“You have no idea, either. I see things the way they really are, Jean.”
“How’s that?”
She bends forward and reaches into the hockey bag. It’s full of paper. I peer closer and see art tablets and napkins and newspapers. Every sheet is covered with drawings in charcoal. “You need to know everything.” She hands me a tablet.
Her drawings capture people. Some of the sketches are very detailed. Others are minimalist swoops of a sure hand exposing the bare bones of a scene. Some are crude doodles. She doesn’t seem to have one style but as I flip through the pages I see a unifying theme: Each drawing is an ending.
A man at a desk looks like he’s trying to phone for help but he’s clawing at his throat. The bridge of his nose bleeds.
In a corner of the same page, a few deft lines suggest the shape of a baby in an incubator. Empty eyes stare up to forever.
Flip.
A withered old woman trapped in a hospital bed goggles horrified as a little old man brings her tea. His expression is serene. Only she sees the centipedes that crawl over his shirt and face and into the cup and saucer he holds out to her.
Flip.
A cartoon of a flying iron would look amusing except that it’s flying into the face of a sleeping woman.
Flip.
Surrounded by books, the naked old man is dead in a chair. Beside him stands his starving, salivating dog, eyeing a limp arm with longing.
There are hundreds more grim drawings. My hand shakes as I return her pad.
“Three months ago I was a children’s librarian,” May says. “One morning, the kids walked in and I’d covered every wall with the truth.”
I imagine young mothers rushing to cover their children’s faces with hot palms, wrenching their heads away from the crazy librarian’s mural of horrors.
“It’s not my fault. There’s a voice behind my eyes. It tells me who to kill next.”
I swallow hard. “Kill?”
“Of course. I do it with the drawings. I don’t kill them all. Some I just torture and break.”
Is that pride or resignation?
“It’s God’s fault, you know. It was bored so It created us. That’s why you’re so godlike, Jean Blue Jean, God’s Drama Queen. It wants to hear everybody’s awful story, too. Stories need conflict. We’re it. God’s a kid with a magnifying glass and an ant farm.” She taps her tablet. “I’m the magnifying glass.”
We’re not supposed to play into their delusions, but she’s sucked me in. “So God and the Devil are the same thing?”
“Adorable, Jean Blue Jean! You’re simply divine!”
“But…” I struggle. “Things aren’t that bad. Miracles happen every day.” The way it comes out, even I don’t believe it.
“Try babbling those platitudes at the pediatric burn unit.” Her laughter is a grinding cackle. She struggles up under the weight of her load of paper. I watch her sway away.
I wait for better answers than what keeps coming up. She’s got books of awful drawings. I’ve use a journal to keep the horrors fresh. Shame burns. Now I’m the one staring at the ground.
“Whatever she said, I’ll remind you that seventy-five percent of homeless women are crazy.” Oz crouches in front of me, his eyes level with mine. His smile looks sincere. “She was crazy, but not all she said was untrue. She basically called me a ghoul.”
“Don’t let her stick her finger up your nose.”
“Oz. Am I a good person?”
He looks like he’s doing long division in his head.
“I suck. The Great and Powerful Oz has spoken without even speaking. Should I pay no attention to the little man who’s out of the closet but behind the curtain?”
He straightens and takes a long drag on his cigarette. I’m suddenly smaller, like I’m one of them. He lets out a slow plume of smoke. “There are a million stories in the naked city. Only one of them is about you.”
“I’m a voyeur.”
“I know.” He shrugs.
I don’t like him at all.
“You’ve got a white knight complex, sure.”
“You don’t?”
“Nah. It’s a job. Maybe I was like that at first, but sainthood gets beaten out of you.”
“You — ”
“You talk about them like they’re animals, Jean. You call each shift a safari. You call the sandwich cooler the bait box. You think it’s clever, but no one wants to ride with you.”
I start to cry and he looks away.
“You’re doing the job. If you think it matters why, then don’t get back in the van. Or take the subway home. It’s a block over. If it’s actions that matter, get in the van. There’s a few thousand people headed for the shelters tonight and it’ll be dark soon.”
He steams off. He doesn’t look back. Should I get up before Oz pulls away? I’m frozen and I’ve only got seconds to decide.
He doesn’t wait. I’m just about to rise and run after him when I notice May left a napkin behind. It’s a deft picture of Oz in the van’s driver’s seat hanging upside down by his seatbelt. He’s alive, but broken.
I dig a blue pen out of my Mary Poppins bag. I sketch in a wound in his neck. It doesn’t take long at all and I can draw much better than I ever remember doing. I add a fall of blood from his throat so it looks like the edge of the seatbelt opened him. The whimsy tugs the corners of my mouth up as I make his facial features more surprised.
Down the street by the bridge, a crash and the sound wrenching of metal rises and shrieks.
I don’t think that voice in my head belongs to God.
