Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

(Now more than ever it seems rich to die . . .) learn.

What had he been thinking, anyway, coming in here like this? This would throw off the schedule. Postpone the pudding. Delay the spoons.

( . . . cease upon the midnight with no pain . . .)

That wouldn’t do; wouldn’t do one little bit.

“Sir,” said the other woman, now standing beside the receptionist. “Are you all right?”

Martin looked up, one hand covering his mouth, wanting to shrug, to give her some sort of physical response, but he couldn’t think of anything to do or say.

The other woman came around, slowly opening the small waist-level door that separated the reception office from where Martin was standing. Moving toward him, she carefully raised her hands to her sides as if preparing to either catch something or grab him. Maybe she wanted to dance a waltz; who knew? “What’s in the bag?” she asked.

“Huh? Oh . . . stuff. Pudding cups. Medicine.” He realized that the watercolor was still tucked under his arm, and set about slipping it back into the bag.

“What kind of medicine?” asked the woman.

“Just . . . y’know, medicine. Doctors gave it to me. I mean, some of it was Mom’s, some of it was Dad’s. Most of it was stuff the doctors gave to me after my folks died. To help me sleep, calm me down, blah-blah-blah, cha-cha-cha, so on and so forth.” The woman stopped a few feet away from him. “What’s your name?” “Martin Tyler.” “My name’s Barbara Hayes, Martin.” Why couldn’t he stop sweating? Crying. Whatever. “Nice to meet you.” “Can you tell me what you’ve taken, and how much of it?”

“Not really. I’d have to check . . . check the schedule.” The watercolor safely back in place, he tucked the grocery bag under his arm and searched through his pockets for the piece of paper on which he’d written down everything. He located it at last, unfolded it, and found that he couldn’t get his eyes to focus; something was making his vision blurry, like he was underwater.

Why was it so damned hot in here? He’d never sweated—

— not sweating, pal; try to keep up — —like this before. “I can’t seem to . . . to read my own handwriting.” He offered the paper to Barbara Hayes. “Can you give it a try?” “Yes,” she said, taking it from him.

“I’m a custodian,” he said, suddenly feeling as if he needed to explain himself to this woman. “But I’m really good at it. I wanted to be a writer once, I even studied English and American Literature for a couple of years at OSU, but I dropped out . . . can’t remember why, not just now. I figured that I could always go back to school but then . . . things happen, you know? Dad died last June and then Mom died this April and I thought I was doing okay, all things considered, I mean, considering what a hoo-ha blue-ribbon year-or-so it’d been, and I kept thinking that it wasn’t so bad, y’know, they’d both been really sick for a while and I was expecting them to die—Dad had cancer that spread from his prostate to his liver to his stomach and finally to his brain . . . Mom’s bad heart just gave up the fight, which wasn’t a big surprise after spending so much time helping me take care of Dad, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t ready for it, understand? I was doing okay, really, I was, but each time one of them died I’d have to gather up all their stuff and I wound up with all this medicine and couldn’t sleep for shit and I was nervous and shaky and it seemed like every time I turned around some doctor was giving me a prescription for this kind of sleeping pill or that kind of tranquilizer or some other kind of goddamn anti-depressant happy-happy-joy-joy pill and I woke up this morning and couldn’t remember if I’d turned the ringer off on my phone, so I checked it and the ringer was on but I checked my voicemail, anyway—it’d been five days, after all—and there weren’t any messages and I just got to wondering about how long I’d be missing before someone noticed and . . . .”

He stopped, bored with the incessant droning monotone of his voice, but the woman standing across from him, Barbara Hayes, Dr. Barbara Hayes, a practicing psychiatrist who volunteered at the Crisis Center two nights every month, did not hear a droning monotone; what she heard was a man speaking in a rapid, deadly cadence, whose voice was so tight with hysteria that the words tumbling out of his mouth hit the floor like shards of shattered glass.

She read what was written on the paper, then looked back up at him. “This is very organized, Martin. Extremely well-researched and well-planned.”

“Thank you.”

“How long have you been planning this?”

A shrug. “Three, four months. Off and on.”

She nodded. “And all this medication was either leftover from your parents’ treatments or prescribed to you by other physicians?”

“I bought some of it off the Internet. It was easier than I’d thought it’d be. Expensive , but easy.” “Martin?” “Yes?” “Why do you want to die?”

The unexpected directness of her question seemed to jar something loose inside him; he blinked, wiped his eyes, then pulled in a slow, hard, snot-filled breath, considering his reply. While he was doing this, Dr. Hayes looked at the receptionist, who nodded her understanding and hit the speed-dial button.

Martin was peripherally aware of the receptionist whispering to someone on the phone—maybe she was calling her boyfriend, making arrangements to meet for a late dinner or a snack or something when her shift ended (that was nice that she had someone to call, he bet they were a cute couple), but mostly he wanted to give the correct answer to the other woman’s question.

“I don’t know that it’s . . . it’s so much I want to die,” he said. “It’s just that I really don’t think I’ve been alive for a while, just sort of . . . breathing and taking up space, so . . . if there’s a third alternative that I’ve . . . overlooked, I’m all ears.” “Why do you feel this way, Martin?”

Nibby, isn’t she? He looked down at his hands. Where was the grocery bag?

He looked up again. Barbara Hayes was holding it. When had he given it to her? He should have given her the spoons. She couldn’t chow down on the pudding without the spoons. Well, he supposed she could , but it’d be kind of messy, and she didn’t look like the messy type and . . . hadn’t she asked him something?

“. . . were both sick for so long,” he heard himself saying. “If I wasn’t at work, then I was driving one of them to or from their doctors or treatments, straightening up the house—did I tell you that I’m a custodian? And a pretty good one. I always kept their house clean, their medicines organized—got some of those pill containers so I could put each day’s dosages into separate compartments in case one of them lost track of what they were supposed to take and when and . . .” He looked directly into her eyes for the first time. “You know, if you’re looking for a reason, just one, some Holy Grail of reasons . . . I can’t give it to you.” “There usually isn’t just one reason, Martin.” “Barbara?” said the receptionist; then, to Martin: “I apologize for interrupting you.” “. . . s’okay . . .” The receptionist turned back to Dr. Hayes. “They’re expecting you.” “Thanks. Martin?”

Woozy . . . damn but he was getting woozy. “Yes?”

“Did you drive yourself here?”

“Sort of . . . I mean, yes. I mean, I wasn’t really driving here , I was gonna go to . . . piss on it—my car’s outside. I left it parked over by the light.” “May I have the keys, please?” He handed them to her without question or argument. “Do you mind if I take you someplace, Martin? Someplace where there are people who can help?”