The Secret Room

by Sandra Block

  “Yours is the lo mein. And I’ve got soup.”

  He reaches over for an egg roll. “You got three?”

  “Yeah,” I say, guarding the remaining two. “I was hungry.”

  “Hey, Mike?” a mellifluous voice calls out.

  “Yeah?” He stands up. A woman with cheerleader-blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes emerges from behind the curtain of room four. She sashays over. “Oh, hi! I’m Serena,” she says, shaking my hand.

  “Hi, I’m Zoe.” I grip hers, extra hard. I feel like King Kong, and she’s the blonde in the white dress.

  “So,” she says, turning her body and attention to Mike, “Room four needs an LP.” She puts her delicate pink hand on his shoulder and leans in. She might as well just give him a lap dance. “Can you witness it for me?”

  “I’m sure you could find a nurse to do that,” I say without thinking. As if my Adderall just took a vacation. Mike scratches his neck uncomfortably while Serena looks at me askance. Who invited her to the party?

  “No, it’s fine. I can do it. Back in a sec, Zoe,” he says, and tags along. Morosely I take a bite of my egg roll, then rub the nubby end into the duck sauce. So this is XO Serena.

  Indubitably a worthy adversary.

  Chapter Six

  Dr. Chen (the PhD kind) opens the door and offers me the chair across from her desk. Trying to get a better grasp on Andre’s case, I decided to call his high school principal, who was kind enough to meet with me.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” I say.

  “I’m so happy you called,” she returns, her voice soft and genuine. “Andre was always one of my favorites. I’ve been wondering how he was doing.” On her desk stands a silver-framed picture of two young kids with bulky snow suits and red-tinged cheeks. Her mug is in the shape of a big red apple and says “Straight-A Principal.”

  After the bitter cold outside, her office is a sauna. I shrug off my coat. “He’s still quite sick.”

  “Oh,” she intones, “that’s a shame.” She plays with the stem of her apple mug. “The delusions still?”

  “Yes, mainly about his father and the devil.” I shake my head. “He really doesn’t belong in prison.” Neither of us speak for a moment, both of us struck by the pitiful situation.

  “So what can I do to help?” she asks.

  “I really just wanted to get some more background.” I reflexively take out my phone and pull a new note up. “The only Andre I know is the boy who stabbed his father and is constantly hallucinating, you know? Andre the patient.”

  “Right.”

  “I was hoping you might have some insight on what he was like before all this.”

  “He was wonderful,” she breaks in without hesitation. Her eyes are beaming. “Honestly, he was. Anything you could ask of a student, that’s what he was. Kind to the other kids, respectful to teachers, hardworking, smart. Brilliant, even.” She looks down at her desk with a sad smile. “I’ve been at this almost fifteen years now, Dr. Goldman, and Andre was the real thing.”

  I write “real thing” in my note. “But you noticed a change?”

  Dr. Chen folds her hands. “Yes. I did. After his mother died, Charmayne. Well…” She hesitates. “Not right after.” She thinks back. “At first he was quieter, more sedate. Which is to be expected. Mourning.”

  “Of course.”

  “He missed some school, but not an alarming amount. Again, to be expected.” She regards her hands, which are shiny with lotion or perhaps just good skin. “But then about six months or so later, he started acting differently. More on edge, belligerent even. He got written up.” She points to her computer. “I have all the records.”

  I nod at the computer and the referenced records in there.

  “Which we still assumed was mourning, or maybe depression.” A blaring announcement comes through the overhead, about a clothing drive for Christmas. The words crackle, then fade away. “Sorry about that. They need to fix that.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Where was I?”

  I consult my note. “Getting written up.”

  “Right, yes. And he was missing more class. One day it was a headache, another stomachache. Like the anxious kids.”

  “School avoiders,” I say, having treated my share of those in my pediatric rotation.

