By John Hood
Richard stood at the window, looking out at the blowing snow. He was always fascinated by the kind of pale wan light that was now weakly illuminating the room. Conditions outside were approaching white-out, and the windswept snow obscured his view of the garden any further than Max’s orange Ride-em tractor, which stood out against the whitish grey world outside, already half buried.
It was only about five feet from the door.
He checked the little digital alarm clock. 11:27. Fucking 11:27. It could go on like this all day. He could feel the familiar creep of depression, that sinking feeling that often led eventually to a state of mind where taking action or decision making became seriously problematic. He thought of days where he had really struggled with decisions as apparently uncomplicated as “should I make breakfast?” He recalled with a sense of serio-comic horror standing for what seemed like fourty-five minutes in the middle of the room, trying to decide if he should move.
It hadn’t always been like that. His mind drifted back and a picture formed over the study in shades of white and grey outside, of Dolores around the time when they had first met.
Dolores laughing.
God she was pretty. Those eyes flashing and those full lips. Dolores had hair the colour of amber and it shone that way. In those days she liked to wear fairly intense shades of red lipstick. She never looked cheap or brazen, but dammit she was sexy.
A real knockout.
(What had she ever seen in him?)
The image broadens. Dolores is coming out of the reference library and meeting him. She has picked out a book for him. She hands it to him.
“This is right up your street” she is saying. He could hear her voice saying this, but sounding oddly hollow, as if it were coming through a long paper tube, like the kind you’re left with after you finish a roll of Christmas gift wrap. The cadence of the moaning wind outside provided a kind of audio counterpoint.
He notices how lovely her red hair looks against the midsummer green of the campus lawn. She is throwing her head back flirtatiously and sort of half laughing, half chuckling in her throat the way she does, and throwing a sudden right at his gut while she hands him the book with her left.
“Cut it out” He heard himself saying. He mouthed the words.
He looks at the book she has handed him. It is “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Suess.
Dissolve. The scene shifts. They are in an Irish pub near the campus, called Fiona’s. It is cozy. She is drinking a pint of some amber fluid.
(Beer?)
It reminds him of the colour of her hair, and he is again struck by how lovely it looks against the rich green fabric of the booth seats. She is really laughing hard now. She has her eyes squeezed shut. She is rocking forward clutching her head and her midsection, just shaking with laughter.
(What were they laughing at, in particular, that was so goddam funny?)
He is experiencing a wave of pure unalloyed desire for her, wanting her so bad he can taste it; desire, and a flooding sense of overwhelming love. He is feeling the urge to take her in his arms and not let her go, to enfold her in his world and to love her as much as he possibly can. He takes a long pull at his pint and his hands are shaking just a little, but not enough for her to notice, and then she is gazing into his eyes and her expression is happy and playful and kind…
Cut. Now it is dark and they are outside together. He is kissing her very passionately on the mouth, and she is no longer laughing. Her eyes are closed and she has a look of urgency and desire on her face. They hold each other tenderly and the embrace is maddeningly exciting.
___________________
An irritating syncopated clanking noise jarred Richard from his daydream. The wind had begun to pick up the lid of the mail box and drop it down again with a series of intermittent metallic sounds. He shook his head, struggling to regain his senses.
(Damn. Fuck it. I’m not gonna do this.)
There were tears welling in his eyes.
(I am not going to fucking do this shit.)
He wiped his face and laughed at himself. So fucking pathetic.
Dolores was enormously attractive and charismatic, but these qualities concealed a terrifying darkness that was the greater part of who she was. He hadn’t consciously accepted this aspect of her personality until they had been married for almost two years. Some of his friends, and his sister, liked to contend that she changed after Max was born, but in retrospect Richard could see that he had inklings of her dark side well before that. In his heart he knew it was there, a frightening reality, but he had pushed this awareness away from his consciousness. He had wanted so badly to love her that he couldn’t or wouldn’t credit his own instincts.
Inklings.
Like the time before they were married when he had come home from the office to pick something up and found her drunk in the apartment in the middle of the day. She claimed that an old friend had surprised her with a visit and they had got talking over beers just for the hell of it. He had made a crack about drinking early and she turned on him with a startling rage, shouting that he should mind his own fucking business. He hadn’t meant anything, was just teasing her and she totally lost it. But she composed herself immediately and the moment passed away so quickly it was easy for him to bury it.
It seemed just as easy to convince himself that they were living the dream, that everything was swell, as they went about preparing for Max’s arrival. She chuckled and beamed as they shopped for baby stuff and they laughed together as they refinished the tiny bedroom next to their own. He remembered pulling her down onto the floor amidst rollers and paint trays and kissing her, fondling her swelling tummy and her delight and wonder as she placed his hand over the spot where the baby was kicking.
And yet, later that week he had been talking to one of the girls from the office who had called with some query. Dolores flew into a rage and screamed that he was probably fucking her. This caught him like a hard punch. It seemed so out of the blue. Not only because he wasn’t fucking anybody except his young wife who he loved deeply (well, not so much fucking now that she was visibly pregnant), but because she had never given him any reason to think her jealous or possessive (or violent) before that moment.