THE EXPRESS
After my story, End of the Line, got so much publicity from The Toronto Star, I received a snarly note from a hypnotist complaining that hypnotism couldn’t make anyone do something they didn’t want to do. I explained that End of the Line isn’t about hypnotism. It’s magic. His note annoyed me enough that I decided to write The Express to give him something to really complain about. However, I think I got around his objection with some elegance. And yes, Paul is the same character from The Fortune Teller, this time in a battle of wills with a different iteration of Dr. Circe Papua. I love to play with Circe, so think of this as a rematch in another dimension. ~ Chazz
He arrived late and shiny with sweat, breathing as if the air was too thick and had to be pushed in and out with effort. I apologized about the elevator. He filled the doorway so completely that the waiting room darkened. He looked down at me and seemed to be waiting for me to invite him in. I thought of the rule for vampires, about needing a specific invitation before they’re allowed to come in and kill you. That made a kind of sense later.
“Paul?”
He lifted his chin at me in a way which was more of a go-ahead motion than an acknowledgement of my question. I gave him the intake forms and he grunted. When I gave him the pen, he held it like a hammer. His hands were red and rough with long, filthy nails. I thought of claws on something that pawed through dirt to catch its food.
I don’t know if it was that or the smell that came off him that was setting off alarms. A clammy odor of sweat hung about him. He wore a dress shirt, but jeans instead of a suit. His pants cuffs were rolled up, not hemmed. My clients are usually in power suits or power pantsuits. I was already thinking he wouldn’t be a good fit for my practice and this would probably be a one-off looky-lou session. We’d barely met and I was already preparing the brush off. I’d do the “Sorry, so busy, let me refer you to a colleague I hate who specializes in your particular hang-up,” whatever kink, phobia or antisocial deviation it turned out to be.
I retreated to my office to give him time to fill out the form, refilled the carafe with fresh decaf and set it on the small table by my chair. He obviously wasn’t a talker. I’d have to do all the heavy lifting for the first twenty minutes of the session to draw him out. If that didn’t work, the rest of our fifty-five minutes would be spent in a staring contest with me counting the little
diamond patterns in the wallpaper behind his head while I waited for him to break.
There was something else about this man that stuck with me. His eyes had the empty look of the homeless people you try to avoid as you drop change in their palms. The surprising thing was the other smell he gave off. I smelled wood, cedar maybe. All my patients are a bunch of neurotics and stockbrokers who work within walking distance of my office. They tell their secretaries they’re taking a long lunch and come here instead. A couple are in the building and occasionally I run into them in the elevator — when it’s working — and they pretend I’m a stranger instead of someone who knows things about them they don’t want their spouses to know.
I wondered who referred the guy. One of my regulars freaked out that he couldn’t afford the kitchen reno his wife insists they need. I guessed this guy was their carpenter, or probably a carpenter’s assistant. He might be good with his hands — with his communication skills he had better be — but he didn’t look bright enough to handle measurements.
I had just opened my day planner to see who was scheduled that afternoon when I heard the floorboards creak by the office door. I don’t know how long he had been standing there. “Uh…done already, Paul?”
“Done.”
“Well, you’re quick.”
“Done.”
He smirked as he handed me the intake forms. They were blank. This was new to me and I didn’t know quite what to say. I tried to keep my face blank as well. When dealing with passive aggression, it’s essential to strike a tone that’s neutral but firm. I was still wondering how to match up the neutral words with the firm tone when he took over.
“Let’s talk first.”
“Usually it works the other way around. I get your information and — ”
“Usually. Not today. People come in here and they spill their guts to you and they don’t know anything about you. That’s not right. I’ve got to know who I’m talking to,” he said. He sat down heavily in the recliner opposite me, apparently waiting for me to audition. We’d begun a dance but were listening to two different pieces of music.
“Therapists don’t talk about themselves because the session is supposed to be about you.”
He looked around my office. “Cozy spot you’ve got here. I thought there’d be a couch.”
“That’s a Freudian thing. If I can’t meet your expectations, I’d be glad to refer you to a Freudian psychiatrist.”
“Well, listen to you. You’re anxious to get rid of me, aren’t you?”
I held the intake form out to him. “I need this to be filled out before we can begin anything.”
“Slow down, doctor,” he said. “You’re used to people doing what you tell them to do. You’re sounding defensive.”
I had underestimated him because of his appearance. I tried to appear unfazed. “Well, you got me there,” I said with a big smile smeared across my face. “I am used to people listening to me. I’m accustomed to new patients filling out the forms I require.”
“You’re not used to trying out.”
“I reject the premise. You made the appointment. You must have been referred by someone. Who sent you to me?”
He ignored my question with a dismissive wave. “What are your professional qualifications?”
“I’ve been a psychiatrist for almost ten years.” He stared at me with hard eyes. I picked a spot on the wallpaper just behind his head and plunged on. “I graduated magna cum laude. I interned in one of the best hospitals in the country.”
“Specialty?”
“I’ve done extensive work with hypnotherapy and PTSD and contributed to a textbook on the subject. PTSD is — ”
“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“Right,” I said. I snuck a look away from the spot of wallpaper. He was still glaring, so back to the wallpaper.
“So you’re considered an expert on PTSD?”