  “Exactly. And again, we thought this was still in keeping with the change in his situation, depression, et cetera. And he looked a bit ill. Pale, tired. Like he wasn’t sleeping well. But then he said something very upsetting, very…disturbing to Ms. Clark, our social worker. Which you’re well aware of. That he thought his father was the devil. And then it was all mixed up in the comic books stuff.”

  “Right.”

  “And he was afraid his father was trying to replace him. That his father was part of a coven, he said. I remember thinking the word was quite advanced.” She nods with admiration at the memory. “And that he was replacing his mother and putting in a double for Andre, too.”

  I write this down. “Coven. Andre double.” It doesn’t change anything, though. If anything, it further supports the schizophrenia diagnosis. Delusions can be quite ornate.

  “And poor Mr. Green just couldn’t deal with it.”

  “He had a lot on his plate,” I say.

  “Yes, he did. And he didn’t want to believe there was a change. I met with him about it, and he said Andre had a strong imagination. He blamed the comic books.”

  “Denial.”

  “Without a doubt,” she agrees. “But I should have pushed the issue. He wasn’t equipped to deal with it right then, clearly.” Her jaw clenches, her eyes troubled. “I was going to call CPS, but it was already late in the day. So I put it off to the next day.”

  “What did CPS say?”

  She sighs. “I never got a chance to call them. The next day Abraham Green was in the hospital, and Andre had been arrested.”

  * * *

  Aubrey is strapped into a chair.

  She struggles against the black bindings, screaming and sobbing. Sweat runs down her neck with the effort. I was just getting to the clinic when they called me in stat.

  “What happened?”

  Her shrieking echoes through the hallway, as if she’s being sliced open. “We don’t know. But we’re hoping you can calm her down,” Officer Maloney says. He is out of breath from wrestling with her, though he outweighs her by over a hundred pounds. At six four, he’s just a bit taller than I. “She said she’ll only talk to you.”

  I can barely hear him above her sobbing. “Aubrey,” I say, my voice calm, but forceful. “Let’s relax here. This isn’t helping.” The hoarse shrieking continues. Her forehead is swelling up, an ugly purple egg. “What set her off?”

  “Beats me,” Maloney says. “One second she’s fine, then she’s slamming her head against the wall.”

  “It was a letter,” says the female CO, a largish African American woman. Her name tag says “Destiny.”

  “What letter?”

  “Her cellie said she got a letter. From some guy on the outside.”

  “Todd?” I ask.

  The screaming stops. Her eyes search me with desperation as her breath turns hiccupy. She struggles against the straps again, more halfheartedly, then stops. As if her engine has run out. Tears run down her red, heated cheeks. “Todd,” she says, in a whisper. “He said…” She struggles, still crying. “He said…he broke…”

  “He broke something?” I ask. “What did he break?”

  “Broke up?” Destiny queries.

  Aubrey is silent then and finally answers with an embarrassed nod. Maloney snickers, and Destiny pats her arm. “You want to rest in the quiet room for a little bit?” she asks. Aubrey nods again, her nose runny. She looks like a little girl, crying over a lost snowball fight.

  Destiny gives her another pat. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

  “Please don’t put me in solitary,” Aubrey begs.

  “Don’t you worry about that right now,”
Destiny says, cooing.

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “If you would cut this crap, we wouldn’t have to send you there,” Maloney says. I’m thinking much the same, but it’s not the time or place to discuss more effective coping skills.

  “I can’t go back there. The room.” Aubrey is talking to herself now. “He kept me in a room.”

  “Who kept you in a room?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer.

  “We’re all set here now,” Maloney says. “Right?”

  Aubrey mournfully nods.

  “Which means I have a fucking mountain of paperwork,” Maloney gripes. Destiny starts to undo the straps. And I grip Aubrey’s sweaty shoulder in support, then step away to return to the clinic.

  Turning around, I nearly bump right into another inmate. An inmate walking down the hall with a certain sway. I would recognize that sway anywhere. She stops and looks at me. Standing right there, my nemesis. Orange doesn’t become her. But her black hair still has that sheen, and her eyes are still a deep, deep ocean blue. Sofia looks right at me and smiles that mocking Mona Lisa smile.

