We Are Monsters (10 page)

“Fuck
off
? That's not very ladylike. How about we fuck
you
, instead?” Laughter erupted from the car as it drove away, spraying loose gravel in its wake.

Squinting, Angela surveyed her surroundings. She was in the parking lot of a bar. It was nearly empty; just a few cars remained. The neon sign above the door was dark. The bar was closed. Angela vaguely remembered being there earlier. She had been drinking with Stacy. And then… She couldn't remember.

Her purse was beside her. So was her underwear, crumpled in a ball. She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, then dialed Stacy. Stacy picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, cowgirl. Where are you?”

Angela groaned. “Back at the bar.” Her voice sounded deep and gravelly. “I don't know what happened. I'm here, and I'm all alone.”

Stacy sighed. “Shit. Are you okay? Do you need a ride?”

“I don't know. I mean—” Angela began to cry. She grabbed a handful of hair and pulled. “Can you come get me? I'm all alone.”

“Yes. I'll be right there.” There was a pause. Then, “Jesus, Angela. Why do you always do this?”

“I don't know.” Angela grabbed her underwear and lurched to her feet. She brushed pebbles of gravel from the backside of her legs.

“No,” Stacy sighed. “You never do.”

Chapter Seventeen

Alex saw Eli walk through the restaurant entrance. He took a small sip of water and stood. “Here he is,” he said, looking at Rachel, then at Jerry. “You okay?” he asked his brother.

Jerry winked. “Better than ever.” It had been just over a week since Alex had administered the medicine, and Jerry was almost unrecognizable. His eyes were clear and focused. His clothes were clean, his hair trimmed and neatly combed. His face had filled out from the weight he had gained. And his wide smile reflected the charm that had been absent since adolescence. “Like a new man,” he said.

“More like your old self,” Rachel said, a smile brightening her face. She hadn't been able to shed it since the procedure.

Alex caught Eli's wandering eye and waved.

Eli nodded and started walking their way.

“I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but—” Alex said quietly to the table.

“Don't worry. We won't say a word,” Jerry said.

Rachel pantomimed locking her lips and tossing the key.

Eli came up behind Rachel and squeezed her shoulders, then he turned and shook Alex's hand. But his eyes were on Jerry the whole time. He stepped towards him with an outstretched hand. “Hi, Jerry,” he said. “It's great to see you.”

Jerry hesitated. For a moment his eyes lost focus and he appeared confused. His mouth sagged open.

Alex and Rachel exchanged a concerned look.

Then Jerry smiled and took Eli's hand. He pulled him into a hug. “Sorry, just messing with you. It's great to see you too.” He released Eli and held him at arm's length, gazing into his eyes. “Clearly, I think, for the first time.”

Eli turned and looked at Alex in wonder. “You weren't kidding. His recovery is…” he searched his mind for the word, “…well, it's encouraging, to say the least.”

“Oh pooh! It's a miracle,” Rachel said.

Alex shot her a look.

She averted her eyes and took a long sip of water.

“Here, let's sit down,” Alex said. They all took their seats around the circular table, Eli and Rachel sitting between Alex and Jerry. The waiter came, and they ordered drinks. Only Rachel ordered wine.

“So,” Eli said, addressing Jerry, “how are you feeling? I mean, you look fantastic.”

“That about sums up how I feel.” He motioned across the table towards Alex. “Thanks to my bookworm brother over here.”

They all laughed. Laughter had come easier for Alex these last few days. “Watch it, jock,” he said, and they laughed harder still.

The laughter subsided and the table became quiet. Eli's smile switched off like a light. He turned to Alex and said, “So, how did you do it? From what you've said, and what I'm seeing, this is more than simply a suppression of symptoms. There's been a complete transformation.”

Alex leaned forward and crossed his arms. His eyes fixated on an invisible spot in the center of the table. A crease of concentration formed between his brows. “It was the meds, Eli. I know that's not what you want to hear, but…” he trailed off and shrugged, “…it came down to prescribing Jerry the right medication.”

