The room looked like it always looked–sterile, white, cold. She’d been here too many times to count. Everyday, Monday through Friday, nine to five. And for each day, she felt the room grow colder, hungrier. Today, she had to meet with Rachel. Rachel. Her favorite patient, her most deranged patient. The only patient she saw from the institution anymore. Dollar signs, she thought. Rachel was the doctor’s opposite, even though they shared so much, like their names, their hair, their scars. She didn’t know if the girl was ever lucid enough to even notice. To Rachel, she was always just Dr. Barns, which used to be Dr. Pistonetti, but not anymore. He would get so angry with her when she tried to use her maiden name, had insisted, demanded that she change it to Barns. They were married; she was his now. Her name reflected that.
Dr. Barns and Dr. Pistonetti would not recognize each other today. Every afternoon on Dr. Barns’ lunch, she went over to meet her husband in his building and always have a burger from Green’s Deli, his favorite. Dr. Pistonetti had never eaten burgers, and never went to Green’s. The smell of the place turned her stomach, the molding cheese, the pimento loaf, the grease that circled the dining room from the grill in the back. But, Mr. Barns favorite burger was form Green’s, so she ate there now. Dr. Pistonetti had despised people who chewed with their mouth open, but Dr. Barns learned to overlook this tick in her husband. She would sit across from him, the client side of the desk, and the mess of bread and meat would churn in his mouth, pieces jumping from his wormy lips while he yelled at clients on the phone, while she sat quietly in the chair, while the rest of the world went on without her. She chewed her burgers much more politely, something that she would never point out, and tried to get over how much they tasted metallic. Blood is iron, and iron is blood. Her eyes would study the carpet, the chair, the ceiling, the chaise, anything but him. The way he chewed, slurped, swallowed, the way he mashed the food in between the yellowing teeth in his mouth brought the iron from her stomach into her mouth. Little crystalline circles from the chiming clock cut through the air, reminding her it was almost ten, and Rachel was almost here. Dr. Barns adjusted the headband in her hair, tucking away any lose pieces. Pulling her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose, she reread Rachel’s manilla folder again. Her patient’s story was sad, and it had brought tears to Dr. Pistonetti’s eyes, but Dr. Barns’ eyes weren’t made for tears. Her husband taught her things about tears that she couldn’t forget. Eyes are made for dollar signs, he said, and her eyes were his eyes. Eyes are made for dollar signs. She couldn’t forget; her eyes were made for dollar signs. Dr. Barns hated how Rachel sat on the chair–hands tucked under her thin stick legs, her bottom on the edge, her body trying to curl in on itself, like a paper throw into the fire. Another doctor might identify with Rachel, find the scars on her arms familiar, the look in her eyes identical, remember the way certain movements made her flinch. But Dr. Barns was the doctor seeing Rache, and she knew that Rachel was a ward of the state, another mouth that needed feeding her husband said, another resource eating away at the government’s pennies. “How are you today, Rachel?” Dr. Barns asked, still looking down on some notes written in the margins of Rachel’s file. New laceration above the eye, crossing the brow. Dr. Barns’ ran her finger along her own eyebrows, feeling the bumps beneath the skin, and the tears above them. The girl across the desk didn’t answer, and Dr. Barns saw the healing cut on Rachel’s forehead, the thin pink skin trying to fill in the gap. With her fingers still on her own brow, she asked again, “How did you get that cut?” Rachel rubbed the tips of her fingers along the bottom of the green plastic chair. Her stringy hair hung from her scalp and was pushed back with a dainty blue headband. Dr. Barn’s thought that it looked ridiculous, the baby blue color stuck amongst a ratty mess of brown hair. The beige hospital gown made her look even more pathetic. It was huge on her, and made her skin look even more translucent and white. A mad urge to shove the pieces of hair sticking to Rachel’s forehead underneath the baby blue band took hold of her. “Did you do it to yourself?” Dr. Barns