By the time Max was six months old, Richard was beginning to realize that all was not as it should be. He figured it was post partum depression. He would come home from the office to find her sullen and often drunk, poor little Max crying and neglected. She would seem to be fine at one moment and in the next she would be in the grip of something dark and dreadful. Her face would change as if she was someone else, and she would level hysterical accusations of infidelity or homosexuality at him. When he protested or tried to soothe her, she would mock his tone of voice and then laugh in a way that chilled him to the core.
Her pleasant moods became increasingly rare.
Before long it seemed as though the old Dolores had been replaced by a bitter, vulgar bitch who was constantly angry and insanely jealous. He had kept hoping that it was a passing thing; that she was being affected by her post pregnancy body chemistry, but as things grew steadily worse he became concerned for his son’s well being. He took two weeks from work with the intention of getting medical attention for Dolores and keeping an eye on his infant son.
At the suggestion that she visit her doctor she became violently angry, and categorically refused to co-operate. That was the first time she struck him, slapping him so hard in the face that he lost his balance and fell hard. The next week was sharply defined in his memory as a string of violent episodes, screaming and drunken bouts of verbal abuse where she would make hideous suggestions of incest or other foul sexual misconduct. Her contempt for him was paired with a maniacal jealousy of any one or any thing that took his time or attention away from her for even a moment.
At the intervention she screamed and swore that it was a plot (which in a way it was) and that they could all go to hell. She raged as they took her out the front door under restraint, to a waiting ambulance which was to take Dolores to the Monarch Street mental health facility.
Dolores had gone to her temporary new home; they had all said that. Part of him hoped it would be so, but another part of him somehow knew that the woman he had fallen in love with was gone never to return and that for reasons he could not begin to fathom someone else, someone terrifying, had taken her place.
____________________
“As far as we know now, there’s nothing physically wrong with her, Mr. Adamson”
“What do you mean ‘as far as you know now’, Doc?” said Richard.
“Well, there are a number of tests still to be performed, but from what we’ve seen so far it’s a bit of a mystery. We haven’t seen any evidence of the kind of chemical imbalances that we usually associate with this sort of sudden, violent personality change...” Doctor Sifton stood up and walked to the window and looked out at the softly falling snow with his hands knitted behind his back.
“A bit of a mystery?” Richard enquired, a note of incredulity rising in his voice.
The doctor turned to face him, wearing a concerned and sympathetic expression.
“I’m sorry Mr. Adamson, I realize my use of that phrase doesn’t inspire confidence, but frankly it reflects the situation. We’ve ruled out a tumour definitively, and that leaves us with a number of diagnoses that are typical under these circumstances, but as I say, apart from a few tests still to be performed we’ve more or less exhausted the customary range of possibilities. You’ve told us you had no knowledge of Dolores receiving a blow on the head…in any case a trauma sufficiently severe to produce manifestations of this kind would leave physical evidence…a lesion, or scarring, and there is none that we can detect.”
”So you’re saying you don’t have a clue what’s going on with her?
“I’m saying that we have pretty much run through the standard range of diagnostic assumptions in cases like Dolores’s, and that we have to start looking at other possibilities that fall outside the range of what we consider to be usual…Your wife wasn’t using drugs as far as you know, Mr. Adamson?”
“No, she didn’t even smoke pot… she didn’t use drugs, Doctor, but what the hell could that have to do with her condition? You’ve seen what she’s like. I know a lot of people who take all kinds of drugs and they never scream like hell and throw things!”
“Well, it could account for a lot, Richard, but I’m inclined to agree. I’m inclined to rule out drug use as a factor because you would have seen evidence of it in your home, and I have faith that you’re being honest with me Mr. Adamson, aren’t you? Because your honesty is required if we're to help your wife.”
“Sure I am, Doc, it just seems absurd. I want you to help her. My little boy needs her” Richard had the desperate feeling. Trying to hold off on the tears.
“Yes of, course, Mr. Adamson. We’re going to continue doing everything we can for her” Doctor Sifton crossed the floor deliberately and reseated himself. His hands came to rest on a number of papers on the desktop, which he pushed gently across towards Richard.
“And in order to do so, we require some…uuhh…some legal permissions from you. Have you sought counsel in regard to this matter, Mr. Adamson?”
“Yes, Doctor…my lawyer has explained everything to me”
“So you understand that in order for us to keep her here legally and continue to treat her we require a…reclassification of her status with us?”
“Yes, I understand that…”
“Very well, then Mr. Adamson, just a moment” The Doctor pressed his intercom button.
“Miss Cordell, will you come in here for a moment please?” The secretary entered the office.
“Miss Cordell, if you’d be so kind, I require you to act as a witness while Mr. Adamson signs these documents.” Richard looked up at the attractive young nurse with a beseeching look on his face. She smiled agreeably. Her hair was a lovely shade of red.