“Which was what? Put my prejudice against certain pharmaceuticals aside. If we can achieve these kinds of results, I'll be happy to prescribe the same treatment to all our patients.”

Alex saw Rachel's head turn towards him, and he resisted the urge to reciprocate the stare. The buzz of background conversation grew louder as he considered the safest response. The murmuring noise resembled the frenetic scramble of a psychotic mind.

“I'll let you in on the secret,” Jerry said, and all eyes shifted towards him. “Although, I'm not sure if it's available for public consumption.”

Alex pinched his lips and tried to silence Jerry with his eyes.

Jerry gave him a discreet wink, then flashed a smile at Eli. “It's Rachel's home cooking. A few days of good ole-fashioned comfort food from the kitchen of my sister-in-law will set any man straight.”

Alex's laughter was strained, but it blended in with the others'. “Well then, Rachel,” Eli said. “Looks like we'll need to find you a position in our kitchen.”

“Sure, we can talk terms later,” Rachel said. “But, I'll need for people to sign a release form on pasta night. My
arrabbiata
can set off a fire alarm.”

Jerry made a sizzling sound, then gulped down his glass of water while fanning his face.

The waiter returned as their laughter faded, and they placed their food orders. For Alex, it was a welcome respite.

He was considering ways to redirect the conversation, when Eli spoke, “So, Jerry, I certainly hope you plan to rejoin the grounds crew at Sugar Hill. We'd love to have you back.”

Jerry leaned back and crossed his legs, clasping his hands around his right knee. “Well, you know I appreciate the offer, Dr. Alpert, but…” He uncrossed his legs and leaned his arms against the table, then sat back and crossed them once more, then leaned forward again. His face turned red and his eyes began to roam. “I mean, if you need me there, I guess I can, but—”

Alex straightened. “You okay, Jerry?”

Jerry stopped fidgeting. He pressed his palms flat against the table, as though suppressing his distress. His body slowly relaxed; his face lost its flush. “Yes. Yes, sorry, I'm fine. It's just…well, I'm not sure how safe it would be for me to go back.” He attempted a smile and failed. His eyes showed fear. “I think I might have made an enemy on my way out.”

Eli frowned. “With who?”

“I'd rather not say.” Jerry took a drink of water and began crunching an ice cube. “Anyway, it's history. I'd rather focus on the future.” He turned and looked at Eli.

There was something strange about his eyes. The pupils. One appeared more dilated than the other.

“It sure beats worrying about the past, wouldn't you say?”

Eli leaned forward to get a better look into Jerry's eyes, but was interrupted by table service. A staff of waiters had arrived with their plates.

“Who ordered sirloin?” The waiter was a young Vietnamese man. He was wearing grey kitchen rags that resembled army fatigues. He looked young. Too young to be working at a restaurant like this.

“Over here,” Eli said and raised his hand.

The server walked over. When he saw Eli his eyes narrowed, and his lips pulled back in a sneer. He circled behind Eli's seat and bent over his shoulder, brushing against him as he placed the plate on top of the table. He lingered for a moment, then turned his head towards Eli. “Enjoy, sir,” he said into Eli's ear, quietly, just barely as perceptible as a resonance of wind. His breath was overwhelming, however. It reeked of death.

Eli stiffened. He grabbed a fork and clenched it in his fist. “Thank you,” he said, shying away from the face that was far too close. He locked eyes with the server, just a couple of inches away from his own, and recalled with total clarity the night from the raid on the Vietcong encampment.

“No, sir. It is you whom I should thank.” The server's eyes were still locked on Eli's. His lips still pulled back in a knowing sneer. He reached into the pocket of his waistband and pulled something out. The table light caught the edge of a serrated blade.

Eli gasped and threw himself backwards, nearly toppling the chair. It screeched against the tiled floor. He was starting to turn and stand when the server reached out and removed Eli's table knife, calmly setting the steak knife in its place.

“Whoa,” Alex said. “Everything okay, Eli?”

Eli was panting. The white-knuckled hand clutching the fork was trembling. He attempted to swallow, but the saliva caught in his throat.

