Seven a.m. Biedermann entered, followed by Sanchez and her ubiquitous medical tray, and approached the bed where Riley was still restrained.
“Dr. Kaminski has recommended a treatment program of haloperidol twice a day,” she said, her tone more formal than usual. “Unlike the broad-based sedative you received yesterday, which induces sleep, haloperidol is designed for daytime use on violent patients. It creates what’s known as a state of conscious sedation. You will be awake and able to feed yourself, but for safety reasons you may require a wheelchair when moving around the facility. The medication can be administered orally, or by injection. Do you consent to take the haloperidol orally?”
“No,” Riley said.
“Injection, then.” Biedermann turned to Sanchez. “One five seven.”
Sanchez opened a tray of prefilled syringes, labeled and cross-referenced by code to each patient. “One five seven,” she repeated.
Biedermann uncapped the syringe, held it up to the light, tapped the side to ensure there were no air bubbles, then took Riley’s restrained arm and slid the needle home.
“We’ll check in on you when we finish morning rounds with the other patients to make sure the medication is working sufficiently and safely. If so, and if you seem properly relaxed and not aggressive, we can remove the restraints. Just remember that they can always go back on in the event of inappropriate or violent behavior.
“One last thing,” she said on the way out. “Privileges are earned by constructive behavior; they are not automatic or freely given. Consequently, your library privileges have been revoked. We will, however, arrange for a television.”
When the door closed, Riley looked to where her books, including Frankenstein, had been stacked the day before.
All gone.
Shit. Never even got to finish.
Biedermann and Sanchez returned an hour later, removed the restraints, slid out the catheter, and helped her into a wheelchair beside the small table. True to Bidermann’s promise, the haloperidol let her remain conscious, but every move felt as if heavy weights had been attached to her body.
Riley glanced at the clock—9:30. “I’ll miss breakfast,” she said, her voice slow and slurred. Her stomach had awakened before the rest of her, cramped with annoyance at having missed dinner the day before.
“You are confined to your room for the next forty-eight hours for purposes of observation, so you will be taking your meals here,” Biedermann said.
Sanchez set a bowl down on the table, containing milk and cereal that barely came a quarter of the way to the top.
“Is this all?” Riley asked.
“Dr. Kaminski recommended a reduced caloric intake while you adjust to the medication. Haloperidol can sometimes induce nausea, and he wants to be sure your system can handle it. It’s for your own good.”
Translation: he’s getting even with me for shoving his dick all the way up to his tonsils. She reached for the spoon, but her first attempt went onto the table because her hand was shaking from the meds, so she used them both for the next salvo. When she was done, Sanchez collected the bowl and trotted out.
“We won’t lock the door for safety reasons, but if you’re seen outside your room in the next forty-eight hours you will be returned and restrained. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” Riley said.
Biedermann waited.
“Yes, Nurse Biedermann.”
She shook her head. “For what it’s worth, I did try to warn you, Ms. Diaz, but you refused to listen. And now here you are, with less control over your life than you had even a few days ago. I’m very, very disappointed in you.”
And with that, she was gone.
At 10:00 a.m., an orderly brought in a small television and hung it in a corner of her room before tuning it to a children’s streaming network.
“Can I watch something else?”
“Sorry, no can do,” he said. “This is the only channel allowed in the rooms because news programs or shows with too much action can agitate the patients.” Then he tucked the remote into his pocket and headed out.
She turned her attention to the television, where a cartoon horse-drawn stagecoach was talking to a group of children about how roads are built, and why. After ten minutes of this, even the horses looked ready to shoot themselves.
At 12:30, Sanchez returned with lunch: half a tuna sandwich and a glass of water.
On the screen, a bear was very sad because he didn’t have any friends.
Riley was transfixed. Haloperidol had its benefits.
She closed her eyes for what felt like only a moment, but when she opened them again, the sun was nearer the horizon and the shadow of the parrot was stretched across her bed. Good idea, she thought. You get some rest, I’ll take first watch.
On the TV, a pair of inch-high teachers dressed in the height of 1920s fashion appeared in a puff of smoke at the base of a huge blackboard and began to explain why some letters, like C and K, may sometimes sound the same, but are really very, very different.