“Certainly, Doctor Sifton.” Richard began to affix his signature to the documents in several places which the Doctor indicated. His hands shook slightly as he did so, but he didn’t think the Doctor or Miss Cordell noticed. When he was finished, the Doctor signed the documents in the places indicated for the presiding physician, and Miss Cordell signed in her capacity as witness.
“It’s quite customary, Mr. Adamson” she said to Richard.
“I frequently act as witness for Doctor Sifton.” This information did little to assuage the feeling of anguish that was gnawing at Richard as he committed his wife. The tempo of the snow falling outside the office window had picked up, and the room had darkened perceptibly as the afternoon wore on. A keening wind had risen and begun to howl around the building.
“Well, for the moment, that’s all there is to be done.” Said Doctor Sifton with some finality as Miss Cordell turned and exited the room. He stood up and extended his hand towards Richard, whose attention was fixed on the grayish white blur of blowing snow outside the office window. There was a rather long moment before Richard realized this gesture signaled the end of the interview. The Doctor’s wristwatch gleamed in the darkening room.
“Yes, that’s all for moment” said Richard and instantly felt the phrase sounded like an idiotic parroting of the Doctor’s speech. He had a sudden genuinely hideous flash of his body with a huge parrot’s head squawking this foolish utterance and he quickly stifled the impulse to laugh out loud. He stood up and grasped the Doctor’s hand, shook it.
“We’ll contact you as soon as we have anything significant, Mr. Adamson. Try to rest, when you can. Are you sleeping well? Do you need something for that?
Richard realized he meant to offer a prescription for sedatives. He shook his head.
“No thank you, Doc, that’s quite alright…I’m sleeping fine, thanks.” He lied. He couldn’t remember the last time he has passed a satisfactory nights sleep. And the nightmares, holy shit; the nightmares he so frequently experienced were so goddamn disturbing as to be entertaining in a horrible kind of way. But he felt sedated enough for the most part. Not rested, but sedated.
“Thanks very much, Doctor Sifton…I’ll see you next time.”
“Yes, and anytime you wish to contact me you may do so at this number.” He handed Richard a card from the holder on the desktop. Richard placed it into his wallet next to an identical one that was already in there. He shook hands with the doctor again and turned to leave the office, struggling with his coat and gloves as he went.
“Good night, Mr. Adamson.” Said Miss Cordell as he passed through the outer office. She was smiling agreeably.
“Good Night” he said and pulled the door shut. The hallway was empty. His footsteps echoed off the walls as he walked down the dim hall, the light from the lamps overhead shining on the highly polished surface of the floor, which had a diamond terrazzo pattern. Back down the hallway in the other direction from which he had come, behind a locked security door there was a ward. He could hear the sound of inmates babbling, laughing…screaming.
Somewhere back in there was Dolores. Was she screaming or laughing? He didn’t know, but this question, posed in his brain, made him feel suddenly as if he himself were a candidate for a lengthy stay at this lovely little resort. He nodded to a black janitor in green work fatigues who polished the long hallway with one of those curiously undulating buffing machines.
He was conscious of the fact that he was quickening his pace as he neared the doors, the red light of the exit sign drawing him like a beacon. He had the sense that the film he was in had been slightly speeded up as he pushed through the doors and thrust his chest out into the welcoming bitter cold of the evening, like a runner sprinting for the finish line and breaking it with his hands upraised in triumph.
There was a stop for the 400 car right out side the main entrance to the hospital
(asylum?)
He took his place in a small queue along with a couple of other rather forlorn looking transit riders. As he waited in the stinging wind for the streetcar to arrive, a curious figure came ambling down the street. He could be heard before he was clearly seen; he was shouting something rhythmically in a cheerful tone of voice.
“Judgment be comin’ judgment be near…Death be coming soon to us all”
The man made this proclamation in a sing-song happy tone that seemed somehow at odds with the thrust of his message. He ran across the street suddenly causing a car to skid slightly as it applied its brakes to avoid him.
“Christ…I guess they let him out a little early” thought Richard, and then regretted his lack of compassion. Anyway, for all he knew the guy was neither mentally ill, but actually on to something. He relaxed his shoulder blades as the guy disappeared down the street.
The headlamps of the 400 car appeared in the gathering darkness. The car glided to a halt and the doors shuddered and swung upon. The little group began to file up the steps into the embryonic warmth of the streetcar. Richard boarded last and moved down the length of the car, his shoes making smacking noises on the wet rubber lined floor. He collapsed into a seat, suddenly fatigued, and rested his head on the cold foggy window glass. Outside, the snow flew and the lights of the bars and stores along Monarch Street threw pale washes of colour through the car window. He allowed to strobe effect of the street lamps to hypnotize him.
____________________
The sharp whine of metal on metal as the streetcar turned from Monarch onto Parkview brought him back to the surface, and Richard flipped open his cell phone and punched the pre-set for his sister Alice. She had taken Max overnight.
