The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (120 page)

“
Much, much worse.
”

“
What did he do that was worse?
”

“
He used to tie me up and then stick things up my rear end.
”

“Jesus! Why . . . why are you
dignifying
this? If Ray knew he was saying stuff like this, he’d—”

“
What kind of things, Mr. Birdsey?
”

“
Sharp things. Pencils. Screwdrivers. One time he took the handle of a carving knife and—
”

“All right, stop it! Stop that goddamned thing! I can’t—just
stop
it!” I lurched forward and stopped the fucker myself.

We both sat there, waiting for my breathing to calm down.

“Dominick?”

“
What?
”

“What your brother said has upset you very much. Hasn’t it?”

I laughed. “Oh, hell, no. Let’s see now. My mother used to get raped and we sat around and watched. Ray used to stick screwdrivers up his butt. This is real easy to listen to, Doc. Piece of cake.”

“Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

I turned and faced her. “What the fuck difference does it make what
I’m
feeling? I’m not the one having these sick, perverted—”

“You seem angry. Are you angry, Dominick?”

“Am I
ANGRY
? Yeah, you could say that. I’m fucking
FURIOUS,
okay?”

“Why?”

I could feel myself letting go into the rush of it—passing the point of no return. That’s the one thing I understood about Ray: that sometimes rage could feel as good as sex. Could be as welcome a release.

“Why am I
ANGRY
? I’ll tell you why I’m
ANGRY,
okay? Because right now I should be over on Gillette Street finishing a paint job I should have finished three
fucking
weeks ago. But where am I? I’m in a
fucking
maximum-security nuthouse listening to my
fucking fucked-up
brother talk about . . . about . . . and she says to me, ‘Why don’t you ever stop thinking about him and think about me, Dominick? Put
me
first instead of your brother.’ . . . Jesus fucking Christ! When is this shit going to—”

“Dominick? Who is ‘she,’ please?”

“Joy! My girlfriend! I’ve been carrying him on my shoulders my whole
fucking
life and she goes, ‘Why don’t you ever take care of me?’ Well, I’ll
tell
you why! I—”

“Dominick, please lower your voice. It’s very good for you to let out this anger, but why don’t you sit down and take a few deep breaths?”

“Why? What are deep breaths going to do? Make him less crazy? Make his fucking hand grow back?”

“It would just make you calm down a little and—”

“I don’t
want
to calm down! You asked me why I’m angry and now I’m telling you! Do you know what it’s
LIKE
? Do you have any
IDEA
? I’m fucking forty years old and I’m still—”

“Dominick, if you don’t lower your voice a little, the security staff will—”

“Other people go to the library and get
BOOKS,
right? Check out
BOOKS.
But not
my STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE BROTHER
! Not
HIM
! He goes to the library and cuts his fucking hand off for Jesus! And you want to know something? I got fucking
CONNIE CHUNG
calling me up! I got some stupid bloodsucker from New York wants to be his fucking
BOOKING
agent! And I can’t—”

“Dominick?”

“You want to know what it’s like for me?
Do
you? It’s like . . . it’s like . . . my brother has been an anchor on me my whole life. Pulling me down. Even
before
he got sick. Even
before
he goes and
loses
it in front of . . . An
anchor
! . . . And you know what I get? I get just enough rope to break the surface. To breathe. But I am never,
ever
going to. . . . You know what I used to think? I used to think that eventually—you know, sooner or later—I was going to get away from him. Cut the cord, you know? But here I am, forty years old and I’m still down at the nuthouse, running interference for my fucking . . . Treading water. It’s like . . . like . . . And I
hate
him sometimes. I do. I’ll admit it. I really hate him. But you know something? Here’s the
really
fucked-up part. Nobody
else
better say anything—nobody
else
better even look at him cross-eyed or I’ll
. . . And the thing is, I think I finally
get
it, you know? I finally
get
it.”

“Get what, Dominick?”

“That he’s my
curse.
My
anchor.
That I’m just going to tread water for the rest of my whole life. That he
is
my whole life! My fucking, fucked-up brother. I’m just going to tread water, just breathe . . . and that’s it. I’m
never
going to get away from him! Never!”

There was a knock on the door. “Not now, thank you,” Dr. Patel called out.

“The other day? Last week, it was? I went to the convenience store. My girlfriend says, ‘We’re out of milk, Dominick. Go get some milk.’ So I go to the convenience store and I put a gallon of milk on the counter and this clerk—this fat fuck with orange hair
and a pierced nose—he’s just . . . he was just
staring
at me like . . . like I’m . . .”

“Like you were what?”

“Like I’m
him
!
Thomas.
Which I . . . Which I probably
will
be before I’m through. I mean, we’re twins, right? It’s going to happen eventually, isn’t it?”

“What, exactly, do you think is going to happen, Dominick?”

“He’s going to pull me under. I’m going to drown.”

I did her stupid breathing exercises. Laced my fingers like she instructed and rested them on my belly. Filled my stomach with air like a balloon. Breathed out in a long, steady stream. In again. Out. It felt stupid, but I did it. And by the sixth or seventh breath, it worked. Calmed me down. Brought me back.

“It frightens you, doesn’t it, Dominick: the thought that you, too, could become mentally ill? How could it
not
have frightened you all these years? His brother? His twin?”

De-
fense!
De-
fense!

“It’s not like . . . Look, I’m not saying he
never
hit her. Ray. He did. It’s just—”

The office door banged open—so loudly and abruptly that the doc and I both jumped. “Jesus!” I snapped at Sheffer. “You ever hear of knocking?”