They continued to explain this for half an hour.
C stands for Catch, Riley thought at the television. K stands for Kill. Would you like to hear me use both words in the same sentence with a U after each one?
I didn’t think so.
Six o’clock: Biedermann, Sanchez, and haloperidol—round two.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
Uncap.
Tap-tap.
Push.
Dinner was a starter-sized green salad with lemon juice, four cherry tomatoes, and croutons. She picked out the croutons and hid them in her pocket for later. They would give her the illusion of having something to eat when the hunger set in, a plan carefully crafted to distract her from the knowledge that the hunger had set in several hours earlier.
Shortly before lights-out, she wheeled herself into the bathroom to pee for the first time since they’d removed the catheter. It hurt but she was pleased at being able to do it on her own.
* * *
Morning, Day Two.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
Uncap.
Tap-tap.
Push.
One-quarter bowl of cereal.
Television.
“Tell the boys and girls watching at home why they should never ever look straight into the sun, Sailor Bob!”
Half a tuna sandwich for lunch. From the flavor, she wondered if it was the other half of the sandwich from the day before.
“How many kinds of birds can you think of,” a matronly woman on-screen asked a crowd of young children. “Call out the names!”
“Parrot!” Riley said, then wondered guiltily if looking to the wrought-iron figure in the window counted as cheating.
Don’t ask me, it said in her thoughts. I just work here.
The hours bled into one another. Sometimes she dozed. The rest of the time she stared at the TV without thinking about anything, letting the sounds and images wash over her.
Then a memory drifted up out of nowhere, an echo from the first time Riley went on a dinner date with a boy.
During a silent moment as they ate, she’d glanced over to see him staring into the distance for what seemed like a long time.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, eager to share in the deep ideas that, from his thoughtful expression, must surely have been gliding through the caverns of his mind.
“Nothing,” he said with a shrug, and kept eating.
She’d always resented that answer, believing it dismissive at best, duplicitous at worst. Her brain was constantly processing what she was doing, what people would think about what she was doing, how she planned to react to what they thought of what she was doing, what she thought about what she was doing, what her plans were for after she was done doing what she was doing, what she’d done the day before, and how it all tied together in a thousand myriad ways. How could someone think about nothing? For hours?
Now she knew.
Men are gooned on haloperidol twenty-four seven—it’s the only thing that can explain them.
Her pride at this discovery lit up whatever parts of her brain were still reporting for duty, and she smiled in anticipation of a congratulatory phone call from the Nobel Committee.
Six p.m.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
Sanchez reached for the syringe.
“I was thinking about not thinking,” Riley said, her right arm back in its restraint for the injection, “and I remembered what you said a while back. That no one owns you, no one controls you.”
Uncap.
“You seem to think that being in control is all about what other people can or can’t do to you. But I’m not sure that’s right. I think the part you’re missing, the part you’re not thinking about, is that we have no control at all over what other people do to us. The only thing we can control, the only real choice we have, is how we react when they do those things. Do we bend, break, or fight? You’re doing this because Kaminski wrote a prescription and a treatment plan, then gave you the order. You’re doing this because you have to. I’m saying no because I choose to. So which of us really has control here?”
Tap-tap.
“You said no one owns you. No one controls you. How’s that working out for you, right about now?”
Push.
Sanchez looked away.
But Biederman’s eyes were as cold as the tip of the needle.
As the warmth of the drug traveled up her arm, Riley shook her head and said, “I’m very, very disappointed in you, Nurse Biedermann.”
* * *
Solitude.
Television.
Green salad. Lemon juice. Four cherry tomatoes. (Were they literally counting them?) Croutons for later.
Solitude.
Television.
Pee. Poo.
Lights out.
Sleep.
* * *
Morning, Day Three.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
As Sanchez carried out the tray, Biedermann stepped up to Riley. “Your forty-eight-hour observation period has now expired. Since there have been no subsequent violent incidents, you are free to leave your room and move about the facility. Bear in mind, however, that this permission can be immediately revoked if there are any further disruptions. Finally, per your treatment plan, we will continue to administer haloperidol twice a day until instructed otherwise by Dr. Kaminski. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Nurse Biedermann,” Riley said, and immediately began planning what she would have for breakfast: waffles with fruit and whipped cream, eggs, and toast—and oh, yeah, bacon, lots and lots of bacon.
