101: Doctor Oglesby wore a green argyle sweater today, again with khaki pants. I could only imagine argyle growing wild in his closet, slowly taking over the solids and plaids with their evasive patterns. Could you spray for argyle? Maybe there was a way to hold it at bay. Did wearing argyle on the regular cause one to morph into a doctor of the mind? If he wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops every day rather than the sweaters, would he be a different man because of his choices? Would the clothing cause his personality to shift? Can the clothes change the man? Or does it work the other way around? A change in personality first, which then leads to a desire to wear more casual clothing. I wasn’t—
“Anson? Where are you right now?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, it’s fine. I’m just curious where your mind takes you when leave the room like that.”
“I was right here. I didn’t go anywhere.”
“You were physically right here, but your mind was in a distant place. What were you thinking about?”
The glasses were off again, dangling around his neck.
“Who is the girl down the hall from me?”
“What girl?”
“Two doors down.”
The doctor frowned at this. “Have you met?”
On went the glasses, a scribble in his notepad.
I shook my head. “I’ve heard her crying. She seems very sad.”
“Does that make you feel sad?”
“Should it?”
“Do you ever cry, Anson?”
I had to think about this, maybe the first compelling thing the doctor asked of me since I got here. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried. Father taught me to cry, I could cry at will, I could summon tears with the snap of my fingers, but I didn’t remember ever needing to do so, even when—no, not then. I wouldn’t think about that. The last time I think I cried was after Ridley’s puppies. I didn’t want to talk about the puppies either, not now, not ever. Father once told me although I knew how to cry, real men do not. Real men never cry. Dirty Harry would be far less threatening if he broke down into tears while waving his gun at the bad guys, or worse—when they pointed their guns at him.
“When you learned you were alone, when you first realized both your parents were gone and you were all alone, did you cry then?”
“Yes.”
I said this only because I knew it was what he wanted to hear, the correct answer. I had not shed a tear—there was no point. Crying would not have helped or changed anything. Crying would have been a waste of time. I did not waste time. I did not let emotion control me.
“Yet, you haven’t cried at all since arriving here.”
Glasses off again.
“There is no shame in crying, Anson. Emotional reactions to situations and our environment aid our body in coping with the current predicament. Bottling up emotion, holding such things inside, that can be dangerous. Have you ever taken a can of soda and shaken it up real good, then popped the top?”
“I don’t drink soda.”
“Shaking the can causes the gases inside to become agitated. Opening the can allows that agitation to be released. If you don’t open the can, all that energy remains inside and it can be damaging, all those molecules running into each other, getting angrier and angrier as they realize they’re trapped with no place to go. Shake a can and leave it to fester long enough, and the soda will taste bad when you eventually do open it.”
“Soda is bad for you.”
“The girl down the hall from you, she cries because something horrible has happened to her. I can’t share the details of another patient, but the things that have happened to her were unimaginable, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, not even someone who lies or fibs to me. She cries because crying makes her feel better. She cries because crying helps her heal. Crying is a normal reaction, it is the right reaction. I worry far more about someone who doesn’t cry than I do about a girl like her. I don’t want to worry about you, Anson, but I do.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yes, well—” Dr. Oglesby stood and went around to the other side of his desk. He pulled open the top left drawer and took out a plastic ziplock bag. There was writing on the outside, but I couldn’t make out what it said. Inside the bag was my Ranger Buck knife.
He set the bag down on the desk between us, then came back around to his chair. With his pen, he poked at the bag, turning it slightly. “That’s a nice knife, Anson. Did your father give you that?”
“Yes.”
“I bet you’d like to have it back.”
“Yes.”
“What if I were to keep it? Or maybe throw it away? I suppose I could even give it to someone on the staff. Seems silly to let such a nice knife go to waste.”
“It doesn’t belong to you.”
“No? I think it does. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Have you ever heard that expression? The police gave the knife to me for safekeeping. A knife is a weapon. I’m not so sure a boy like you should possess a weapon.”
My eyes fixed on him.
I wanted to look at the knife, but that was also what he wanted me to do. I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do, no sir.
He gave the bag another poke and eased back into his chair. “If I were to return the knife to you, what do you suppose you’d do with it? Would I be in danger? Would my staff have reason for concern? What does a boy who doesn’t cry do with a knife like that?”
Something was absent from that plastic bag, something I desperately wanted to ask him about but knew I couldn’t. The picture of Mother and Mrs. Carter had been in my pocket too. Where was the picture?
I imagined Dr. Oglesby holding the picture in the dark, studying it, filthy thoughts running through his little head. Filthy thoughts he’d no doubt wipe away with a discarded argyle sweater.
That would not do.
That would not do at all.
I looked at the knife. “It makes a good screwdriver, and I’ve used it to open boxes. Sometimes I cut the bark off old trees, or pick rocks out from the tires of Father or Mother’s cars. A pocketknife is a useful tool to have on you, but if you prefer to hold on to my knife for now, if that makes you feel more comfortable, that’s fine.”
Dr. Oglesby smiled. “I’m glad you approve, Anson. And you are one hundred percent correct. I had a Swiss Army knife when I was a boy your age. I carried that knife with me everywhere I went.”
Father once told me Swiss Army knives were a joke, bulky and unnecessarily bogged down with useless clutter. A real man could get by with nothing but a knife. Any man who felt the need to carry a corkscrew, scissors, and metal toothpick in his pocket was not resourceful. That was the kind of man who cried. Dirty Harry would never carry a Swiss Army knife. I did not mention this, though, because the doctor seemed pleased with my last response.
The doctor scratched the side of his nose, studied his finger, then nodded back at the desk. “You know, Anson, before the police gave that to me, they ran the blade through a series of tests. I’m not sure exactly what they were looking for, but something compelled them to study your knife very carefully.”
I thought about Mr. Carter then, his final visit to the lake. Father had cut him up into tiny pieces neatly wrapped in plastic and tasked me with sending those pieces to the bottom of the lake. I punctured each plastic bag with my knife before chucking them into the water, weighed down with rocks. Best to give the fish a taste, Father once told me.
“You know what they found, Anson?” He reached for his glasses, thought better of it, and leaned forward instead. “Your knife had been scrubbed and soaked in bleach, every nook and cranny. Might as well have been brand new. Considering you only used it for things like opening boxes, picking at rocks and bark, and the occasional screwdriver, it seems odd to me that you would use bleach on it. I imagine the police were curious about this too.”
“I like to keep a clean blade.”
He said nothing then, he said nothing for a long time, then: “Yes, I suppose you would.”
Ten minutes later he led me from his office back down the hall to my own room.
Nurse Gilman always smiled up at me when the doctor led me past the nurses’ station. Today I smiled back, then bent to adjust my slipper—it was large, and my foot sometimes slipped out.