Thank you so much to Pamela Tyree-Griffith for her faith in me and pulling some strings. She was kind enough to feature me in her online magazine.
She featured a work of mine called "Blood is the Rose of Mysterious Union".
Please check out her online magazine The Shine Journal, she's featured some great talent on there and I'm humbled and honoured to be a part of that. Thanks again, Pam.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
the second line
The Second Line by Brad Bodeker
1
The hurt is tremendous. It seems he had been crying so long that he doesn’t remember when his eyes weren’t wet. How long had he been sitting here in this hotel room? Staring into some dead dark corner hoping to see….what? Her ghost? She wasn’t dead, just their relationship was.
Here he sat. The Bourbon. On the busiest street in New Orleans and he sat inside his room running through old memories and killing himself with tequila and his 4th pack of cigarettes. His friends had offered him to come along with them as they were headed off to the street below to check out the band playing next door and perhaps score upon some hapless drunken “chicks”.
How long had it been? Why ask? He knew every minute detail of their failed relationship and he just couldn’t hang it up. She had already moved on. Moved on actually before the relationship “officially” ended. Is that where the bitterness is? Maybe? Why not go down with the boys and ravage the streets with drunken heinous carnal acts? This is the city to do it in. Vegas has got nothing on New Orleans. And who did he have to answer to anyways?
He staggered himself up from his overstuffed chair. Wobbled and then took a large gulp from his Jose Cuervo bottle.
“I’m goin’ out wit tha boys!” he said to the empty room.
And with a few steps to gain his balance, he went through his bedroom door, and down the stairs, through the lobby, and out into the wet streets of Rue Bourbon.
2
That was Gerry’s last memory of last night. Stepping out into the ocean of drunken zombies and losing himself to the current of drunken splendor.
Now, here he sat. Back at his hotel with a piece of broken bottle puncturing his wrists. A new batch of tears had flooded his cheeks. He had no recollection of how he ended up here, only the realization that he was here, attempting to cut his own wrists with this shard of green Heineken bottle glass and he was crying again on the balcony overlooking that lonesome street of strangers.
“The fuck you doing?” it was Kevin who walked out onto the balcony finding Gerry in a semi-stupor dripping blood from a rip in his wrists, “the fuck are you doing??? Oh, god oh Jesus!!”
“Let me go, kev.” Was what he whispered, “just let me go…”
In reality, the cuts were not severe enough to “let him go”. They were cut just above the vein, and because Gerry had been drinking so much, the veins were sunk in deeper into his arm and did not cause a threat of Gerry checking out this morning.
“somebody fuckin help me!” Kevin yelled into the hotel room from the balcony, “somebody!!!”
The boys came. There was 3 of them plus Gerry and Kevin. They scooped up their friend and tied off his wounds with a couple of hand towels. They called a cab and rushed him off to the hospital.
3
“you realize I’ll have to report this?” the ER doctor said to Phil whom sat in the ER with Gerry while the rest of them stayed back at the hotel and partied.
“What for?” Phil asked.
“It’s a suicide attempt.” The doctor replied, “I’m bound by the law to report something like this.”
“What would happen?”
“Well…your friend would have to go to at least a week’s evaluation under suicide watch upstairs. Then, depending on what the psych docs figure out…he may have to stay for awhile longer…but”
“Well, I don’t think he was trying to commit suicide.” Phil interrupted.
“Scuse me, son?”
“Naw, we were all just a little drunk and were messing around and…and..uh, Ger just kinda…well, I threw the beer bottle towards him…and…uh….it broke you see…”
“…and I imagine the bottle then made an almost perfect straight line cut up his wrists?”
“um….yep.” Phil looked at Gerry whom was just staring off into some other life. His eyes were stained red with tears.
“your friend looks pretty distraught.” The doctor mentioned.
“yeah, well, his girlfriend just broke up with him a couple weeks ago. Give us a few more days here and we’ll cheer him up.”
“I think your friend needs a little more help than more alcohol and loose women.” The doctor stared gravely at Phil, “he’s in a deep depression right now. I really don’t think I’d feel comfortable discharging him from the ER.”
Phil looked the doctor in his eyes, “He doesn’t have insurance, doc , and knowing my pal here, your hospital ain’t going to see a cent of his when they bill him…he’ll be fine…he just needs his friends.”
love and insanity: a memoir of dysfunctional proportions
i have been writing a memoir on my mother's life called "a womans lot", during that time i did a few scribblings on some of my own life. this is the result of those scribblings. who knows...maybe this will see print some day...who should i piss off first? hmmmm.....
Love and insanity: a memoir
1.
So that’s me, the guy in the gurney being slammed through a myriad of swinging doors. Outside its October, and unusually warm and clear. Inside it’s the Omaha Methodist hospital Emergency room. I stare blearily above me as the fluorescents race past. The guy above my head is the one who sat with me in the ambulance who kept a check on my vitals and kept asking me my name and address and who the president of the United States was. My friend, Mindy is at a fast walk beside me on the right with a worried look on her face. She’s pretty in a tomboyish way, a great writer, and an even better guitar player. She’s dressed up tonight in her best 80’s rocker bitch attire because she was on a date this evening with her future ex-husband. To my left is the attending nurse. Peroxide blonde, worn out in her mid-fifties, her lined face, pear-shape, keeping pace with the gurney; she was conversing with the guy above my head and the other paramedic whom I couldn’t see at my feet.
“Finnley!” was all I could really concentrate on. It was Mindy holding my hand which seemed like such a foreign part of my own universe. “Finnley, please be okay!”
I was numb, and wish I could have felt something like guilt. Because she was my friend. She was the one that found me. Her and her boyfriend Jason, who was somewhere back there in the lobby or somewhere talking to the Douglas County sheriff’s department about this whacked out psycho bastard that his girlfriend knows. I’m sure the vocabulary coming out of that mullet-headed specimen of man was something like:
“Fuck yeah, dude….”
“I was like, whoa…”
“I don’t know, man…”
“Farm out, cop dude, that’s all can say, man, farm fuckin out…”
Ah, but that’s a world away now. I was heading to my final destination. Operating room number 7. Funny, because 7 is my favorite number. Funny how the universe is, isn’t it? I was greeted by two others in white scrubs, female and much younger than the attending nurse.
The room was white and before my eyes could adjust to its sterility, they had moved my carcass from the gurney to the operation table. The overhead lamp beamed into my bloodshot eyes and I could feel its heat. Perhaps, I was just having a day mare at the beach?
The back of the table hummed and the next thing I knew I was sitting up. I couldn’t see Mindy anymore. A tray table slid in front of me with a baby blue bowl on it, and two giant toothpaste tubes. Were they going to brush my teeth? How nice, and they even strapped a bib on me. If this was a dream, and I was really lying on a beach near the Pacific Ocean, then I was in some weird dental office. Maybe I really should see a shrink?
“Mr. Newkirk,” the attending nurse asked. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded. Everyone sounded like they were in a barrel.
“Mr. Newkirk, we’re going to need to pump your stomach.”
I shook my head.
“We’re going to need to get all those sleeping pills out of your system.”
One of the younger nurses came into view with a long tube about ¾ of an inch in diameter.
“This is going to be uncomfortable and you’ll want to vomit when the tube hits the back of your throat.” She droned on, “That’s your body’s natural reaction, but we’re going to need to get every pill we can.”
“No.” I managed to squeak out.
“Now, just relax, Mr. Newkirk.” She approached me with the tube.
“No!” I growled through grit teeth, “Why can’t you fuckers just let me die?”
“Mr. Newkirk,” she put some sort of gel around the tip of the tube. “Just relax and it will be over quicker than you think.”
“Fuck that!” I grabbed her hand.
“Let me go!” she said sternly.
“Get that fuckin thing out of my face!” my lips tightened and I turned my face away from her.
“I think we’re going to need to strap him.” She mentioned to the paramedics.
If this was a movie, they would be paramedic #1 and paramedic #2. They would be played by some upstart actors whom would either become the next Brad Pitt or vanish into celluloid obscurity. Either way, the bastards slid a padded strap across my upper arms and torso and strapped it tight.
The nurse attempted again and I grabbed the lower part of her smock and bunched it up in my fist.
My hands were then put into padded cuffs in front of me and then strapped down to the sides of the table.
“Now you need to cooperate, Mr. Newkirk!” she yelled.
I still wouldn’t comply.
She looked up at one of the other nurses, “Can you have Larry come in here?”
Larry? I shouted in my head, Who’s this mysterious Larry that gets a ‘named’ part in my movie?? Who the fuck was this guy?
Larry was this brick house that was probably red headed but was shaved bald. He walked behind me and then put a padded strap around my head and tightened it down on my forehead. Then he came around to the right side of me and squeezed my cheeks together so my lips would pooch out.
The tube went in, and just as it hit the back of my throat, I bit down on it.
“Let it go!” the attending nurse shouted.
I growled my indifference to her through clenched teeth.
