Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

After my visit with The Clocktalker, I spent time with “Bloody Mary”—Mary Winfield, a beautiful thirty-something with a phobia of reflective surfaces. When we met a month ago, she painted the same image, day after day, with her elegant brown fingers: Mary’s mirror image, covered in streaks of blood, holding a decomposing infant. “Baby Blue” represented the son she’d drowned a year ago at a public pool in Queens.

Since then, Mary’s art had slowly pulled away from this horror. In today’s finger painting, Baby Blue was beginning to leave his mother’s arms. The child would ascend as the weeks went on, I suspected—rising higher and higher on the canvas, until Mary finally found peace.

Jaded Morlocks say that The Brink’s foundations slide a little deeper into New York’s bedrock each year. The structure is home to vermin of all kinds: spiders the size of silver dollars, rats as fast as they are large, legions of fat, black cockroaches. Our charitably named “pest control problem” has been a source of shrieking, screaming madness for Gerald Carver, a former bug spray chemist.

Today, Carver—aka “The Bug Man”—drew pictures of his own hands, insects and worms burrowing tunnels deep into the flesh. Carver believed that the critters had finally corralled him here, in their territory, to exact vengeance. I admitted that the multi-legged masses have their run of the place, but gently insisted that Carver was neither the target of an insect conspiracy, nor victim of a karmic bitch-slap. I left the session feeling itchy, slapping at invisible fleas.

And there was Jane Doe, the amnesiac. And Jimmy “Park Place” Van Zandt, the Monopoly- obsessed autistic. And others. All of my visits were abbreviated, brisk things.

I wished for more time with them; I found the plights of these patients comforting, compared to the idea of meeting Martin Grace.

Which I was about to do right now.

“Hey, Taylor. Do me a favor, okay?”

I try to stay cool when I hear that grating, smug voice… but couldn’t help pressing the elevator button one more time, trying to make it go faster. Here he goes, and here I was, stuck in this can with him.

“What’s that?” I replied.

Dr. Nathan Xavier indicated the paint smudges on my hands.

“Come by my office later. The walls could use a coat or two.” He tittered.

I slapped the “5” button a third time and took the high road—like I always do with this guy.

Now, I’m one of those optimists who tries to see the good in everyone they meet. I’ve been told this is the Christian thing to do, and that’s fine by me—God’s a pretty awesome guy to have in your corner—but I also think it’s the human thing to do. Everyone has their ups and downs. Everyone can be surly. And nearly all of us are loved by someone… which means even the worst of us aren’t that bad.

That being said, I think Xavier is an irredeemable prick.

I am absolutely committed to—and believe in—what I do, but I’ve lost count of the times this guy has disrespected my livelihood during the past three months. Xavier believes art therapy is the professional equivalent of bicycle training wheels and kindergarten safety scissors. The man thinks pharmacology alone will solve the world’s mental and emotional woes. Naturally, the visiting drug reps love him.

Xavier has been employed at The Brink only a month longer than I have. He’s a few years older than me and bears a strong resemblance to a Ken doll, plastic hair and all. Last week, he proclaimed that he’d picked up a “hot blonde bitch” at his tennis club. I asked if she had a sister named Skipper. He didn’t get it.

Not completely satisfied that his “joke” had hit home, Xavier now nudged me and continued: “I’m thinking eggshell white. Maybe a robin’s egg blue. Or maybe ‘Baby Blue’ blue.”

The elevator pinged, passing Level 4, and kept chugging. I groaned.

“It’s from my sessions.”

“Oh, I know… I’m just pulling your leg, man.” He eyed his mannequin-like reflection in the elevator’s doors and preened. “I totally get and respect what you do here, Taylor, really.” He checked his teeth. “But finger paints won’t help you with that blind head case. Peterson thinks you’re perfect for the job. He obviously needs psychiatric treatment.”

“Grace will get psychiatric treatment. But art therapy is a clinically recognized complement to—”

“I was talking about Peterson,” he interrupted, and tittered again.

I ground my teeth, saying nothing.

“Honestly, though, Taylor. Art therapy… for Grace? It’s like asking a quadriplegic to break dance.” He guffawed at his own joke. “He needs medication, not construction paper.”

“I’ve got an angle,” I said, adjusting my grip on the item I was holding. Xavier didn’t notice.

“You’d better. This is the first high-profile case to come to The Brink in a long time. You’re in the spotlight, so don’t mess it up. There are plenty of people here who’d love to take the reins on that case.”

“Like who?”

The elevator lurched to a halt. Level 5, maximum security. I stepped into the hall. Xavier chuckled.

“Oh, and bring a flashlight, Taylor,” he said. “Peterson says your patient’s got a thing for the dark.” The doors started to close.

“Just like you.”

Emilio Wallace stood by the doorway of Room 507, his Superman face somber. He gave me a nod, twisted the deadbolt key and opened the three-inch-thick metal door. Its hinges squealed like fingernails raking across chalkboard. The slab swung past me and I stared into a dark room, a midnight vault.

Anxiety swept over me, cold and sickening. I clutched at the things I was carrying, closed my eyes, inhaled deeply and calmly asked my nyctophobia to shut the hell up. It didn’t, not completely… but the fear lumbered reluctantly back to its cage. Temporarily, at least.

I reached into the darkness and groped for the light switch. The hall light behind me flickered, casting a stuttered shadow-play across the pale-green tiled walls. I glanced back at Emilio. He gave me a bored smile and shrugged: Hey, it’s The Brink.

I felt a half-second of sympathy for the security guard; the hospital’s ancient wiring made the hall feel like a dime-store disco. The bulb strobed and buzzed, then finally resumed a steady glow. My hand found the switch inside Room 507 and flicked it upward.

There he was, sitting in a wooden chair in the center of the small room. His eyes were closed. He did not move. I stepped inside. Emilio closed the door.

Here we go , I thought.

“Hello, Martin,” I said. I placed my papers and the plastic object I’d brought on the small table by the door, and picked up the wooden chair resting beside it. Like everything here, the chair was far past its prime. I placed it in front of him, about three feet away. It creaked merrily as I sat. “My name is Zachary Taylor. I’m Brinkvale’s art therapist.”

Martin Grace’s middle-aged face remained still. He did not open his eyes. He did not unfold the hands in his lap.

“You should tell your friend that she is going to die before her time.”

His voice was low and cool, gravel-rough. I tried not to shudder.

“Which friend is that?” I asked.

“Why, the Suthun’ belle, Nurse Jackson,” Grace replied. His impersonation of Annie’s accent was unnervingly accurate. “She’s all over you, her cheap Jergens hand lotion, the stink of coffin nails. That habit has her on the fast track to the grave.”

I stole a quick glance at my Eterna. It was 3:30. I’d lunched with Annie more than two hours ago. I flared my nostrils, sucked in some air. My brain couldn’t detect anything but the room’s stale scent. I leaned back into the chair. It moaned.