“At my own office door?” she shot back.

She threw a stack of files on her desk. Took in the tape recorder, the warning look I caught Dr. Patel giving her, the way I guess I must have looked right about then. Sheffer looked a little whipped herself.

Her hands went into the air, palms up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Give me a couple of minutes, will you? I just need to go to the ladies’ room for a second.”

After the door closed behind her, Dr. Patel asked me if I was all right.

I told her I’d live.

“Which do you want first?” Sheffer asked us. “The bad news or the good?”

“The bad,” I said and, simultaneously, Dr. Patel said, “The good.”

Sheffer said the probate judge had decided to drop the criminal charge against my brother. The weapon thing. The bad news—
potentially
bad, anyway
—
was that Thomas had been released to the custody of the Psychiatric Security Review Board.

“The law-and-order guys, right?” I said. “The ones that want to lock up everyone and throw away the key?”

“Not everyone, Domenico. But the headline-grabbers do tend to have a built-in disadvantage.” She looked over at Dr. Patel. “In
my
opinion, anyway.”

“But Lisa,” Dr. Patel said, “Mr. Birdsey’s case is quite different from some of the other high-profile cases that have come before the Board. There’s no criminal charge, no victim.”

“Arguable,” Sheffer said. “The other people in the library that day were terrified, right? Afraid for their safety? Doesn’t that make
them
victims? They could argue that.”

I thought of Mrs. Fenneck’s appearance at my front door—that librarian telling me how she hadn’t been able to eat or sleep since. “
Who
could argue it?” I said.

“The Review Board. Or how about this: that Thomas was both perpetrator
and
victim. They could say they need to commit him long term to keep him safe from himself. Which may be a perfectly valid point. The weird part—the thing that worries me, frankly—is that they’ve already scheduled his hearing. Know when it is? The thirty-first.”

“The thirty-first of
October
?” Dr. Patel said.

Sheffer nodded. “Trick or treat, kids.”

“But that’s next week, Lisa,” Patel said. “His medication will have barely had time to stabilize him by then. He’ll have been back on his neuroleptics less than three weeks.”

“Not to mention that the fifteen-day observation period will be up
that day.
”

“Ridiculous,” Dr. Patel said. “How are they proposing to use our recommendations if we don’t even have time to observe him and write them up?”

Sheffer said the judge wouldn’t even
listen
to her argument about postponement. “Ironic, isn’t it?” she said. “I’m usually complaining about how
in
efficient the judicial system is, but in this case, it’s the efficiency that scares me. Why are they being so
expedient
?”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “If this is some kind of bag job—if they’re trying to rush this through so they can sentence him to this rathole for another whole year—I’m going to raise holy hell.”

“You know, Domenico,” Sheffer said. “Hatch might
be
the most appropriate place for Thomas. Or it might
not
be. That’s the point: it’s just too soon to call it. But I’ll be honest with you: if you show up at the hearing ‘raising holy hell,’ that may just be your best shot at getting him out of here. At least it’ll make a statement: that he’s got family that cares. That his family might be willing to shoulder some of the responsibility. They might hear that, if you put it right. It all depends.”

“Depends on what?”

She looked over at Dr. Patel. “I don’t know. On politics, maybe. On who—if anyone—might be pulling from the opposite direction.”

When I got up to go, Dr. Patel asked me if I’d wait for a minute while she returned the tape recorder to her office. She’d see me to the front entrance, she said. She’d only be a minute.

Sheffer went over to her filing cabinet. She was wearing a tan suit and little matching high heels. Dressed up like that, she looked even
more
like a pip-squeak.

“Where’s your sneakers?” I asked her.

“Excuse me?”

“Your high-tops. I almost didn’t recognize you in your lady lawyer disguise.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve gotta dress the part for these conservative judges. Nothing wilder than Sandra Day O’Connor. You see the lengths I go to?”

“I’m starting to,” I said. Caught her eye. “Thanks.”

“I just hope it works,” she said. “Rough session today?”

“What?”

“Your brother’s session? You looked a little shell-shocked when I barged in here. Which I apologize for, by the way.”

I shrugged. Looked away from her. “No problem,” I mumbled.

When Dr. Patel returned, she took my arm and walked me back through Hatch’s liver-colored corridors. Past the guard station, up to the metal detector at the front entrance. Under the halogen glare, her gold and tangerine–colored sari was almost too much to take.

“It was difficult for you today,” she said. Gave my arm a squeeze. “And yet, I hope, productive.”

I told her I was sorry.

“Yes? Sorry for what, Dominick?”

“For losing it. For screaming. All those four-letter words I was letting rip back there.”

She shook her head vigorously. “Your reactions—your insights—have been very helpful to me, Dominick. Perhaps they’ll prove crucial in the long run. One never knows. I think, however, that we should discontinue the practice of having you listen to the tapes of your brother’s sessions.”

“
Why?
I thought you said it helped.”

“It does. But one brother’s treatment should not put another brother at risk.”

“Look, if I can help him . . . I
want
to help him. If you can learn things.”

She reached for my hand. Squeezed it. “I learned something very useful today,” she said.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I learned that there are
two
young men lost in the woods. Not one. Two.”

She gave me one of those half-smiles of hers—one of those noncommittal jobs. “I may never find one of the young men,” she said. “He has been gone so long. The odds, I’m afraid, may be against it. But as for the other, I may have better luck. The other young man may be calling me.”