Castle Danger--The Mental States

by Anthony Neil Smith

  Onward to Phil Konzbruck’s office. We’d got clear of his house right quick, well before the sirens wailed their ear-splitting duet with the first squad car to come screaming to the scene. Now, the police were busy making no sense of the mysterious scene at Mr. Konzbruck’s private home — an empty house left in mid-dinner prep — while we chased our only remaining lead. Sure, it was unlikely that the man would leave his house in such a hurry only to hide in his office, but goddamn it, it was the best chance we had of ever getting to the bottom of this.

  I wasn’t so sure I wanted to anymore.

  But onward …

  Now here’s the thing: contrary to popular belief, they didn’t give legislators glamorous offices and plentiful staff. We arrived to find a mess of paperwork strewn all over the floor; a desk turned over, and cracked computer monitors hanging by wires. Two young women on their hands and knees, in similar dark skirts and dark leggings tried to clean up. Tried. Another intern — a young man in the typical khakis, sweat-soaked button-down shirt, and cheap, loud tie — was pretending to help, when really he was just getting as close as possible to one of the interns, a dark-haired girl with pale skin, deep red lipstick, and oversized plastic glasses, the sort her grandmother might have worn.

  It was her who looked up at Joel and me with a gasp. “Oh, fuck.”

  Joel lifted his chin. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know! I wasn’t here! I’m supposed to get college credit for this, but look at it! Look at it all.”

  “Is Konzbruck here?”

  The girl with the lipstick gave him a flat stare. “Yes. Obviously.”

  “Come on then. Take us to see him.”

  “Hey!” Of course. Now her little boyfriend had to get in the way, acting all grown up and hard-boiled, gallant defender of his damsel in distress. Shame his voice sounded like a strangled chipmunk. “You two, I’ve seen you around here.”

  “Have you now?”

  “I’m all over this joint. You guys work for Andrew Marquette, don’t you?”

  The girl with the lipstick gave up on sorting papers, pushed up to her knees and crossed her arms. “You’re lost, boys. Lost boys. You’re behind enemy lines.”

  Great, we’d asked for directions only to be waylaid by Amateurs Anonymous. Time for the next mini-drama. It came in the shape of the other girl, plain, no make-up, stringy blond hair, career plan: peacemaker. “Don’t say that. There are no enemies here.”

  Her friend huffed and the drama was under way. “You’re a natural politician. You’ll run for governor one day.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “No, seriously, why don’t you fetch your guitar? We’ll light a fire with all this paperwork and sing songs of freedom.

  “Excuse me,” Joel waved his hand around. “So, your boss—”

  The guy scoffed. “Not my boss.”

  “—whoever’s boss he is, I need to see him. He’s not here?”

  “I don’t know. He could be in a meeting. I don’t know.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  The plain girl stopped working. “What does that mean? Is he in trouble?”

  Joel sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the military strategist in him was back. “I heard the police came to see him.”

  “Oh god, I need these credits!”

  Joel snapped his fingers a few times. “Attention, millennials. Up here. Okay? Listen, when was the last time any of you saw or heard or tweeted or actually spoke to Mister Konzbruck?”

  They conferred, via shrugs and mumbles, before finally telling us it had to have been before lunch the day before. We asked if he had a lake house up north, or maybe a conference they’d forgotten about, or anything, but all we got was another round of blank stares.

  Dead end.

  So I went home.

  It would feel good, I thought, to be alone with my thoughts for a while. Maybe a long, hot shower. I felt dirty, but I think that had more to do with the mental stress than the physical exertion of hunting ghosts, so I’d probably need more than a regular shower. More like a baptism, or maybe an exorcism. Did they still perform those in church? Been a long time since I’d been anywhere near one. Jesus wept, as the priest used to say. Irish fook. Did they ever make those kiddy-fiddling charges stick?

  That’s where my mind was, as I headed up the steps, key in hand, ready to try that shower after all … There was a small green paper bag hanging from my doorknob by paper-rope handles. Cute. But the sort of day I’d had, I was leery.