An orderly appeared at the doorway with a wheelchair. “You can escort her to the cafeteria,” Biedermann said.
The orderly helped Riley into the wheelchair—she kept hoping she’d adjust to the haloperidol, but she was still having a hard time walking without falling over—and rolled her to the cafeteria where the other ARC patients were sitting together at the same table. Some of them waved to her as she approached, but the rest appeared oddly subdued. Something seemed different about them, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
The orderly rolled her toward the one spot at the table that was open, pushed the wheelchair into the gap, and locked the wheels.
On the table in front of her, waiting for her, was a bowl of cereal, one-quarter filled.
She looked up at the orderly, her eyes asking, What the fuck?
“Doctor’s orders,” he replied in a tone that said, It’s not my fault, I gotta do this or it’s my job.
Riley reached for the lock on the wheelchair.
“Not allowed,” he said. “Kaminski gave instructions that the wheelchair is to stay locked during meals for your own safety, but that if you felt strong enough to walk to the serving counter, we shouldn’t stop you.”
The distance from the table to the counter at the far end of the cafeteria seemed as long as a football field. Wobbly from meds and lack of food, she knew she’d never make it all the way without falling.
He wants to see me weak.
Then she looked around the table and finally realized what was different. The other ARC patients never had breakfast all together at the same table, preferring instead to break up into groups of twos and threes. So why were they all sitting together now, at the same table, waiting for her, with an open spot reserved for her with a bowl of cereal already in place? And why were none of them making eye contact with her, not even Danny?
I’m wrong, she thought. It’s not that Kaminski wants to see me weak. He wants them to see me weak. To make an example of me.
So what am I going to do about it?
She knew she could never make the long walk to the serving counter, and unlocking the wheelchair against Kaminski’s orders would almost certainly result in getting confined to her room again. And she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of pleading with the orderly for more cereal.
There was only one acceptable response. But are we up to this?
No idea. Let’s find out.
As the others looked on, she picked out a single corn flake, put it on her tongue, then pushed the bowl away and laid her head on her arms.
“No, no, really,” she said as the room spun around her, “I’m so full, I couldn’t possibly eat another bite. You go on ahead.”
The others looked from their full plates to Riley and back again, hesitated, then silently began eating, stealing little glimpses at her as she pushed the bowl farther away.
Game on, she thought.
* * *
Dr. Nakamura sat in for Kaminski at their next group therapy session, explaining that he was still “a little bit under the weather,” but that he was resting at home and would be back in action in time for their next meeting.
“I thought we’d start today’s session talking about violence,” she said, and to no one’s surprise looked at Riley as she said it. “I think we can all agree that violence never solves anything.”
Riley started to ask What about World War Two, but Danny got there first.
“Worked against the Nazis,” he said. “The first bunch, anyway.”
“That’s war, and war isn’t the same as violence.”
“Tell that to my grandfather,” Hector said, and Riley could see that he was getting his back up over it. “Well, actually, you can’t, because he’s in a cemetery in France.”
“Wars are authorized under prevailing laws, and waged by one government against another,” Nakamura said. “Violence is something that happens between individuals that’s not authorized and is thus illegal.”
“Being legal doesn’t make it right,” Angela said. “As I recall, during World War Two, the laws of Japan made it legal for your ancestors to rape and kill my ancestors in China.”
Go Angela! Riley thought, grinning, then tucked the smile away when Nakamura saw it.
“I’m not going to relitigate World War Two, Vietnam, the Mideast or any other war,” Nakamura said. “This is about what happened three days ago, when Riley attacked Dr. Kaminski without provocation.”
“He tried to make me suck his dick.”
“That’s your interpretation—”
“You weren’t there.”
“—there’s not a shred of proof—”
“Because the doctors don’t have cameras in their offices.”
“—and Dr. Kaminski would never do anything like that. Am I right, Lauren?”
Lauren’s head shot up, startled at being pulled into this.
