Circe (12 page)

Jeremy was wrong. How could I forget? Time erodes the sharpness of emotion but it does not fade the brightness of my memories. Not for them. Not for the pretty ones with sweet eyes and soft skin. I could still see the girl. I had known she was Jeff's. I had known how much he liked her. He had even ventured to say that he loved her, although I doubted Jeff's capacity for love. Pria had been with her mother, with her family, as always. It was Easter, and sweet, temperate weather painted the beach in all the hues of spring. Jeff had brought his new love to Brooke and Jeremy's to show her to his family, and the girl had been brilliant. An creature of rare splendor. She had been too good for Jeff. She was a teacher, pretty and blonde. She shook with passion for her life and work. I had taken her on a walk after dinner. Jeff and Jeremy had gone on one of their endless beer runs. I told myself that I didn't want her. I told myself that Pria owned my heart, but the girl's smell had been like cocaine, irresistible and addictive. I couldn't say no.

It hadn't taken much to seduce her, gentle kisses and a few whispers in the dark. She had collapsed into me with all the passion in her body, and we promised we would never tell Jeff or Pria. We both left guilty and covered up our sins. She and Jeff separated a few days later. It had never occurred to me to ask why.

"I didn't know that he even found out. How could I know that? He never said anything." I said.

"Why would he? You’re who you are. You aren't gonna change. Whatever happened between you and mom fucked you up. I guess it fucked us all up, I don't know. He blamed her. He said that if she had loved him she wouldn't have fallen for you. I blamed her too, but someday, Eric, you’re going to have to take stock of your life. I mean, your boss? This one is gonna get you in trouble."

"You’re pretty self-righteous for a man who barely made it through high school."

"I call 'em like I see 'em."

I watched the stars settle into the night sky and tried not to think about what Jeremy was saying. He was drunk. He lay on the beach, with his fat belly peeking out from underneath his T-shirt, smiling foolishly up at me. I looked down on him as I would a patient.

"You don't see very clearly," I responded.

"So you don't think your boss is fine?"

"She is strangely attractive, but there is nothing sexual between us."

"And maybe that’s exactly why you want her? You always wanted the ones you couldn't have. You had a hankering for the ones that said no or that people told you you couldn't have."

I smiled. "You're just jealous."

"Maybe."

"I’m not attracted to Cassie at all. I love Pria and only Pria and that’s all."

"Then why are you here?"

I drank another beer. I didn't know why I was there. I didn't know what I was trying to get away from. What I was afraid of. When I closed my eyes I could see the creature from my dreams taking shape before sleep could even grasp me. I felt her foul, sweet breath on me like rotten milk.

"My boss and this place, Circe, they’re making me question things. That’s all. They’re making me question my values and my professional goals. I don't know if Pria will stay with me forever if I keep working late."

"Coming here isn't gonna help."

"No. She told me to take some time to myself.”

"Why don't you go home? Find Pria. Do the right thing. Tell her what’s goin’ on."

I shrugged.

"And if you really love Pria that much, why don't you stop fuckin' other women while you're at it?"

"I have."

Jeremy laughed. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"My need to prove myself sexually with other women was all part of the faulty values that our father taught us when we were children. You know how it was when we were kids. I just had some problems dealing with things. That’s all." I paused. Something rose into the back of my throat. I swallowed the lump and pushed it down. I smothered the tiny piece of emotion and moved on. "I've been able to recognize this and resolve these issues and I am . . . will never be disloyal to Pria again."

"You’re a piece of work. Ya know that?"

"I have to go now,” I said as I dusted the sand off of my shorts.

"Yeah."

"See ya."

I thought about Cassie all the way home.

* * * *

"Do you want to help me with an interview for a new 3rd floor patient?" Cassie asked out of the blue.

"Of course," I said, putting down the file I had been working on. "I have a lot of paperwork to do, though."

"You could stay late."

Cassie hadn't talked to me since I had cancelled our last meeting. Everything had melted back into the same shape it had been before. Her offer was immediately everything I wanted and everything I knew I shouldn't do. Pria would be furious at me for staying late again, but I missed Cassie's attention. I missed our strange talks and I longed to feel special in her eyes again.