“Yes, though I’ve moved away from that and don’t deal with it much anymore.”
“Why is that?”
I debated then about how much of myself I wanted to reveal. The short answer was nothing, but I had dealt with aggressive people and usually if you gave them a little that made you more human, they’d relax and let the walls come down. “I did a lot of it after 9/11 and burned out on the subject.”
“So you don’t work with people with those sorts of problems anymore?”
“Is that why you’ve come to see me, Paul? Have you gone through a bad time you want to put behind you?”
For the first time I thought I saw a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “I’m going through something I don’t want to deal with.”
I gave him space and silence, hoping to draw him out or reel him in. Instead he said, “So you aren’t dealing with PTSD anymore as an expert?” He said “expert” like it meant something else, something with a lot of legs that crawls away fast when you turn on the light.
“Uh, just one thing. I’m testifying — ” Then I knew who he must be. My head was suddenly hot and I couldn’t get my breath.
“Testifying,” he said.
“If I say anything more about myself I might have to blush.” My laugh sounded false.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“Your turn, Mr. Paul…?”
“You aren’t that good an actress, Dr. Padua. You know who I am.”
“I suspect I do,” I replied, trying to keep my tone even. “What I don’t know is why you’re here. From what I hear, you do need a psychiatrist, but since I’m counselling your victim. it’s not appropriate for you to be here.” I looked right into his eyes then, determined not to look away. I was suddenly sure that if I looked away, what happened to Susan might happen to me.
“Well, smell you, all grown up and staring me down.” He smiled, but there wasn’t anything amused or kind or good to be found there.
I had never seen a cruel smile till that moment. That’s when I knew I had to get back in the saddle. So far I was the cow not the cowgirl. If I didn’t want to end up like Susan, I had to take control. I brought my left index finger and my left thumb together and forced myself to breathe deeper and slower. I let myself close my eyes. It was dangerous to take my eyes off him, but I needed to focus. The meditation method was a long-practiced cue and my heart rate began to come down almost immediately.
His face was an inch from mine when I opened my eyes. I felt his hot breath on my nose. His face was some angry contortion of a human face. He might have been looking down my blouse in the few moments my eyes were closed. He might have been thinking about biting off my nose. He’d done that before. An old Intro Psych axiom burbled up: The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
But now I wasn’t worried about those possibilities. He saw it in my eyes and pulled back. I wasn’t the tiny woman about to be tortured anymore. I was something new he hadn’t encountered. “Sit down, Paul,” I said.
“Hell, no — ”
“Sit, Paul. It’s only a fifty-minute hour and you are wasting time.”
At that, he did laugh. “You are — ”
“You came for a reason, but not the reason you think. You came to me for help and I am going to give it to you. We are only going to meet this once so let me tell you what you really want. You’re going to feel much better when we are done, I promise you.”
He sat.
“Good. You’re already making progress.”
“I hear you selling but that doesn’t mean I’m buying.”
“You didn’t sit to listen because you’re curious, though that is part of it. You sat down because what you really want is peace. You want someone to hear you.”
“What makes you say that?” he said. It was a challenge, but I’m through the door and into dialogue. He’s mine. He just doesn’t know it.
“I know you want peace and you want to be heard because that is all anyone wants. Everyone who comes to see me has a handful of issues they deal with b
ut underneath that is all they really want.”
“And you tell them that and mama makes it all better?”
More mocking, but still my breath is deep and my heart rate is steady and slow. “No, they tell me their stories and they tell me about their feelings and I let them talk and talk and talk until they figure it all out for themselves.”
“Quite a job you got going on here for a hundred bucks an hour. You just sit there while the suckers do all the work.”
“You are jealous because you did not think to become a shrink. Here is the deal, Paul. I am going to give you the peace you are looking for. Then you will leave. Then we are done.”
“You just told me you’re a fake. What makes you think you can do anything for me? Why should I trust a thing you say?”
“I am a fraud, Paul, but I am not a fake. I know things.”
“Sure, sure,” he said. “Now shut up and I’ll tell you — ”
“You came here to intimidate me. You think I can get Susan not to testify against you. She has been hiding since you posted bail and she does not have any family. You saw my name on the court documents when you talked to your lawyer, somewhere with the victim impact statement, I suppose.”
“Okay, okay,” Paul replied. “That doesn’t tell me you’ve got anything I want besides your cooperation. I want to find Susan. I have to talk to her before this thing gets out of hand.”
“What you really mean is before you go to jail.”
His face boiled red and I thought he was going to launch out of his chair and fall on me with his yellow teeth and ragged claws.
“Paul. You had a good question. Let me answer it.” His muscles were still tensed but he hesitated. I had to be very careful and very good now. “Your mother was critical and distant and you hate being ignored. Your father is dead, absent from your childhood or an apathetic wimp your mother controlled. You want to be in control. You deserve to be in control. The world does not allow you to be in control. The world wants to control you.”
He looked at me and for the first time looked down at the rug. He sat back a little in his chair. Direct hit.
Murders Among Dead Trees Page 5