BUILDING THE GIRL PIECE BY PIECE
TJ
TJ Meadors lay in his narrow bed in the room he shared with five other men at the Oregon State Hospital and thought about Cheyenne Wilder.
His lips moved as he softly said her name. Even saying it out loud, it still sounded like a whisper. He imagined tucking her long, dark hair behind her ear. Breathing “Cheyenne” into that white shell.
Only this time she wouldn’t flinch.
TJ spent as much time with Cheyenne as he could, even if it was only in his head. It helped him block out reality, like the snoring and mumbling around him. And later, when lights suddenly ripped open the night just so a staff member could untangle a headphone cord from around one of TJ’s stupid roommates’ heads, he pulled the blanket over his face and remembered.
Thoughts of Cheyenne helped him ignore how the blanket smelled like disinfectant and the pillow was as hard as a board. He just kept his eyes closed tight and filled his senses with memories of her, building the girl piece by piece. Her soft, pale skin. Her sweet smell, like something precious and expensive. Her dark sightless eyes that had looked right at him but never seen him.
Two weeks ago, Dwayne, Roy’s half brother, had visited, promising that TJ could see Cheyenne again. Do more than see her, if he wanted.
On the grounds, they sat in white plastic lawn chairs, away from the others. TJ ate chip after chip from the two bags of Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream Dwayne bought from the vending machine.
“Easy there, eager beaver,” Dwayne said. Roy was thin as a snake, but Dwayne was bulked up, with tattoos crawling up his thick arms. “You might want to think about chewing.”
“It just tastes so good. The chow here sucks.” Somehow the food service department was able to mess up anything, even spaghetti, but you still had to eat it.
“You always wear a jacket like that?” Dwayne eyed TJ’s brown puffer coat, one of the few things he really owned. Underneath he wore “state clothes,” which were the cheapest sweatpants, T-shirt, underwear, and socks available.
TJ hunched his shoulders despite the sunshine. “I get cold.” He was always cold now. Jimbo was the one who used to complain about how he was freezing, who dressed in layers until he looked like the Michelin Man. Had some part of Jimbo slipped into TJ after he squeezed the trigger?
“My brother said you liked Cheyenne.”
TJ smiled. “She’s pretty.” He used to have a picture of her, torn from People magazine (headline: KIDNAPPED BLIND TEEN ESCAPES ABDUCTORS!). He had kept it under his T-shirt, close to his heart, until a nurse found it and took it away.
“I know what you’re thinkin’, Abe Lincoln. The trial’s gonna be happening soon. She’s testifying against Roy.”
TJ shrugged. Nobody was calling him to testify. Not from this place.
“How’d you like to be with her again? Be all lovey-dovey?”
Even though he wanted it to be true, TJ knew enough to be wary. People didn’t offer you good stuff for free. “How could that even happen?” He reached up to stroke his rat tail, until he remembered how they had cut it off that first day and then buzzed his head in a room that smelled eye-wateringly of bleach.
Dwayne looked around the yard, which was filled with a half dozen guards and more than a hundred patients. Only they weren’t patients. They were prisoners, just like TJ. “Say you could get out of here and go to her. Would you?”
“Yeah, but that’s never gonna happen.” The hope that fluttered in his chest stilled. There were no bars on the windows here, but there might as well be. Every unit had a locked door. Even if you got through that, the stairs and elevators couldn’t be entered without a security badge. And the only exit required passing through not one but two locked gates.
“Never say never. In a couple days, you might get a little present.”
TJ still wasn’t following. “Are you going to bring Cheyenne here?”
A look of impatience crossed Dwayne’s face, so for a moment he looked more like Roy. “No. But I can help you go to her. Every time they let you out into the yard, start pulling a chair right up to the fence.”
“And do what?”
“Just link your fingers in the chain links and stare out. And that’s all you do. Every day. Pretty soon they won’t care, because they’ll figure they don’t need to. They won’t even really see you. The way a place like this works is that they focus on people who’re trouble. They’re not gonna care about you sitting here doing nothing.” Dwayne smiled. One of his eyeteeth was gray. “And then one day soon, you’ll just go—poof!”