leaned on the desk between them, putting her weight on her elbows. Habitually, she started to rub her fingers against the thin scar that ran up her arm, her head resting her other hand. Still rubbing the chair, Rachel looked down to the floor. She shook her head from left to right. "Did another patient?” Dr. Barns hated when Rachel would stare off. Some days the whole session would go by without the girl ever looking at her. Infuriating. “If someone is hurting you, I need you to tell me. Remember? No one is allowed to hurt you.” Dr. Barns let her question hang in the air between them, wondering why she still bothered. Rachel was like her worry stone and a scab that she constantly picked at. She leaned back into her own chair, folding her arms in front of her. Her fingers still traced the scar on her arm, and she made it point to not look at the picture of him on her desk. “He is,” Rachel whispered. Her voice sounded fragile and thin. It made Dr. Barns furious. “Who is he?” This game was old and stale. The man with the long fingers, the hungry man, the man with the empty eyes, the man with the dancing women–she’d heard her tell this same delusion hundreds of times. “The man,” Rachel said, “the man that lives in my room. That sleeps in my bed.” “No one sleeps in your room, Rachel. No one is allowed to enter your room at night, period. They lock the door. Do you remember? The orderly always locks the door.” “He doesn’t use the door. The locks don’t matter,” Rachel moved her hands from the chair and crossed them in front of her stomach. Her nails digging into her arms, and Dr. Barns suppressed her annoyance. The file listed numerous medications Rachel took, all of which were supposed to clear the line between fantasy and reality. She jotted down that the new pill wasn’t working either. It was this game again. Dr. Barns flipped to a blank page and pulled a pen from the canister on her desk. In a large, messy hand she wrote “the man” on the top of the page. “What happened the last time that you saw the man?” “I’m not allowed to say.” “You can here. This place is safe, my office is always safe. You can tell me. Remember?” Rachel’s eyes look at Dr. Barns for an instant but the woman’s eyes were looking at the pad. Rachel looked down at her knees, “He made me eat the pennies.” Dr. Barns mentally sighed, the pennies again. “Okay. Keep talking, Rachel.” “He shoved them in my mouth, and they were still warm, because they were in his hands. And his hands hold so many.” Yes, yes. The hands with the creepy fingers, “Then what happened?” “He started shoving them in too fast. I tried to chew them. I really tried. I know that I’m supposed to chew them. I tried,” little tears rose at the corners of Rachel’s eyes. They ran down her cheeks, leaving a shiny, thin trail. Her hands remained on her elbows, one rubbing a long thin scar on her arm. She never looked at Dr. Barns. “They, they started to melt. Because there were too many. And I couldn’t tell him that. Never. Never, tell him that. But he kept shoving them inside. They were so hard that I tried to chew faster, so they would get soft. And I chewed harder. But they were getting stuck in between my teeth. And it hurt, so I didn’t want to chew so hard. But he kept feeding them to me.” “Why does he want you to eat the pennies?” Dr. Barns asked, the answer never stayed the same, but she felt obligated to ask. The tears rolling down Rachel’s cheeks reminded her of something. Something off, like a Canadian dime in an American’s pocket but, the something slipped between her thoughts, like a penny though a sewer grate. She hated that she cried. “He says that it’s because my eyes are gone now, so that means it’s time to eat the pennies. That I have to chew them. Chew them all, and never say that there are too many. Because he knows how many I need. I’m his. He knows that I need to eat them. That I’ve been bad.” “Where are your eyes?” “I don’t know,” Rachel was crying now, her sobs were loud, drowning out the chimes cutting through the air as the clock struck noon. Irritating. “He won’t tell me. He says that silver dollar eyes are all I need, and that’s why I can eat the pennies. All of them. But my eyes are for other things now. He says that they weren’t mine.” Dr. Barns jotted down Rachel’s words and ran her hands through her hair. At least a dozen or more copies of this same story littered the big drawer of her desk. She already