“Hi Ali…no, I’m on the streetcar…No…No, they didn’t really have anything definite to tell me. They said she doesn’t have a brain tumour. Well, yes, that’s good of course. Yah very tired. How’s Max? Cheerios? Sure…sure…well, do you think that it would be O.K.? For another day or two? I know…he loves Lisa so much. They had fun? That’s great. Give him a big hug for me…tell him Daddy loves him. Yah. Yes. Thanks Alice, I’ll call you tomorrow”
Richard put the phone back in his coat pocket as they ghosted into Parkview station. He got off the car. He could either wait for the 52 bus or leave the station and walk home. Despite a feeling of utter exhaustion, he opted for the latter and breasted the cold, leaving the station and headed east towards the Forthton Bridge.
The wind howled up from the valley as he crossed the bridge. It was turning into a real blow again. He doubled forward and staggered across to the relative shelter of the other side and started south on Parkview towards his house. At the corner of Parkside east and Forthton he ducked into the Master Donut to grab a hot coffee. There was a TV on the wall and several of the coffee shop types were watching a weather report detailing the ongoing storm with some interest.
“You like a Coffee, Mr.?” The Asian woman behind the counter asked. He nodded as he stamped and brushed snow of his coat.
“Uhm, Yah, medium Regular, O.K.” he replied
“You cold? It very cold! Big storm coming, Yah?” she grinned.
“Looks like it’s already here!” he said. She nodded, smiling, and glanced at the TV.
“One dollar fourty”.
He put coins on the counter and took the hot beverage. He was beginning to sip from it when a murmur from the crew watching the TV caught his attention. He looked up at the screen. The phrase “News Bulletin” was rolling across the screen repeatedly below the image of the announcer.
“…police are searching tonight for the three inmates who escaped several hours ago from the Monarch Street Mental Health Facility. Apparently the absence of the three was not detected until this evening during a room check. Police are as yet uncertain how the three eluded staff members, but stress that they were not in the maximum security wing and were not considered to be dangerous to others. Citizens are nevertheless requested to avoid approaching the three but in the event of sighting any of the escapees to alert the nearest police division and the Monarch Street Mental Health Facility…”
Richard didn’t hear whatever was left of the bulletin. His attention was riveted by the pictures of the three closely shorn escapees; Dolores, unmistakable despite her lack of makeup and military style buzz cut was one of them!
The sudden ring of his cell phone startled him so much that he dropped his coffee, splashing his coat and shoes with the hot liquid. The TV watchers turned to look at him, and they counter lady scowled and went for a mop. He grabbed for his cell and answered it. It was Alice.
“My God, I know…I just saw it! The donut shop…just up the street. I don’t know! How the hell should I know? No, I don’t believe it! I don’t know…I’m going home…I’ll call you from there. I know, me too…I’ll talk to you in a bit.”
Richard headed for the door, ignoring the donut lady’s offer of another coffee. He jogged the half block to Steven Street as quickly as the buffeting winds and slick footing would allow and turned west. His place was 52 Steven, about two hundred yards from the corner and he covered the distance quickly. His mind was racing as he imagined Dolores wandering the streets in her unstable mental condition.
(What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck)
He reached the darkened front porch of his home at #52 and suddenly he stopped. His immediate reaction of concern for his troubled wife had been supplanted by a different sensation, a creeping sense of dread.
The house was dark and still.
He stood for a moment on the bottom step. His instincts began to tick softly like a hot engine cooling. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t see immediately what it was. Now cautious, he climbed the front steps slowly and quietly, and then stopped and listened for a few seconds. He heard his own heart pounding as he looked to the right and left of the doorway. Everything seemed to be as it should, the broom standing in its customary position, Max’s orange ride-em tractor in its usual spot on the porch. He took his key from his coat pocket and pushed it into the lock. The sound of the key engaging the tumblers seemed horribly loud.
He twisted the key in the lock and gently swung the door open into the darkened front room.
Stepping gingerly inside, not quite yet understanding in the conscious part of his mind the reason for the total apprehension he was experiencing, he pushed the door closed and turned the deadbolt. He felt in the dark for the light switch and flipped it on, feeling a momentary sense of reassurance. He turned and stood for a second with his back to the door, and his eyes, adjusting to the light, caught a gleam of light from a small shiny object on the counter that separated the living room from the eat in kitchen.
He crossed the floor silently, holding his breath and focused on the shiny little cylinder. He stood with his back to the staircase facing the still darkened kitchen, and picked up the little metallic object.
It was a lipstick.
(Max Factor.)
Suddenly, he understood. Max’s tractor. He reached slowly for the phone but wasn’t surprised to hear there was no dial tone. He also was not surprised to hear the soft padding of feet coming down the carpeted stairway behind him. The phrase the TV announcer had used during the bulletin danced through his mind as he turned slowly, and looked up at the figure descending the staircase, the figure with another gleaming metallic object in her left hand.