"Sure," I responded slowly. "Do you have their intake?"

Cassie handed me a thick intake summary and psychological evaluation. There didn't seem to be much to add to the extensive work that had been done on the acute ward. The boy whose name was scrawled along the top of the file in cheap black ink had a violent and deplorable history. A few years ago, he had taken the back of an axe and bashed his parents’ brains in. He had attempted to kill his 12, 10, 8, and 2 year-old sisters, but their bodies had been more resilient than their parents'. The girls had survived the massacre by a fluke of fate. Each of them had been struck as many times as the parents. The blood bath had ended in a nasty court case, in which the defense had claimed that too much Ritalin had driven the boy insane. Despite the improbability of the claim, after a year of appeals and psychiatric evaluations, the boy had been sent to us. He had been seventeen when the crimes had been committed. He was now just shy of nineteen.

Cassie smiled glibly at me over the stack of paperwork that came with the boy. There were at least thirty different psychological evaluations and test after test stacked up in his file, all sent from different therapists and professionals dating back to when the boy was twelve. It would have taken me a day to read his entire file. It read like
War and Peace
and looked like the unabridged version of
Webster's Dictionary
.

"I've been waiting for this one," she said with pure joy.

"Seems like an interesting case," I responded over my stack of information.

I followed her to the third floor sullenly. I wasn’t sure where I stood with her. I wasn’t sure what I felt for her. As I contemplated my own confusion, Cassie led me into a stark room that once had white walls. The walls were slightly yellowed now and the boy that sat on the bed looked more like someone carrying a diagnosis of major depressive disorder than paranoid schizophrenia. He was curled up in the fetal position on his bed sobbing deeply into the dirty sheets. I barely had time to stop the chaos in my own mind when Cassie began the interview.

"You don't look like you're doing so well today, Roy,” she said with a sympathetic lilt. "My name is Dr. Allen, and this is Dr. Black. We’re here to help you as best we can. Can you tell me what’s going on with you?"

"I'm sure you know," he muttered.

"What does that mean?" Cassie responded.

"You can read. Don't you have a file?"

"Those are other people's opinions of you. Only you can tell me why you’re crying."

"Why don't you just give me a drug or something and get out."

"I'm not a psychiatrist. Why are you crying?"

“I’m crazy.”

“Not all crazy people cry.”

“You’re the shrink, you figure it out.” He wiped his eyes and sat up. His face transformed itself from sorrow to anger in less than a second.

“I guess I’m not that good of a shrink, because I need you to tell me.”

“I hate it here.”

“It isn’t meant to be pleasant.”

“I hate you people.”

“You don’t even know us. Why do you hate us?”

“Because you don’t care.”

“I do care. I just told you I care. I care and I want to know why you were crying. I want to know why you’re so sad. You’ve been through a lot. I can see that in your file. This place has to be better than jail. So why don’t you explain things to me?”

“What do you want me to explain?”

“Tell me why you were crying.”

"Because of everything. I'm an evil shit, aren't I, and I'll never see my family again and I'm alone here and I killed my family. I killed them and everyone thinks I'm crazy and I'm not, but I didn't mean to kill them. Maybe I hated my parents. Maybe I didn't like their rules. But I never meant to hurt them and I loved those girls."

"What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm tired of talking about it with you people. I'm tired of thinking about it. Why don't you just give me a lobotomy or some strong drugs and put me out of my misery."

"Why do you think you’re here, Roy?"

"Didn’t you hear me? Because I killed my family."

"Do you know where you are, Roy?"

"The Looney Bin."

"Why aren't you in jail?"

"Because they think my story is crazy. Because they don't hear anything that they can't fuckin' explain. I don't know. Maybe because my lawyer didn't want them to gas me."

"Do you know what year it is, Roy?"