“Sorry, sir,” the server said and began laughing, his lips stretching wider to reveal small, gleaming teeth. He grabbed the knife and pantomimed slicing meat. “For your steak, sir.” He pointed the blade at Eli and wagged it back and forth in the air, staring with eyes that Eli could never forget. Innocent eyes filled with a mixture of hatred, supplication and fear. “Don't worry. It's already dead.” He continued his stilted laughter while pleading through his haunted eyes, the others at the table joining in as though in on the joke. Then he returned the knife to the table and stood back so the other servers could deliver the remaining dinner plates.

Eli's wide eyes remained pinned to the Vietnamese boy, as he scooted his chair back to the table. The young man Sergeant Wagner had forced him to kill.

Jerry leaned towards Eli, pretending to whisper with a raised voice that could be heard by the entire table. “I appreciate the gesture, sir, but it's not necessary.”

Eli arched his eyebrows as though creating a question mark.

“You don't need to try quite so hard to make me feel comfortable.” Jerry put on the face of a schizophrenic shying from the shadows of imaginary men. He stopped and smiled. “That's all behind me now.” He glanced at Alex. “I hope.”

“Right. Just a bit jumpy, I guess,” Eli said, still clutching the fork in his fist. “I haven't been sleeping very well.” He loosened his grip and set the fork down on the table. He used his napkin to pat beads of sweat from his upper lip and chin. “So,” he said, his voice wavering ever so slightly, all the blood having drained from his face. “What were we talking about?”

“Nothing,” Jerry said. “Just the people from our past.” His gaze lingered on Eli. His pupils had returned to their normal size. “And the fact that they can't hurt us anymore.”

Alex raised a glass to toast with. “To the future,” he said.

Eli's water rippled as he raised his, and he cringed as the glasses clinked together. “To the future,” he forced himself to say before grabbing the knife and slicing into his steak, grimacing as the juices ran red.

Chapter Eighteen

It struck Eli the moment he turned off the lights. Panic. Thrusting him into a private world of faceless fear, a suffocating state of certainty that insanity was descending. Darkness came crashing down upon him like a coffin door, but his body was the crypt—a claustrophobic box in which he'd be buried forever. He turned the lamp back on, but it didn't help. The enemy had arrived and it wasn't deterred by light. The enemy resided within his mind.

Eli threw aside the sheets, clutching them in his hands as he writhed against the flash of searing fear.
Breathe,
he thought.
Breathe, breathe, just breathe.

But his breath came in shallow gasps as his mind braced against the pending descent into insanity.
Breathe, just breathe!
He opened his eyes in hopes that the familiar setting of his room would soothe him. Instead, it all appeared foreign. Worthless artifacts collected while creating a life that had led him to this.
I've made too many mistakes,
he thought.
They can never be undone. They are me. I am thee.
His bowels loosened and he raced to the bathroom.

There, the tremors began, causing him to shake as though freezing. When he finished with the toilet he stumbled back to the bedroom and collapsed into his reading chair, pulling a throw blanket up over his naked chest. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. But the ghosts lived in the darkness, and they were restless. Tonight, they had come to haunt.

Miranda's face bloomed in his mind, filling the entire field of his inner eye. It was all that he could see. He threw open his eyes, and yet she remained, her image imprinted on the lenses within.

Ghosts are real.
Eli groaned and swiped a damp hand across his sweaty face.
They're memories. And they stay with you for eternity.
The thought made him dry heave.

The orderlies had her cornered, huddled against the wall of her room like a trapped animal. Eli was waiting behind, forcing himself to remain calm and allow her to be taken. “The stronger the medicine, the harsher its taste”, Dr. Francis was fond of saying, and he was standing just outside the doorway.

“Please don't!” she screamed, but Eli blocked out her pleas, focusing his attention on the task at hand.

The orderlies yanked her to her feet, wrenching her arms behind her back and forcing her forward.

“No! Please! Please don't!” she cried, her long, unkempt hair covering her face, eyes streaming tears, strings of saliva stretched wide.

In his mind's eye she looked deranged. But she also just looked scared.

