A Splitting Of The Mind

From the first moment I laid eyes upon him, I decided I liked him. That was saying something, because I don’t much like anyone. I can’t afford to like or trust anyone. Not anymore.

He slunk in one morning, head down, eyes x-raying the floor, shoulders tense and overall trying to look like he didn’t exist. I saw him appear in the doorway and quickly slip into the armchair Magda pointed out to him. He didn’t look around or make a noise or speak. He just sat there, as straight as he could in the sagging cushions of the blue and white striped armchair. He clasped his hands together tightly and placed them carefully on his lap, the thumbs facing the ceiling. A moment later his hands unclasped and one hand flew to his mouth where he began gnawing on a fingernail. Then, as though realising the full extent of his habit, he removed his fingers from his mouth and reclasped his hands back in his lap. Then he began to twiddle his thumbs instead. My eyes drifted away from the distracting hands and to his face. God, he was young. Too young to be in a place like this. He must be pretty fucked up. His face was pale, like it had been cast in moonlight. I twisted my head to check his eyes. His face may have looked like moonlight, but there were definitely no stars in his eyes. They were hazel, I could tell. I couldn’t see. But I didn’t need to see. I just knew. He had the whole ‘poor baby’ thing going too, but, to his credit, he wasn’t exploiting it. On my first days I would’ve killed to have the “poor little victim baby” thing going.

A shout of laughter rippled through the room and he jumped. Scared, he cautiously looked up only to find everyone fixated on the stupid television. He took a quick glance around the room, assuming everyone was watching the television. I wasn’t. I was still watching him. I focused on his lips now. Straightaway I could tell that those lips had touched another person and was disappointed. But there was no love on his face. There were no remnants of who had kissed him in his eyes or mouth or soul. He had hidden the memory of them inside of him and that distinctly annoyed me. If people hide things, then they have to actually look to find them. It’s okay if you lose them, or misplace them, or put them somewhere else, you can still stumble across them. Just like your first kiss. If it was a good memory, don’t try and hide it somewhere – just put it somewhere. If you hide it, you’ll never just stumble across it. But, if you forget it or misplace it, you never know when it might come back. You never know when it’ll pop up in your subconscious and give you a nice surprise. But if it’s a bad kiss, you try to forget and lose the memory so you’ll never stumble across it again. It’s quite sad actually when people forget to lose a memory and are haunted by it for the rest of their lives. But the brain is not just like a filing system, or a big tunnel with two exits saying ‘keep’ or ‘chuck’. You can’t physically file your memories; you don’t actually get to decide which ones you lose for good or which ones you simply misplace. I’m the only one who knows this, so, naturally, I know how to do it. If I’m really bored and Jasper is not here I sort through the week’s memories and file them, but a lot of the time I just let them go, it’s no big deal once you’ve cracked the secret. Though I bet if anyone else did it would be groundbreaking. Imagine being able to lose memories of a tragic childhood incidence or forget all the deaths you’ve witnessed. Think of how much a doctor or an ambulance officer would give to be able to forget things like that.

So, that’s how all memories work. Don’t ask me how I know – I just know. And now you know, so if I hear of a groundbreaking new study about memories I’ll know. I’ll even understand if you don’t credit me. After all, I’m just a teenage kid and that doesn’t give me much credibility, does it?

Back to the new kid. He’s taken up staring at the TV now, instead of his lap. I hate that TV! Doesn’t anyone realise how easily that box kills your brain cells? Annoyed, I ground my teeth together so hard Ben turned around.

“That’s not a good idea now, is it?” he said in his annoyingly calm, orderly way.

I purposely rolled my eyes and ceased the grinding. I don’t want to be here. I hated TV time. They think that we’re all so interested in who gets voted off American Idol. Who cares? Half of them can’t sing anyway. My money’s on the chick, and I don’t even watch the show. She’s gonna win though, I knew it. I shuffled in my armchair so my back is resting against one padded arm and my legs are propped over the other. Another ripple of laughter courses the room and I glanced at the television, wondering what was

so

funny about

American Idol. Only, it’s not Idol that on but some crap TV sitcom. Holy shit! Quick! I need something to gouge my eyes out with and deafen myself with before too much of this stupidity seeps into my brain. Somebody must’ve changed the channel because now that I think about it, I don’t recall the sounds of American Idol at all this session. I must be slipping. How could I let such a little observation slip past me? Oh yeah, it was the arrival of that new kid. The one with messy, once-styled black hair. I could still smell the gel he used to use in it. Yeah, of course he’s washed it since he came here, but, like I said, I know stuff. And I know he used to gel his hair.

