The Rasner Effect (7 page)

“She hates me.”

“She hates you?”

“I hate her, too.”

“Why does she hate you?”

Clara’s head dropped with shame. “I guess it’s kind of my fault.”

“You’re okay in here, Clara, you can talk to me,” Rick said softly, thinking about Janet on the other side of the barrier. “Why does she hate you?”

“My first day here, I got mad and OD’ed on her,” Clara said just as softly. Did she worry someone was listening? That perhaps there was a tape recorder somewhere? “I did it in front of everyone in the cafeteria, but she screamed at me first for not standing in line to get lunch.”

“What exactly did you do?” Rick asked, not entirely sure the meaning of her terminology.

“I called her an ugly dyke who needed to get some…from a
man
.”

Rick stifled a grin. “That’s not very nice.”

“Everyone knows it. It’s not like a big secret or nothing.”

“I assume that didn’t go over very well.” Rick’s statement of the obvious brought a hopeless laugh out of Clara.

“I really hate that bitch!”

“How did you end up in here in the first place?” The urge to take notes hit him but he erased it. She’d opened up a little; he didn’t want to take chances with her.

“My behavior in school. Then I made a mistake.”

“What sort of mistake?”

“I stole something and got caught. I was taken away from my grandmother because the family workers and my school said she was too old to look after me. I’d lived with her since I was six, since my father went to prison.”

“What did he go in for?”

“They said he killed someone,” Clara answered with little shock or emotion in her voice. “He was in jail before…when I was really little, but this time he’s not ever coming out.”

“What about your mother?”

“I don’t want to talk about her,” Clara snapped.

“Okay, another time. So, what happened when they took you from your grandmother?”

“The workers watched me in my bedroom while I packed.” A tear ran down Clara’s left cheek. She swiped at it with the back of her hand. “I threw whatever I could fit in a backpack and,” she pulled in a breath, “then they walked me out of my own home.”

“Where did they take you?”

“To a group home. The girls were bad, really bad. I was the youngest one there and they didn’t like me at all. The few who didn’t try to fight me or rob me were gay and wanted to have sex with me. They all kept taking my stuff.”

“What about the adults running the place?”

Clara snorted. “They didn’t give a shit. So long as they got their check…”

Rick leaned across his desk, putting his weight on his elbows. She looked at him now, curious more than anything. Probably assessing whether he believed her stories.

“I have a mark right here,” Clara jabbed an index finger at the side of her head just above her left ear, “where a girl slammed me against the living room wall. The worker walked out of the room when it happened. She said something about not getting paid enough to break up fights.”

From where he sat, Rick peered at the side of her head. If there was a mark, it was covered by her thick black hair. She saw him peering at her but didn’t lift the hair out of the way.

Rick was experiencing great sympathy for this girl, a familiarity with her he didn’t understand. Had she somehow triggered a long-buried memory in him? If so, what sort of recollection could be triggered by such a violent story? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he would have to discuss this with Doctor Obenchain.

He shifted back to her story. “So what happened?”

“One of the girls said she was gonna kill me for spilling soda on her jacket. She said she was gonna come to my room that night and kill me while I slept.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I knew she was for real ’cause none of my roommates were around.” She shrugged. “I don’t know where they all went, they just weren’t around. I had to protect myself, so I stole a knife from the kitchen. I waited for her by my door and when it opened…” Clara stopped mid-sentence and looked up at Rick. Her eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch and he realized he’d been listening with amazement.

He prompted her to continue. “So?”

“It wasn’t her. It was Miss Wesson. She worked there in the evenings, and she was coming to check on me, to make sure I was okay. She was the only one there I liked, I didn’t want to hurt her…but I did.”

“Did you kill her?”

Clara shook her head hard. “She didn’t die. But she went to the hospital. They sent me here the next day.” She spread her hands wide. “Now, this is where I am.”

Rick did not respond; frankly, he wasn’t sure how to respond.

Finally, Clara let him off the hook. “I’m ready to go back to class.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, once I stop being angry, I’m usually okay for a while.”