  I tried to peek inside the top, but it was taped shut.

  Who the hell would …?

  Why would anyone …?

  Another clue? A gift?

  A bomb?

  Maybe Dylan’s little finger?

  I sighed, ripped the bag off the doorknob and tore it open.

  Inside: a long amber medicine bottle, the label peeled off. It was half full of pills. Along with it, a note in my friend Paula’s decorative handwriting:

  2 different pills, follow directions on other side. And for fuck’s sake, call Dr. Golda Stravinsky and tell her I sent you. BUT DON’T MENTION THE PILLS YET!

  Then the phone number.

  I flipped the paper. Paula had drawn a chart describing each pill — an anti-androgen and an estrogen — and when to take them.

  I shook the bottle. Enough for a few weeks, it sounded like.

  I smiled. Forget the long shower. This called for a long bath and warm mug of dark coffee.

  Dr. Stravinsky squinted and sat back in her massive chair. It was almost too small for her. She was over six-feet tall and wore black slacks and four-inch heels. Laying on the couch beside her, I felt like a mouse.

  “I don’t see it. Sorry, I just don’t.”

  Meaning: she didn’t think I was serious about being a woman.

  I mean, I’d had people question my commitment, some had even told me they thought it was malarkey, while others had tried to reassure me that it didn’t matter what anyone else had to say, as long as I was happy …

  … but this was a medical professional I was hoping would help me along my journey, and all she had to say was that she didn’t even believe me.

  “Sorry?”

  “I understand, I do. But I don’t hear it, I don’t feel it, I don’t see it. I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon, too. It happens sometimes.”

  “What happens?”

  A shrug. “A false positive. You’re not a woman. You’re just not.”

  This may be a good time to mention that Golda Stravinsky was also a transwoman. Made the change at age thirty-nine and kept right on going, sans the name ‘Gordon’.

  Two days had gone by since our discovery of Konzbruck’s deserted kitchen. Still no sign of Dylan other than the shocking images we’d seen in the ‘Fancy Room’, which, by now, was sure to have moved to a new, hidden address in the deep web, and this time there was no Guardian Angel to tell us where to look.

  What did that say about me? I hadn’t done a very good job with Phil, had I?

  Dr. Stravinsky had agreed to hear me out, free of charge, thanks to the mention of Paula’s name. We sat in a small cabin, more like a shed, in her backyard. It was nicely fixed up but very tight quarters for a therapist’s office. A shag rug, dark to hide snow, salt, and mud stains. Homemade wooden table for coffee and tea. Home-built bookshelves, only half full of books that looked like they hadn’t been touched in a long time. Pleasant, minty green paint on the walls, plus a print of a Matisse painting. Two comfy upholstered chairs, angled and touching armrests, with a fluffy pillow on each, which the doctor had encouraged me to hold or squeeze or caress, should I feel the need. I didn’t. Between the chairs, a small lamp with an amber shade, casting a soothing light. Small windows on two sides of the cabin, botch left ajar to let in the early spring breeze.

  But despite the slight chill in the air it was cozy. It invited intimacy. It invited quiet conversation. The kind that made me feel like I was whispering word
s that would never leave those four walls. I was willing to open up that way.

  And then she slammed the door in my face, still figuratively speaking, of course. I think she was trying to be kind.

  “I don’t feel comfortable recommending you for Hormone Replacement Therapy. There’s something there. You’ll have to trust my judgement on this.”

  I cleared my throat. I was having to work hard to hold my legs so that they didn’t touch hers, this office being so small and she so tall. I didn’t want my sneakers stabbed by her heels. “Um, okay.”

  “Believe me, you’re not the first. You won’t be the last. And I know it’s confusing. I really do.”

  “Okay.”

  I had no real response. It hadn’t occurred to me that this was even a possible answer. In fact, I’d thought this would be a mere formality. We’d been talking for about twenty minutes, just getting-to-know-you questions, a little on both sides — the doctor had moved here from San Antonio, Texas. The doctor had been a therapist before her transition. The doctor enjoyed the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon.