Riley’s cheeks flushed red in anger. Nakamura knows! Or at least suspects! That’s why she picked the only person in the room who’ll say exactly what she’s supposed to say!
“Yes, you’re right,” Lauren said quietly, turning her gaze to the floor. “He’d never do something like that.”
Riley closed her eyes, projecting fatigue as a cover while she blocked out the session with an image of hitting Nakamura in the face with a snow shovel, really hard, over and over, a lot.
Violence solves noth—
wham!
She opened her eyes again when she heard the session grinding to an end, unlocked the wheelchair, and rolled out of the room as fast as she could.
“Riley?” Lauren called from behind her.
Riley turned to see her near tears. “I’m sorry, I had to say that.”
“I know, it’s okay,” Riley said, not wanting to get into it.
“It’s just . . . you did what I couldn’t, and God, I wish I could’ve seen it. But I can’t do anything, can’t say anything, until I get out of here. I promise, once I go home and get my son away from his asshole father, I’ll—”
“Once you’re out of here you won’t do shit, because you’ll be too busy trying to forget you were ever here,” Riley snapped, then yanked back her anger. This isn’t her fault. He’s using her the way he tried to use you. She’s not the bad guy. You’re mad at him, don’t take it out on her.
“I apologize,” she said, “that was out of line.”
“No, actually, it wasn’t,” Lauren said, wiping away tears, “and I’m sorry you’re going through all this.”
“I’ll be okay,” Riley said, though she knew Kaminski wasn’t finished with her yet. “How does he keep getting away with it? Why doesn’t someone on staff do something about it?”
“I think some of them want to, but they’re afraid he’ll hurt their careers. Sometimes, when I was . . . with him, he’d laugh at how nobody will say anything against him as long as he has McGann on his side, because that puts him inside Homeland Security, and they’re not accountable to anyone. It was like he couldn’t be touched.”
“Not anymore,” Riley said.
And that finally got a smile out of Lauren.
* * *
Lunch: the same half-of-a-tuna-sandwich served at the same table for the same audience with full plates before them.
“Gosh, I’d love to, but I’m still full from breakfast,” Riley said, pushing away the plate. “Anyone else want it? No way can I fit this in.”
Callie leaned in close. “Riley, stop it, we know what you’re doing, but you have to eat.”
Riley shook her head. If they weren’t going to feed her properly, then she wouldn’t eat at all. Nothing like a little hunger strike to see who runs out of patience first. But Callie wasn’t wrong; between the haloperidol and being half-starved, she was hurting and pretty spaced out.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, putting her head on the table. “Just need to rest a bit.”
* * *
Six p.m.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
“I understand you’re not eating,” Biedermann said as she searched for a vein; the one she’d been using for the last several days didn’t want to come out and play.
“Not hungry.”
Biedermann held her gaze. “I hope you realize, Ms. Diaz, that there are steps we can take to make sure you get proper nutrition.”
“Well, you can try,” Riley said. “There’s nothing you can do to force-feed me that a finger down my throat five minutes later can’t undo.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Biedermann said.
* * *
Green salad. Lemon juice. Four cherry tomatoes. Croutons.
Riley pushed the bowl away, but surreptitiously slipped out one of the croutons.
Later, after the ward was locked down for the night, she took the crouton out of her pocket and let it slowly dissolve in her mouth, savoring the saltiness and crunchy texture.
Just got to hold on for another two days, she thought. Friday afternoon is grand rounds. Friday is Dr. Munroe. He’ll come in, I’ll say, “Good morning,” and he’ll fix this.
She closed her eyes but did not sleep, her mind focused entirely on food and Friday.
* * *
Seven a.m.
“Do you consent?”
“. . . no.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
She did not eat at breakfast.
She did not eat at lunch.
* * *
Six p.m.
“Do you consent?”
“. . . . .”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that, Ms. Diaz. Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
She did not eat at dinner.
She did not sleep.
* * *
Seven a.m.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
* * *
Riley rolled slowly down the hall toward the cafeteria, barely able to push the wheelchair, and took her place at the table. As before, the other ARC patients sat behind trays bearing eggs and toast and juice. She looked at the quarter bowl of cereal in front of her. She was so hungry, so starved, that the bowl was all she could see.