Rick pushed back his chair and stood up. Clara stood also and allowed him to lead her out the door where they found their path blocked by Katherine Miller. She stood like a brick wall, her arms folded and an annoyed expression on her face. Hefner stood behind her, a soldier following her commander. Officer James stood nearby, his arms folded across his chest. Clara rolled her eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“I understand Clara was disrupting Mister Royal’s classroom again,” Miller growled.

“Everything’s fine now,” Rick offered, wondering how she could enunciate with her teeth ground together that way.

Miller let off a sarcastic, “Hah.” Then, “I will not have a patient in this institution wasting my staff’s time and energy. If she wishes to waste our time, she can waste it until tomorrow morning in Seclusion.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” Rick began, when suddenly Clara took a step back, anger shooting from every pore.

“I am not going into fucking seclusion again! I hate it there!” Clara attempted to dart past the group of adults, but the very large Officer James snatched her by the collar. Despite her struggles, the huge officer only needed one yank to drop her to the floor. His massive hand on her stomach kept Clara’s body pressed against the hard floor. She was trapped like a turtle flipped over on its shell.

“If you’re going to wild-out, you’re best off just going,” Hefner said, but Clara was too busy with futile attempts to get away from the large guard.

“You should not be offering options. This is not a discussion.” Miller chastised her head of security. “Get Doctor Barnes out here, immediately!”

Hefner removed a walkie-talkie from her belt and spoke into it. “Doctor Barnes, we have a Code Four out here. We need an IM injection and a jacket right away!”

“No! You’re not drugging me!” Clara screamed, managing to pound a closed fist into Officer James’s nose. Her skinny body slithered away from him but Hefner quickly grabbed her arm, allowing Officer James to regain control.

The door near the office swung open and the short Asian man with his white lab coat and thick-framed glasses ran toward them. He clutched a large syringe filled with clear liquid in his left hand. In his right, he carried a straightjacket, its myriad straps dragging like party streamers. He looked very serious as he approached the thrashing girl. Just as the doctor bent over her, Clara caught Rick’s eye. The look of sorrow she threw nearly broke his heart.

Hefner stooped and took hold of Clara’s right arm, stretched it out straight, and knelt on it with her knee. The Doctor stabbed the needle in Clara’s flesh, making contact with a vein despite the girl’s squirming. He pressed the plunger with his thumb.

Her struggles slowed. Suddenly, the whole hallway spun in slow motion. Rick felt as though he were on a carousel on a foggy day. Round and round he went. He squeezed his eyes shut and open several times, but the fog remained. Once again, Clara’s eyes met his.
Help
, they seemed to cry. But he was as helpless as if the sedative flowed into his own arm.

Clara’s struggles ceased. Hefner tied her into the straightjacket. Officer James lifted her by the loops on the jacket and dragged her into the Seclusion room. Rick opened his mouth to dispute the treatment, but he was sorely outnumbered. Now was not the time to protest.

Hefner closed the door and locked it. Hefner and James took off in the opposite directions. Rick confronted Miss Miller. “I had her all calmed down. She was ready to go back to class.”

“That’s a problem child who thinks she can run this facility!” Miller pointed a finger in Rick’s face as she screamed. “I run this institution, not these children!”

“I understand, but she was calm.”

“On top of everything else, I am required to run a school within these walls and I will not have her disrupting my classes. If a child chooses to be disruptive, we take care of it. Do you understand how that works or must I tell you again how to do your job?”

Miller stood in place, waiting for a response. Rick could just about see steam coming out her ears. Even though she was slightly smaller, his posture brought them eye to eye.

“I understand,” he answered, despite his emotions.

“Good!”

Miller spun on a heel and strode toward the office. On the way, she peeked into the seclusion room through the window. Rick could hear no sound from inside. Apparently, everything met with her approval because she nodded and continued her militant march down the hallway.

Chapter Six

Monday morning, Jake Scarberry stepped into the frat house living room. They’d really been at it this time and trashed the place. Clothes, including underwear, decorated the floor and furniture. A purple T-shirt swung from the slowly revolving ceiling fan. Beer cans and bottles littered every surface. Balled-up bottle wrappers had been made into spitballs and shot at the ceiling. It’d take a week to get them all cleaned off. What had he done to deserve this?

