Personal Effects

by J. C. Hutchins

  “Listen to me, old man. Fucking listen to me.”

  Tktktkouldkoobemine? Wouktktktbemiitk?

  I doubled over, shivering, feverish. I pulled up again, spitting my words through gritted teeth.

  “Cuh-cuh-crazy, Druh-Drake. Tha-that’s one option. But the uh-uh-other … .”

  I heard the thing rising behind me, growling and growing taller, breathing ice on my shoulders. My stomach turned at the sound of slick tongues ticking across fangs.

  I heard a whisper, a voice. I ignored it.

  “LISTEN to me!” I bellowed. “Fir-first option gone! Nuh-no crazy man would draw myu-mural maps. Ssoo. Sssssane. Yuh gotta be sane.”

  Drake’s limp body jerked, as if electrified. Another whisper, but not from him.

  “You all-almost had me fooled, mindbender,” I snapped. “Had me thinking it wuh-wasn’t you. Ohhh, but it was, wasn’t it, Drake? All those peopnumigh—”

  A dozen icicles pierced my skull, rail spikes in my brain, pumping black liquid into gray matter. The whispers were here now, inside my head, a soaring, roaring symphony of thunder-drums and sinuous snake hisses.

  “Nnnn,” I said.

  Tumbledownthesssteps, tktkartilagessnapping, Zaehsnapping

  “Nnnno wonder you went blind,” I muttered. “Coward.”

  Drake bucked again, his brow furrowing in confusion. His head titled forward, away from the ceiling, toward my voice.

  “What?” he said.

  The voices in my mind vanished for a moment. I sucked in a breath, feeble, asthmatic.

  “I said—”

  But the blackness gushed anew, and I screamed as the voices screamed, and they were the howls of the Golgotha-mad, the psychotics, the lifers, lifting their legion language in unholy chorus:

  timeto go, Zaktktk. putyourhand innrr satktkchel, pull outktktk your pencilzzzzk.

  And God help me, I did. My shivering fingers slid to my bag and found several sketching pencils with uncanny precision. I wasn’t driving my hand anymore. No, oh, no. The suicides heard this, I knew it now, twentysomething Rosemary Chapel hanging herself in her parents’ garage, black leather belt silver studs ripping her thrrrr

  India ink was spilling over my eyes, no, into my eyes, sliding over my tear ducts, seeping into my retinas. The world was growing dark.

  tktktkarmmm. take penciktktktktk. punch hkhkhole innn tktkarmmm. Like a slave, my fingers plucked a shaft from the bunch in my right hand. The pencil trembled in my iron grip. My fingernails dug into my palms, making them bleed. Damn me, I couldn’t let it go.

  I raised the pencil high, like a knife, possessed. With everything I—it—had, it arced down, downward, plunging into my right forearm. I screamed. My hand, stupid with its own mind, broke the pencil as it yanked away. A half-inch of wood and graphite remained in my skin.

  The air chuckled.

  Tktkchest now.

  Yes. God, yes. It was becoming more clear now, here in the dark. Another pencil in my left hand. It rushed toward me, as if I were beating my chest.

  It pierced my right bicep, just above the nipple. The pain was exquisite.

  And nowktktk. Eyyyyye for tktkeyyyye.

  “No,” I said, but another pencil was in my hand now … and it was rising slowly, so slowly, to my face.

  I howled, focused my mind on the noise. Used the focus to find words. Directed the words at Drake.

  “I know you did it, Richard!” I screamed. “How you did them all!! The whole world is going to know! I’m going to put you away, cold-blooded killer that you are. It’s going to be in my report, old man, all of it! YOU KILLED THEM!”

  The whispering wasp-swarm died down again, and Drake stirred in his chair once more. The pencil trembled, six inches from my face, as I fought the thing overpowering my body. The muscles in my forearm quivered, as if in an arm-wrestling contest.

  The man’s sightless eyes quested for my face, and I could see a strange breed of vitality returning to him, bringing color to his cheeks. Tears were streaming down his face now.

  But the room’s remaining air pressed around us now, wracking me with above-sea-level bends, and I cried out once more. The beast behind me whined, desperate. And then it growled, low and guttural. I felt the sound in my fillings.