She pulled on the tube and I would release it until it eventually tore in my mouth and I was hoping the inertia would send her reeling into a metal table or something. But she had those flat pancake feet in those white doc martens and she only jerked back slightly.
She snipped the end of the tube that was ragged with teeth marks and reapplied the lubricating gel on the new tip.
“Get his mouth open!” she ordered Larry.
Larry, though he got a part in this movie with a name he didn’t get a speaking part. That was my only revenge I could get at him. He crushed my cheeks again until I had to open my mouth, and as I did the tube slid in.
So this is what it’s like for a woman who gives a man head? Oh my, God!!
The tube made its way into my throat. Larry was holding my jaw open by my chin. I swear to god that nurse enjoyed every inch that she put in me.
Then the vomit came. It was clear at first; I could smell the mix of scotch and bile as I watched it careen down the tube like a water slide. There were the pills I had taken, one by one like roller coaster cars.
The bottle of pills I took was over-the-counter. Easy to swallow caplets. They spilled into the little blue tray and I thought at this rate they would need a new tray. I was right. A new tray took the old one’s place.
I could feel that damn tube inside of me. It was a dirty feeling of violation. Soon, everything looked blurry through the tears multiplying in my eyes.
When I was able to blink them clear, the attending nurse had one of those toothpaste tubes. She was filling a giant syringe with some kind of black paste. No tube of Crest I had ever seen before.
When the vomit stopped, and I was just dry heaving, she inserted the syringe full of obsidian paste into the open end of the stomach tube. She pressed on the plunger and I watch this black snake crawl up into my mouth and down my throat. Another gag, and then a warm sensation as I passed out into the black.
2.
When my eyes flicked open there was beeping all around. There was an IV tube in my hand and it seemed I was enclosed in this room with all these noisy machines.
Bing! Pop! Bing! Chirp!
The IV was attached to a clear bag hanging on a metal stand. I had to use the bathroom. My throat and my stomach ached.
“Ah, good, you’re up, Mr. Newkirk!” came a voice from beyond the machines.
I jumped as I was getting off the bed.
“The fuck am I?” I mumbled. My throat was dry and sore.
“Aksarben Methodist Hospital. Intensive care unit.” The voice answered. ‘aksarben’ is the clever way Nebraskans name things. It’s Nebraska backwards.
I tried to focus in on the voice without any success, “Who are you?”
“Dr. Reynolds.” He stepped forward into the green glow of the machines monitoring my every movement. He was medium height. Balding with the obligatory 70’s mustache. Wool suit coat. Thick glasses.
“Are you my doctor then?”
“I’m the resident psychiatrist.” He said, “You’ll be staying with us for awhile in six north.”
“Six north? What’s that?”
“The psychiatric ward of the hospital.”
“The nut hut?”
“If that’s what you want to call it. It’s a locked unit. You’ll be spending a week in eval to determine if you’re a safety risk and then you may be moved to the unlocked unit.”
“No. You see, I can’t even afford the ambulance ride over here, leave alone a hospital stay…”
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Mr. Newkirk. You’ve attempted suicide, by law you need to at least be evaluated and then after that we can talk about some kind of treatment.”
“Fuck this! I didn’t call your guys to come and save me…I wanted out! Now you’re going to make me stay in some locked nut hut against my will and make me pay for it with no job on the outside? Fuck that!”
I began pulling the IV tubes and wires they had pasted on me.
“Where’s my fuckin pants?”
“Mr. Newkirk.” Dr. Reynolds said firmly, “You are staying with us. If you leave I’ll have to call the sheriff to come and pick you up.”
I found my pants. Put them on and slipped on my shirt and shoes and looked at the good doctor.
“Then you better call him, I’m walkin out.” I walked past him.
I made it to the front doors before security came. They were these ex-jocks in maroon suit coats and ties. Three followed me out the door. I ran as soon as my feet hit the outside sidewalk. They ran at me until I got to the end of the drive and then I headed into the ditch. They stopped following and they were out of sight.
I walked about 2 miles, with the hospital getting smaller in the distance behind me. I walked through a Jewish cemetery and the Douglas county sheriff’s deputy met me at the opposite gate.
I turned back into the cemetery.
“Stop where you are, Mr. Newkirk.” The deputy called from the P.A. in his squad car.
I kept walking away from him. I heard his car door shut.
“Don’t make me chase you.” He stated, “Let’s do this the easy way, c’mon.”
I was tired, and my throat was killing me. I felt like I was walking in my sleep and so I just sat down.
He came up and handcuffed me and put me respectfully into the back of his squad car. The seat was plastic and the divider between us pushed into my knees.
“2460.” His call number into the microphone of his police radio.
“2460, go ahead.” Dispatch called back.
“Suspect in custody, en route to the hospital.”
“10-4, 2460.”
The squad pulled out of the cemetery. I looked back melancholy, wishing that I was already buried. Of course, not here, the Jews wouldn’t allow it…but somewhere, underground, feeding the worms.
“You the suicide kid we dealt with earlier?” the deputy asked me.
I nodded at him through the rear view.
“Nothing worth killin yourself over, man.” He stated, “I don’t care if it’s a woman, a dog or your pick up truck. Nothing worth ending your life over. It’s a big world, buddy, live in it.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want philosophy from some jar head cop. I just wanted sleep.
We pulled into the ER entrance of the hospital. The deputy guided me inside to the open arms of the hospital security. From there we hit the elevators and made our way up to six north.
A young nurse greeted us on the 6th floor. She was pretty with long curly brown hair.
“Had a rough morning already, Mr. Newkirk?” she smiled at me and touched my shoulder.
I committed to just a nod of my head.
“I’ll take him from here, guys.” She dismissed the two thugs escorting me.
She buzzed the double locked doors ahead of us with a magnetic card, and they swung open. There were plenty of people scuffling about in their morning dazes. Some looked at me with crazed curiosity. Others smiled and tried to comfort me.
“Right in here, Mr. Newkirk.” She motioned me into room number 232. It was empty with two beds in it. Someone else obviously lived here too because their stuff was all over the other bed and nightstand.
The nurse motioned me to the chair on my side of the room which was by the window. The sun was about 9am in the sky. A slight mist hovered close to the ground. I sat looking out the window.
“Your room mate is at morning group.” She said getting out some paperwork out of a folder, “you look tired, are you tired?”
I nodded again.
“Well, we need to go through some paperwork and then we’ll let you rest, okay?”
I nodded again.
The paperwork was your typical question and answer variety. Name, address, birthday, social security, place of work, medical history, blah blah blahh….
When the last form was filled out she smiled at me. It was a comforting smile that made you glad that you were there.
“Let’s hope this becomes a safe place for you, Finley.” She said, “It was nice to have met you.”
My eyes filled up and I broke out the tears. I sobbed embarrassingly in front of her. She rubbed my back quickly and told me I could rest.
I lay back on my mattress and stared at the sun beaming through my window. I thought back to how I got here and last night’s events and eventually, sleep found me.
3.
From the other side of the curtain, Jim Morrison’s “Moonlight Drive” thrummed from an acoustic guitar. The voice was sorrowful, and not Jimbo’s, but it was good music coming to you live from room 232, bed 2.
“…and the city sleeps to hide…” the voice drawled out.
“Hey.” I said through my course throat.
The music stopped. Sitting in bed 2 was a man in his 30’s. Sandy blonde hair, handle bar mustache, faded plaid shirt, blue jeans and hospital slippers. A set of blue eyes looked at me from behind coke-bottle glasses. Those eyes, told the story of something painful and something was missing.
“Uh…” I paused, what do you say to a fellow mental patient? “I didn’t mean for you to stop…that was good…Jimmy Morrison is one of my favorites.”
He picked up where he left off, “…let’s swim out tonight, love, it’s our turn to try….”
I picked up the verse with him and we finished out the song feeling every lyric. When the song was done he slipped the pick into the top three strings and held out his hand.
“Glenn.” He introduced himself, “Glenn Hershey, like the…like the…like the cuh-candy bar.”
I shook his hand. A firm hand shake of hidden strength. I wasn’t sure if he actually had a stammer or if he just was nervous, or both.
“Finley Newkirk.” I said back.
“Do you…do you…pluh-play?” he stammered.
“Yeah.” I answered back, “not as well as you though. But I play around on the gat a bit.”
“Would you…would you…pluh-play suh-suh-something for muh-me?”
He handed me his guitar. I took it wondering what I would play. A list of songs went through my head that I would know without error. That’s the thing between guitarists; you never want to embarrass yourselves in front of another.
“Um….” I took the pick he just had in his mouth hesitantly, “let me see….how about some Wilson Pickett?”
I played Mustang Sally. I always played it in C; everyone else plays the damn thing in A, but godammit it’s in C!! It was tough to get it out of my vocal chords. Rough and gravelly, but it actually added to the song. He clapped and tapped his foot as I sang it out.
“…you been runnin’ all ovah town, now….think you bettah put yo flat feet on the ground now….”