"Another mental status exam. Every time I move to another hospital or another floor, or another lawyer wants me evaluated, I get one of these. I don't know; maybe it’s 1862 and I'm Napoleon. Maybe tomorrow I get to go to Cyprus or maybe you’re my long lost love. Maybe your pencil is a monster and the clock is a compass. And I can fly and I hate you and I hate this and there is no reason to care about this place or my treatment or you!"

Roy began to shake as his speech became more vehement. I found myself backing up slowly, but Cassie was unshaken. She moved in closer. "Alright," she said with a voice like a caress. "No mental status exam. What do you want to talk about?"

Roy spit on the floor. "Are you deaf? I don't want to talk." The tears returned to his eyes and he pushed himself up against the wall. A look of utter loss consumed him. I took my notes in a frantic attempt to draw attention away from myself. I felt unprepared to do this intake and was happy to let Cassie navigate the evaluation.

Cassie only smiled at him, “Why not? Do you have something else planned? Are you afraid?"

"I'm tired. You can't help me. I've already lost my soul."

"How did you lose your soul?"

"Stupid, aren't you? I killed my family."

"So there is no redemption for you? No therapy that can help."

"I sold my soul to the devil."

"What did you sell your soul for?"

"Nothing really. Just to see him. To feel powerful and different. Nothing."

"You don't think you can get it back? I could help you."

"It’s too late. He'll be comin' for me soon. He already took everyone I loved."

"So it was the devil that killed your family."

"No. I killed my family."

"Did the devil tell you to kill your family?"

"No, I summoned one of his legions."

"And he told you to kill your family."

"No."

"Why did you kill your family?"

There was only silence.

"Roy?"

Roy's eyes had fixated on the window. He had drawn his legs up to his chin again. "I told you I don't want to talk."

“I just want to help you, Roy. You aren’t going to be moved around anymore. No more lawyers. No more hospitals. This is it. This is home. Let me help you. Talk to me.”

She was met by silence. He turned and put his face in the corner. Cassie sat on the bed next to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. He moved away from her touch.

"Alright. We'll come back tomorrow."

Cassie gathered her papers up and touched Roy again, this time on his cheek, in a manner that was a little too intimate for my comfort. She smiled at him and he looked up at her as if she were the devil himself, ready to claim his prize.

“What do you think?" Cassie asked me.

"It’s funny how the nature of schizophrenia causes patients to focus on such religious dichotomies and fixate on things like the devil. It’s amazing how many people I've seen suffering from paranoid schizophrenia that have become obsessed with religion and sure the devil is after their soul in particular."

"Good and evil, the devil and God are a part of all of our collective unconscious. It isn’t particular to paranoid schizophrenics. We’re all afraid of those things in the shadows that we can’t see. It’s in every culture's mythology. Evil is always out there, in some form, seeking our souls. Crazy people just aren't as good at masking their fears."

"Crazy? Is that a DSM-IV diagnosis?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure it'll be in the DSM-V." Cassie laughed, flashing a particularly pretty smile.

"I'll be sure to put that in my next report."

"You don't question his diagnosis?" Cassie asked.

"Not at all. Even if I did, he’s been assessed by every psychiatrist and psychologist in the state of Alabama, and I doubt that you and I are the light in the darkness of false diagnoses, Cassie."

"He just seemed particularly lucid for a psychotic."

"Many psychotics have lucid moments, and he’s medicated."

Cassie shrugged. "You’re right. I should probably let you get back to your other work so you can get home on time."

"Thank you."

"Hey. Would you and your wife like to come over to dinner at my house next Friday?"

"Of course."

I thought about the invitation all day. In fact, it was all I could think about. It seemed very unlike Cassie. It was too normal. Ordinary colleagues invited each other over to potluck dinners and family night outs. They sat at chain restaurants with each other's spouses and talked about work and politics. They smiled across cocktails and sat in each other's living rooms laughing about particularly strange things that happened at work. Cassie wasn’t part of this culture. She dwelt in a society of her own. She was isolated and avoided staff luncheons and dinners out with the other psychologists of the team. She was an island and her invitations to me seemed like a strange ritual rather than any real reach for friendship. I enjoyed the ritual, but including Pria in it seemed disturbing.