You can have one bowl. Just for now. You can pick up the strike later.
No, she thought, and looked away.
“Fuck this,” Danny said angrily, and took the plate of eggs from his tray and slid it to Riley.
Callie was next, and a cold glass of orange juice appeared.
One of the orderlies, seeing what was happening, moved to stop them.
Danny, Hector, and Angela formed a defensive line between them.
Jim hesitated, then joined the others blocking the orderly. “I wouldn’t butt into this if I were you.”
“Yeah, what he said,” Angela said.
The orderly trotted off, reaching for his cell phone.
“Go ahead, Riley,” Becca said, “take your time. We’ve got your back.”
Hands shaking from hunger, Riley sliced off a piece of fried egg and lifted it to her mouth.
It. Was. Magnificent.
* * *
The insurrection, small as it was, put the staff in a difficult position. There were no rules against sharing food unless it contained contraindicated nutrition, which wasn’t the case here. But Kaminski had made his instructions concerning Riley very clear, and no one under him had the authority to countermand those instructions. Responding aggressively against the other ARC patients would only escalate the situation, leading to further insurrections, but they couldn’t just ignore the situation.
The countermove came at lunch, when Riley and the others arrived to find that all the regular patients had been served an hour earlier. The service counter was closed, the door to the kitchen locked.
On the table were eight individual plates containing one-half of a tuna salad sandwich. The message was simple: You want everyone to have the same meals, great, but understand that it works both ways.
The sandwiches went into the trash, followed by the plates they came on, the plastic cutlery beside them, the napkins, and one of the chairs, just in case the point wasn’t sufficiently clear.
* * *
Six p.m.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
* * *
Dinner.
Eight plates. Eight green salads with lemon juice, four cherry tomatoes, and croutons.
They all went in the trash. Even the croutons. Also another chair.
They didn’t talk about their decision, not even to each other, because nobody knew if the cafeteria or the halls or the other rooms were bugged. Besides, there was nothing to talk about. A line had been drawn. Now they had to stand behind it. And not move.
Boots on the ground! Bodies in the way!
* * *
Lights out. Doors locked.
Riley lay in bed, shaking with hunger. Two days of virtually no food had been followed by two days of literally no food. She felt bad that the others were now going through the same thing she was enduring, but she was also proud of them, and angry, and in for the fight.
* * *
Seven a.m.
“Do you consent?”
“No.”
“One five seven.”
* * *
One-quarter-filled bowls.
In the trash.
Then back to their rooms for grand rounds. Finally, Riley thought. Dr. Munroe will fix this.
When she heard his voice down the hall, she pushed hard on the arms of the wheelchair, forcing herself to stand. She didn’t want him to see her on the outside the way she felt on the inside: ready to pass out from malnutrition and the drugs.
She looked at the clock, sweat pooling in the small of her back. It was taking him longer than usual to get to her room. Her knees wobbled and threatened to buckle under her. She locked them in place. We’re defined by what we stand for when standing is the hardest.
So stand, goddamnit.
Stand!
After another five minutes, Dr. Munroe came through the door, followed by Biedermann, Sanchez, Nakamura . . . and Kaminski, who regarded her silently but angrily.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Diaz,” Julian said.
“Good morning,” she replied.
He nodded, silently acknowledging the reply. “How are we feeling today?”
“Couldn’t be better,” she said, staring pointedly at Kaminski. Don’t say anything they can use to put you back under restraints. Save the truth for when we’re alone.
“Any issues or problems?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I understand there was a bit of trouble between the staff, yourself, and the other ARC patients.”
“Yeah, but we’re working it out.”
“Still declining oral medication?”
“Yes.”
“Even though it’s now a requirement?”
“Yes.”
“Agreeing to take it would be simpler.”
“Yes, it would.”
“It took us a bit longer than usual to get to you because apparently everyone has chosen to be singularly uncooperative. Do you know anything about this?”
“Of course she does, she’s the ringleader,” Kaminski snapped.
“Ms. Diaz?” Julian said, ignoring the outburst.