“…were not considered to be dangerous to others…”
Richard stood at the window, looking out at the blowing snow. He was always fascinated by the kind of pale wan light that was now weakly illuminating the room. Conditions outside were approaching white-out, and the windswept snow obscured his view of the garden any further than Max’s orange Ride-em tractor, which stood out against the whitish grey world outside, already half buried.
It was only about five feet from the door.
He checked the little digital alarm clock. 11:27. Fucking 11:27. It could go on like this all day. He could feel the familiar creep of depression, that sinking feeling that often led eventually to a state of mind where taking action or decision making became seriously problematic. He thought of days where he had really struggled with decisions as apparently uncomplicated as “should I make breakfast?” He recalled with a sense of serio-comic horror standing for what seemed like fourty-five minutes in the middle of the room, trying to decide if he should move.
It hadn’t always been like that. His mind drifted back and a picture formed over the study in shades of white and grey outside, of Dolores around the time when they had first met.
Dolores laughing.
God she was pretty. Those eyes flashing and those full lips. Dolores had hair the colour of amber and it shone that way. In those days she liked to wear fairly intense shades of red lipstick. She never looked cheap or brazen, but dammit she was sexy.
A real knockout.
(What had she ever seen in him?)
The image broadens. Dolores is coming out of the reference library and meeting him. She has picked out a book for him. She hands it to him.
“This is right up your street” she is saying. He could hear her voice saying this, but sounding oddly hollow, as if it were coming through a long paper tube, like the kind you’re left with after you finish a roll of Christmas gift wrap. The cadence of the moaning wind outside provided a kind of audio counterpoint.
He notices how lovely her red hair looks against the midsummer green of the campus lawn. She is throwing her head back flirtatiously and sort of half laughing, half chuckling in her throat the way she does, and throwing a sudden right at his gut while she hands him the book with her left.
“Cut it out” He heard himself saying. He mouthed the words.
He looks at the book she has handed him. It is “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Suess.
Dissolve. The scene shifts. They are in an Irish pub near the campus, called Fiona’s. It is cozy. She is drinking a pint of some amber fluid.
(Beer?)
It reminds him of the colour of her hair, and he is again struck by how lovely it looks against the rich green fabric of the booth seats. She is really laughing hard now. She has her eyes squeezed shut. She is rocking forward clutching her head and her midsection, just shaking with laughter.
(What were they laughing at, in particular, that was so goddam funny?)
He is experiencing a wave of pure unalloyed desire for her, wanting her so bad he can taste it; desire, and a flooding sense of overwhelming love. He is feeling the urge to take her in his arms and not let her go, to enfold her in his world and to love her as much as he possibly can. He takes a long pull at his pint and his hands are shaking just a little, but not enough for her to notice, and then she is gazing into his eyes and her expression is happy and playful and kind…
Cut. Now it is dark and they are outside together. He is kissing her very passionately on the mouth, and she is no longer laughing. Her eyes are closed and she has a look of urgency and desire on her face. They hold each other tenderly and the embrace is maddeningly exciting.
___________________
An irritating syncopated clanking noise jarred Richard from his daydream. The wind had begun to pick up the lid of the mail box and drop it down again with a series of intermittent metallic sounds. He shook his head, struggling to regain his senses.
(Damn. Fuck it. I’m not gonna do this.)
There were tears welling in his eyes.
(I am not going to fucking do this shit.)
He wiped his face and laughed at himself. So fucking pathetic.
Dolores was enormously attractive and charismatic, but these qualities concealed a terrifying darkness that was the greater part of who she was. He hadn’t consciously accepted this aspect of her personality until they had been married for almost two years. Some of his friends, and his sister, liked to contend that she changed after Max was born, but in retrospect Richard could see that he had inklings of her dark side well before that. In his heart he knew it was there, a frightening reality, but he had pushed this awareness away from his consciousness. He had wanted so badly to love her that he couldn’t or wouldn’t credit his own instincts.
Inklings.
Like the time before they were married when he had come home from the office to pick something up and found her drunk in the apartment in the middle of the day. She claimed that an old friend had surprised her with a visit and they had got talking over beers just for the hell of it. He had made a crack about drinking early and she turned on him with a startling rage, shouting that he should mind his own fucking business. He hadn’t meant anything, was just teasing her and she totally lost it. But she composed herself immediately and the moment passed away so quickly it was easy for him to bury it.
It seemed just as easy to convince himself that they were living the dream, that everything was swell, as they went about preparing for Max’s arrival. She chuckled and beamed as they shopped for baby stuff and they laughed together as they refinished the tiny bedroom next to their own. He remembered pulling her down onto the floor amidst rollers and paint trays and kissing her, fondling her swelling tummy and her delight and wonder as she placed his hand over the spot where the baby was kicking.
And yet, later that week he had been talking to one of the girls from the office who had called with some query. Dolores flew into a rage and screamed that he was probably fucking her. This caught him like a hard punch. It seemed so out of the blue. Not only because he wasn’t fucking anybody except his young wife who he loved deeply (well, not so much fucking now that she was visibly pregnant), but because she had never given him any reason to think her jealous or possessive (or violent) before that moment.