“Mr. Newkirk?” Another nurse interrupts me.
I stop and Glenn seems irritated. He blinks almost uncontrollably when he’s irritated. I watched him for a bit and then looked at the nurse.
“Have you filled out your dinner menu?” she asked.
“Uh…no. I didn’t know I was suppose to.” I answered.
“Well, if you want to eat you’ll need to.”
“Doesn’t he guh-get to guh-guh-guh-go down to the cuh-hafateria with the rest of uh uh us?” Glenn spoke up.
“He’s in eval right now, Glenn, so he needs to remain on the unit. Please fill out your menu, Mr. Newkirk, and then we need to visit with Dr. Reynolds.”
The menu was pretty bland, and after having the ER nurse digging around in my guts with a plastic tube, I didn’t feel much like putting anything back down there. Hell, I was pooping charcoal briquettes since the procedure. That black shit was liquid charcoal they used to coat your stomach. I thought I could maybe grill out if I dried out the toilet nuggets in the window sill. I chose to eat some broccoli cheese soup tonight!
“All right, Glenn.” I said finishing my menu and handing it to the nurse, “I will hang with you later then…nice to meet you.”
“Nuh-nuh-nice to meet you tuh-too, Finley.” His smile came back and he returned his guitar to its case.
The nurse and I left the room and headed down the hall towards Dr. Reynolds’s office. This is the first time I had consciously walked outside my room. There were gigglers, droolers, criers, and all sorts of fucking whack jobs around me. I suddenly felt scared and didn’t think I belonged in a place like this.
“You two seem to have found something in common?” the nurse commented.
“What?” I was busy watching the people around me. They were like insects buzzing around me.
“Music.” She said, “You two seem to have talent alike. Maybe down the road you two could give us all a show?””Uh…I don’t think I’ll be here that long.”
“We’ll see.” She said with a goddamn smirk I felt like smacking off her face.
She knocked on the doctor’s door.
“Come in.” Dr. Reynolds said from the other side.
In we went. She handed him a file and left me there. The office consisted of a desk, dark brown with mahogany, a few plants decorated the room, prints of paintings and of course the obligatory diploma and degree framed giving the good old doc the right to pick my brain apart. There was a cheap yellow love seat that sat adjacent to the desk and a large overstuffed leather chair that sat across from the love seat.
“Love Seat”. That’s a funny term for a two-seated couch. I don’t think that I’ve ever made love on a “love seat” before, and it doesn’t look comfortable enough to make out on.
“Have a seat, Mr. Newkirk.” Dr. Reynolds motioned to the love seat as he came around from his desk with my folder and a brand new yellow legal pad.
“Legal Pad”. Why the hell they called these things “legal pads” was beyond me. Were they the official writing pad of lawyers across the globe? If one were to write on anything else, would it be considered “illegal”? God, my mind wanders.
I sat on the luxurious love seat, not sure whether to cross my legs, set them flat, or splay them out and lie on the love seat. I chose to set them flat. For now.
“Do you prefer to be called ‘Finley’?” he asked, “Or do you feel more comfortable being called ‘Mr. Newkirk’ by me?”
I looked over at his name plate, “do you feel comfortable being called….’Dennis’? Or should I keep calling you ‘Dr. Reynolds’? Or Doc?”
He scribbles in his pad. “I see you are quite good with sarcasm.”
“Thank you.” I faked a smile, “Doc.”
He scribble again, “You’re quite welcome, Mr. Newkirk.”
“Call me, Fin.” I leaned back and put my arm along the back of the love seat and crossed my legs, “Everyone does.”
“How are you feeling today?” he asked.
Right away with the stumper.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders, “I guess my throat is really sore and my stomach is a little queasy.”
“That’s normal after having your stomach pumped. But how do you feel emotionally?”
I reflected on that a bit. Thought about the entire evening before and right away I wanted to crawl back into my bed and sleep again.
“Numb.” I said, “I feel numb.”
More scribbling.
“Why don’t you start with why you’re here, Fin, what brings you here to the psychiatric ward of Aksarben Methodist?”
My feet went flat on the ground again. I let out a sigh.
“I guess….I guess because I tried to kill myself.”
“Why don’t you try talking about that?”
I coughed a few times. I really wanted a cigarette. But I clear my throat when I get nervous.
“I don’t know. I…took a bottle of sleeping pills and chased it down with some scotch.”
“Is this the first time you’ve attempted suicide?”
My memory went back. Racing through my head like a movie. I didn’t want to look at all of that crap I’ve tried to block out of my past.
“No.” I answered in a mumble, “No, there were three or four other times.”
“Can you tell me about those times?”
I cleared my throat again. “The first time was when I was about 17. My dad and I got into a fight. Pretty violent one. So I parked my car in the 3-car garage, closed up the windows and the doors and started the engine.”
He scribbled madly into his notepad…excuse me, LEGAL note pad.
“And why wasn’t that successful?”
Again, the movie picked up in my head, “My little sister came into the garage and knocked on the car door window.”
A few jots this time, “And what happened after that?”
I thought for a moment, “I took her out for ice cream at the local Dairy Queen.”
“Did she know what you were doing?”
“No….she just knew I was sad. Me and the little sister had a….a link. We just knew how each other were feeling.”
He wrote for a few minutes and then stopped. Crossed his legs and smiled at me.
“Can you tell me….can you tell me what made things so bad that evening that you felt you needed to kill yourself?”
We all sat around the dinner table. It was me, my sister Melissa, Mom, Dad and my friend Troy who sat on the opposite side of the table from me. Don’t even remember what we were eating, but probably fried chicken. It seemed we always had fried chicken.
I was in an aftercare program from a drug treatment program I graduated from. I had been off the stuff for 3 months: Marijuana, speed, LSD, mushrooms, etc. Troy was a friend from treatment, and he was over helping me with some homework. This guy was living proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover. He looked like Vince Neil from Motley Crue, but the guy was a brainiac. He was deep into philosophy, especially Kant, and he loved Beethoven. We used to go cruising and the guy would have Beethoven’s 9th blaring out of his speakers. For toppers, he would smoke his cigs, (usually menthols) from one of those long cigarette holders. He was an odd bastard.
I asked my mom if I could go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting tonight after dinner. She said that I was spending too much time at my N.A. meetings and that I needed to spend more time at home.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Came out of my mouth, “Sticking around this dysfunctional playground is the reason I used drugs in the first place.”
“Well,” came my mother’s answer, “too bad, you’re staying home.”
“What a bunch of sh--!” I wasn’t able to finish the last of that sentence. I was cut off by my dad’s fist that shot out of nowhere and knocked me off my chair.
I laid there, blood coming out of my nose, and stars in my eyes. The chair on it’s back with me stunned on it’s lap.
“Mr. Newkirk!” Troy interjected, “I don’t think that….”
I heard my dad, “I think you better head on home!”
Then his face came into view and he was kneeling on my shoulders with both his fists clenched on either side of him.
“Now apologize to your mother!” he screamed in my face.
“No!” I shouted back at him.
Another rabbit punch to my already bleeding nose.
“Say-you’re-sorry!”
“She’s the one being--!”
Another punch, this time to my cheek.
“Say you’re fucking sorry!”
Troy interjected one more time.
“Mr. Newkirk!” he was behind my dad somewhere, “If you don’t stop this I’ll call the…”
My dad turned around, “If you don’t get your ass out of my house I’ll give you some of the same!”
Troy left. I couldn’t blame him. Dad can be pretty intimidating when his Irish was up.
“I’m going to tell you again!” he returned his undivided attention to me again, “Apologize to your mother!”
Mom sat there with a smile on her face as she ate her fucking chicken.
“I’m sorry.” I mumbled.
Dad grabbed a large potted plant and dumped the entire contents on me.
“Speak up! I don’t think she heard you!”
“I’M FUCKING SORRY!!” I yelled with dirt in my mouth.
“Say it like you mean it!!”
“I’m sorry, mom. I’m sorry.”
Dad got off me, “Now go clean yourself up.”
I got up and saw my sister sitting there with her head down and her bottom lip out. Mom ignored me and dad returned to his place at the table.
I walked down the hall and into the bathroom. In the mirror was a mess. Somewhere behind all the blood and mud was me. I started washing my face and then announced to whoever was listening that they could fucking eat me.
I walked out of the bathroom and took off out the front door. I got behind the wheel of my Monte Carlo and pulled it into the 3rd garage stall. I got out and closed all the windows and doors in the garage. I turned the radio and popped in a Pink Floyd tape. The Final Cut I think it was. Their best album in my opinion. Should have been titled: Songs To Kill Yourself To. Because that’s what the words were to me. Checking out. That final cut. Fini. Done. Kaput.
Shortly after the second song, when I was getting really really tired…Melissa knocked on my window. Her face was full of snot and tears.
I freaked because I didn’t want her affected by the fumes. I shut the engine off and got out escorting her to the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Are you okay?” she sniffed and hugged me.