  The sputtering light above us went black. My heart stopped beating.

  And I heard the nightmare millipede skitter-slide rush from behind me to beside me … and then before me. Airless, soundless, dimensionless space separated me from my patient.

  I shut my eyes, lost in the ocean, and felt the pencil press forward anew, rejuvenated.

  First, I’d lose my right eye. Then my left. And I’d be just as blind as him, the failure he said I was, they said I was, the failure I knew I was.

  It inched further still.

  No.

  I sucked in air. I reminded myself why I was there. I damned my patient, damned myself, and screamed like an unhinged man, an exorcist.

  “RICHARD DRAKE! You will PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES! You will PAY for the BLOOD on your HANDS! You will SUFFER, as you made those YOU KILLED suffer! RETRIBUTION, RICHARD DRAKE! YOU ARE GUILTY …”

  The sharp pencil tip dug into my eyelid. The orb behind it constricted, rolling madly in the darkness.

  Two roars filled the room now, overpowering my voice. One from the Dark Man, a screeching, brain-splitting howl.

  “ … PAY! FOR! YOUR!” I screamed.

  And now another scream, from Drake. One word, louder than us all.

  Chernobog.

  I heard the world tear open: shredding fabric, invisible electricity, a howling wind from anotherspace.

  And then, it was over.

  The light flashed on above me, steady and true. I threw the pencil to the floor; it clattered and rolled away. Drake sat in his chair, gaping at the light bulb, squinting like a newborn … and then he looked at me. Saw me.

  “ … crimes,” I whispered.

  He was smiling. Smiling, weeping and nodding. He stood, filled the space between us, and hugged me.

  I held him as he trembled and wept. My eyes turned to the walls. The murals had returned, surreal, colorful … and for the first time, I thought, hopeful.

  “Whatever you want,” Richard Drake said through his sobs. “Confession, anything. Punishment, yes. Finally, yes. Thank you. Thank you.”

  I held him tight. Our words and tears blurred together, there in Room 507.

  “Thank you.”

  29

  I sank into the black vinyl chair, relishing its aged padding. I’d been nearly dead on my feet for the past two days, so I dared not close my eyes; this moment of being literally “at rest” would likely take me over the edge. The office’s dim lighting—and its oppressive scent of coffee and old books—was comforting, too. I ached for sleep. I ached, all over.

  The pain meds I’d received in the infirmary weren’t helping. The pencil holes in my arm and chest had required stitches, as had one of the gashes on my face from Daniel’s attack. I’d come back from Hell, and would have the scars to prove it.

  I bit my tongue, opened my eyes wide, tapped my fingers, one after another, against my thumb. Anything to stay awake.

  Dr. Peterson closed the door behind me and stepped to his desk. He sat and stared at me with his owlish eyes. His round face glowed pale from the nearby gooseneck lamp. The towers of desk paperwork were a city skyline, it seemed, and Peterson was the moon, judging me from on high, from orbit, ready to mete out my punishment.

  He placed the thick folder I’d given him on the desk. Inside was the “Martin Grace” file: the original admittance report, my official conclusions from our therapy sessions, my statement of his competence to stand trial, photocopies of my patient’s confessions to the twelve murders—and finally, the transfer documents that released him from Brinkvale care. Noon was three hours gone, and so was Richard Drake.

  And now, it was my turn.

  “There are things to discuss, Zachary,” Peterson said, “the most important
being: Are you all right?”

  I frowned and sighed. I wanted to say no, no, I wasn’t all right; that Peterson’s assignment and my crusade—he’s blind, but help him see—had wreaked a special breed of havoc on my mind and body; that during this adventure, I’d destroyed parts of myself, my job, my family, my relationships; that I’d sacrificed damned-near every shred of myself for a stranger who didn’t want my help; that darkness can be a living thing, a midnight-ocean shark attack, not a great white, but a Great Black; and oh the things I’ve seen/not seen in the past week, Dr. Peterson, it’s just like Henry said: there’s a very large world beside—and beneath and above—this one, and it scraped against me. It changed me.