Eli visited with her afterwards. She was depleted, docile. Restful, actually. The therapy seemed to have worked. They were getting somewhere.

“How are you feeling?”

Her eyes fluttered, a smile flittered across her face. She stretched her arms overhead like a contented kitten and purred. “Tingly,” she said.

“Emotionally. Tell me what you're feeling.”

“Hmmm. Well, I've been thinking about my sister. She's younger. Just by a couple of years. Her name's Susan, but we call her Suzie. She's never had much luck with boys. She's…not all that pretty. But she's sweet. She's my Sweet Little Suzie.”

Eli's instinct was to smile, but his training told him to shield his emotions. Silence is the breeding ground for sharing.

“I teased her growing up,” she said, and her face grew somber; her eyes began searching the distance for something unseen. “I was ashamed of her looks, that we were related. Like it was a reflection on me. That her ugliness was a blight on our bloodline. Something I needed to distance myself from.

“And then she was always so shy. So insecure. Like she couldn't stand up for herself. And she didn't have any friends, while I was always real popular. It embarrassed me, so I teased her. So people wouldn't associate me with her. It protected me. Or my image, rather.

“But at home, when we were alone together, we would sometimes talk, or play a game, or do each other's hair or makeup, and it seemed to make her so happy I felt like I was doing something good. Like I was doing her a favor. Like I was compensating for the times when I teased her. That maybe it all balanced out.

“But then the next day at school I would ignore her or call her names if we crossed paths in the hall, and it would start all over again. It was a cycle that I finally grew out of when I went to college. Just sibling rivalry, I figured. All a part of growing up.

“We're friends now, but there's still this bit of distance between us. I always thought it was because she's so shy. And insecure. She still doesn't do well with boys. But I've come to realize that I'm the reason she's so insecure and shy. That, by teasing her, I made her that way. If I had accepted her, so would have everyone else at school. But when I rejected her, she never had a chance. She never had anyone to turn to, no one to validate her, to lift her up, to boost her confidence. I was the one person she should have been able to rely on, and I let her down the most.

“She has every reason in the world to hate me, but she doesn't. She loves me. Maybe more than anyone else in the world. And it gets me thinking about how I used to define beauty, and I realize I had it all wrong.”

Eli wanted to take her hand and hold it, but he busied himself with his notebook instead. “So you used to fixate more on outer appearances, and now you see the value in one's inner character.”

Miranda rubbed the back of her neck; she said it was tender from the convulsions induced by the electric shocks. “Now I see how I've been a shitty sister, and that I'm responsible for my sister's struggles in life, and I just want to get out of here and be with her and see if we can start over. See if I can help undo the damage I've already done.”

Eli wanted to sign her release forms and help facilitate the reconciliation with her sister. Instead, he crossed his arms and scowled. “The best thing you can do for your sister is get yourself well.”

Miranda pulled her long, tangled hair into a ponytail. There were red blotches, on the undersides of her arms, that weren't there a week ago. “I don't know how else I can say it. I'm not sick.”

Eli didn't think she was. “That's for Dr. Francis to decide.”

When her husband visited the following week, Miranda attacked him, raking her claws across his cheeks and pummeling the back of his head with her fists. He had presented her with divorce papers, citing insanity as grounds. He was smiling when they pulled Miranda off of him, even though his lips were bleeding and his teeth were etched in red. Her display was apt to save him a lot of money in alimony. He still made a point to personally admonish Dr. Francis for the poor prognosis.

“She's worse off than when I brought her in,” he said. “Surely she's in no condition to be released.”

“We'll make the necessary corrections,” Dr. Francis assured him. He immediately prescribed the maximum-strength antipsychotic and switched her treatment from electrotherapy to the submersion tanks.

Eli escorted her back to her room after the first session. He held her lightly by the arm as she shuffled her slippered feet across the linoleum floor. Her hair was still damp and it clung to her pallid face. Water pattered down the back of her gown, dripping to the floor. She was shivering as she laced her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“It's not so bad,” Miranda said.