  “And have you seen the TV show?”

  I had shaken my head. “Sorry, no.”

  But after all that, she had looked at me, calmly, my focus on the leather choker around her neck, a stainless-steel circle holding it together in the front. Then those final words of crushing kindness. “It’s been wonderful meeting you, though. Give my best to Paula. She’s great.”

  I turned, cleared my throat even more. Felt as if my umbilical cord had been snipped a second time, but this time there was no doctor, no mother, nobody there to carry me.

  “So what now?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Well, you know, if it’s a no, what’s that mean for me? What’s next? Should I try to find, like, someone else?”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Then … what?”

  “I’m sorry, I wish I had a better answer.” Dr. Stravinsky sighed, looked away from me. “I’m not a life coach.”

  “Yeah but … you don’t tell the ‘no’ people anything? Should I go back to living like a man?”

  “Would you be okay with that?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  A shrug. “Then don’t change a thing. Keep doing what you’re doing. No one can take this away from you. Live however you want to live. Call yourself a woman. Gender is whatever you want it to be. I’m just saying that hormones and surgery … I just don’t see it for you. Yet.”

  “That’s it? That’s the way it ends?”

  “Nothing is ending. You’re only beginning. Be yourself.”

  I had moved to the edge of my chair now, fingernails cutting into the fabric of the armrests. “It’s not fair. You got to transition, and from the sound of it simply by diagnosing yourself, and now you can pass judgement on the rest of us like God? It’s God’s fault I’m here in the first place! Help me!”

  “Help you what?”

  “Therapize me! Give me therapy! What is wrong with me?”

  She was getting nervous, I could tell, pushing back into her chair as far as she could. “There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with any of us. And talk like that is one reason I think you’re wrong for hormone therapy. I can’t help you. If you continue as you are, I truly believe that will be the happiest road for you.”

  I dropped my head into my hands. My breath was a tremble. “No, no, no, no, that can’t be. This is a joke. This is the part where you tell me it’s a test.”

  Sigh. “There’s no test. I wouldn’t do that to anyone. I think you know who you are, deep inside. I think that if you live with yourself, and listen only to your inner voice, you will understand what I’m telling you. I’m sorry, Manny. But you need to trust me.”

  I stood and pulled the pill bottle out of my jacket pocket, set it on the coffee table, and thought about walking out like Charlie Bucket did to Willy Wonka, leaving behind the precious, precious Gobstopper.

  But no, I let it stay there a moment, the gorilla in the room, not another word said, before picking it up and putting it in my pocket again.

  “Oh, Manny.”

  Cleared my throat once more. It was hard to keep the phlegm out of my voice. “Thanks for your time. Thanks.”

  “Those pills won’t make you happy.”

  I opened the door. “I don’t know if ‘happy’ is the point anymore.”

  Out the door, in to my Lincoln, and off, wiping tears from my eyes with the heel of my hand, breathing like a pregnant lady going into labor, something else I would never experience. The irony: Only a five day waiting period to buy a gun in this country, but in order to transition, I’d have to prove myself to some asshole like Stravinsky? I had to wait a year before they’d even consider allowing me to have hormones?

  I was done waiting. I was done asking for permission.

  By dinnertime, I had dried up. Just in time for that one-on-one meeting with the Senator, the ‘repeat date’ after Tennyson had wedged himself between us at the first attempt. I had been expecting to be wined and dined, really. Maybe a table at Heartland, the hot farm-to-table spot, or the big foodie sensation, Upton 43, to draw on some of Minnesota’s Scandinavian roots. Yeah, something like that. I mean; if I was working for the powers-that-be, I should get a few crumbs of luxury now and then, shouldn’t I?

  But when the text came, it was: Come on up to the house.

  So instead of a hot date, I had another ‘to do’ with the Senator, once again alone in his kitchen.

  Except this time I looked nothing like his sister Hannah. I was my own woman.