I sighed, “Yeah, I’m okay, I was just listening to some music, now stop crying.”
“Does it hurt?” she looked at my face.
She was seven years old. How crazy it was for a seven year old to be asking those kinds of questions.
“Wanna go for some ice cream?” I changed the subject, one of my specialties.
She stared at me with concern, as if she were my older sister and not my younger.
“Okay.” She answered, “I’ll go tell mom and dad we’re going.”
“Fuck them!” I spat.
“I’ll be right back.”
The doc went on a writing frenzy, you’d think he was writing a book. I thought at one point he was going to rip the pages of his legal pad.
Eventually, the fervor ended.
“So….” Dr. Reynolds paused, “did your friend Troy call the police?”
“No. He told the Aftercare counselor instead.” I answered, still lingering somewhere in the past.
The good doctor checked his watch and then the clock on the wall behind me. Funny how they do that. Put the wall clock behind you like you don’t know their clock watching.
“Am I wasting your time, doc?” I asked defensively.
“No, Fin.” He looked at me apologetically and then wrote my reaction in his notebook. The notebook, I’ll have to admit, was starting to piss me off.
“I have a full schedule today, and I only allotted an hour for each patient I need to see today. Now….what happened with your counselor?”
Steve Jenkins was the Aftercare counselor. He was in his late 30’s. An ex-druggie himself so I had a bit more respect for him than the other text-book counselors who thought they knew jack about being chemically dependent. I also respected Steve because he didn’t bullshit around. He was straight on with you.
The next day when I went to Aftercare, all bruised up and swollen, Steve asked the group who needed to take time besides me.
“What?” I asked surprised.
“You’re taking time to talk today in group.” He smiled at me.
“But I don’t have anything to share today.”
He looked over at Troy and then back at me, “You need to share with us what happened at dinner last night.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I know you’d rather not, but this is group. This is where you share what’s going on with your transitions on the outside, and I think your support system here in Aftercare, needs to hear this.”
So I told them what happened. And after group, Steve informed me that there would be a meeting with my dad within the hour.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me???” I yelled.
“No.” he said without reservation, “I asked him to come in today at 3.”
“Why??”
“Because it’s not okay what he did to you.”
“Well, I’m not saying a word. Don’t you realize he’s going to fucking kill me if we talk about this in a meeting?”
“It’ll be okay, Finley. Trust me on this.”
So the meeting comes. We’re in this cramped office. Steve, dad and myself. Dad is in his defensive stance: legs crossed, foot shaking, and chewing on his nails. He breathes through his nose and his face turns red.
“Do you know why I’ve called you in today, Mr. Newkirk?” Steve opens.
His foot shook nervously. He looks over at me and then at Steve, “You said it was something to do with Finley.”
“Yep.” Steve agrees, “Finley has already told me his version of the story of what happened last night, now why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Dad immediately starts yelling. Amazingly, Steve just keeps his relaxed pose in his office chair. Dad’s version of what happened is the same as mine, except he’s shouting his side.
“And do you think this behavior is appropriate, Mr. Newkirk?” Steve asks.
“Well, no!” Dad answers and looks right at me, “That’s why I had to discipline him!”
“I was actually talking about your behavior, Mr. Newkirk. Do you think it was appropriate how you reacted to your son’s actions?”
“Well….” The breathing through his nose got heavier, “The boy is 17! He thinks he’s man enough to use big words like that at the dinner table and talk to his mother like that, than he ought to be man enough to defend himself!”
“I’m not excusing Finley for how he acted last night. But, Mr. Newkirk…” Steve kept his cool, “punching your son in the face…repeatedly…dumping a plant on him….”
“Well, if you think you’d be a better fucking father than you raise him!!!” dad interrupted.
“Mr. Newkirk….” Steve still steady, “…Finley is my client. As his counselor I am bound by law to protect him if I see there is signs of danger to his well being….and…looking at his face…hearing both your stories…right now I don’t think home is the safest place for him. Do you agree?”
My dad stood up. Here it comes. He’s going to punch Steve out and then come after me. I just know it.
“Look here, fucker!” dad pointed into Steve’s face, “I’m not going to sit here and listen to your psychological bullshit about my parenting skills. If Fin opens his mouth like that, than he should expect what’s coming to him! Now I’m taking my son out of here and signing him out of this program!”
“Sit down, Mr. Newkirk.” Steve said firmly, “You are free to leave, but you are not taking Finley with you. Presently, in your state of mind, I don’t think it would be safe for him to return home. I’m going to make some arrangements for him to go to a foster home until you’ve completed some anger management classes. Now, you can agree to this, and we can proceed immediately….or….you can disagree with this and I will recommend this to the courts and we can have an injunction written?”
Dad got up and walked out. For 30 days, I lived at Troy’s house. It was the most peaceful 30 days of my life.
“Well,” Dr. Reynolds closes my file with the legal pad in it, “it seems we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
“Meaning,” I started getting upset, “I’m staying here longer than expected?”
“No. Not what I mean at all. We or some other psychiatrist or psychologist could help you through this on the outside if you make it through eval. But I think this is a good place to stop.”
He got up and set my file on his desk and took a swig of his coffee, “Are you adjusting well to your room and your room mate?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I said getting up. This is the thing about shrinks I hate. You spend an hour pouring your heart out to them and then after your time is up, they shut off the concern and you’re just another number again.
“Great!” he said, “I’ll set you up for morning group tomorrow….and let’s see…perhaps we’ll get you into O.T.”
“O.T.?” I asked. These therapy types got off on their freakin’ treatment slang. O.T., K.P., Eval, Chem. Dep, ADHD, ADD, ADA, blah de freakin’ blah! Retard Rhetoric is what I call it.
“Occupational Therapy.” He answers, “Sometimes it’s good to keep your mind going on other things besides the problems you’re dealing with.”
“How do I make a phone call?” I asked.
He paused for a moment, as if it was a question he didn’t want to answer.
“I’m afraid while you’re in eval, you won’t be allowed to make any phone calls. We can contact family members for you to let them know you’re okay….”
“How do you know I’m okay? 24 hours ago I was drinking a snooze cocktail…if I’m ‘okay’, shouldn’t I be sent home?”
“Mr. Newkirk,” so it’s back to formalities now, “by ‘okay’ I mean that you’re alive. Our session went very well today and you seem to be coping well with being in a locked unit. This is what is meant by ‘okay’. Do you have any other questions?”
He looked up at the clock and then at me again.
“Yeah,” I spoke up. “can we smoke in here? I’m dyin’ for a cig.”
4.
We could. My roomie Glenn showed me to the smoking lounge. It was a skinny hallway that connected the psych unit with the chemical dependency unit. We shared the smoke room. A long table sat against the wall with 4 chairs and one large ash tray.
1.
So that’s me, the guy in the gurney being slammed through a myriad of swinging doors. Outside its October, and unusually warm and clear. Inside it’s the Omaha Methodist hospital Emergency room. I stare blearily above me as the fluorescents race past. The guy above my head is the one who sat with me in the ambulance who kept a check on my vitals and kept asking me my name and address and who the president of the United States was. My friend, Mindy is at a fast walk beside me on the right with a worried look on her face. She’s pretty in a tomboyish way, a great writer, and an even better guitar player. She’s dressed up tonight in her best 80’s rocker bitch attire because she was on a date this evening with her future ex-husband. To my left is the attending nurse. Peroxide blonde, worn out in her mid-fifties, her lined face, pear-shape, keeping pace with the gurney; she was conversing with the guy above my head and the other paramedic whom I couldn’t see at my feet.
“Finnley!” was all I could really concentrate on. It was Mindy holding my hand which seemed like such a foreign part of my own universe. “Finnley, please be okay!”
I was numb, and wish I could have felt something like guilt. Because she was my friend. She was the one that found me. Her and her boyfriend Jason, who was somewhere back there in the lobby or somewhere talking to the Douglas County sheriff’s department about this whacked out psycho bastard that his girlfriend knows. I’m sure the vocabulary coming out of that mullet-headed specimen of man was something like:
“Fuck yeah, dude….”
“I was like, whoa…”
“I don’t know, man…”
“Farm out, cop dude, that’s all can say, man, farm fuckin out…”
Ah, but that’s a world away now. I was heading to my final destination. Operating room number 7. Funny, because 7 is my favorite number. Funny how the universe is, isn’t it? I was greeted by two others in white scrubs, female and much younger than the attending nurse.
The room was white and before my eyes could adjust to its sterility, they had moved my carcass from the gurney to the operation table. The overhead lamp beamed into my bloodshot eyes and I could feel its heat. Perhaps, I was just having a day mare at the beach?
The back of the table hummed and the next thing I knew I was sitting up. I couldn’t see Mindy anymore. A tray table slid in front of me with a baby blue bowl on it, and two giant toothpaste tubes. Were they going to brush my teeth? How nice, and they even strapped a bib on me. If this was a dream, and I was really lying on a beach near the Pacific Ocean, then I was in some weird dental office. Maybe I really should see a shrink?
