Mr Wicker

by Maria Alexander

  At first Dr. Farron could not look her in the eye. She could see his head was full of thoughts running bicycle races over what just happened.

  But when his eyes met hers, his voice quavered. “Want to tell me about this friend of yours?”

  Huginn tipped her head as she watched between the blinds. Everything she saw, Mr. Wicker saw, too. Undoubtedly, whatever drama was unfolding inside was his doing. Alicia and the man left the room. Huginn felt her master’s panic about the man who seemed connected to Alicia in more than a passing way. He looked familiar to Mr. Wicker—not from this life but another, far more troubled time. He was displeased beyond measure that this man had anything to do with Alicia, much less that he had her ear.

  The raven knew what cruelty her master was capable of and that he was about to do something desperate.

  Chapter 10

  Alicia and Dr. Farron walked together to his office. He locked the door behind her. She glanced nervously at the door and then at him. Was he sweating? Dr. Farron sat in his big black chair, biting his bottom lip again as he drowned in thought.

  “Are you okay?” Alicia said, struck by the irony of this exchange.

  Dr. Farron snapped out of some deep inner dialogue. “Yes! Please.” He indicated she should sit on the couch.

  Alicia instead walked over to the wall where Dr. Farron had been cleaning the day before. Propped against it was a large post-it pad the size of most easel paper. She tore off a piece, knelt by the wall, and stuck it to the surface. She picked up the Crayola box and scrounged around until she found the black one. Then, with a sore, unskilled hand, she tried to sketch Mr. Wicker’s face. But when she tried to press the crayon to the paper, she gasped as pain tore through her wrist. She fumbled the crayon, nursing her wrist close to her body.

  Dr. Farron stood from his chair and walked over to where she sat on the floor by the wall. “Would you like to describe him to me? I’ll draw him for you.”

  She was at first dumbfounded. How could he reproduce Mr. Wicker any better than she could? She nodded and he picked up the black crayon.

  He put up a new sheet of paper and centered himself in front of it. Soon it became apparent that she was much better with words. She recalled the exact slant of his nose and the general shape of his head. The fullness of his lips, she remembered very well. She described the strength of Mr. Wicker’s jaw, the barely perceptible cleft. How his long head was vaguely heart-shaped, but the top of his head was egg-like. How his nostrils flared from an elegant nose that widened dramatically at the base. His prominent browline swept from his temples to the bridge of his nose, arching over the oval, cat-shaped eyes of sea green that sparked like the flames of the Inquisition.

  As Alicia continued to verbally catalogue Mr. Wicker’s features, she was astonished by Dr. Farron’s skill. The composite portrait he drew from her florid descriptions nearly frightened her with its accuracy. What was he doing here? Why did he not pursue some career involving art? Alicia knew personally many great artists of fantasy and horror. (She then realized that they would kill her if they found out she had tried to kill herself.)

  This child psychiatrist could have illustrated Gaiman’s last work.

  The best part was the way he settled into the task with a sly joviality. “Am I getting it?” he asked when he noticed she was agape. He knew he was good. The bastard was showing off.

  Alicia nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

  He gave her a flirtatious, sidelong look that drew an unexpected woosh! of attraction from a place she had been certain was only hollow. She tried to pretend it didn’t happen, but she knew from experience that forcing this particular feeling into exile was useless. Something warm slipped into her chest as she smiled.

  “You’re really good.”

  “Thank you.” He glanced back over his shoulder at his desk skirted with crayon drawings. “I have great teachers.”

  “I bet you do,” she said a bit more coyly than she meant to. She lost interest in Mr. Wicker for a moment entirely and let this wonderful thing unwrap itself at her feet as she relaxed and shared with him the experience in the tunnel, the lights, and finally what happened in the Library itself. He listened with a rapture that quickened the crayon strokes. Soon, the Library filled the blank space behind Mr. Wicker on the post-it paper.

  He continued to ask her questions, but this time about her family.

  “Can you tell me more about your family? Your grandmother, for example.”

  “So you’ve met her?”

  “Briefly.”

  “Which means you’ve probably been bawled out by her. She’s not what one would call pleasant. More like a Sherman Tank wearing Chantilly and Nikes.”

  “Is she still married?”

  Alicia said nothing for several moments. Dr. Farron waited as her emotions ran a marathon behind her eyes. “Not any more,” she said at last.

  “So, we learned in your last session that you lived with your grandparents after your father left. How long did you stay with them? And what were they like?”

  “Oh, man. I loved my grandpa—his big smiles and paints staining his wiry hands. I loved his country music and oil canvases. He taught me the alchemy of oil and brush to Gene Autry. Sometimes we played ‘Marco Polo’ in the house.” She reminisced with joy. “He caught me early one summer morning, still in my pajamas, standing on the piano with my nose in the whisky decanter. I loved the whisky smell, probably because my mom used to rub it on my gums as a baby when I teethed. But he didn’t get mad. He seemed to understand why I loved it. He slipped it from me with the softest admonition.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He left when I was six.” She went on to explain that, before her grandparents, she’d lived briefly with her very busy and very handsome father in Malibu. Her father—in his dark Armani suits and black convertible—handled investment portfolios for celebrities. He was better at that than braiding hair and listening to long, impromptu stories about her dolls, the dog, and imaginary friends. Her grandmother could do those things and more.