  Who, according to Dr. Stravinsky, wasn’t worthy of being a woman at all.

  Well … fuck that bitch.

  Like I said, I’d dried up, but my cheeks were still hot. I thought it was up to me to decide who I really was in my own skin. Hadn’t she done the same thing herself? I swear, you could have lit a match on my cheeks.

  I sat across the island from Marquette, my arms crossed, while he passed across a plate of sliced skirt steak, some roasted gold potatoes, asparagus, and a glass of what he told me was a ‘decent’ red, nothing special, although I spied the bottle and realized it was easily worth a week of my pay.

  Whereas I had decided to go with a pantsuit and white blouse, the Senator had decided it wasn’t that sort of occasion. He wore cargo shorts and flip-flops, plus a faded The Replacements tour t-shirt. Odd. He didn’t seem, at least to me, like a big fan of alternative rock. Neither was I, and I wasn’t going to fake it for the sake of whoever I was talking to, either.

  As usual, he started rambling, about polls, donors, some good meetings he’d had, a good five minutes before he paused and looked at me. “You doing okay? Not hungry?”

  I looked up, then down again. I guess I was still thinking about what the therapist had told me. Everything outside of that seemed washed-out, muted. I pierced the steak; tender enough to cut in two with the side of the fork. Might as well eat it then. Loved the taste, the feel, but my stomach rebelled, giving me a kick to the throat. Somehow, I held my composure, told the Senator it was great. “Just … sorry, no appetite. One of those days.”

  “Sure, okay. I feel some of that might be my fault. We really should’ve done this sooner, but you know how it is. The campaign, it just … you know. A typhoon, it can be. I should have explained Tennyson before springing him on you. I admit it. I fucked up.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. You don’t need to—”

  “But I do, I do. There’s just so much. Dylan, Jesus, Dylan. And I know you’ve been looking for him, but I need you one-hundred percent. It’s tough, it’s tough. Dylan’s a great guy. Great. I can’t tell you if this is a hoax or not, but even if he’s sold out against me, Jesus, that’s still better than whatever that was.” His eyes went out of focus for a heartbeat and I could almost see the images of Dylan’s suffering reflected in them. “Let’s just hope and let it shake out.”

  “Are you giving
up on him?”

  That got me a sharp look, a fork stabbed in my direction. “No, how could you even think that? No, Manny, I’m saying that the police are doing their job, and I’ve got Thorn and the BCA working it, too. So please stay out of it from now on. I don’t want to see you get hurt, too.”

  I set my fork down, gripped the edge of the island, the granite cold on my fingertips. “You still believe that was fake? It was not. It was sick.”

  “Manny. Stop it.” The Senator pushed back from the island, his barstool crashing to the ground. “What the fuck am I supposed to do? What the fuck, man?”

  I’d never seen him lose composure quite like this. Clearly, this was no time to push my luck, so I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to continue. He paced his side of the island, not looking at me. I sensed the presence of security guys, one out on the deck, another standing guard in the hallway. Surprised they didn’t rush me.

  Marquette regained his cool and lifted his barstool back into place. I tried the potatoes. Excellent. Sipped wine to wash them down.

  “First Hannah, now Dylan, and … I don’t get it.”

  “Why would Dylan fake this?”

  “Money. Power. The things that most people in politics sway over. Public service? What’s that? I can’t even remember!”

  I couldn’t suppress a sigh. “That’s not Dylan.”

  “It’s almost everybody. Somebody came along, offered him a better deal.”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  He leveled his sad eyes at me. “You’d better hope that’s what it was. Because if they’re really hurting him …” Head shake. “Jesus.”

  My hand trembled as I lifted another slice of steak. It fell off the fork. I tried again. It fell off again.

  “Sir, I appreciate you inviting me over. And I apologize for, well, quitting like I did, if that’s what you call it.”

  He brushed it away, literally. Almost knocked his glass of wine over with the effusive gesture. “No, it’s fine. Pressure. I get it. And what I said, I was just joking. I would never … let me ask you something.”