as tears well up in his eyes.

  ‘Mr Winslade?’ he asks.

  ‘You remember him don’t you?’

  ‘Remember him?’

  Tate makes a noise, something between a snort and a snicker. I see his restrained arms squirming under the straitjacket, watch as he bares clenched teeth, pushing air through them in a hiss. His head lolls away from me, turning toward the wall.

  ‘Do I remember Winslade?’ he whispers.

  Both the orderly and I lean closer, intrigued. We hear a whimpering giggle, a little trembling precursor. His face suddenly snaps around, eyes glaring at me as he explodes.

  ‘I am fucking Winslade!’

  His screams send us reeling. They won’t stop. I back up out of the room, stumbling and shaking, the orderly scrambling behind me for the door so he can trap the shrieks inside the soundproof space before anyone is alerted. Once we’re in the hallway he slams the reinforced steel shut, cutting off Tate’s anguished cries.

  ‘What the hell was all that about?’ he pants.

  I say nothing, trying to process what just happened. Inside the padded cell I faintly hear the incoherent cries of Cameron Tate, now full of pain as well as rage. The orderly takes an old smart-phone out of his pocket and holds it at the ready, threatening to make a call if I don’t comply.

  ‘Mister, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’ve overstayed your welcome at this point.’

  ‘I’m sorry, please just let me ask him –’

  The orderly holds up a finger to silence me. ‘All the chocolate bars in the frigging world ain’t gonna get me to let you back in there, buddy.’

  I hold up my hands. ‘All right, just show me the way out.’

  21

  The next day I vomit before I get to Winslade’s residence.

  I’m walking through Central Park, dragging my heels, hoping to God some cancellation call might come in the half-hour remaining before the session. I go so far as to offer up a mumbled prayer of sorts, asking a higher power for relief. I make my way west, sidestepping stragglers of the Occupy Movement. Through the trees the sight of my client’s penthouse brings on a wave of nausea. My chin cramps, commits to the impending puke and I’m running, looking for a good spot to be sick. Nowhere seems appropriate. I lean over a hedge, heaving soupe de jour and filet mignon in the dirt. People passing by regard me with disgust as I spit up the last of it, trying to avoid getting any on my clothes. I look for somewhere I can wash my lips and chin. There is nothing around. I buy a bottle of water from a falafel vendor and douse my face over a patch of grass, rinse my mouth, carefully scrub a splatter of puke from my necktie that is topped with another horrible attempt at an Eldredge knot I’m positive Renard will give me shit over.

  No fountains operate in the park any more, or anywhere in the city for that matter, due to water shortages. I remember playing in them when I was a little kid. It was cheap entertainment, wading in the cool shallows, splashing my unimpressed sisters while my parents watched until we grew hungry. A hot dog and a Coke in the park were something I relished, until my older sister told me what they were made of. Mashed cow heads, she said, leftover snouts and ears and assholes and hooves. And the caramel colouring in my cola, she said that would give me cancer. A couple offhand comments killed the fondness for ever. I changed to chicken dogs, until I was told they were moulded from the puréed sludge of beaks and bone marrow. Not even the veggie ones were good. My siblings took great pleasure in telling me the soy would one day give me tits.

  But I’m not here to reminisce. The Occupy Movement is the real reason I’m wasting time in Central Park. I want to get close, hear and feel the growing discontentment, see what’s got my clients so spooked. Scattered over the grass are people from all walks, a fat slice of anywhere America, their one commonality the right to protest what they perceive as injustice. Under bridges groups gather, making signs and slogans, organizing impromptu marches along the footpaths. They look weary, but their collective anger perpetuates their movement. They are the other kind of husks: those gutted by reality, left empty by our leaders, discarded by democracy. They’re not attractive, not physically fit, not easily marketable. But they are the majority, the ones who believe they have the power to make change. The rumble of the Great Lawn hits your ears long before it comes into view. When it does, your jaw drops.