She had gone calmly into the tub. It wasn't until they strapped her into the seat and the water began to rise that she had begun to struggle. But she had settled down again once she became submerged. Her eyes had remained open the whole time; tiny bubbles had percolated from her right nostril as she stared up at Dr. Francis, her hair fanned out like a halo of seaweed. She had smiled right before her breath ran out. Then she'd begun to strain, holding on for as long as possible, rocking against the straps, mouth pursed tight until she couldn't hold her breath any longer. And then her mouth had burst open in an explosion of bubbles. Her chest had heaved three times before she became still and the orderlies rushed in to release her.

“Dying, I mean,” she said.

Eli felt conspicuous with Miranda's head resting against his shoulder. He shrugged it off and wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her steady. He had started to question the purpose of Dr. Francis's treatment programs, but remained silent and let Miranda speak.

“I mean that's all that life is, isn't it? Dying. One day at a time. And if there's such a thing as reincarnation, it's not just one day of death that our soul must endure, but an eternity of it. So, in a way, this has prepared me for the rest of my eternal life, which I plan to spend dying.” She inhaled, and water rattled in her lungs. “Fortunately, it's not so bad.”

She tried to pull him onto her bed when he lowered her down, and pouted when he resisted. “Please? I don't want to be alone right now,” she said. Her blue eyes were bloodshot. Her lips were pale and speckled with white flakes of chapped skin. “Just hold me.”

Eli closed the door and sat on the bed beside her. He raised his arm and held it in the air, hesitating.

Then Miranda leaned against his body and he lowered his arm onto her shoulders. She nuzzled up against his chest and pulled his other arm around her and burrowed close. She continued to shiver. When she spoke her teeth clattered.

“I no longer know who I am,” she said. “I mean, I don't remember who I was before I came here. I can't remember how I used to feel or what I used to think about. I feel like I've become someone else. I feel like a stranger trapped inside myself.”

“Dissociative thinking is common among certain disorders,” Eli said. “That's perfectly normal.”

A bubble of snot burst from Miranda's nose when she laughed. “Perfectly normal, huh?” she said and wiped her face against his chest. “So, is that how you feel?”

“No, I don't feel that way.”

“Well, then it seems like we should switch places. If it's such a sign of normality, maybe you're the one who needs help.”

“I just mean that in the case of certain mental states, such thinking is to be expected. It's treatable, though. Our goal is to get you well again.”

Her breathing, still rattling with water, became deep and even, her words sluggish. “But what if I was well before I came in here, and it's this place that's making me sick?” She started sliding down his chest.

He stood, placed her head against the pillow and stretched her legs to the foot of the bed.

She smacked her mouth a couple of times and yawned. “I don't want to die again,” she whispered before falling asleep.

Eli pulled the blanket up to her neck and ran a hand along her arm. “Don't worry. You won't.”

He kissed her cheek before leaving; by then she was asleep. It was an act that could have gotten him barred from practicing psychiatry. But it seemed to be what she wanted. And it satisfied a desire that had been building within him as well.

He decided he could fight his conscience no longer. He filled out a Recommendation of Release form that night. He would help Miranda find a place to get back on her feet, even if it was in the guest room of his small apartment.

But he never got the chance to present the forms to Dr. Francis. She was found hanging in her room the next day. A note had been written, addressed to him.

Today I die so that I may live again.

I am afraid, but only a little.

Please be as kind to others as you were to me.

Love them so hard it drives you insane.

It was a request that he feared was becoming prophecy.

“As everything is destined to die, I shall enjoy my time with it today.”
Rajamadja's childlike voice pierced through the painful memory, banishing it back to the past where it belonged.

Eli grabbed on to that voice like a life raft, and the raging waters of his mind began to calm. His heartbeat slowed, his hyperventilating settled, he stopped shaking. He pulled aside the blanket and sighed.

“All you have is the present moment,”
his guru's calming voice spoke from beyond.
“Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe.”

“But,”
another voice broke through,
“you are still a product of your past. Your soul carries yesterday's ghosts. And they stay with you forever.”

A bolt of electric fire burned up from Eli's bowels and he went running for the bathroom.