  And I turn around and head to my office, pretending I didn’t see her.

  * * *

  When it’s almost quitting time, I get called for a consult at the men’s wing.

  On my way there, I find myself quite ravenous and make a pit stop at the vending machine for my usual nutritional supplement of M&M’s. When I reach the clinic, Jason’s still there. I pour myself a palmful of candy then tilt the package toward him.

  “I’m on a diet,” he says with a tinge of disgust.

  “You’re always on a diet,” I answer, my mouth full of chocolate.

  “I don’t know how you don’t get fat.” He sizes me up. “You’re always eating such crap.”

  I sit down at a computer. “Timothy Gordon, huh?”

  “Yeah, self-harm.”

  “Another one? It seems like we have a sale on that lately.”

  “And the other guy’s Fohrman,” Jason says. “He’s on a hunger strike, so we’re supposed to make sure he’s not suicidal. I would see him, but I gotta get out of here. Got a date.”

  I close out a chart. “I thought you said you were ‘sworn to celibacy’ after Dominic.”

  Dominic was his last asshole boyfriend. “I was,” he says. “For a couple weeks.” He clicks off his computer. “Ciao, babe.”

  “Ciao,” I say, already reading through my new patient’s chart. Timothy Gordon dropped a thirty-pound weight on his left arm to see if the bones were real. Turns out they were, and he broke several of them.

  After a bit the guard brings a ginger-headed Timothy Gordon into the clinic room. Timothy shuffles with his shackles on, then sits down heavily, and the guard exits the room. Timothy’s left arm is in a metal cast with screws in place, like some kind of ancient torture device.

  I point to it. “Do you want to talk to me about that?”

  He shrugs. “It’s nothing.”

  I tap my finger on my lips. “I wouldn’t say that really. It’s multiple compound fractures requiring screws, and who knows what other hardware in there.”

  He examines it. “Pretty, huh?”

  “Yeah. You’ll be setting off metal detectors for miles.”

  This gets a smile, at least. “It’s getting better.”

  “Which is good. And thank God for Ortho. But do you know why they called a psych consult?”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t say as I do.”

  “Because we’re kind of wondering, why did you do it?”

  His foot is tapping, clinking the ankle cuffs in a rhythm. I wait him out, checking him over. He’s your typical male prisoner, muscles defined from hours of working out to defeat boredom. But no cutting scars. He’s never been in for self-harm before. He hasn’t been in the hole for over five years, so he’s not a troublemaker. And this certainly isn’t a typical suicide attempt either.

  “I had to find out…” He lifts his arm and examines it as if it were a piece of artwork. “If it was real.”

  “If what was real, your arm?”

  He nods. “The bones.”

  “Hmm,” I say with interest. This is not your typical self-harm. This is something different. “Did you think the bones were something else?”

  “Chicken bones, maybe. Or rubber.”

  “Uh-huh.” I tap my pencil. “Do you think someone implanted bones in you?”

  “No.” He scoffs. “I’m not crazy or something. It’s just my arm. Didn’t feel like it was mine.”

  Depersonalization, I think, with enthusiasm that’s probably inappropriate. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good case of depersonalization. When patients think they’re not real somehow, like fake humans in this world. “Usually it wouldn’t just be a limb, though,” I comment without meaning to.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing, sorry, just thinking out loud.” My phone rings then, and I shut the ringer off, seeing it’s Newsboy. The phone vibrates on the table. “So, how do you feel about that now? Your arm?”

  He thinks about it. “Not sure. I never did get to see the bones.”

  This isn’t the answer I was hoping for. The guard yawns outside the room. “What if I could get hold of the X-ray, to show you?”

  He stares again at the arm, which may or may not be his. “Sure,” he says, as if humoring me. “Might be worth a shot.”

  * * *

  Arthur licks peanut butter off his nose until he’s cross-eyed.