There is a quiet click but to my ears it is so loud because I have been awaiting it all day. The TV is off! Hallelujah!

“Lunchtime!” said Magda in an overly cheery voice, beaming at us all.

I moaned and purposely took my time unhooking my legs from the arms of the chair. I desperately hoped Ben didn’t decide to wait for me. However, he’s not waiting for me but instead for the new little black haired kid who was sitting trying to look as inconspicuous as possible in his armchair. He offered a hand to the kid to pull him out of the chair. The black-haired kid learnt the hard way how difficult it is to extract yourself from the cushions of that particular chair. It swallows you in; sucks your arse in the base of the chair. I chuckled as he gripped the arm and tried to haul himself out.

“Here, let me help. Can I touch your arm?” Ben asked carefully, his hand still extended and quite close to the boy’s.

The little victim shook his head violently and retracted his hands, terrified, clutching them close into his body, staring up at Ben like he was threatening him. Ben holds up his hands hastily, indicating no contest.

I raised an eyebrow to myself and passed Ben on my way to the door. I paused, my back facing the two and shook my head slowly. I turned back around to face them both, smirking.

“What are you smirking at, Gerard?” Ben snapped, watching the kid and looking defeated.

I raised a finger to indicate patience then began to slowly undo the tie around my neck. Slowly, systematically, and carefully I undid it, preferring to reverse every step rather than loosen it. I took it off my neck and dangled it in front of the kid’s chair. He’s watching me with such intense scrutiny I’m quite affronted. If I was mocking him, he would know, and would not have to resort to attempting to read me. He finally decided my intentions were pure, or whatever; he just finally took the loop of the tie I held out to him. In one swift motion I hauled him out onto his feet. He staggered for a bit but I didn’t move to steady him. He didn’t want anyone to touch him. I had to respect that. If he fell and cracked his head, I wouldn’t touch him. If it was against his wishes to be touched, then I wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t that hard to comprehend.

Once out of the chair he was steadily going bright red. I let go of the tie and it fell, slack, in his hands. He bundled it up and held it out to me. I shook my head and made my way to lunch; I was hungry, after all.

“Well, good morning, Gerard!” Inside I cringed, but outside I sent the lunch lady one of my most dashing smiles as I picked up my tray. I ignored her persistent attempts for me to converse with her and made my way to my table. Yes it was my table. Nobody sits at my table without my permission.No one.

I glanced down at my chicken noodle soup. Lucky this time it’s not alphabet soup. Otherwise I can guarantee Ray will announce he can see a message in it. Maybe that’s why they stopped serving any dish with letters. I had a customary moment of silence for the loss of alphabet soup off the menu before carefully unwrapping my plastic spoon. I held it firmly because I definitely didn’t want to drop it. Then I would have to get another spoon. And I didn’t particularly want to do that.

“Hey! Ben, Madga, Suzie! Quick, come look at this!” Ray’s voice rang through the cafeteria. I snorted as Ray backed away from his noodles carefully. “Look, it’s a message!” I knew I could count of Ray to find messages in anything. I just hope they didn’t take noodles off the menu altogether now as well. I quite liked the noodles. Once I had finished I stared at the bowl, at the last dregs of little white worms, wondering where

they would go and which ocean they would end up in. I pulled my sketch book out of the inside pocket of my jacket and opened it on the table. I took out my pencil and touched the end to my tongue before pressing it to the page. There wasn’t exactly any artistic reasoning behind that. Just a habit really. I started to sketch the new black haired kid. He was very drawable. He had the perfectly chiselled features and uncaptured beauty of a model, of my next model. I didn’t draw his body. I wanted to get the contours exactly right. They had to be just right. Getting them wrong would be disastrous. But he was rugged up, as we all were, in jackets, scarves and long track pants. I wasn’t cold; I only wore the jacket because they made me. I preferred my black button up formal shirt with a tie. But that was only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You see, only on days starting with a T could I wear a Tie. On the other days I stuck to hoodies. They’re pretty good with clothes in this place. You get to wear whatever you want, within reason. I mean, they’re not gonna let a manic depressive wear a tie and leave him alone in the bathroom are they? But they trust me. They know I’m not going to kill myself anytime soon. I still haven’t cracked the meaning of life, and they know that.

“Uh, hi.”

My head seems to move very mechanically. It’s quite amusing actually. I glanced straight up at the new black haired kid. The one with the sad eyes and tragically kissed lips. I grunted and looked back down. I stopped scratching with my pencil for a second and heard the heavy, terrified breathing of the kid and felt a pang of sympathy. I wondered which orderly had suggested he talk to me. Probably Ben. I glanced over at Ben. He was watching me. Yep, Ben put him up to it. The only problem was: Why? Sure, I mean, if a kid wants to talk to me, fine. I’m not gonna talk back, but I’m not gonna kick him in the crotch and laugh when he rolls on the floor in pain.“Can I sit? Please?”