  “So your grandfather left your grandmother? Did they divorce right after you came to live with them? Or was that later?”

  “You know, it’s a big weird mystery, actually. He disappeared after they had this huge argument. And then the police showed up and took him away. My grandmother would never tell me what happened no matter how much I begged. Anytime I asked, she’d just say that he was a bad man—whatever that meant. I wasn’t allowed to talk about him.”

  “You’ve never been curious? Ever look into what happened?”

  “No. I figured he did something awful like hit someone with his car when he was drunk. My grandmother would make off-handed comments about his drinking. It only made sense. And frankly I just didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to ruin the good memories that I had of him.”

  At that, Dr. Farron sat back on his haunches away from the finished drawing. Talking about her grandfather, Alicia felt empty and wondered if she could sustain a connection with anyone. When was the last time anyone she was attracted to had any feelings for her except for what inspired the one-gun salute? Every man she had been with since Eric—and even before—was like Mr. Wicker. They devoured her body and soul. She gave them her art, her devotion, her passion. Yet she got nothing in return but heartache and disappointment. And this guy was her doctor, only interested in the mystery she could share with him.

  Alicia regarded Mr. Wicker’s portrait and once again lost herself in the beauty of those eyes that reached from death into her dreams. An illustration, no matter how brilliant, would never do him justice, but even this crude likeness elicited a hypnotic desire. She reached up and lovingly traced the Librarian’s features, the waxy residue smudging her fingertips.

  Dropping the crayon, Dr. Farron stood up abruptly. His face had lost its fire. He walked over to his desk, sat, and opened his laptop, fixating on the screen as he clicked around.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “N
othing,” he said. “We need to discuss your drug history.” He barely looked away from his laptop as he spoke. He took a pen and pad from his desk drawer, popped off the cap with his thumb, and began writing.

  Alicia continued to sit by the drawing, turning her back to it as she crossed her legs to sit on the soft carpet. The portrait loomed over her shoulder like a sentinel. “What do you want to know?”

  “Have you ever dropped acid?”

  She eyed him stonily. She knew where he was going. “Are you now going to deny what happened in that child’s room? Try to squirrel it away between the pages of Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out?”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Once. In college. Many years ago.”

  “May I share with you some facts about death?”

  “I would rather slash my wrists again, but go ahead,” she said.

  “When you die, your brain releases a chemical similar to LSD. It makes people see death images. Skeletons. Ghosts. The Grateful Dead’s artwork is a perfect example of that. And that’s what happens in a near-death experience. You see things. Like him. And given your rich imagination, I have no doubt you could conjure an entire experience like you described.” He shifted in his chair as if to avoid a strategically placed tack.

  What he said was possible except: “That doesn’t explain what just happened with that little girl.”

  Dr. Farron opened a chart on his desk—presumably hers—and looked absorbed.

  “I don’t get what’s happening here. We just got evidence that Mr. Wicker is real in some way. Does it make you more comfortable to think of him as a phenomenon rather than a real person? I think he’s real. I think what happened between us was a miracle, a supernatural event that I wasn’t meant to ever wake up from. But I did. And that’s a miracle, too. No one should have known I was dying in that tub. No one. So how was I rescued? How are you going to explain that? With a handy psychological treatise cooked in some Ph.D.’s ass?”

  Alicia wished he would spontaneously develop hemorrhoids. He’d wanted to talk about it, for Chrissake. It not only stung the tender palm of her pride, but panicked her deeply. She had an ally for a moment, but this development left her feeling abandoned and betrayed. She scanned the room as she considered how to counter him. Surely, there was something in this lively room that could awaken him.

  Ah! On the stool.

  Alicia grabbed the stool and stack of Rorschach cards. She placed the stool beside him on the opposite side of the love seat, putting him in the “patient” position.

  Dr. Farron sighed, pushed his papers into pile, and then did a double-take when Alicia put the first card before him. And then a marvelous thing happened: his eyes widened with fear. He laughed nervously. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  He waved his hand, looking away, down at his desk. “Just...I don’t know...a dragon monster from the eighth dimension,” he muttered.

  “A what?”

  “I don’t know. What do you see?”

  Alicia considered not letting him turn this back on her, but then inspiration seized her. She held his eyes with hers.

  “I see a continent covered with swollen rivers and wandering orchards.”

  The upset melted from Dr. Farron’s face and a subtle wonder misted his eyes. He said nothing. Alicia turned to the next card, lost in the rapture of her visions.

  “I see a man, skin peeled from his flesh to air a weary, bleeding heart.”

  Dr. Farron’s expression fell, as if he stood on the brink of an abyss.

  “I see a woman, inhaling her lover like smoke—sweet, cedary, thick—swirling him about her tongue before she exhales him over her lips. To inhale him again.”

  Her eyes locked with his. He had stopped breathing, caught in her net, but she did not want to spill him on her deck and gut him. Instead, she just wanted to memorize the faint blush in his cheeks, the stray hairs of his eyebrows, and the speckles in his irises. He did not look away.

