Concrete Underground (2010) (34 page)

"Is this really happening," I groan in the theater, "or is it another dream?

---

Amy pulled her car into the Oak Hill Psychiatric Center visitor lot. On her way into the building, she flashed her
Morning-Star
press credentials to the guard at the front desk. She was met by a blonde doctor in her early forties waiting in the lobby.

"Amy Thompson?" the doctor asked with a smile.

"Yes," Amy answered and shook the woman's hand.

"I'm Dr. Sara Soderquist. Pleased to meet you," she replied warmly, letting her gaze linger momentarily as she looked Amy over, appreciating the way her tight ribbed sweater clung to her curves. Noticing this, Amy started to fidget ostentatiously with her engagement ring.

Sara continued as she led Amy to the elevators, "I hope you didn't have too much trouble finding us up here. It's quite a drive from the city."

"Not at all, a nice scenic drive through the mountains was actually a welcome change. My car was in the shop for a week and a half, and I was stuck taking public transportation."

The elevator door opened and the two women entered. Sara pushed the button for the third floor, then replied, "Ah, I actually used to know the city's transit system pretty well. I took the Light Rail every day back when I was going to State - one transfer, 40 minutes to campus and 40 minutes back. At least it gave me a chance to catch up on my reading, so it wasn't all bad - once I learned to deal with all the crazies talking to themselves and pervs staring down my top." She chuckled and laid a hand gently on Amy's forearm.

The elevator arrived. Amy shifted uncomfortably, but tried to hide it with an indulgent smile. "Anyways, I'm sure you're busy so we can just get right down to it."

"Of course," Sara said. "He's right up here."

She led her down a long hallway lined with heavy metal doors leading into patients' rooms, finally stopping in front of one marked
33
. It had no window, but a small closed-circuit monitor was mounted on the wall beside it, displaying a blue-tinted video feed of the room's interior.

It was small but clean and sparsely furnished with one bed, a small wooden table in the corner, and a matching wooden chair. A stack of notebooks was piled neatly on top of the table.

A man sat on the edge of the bed staring out a window in the far wall. He had long black unkempt hair and a thick black beard, both streaked with hints of early gray.

"When we spoke over the phone you seemed to already know a bit about him," Sara said, "but I'll just give you a quick run down of the basics."

Amy nodded while pulling out her phone and switching on the voice recorder function.

Sara continued, "He was arrested twenty-three years ago. The police found him in a motel room with a dead prostitute in his bed; he had broken her neck. Upon subsequent psychiatric evaluation, it was determined that he was suffering from a number of severe mental disorders. I won't bore you with the jargon, you can pull what you need from the file. Suffice it to say he had almost no grasp on reality in any meaningful sense of the word. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed into psychiatric care. He's been with us ever since."

Amy nodded along to Sara's explanation, typing notes onto her phone's keyboard while the recorder kept rolling. "So how does the Highwater Society fit into all this?"

"Before his arrest, he had been the recipient of a grant from the Highwater Society. In his illness, he convinced himself that somehow they had him framed for the murder, like it was some nefarious conspiracy - the details of which were always vague and inconsistent from one day to the next. The irony is that the Highwater Society have been his only real benefactors. They've paid for him to stay and be treated here so that he actually had a shot at recovery rather than rotting away in County."

"And now he's cured?" Amy prompted.

"'Cured' isn't really an accurate term." Sara corrected. "His illness has been successfully treated to the point where we're confident that he is no longer a danger to himself or others."

"But you're releasing him," Amy pressed.

"Yes," Sara said with a nod. "He's ready to start re-assimilating into the outside world."

Amy looked back at the screen. The man had stood up and moved over to the table. He was rearranging the notebooks, his movements slow and deliberate, stacking and restacking.

"What can you tell me about the play?" Amy asked, keeping her eyes on the man.