  It’s a fifty-acre tent city out there, thousands of protesters gathered together as small-scale parades make their way around the perimeter. Almost all wear hats or hoods, sunglasses and upturned collars, making it difficult for the few cameras in the vicinity. Each of the Great Lawn’s eight baseball diamonds is packed with people who thin out toward the outfields. Makeshift headquarters operate at each home plate. As I walk between the tents I hear pirate broadcasts coming from old transistor radios. The signals are surprisingly clear. Most of what I hear is repeats from earlier. I spent half an hour sitting at the foot of my bed this morning in a daze, dialled in to the frequencies, trying to remember the importance of my dreams and forget the anxiety of my nightmares. Three cups of coffee so far today and I still don’t feel awake.

  Around the edges of the lawn the police presence has grown in proportion to the protest. Officers stand rigid as the more relaxed citizens give them a wide berth. I’m surprised to see a pair of stationary EMUs positioned under some trees, bodies painted black with NYPD denoted in white on their appendages, outfitted with riot control equipment instead of weapons and munitions. Their lens-like eyes scan back and forth over the crowd so slowly it is barely perceptible. The drones act only as sentries for the moment, but the cops are obviously worried enough to be bringing in the heavy gear. Winslade made another killing when he was contracted to manufacture drones for law enforcement.

  At one of the nearby baseball diamonds, on a small podium built over home plate, a buff bearded man steps up and greets the crowd with a megaphone and a sign that says Our Contract With America Is Broken. The crowd erupts in applause before he’s even spoken a word. When he addresses everyone his deep, amplified voice commands even my attention. The self-righteousness is hard to ignore.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen … and now the children of our United States. On this historical land around us lies a truth so large that it can no longer be ignored. Right here is where a new history will be written. We are the epicentre of how most Americans feel about their country. We are not a minority, or a fringe, or a few detractors that can be downplayed. We are less divided than our so-called superiors want us to be. We unite in peaceful protest to their detriment. For they know divided we would fall. This, above all else, is what we need to remember. They keep telling us this country is not in a depression, but I tell you I’ve never felt more depressed –’

  I hear nothing more. Between the shifting bodies, I catch sight of red hair and green eyes among the drab clothes and hooded heads. One person is turned my way, the only occupier not watching the man with the megaphone. It is Delane, and he is staring at me. His pale face is unimpressed, a death mask o
f displeasure. He backs away, gradually enveloped by the crowd. I start after him, pushing through the protesters packed around me. Delane’s retreat seems effortless as I fight through the people. In the sea of bodies he simply goes under, taken by a current and resurfacing periodically, just long enough for me to get a bead on him and continue pursuit. He makes it to the north end of the Great Lawn, where the protesters are sparse. I’m about thirty yards away when he flashes me a strange smile and steps behind a tree. When I get there he is gone. I circle the tree, but find nothing, wondering if there was ever anything to find in the first place. He looked so real this time. And it wasn’t just a glimpse I caught either.

  Someone pushes paper into my hand. I look up. The Hispanic man giving me the flyer seems familiar. He points to the advertisement, an upcoming appearance by some international guest speaker I’ve never heard of. He tells me it’s important I go. The guy’s eyes draw to slits, reciprocating the look I’m giving him. It takes me a minute to place this person. The moment I realize who he is, he recognizes me in return. It’s the poor son of a bitch I bought breakfast for at Harbinger’s the other week. We don’t say anything at first. When he finally does speak there is emotion in his voice.

  ‘That meal and money kept me going for three days, my friend.’

  I shrug. ‘You looked like you needed it.’

  ‘More than you know,’ he says with a tired smile. ‘You have my thanks. I was getting desperate, quite literally.’

  ‘It was the least I could do, quite literally.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it went a long way. The world needs more men like you. You’re one of the good guys.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not as good as you think.’

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ he says with a chuckle and extends his hand. ‘Javier.’

  I shake firmly. ‘Rhodes.’

  A pack of cigarettes I’d bought earlier comes to mind. I pull them from my pocket and peel off the cellophane. A long time ago they were instrumental in helping me cope with stress. Starting up that old habit again isn’t a good sign, and breaking another rule for healthy Husks is bad for business. Ask me if I give a shit any more. I take a cigarette and offer the packet to Javier.