By the time Max was six months old, Richard was beginning to realize that all was not as it should be. He figured it was post partum depression. He would come home from the office to find her sullen and often drunk, poor little Max crying and neglected. She would seem to be fine at one moment and in the next she would be in the grip of something dark and dreadful. Her face would change as if she was someone else, and she would level hysterical accusations of infidelity or homosexuality at him. When he protested or tried to soothe her, she would mock his tone of voice and then laugh in a way that chilled him to the core.
Her pleasant moods became increasingly rare.
Before long it seemed as though the old Dolores had been replaced by a bitter, vulgar bitch who was constantly angry and insanely jealous. He had kept hoping that it was a passing thing; that she was being affected by her post pregnancy body chemistry, but as things grew steadily worse he became concerned for his son’s well being. He took two weeks from work with the intention of getting medical attention for Dolores and keeping an eye on his infant son.
At the suggestion that she visit her doctor she became violently angry, and categorically refused to co-operate. That was the first time she struck him, slapping him so hard in the face that he lost his balance and fell hard. The next week was sharply defined in his memory as a string of violent episodes, screaming and drunken bouts of verbal abuse where she would make hideous suggestions of incest or other foul sexual misconduct. Her contempt for him was paired with a maniacal jealousy of any one or any thing that took his time or attention away from her for even a moment.
At the intervention she screamed and swore that it was a plot (which in a way it was) and that they could all go to hell. She raged as they took her out the front door under restraint, to a waiting ambulance which was to take Dolores to the Monarch Street mental health facility.
Dolores had gone to her temporary new home; they had all said that. Part of him hoped it would be so, but another part of him somehow knew that the woman he had fallen in love with was gone never to return and that for reasons he could not begin to fathom someone else, someone terrifying, had taken her place.
____________________
“As far as we know now, there’s nothing physically wrong with her, Mr. Adamson”
“What do you mean ‘as far as you know now’, Doc?” said Richard.
“Well, there are a number of tests still to be performed, but from what we’ve seen so far it’s a bit of a mystery. We haven’t seen any evidence of the kind of chemical imbalances that we usually associate with this sort of sudden, violent personality change...” Doctor Sifton stood up and walked to the window and looked out at the softly falling snow with his hands knitted behind his back.
“A bit of a mystery?” Richard enquired, a note of incredulity rising in his voice.
The doctor turned to face him, wearing a concerned and sympathetic expression.
“I’m sorry Mr. Adamson, I realize my use of that phrase doesn’t inspire confidence, but frankly it reflects the situation. We’ve ruled out a tumour definitively, and that leaves us with a number of diagnoses that are typical under these circumstances, but as I say, apart from a few tests still to be performed we’ve more or less exhausted the customary range of possibilities. You’ve told us you had no knowledge of Dolores receiving a blow on the head…in any case a trauma sufficiently severe to produce manifestations of this kind would leave physical evidence…a lesion, or scarring, and there is none that we can detect.”
”So you’re saying you don’t have a clue what’s going on with her?
“I’m saying that we have pretty much run through the standard range of diagnostic assumptions in cases like Dolores’s, and that we have to start looking at other possibilities that fall outside the range of what we consider to be usual…Your wife wasn’t using drugs as far as you know, Mr. Adamson?”
“No, she didn’t even smoke pot… she didn’t use drugs, Doctor, but what the hell could that have to do with her condition? You’ve seen what she’s like. I know a lot of people who take all kinds of drugs and they never scream like hell and throw things!”
“Well, it could account for a lot, Richard, but I’m inclined to agree. I’m inclined to rule out drug use as a factor because you would have seen evidence of it in your home, and I have faith that you’re being honest with me Mr. Adamson, aren’t you? Because your honesty is required if we're to help your wife.”
“Sure I am, Doc, it just seems absurd. I want you to help her. My little boy needs her” Richard had the desperate feeling. Trying to hold off on the tears.
“Yes of, course, Mr. Adamson. We’re going to continue doing everything we can for her” Doctor Sifton crossed the floor deliberately and reseated himself. His hands came to rest on a number of papers on the desktop, which he pushed gently across towards Richard.
“And in order to do so, we require some…uuhh…some legal permissions from you. Have you sought counsel in regard to this matter, Mr. Adamson?”
“Yes, Doctor…my lawyer has explained everything to me”
“So you understand that in order for us to keep her here legally and continue to treat her we require a…reclassification of her status with us?”
“Yes, I understand that…”
“Very well, then Mr. Adamson, just a moment” The Doctor pressed his intercom button.
“Miss Cordell, will you come in here for a moment please?” The secretary entered the office.
“Miss Cordell, if you’d be so kind, I require you to act as a witness while Mr. Adamson signs these documents.” Richard looked up at the attractive young nurse with a beseeching look on his face. She smiled agreeably. Her hair was a lovely shade of red.