"From what I understand, this is the play he was writing at the time of his arrest, the one that the Highwater Society originally gave him the grant for. It's also very powerfully linked to his illness; when he began to lose his grip on reality, he gradually integrated aspects of the play into his delusions. It was as if he had lost the ability to distinguish between reality and his own fictional inventions. In my personal opinion, I don't think the Highwater Society's plan to go ahead with staging the play is the best thing for him, especially so soon after his release, but I guess they own the work now so it's their right to do what they want with it."

"Is he going to see it?"

Sara shrugged. "You'll have to ask him."

Amy watched as the man finally finished organizing the notebooks into six meticulous little stacks of perfectly-matched height, stood back and surveyed them momentarily, and decided he was satisfied. There was something familiar about him, although she couldn't quite place it.

Then he - meaning I - turned and smiled at the camera. A chill ran down her spine as she thought to herself,
It looks like he's smiling right at me, as if somehow he can see me through the screen.

---

Amy sat down on the footlocker and turned her phone's recorder back on. I sat across from her on the wooden chair and rubbed my hands together slowly, enjoying the sound of the rough, dry skin.

"So, Mr. Quetzal, are you happy to be finally going home?"

I thought the question over for a second and sucked on my teeth. "I've been living in this room for over two decades. From what I understand, the place where I was living before this has been bulldozed and turned into a parking garage. So I wouldn't quite say I'm 'going home' - but yes."

"Where are you going to live after you're released?" she asked.

"My sister's coming to get me," I answered. "I'll be staying with her until I can get back on my feet."

She hesitated momentarily, trying to make it seem like she didn't really want to ask the next question. "Do you believe you've been cured?"

"I'm not sure that 'cured' is the right word," I replied. "But I realize now how sick I was. I'm much less confused than I used to be."

"So you no longer believe that the Highwater Society or anyone else tried to frame you or is conspiring against you?" she pressed.

I shook my head. "I know that no one else is to blame for the things that have happened in my life."

"You know, you sound like you're reading from a script," she said, leaning forward as if to examine me more closely. "You're saying all the right things, but there's no conviction in your voice."

I shrugged dismissively and let my eyes wander off to look back to the stacks of notebooks on the table beside me.

She followed my gaze. "What's up with the notebooks?"

"They're nothing really, just gibberish. I write for the sake of writing; it's therapeutic. But they're not intended for others to read, so I doubt they would make much sense to you."

"Do you feel the same way about your play? How do you feel that it's actually going to be performed?"

I smiled - a big, toothy grin that Amy found profoundly unsettling.

"I think it'll be good for a laugh."

40. What's So Funny?

Jenny lived in a chic loft atop a west side high rise. The main room consisted of a single large open space with the living room, dining room, and kitchen all flowing into one another. As we walked in, I noticed a package wrapped with shiny blue paper and a silver ribbon sitting on the buffet table behind the couch. Jenny smiled broadly when she saw me looking at it.

"Welcome home, D," she said.

I walked over to the table and sat my small suitcase beside it while I inspected the box. I picked it up and tested its weight; it was fairly light for its size. "Open it," she urged.

"After dinner," I said. "I need to clean up and settle in first."

"Bathroom's down the hall on the left. Your room's the second door on the right. I'll put your bag in it," she said as she snatched the suitcase from my hands. I started to protest, but decided she was on too much of a roll fussing over me. "Wow, this thing is really heavy," she commented as she lugged it out of the room.

I circled around the couch and picked the TV remote off the coffee table. There were no buttons on it, just a touch screen. I tapped the screen a couple times, but nothing happened. Then I felt around the edges and found a small black button. I pressed it, and two bottom panels butterflied out from under the accursed thing, presenting a full keyboard. Disheartened, I gave up. It felt like I had gone through a time warp or something; they didn't really keep the patients up to date on the latest technological advances in the nut house.

"Here, let me help you," Jenny said as she returned. She took the control from my hands, slid the keyboard panels back into it, and swiped her fingers across the touch screen deftly. The TV came to life; a news anchor was rambling on about some new war we had got ourselves into.