“We haven’t discussed anything. If we had, I’m sure someone, somewhere, would have heard it. Or recorded it. Isn’t that right, Nurse Biedermann?”
Biedermann said nothing.
“All I know,” Riley said, “is that apparently Dr. Kaminski decided to weaponize the food supplies, and I’m pretty sure it’s against the law to deliberately starve patients to punish them or force them to do what you want.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Julian said, “but in principle, yes, that’s correct.”
Then he made a notation on his tablet, nodded, and turned to the rest. “On to the next patient,” he said, then paused as they started for the door. “Actually, you go on ahead, I forgot a couple more questions I need to ask.”
Kaminski bristled. “We’re supposed to do this together—”
“Yes, we are, and I imagine Mr. McGann would be the one to talk to about my decision, but by the time you call downstairs and request intercession, I’ll be done here. So you and the rest continue on to the next room, and I’ll be with you in just a tick.”
They didn’t like it, but technically Julian still outranked them, so they left.
“You’ve caused quite a stir,” Julian said when the door was closed.
“Kaminski made the first move.”
“So say the rumor mills,” he said ruefully. “There’s no evidence, of course, which reduces the situation to he-said/she-said, so I doubt anything will be done about it, but for what it’s worth, I absolutely believe what you said about the encounter. Before the ARC program moved in, there were stories going around about Kaminski taking liberties with some of the patients. We were about to investigate when he flipped to McGann, who claimed jurisdiction over the inquiry and strangled it. Just one more way that he and McGann are linked at the hip.”
Which is about what I figured, except worse, she thought, then caught her knees starting to buckle again.
“Please sit,” Julian said.
“I’m okay,” she said, though they both knew she was lying. “I’m guessing that if I file a complaint about the food situation, it won’t go anywhere because McGann is protecting him, so is there anything you can do to stop him? Putting all of us on a starvation diet has to be illegal. I appreciate that the others are with me on this, but I don’t want to see them get hurt.”
“My authority was cut back significantly after McGann took over, and he’s been whittling away at it ever since. It was he, by the way, who authorized the dietary changes recommended by Kaminski. As an administrator, not a doctor, McGann has more wriggle room than a physician when it comes to this sort of thing. The AMA probably wouldn’t recognize the distinction, but that would require a full administrative review, which McGann could block through Homeland Security. The best I can do is threaten to open an inquiry of my own into what’s going on. Stopping such an inquiry once it gets started is a lot harder than making the accommodations necessary to keep it from getting that far, so I suspect they’d blink. The question, of course, is what comes afterward. It’s the doctrine of unexpected consequences; if I do X, they might do Y, and I don’t know what Y would mean for me, or for you.
“But it has to be done,” he continued. “This can’t go on. If I don’t speak up, then I’m complicit, and that’s simply not an option. I can justify getting them to back off on the food issue on the grounds that it will defuse the tension and let things get back to normal. But the situation is more complicated when it comes to the meds. Once a physician prescribes a program of treatment based on his formal appraisal that it’s best for the patient, it’s hard for third parties, even me, to change that program without getting lawyers involved or getting three staff doctors to support an appeal, and I don’t think we’ll find any willing to stand up to McGann.”
“So I’m stuck being Nurse Biedermann’s pincushion?”
“I’m afraid so, but she’s . . .”
Then he caught himself, and tucked away whatever he had been about to say.
What was that about? she wondered.
“There’s an old saying, Riley: ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’ If I were in your position, I’d keep close to Biedermann.”
He started toward the door.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“They’re waiting for me.”
“I know, but this is important.” She hesitated, trying to find a way to ask her question delicately before deciding, I don’t have time to be polite. “It’s about Frankenstein.”
He allowed a thin smile. “I heard that you’d more or less adopted him. His lead therapist, Dr. Morris, wanted to intervene because some patients don’t respond well to unsupervised contact, but I said let’s see where this goes. What do you want to know?”
“Why is he the way he is? What happened to him?”
He frowned. “Under the rules of patient confidentiality, physicians don’t generally discuss case histories with anyone other than family members or authorized guardians, but there simply aren’t any. He’s been a ward of the state since he was fourteen. Besides, his story was covered extensively, and quite luridly, in the press, so there aren’t a lot of secrets left. Even so, I can only ethically discuss what’s in the public record.