I nodded and he perched himself on the end of the seat opposite me. He just stared at the ground. Then he leapt back up and scurried away. Bemused, I went back to my drawing. A few moments later he comes back and sits back down. He stayed this time and watched me draw until an orderly approached and spoke to him. She left and he followed her. I wondered where he was going. The next thing on the stupid schedule was showers, and that wasn’t for an hour at least. I saw Ben approaching me and as he passed me I hear him murmur, “Thank you, Gerard, for not being an ass.”

I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the session. Why was Ben thankful I wasn’t an ass to the new kid? Why was it so imperative that I was anything but an ass to that kid? Was I gonna get extra pudding after dinner?

At the showers I waited until last, as always. Of course, in here, the showers can’t be enclosed, there are too many kids on suicide watch, so it’s just semi enclosed. I didn’t care what they called it. I shower alone

and they let me mostly. I crossed my legs as I sat on the benches waiting for the last person to finish and file out.

“In you go, Gerard,” Ben called.

I looked at him with a face of confusion. He knew I went last. I always went last. Last meant that twerp of a new kid had to go before me, otherwise I wouldn’t be last. I shrugged, remaining defiant.

“Everyone’s gone,” he said. “You’re last.”

I frowned and glanced in the showers myself. Sure enough. It was empty. Where did that new kid get to then? I certainly hadn’t seen him in there. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a reason why the new kid had to shower separately. I was washing myself, only really putting in a half hearted effort when Ben interrupted me. I went bright red but he ignored my apparent lack of clothing and leant on one of the walls separating the showers.

“I need to ask a favour,” Ben said, in a very serious tone. You see that’s not normal. He’s usually very easy going and light hearted but now he wasn’t. I switched off the shower, giving him my full attention. Anything to get myself a leg up in this place. He held out a towel and I wrapped it around my waist and stood watching him, waiting.

Ahhh, his name was Frank. Interesting. I nodded affirmatively.

“We all thought he would be petrified of you when he saw you.” Ben chuckled at my offended face. “But he’s not that scared, something we’re all very surprised about, considering the reason he’s in here. No, I can’t tell you. That’s personal. But we’d rather he’d hang around with you, rather than Ray or any of the other guys, okay? He’s still scared of you, but at least he’s attempting to make friends.” At that I took a step forward and shook my head violently in protest. I didn’t want friends. I didn’t need friends. I would not make a friend out of this kid. Ben looked saddened. “You don’t have to be his friend, Gerard,” he said angrily. “As much as it would help him, if you simply can’t do a simple thing like that, don’t bother.” Ashamed, I downcast my eyes. “You’re really are as cold as they say, aren’t you?” Without waiting for an answer he squared his jaw and marched out.

Yes, I am that cold. People like me can’t have friends. People like me can’t let people get in close. People like me don’t need friends. Just think of what would happen if I had friends. Doesn’t he realise how fatal that would be to me? I watched him leave, feeling as guilty as shit. As I left the shower I made it my personal mission to find out what it was that landed Frank in here with me

I was expecting a whole number of things other than what I found when I broke into the records room. I found his file easily and skimmed over it. All the medical stuff wasn’t really of any interest to me because it didn’t really tell me why he was in here. It told me what was wrong with him. He had some form of trauma induced social phobia and mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder, to put it simply. I dug deeper into his file determined to find out what that trauma was. I read a police report, a therapists report and a psychological evaluation from his psychiatrist. From just the words of a few cold hearted professionals I managed to piece together (whilst also assuming a lot of things) the last tragic six months of his life.

Turns out he had been befriended by two boys, or men, both in their early twenties, the eldest being 23, nine years older than Frank was at the time. The two boys gave him a sense of reprieve from his normal social outcast life. They took him under their wing and introduced him to a whirlwind world of drugs and violence. The sex, however, came later when they both raped him in the eldest boy’s car. Then, as though nothing had happened they sent him home, promising to see him the next day. The next morning when they saw him again, they did it again. Then they both took off; they had gotten what they wanted. Frank was too scared and ashamed to tell anyone because he believed it was his fault, as most rape victims do. He thought he couldn’t tell anyone because they wouldn’t believe him because he thought boys can’t be raped. He kept it inside for months where it festered. He became fanatical with the fact that he was ‘dirty’ and developed the need to wash all the time. It got worse and worse, until his parents began to notice. I felt a surge of hatred toward Frank’s parents. They must have been completely ignorant to not notice their son having multiple showers and that he was afraid to interact with

other human beings. They confronted him and he had a complete breakdown. They, unintentionally, made him realise the full extent of what had happened.

