The Blind

OCTOBER 23RD, 11:37 P.M.

I have been avoiding garbage day for about a week now, and the recycling bin is overflowing. There isn’t much space under the sink in my kitchen, and since I drink more than I cook, I have the big recycling bin between the front door and the fridge. It looks more like a hamper.

The blue see-through bag has been pulled under with the weight of the bottles, and I need to yank it up by the red strings to get it out of the can. The clattering sound it makes is absolutely insufferable. There is a leak at the bottom, and the putrid stench of week-old wine and booze, mixed with the acidic smell of the Tropicana bottle from this morning’s screwdrivers, is making me gag. There’s a reason I always put this chore off until the last possible minute.

The noise the bottles make as I pull it along the carpeted hallway is not as bad as it would be if I were to pick it up and haul it over my shoulder, Santa Claus–style. I will have to carry it that way when I walk down the old marble steps to the basement.

I push open the refuse-room door, and I see skittering bugs as I turn on the lights. They’ve come inside to hunker down for the winter, and this room is a veritable buffet of gnarly shit for them to feast on. I flip over my huge sack of booze bottles into an awaiting plastic can, and it sounds like several of them smash. I feel the ooze that has spilled down the back of my pajama pants, and I try to dry it off with a rag that was hanging on a hook by the door.

I get back up to my apartment and clean up the smears on the floor. I put the two forgotten bottles of beer into a fresh blue recycling bag and line the can with it. I have two bottles of scotch on my bookcase shelf that I never finish. There’s always at least four fingers left in each bottle so if I have company, it looks classy and sophisticated. I usually have a bottle or two of wine in the fridge, too. Not because I’m saving it, but because I buy in bulk.

OCTOBER 26TH, 3:35 P.M.

Gary is loitering in front of my office door as I return from running a women’s group.

“Hey, Gary. Did you need something?” I can see the desperation in his eyes, and I know what he came here to discuss with me.

“Yeah, I need to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”

“I sure do, come on in.”

Gary slumps low in my patient chair and rakes his sweaty fingers through his hair. “This is making me crazy. I can’t get a word out of this guy, and I’ve had meetings with him every day since Friday.”

“You mean Richard McHugh?” I know exactly who he means.

“Yeah. I brought him in on Friday, like I said, and I tried to start the evaluations and assessments for his patient file, right?” He’s leaning on my desk and waving a meaty paw in my face. “And he doesn’t say a word. Not a word. He just sits there, and I thought he must be deaf or something, because he just didn’t say anything. He didn’t get mad or anything; he just sat there. I kept asking him the same questions, and he just looked at me or looked out my window. So, then I figured maybe he wasn’t ready. I told him about me, tried to relate to the guy, said I would treat him like a man if he treated me like a man, and still nothing.” Gary is genuinely surprised that his presumptuous macho plan didn’t work. Half of me wants to laugh in his face, and the other half wants to be professional and help him develop as a counselor.

“Okay. So, the original plan didn’t work. You said you met with him every day since then. Did you change your approach?”

“Yeah. I mean, I did everything I know how to do. First, I was just trying the ‘talk to him like a man’ thing, and that didn’t work. Monday, I asked him to come back to my office, and he didn’t put up a fight or anything. So, I figured this time I would just be all business and make him answer the evaluation and assessment questions. But he didn’t answer a single question! He started reading the newspaper. He brought this huge stack of newspapers with him to read and wouldn’t even look at me when I asked him questions.”

“Okay, and I imagine the sessions yesterday and today were more of the same?” I’m already tired of hearing this.

“Yeah, total silence. He doesn’t even say hello.” Gary leans back, satisfied that this is my problem now.

“Gary, you’ve made four attempts to talk to a man who apparently doesn’t like to talk much. So, you shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed that conventional methods aren’t working.”

“I don’t think it’s my methods, I think it’s me. I think he just doesn’t like me.” Gary is saying this to appeal to my ego, so that I offer to take over for him and he doesn’t have to ask me.

“How would you like to proceed?” I’m not letting him off that easy.

“I think you should take him. I don’t have this kind of time to waste on someone who doesn’t talk, doesn’t want to be helped.” He is crossing his arms and shaking his head in fast, erratic twitches that make him look like a frightened woodland creature.

“I can’t make that call. You’re going to have to speak with Rachel.”

“Oh, come on, Sam, can’t you just take this one for me?”

“I’ve already taken Shawn for you.” I sigh. “But if Rachel signs off on it, I will take him. Until then, he’s yours.” I close my notebook for effect and open my door, allowing Gary to go find Rachel and deal with this.

OCTOBER 28TH, 9:12 A.M.

We have a 9:00 a.m. staff meeting most mornings to discuss our patients and any administrative nonsense that needs to be addressed. Everyone usually drags ass in the meeting except for me and my boss, Rachel.