knew the next part of the dance and asks, “When did he take your eyes?” “The day he held my hand. I told you. His eyes are silver dollars too, and he can see me. His smile is silver, and so are his hands. He smiled when he shoved them in my eyes, smiled a silver smile.” “When was this?” “Before.” Dr. Barns looked at the girl, but Rachel’s eyes were on the floor. Unbelievable. The girl didn’t want helped. Dr. Barns looked at the medication list again as the crystal circles cut through the air. The clock struck two. “Before...” “Before I was his” the girl said. “When was the last time that you saw the man?” All at once, Dr. Barns began to feel nervous, as if this man was real and standing right behind her with fists full of pennies. “Was it when you got hurt?” “He came to see me when the naked women dance. They don’t always dance, only when he makes them is it ok.” What else was going on?” Dr. Barns took off her headband, and squeezed her head. She set it down on the desk. The baby blue color disgusted her. Reminded her of him. He bought it for her. Said that he liked it in her hair. “They were crying when they danced. He doesn’t like that. He says that its my fault. ALL my fault. And that I need to pay for it. He told their names. Here, Now, Good, Go. And he made me dance with the tall one. He took her silver back, so her eyes are just meaty holes. He knows that I don’t like her. She smells like lilacs, and I don’t like it.” “Why?” Dr. Barns’ put her pen down to tuck her hair behind her ears since she took her headband off. The desk seemed huge for a moment; Rachel very far away. “Because lilacs are pretty, and she’s jagged. And I had to pay for it. And he put my hands on her. And he took my face, and, and...” Rachel’s face is wet. So are Dr. Barns’ eyes. “What happened?” “He made me put it in my mouth,” Her voice is so low that Dr. Barns can’t really hear. Rachel’s cut is bleeding, and Dr. Barns’ hands and fingers are red. “What, what in your mouth?” “The pennies on her breasts,” the last word is much quieter than the others, “He wants me to eat them because I have to eat them all. But, I have to get them. Because I have to pay for it. He says that my eyes are made for dollar signs. I have to eat the pennies. I have to eat them all.” Rachel’s hands clutch the plastic chair. Dr. Barns’ knuckles are white. The woman can’t understand. The cut on her head bleeds while she chews at her lips. Dr. Barns begins to tear the pages out from the pad, and Rachel thinks that the paper feels so much nicer than metal. Crystalline circles chime into the air, and Dr. Rachel Barns does not know what time it is. Her cold, white bedroom surrounds her. She breathes its clinical smell laced with lilacs. It reminds her of her office, her room at home, her husband. The gaudy purple flowers block the IV machine next to her hospital bed. The tangle of tubes in her hands and arms are pushing fluids in and taking them out. Papers litter her hospital linens and have spilled on to the floor where she sees the metal hospital chart and her headband. Her door swings open, and Amanda, her colleague–a woman she has asked to check on dozens of patients, walks in to check on her. “Good morn–” she starts, and then sees a desperate woman who has torn apart her chart, ripped out an IV and stitches, bleeding on the sheets. “Rachel, are you okay?” Rachel Barns watches the woman cross the tiny space between the bed and the door. Amanda starts to check her IV as a nurse follows her inside the room and begins to pick up the papers. “I’m fine, Amanda. I want to go home, like I told you yesterday. I have patients to see.” “Rachel, why did you tear you chart up again?” “I have patients I need to see.” Amanda looked at her, “We both know that you won’t be seeing patients for a while. Especially if you won’t tell me what happened to you.” “What are you talking about? Nothing happened to me. I need to get home. I need a shower. Rick is going to wonder where–” “Richard Barns isn’t wondering anything. I doubt he’s even home yet. And you need to worry about yourself now.” But she wasn’t herself. She was his. Rachel felt his breath hot on her cheek as he whispered, Rachel, the money is so good. What will it matter to them? They’re so doped up that they won’t remember a thing. We’ll get paid. It’ll be all dollar signs, baby. Nothing but dollar signs. Comments are closed.
|
Editorial StaffEditor in Chief Categories
All
|