“Mr. Newkirk,” the attending nurse asked. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded. Everyone sounded like they were in a barrel.
“Mr. Newkirk, we’re going to need to pump your stomach.”
I shook my head.
“We’re going to need to get all those sleeping pills out of your system.”
One of the younger nurses came into view with a long tube about ¾ of an inch in diameter.
“This is going to be uncomfortable and you’ll want to vomit when the tube hits the back of your throat.” She droned on, “That’s your body’s natural reaction, but we’re going to need to get every pill we can.”
“No.” I managed to squeak out.
“Now, just relax, Mr. Newkirk.” She approached me with the tube.
“No!” I growled through grit teeth, “Why can’t you fuckers just let me die?”
“Mr. Newkirk,” she put some sort of gel around the tip of the tube. “Just relax and it will be over quicker than you think.”
“Fuck that!” I grabbed her hand.
“Let me go!” she said sternly.
“Get that fuckin thing out of my face!” my lips tightened and I turned my face away from her.
“I think we’re going to need to strap him.” She mentioned to the paramedics.
If this was a movie, they would be paramedic #1 and paramedic #2. They would be played by some upstart actors whom would either become the next Brad Pitt or vanish into celluloid obscurity. Either way, the bastards slid a padded strap across my upper arms and torso and strapped it tight.
The nurse attempted again and I grabbed the lower part of her smock and bunched it up in my fist.
My hands were then put into padded cuffs in front of me and then strapped down to the sides of the table.
“Now you need to cooperate, Mr. Newkirk!” she yelled.
I still wouldn’t comply.
She looked up at one of the other nurses, “Can you have Larry come in here?”
Larry? I shouted in my head, Who’s this mysterious Larry that gets a ‘named’ part in my movie?? Who the fuck was this guy?
Larry was this brick house that was probably red headed but was shaved bald. He walked behind me and then put a padded strap around my head and tightened it down on my forehead. Then he came around to the right side of me and squeezed my cheeks together so my lips would pooch out.
The tube went in, and just as it hit the back of my throat, I bit down on it.
“Let it go!” the attending nurse shouted.
I growled my indifference to her through clenched teeth.
She pulled on the tube and I would release it until it eventually tore in my mouth and I was hoping the inertia would send her reeling into a metal table or something. But she had those flat pancake feet in those white doc martens and she only jerked back slightly.
She snipped the end of the tube that was ragged with teeth marks and reapplied the lubricating gel on the new tip.
“Get his mouth open!” she ordered Larry.
Larry, though he got a part in this movie with a name he didn’t get a speaking part. That was my only revenge I could get at him. He crushed my cheeks again until I had to open my mouth, and as I did the tube slid in.
So this is what it’s like for a woman who gives a man head? Oh my, God!!
The tube made its way into my throat. Larry was holding my jaw open by my chin. I swear to god that nurse enjoyed every inch that she put in me.
Then the vomit came. It was clear at first; I could smell the mix of scotch and bile as I watched it careen down the tube like a water slide. There were the pills I had taken, one by one like roller coaster cars.
The bottle of pills I took was over-the-counter. Easy to swallow caplets. They spilled into the little blue tray and I thought at this rate they would need a new tray. I was right. A new tray took the old one’s place.
I could feel that damn tube inside of me. It was a dirty feeling of violation. Soon, everything looked blurry through the tears multiplying in my eyes.
When I was able to blink them clear, the attending nurse had one of those toothpaste tubes. She was filling a giant syringe with some kind of black paste. No tube of Crest I had ever seen before.
When the vomit stopped, and I was just dry heaving, she inserted the syringe full of obsidian paste into the open end of the stomach tube. She pressed on the plunger and I watch this black snake crawl up into my mouth and down my throat. Another gag, and then a warm sensation as I passed out into the black.
2.
When my eyes flicked open there was beeping all around. There was an IV tube in my hand and it seemed I was enclosed in this room with all these noisy machines.
Bing! Pop! Bing! Chirp!
The IV was attached to a clear bag hanging on a metal stand. I had to use the bathroom. My throat and my stomach ached.
“Ah, good, you’re up, Mr. Newkirk!” came a voice from beyond the machines.
I jumped as I was getting off the bed.
“The fuck am I?” I mumbled. My throat was dry and sore.
“Aksarben Methodist Hospital. Intensive care unit.” The voice answered. ‘aksarben’ is the clever way Nebraskans name things. It’s Nebraska backwards.
I tried to focus in on the voice without any success, “Who are you?”
“Dr. Reynolds.” He stepped forward into the green glow of the machines monitoring my every movement. He was medium height. Balding with the obligatory 70’s mustache. Wool suit coat. Thick glasses.
“Are you my doctor then?”
“I’m the resident psychiatrist.” He said, “You’ll be staying with us for awhile in six north.”
“Six north? What’s that?”
“The psychiatric ward of the hospital.”
“The nut hut?”
“If that’s what you want to call it. It’s a locked unit. You’ll be spending a week in eval to determine if you’re a safety risk and then you may be moved to the unlocked unit.”
“No. You see, I can’t even afford the ambulance ride over here, leave alone a hospital stay…”
“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Mr. Newkirk. You’ve attempted suicide, by law you need to at least be evaluated and then after that we can talk about some kind of treatment.”
“Fuck this! I didn’t call your guys to come and save me…I wanted out! Now you’re going to make me stay in some locked nut hut against my will and make me pay for it with no job on the outside? Fuck that!”
I began pulling the IV tubes and wires they had pasted on me.
“Where’s my fuckin pants?”
“Mr. Newkirk.” Dr. Reynolds said firmly, “You are staying with us. If you leave I’ll have to call the sheriff to come and pick you up.”
I found my pants. Put them on and slipped on my shirt and shoes and looked at the good doctor.
“Then you better call him, I’m walkin out.” I walked past him.
I made it to the front doors before security came. They were these ex-jocks in maroon suit coats and ties. Three followed me out the door. I ran as soon as my feet hit the outside sidewalk. They ran at me until I got to the end of the drive and then I headed into the ditch. They stopped following and they were out of sight.
I walked about 2 miles, with the hospital getting smaller in the distance behind me. I walked through a Jewish cemetery and the Douglas county sheriff’s deputy met me at the opposite gate.
I turned back into the cemetery.
“Stop where you are, Mr. Newkirk.” The deputy called from the P.A. in his squad car.
I kept walking away from him. I heard his car door shut.
“Don’t make me chase you.” He stated, “Let’s do this the easy way, c’mon.”
I was tired, and my throat was killing me. I felt like I was walking in my sleep and so I just sat down.
He came up and handcuffed me and put me respectfully into the back of his squad car. The seat was plastic and the divider between us pushed into my knees.
“2460.” His call number into the microphone of his police radio.
“2460, go ahead.” Dispatch called back.
“Suspect in custody, en route to the hospital.”
“10-4, 2460.”
The squad pulled out of the cemetery. I looked back melancholy, wishing that I was already buried. Of course, not here, the Jews wouldn’t allow it…but somewhere, underground, feeding the worms.
“You the suicide kid we dealt with earlier?” the deputy asked me.
I nodded at him through the rear view.
“Nothing worth killin yourself over, man.” He stated, “I don’t care if it’s a woman, a dog or your pick up truck. Nothing worth ending your life over. It’s a big world, buddy, live in it.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want philosophy from some jar head cop. I just wanted sleep.
We pulled into the ER entrance of the hospital. The deputy guided me inside to the open arms of the hospital security. From there we hit the elevators and made our way up to six north.
A young nurse greeted us on the 6th floor. She was pretty with long curly brown hair.
“Had a rough morning already, Mr. Newkirk?” she smiled at me and touched my shoulder.
I committed to just a nod of my head.
“I’ll take him from here, guys.” She dismissed the two thugs escorting me.
She buzzed the double locked doors ahead of us with a magnetic card, and they swung open. There were plenty of people scuffling about in their morning dazes. Some looked at me with crazed curiosity. Others smiled and tried to comfort me.
“Right in here, Mr. Newkirk.” She motioned me into room number 232. It was empty with two beds in it. Someone else obviously lived here too because their stuff was all over the other bed and nightstand.
The nurse motioned me to the chair on my side of the room which was by the window. The sun was about 9am in the sky. A slight mist hovered close to the ground. I sat looking out the window.
“Your room mate is at morning group.” She said getting out some paperwork out of a folder, “you look tired, are you tired?”
I nodded again.
“Well, we need to go through some paperwork and then we’ll let you rest, okay?”
I nodded again.
The paperwork was your typical question and answer variety. Name, address, birthday, social security, place of work, medical history, blah blah blahh….
When the last form was filled out she smiled at me. It was a comforting smile that made you glad that you were there.
“Let’s hope this becomes a safe place for you, Finley.” She said, “It was nice to have met you.”
