Chris Jordan - Measure of Darkness

“Where is he? Can you guess? Anything, Shane. Give us something to work with.”

He desperately tries to form another word, and then his eyes lose focus and he lapses back into semiconsciousness, totally spent.

Ten seconds later the cops arrive.

More than anything, Joey wants to escape. Not only from the finished basement where he and New Mommy have been banished, and which is like a real house except without windows, but from the inside of his own head. It hurts to think about Mi Ma, his real mommy, because worrying about her puts a painful lump in his throat, makes it hard to breathe. In his short life Joey has often been moved from place to place, had to get used to new rooms and even new caregivers, but in all that time his real mommy was always there. They had never been separated for more than a day or so, and then she would come rushing back and sweep him into her arms, and it was almost worth it, her being away, because it’s so wonderful when she comes back. It feels like music bubbling up from everywhere, not just from the keyboard into his earphones, but from the walls and the air and from somewhere deep inside. That’s what being happy feels like, and he longs for it. At such times, when she has had to be away, Mi Ma sings for him, whole songs almost perfectly in key-bad notes make him grimace, even when he’s trying to be polite-but his mother has a very good voice, almost as true in timbre as the notes emitting from his keyboard, the measured chords and octaves that flow from his small fingertips.

Sometimes the music comes through his fingers in a kind of tickle, like he’s touching something soft and alive, a little kitten made of music, and he just keeps stroking the keys without having to think about it. What Mi Ma calls “Joey music,” because it belongs to him. Other times, like today, he looks at notes on paper and the music enters through his eyes and comes out through his hands, again without him having to think about it very much, but the experience is very different. As if he’s tuning to a different channel inside his head, the channel where Mozart is always playing. Joey loves the way the numbers and key signatures of the early Mozart sonatas flow so perfectly, bringing themselves to life, each note exactly the right note, all bubbling up into a stream of living music. Sonata no. 1 in C Major, Sonata no. 2 in F Major and then of course the Third Sonata in B-flat Major. Perfect. It could be no other way, and the rightness of it calms him.

When it comes to reading words on a page, Joey’s skills are rudimentary at best. In that respect he’s a typical five-year-old. He knows the alphabet but has trouble sounding out the words, which don’t always make sense. Sometimes two words together sound unpleasantly dissonant and he hates to look at them. Not like when he reads musical notation, which always makes sense, and which he doesn’t have to think about or struggle over. He can hear the music when he sees the notes, and it is a simple matter to press the correct keys in the correct order to let the music out. Except of course when his fingers make a mistake. Which is why he can sometimes lose himself in playing the same piece over and over, until his fingers learn how to do it on their own, because he hates to make unpleasant sounds happen.

Joey escapes into the soothing repetition. It takes him to a place where nothing exists but the music and his hands and the notes resonating in his earphones. Tuning out the world around him, easing his anxiety. Letting him forget, for a while, how much he misses his real mommy and how much the big man scares him, and how more than anything he wants to go home so Mi Ma can sing to him.

He escapes so completely into the music that he never notices New Mommy searching along the walls of the basement, looking for a way out, should an escape become necessary, one eye on the padlocked door, fearful that Kidder may return.

The fear is deep, abiding and specific. He fears that part of his brain has been removed, or in some other way destroyed. That’s the only rational explanation for the huge hole in his memory, and the cool black nothingness from which he has finally emerged, alive but damaged. It’s not like the memories are buried somewhere deep inside his mind, submerged by trauma. They’re simply gone. Removed.

Memories of something bad, he concludes, something terrible, because his left wrist is chained to the hospital bed and there’s a uniformed cop guarding the door, and because the woman attending him seems fearful, as if he might lunge at her, take a bite.

“Mr. Shane? Randall Shane? I’m Dr. Gallagher. You’ve been admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital. I’m sorry about the handcuffs, but they insisted.”

“Killer,” he says, the word rumbling from the hollow in his throat.

“Excuse me?” the pretty doctor says, flinching.

He rattles the cuff. “Who did I kill?”

“I, um, don’t know anything about your legal situation, Mr. Shane. All I know is, you’re under my care, and will remain here until I’m satisfied it’s medically safe for you to be released. You’ve been rather badly beaten. It wasn’t obvious when you were first admitted, but your body is massed with bruises. Most of the fingers on your right hand were dislocated, and the ligaments have been badly strained.”

Shane glances at his right hand. Noticing the elaborate splint must trigger something, because now it hurts like hell.

“The physical bruising is actually the least of it,” the pretty young doctor continues. “Bruises heal. My real concern is neurological damage from the drugs. We know you were given a massive dose of benzodiazepine, enough to black out an elephant, frankly. You must have been on a drip for hours, or possibly even days. And there’s evidence of other psychotropic drugs, of a type we’ve not been able to identity. We do know they were quite powerful, because there’s been evidence of dementia.”

“I’m demented,” he says, not the least surprised.

“You seem to be coming out of it, slowly,” she assures him. “It will be some time before we can assess whether there’s been any long-term damage.”

Shane looks at her, carefully forming his words before letting them go. “They removed part of my brain,” he says, confiding.

She smiles. “So you’ve been saying ever since you regained consciousness. Let me assure you once again: there’s absolutely no evidence of surgery. None. No such surgery took place. The MRI revealed perfectly normal brain mass. No lesions, no sign of intrusion. Whatever loss you’re feeling, Mr. Shane, is a result of the drugs that were administered.”

“Drill,” he insists, the memory bursting. “They drilled a hole in my head.”

The sound of the drill bit vibrating through his skull, rattling his eyes in their sockets. Screeching as it hits bone.

But the pretty doctor says, “No. No. Nothing like that happened. Perhaps it was suggested to you, when you were under the influence of the benzodiazepine. Maybe they used the sound of a drill to frighten you. But I assure you, no holes have been drilled in your skull. You’re perfectly intact. The only damage that concerns me is from the drugs themselves, and there’s simply no way of knowing about long-term neurological effects-you might well make a complete recovery. Although it’s doubtful you’ll regain the short-term memory of whatever transpired. You’ve lost a few days, Mr. Shane. They’re gone. You’ll just have to accept that.”

“Bastards.”

“Whoever did this to you, yes.”