"What's with all the notebooks in your suitcase?" Jenny asked.

"You snoop too much," I replied. She laughed.

"Are the clothes you're wearing the only ones you have?" I nodded my head in response. "Okay, we'll go find you some new ones first thing in the morning. I already told the office I'd be working from home for a while so we could spend some time together. Anyways, I left a couple of towels and some sweats by the sink in the bathroom in case you want to take a shower while I get dinner ready. But we can watch a little TV first if you want."

"No," I said, glancing back at the images of soldiers marching through piles of disembodied chunks of human. "A shower sounds like the right call."

I picked up the remote and tried to turn the TV off by imitating Jenny's earlier finger movements, but I only succeeded in turning the volume up. "Here let me," she said as she took it from me again and turned it off.

"Fucking hell," I mumbled as I headed off down the hallway.

---

I felt out of it. Too much was happening too fast, too much newness to take in all at once. Retreating into the tight, enclosed space of the bathroom was a relief. I kept the light switched off and enjoyed the peaceful darkness.

I stared into the mirror, mesmerized by my own reflection, which I saw more clearly as my eyes adjusted to the dark. It had been years since I looked into one, and to be honest I was a little surprised by what I saw. I had aged a lot more than I expected, and I'd never really got used to all the scars and bumps I'd picked up before being locked away.

I ran my fingers over the unfamiliar terrain of my face and started to laugh.

As my laugh died down, I saw my reflection begin to frown, and it asked me, "What's so funny?"

---

I returned from the shower wearing a Yeah Yeah Yeahs reunion tour t-shirt and a pair of gray sweat pants. Both were a little too big for me. I found that the table had already been set for three places for dinner. Jenny was on the couch, and when she turned to see me, her jaw dropped.

I had shaved, and not just my beard - I had also taken the razor to my head and eyebrows. With my pasty, barren cranium, I looked like Bowie in
The Man Who Fell to Earth
.

"It looks... good," she offered. After a pause, she added, "And by good I mean creepy."

The sound of a buzzer rang out, and Jenny reached over to pick up the TV remote. The bottom of the screen displayed the word
INTERCOM
. "Come on up," she said aloud and tapped the the remote.
INTERCOM
flashed red and vanished from the screen as a the buzz sounded again.

"I hope you don't mind some company for dinner," she said as she jumped up and ran to the dinner table. She uncorked the bottle of red wine that was sitting out and filled all three glasses.

When the front door opened a minute later and I recognized the visitor, I let out a boisterous laugh.

"Tricky Nicky!" I exclaimed.

He grinned as he walked over and held out his hand. "Whatever," I scoffed and knocked his hand away, then gave him a hug.

"How the hell have you been man? You look good." I said.

"You look like a Hare Krishna," he replied with a chuckle.

"How're Andrea and the kids?" I asked.

"Actually, we've have been separated for about seven years now. She and the kids live in Arizona," he responded.

"Sorry to hear." I patted his shoulder, then looked from him to Jenny, who was smiling a bit awkwardly. Then I looked down at the men's clothes I was wearing that Jenny just happened to have lying around. "Oh man, you're fucking my sister aren't you?"

---

Jenny and Nick spent most of dinner catching me up on what I had missed over the last couple decades - what they'd been through in their own lives, what happened to old friends and family, stuff like that. I just soaked it all in, enjoying the taste of a home-cooked meal and savoring the half-glass of wine Jenny allowed me.

"So, D, what are your plans now?" Nick asked as he finished the last bite of his steak.

"Watch some TV, probably take a shit, then go to bed," I replied. "Maybe rub one out before I fall asleep."

Jenny nearly choked on her mouthful of wine, but Nick just laughed. "Same old D," he said. "You know what I meant, though. If you want, I can help you find some work. Just let me know what you're interested in."

"I don't think D would do very well in a nine-to-five," Jenny objected. "He's a writer who's days away from seeing his first play produced. Who knows what kind of opportunities he'll have after that?"