He thought it was ridiculously ironic that the one thing his parents were completely against had occurred and he began laughing. His laughter soon morphed into an insane, hysterical laughter. He retreated from society, afraid that everyone was out to hurt him. Once in the hospital the laughter dissolved into an uncontrollable rage, and then into hysterical weeping. Everyone was afraid he had lost his mind and he was forced into therapy where they discovered he had been sexually assaulted. When the therapy proved pointless, considering his mental state, he was admitted into a minimum security mental institution. It was in here that they hoped he could begin to actually get better. All that and they weren’t actually sure of how suicidal he currently was and they didn’t want to risk anything. With parents so rich I thought they had taken the easy, coward’s way out by committing their son to a mental institution. But they were the kind of people that considered because they lived in such high society, it would be socially unacceptable to have a son who’d been raped and who’d had a mental breakdown. Hell, they even had to come to grips with the fact that their son had had sex (as unwilling as it was) with a man!

As I stacked his folder away I felt a real sick feeling develop in my stomach. The kid had a point – no one really thinks boys or men could be raped. I just couldn’t understand why he would want to talk to me. I understood why Ben thought Frank would be scared of me – I was close to the age of the two rapists. But I couldn’t push the feeling that there was something more too why he spoke to me this morning. I left the office and shut the door, unable to push the nauseous feeling from my stomach. Poor kid, now I knew why he had such sad eyes and why there was no love on his face. I was right too (actually, when am I not?) – his lips did tell of a tragedy.

I felt consumingly guilty when I saw Frank the next morning. I had slept badly; my thoughts were plagued with what had happened to Frank. I thought about it so much I almost forgot about the people who were after me. It seemed for once I had something else to stress over, instead of my usual problems.

During breakfast I sat, playing mindlessly with my food. I had cornflakes and spent the entire session prodding them with my spoon trying to make them stay

under the surface. After the pitiful serving of milk had as reduced my cornflakes to a mere yellow soggy mess I pulled my sketch pad back out. I was now more determined than ever to finish my picture of Frank. I had just started when Ben called my name and I reluctantly packed my book away and followed him to the weekly group therapy session they forced us all to attend. We pulled our uncomfortable plastic chairs into a circle and sat, watching each other carefully. Ben, I noticed, sat right next to Frank. I scored a seat directly opposite Frank. Our therapy leader was a shrink called Dr. Markman. She was nice but she never let up on asking us ‘how do you feel about that’?

“Welcome,” Markman said pleasantly, “to our newest group member, Frank.” There was a murmur of hellos that strongly reminded me of an alcoholic’s anonymous meeting. Markman decided to leave Frank alone for a while and began on Ray, asking him how he thought he had been over the last week.

I tuned out of Ray’s rant. I’d heard his last message already. Ray was convinced some higher being was sending him messages. He also took the liberty of repeating every message to me. But with Ray, you hear one message and you’ve heard them all. They were all the same really, just different wordings. I sat silently, staring unobviously at Frank who was in turn staring at Ray a look of mild distaste and incredulity on his face. He glanced at me but I flicked my gaze away before he could confirm that I really was staring at him.

We went around the circle and as it came to my turn I shook my head and pretended to become intensely interested in my fingernails. So, as usual, I was skipped and we were forced to endure Lisa’s emotional recount of the week. After she finished Markman jumped to Frank. He glanced up and shot her an imploring look.

“How was your first week, Frank?” she asked, looking too attentive for my liking. Frank shrugged non-committedly. “Come on,” she prompted.

“It was shit!” he snarled, shocking me. “I shouldn’t be here.”

Markman was surprised but also slightly pleased. Obviously, she was glad to be getting some emotional response from Frank. “Now, Frank.”

“Everyone is so weird. They actually have things wrong with them! I’m not sick. I’m fine. I want to get out of here. You need to tell my parents I’m fine!”

“Hey!” Ray cried. “You are too weird! You take, like, three showers a day, for hours at a time. You won’t touch anyone and no one’s allowed to touch you. And you wear makeup. That’s weird in itself!”

“I can’t help needing to shower!” Frank exploded, standing up. “You don’t know what it’s like. You can’t even begin to understand!” Frank sat back down heavily and hid his face in his hands.