My eyes filled up and I broke out the tears. I sobbed embarrassingly in front of her. She rubbed my back quickly and told me I could rest.
I lay back on my mattress and stared at the sun beaming through my window. I thought back to how I got here and last night’s events and eventually, sleep found me.
3.
From the other side of the curtain, Jim Morrison’s “Moonlight Drive” thrummed from an acoustic guitar. The voice was sorrowful, and not Jimbo’s, but it was good music coming to you live from room 232, bed 2.
“…and the city sleeps to hide…” the voice drawled out.
“Hey.” I said through my course throat.
The music stopped. Sitting in bed 2 was a man in his 30’s. Sandy blonde hair, handle bar mustache, faded plaid shirt, blue jeans and hospital slippers. A set of blue eyes looked at me from behind coke-bottle glasses. Those eyes, told the story of something painful and something was missing.
“Uh…” I paused, what do you say to a fellow mental patient? “I didn’t mean for you to stop…that was good…Jimmy Morrison is one of my favorites.”
He picked up where he left off, “…let’s swim out tonight, love, it’s our turn to try….”
I picked up the verse with him and we finished out the song feeling every lyric. When the song was done he slipped the pick into the top three strings and held out his hand.
“Glenn.” He introduced himself, “Glenn Hershey, like the…like the…like the cuh-candy bar.”
I shook his hand. A firm hand shake of hidden strength. I wasn’t sure if he actually had a stammer or if he just was nervous, or both.
“Finley Newkirk.” I said back.
“Do you…do you…pluh-play?” he stammered.
“Yeah.” I answered back, “not as well as you though. But I play around on the gat a bit.”
“Would you…would you…pluh-play suh-suh-something for muh-me?”
He handed me his guitar. I took it wondering what I would play. A list of songs went through my head that I would know without error. That’s the thing between guitarists; you never want to embarrass yourselves in front of another.
“Um….” I took the pick he just had in his mouth hesitantly, “let me see….how about some Wilson Pickett?”
I played Mustang Sally. I always played it in C; everyone else plays the damn thing in A, but godammit it’s in C!! It was tough to get it out of my vocal chords. Rough and gravelly, but it actually added to the song. He clapped and tapped his foot as I sang it out.
“…you been runnin’ all ovah town, now….think you bettah put yo flat feet on the ground now….”
“Mr. Newkirk?” Another nurse interrupts me.
I stop and Glenn seems irritated. He blinks almost uncontrollably when he’s irritated. I watched him for a bit and then looked at the nurse.
“Have you filled out your dinner menu?” she asked.
“Uh…no. I didn’t know I was suppose to.” I answered.
“Well, if you want to eat you’ll need to.”
“Doesn’t he guh-get to guh-guh-guh-go down to the cuh-hafateria with the rest of uh uh us?” Glenn spoke up.
“He’s in eval right now, Glenn, so he needs to remain on the unit. Please fill out your menu, Mr. Newkirk, and then we need to visit with Dr. Reynolds.”
The menu was pretty bland, and after having the ER nurse digging around in my guts with a plastic tube, I didn’t feel much like putting anything back down there. Hell, I was pooping charcoal briquettes since the procedure. That black shit was liquid charcoal they used to coat your stomach. I thought I could maybe grill out if I dried out the toilet nuggets in the window sill. I chose to eat some broccoli cheese soup tonight!
“All right, Glenn.” I said finishing my menu and handing it to the nurse, “I will hang with you later then…nice to meet you.”
“Nuh-nuh-nice to meet you tuh-too, Finley.” His smile came back and he returned his guitar to its case.
The nurse and I left the room and headed down the hall towards Dr. Reynolds’s office. This is the first time I had consciously walked outside my room. There were gigglers, droolers, criers, and all sorts of fucking whack jobs around me. I suddenly felt scared and didn’t think I belonged in a place like this.
“You two seem to have found something in common?” the nurse commented.
“What?” I was busy watching the people around me. They were like insects buzzing around me.
“Music.” She said, “You two seem to have talent alike. Maybe down the road you two could give us all a show?””Uh…I don’t think I’ll be here that long.”
“We’ll see.” She said with a goddamn smirk I felt like smacking off her face.
She knocked on the doctor’s door.
“Come in.” Dr. Reynolds said from the other side.
In we went. She handed him a file and left me there. The office consisted of a desk, dark brown with mahogany, a few plants decorated the room, prints of paintings and of course the obligatory diploma and degree framed giving the good old doc the right to pick my brain apart. There was a cheap yellow love seat that sat adjacent to the desk and a large overstuffed leather chair that sat across from the love seat.
“Love Seat”. That’s a funny term for a two-seated couch. I don’t think that I’ve ever made love on a “love seat” before, and it doesn’t look comfortable enough to make out on.
“Have a seat, Mr. Newkirk.” Dr. Reynolds motioned to the love seat as he came around from his desk with my folder and a brand new yellow legal pad.
“Legal Pad”. Why the hell they called these things “legal pads” was beyond me. Were they the official writing pad of lawyers across the globe? If one were to write on anything else, would it be considered “illegal”? God, my mind wanders.
I sat on the luxurious love seat, not sure whether to cross my legs, set them flat, or splay them out and lie on the love seat. I chose to set them flat. For now.
“Do you prefer to be called ‘Finley’?” he asked, “Or do you feel more comfortable being called ‘Mr. Newkirk’ by me?”
I looked over at his name plate, “do you feel comfortable being called….’Dennis’? Or should I keep calling you ‘Dr. Reynolds’? Or Doc?”
He scribbles in his pad. “I see you are quite good with sarcasm.”
“Thank you.” I faked a smile, “Doc.”
He scribble again, “You’re quite welcome, Mr. Newkirk.”
“Call me, Fin.” I leaned back and put my arm along the back of the love seat and crossed my legs, “Everyone does.”
“How are you feeling today?” he asked.
Right away with the stumper.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders, “I guess my throat is really sore and my stomach is a little queasy.”
“That’s normal after having your stomach pumped. But how do you feel emotionally?”
I reflected on that a bit. Thought about the entire evening before and right away I wanted to crawl back into my bed and sleep again.
“Numb.” I said, “I feel numb.”
More scribbling.
“Why don’t you start with why you’re here, Fin, what brings you here to the psychiatric ward of Aksarben Methodist?”
My feet went flat on the ground again. I let out a sigh.
“I guess….I guess because I tried to kill myself.”
“Why don’t you try talking about that?”
I coughed a few times. I really wanted a cigarette. But I clear my throat when I get nervous.
“I don’t know. I…took a bottle of sleeping pills and chased it down with some scotch.”
“Is this the first time you’ve attempted suicide?”
My memory went back. Racing through my head like a movie. I didn’t want to look at all of that crap I’ve tried to block out of my past.
“No.” I answered in a mumble, “No, there were three or four other times.”
“Can you tell me about those times?”
I cleared my throat again. “The first time was when I was about 17. My dad and I got into a fight. Pretty violent one. So I parked my car in the 3-car garage, closed up the windows and the doors and started the engine.”
He scribbled madly into his notepad…excuse me, LEGAL note pad.
“And why wasn’t that successful?”
Again, the movie picked up in my head, “My little sister came into the garage and knocked on the car door window.”
A few jots this time, “And what happened after that?”
I thought for a moment, “I took her out for ice cream at the local Dairy Queen.”
“Did she know what you were doing?”
“No….she just knew I was sad. Me and the little sister had a….a link. We just knew how each other were feeling.”
He wrote for a few minutes and then stopped. Crossed his legs and smiled at me.
“Can you tell me….can you tell me what made things so bad that evening that you felt you needed to kill yourself?”
We all sat around the dinner table. It was me, my sister Melissa, Mom, Dad and my friend Troy who sat on the opposite side of the table from me. Don’t even remember what we were eating, but probably fried chicken. It seemed we always had fried chicken.
I was in an aftercare program from a drug treatment program I graduated from. I had been off the stuff for 3 months: Marijuana, speed, LSD, mushrooms, etc. Troy was a friend from treatment, and he was over helping me with some homework. This guy was living proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover. He looked like Vince Neil from Motley Crue, but the guy was a brainiac. He was deep into philosophy, especially Kant, and he loved Beethoven. We used to go cruising and the guy would have Beethoven’s 9th blaring out of his speakers. For toppers, he would smoke his cigs, (usually menthols) from one of those long cigarette holders. He was an odd bastard.
I asked my mom if I could go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting tonight after dinner. She said that I was spending too much time at my N.A. meetings and that I needed to spend more time at home.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Came out of my mouth, “Sticking around this dysfunctional playground is the reason I used drugs in the first place.”
“Well,” came my mother’s answer, “too bad, you’re staying home.”
“What a bunch of sh--!” I wasn’t able to finish the last of that sentence. I was cut off by my dad’s fist that shot out of nowhere and knocked me off my chair.
I laid there, blood coming out of my nose, and stars in my eyes. The chair on it’s back with me stunned on it’s lap.