  And for what? I wondered here, as the old man scrutinized me. In so many ways, I hadn’t saved Richard Drake at all. He’d be convicted, slam-dunk, just like Uncle Henry’s case, twenty years ago.

  But I think … I think I might have saved his soul.

  And wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t that—as I’d said to Drake the day I’d met him—“the goddamned point?”

  “I’m all right,” I replied, and smiled softly. “I think everything’s going to be all right.”

  Peterson’s mouth was a narrow line. He shook his head slowly.

  “I disagree, Zachary. I chose you for the Grace case because of your brilliance with patients: your unconventional ability to connect with them. Defying convention is one matter. Being reckless is another.”

  As his eyes continued to probe mine, his hand slid from the desk surface, out of view. He tugged open a drawer and then placed four videocassettes atop Grace’s folder. A three-digit number was written on their labels. Upon each was also scrawled a date from the past week. I noticed that Thursday’s date was not represented here.

  It was footage from Room 507’s security camera.

  Whatever glint of hope I’d had of keeping my job died right there. This was no longer about my job at The Brink. This was, quite suddenly, about my career as an art therapist.

  My stomach churned, turned sour and acidic. He’d seen it all. I’d damned it all.

  “Yesterday’s incident with Emilio Wallace forced me to take a closer look at how you interacted with the patient,” Peterson said. His voice was grave. “Martin Grace was a determined man. You were equally determined. There are a great many inexplicable moments on these tapes, Zachary. Your relentless questioning, for instance. Actually, I’m well within my right to call it ‘interrogation.’ During Wednesday’s session alone, your patient said …”

  He glanced at a nearby sheet of paper. His voice dispassionately recited the notes as if they were from a play. I remained silent, sickened.

  “ … ‘No. God damn you, stop. Stop. Leave me alone. Don’t. No. Oh no, Almighty God, no.’”

  Peterson’s gray eyes flicked back to mine.

  “And yet you persisted, Zachary.”

  I wanted to throw up. I wanted to give him a reason, to tell him why. I knew I couldn’t.

  “There are more than a dozen moments like this,” Peterson continues, “and as the week progressed, you appeared to descend further and further into what I’ll charitably call ‘inexcusably cavalier’ engagements with the patient. This … is very troubling.”

  His mouth now sank into a frown. He tapped the cassettes with a wrinkled hand. Cufflinks glinted at his wrists.

  “Equally inexplicable and troubling is what’s not on these tapes. Hours of footage is missing, or garbled. Any record of Martin Grace during the nighttime hours is gone, as if they were never recorded. His drawing of the wall murals, for instance. Also missing are moments of your sessions together. It appears that the electrical malfunctions on Level 5 affected more than the room’s lighting.”

  I gaped at him, not understanding—and yet understanding perfectly. Perhaps it was the ancient Brinkvale wiring system that caused these blackouts. Perhaps it was something else.

  “This footage,” Peterson said, “is an incomplete record of your interaction with the patient.”

  He slid the tapes aside with his hand, making room for another piece of notepaper, which he now placed in the center of the desk. It was covered in his elegant handwriting.

  “I have also received information that may interest you,” he said. “Despite the District Attorney’s office’s—and police department’s—attempts to quash this rumor, it appears that an individual illegally entered Martin Grace’s apartment on Tuesday. This individual was arrested. He was released without criminal charges.”

  The vinyl around me groaned as I shifted in my seat. All of Richard Drake’s personal effects—including the items from the The Brink, the lockbox and his son’s home—were inside the manila envelope, locked in my office desk. I’d left them there after I’d filed my report today, not wanting to touch them, not ever again. If Peterson ordered a search of my office …

  This couldn’t get any worse, simply couldn’t.

  “I also received a phone call this morning from the Haverstraw Sheriff’s Department,” Peterson reported. “Apparently, a Brinkvale employee assaulted a resident of that county. This resident could not recall the name of his assailant, who allegedly visited the day before to question him about his father, a Brinkvale patient. According to the officer, this employee broke into the man’s home last night—and quite literally buried a hatchet into the man’s leg.”