I felt the nauseous feeling in my stomach increase tenfold and felt my heart begin to beat very wildly. As I stared at Frank I felt an overwhelming sensation flood my body. It seemed to run through my veins and caused tingling in my digits. The excess of blood made me feel slightly light-headed. But inside I felt this strange thing. The only way I could describe it was that it was like a strange wave of something cascading through my body. It was a feeling, an emotion, but I didn’t think I had ever felt it before. It was unusual, and I hated it when I didn’t know what was going on. The fact that it was occurring in my own body made me considerably more anxious.

“It’s okay, Frank, we can talk about it later, privately,” Markman said.

Frank surprised us all even more by starting to laugh. “You think we can just talk about it?” he said incredulously. “I can’t just talk about it and expect it to get better.” He turned to Ray. “You wanna know why I shower for hours all the time? Because I feel dirty. I am dirty!”

I didn’t like Frank speaking about himself like that. I wanted to slap him and tell him to stop speaking like that but I couldn’t. It was too much of a risk. I just couldn’t. The great wave inside of me was brewing to a dangerous level and was threatening to break.

“No matter how much I shower I still feel dirty! I can scrub my body until its red raw and let the water run over me for hours but nothing works. I’m so dirty. Inside and out. I can’t get clean!” Frank was becoming very hysterical now.

Markman was pondering. I, however, was stressing and felt close to a heart attack. This strange feeling engulfing my body was so foreign and it was sending unfamiliar thoughts into my head which were going

straight to my tongue. I had to cover my mouth. Not because I was shocked but because I was scared of what I was going to blurt out.

“Shhh, Frank, its okay. We don’t have to talk about it here. Calm down, its okay.” Markman was trying to regain control of the situation.

“So dirty! And so ugly! I am ugly. What was I thinking? Who would ever want to hang out with a loser like me?”

Markman sat forward, intensely interested. “You’re feeling betrayed, Frank?”

Everyone else in the group was bewildered. They didn’t know why Frank felt dirty. But I did, and for once, I wished I was as ignorant as them. I wished I didn’t know. I so desperately wished I was as unaware as them.

“Yes, I feel fucking betrayed!” Frank screamed. “I was so fucking ugly in the first place and now I’m worse! No one will ever be able to love me. Don’t you see? I just want to get clean!”

My breathing was becoming impaired now. Frank was crouched on the floor, sobbing quietly. Ben was at a loss and for once, so was Markman. The great wave inside of me had swelled to a size of dangerous proportions. I uncrossed my legs and sat forward in my seat, sweat running down my back. I knew I shouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it, but my heart was screaming at me, screaming louder than the protests in my head. The room was silent, bar Frank’s quiet sobbing. My palms were sweating and the room was becoming unbearably hot. My throat was constricting. I felt like I was trapped in a tiny room with a thousand bouncy balls that were making the room a source of frenzied activity. Except the tiny room was my head and the balls were words and thoughts and warnings. Half of the balls were telling – no, screaming at – me to shut the hell up and relax. They were telling me it wasn’t worth it. Discovery was a much worse fate than the negative thoughts of a kid I barely knew. But then again, the other half was begging me to open my mouth and say it. I leant forward realising that what I was about to do could potentially be my downfall. And that was scaring me shitless.

“I don’t think you’re ugly. I think you’re beautiful.” Inside, the wave crashed. The words sounded better in my head than they did when I spoke them. And I seriously was regretting them. Not what I said. I believed completely what I said. I was just realising maybe it was a mistake to speak at all. There was a bang and a collective gasp echoed through the circle. Then the silence deepened to an eerie level. I glanced at Ben. He was on the ground. He had fallen off his chair in shock. That’s what the bang was. And, yes, I mean literally. Ben, literally, fell off his chair and was currently sitting on the floor staring at me with a look of complete and utter shock etched across his face. Markman was a little more dignified but I could tell she too was close to falling off her chair.

“Gerard?” she said in a hushed tone.

I was only vaguely aware of all this going on around me. My eyes and ears

were on Frank. He was staring up at me too, but not in shock and he wasnt staring at me as though I had sprouted a dinosaur head on my shoulder. He was staring up at me with sad eyes that, I noticed, sparkled a tiny little bit.

I suddenly didn’t regret the words anymore.

“Gerard?” The shock in her voice was undisguised.

I turned to face Markman. She probably had so many questions she was dying to ask. Those words, the ones I had spoken to Frank, were, after all, the first words I had ever spoken in therapy. That was the first time I had spoken over two years. I had broken my silence for Frank. Just because I already knew Frank was beautiful. And I knew that it was my responsibility, even under threat of discovery, to ensure that of all people, Frank

had

to be the main person who knew and understood that.