“Mr. Newkirk!” Troy interjected, “I don’t think that….”
I heard my dad, “I think you better head on home!”
Then his face came into view and he was kneeling on my shoulders with both his fists clenched on either side of him.
“Now apologize to your mother!” he screamed in my face.
“No!” I shouted back at him.
Another rabbit punch to my already bleeding nose.
“Say-you’re-sorry!”
“She’s the one being--!”
Another punch, this time to my cheek.
“Say you’re fucking sorry!”
Troy interjected one more time.
“Mr. Newkirk!” he was behind my dad somewhere, “If you don’t stop this I’ll call the…”
My dad turned around, “If you don’t get your ass out of my house I’ll give you some of the same!”
Troy left. I couldn’t blame him. Dad can be pretty intimidating when his Irish was up.
“I’m going to tell you again!” he returned his undivided attention to me again, “Apologize to your mother!”
Mom sat there with a smile on her face as she ate her fucking chicken.
“I’m sorry.” I mumbled.
Dad grabbed a large potted plant and dumped the entire contents on me.
“Speak up! I don’t think she heard you!”
“I’M FUCKING SORRY!!” I yelled with dirt in my mouth.
“Say it like you mean it!!”
“I’m sorry, mom. I’m sorry.”
Dad got off me, “Now go clean yourself up.”
I got up and saw my sister sitting there with her head down and her bottom lip out. Mom ignored me and dad returned to his place at the table.
I walked down the hall and into the bathroom. In the mirror was a mess. Somewhere behind all the blood and mud was me. I started washing my face and then announced to whoever was listening that they could fucking eat me.
I walked out of the bathroom and took off out the front door. I got behind the wheel of my Monte Carlo and pulled it into the 3rd garage stall. I got out and closed all the windows and doors in the garage. I turned the radio and popped in a Pink Floyd tape. The Final Cut I think it was. Their best album in my opinion. Should have been titled: Songs To Kill Yourself To. Because that’s what the words were to me. Checking out. That final cut. Fini. Done. Kaput.
Shortly after the second song, when I was getting really really tired…Melissa knocked on my window. Her face was full of snot and tears.
I freaked because I didn’t want her affected by the fumes. I shut the engine off and got out escorting her to the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Are you okay?” she sniffed and hugged me.
I sighed, “Yeah, I’m okay, I was just listening to some music, now stop crying.”
“Does it hurt?” she looked at my face.
She was seven years old. How crazy it was for a seven year old to be asking those kinds of questions.
“Wanna go for some ice cream?” I changed the subject, one of my specialties.
She stared at me with concern, as if she were my older sister and not my younger.
“Okay.” She answered, “I’ll go tell mom and dad we’re going.”
“Fuck them!” I spat.
“I’ll be right back.”
The doc went on a writing frenzy, you’d think he was writing a book. I thought at one point he was going to rip the pages of his legal pad.
Eventually, the fervor ended.
“So….” Dr. Reynolds paused, “did your friend Troy call the police?”
“No. He told the Aftercare counselor instead.” I answered, still lingering somewhere in the past.
The good doctor checked his watch and then the clock on the wall behind me. Funny how they do that. Put the wall clock behind you like you don’t know their clock watching.
“Am I wasting your time, doc?” I asked defensively.
“No, Fin.” He looked at me apologetically and then wrote my reaction in his notebook. The notebook, I’ll have to admit, was starting to piss me off.
“I have a full schedule today, and I only allotted an hour for each patient I need to see today. Now….what happened with your counselor?”
Steve Jenkins was the Aftercare counselor. He was in his late 30’s. An ex-druggie himself so I had a bit more respect for him than the other text-book counselors who thought they knew jack about being chemically dependent. I also respected Steve because he didn’t bullshit around. He was straight on with you.
The next day when I went to Aftercare, all bruised up and swollen, Steve asked the group who needed to take time besides me.
“What?” I asked surprised.
“You’re taking time to talk today in group.” He smiled at me.
“But I don’t have anything to share today.”
He looked over at Troy and then back at me, “You need to share with us what happened at dinner last night.”
“I’d rather not.”
“I know you’d rather not, but this is group. This is where you share what’s going on with your transitions on the outside, and I think your support system here in Aftercare, needs to hear this.”
So I told them what happened. And after group, Steve informed me that there would be a meeting with my dad within the hour.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me???” I yelled.
“No.” he said without reservation, “I asked him to come in today at 3.”
“Why??”
“Because it’s not okay what he did to you.”
“Well, I’m not saying a word. Don’t you realize he’s going to fucking kill me if we talk about this in a meeting?”
“It’ll be okay, Finley. Trust me on this.”
So the meeting comes. We’re in this cramped office. Steve, dad and myself. Dad is in his defensive stance: legs crossed, foot shaking, and chewing on his nails. He breathes through his nose and his face turns red.
“Do you know why I’ve called you in today, Mr. Newkirk?” Steve opens.
His foot shook nervously. He looks over at me and then at Steve, “You said it was something to do with Finley.”
“Yep.” Steve agrees, “Finley has already told me his version of the story of what happened last night, now why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Dad immediately starts yelling. Amazingly, Steve just keeps his relaxed pose in his office chair. Dad’s version of what happened is the same as mine, except he’s shouting his side.
“And do you think this behavior is appropriate, Mr. Newkirk?” Steve asks.
“Well, no!” Dad answers and looks right at me, “That’s why I had to discipline him!”
“I was actually talking about your behavior, Mr. Newkirk. Do you think it was appropriate how you reacted to your son’s actions?”
“Well….” The breathing through his nose got heavier, “The boy is 17! He thinks he’s man enough to use big words like that at the dinner table and talk to his mother like that, than he ought to be man enough to defend himself!”
“I’m not excusing Finley for how he acted last night. But, Mr. Newkirk…” Steve kept his cool, “punching your son in the face…repeatedly…dumping a plant on him….”
“Well, if you think you’d be a better fucking father than you raise him!!!” dad interrupted.
“Mr. Newkirk….” Steve still steady, “…Finley is my client. As his counselor I am bound by law to protect him if I see there is signs of danger to his well being….and…looking at his face…hearing both your stories…right now I don’t think home is the safest place for him. Do you agree?”
My dad stood up. Here it comes. He’s going to punch Steve out and then come after me. I just know it.
“Look here, fucker!” dad pointed into Steve’s face, “I’m not going to sit here and listen to your psychological bullshit about my parenting skills. If Fin opens his mouth like that, than he should expect what’s coming to him! Now I’m taking my son out of here and signing him out of this program!”
“Sit down, Mr. Newkirk.” Steve said firmly, “You are free to leave, but you are not taking Finley with you. Presently, in your state of mind, I don’t think it would be safe for him to return home. I’m going to make some arrangements for him to go to a foster home until you’ve completed some anger management classes. Now, you can agree to this, and we can proceed immediately….or….you can disagree with this and I will recommend this to the courts and we can have an injunction written?”
Dad got up and walked out. For 30 days, I lived at Troy’s house. It was the most peaceful 30 days of my life.
“Well,” Dr. Reynolds closes my file with the legal pad in it, “it seems we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”
“Meaning,” I started getting upset, “I’m staying here longer than expected?”
“No. Not what I mean at all. We or some other psychiatrist or psychologist could help you through this on the outside if you make it through eval. But I think this is a good place to stop.”
He got up and set my file on his desk and took a swig of his coffee, “Are you adjusting well to your room and your room mate?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I said getting up. This is the thing about shrinks I hate. You spend an hour pouring your heart out to them and then after your time is up, they shut off the concern and you’re just another number again.
“Great!” he said, “I’ll set you up for morning group tomorrow….and let’s see…perhaps we’ll get you into O.T.”
“O.T.?” I asked. These therapy types got off on their freakin’ treatment slang. O.T., K.P., Eval, Chem. Dep, ADHD, ADD, ADA, blah de freakin’ blah! Retard Rhetoric is what I call it.
“Occupational Therapy.” He answers, “Sometimes it’s good to keep your mind going on other things besides the problems you’re dealing with.”
“How do I make a phone call?” I asked.
He paused for a moment, as if it was a question he didn’t want to answer.
“I’m afraid while you’re in eval, you won’t be allowed to make any phone calls. We can contact family members for you to let them know you’re okay….”
“How do you know I’m okay? 24 hours ago I was drinking a snooze cocktail…if I’m ‘okay’, shouldn’t I be sent home?”
“Mr. Newkirk,” so it’s back to formalities now, “by ‘okay’ I mean that you’re alive. Our session went very well today and you seem to be coping well with being in a locked unit. This is what is meant by ‘okay’. Do you have any other questions?”
He looked up at the clock and then at me again.
“Yeah,” I spoke up. “can we smoke in here? I’m dyin’ for a cig.”
4.