  Peterson did not smile at his joke. His eyes slowly, deliberately, cataloged my appearance. He knew, knew everything. Bile rushed to my mouth. I pined for a wastebasket. I was going to puke.

  “The deputy asked me if Brinkvale was housing a patient by the name of ‘Drake,’” Peterson said. “He also asked me if I knew why the alleged assailant might anonymously report the man’s wound from a pay phone at Claytonville Prison.”

  I stared at my boss. The silence was a roar, if that were possible.

  Peterson finally spoke.

  “I told the deputy we were not treating a man named ‘Drake,’” he said.

  The old man pushed the paper across the desk, to where the videocassettes rested. He removed his glasses and began to polish them with his tie. His eyes were tiny things now, pebble-sized.

  “There is a difference between ‘want’ and ‘need,’ Zachary,” he said, his thumb working the fabric. “Is there something you want to tell me? Something I want to hear?”

  I had to clear my throat to speak.

  “Uh … no, Dr. Peterson.”

  The old man placed the spectacles on his face. He nodded.

  “Is there anything you need to tell me? Anything I need to hear?”

  My mind danced and raced and played hopscotch, calculating this, wondering what—if anything—I should say. Peterson wasn’t an administrator anymore. He was my judge, my jury, my executioner. I don’t know how long I sat there, my mind screaming in the impenetrable silence of the room—but when the words eventually came, they flowed out as my brain formed them, a manic data dump.

  “I … I try to make a difference, a positive difference, with what I do here,” I whispered. “I try to save my people—ah, my patients—from themselves, from their torment. I do everything … everything I can to help them. It’s what I’m built to do. It’s …”

  I looked into Peterson’s eyes. My voice was louder now.

  “ … It’s what you hired me to do. That’s what I did with Martin Grace. I helped him. I saved him from himself. I … I think that’s something we both needed to hear.”

  A smirk flashed onto the doctor’s face, and then was gone. I wasn’t actually sure I’d seen it. He picked up the videotapes and his notes with both hands. They trembled slightly above the desk, and then slid away from the gooseneck lamp’s glare. He released them.

  They clattered into the wastebasket behind the desk.

  “The footage was compromised, Zachary,” he said, “and any additional information outside of your report is innuendo. Aside from Thursday’s tape—which must be archived to accompany the Emilio Wallace incident report—th
ere is no record beyond what you’ve told me, and what you’ve filed. This leaves me with your conclusions. I asked you to determine if Martin Grace was fit to stand trial. You did that.”

  His eyes narrowed now, knowing.

  “Your findings were precisely what I anticipated,” he said. “Weren’t they?”

  I recalled what Peterson had said in his office, a million Mondays ago.

  “‘He wouldn’t be here if he was innocent,’” I quoted.

  Peterson didn’t blink, didn’t breathe, for a moment.

  “And yet, the patient seems at peace now,” he said. “Amazing.”

  “Amazing Grace,” I agreed. I felt stupid, as if I were missing the punch line to a very long, very funny joke.

  Peterson leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands, placing them on his belly.

  “I want you to go home, Zachary. You’re on leave until further notice. I’ll review your report—and your conduct—and will soon notify you of your professional standing here at Brinkvale Psychiatric. But in the meantime, rest. I want you to rest. Will you do that”

  I opened my mouth to speak, to plead my case … but I’d already done that. I nodded.

  “That is all, then.”

  I stood up, quietly grimacing as my body shrieked its pain. I walked to the door, opened it, stepped beyond into the reception area. Lina Velasquez blasted rapid-fire words into her computer keyboard. A hundred-twenty a minute, easy.

  “Zachary.”

  I turned back toward the doorway. Peterson’s face was half-lit in the lamplight. He opened another desk drawer and removed a ring of keys. They clinked merrily, in the dim room. He eyed them.

  “I acquired these keys through an acquaintance,” he said. “There are Braille stickers on every one.”

  His eyes turned to me now. “Do these belong to Martin Grace”

  I paused.

  “No sir,” I replied. And that was true.

  “Very well then,” he said, and tossed them into the wastebasket. “Goodbye, Zachary.”

  I gave a wordless wave and strode out of the Administrator’s Office, down the hall, and out into the world beyond The Brink.