“Certainly, Doctor Sifton.” Richard began to affix his signature to the documents in several places which the Doctor indicated. His hands shook slightly as he did so, but he didn’t think the Doctor or Miss Cordell noticed. When he was finished, the Doctor signed the documents in the places indicated for the presiding physician, and Miss Cordell signed in her capacity as witness.
“It’s quite customary, Mr. Adamson” she said to Richard.
“I frequently act as witness for Doctor Sifton.” This information did little to assuage the feeling of anguish that was gnawing at Richard as he committed his wife. The tempo of the snow falling outside the office window had picked up, and the room had darkened perceptibly as the afternoon wore on. A keening wind had risen and begun to howl around the building.
“Well, for the moment, that’s all there is to be done.” Said Doctor Sifton with some finality as Miss Cordell turned and exited the room. He stood up and extended his hand towards Richard, whose attention was fixed on the grayish white blur of blowing snow outside the office window. There was a rather long moment before Richard realized this gesture signaled the end of the interview. The Doctor’s wristwatch gleamed in the darkening room.
“Yes, that’s all for moment” said Richard and instantly felt the phrase sounded like an idiotic parroting of the Doctor’s speech. He had a sudden genuinely hideous flash of his body with a huge parrot’s head squawking this foolish utterance and he quickly stifled the impulse to laugh out loud. He stood up and grasped the Doctor’s hand, shook it.
“We’ll contact you as soon as we have anything significant, Mr. Adamson. Try to rest, when you can. Are you sleeping well? Do you need something for that?
Richard realized he meant to offer a prescription for sedatives. He shook his head.
“No thank you, Doc, that’s quite alright…I’m sleeping fine, thanks.” He lied. He couldn’t remember the last time he has passed a satisfactory nights sleep. And the nightmares, holy shit; the nightmares he so frequently experienced were so goddamn disturbing as to be entertaining in a horrible kind of way. But he felt sedated enough for the most part. Not rested, but sedated.
“Thanks very much, Doctor Sifton…I’ll see you next time.”
“Yes, and anytime you wish to contact me you may do so at this number.” He handed Richard a card from the holder on the desktop. Richard placed it into his wallet next to an identical one that was already in there. He shook hands with the doctor again and turned to leave the office, struggling with his coat and gloves as he went.
“Good night, Mr. Adamson.” Said Miss Cordell as he passed through the outer office. She was smiling agreeably.
“Good Night” he said and pulled the door shut. The hallway was empty. His footsteps echoed off the walls as he walked down the dim hall, the light from the lamps overhead shining on the highly polished surface of the floor, which had a diamond terrazzo pattern. Back down the hallway in the other direction from which he had come, behind a locked security door there was a ward. He could hear the sound of inmates babbling, laughing…screaming.
Somewhere back in there was Dolores. Was she screaming or laughing? He didn’t know, but this question, posed in his brain, made him feel suddenly as if he himself were a candidate for a lengthy stay at this lovely little resort. He nodded to a black janitor in green work fatigues who polished the long hallway with one of those curiously undulating buffing machines.
He was conscious of the fact that he was quickening his pace as he neared the doors, the red light of the exit sign drawing him like a beacon. He had the sense that the film he was in had been slightly speeded up as he pushed through the doors and thrust his chest out into the welcoming bitter cold of the evening, like a runner sprinting for the finish line and breaking it with his hands upraised in triumph.
There was a stop for the 400 car right out side the main entrance to the hospital
(asylum?)
He took his place in a small queue along with a couple of other rather forlorn looking transit riders. As he waited in the stinging wind for the streetcar to arrive, a curious figure came ambling down the street. He could be heard before he was clearly seen; he was shouting something rhythmically in a cheerful tone of voice.
“Judgment be comin’ judgment be near…Death be coming soon to us all”
The man made this proclamation in a sing-song happy tone that seemed somehow at odds with the thrust of his message. He ran across the street suddenly causing a car to skid slightly as it applied its brakes to avoid him.
“Christ…I guess they let him out a little early” thought Richard, and then regretted his lack of compassion. Anyway, for all he knew the guy was neither mentally ill, but actually on to something. He relaxed his shoulder blades as the guy disappeared down the street.
The headlamps of the 400 car appeared in the gathering darkness. The car glided to a halt and the doors shuddered and swung upon. The little group began to file up the steps into the embryonic warmth of the streetcar. Richard boarded last and moved down the length of the car, his shoes making smacking noises on the wet rubber lined floor. He collapsed into a seat, suddenly fatigued, and rested his head on the cold foggy window glass. Outside, the snow flew and the lights of the bars and stores along Monarch Street threw pale washes of colour through the car window. He allowed to strobe effect of the street lamps to hypnotize him.
____________________
The sharp whine of metal on metal as the streetcar turned from Monarch onto Parkview brought him back to the surface, and Richard flipped open his cell phone and punched the pre-set for his sister Alice. She had taken Max overnight.