We could. My roomie Glenn showed me to the smoking lounge. It was a skinny hallway that connected the psych unit with the chemical dependency unit. We shared the smoke room. A long table sat against the wall with 4 chairs and one large ash tray.
evil
this is a work in progress. my first love, horror fiction. i've rewritten this prologue seven times until i was happy with it. hopefully, you will be too so far. i'll be updating this as it spills out of my head so please check back frequently.
Prologue
It was cold. Harriet opened her eyes and could see her breath in the moonlit air. The fire in the coal stove had gone out, and judging by the snore of her parent’s room through the paper thin walls, her father wasn’t getting out of bed to put more coal in.
She thought maybe she could take the cold. She did put on the extra quilt her grandmother made her two Christmases ago, but tonight, everything seemed paper-thin. She tucked her face under the covers and tried to warm the cold spot on her nose, breathing heavy to heat the bed, hoping to drift off.
But the cold had bit down into her bones and she tossed and turned. She’d sigh in frustration until she finally sat up. She sniffed the snot escaping her nose and swung her feet over the edge of her bed. Her bare toes searching for her slippers, catching the handmade rug and then catching the worn rabbit fur corner of her left slipper.
She slipped out of bed wrapping the quilt around her and grabbed her lantern on her nightstand. She shuffled out into the hallway to the living room and grabbed the box of wooden matches sitting on top of the cabinet her mother put the “good china” in. She struck a match against the box and savored the sharp smell of sulfur as it hissed the matchstick alive. She lit her lantern and tried to focus on her newly lit surroundings.
She found the coal bucket and made her way out the back kitchen door onto the back porch. Below her, the coal pile sat with a tarpaulin over it to keep the dew off it. She grunted as the first load in her shovel gave and she poured the black stones into her pail.
She looked around at the cold Minnesota night. The stars above twinkled back at her and the moon was hiding somewhere in the eastern sky. Her breath heavy in the frosty air, she scanned the farm yard. All the animals were asleep in their homes, and everything stood still. She shivered and put in her last scoop. She picked up her lantern and then her bucket and walked back up the old wooden steps onto the porch. They creaked against her weight.
Before she grabbed the screen door she heard a noise. It sounded like a whisper from far off. She stopped and turned towards the dooryard. Everything sat quietly as it was before. She figured it was the breeze pushing on one of the barn windows, or gate.
She returned to the door and then it came again. This time louder and it seemed like a hiss instead of a whisper. She almost dropped the coal this time as its sound made a chill run up her spine.
“Hello?” she whispered back.
Nothing answered.
She turned suddenly towards the barn again. She was squinting at something she just couldn’t make out. When her eyes finally focused she dropped her bucket and almost lost her grip on the lantern. There was a shape out there by the front of the barn. A dark shape that at first seemed like a shadow cast by a blowing tree, but it was darker than any shadow she’d ever seen.
She glanced back at the screen door, thinking of waking up her dad. He would just think me ridiculous, she thought.
She was going to ignore it. She had made up her mind that it was probably nothing and that all would be forgotten in the morning. But the animals became restless. The old mule kicked at its pen and the goats began to bleat.
She dropped her bucket of coal and picked up the pitchfork leaning against the porch railing and slowly walked towards the barn. Whether it was fear or the cold dry air, her mouth felt like a desert, her tongue scraping around in her mouth like a piece of sandpaper.
The animals were getting more and more restless. There was definitely something there, or someone.
With the lantern in one hand and the pitchfork in the other, she made her way into the dark recesses of the tall old barn. Immediately the scent of animal waste and fur filled her nostrils.
She hung the lantern on a pole in the middle of the barn. She made a circle with the pitchfork in hand, waiting to gore anything that would come at her from the dark. The flame from the lantern danced shadows around the stalls.
On the third stall on her left the gate swung slowly closed just as she caught sight of it.
“Who’s there?” she trembled. The cold was making her shiver and she wished she would have woken her father.
There was no answer. Slowly and cautiously, she walked to the stall with pitchfork taking the lead.
“Come outta there!” she was trying to sound angry, “Come out, or I’ll run you through with this pitchfork!”
Still nothing, and she began to think herself silly. Perhaps it was just a coyote, or a stray dog, wandering onto the farm.
She pulled the door to the stall open with her pitchfork. There was too much darkness in there for her to tell what was in there. She padded back to the pole and grabbed her lantern and returned with adrenaline running through her.
The stuttering light from the lantern lit upon something lurching in the corner. She gasped and dropped the lantern, fixing onto the pitchfork with both hands and moving backwards.
“Don’t.” came a voice from within the returned blackness, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to harm you.”
She was breathing heavy now, and thought of screaming so that her father would hear and come running.
Something in the blackness picked up her lantern and relit it. Her eyes got bigger as she saw the sight before her.
It was cold. Harriet opened her eyes and could see her breath in the moonlit air. The fire in the coal stove had gone out, and judging by the snore of her parent’s room through the paper thin walls, her father wasn’t getting out of bed to put more coal in.
She thought maybe she could take the cold. She did put on the extra quilt her grandmother made her two Christmases ago, but tonight, everything seemed paper-thin. She tucked her face under the covers and tried to warm the cold spot on her nose, breathing heavy to heat the bed, hoping to drift off.
But the cold had bit down into her bones and she tossed and turned. She’d sigh in frustration until she finally sat up. She sniffed the snot escaping her nose and swung her feet over the edge of her bed. Her bare toes searching for her slippers, catching the handmade rug and then catching the worn rabbit fur corner of her left slipper.
She slipped out of bed wrapping the quilt around her and grabbed her lantern on her nightstand. She shuffled out into the hallway to the living room and grabbed the box of wooden matches sitting on top of the cabinet her mother put the “good china” in. She struck a match against the box and savored the sharp smell of sulfur as it hissed the matchstick alive. She lit her lantern and tried to focus on her newly lit surroundings.
She found the coal bucket and made her way out the back kitchen door onto the back porch. Below her, the coal pile sat with a tarpaulin over it to keep the dew off it. She grunted as the first load in her shovel gave and she poured the black stones into her pail.
She looked around at the cold Minnesota night. The stars above twinkled back at her and the moon was hiding somewhere in the eastern sky. Her breath heavy in the frosty air, she scanned the farm yard. All the animals were asleep in their homes, and everything stood still. She shivered and put in her last scoop. She picked up her lantern and then her bucket and walked back up the old wooden steps onto the porch. They creaked against her weight.
Before she grabbed the screen door she heard a noise. It sounded like a whisper from far off. She stopped and turned towards the dooryard. Everything sat quietly as it was before. She figured it was the breeze pushing on one of the barn windows, or gate.
She returned to the door and then it came again. This time louder and it seemed like a hiss instead of a whisper. She almost dropped the coal this time as its sound made a chill run up her spine.
“Hello?” she whispered back.
Nothing answered.
She turned suddenly towards the barn again. She was squinting at something she just couldn’t make out. When her eyes finally focused she dropped her bucket and almost lost her grip on the lantern. There was a shape out there by the front of the barn. A dark shape that at first seemed like a shadow cast by a blowing tree, but it was darker than any shadow she’d ever seen.
She glanced back at the screen door, thinking of waking up her dad. He would just think me ridiculous, she thought.
She was going to ignore it. She had made up her mind that it was probably nothing and that all would be forgotten in the morning. But the animals became restless. The old mule kicked at its pen and the goats began to bleat.
She dropped her bucket of coal and picked up the pitchfork leaning against the porch railing and slowly walked towards the barn. Whether it was fear or the cold dry air, her mouth felt like a desert, her tongue scraping around in her mouth like a piece of sandpaper.
The animals were getting more and more restless. There was definitely something there, or someone.
With the lantern in one hand and the pitchfork in the other, she made her way into the dark recesses of the tall old barn. Immediately the scent of animal waste and fur filled her nostrils.
She hung the lantern on a pole in the middle of the barn. She made a circle with the pitchfork in hand, waiting to gore anything that would come at her from the dark. The flame from the lantern danced shadows around the stalls.
On the third stall on her left the gate swung slowly closed just as she caught sight of it.
“Who’s there?” she trembled. The cold was making her shiver and she wished she would have woken her father.
There was no answer. Slowly and cautiously, she walked to the stall with pitchfork taking the lead.
“Come outta there!” she was trying to sound angry, “Come out, or I’ll run you through with this pitchfork!”
Still nothing, and she began to think herself silly. Perhaps it was just a coyote, or a stray dog, wandering onto the farm.
She pulled the door to the stall open with her pitchfork. There was too much darkness in there for her to tell what was in there. She padded back to the pole and grabbed her lantern and returned with adrenaline running through her.
The stuttering light from the lantern lit upon something lurching in the corner. She gasped and dropped the lantern, fixing onto the pitchfork with both hands and moving backwards.
“Don’t.” came a voice from within the returned blackness, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to harm you.”
She was breathing heavy now, and thought of screaming so that her father would hear and come running.
Something in the blackness picked up her lantern and relit it. Her eyes got bigger as she saw the sight before her.
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