  I slather some onto my bread, a bubble breaking through the sheen of the top coat. After perfecting the next slice, I lay them together and take a heavenly bite. My stomach unclenches. My appetite is soaring lately, which makes me wonder if my meds are off. Mike is bringing home Thai food tonight, so this is my predinner snack.

  I finish the sandwich in approximately 3.7 seconds, faster than Arthur would have, then light the fireplace and put on some Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Christmas music.

  The music soothes me. It’s already dark out, snow falling in lazy flakes in the porch light. Mike won’t be home for a couple hours yet, so I decide to wrap some Chanukah gifts, fully aware of the incongruity of the music.

  Humming to myself, I measure out some blue-and-silver paper. A bulky navy sweater for Mike, as his current bulky navy sweater has gotten thin at the elbows. I got Scotty the same sweater in gray and still have no idea what to get Kristy. Gift number two is a solid rectangle. Mike’s favorite cologne, which adds a pleasant pine scent to the wrapping and has easy angles to boot. Next is Arthur’s huge rawhide, which is neither pleasant smelling nor easy to wrap. I settle on a roll-and-scrunch method. Because he is, after all, a dog.

  Surveying the mess of tape, uneven wrapping remains, and scissors, I feel as if I’m missing someone, and with an unexpected pang of sadness realize that it’s my mom. I probably would have wrapped up a muslin pouch of lavender bath beads, or maybe a black cardigan. I try not to think of our last Chanukah, lighting an ugly menorah in the industrially cheerful great room of the nursing home. Mom blew them all out, thinking they were birthday candles, and Scotty tried to wipe away a tear before I could see it.

  A rousing rendition of “A Holly Jolly Christmas” sweeps away the memory, and I have moved on to a bag of sponge candy for Mike (which I might partake in as well) tucked into a Buffalo Sabres coffee mug when the phone rings. I peek over at the screen, and the call seems to be coming from the Buffalo News. Seems too coincidental to be anybody but Newsboy. After it goes to voice mail, I tap the speaker icon to hear the message.

  “Hi. This is Logan, the annoying guy from the Buffalo News.” I shear through the paper with my scissors. “I hope you don’t mind me calling your cell again…”

  “Actually, I do,” I say with a piece of tape in my mouth. “I think it takes some major brass, to be honest with you.”

  “But I couldn’t reach you at work…” he goes on.

  “Because I ignored your call.”

  “But if you�
��d have time for a quick talk, I’d really appreciate it. Let me give you my…” And he drones on, but I tune him out.

  Talk to the Buffalo News about my patients? Even I’m not that stupid.

  Chapter Seven

  I dreamed about you last night, Professor.

  We were in the library. And you had me cornered in between the shelves and you were kissing me. I was biting your neck, and you shoved your thigh between my legs, and I was grinding on you. Like an animal.

  Then you stopped, and I started whimpering, but you led me over to a bed. (In the library, weird, I know.) And you threw me on it, pushing me into the mattress, and I could smell your sweat, feel your weight on top of me.

  You were yanking off my panties. I was touching your soft chest, circling my fingers over all your tattoos, and you were lying on me. I was moaning, guttural moans, moans I couldn’t even control, and the bed was creaking so loud, and I thought we might get in trouble but I didn’t care.

  The girls in the class were leaning over us, surrounding us like we were in a show. They were tittering and pointing, but I didn’t care. I liked it even. Let them watch. Let them be jealous. Let them yearn for you. The rhythm kept building and you were pushing so hard that I could feel myself arching my back.

  And when I woke up, my hand was between my legs, and I was coming.

  Chapter Eight

  Andre’s in solitary,” Jason says, as soon as I walk into the clinic.

  I throw my heavy black coat over the chair. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. He was going on about the devil and some Nuke guy, and then he tried to bust out the window.”

  I stamp clumps of snow off the heel of my boot. “So the magic blue pills aren’t working, I take it.”

  “I’d say not.”

  “Maybe I could talk him into the higher dose. Magic orange ones.”

  The phone rings on his desk, and Jason answers it. After a brief conversation, he puts his hand over the receiver. “Any idea where Novaire is?”