  “You believe there is something much bigger happening here, don’t you?” she said gently.

  He hesitated before turning back to his desk and pulling out a pad of paper. “Believing in something doesn’t make it real.” He scribbled on the paper, tore it off and stuffed it in her file.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m increasing the dose of your Celexa.”

  Alicia dropped the cards on the floor and stood imperiously over him. She snatched the note and crumpled it in one hand.

  “You need to calm down, missy!”

  “You know what I don’t believe? I don’t believe I trusted you. Here I was, feeling frightened. And then a miracle happens! And what do you do? You deny it.” She ripped up the note, scattering it over his desk like confetti. “Take your pills. Take your Soma so you can feel good while doing things you hate. Just don’t treat me like a idiot.” She stomped to the door and turned the knob, unlatching the lock automatically. “I want to go back to the lockdown.”

  “I’ll have someone escort you back.”

  Was he really getting rid of her?

  He made a phone call requesting that someone retrieve her. When he hung up, Alicia stood by the door, her back to him. The hot tears poured down her face, but she didn’t want him to see them. Instead she just said, “I knew I should never have trusted a shrink.” She didn’t look at his face, but she sensed him tensing up behind her as the rustling at his desk quieted.

  A moment later, the door opened to reveal Arnie. As soon as she stepped into the hallway, the tears came in a torrent, and she sobbed. She moved away from the door so that he couldn’t hear her and collapsed against the far wall. Arnie was immediately at her side and led her back to the elevators.

  “Aaaawwww, Ms. Baum,” he said, hugging her like a baby sister weeping at her own birthday party. “Was it a rough session? It’ll be okay. C’mon.” He handed her a packet of tissue that she tore into and pressed the soft clumps to her running nose.

  He led her to the austere cafeteria for dinner. The cafeteria was perhaps the size of a McDonalds, with acrylic sneeze guards over the buffets. A handful of orderlies moved along patients who had trouble focusing. Alicia was appalled at the greasy halfwits grappling with sandwiches and milk cartons. As the other patients shuffled and drooled with their trays, she stood in the middle of the room and soaked in her own helplessness.

  Arnie walked with a young woman whom Alicia had not seen before today. Wispy blue hair bristled around her head in a thick mane, her milky gray eyes glistening. The faint line of an old cleft palate scrawled up to her nose. She stopped and looked at Alicia with such tenderness that Alicia thought her heart would break.

  At that moment, the jackass from group therapy lumbered into the cafeteria. Licking his lips, he shuffled past Alicia as she tried to avoid eye contact with him. He swaggered toward the young woman and dug his meaty hand into her crotch. The girl twisted away, ashamed.

  “Hey, motherfucker,” Alicia growled. “Why don’t you play with someone your own size? Oh...wait. ‘Your size’ is only two inches.”

  The man lunged at Alicia. She grabbed the cafeteria tray of a young man muttering to himself. But as she hurled it at her attacker, sharp shooting pains ripped up her forearms from her palms. She let go too soon. The tray’s contents barely spattered him. Her head swam with white light from the agony in her arms. As Arnie called security, the man balled his fist and struck her in the chin—a sucker punch that made her head spin with pain. Another patient tried to hug her. She pushed him away. He then cried with rejection, which started a chain reaction of caterwauling.

  Stocky men in hospital uniforms slipped past Arnie to Alicia, grabbing her from behind as they secured her upper arms and legs for a third nurse holding a syringe. She surmised that no one had seen his end of the attack.

  “NO!” Alicia raged, struggling against the firm grip of the orderlies like a snake squirming from a flaky husk of dead skin. “Get him! He attacked me first!”

/>   The stocky men carried her off to her room and laid her on the bed. Blood splotched the bandages where her sutures had come apart as they strapped her down.

  They left her there alone, raging against her bonds, despairing that she would never feel right again.

  Chapter 11

  These days, Rachelle was so tired that the rumble of the BART train didn’t bother her at night. That damned train could have leapt off the electric rail and she would have continued to sip her coffee as if the grandkids were squabbling in the back bedroom. Early that morning, she slid into the driver’s seat of her old Lincoln, made its insides rattle and cough like a TB patient, and pulled into the back streets of residential Oakland.

  Oakland. The Raiders. Jerry Brown. Lake Merritt. Jack London Square. Like much of the Bay Area, it was home to a vast population of mentally ill vagrants. This city had a nearly twenty percent poverty rate compared to the rest of the Bay, with over seventy percent of the houses built before 1959. It showed. The dilapidated Victorians crowded each other along the ill-repaired West Oakland streets. The city was bust long before the Silicon Valley boom and stayed that way until today in 2005. Rachelle had made it her home when she brought her mother and two young children here in the mid-1970s, all the way from Montgomery, Alabama. There were jobs in California. In the beginning, her mother had cared for Josiah and Taynia while Rachelle worked as a housekeeper to the wealthy families in San Francisco. She had ridden a bus across the Bridge every morning, often changing buses multiple times to reach her destination. The incentive to return to college and do something better with her life couldn’t have been stronger.