He flung open the broom closet. Might as well get to work. Maybe the noise would wake all the still-sleeping frat-boys. On the floor beside the vacuum was a life-sized blow-up doll. She had blonde hair, a pink cupie doll smile, and a blue polka dot bikini. He reached out to move it, bracing a hand on the vacuum handle. What was that? His fingers came away covered in slime. He sniffed it—petroleum jelly. Jake gave his hands an irritated swipe on a rag hanging from a shelf. That’s when he noticed the note gripped between the doll’s hands—
had fun last night, thanks for the blow
. Sure, it was humorous, but the vacuum was going to require major cleaning before he could use it.

He snatched the sign and stormed across the room, anger swelling like mumps before he reached the Fraternity President’s door. It was the only bedroom on this floor. He banged on the door. No sound. He pounded again…and again…until an annoyed grunt came from inside.

“Open the door!” Jake shouted in a voice that echoed throughout the frat house.

Several moments later, the knob turned. The door opened a crack.

“Glen, we gotta talk.”

“Yo, man, I was…”

Jake jammed a toe in the crack of the door. “Now!”

Glen opened the door. He wore just boxers, in a colorful psychedelic pattern that hurt Jake’s eyes. Glen raked his fingers through his tousled hair, then brushed a forearm across bloodshot eyes. “Charlie, what’s the matter, dude?” Glen asked around a yawn. “It’s early. We had a huge beer bash last night. It was so awes—”

Jake shoved the sign into Glen’s chest. “Is that when you guys fucked with my cleaning supplies?”

Glen squinted at the paper, realized it was upside down, and flipped it so he could read it. Then he frowned, pushed around Jake, and padded barefoot to the broom closet. “Hmm,” was his only response as he examined the doll and vacuum.

“I have three houses to clean today, but now I have to spend hours cleaning off that goop before I can use the damned thing!”

Glen straightened up and shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you, Charlie? We’re in college. We like to have fun. Can’t you just laugh it off?”

“Look.” Jake wondered why he was rationalizing with a kid more than half his age and hung over. “I laughed it off when you guys plastic-wrapped the toilet seats during Homecoming and I had to clean piss and shit off the floor for a week.”

Glen wasn’t able to suppress a smile.

“I laughed it off when you guys replaced all the glass cleaner with paint. It cost hundreds of dollars to replace the window—out of my paycheck, by the way!” Jake truly hated dealing with these kids. He sucked in a breath and got hold of his emotions. “I even let it go when you used my maintenance cart as a chariot for Greek week and I came in on Monday to find three wheels missing.”

“Yeah, it was a hell of a year.” Glen’s grin widened.

Jake wanted to shake the kid. “Point is…how much crap are you and your buddies going to put me through? I work my ass off for the few lousy dollars your school pays to keep you from living in even more of a pig-sty than this place already is.” Jake waved his arm in a wide arc that encompassed the rest of the house. He realized his voice sounded like pleading and took another breath.

Glen folded his hands, outstretching two fingers, and leaned his chin against them. Did he think he looked
presidential
? Jake wished he could slap away the attitude. Goddamn rich kids.

“We definitely appreciate what you do here, dude,” Glen said, “but hey, we’re just having fun, and we’re not really hurting no one, right?”

Lightening the mood with levity was a tactic Jake had seen him use whenever his fraternity brothers had conflicts. With kids Glen’s age, the tactic almost always worked. It wouldn’t work on Jake.

“It sounds like your answer to this whole problem is I need to lighten up. Is that what I’m getting here?”

“Well, yeah. Or at least, can you spaz out about it, like, around noon?”

This wasn’t getting anywhere. Jake gave a quick glance around. The rest of the brothers remained in their bedrooms, all doors closed. They were alone.

“Can’t we just see this as ‘boys will be boys’?” Glen offered. He turned back toward his room.

Jake slammed his right shoulder and elbow into the young man, pinning him to the wall.

“Wha…”

Jake was more than six inches taller and much wider, a fact he used to his advantage as he pushed against the Fraternity President’s chest. “Yeah, boys will be boys. But it’s better to be a man. Or at least live to see manhood, you know what I mean?”