“From the age of three onward, he was abused by his parents. Beaten regularly, fed table scraps, locked in the basement and forced to sleep in his own waste. He used to hide in a corner that was his special place, where he convinced himself they couldn’t find him or hurt him, but of course they always did. They never sent him to school or allowed anyone inside the house. Neighbors didn’t even know they had a child.
“For children to develop normally, they need two things starting from about age four. The first is access to their peer group, other children their own age, who can help them learn how to socialize. More importantly, there must be someone in their life, a parent or authority figure, to whom they can bond as a protector. They need the security of knowing that there’s at least one adult they can call out to for help if they’re hurt, someone they can look to as a role model. But if there are no other children to teach them how to form friendships, and if the only authority figures in their lives are vengeful, violent, and emotionally abusive, they grow up incapable of forming normal relationships, unable to show compassion, affection, or vulnerability, because they know that expressing those emotions will result in retribution and further abuse.
“To drown out any cries he might have made, they put a TV in the basement behind wire mesh, tuned to a local cable channel that showed old movies that didn’t cost much to license. One of the movies that regularly popped up in rotation was Frankenstein, and in that movie he found a reflection of his own situation: someone who was caged, beaten, reviled, and hated by those who had given him life. The difference was that the monster never seemed to feel the pain of the whip. No matter what they did to him, he just kept on coming.
“When we are in pain, we will grab on to anything that will let us survive. Lacking friends, genuine family or anyone he could look to as a role model, he bonded to Frankenstein, and learned to shut down the pain impulse, a not uncommon survival mechanism in cases of severe trauma. No matter how badly his parents beat him, he wouldn’t scream or cry out. His defiance enraged them further, so they began switching up their methods, becoming even more extreme to elicit the pain they needed to see in his eyes. The more he adjusted to the latest form of abuse by cutting off the pain of being alive, the more his personality shut down, until there was very little of him left.
“One night, after his parents had been drinking heavily and beating him to within an inch of his life, they neglected to return him to the basement, and passed out in the living room, leaving him chained to the floor by his ankle. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but now, courtesy of what he had seen in the Frankenstein movies, he had a plan: he would burn down the ‘castle,’ with all of them inside, ending the nightmare once and for all. According to the medical report, he fought so hard to reach his father’s cigarette lighter that he tore away most of the flesh at his ankle, exposing the bones underneath. I can’t begin to imagine the agony he must have felt, but he kept going until he reached his goal and set the house ablaze.
“When the firefighters broke in, his parents were already dead of smoke inhalation, and he was nearly dead himself. Once the physical evidence found in the basement revealed the ugly truth of what had been going on, psychiatrists were brought in to try and salvage what was left of him, but their efforts proved unsuccessful. All he’d ever known was pain and rage, and with the death of his parents he no longer had a target for that anger, so he began acting out, attacking anyone who got close to him. During his first year in treatment, he put two orderlies in the hospital.”
“So he’s never getting out?”
“I’m afraid not. Given the horrors he was forced to endure, his actions on that day are understandable, but they still constitute premeditated murder. The judge allowed a very generous period to evaluate his condition in the hope that something could be done to help him, but after years of no progress he was ruled criminally insane and sentenced to a lifetime in psychiatric custody. He is never ever leaving here.
“So I advise you to be very careful around him. Just last year he broke the arm of an orderly who made the mistake of getting too close. He would’ve killed the man if other staff hadn’t intervened. He’s dangerous, Riley. Seriously dangerous. Be careful.”
His phone blipped with a text. “The others want to know what’s taking me so long. So I should get going.”
“One last question,” Riley said. “Everyone calls him Frankenstein, and maybe that’s who he is now, but that’s not how he started. What’s his real name?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Julian said as he headed for the door. “Whatever that name was, and whoever he was before the nightmare began, he’s not there anymore. The vulnerability of that child stood between him and freedom from pain, so it had to be eliminated. In a way, his earlier self was Frankenstein’s first victim, murdered in order for the monster to survive.
“And now the monster is all that remains.”