Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Things We Did to Make Up for Who We Were

     I ran my hand across the smooth metal bars on the window, trying to remember what it was to be new. 

     The gothic October sky had darkened hours ago and it would soon be time. In the little window above my desk I could make out the abandoned shops and streets. All the people were gone and I didn't blame them. I'd have been scared, too. From above, I could see a drunkard stop and talk to two young girls on our front stoop, then stumble away. 

     It was a small, brick building with no distinguishable features besides its barred windows and the sign above the door, thick with dust, which read "Old Street Asylum." You could barely make out the broken letters beneath the aging grime.

     As I moved my line of vision away from the bar I saw that the two girls out front were conjoined. Freaks, they would call them here. They liked freaks here. Would they come inside? Would they end up like us? Everyone deserved to feel the way we did. Everyone was just as crazy. 

     The lights began to go out in the halls and a guard would be coming around soon to check that we were all in bed. We weren't allowed to have locking doors for fear of what we might do. It took the suffocation away, at least. There were times when I stayed up talking to the walls, talking to the shadows, talking to anything that moved. That’s why when I first heard about the ceremony, I was intrigued, all for it. 

     When my hands dripped blood I had been throwing myself toward anything that would justify this new life; I wanted to have a constant reminder that this would be my home for a long time. I tried to make myself feel like it would be all okay. Even though it never would be. But it was only a defect of the brain that made me felt the yearning, not the dark hallways of the building or the coldness of the bars. Those were not cause for alarm to me.

     Soon enough, the guard outside would be dozing off to the noises in his headphones. I would be free to go. Not that there were many places to go without being totally horrified.

     I snuck around the corner and into the shadows. It was always important to remain in the dark. Never be seen, never be known. The rest would join from their respective corners like spiders coming to the center of a communal web.

     There were exactly fourteen corners to turn. Six flights of stairs down. A heavy door with chipping paint marked “Do Not Enter at Any Cost.” It was written in thick paint that had faded with time. It was the cellar to nowhere and everyone knew there were ghosts of forgotten patients there. Whatever, every asylum had one of those. But it took time, cunning, to try to find it. I remember the first time I saw it. Stitch had led me down blindfolded and we went down to begin the initiation. It was just us then.

     I made my way down the thin, wooden steps into the darkness. My tiptoes made no noise, there was no creaking. At the bottom I stood in complete darkness but could imagine everything around me. The large boxes of paperwork, the files strewn about, the chains of cobwebs that were a foot thick on every wall. I lingered for a minute, enjoying the privacy, then lit a match. It sparked and quivered. I knocked softly on the wooden rail two times. From somewhere in the darkness a voice whispered, “Come in.”

     Dean sat cross-legged, rocking back and forth. I didn’t know how long he had been there. It would have been useless asking him, anyway, since he never spoke. Except those two words. He thought he was a living dead. And looking at him, you would have believed it.

     He was a scrawny kid with a pallid face and bony arms. His large, black eyes hovered over the flame. I sat down next to him.

     “Wonder what this one’ll be like,” I said.

     The match went out and we sat for a few minutes in the stillness. I was terrified of mostly everything, so this place was like an eerie home to me. Fear was familiar. It reminded me of a past life. Of course it bothered me that I could hear low noises from the corners like voices, distant snickers. But it kept me alive, not numb.

     A soft light appeared from above. The door was opening, then closing. It was time.

     Moments later, we heard the two knocks.

     “Wait for it,” I said.

     Then two more. Stitch was bringing the new patient. The initiation was about to begin.

     “Come in.”

     Two small flames shot up from the darkness. Stitch was holding two red lighters in his hands and gave them to Dean to hold so that we could see.

     In the light you could see his large, hardened face. He had thick cheeks with scars running down the lengths of them. That was how he had gotten his nickname. No one really knew what had happened to him that he needed that many stitches, or better yet, what he had done to deserve them. He had been there longer than any of us.

     “What are you lookin’ at, Ash-Face?” he said to Dean, who was driving his gaze into him. Dean was a starer. It made Stitch uncomfortable, angry, enraged. He once had to be taken away for a few days for punching holes into the wall because Dean “wouldn’t stop looking at him.” We never knew where they had taken him. I didn’t want to know.

     Well, Dean got the hint this time and looked away, back into the flame. 

     “That’s what I thought. Now, gentlemen, today is a special day. We have a new guest here in our charming, loving home. In order to be an approved member, our new friend, Alex, here has to undergo the rituals. Alex, do you want to proceed with our dastardly ceremony?”

     “I do,” answered a deep voice in the darkness.

     “Then step into the light.”

     I heard Alex shuffle to pull off the blindfold Stitch had tied, probably very tightly. Then a face lit up in our small circle. I had expected a boy shaking with fear and a look of intense concern. A look that asked when he would see his family again.

     But instead, I saw the sunken gray eyes of a strong and wounded creature. Shoulder-length curls the color of old rust shimmered in the soft glow. This Alex was a young girl, maybe seventeen, who looked as if she hadn’t slept in months; a girl who didn’t mind being strapped into the funeral gear of this place, the dingy blue uniforms without pockets we were to wear. She was awfully beautiful, in a dark, dangerous way.

     She caught my eyes for a brief second and looked at me as if to say, “What is it you want from me?”

     “Alex, the first step of the process is to unleash all your demons unto us. Please list, in broad strokes, why you are joining us here today.”

     “Murder. Theft. Thought crime. Incurable sickness of the mind.”

     Suddenly, I found myself whispering, “LIAR.” 

     “What was that, Sargeant? You think you know everything? You know the rules, no speaking during initiation. You’re just as messed up and it ain’t no secret.”

     “Look at her, Stitch. She didn’t kill anyone. She’s just a kid.”

     Dean was staring into me. I didn’t know what I believed but I didn’t want to believe that I loved a murderer. 

     Alex laughed and her smile was wild.

     “He’s right, you know, Stitch. I’m sorry and all. I couldn’t kill if I tried.”

     “So you are a liar?”

     “A compulsive liar.”

     “A compulsive liar,” he repeated. 

     I thought he would rip the lighters out of Dean’s hands right then and shove them in her face. I thought he’d smash his fists into her small skull and we’d have to watch the brains ooze out.

     But instead, he said, “I like it. Demons freed. Good. Now it’s time to take the oath.”

     The oath was like a spell. It was an incantation to the ghosts and spirits of the asylum, to have them watch over you so that none of the workers would harm you or experiment on you. After it was said, Stitch took out the small piece of plastic knife he carried around in his shoe. It was just a few inches of the tip, the serrated edge.

     “Give yourself over to us,” he said, “and place the blood of your hands into the flame so that its smoke lingers here with the airy essence of the spirits and you are not forgotten.”

     Weird, right? God, I loved that part.

     And she did it. She took the half of the plastic knife that had been steaming in Stitch’s shoe all day and dug it into her palms. First the left, then the right. A few drops of blood trickled down and Dean caught them in the flames of the lighters.

     Then, she was no longer new. She was just as settled in with the demons as we all were. I caught the last curl of her smile before the dim light flickered and went out and we stood once again in darkness.

2 comments:

  1. Nice,
    You have a knack for the abstract. I like the way it goes. Interesting story.

    ReplyDelete