Rachel is a linebacker. She is a formidable presence, and her booming voice and sharp intellect scare the shit out of everyone. She was born to run an institution, and her lack of a private life really helps her excel at her job. Her stringy, mousy brown hair is pulled back with a velvet scrunchie and she is always wearing a sweater set and chinos that are too tight in the hips and it makes the slash pockets stick out like little ears.

Rachel likes me because she needs to believe that I really am always energetic and positive and a barrel of sunshine. Whenever I am out on the unit, I am a superhero. I am a troubleshooter, and a problem solver, and the go-to gal to get stuff done. My coworkers hate this about me. Until I cover their groups, or take their patients to the ER, or finish their case reviews/progress reports/treatment plans; then they love this about me. I make self-deprecating jokes as a defense mechanism. I always ask people about their weekend and how they’re doing because people are narcissistic and won’t ask me how I’m doing in response. This way I don’t have to lie to anyone.

“Frankie’s back in the hospital.” Shirley begins her report. “Apparently he was standing in the middle of the street trying to direct traffic. This was an intersection on Broadway, and it’s amazing that he isn’t dead. Supposedly, when the police tried to stop him and arrest him or whatever, he started running away from them, bouncing off of cars, running in between them… It was a mess. Eventually they tackled him, I’m not sure, and they brought him to the psych unit at Columbia University Medical Center. He is on suicide watch right now, and I keep getting calls from the docs telling me that he’s not cooperating. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about this.” Shirley is both disengaged and disenchanted and ran out of empathy years ago.

“You go to CUMC, Shirley,” Rachel responds, irritable, frustrated, possibly menopausal. “You talk to the doctors. You make sure they know you’re the point person in his continuing care. Eventually, Frankie is going to be coming back here for inpatient services once he is cleared to go, and he needs to be aware that he wasn’t abandoned in the psych unit at CUMC.

“Remember, all of you.” She is looking at us like bad kids who ate all the cookies. “We are the only resource for many of our patients here. We are their mothers and fathers, their caretakers and confidants…”

I didn’t sign up to work on this unit to be anyone’s mother or father and I resent her for saying this as she drones on with the lecture she has delivered so many times. I sip my coffee and stare out the only window in the conference room. There is construction going on across the street; I can hear it a little bit, but mostly I just watch the men in jeans and reflective vests glide up and down this building as they work the planks and rods of the scaffold, and I wonder what would happen if someone jumped off.

“In other news,” Rachel continues, “I’m announcing a caseload change this morning, as well. Gary has been working hard to reach our newest patient, Richard McHugh, but unfortunately, he hasn’t gotten anywhere. I met with Richard yesterday to discuss a change in his counselor, and he asked for you, Sam, by name. So, tag—you’re it. Good luck.” Rachel told me about this before the end of my shift yesterday, so this is nothing more than a performance for the rest of the staff.

Rachel pulls me aside and thanks me for playing along. I rejoice in being her golden girl, and whenever she has faith in me, it helps me to have faith in myself. She reminds me again that Richard specifically said he wanted to work with me, Samantha James.

Julie is waiting for me outside the conference-room doors. “No wonder Gary couldn’t handle that guy, I’m sure you’re going to do a much better job. I can’t believe Rachel even wasted our time assigning him to someone so incompetent.” Julie, always looking for someone to tell her she isn’t incompetent. She is huddling next to me like we’re girlfriends of twenty years, holding my arm and whispering her hot-coffee whisper into my hair.

“I just think it’s stupid to have these meetings at the ass crack of dawn when everyone is still hungover and can’t even read yet,” I say, trying to lose her.

“You’re hungover?”

“It’s a figure of speech, Julie. I am not literally hungover.” Lies. Lies. Lies. I would be much better off wrapped around a toilet right now, but Julie will offer me no solace.

“Oh—I know—I guess I just thought maybe you went out last night again. When are we going to go out together? Are you doing anything tonight?”

Julie likes me and wants to be my friend, but I find it impossible to like her. As much as I appreciate her for being an idiot who can’t get over high school, I still can’t tolerate listening to her inane musings and cotton-candy problems with her debutante friends and country-club life. David walks past us and gives me a knowing smile and chuckle.

“I never make plans this early in the day. I will let you know, though; we should definitely grab a drink sometime.” I smile broadly and disengage from her grasp as we are getting close to my office. I juggle my coffee and my case files to try to get the keys out of my pocket when I see that my door was left open anyway.

Nothing is amiss. I must have just left it unlocked. Maybe I’m still drunk. My iPod is still sitting tangled in the headphones on top of a stack of books on my desk. That wouldn’t be there if anyone had come into my office. My sneakers are in the corner where I leave them every morning. A couple of months ago, Shirley left her door open during one of her group sessions and the batteries got stolen out of all her electronics.

OCTOBER 28TH, 11:00 A.M.

My initial meeting with Richard is already happening today, and I have been fixing my desk and my hair and my face and my office for the past hour to prepare for it. I am afraid of him, and I haven’t had this feeling since I started on my first psych unit nearly fifteen years ago. I was barely twenty-two. I never feel like this anymore. I’ve sat across from lunatics and psychopaths, diplomats and dignitaries; it’s all the same to me now. I haven’t been scared like this in ages.