“Hi Ali…no, I’m on the streetcar…No…No, they didn’t really have anything definite to tell me. They said she doesn’t have a brain tumour. Well, yes, that’s good of course. Yah very tired. How’s Max? Cheerios? Sure…sure…well, do you think that it would be O.K.? For another day or two? I know…he loves Lisa so much. They had fun? That’s great. Give him a big hug for me…tell him Daddy loves him. Yah. Yes. Thanks Alice, I’ll call you tomorrow”
Richard put the phone back in his coat pocket as they ghosted into Parkview station. He got off the car. He could either wait for the 52 bus or leave the station and walk home. Despite a feeling of utter exhaustion, he opted for the latter and breasted the cold, leaving the station and headed east towards the Forthton Bridge.
The wind howled up from the valley as he crossed the bridge. It was turning into a real blow again. He doubled forward and staggered across to the relative shelter of the other side and started south on Parkview towards his house. At the corner of Parkside east and Forthton he ducked into the Master Donut to grab a hot coffee. There was a TV on the wall and several of the coffee shop types were watching a weather report detailing the ongoing storm with some interest.
“You like a Coffee, Mr.?” The Asian woman behind the counter asked. He nodded as he stamped and brushed snow of his coat.
“Uhm, Yah, medium Regular, O.K.” he replied
“You cold? It very cold! Big storm coming, Yah?” she grinned.
“Looks like it’s already here!” he said. She nodded, smiling, and glanced at the TV.
“One dollar fourty”.
He put coins on the counter and took the hot beverage. He was beginning to sip from it when a murmur from the crew watching the TV caught his attention. He looked up at the screen. The phrase “News Bulletin” was rolling across the screen repeatedly below the image of the announcer.
“…police are searching tonight for the three inmates who escaped several hours ago from the Monarch Street Mental Health Facility. Apparently the absence of the three was not detected until this evening during a room check. Police are as yet uncertain how the three eluded staff members, but stress that they were not in the maximum security wing and were not considered to be dangerous to others. Citizens are nevertheless requested to avoid approaching the three but in the event of sighting any of the escapees to alert the nearest police division and the Monarch Street Mental Health Facility…”
Richard didn’t hear whatever was left of the bulletin. His attention was riveted by the pictures of the three closely shorn escapees; Dolores, unmistakable despite her lack of makeup and military style buzz cut was one of them!
The sudden ring of his cell phone startled him so much that he dropped his coffee, splashing his coat and shoes with the hot liquid. The TV watchers turned to look at him, and they counter lady scowled and went for a mop. He grabbed for his cell and answered it. It was Alice.
“My God, I know…I just saw it! The donut shop…just up the street. I don’t know! How the hell should I know? No, I don’t believe it! I don’t know…I’m going home…I’ll call you from there. I know, me too…I’ll talk to you in a bit.”
Richard headed for the door, ignoring the donut lady’s offer of another coffee. He jogged the half block to Steven Street as quickly as the buffeting winds and slick footing would allow and turned west. His place was 52 Steven, about two hundred yards from the corner and he covered the distance quickly. His mind was racing as he imagined Dolores wandering the streets in her unstable mental condition.
(What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck)
He reached the darkened front porch of his home at #52 and suddenly he stopped. His immediate reaction of concern for his troubled wife had been supplanted by a different sensation, a creeping sense of dread.
The house was dark and still.
He stood for a moment on the bottom step. His instincts began to tick softly like a hot engine cooling. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t see immediately what it was. Now cautious, he climbed the front steps slowly and quietly, and then stopped and listened for a few seconds. He heard his own heart pounding as he looked to the right and left of the doorway. Everything seemed to be as it should, the broom standing in its customary position, Max’s orange ride-em tractor in its usual spot on the porch. He took his key from his coat pocket and pushed it into the lock. The sound of the key engaging the tumblers seemed horribly loud.
He twisted the key in the lock and gently swung the door open into the darkened front room.
Stepping gingerly inside, not quite yet understanding in the conscious part of his mind the reason for the total apprehension he was experiencing, he pushed the door closed and turned the deadbolt. He felt in the dark for the light switch and flipped it on, feeling a momentary sense of reassurance. He turned and stood for a second with his back to the door, and his eyes, adjusting to the light, caught a gleam of light from a small shiny object on the counter that separated the living room from the eat in kitchen.
He crossed the floor silently, holding his breath and focused on the shiny little cylinder. He stood with his back to the staircase facing the still darkened kitchen, and picked up the little metallic object.
It was a lipstick.
(Max Factor.)
Suddenly, he understood. Max’s tractor. He reached slowly for the phone but wasn’t surprised to hear there was no dial tone. He also was not surprised to hear the soft padding of feet coming down the carpeted stairway behind him. The phrase the TV announcer had used during the bulletin danced through his mind as he turned slowly, and looked up at the figure descending the staircase, the figure with another gleaming metallic object in her left hand.
“…were not considered to be dangerous to others…”