My office is configured the way it’s supposed to be, with the desk chair closer to the front door than the patient’s chair. This is done just in case the patient gets violent and the therapist needs to escape, but we say it’s done so the clinician can obtain emergency services more quickly should the patient need it. I’ve never had a patient get violent in my office; it usually happens out in common areas. I realize I have the scissors closer to the patient’s chair and I move them to the drawer. Sometimes I sit on my desk so I can gaze out the window and pretend I have a different life.

The door knock is so loud and jarring that my already frazzled nerves just explode and lodge themselves in my throat, making it hard to speak. I have to appear calm no matter how scared I am.

“Hi, Richard. Come on in, have a seat.” I remain standing, holding the door open for him. I’m waiting for him to sit, then I close the door and begin to get dizzy. He sits in my patient chair and places a large stack of newspapers at the corner of my desk. “I am going to be your counselor. I wanted to set up this initial meeting so we could get to know each other a little bit, and maybe get started on some of the clinical documentation we need to do.” I sit down as I say this.

Richard doesn’t say anything in response. Instead, he lifts the top paper from the pile and makes a show of opening it up and finding his intended section. He slips off his hat. It’s a brown herringbone newsboy cap. He places it gently on top of the newspapers. As he turns his neck, I notice two small, round scars under his collar.

I rustle the papers of his blank file and begin again. “Why don’t we start with the family history section? This way you can tell me about your family, and we don’t have to dive right into talking about you personally.”

He turns away from me, folds his paper in his lap and focuses his attention on the men climbing the scaffold across the street.

“Okay, no family history. What about goals for treatment? Would you be willing to talk about what you’d like to achieve while you’re here at Typhlos?”

He raises his eyebrows, releases a breath and adjusts his seat to get a better view of the construction workers.

“Okay, that’s a pretty obvious no. How about telling me a little bit about yourself, informally, and I will gather whatever information I need. How’s that?”

Richard glares disapprovingly. “You want me to sit here and tell you all about me? Like a job interview?”

“If that’s how you want to look at it, yes. A job interview would be great.”

“No.” Blunt. Decisive.

I’m barely making more progress than Gary did. It looks like I’m going to have to work on this guy a bit more than I’d anticipated. I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

I sigh an enormous, frustrated sigh, and I intentionally blow it in Richard’s direction. I hope it stinks of booze and vomit and coffee so he knows how much his resistance is pissing me off.

OCTOBER 28TH, 10:01 P.M.

I’m on the train, watching the people in front of me arguing. It’s packed, and it’s cold outside, but the body heat from the rest of the riders is making me sweat into my scarf. The sways and jolts of the train are lulling me into a trance, and all I can hear is the woman in front of me telling her boyfriend that she has had enough.

I am currently seeing someone. I don’t know why that is the terminology we use—“seeing” someone; usually, I say “seeing someone” in reference to a therapist, but this is how I describe my relationship because I don’t want to say “relationship.” We have been involved for a while.

His name is Lucas. On paper, he is the type of guy you’re supposed to marry. He does something in finance, and he calls it “finance,” which makes me want to punch him. He knows the difference between Cabernet and merlot and wants me to taste the tannins. He has a King Charles spaniel named Maverick, which of course just makes him wildly out of my league. He went to Cornell, and he actively parts his hair. In the morning, he uses a fine-tooth comb and creates a straight line down the left side of his head, and he tucks stray hairs behind the line. I am anal, but he is crazy. He wears shoes that he keeps shoe trees in. He finds it very important that when he gets home from work and he takes off his shoes he immediately puts the shoe trees into the shoes because they are warm from wear and more susceptible to morphing into an undesirable shape. I care less about shoes than he does. He has dirty-blond hair, is tall and wears suits with pocket squares that he has to have folded just so. He’s prettier than I am.

He talks to me about getting married. I find this completely ridiculous. I am not the girl you marry. The only reason I have stayed with him for such a long time is because I am trying to rescue him. This is a well-known pattern in my life, and I have only recently become aware of it and okay with the fact that this is what I do.

He has all the things that girls are looking for: the stability, the money, the good looks, the education. But underneath it all lies a very damaged, very insecure little man, and that is who I am dating.

I do not want this picture of perfection; I do not want this combed, shoe-treed, elitist, country-club gentleman. I want the broken-down little puppy inside of him who is desperately trying to play pretend. I want to find that puppy, I want to rub his belly and give him a good home, and then, when he’s better, I will leave. This is a project. This is a way of making sure that I don’t get hurt, and making sure that someone values me.

I have no way of getting value from within, so I get value from without. As soon as I see the reserves beginning to dry up, I will walk out of his life and move on to the next well of validity. The truth is, this plan isn’t working, and hasn’t been working, but I’m not ready to give up just yet.