Elizabeth Flock - But Inside I'm Screaming

“My father raped Lark when she was eight, Rita. My mother watched him do it. Want me to draw a picture of that? She never said a thing. Not a word.”

What the hell is going on? She never says a word at these things. Now she’s spewing all this stuff in the third person?

“You know what dear ole dad did when Lark got her period? Stuck a hot curling iron up her, that’s what. Said he’d burn it outta her. Said she wasn’t pure anymore. Little fucking Lark is such a fuckin’ crybaby,” Lark continues, Rita staring along with everyone else. “She asked her daddy to stop. You believe that shit? She actually asked her father to stop…like that would work or something. She’s unbelievable.”

Lark has now pulled a pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket. Isabel is surprised to see that they are her cigarettes—Lark must have taken them from the bureau in her room. She lights one up—verboten inside the unit—using matches she must have stolen from the nurses’ station when no one was looking. Rita has absolutely no control over the group.

“Lark, I don’t think you’re supposed to do that,” Ben says nervously, looking at Rita for approval.

Melanie starts to laugh. Keisha tilts her chair back and looks as if she’s enjoying the conflict. Sukanya maintains her catatonic stance.

Lark inhales and drapes one arm over the back of her chair while crossing her legs…a difficult undertaking since her thighs are extremely fat. She has to force her right leg to stay poised across her left.

Rita looks panicked. She stands up, and instead of directly approaching Lark, she announces to the group that she’s forgotten something outside the room and will return momentarily. She bolts out of the living room.

Lark turns to address Isabel and Kristen. “Scared little Rita,” she laughs. Then she inhales again. “I think I scared her off!”

The person talking bears no resemblance to the quiet woman who inhales secondhand smoke out on the deck.

Seconds later the evening nurse and two orderlies burst into the room followed by Rita, who at least had the intelligence to realize she was in over her head. Lark looks at them expectantly, like she knows the routine, and she slowly drops her cigarette in to her half-empty can of Diet Coke and stands to greet them as if she is at a cocktail party.

“Boys, good evening.” Lark stands jauntily with one hand on her hip.

Isabel watches as the orderlies pin Lark’s arms behind her back and escort her out of the room. As they do, Lark spits on Rita’s astonished face. “Fuckin’ baby!” she yells at Rita. “Asking Daddy to stop…”

As she leaves the room, Lark breaks into uncontrollable laughter.

Once the double doors are closed behind her, a visibly shaken Rita, who has wiped her face clean with a balled-up Kleenex fetched from her pocket, looks at the group and says, “Okay. Now. Where were we? Magic markers for everyone. Come on, guys.” This time Rita makes it an order.

After a minute or so Melanie rises and goes to the bin and picks a violet marker. Ben watches her, heaves himself up and chooses yellow. Kristen exhales and follows suit. Isabel looks at Keisha, who rolls her eyes, shrugs, stands up and stretches.

Who are these people?

Isabel stands up and quietly walks out of the living room.

Without anyone stopping her, Isabel returns to her room and climbs up onto her uncomfortable bed.

“ But why?”

“They haven’t found this guy yet. I’ve got a great lead that he might be heading south. I’ve got to go, Mom. I’m sorry.”

“It’s your father’s birthday, though. Can’t you just take one night off?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I just can’t. Tell Dad I said happy birthday. I’m really sorry. Really.”

“Just come for coffee.”

“I don’t drink coffee, Mom.”

“Since when?”

“I never have. Nice of you to notice.”

“Who doesn’t drink coffee?”

“Some people don’t. Anyway, they’re boarding my flight now. I’ve got to go.”

“Where are you going again?”

Isabel sighed. “Miami.”

“Nice work if you can get it. I bet it’s eighty degrees and sunny there.”

“I’m not going on vacation, Mom. I’m going to work.”

“I know, I know. You’re always going to work. Don’t you ever take any time off?”

“Not really.”

“What am I going to tell your father? It’s his birthday, after all.”

“I don’t know,” she said, and then paused. “Wait. Tell Dad his boy turned out just like him. Like in the song.”

“You’re talking gibberish now, Isabel.” Her mother sounded annoyed.

“The Harry Chapin song. You know the one. ‘My boy was just like me. He turned out just like me.’”

“ This is about the last sorry-ass-excuse-for-a-meal I’m gonna have, suckers!” Keisha is smiling so hard her face resembles the center of an overgrown farmer’s market sunflower.

“What’re you talking about?” Isabel asks, her mouth full of salad.

“I am leavin’ this hellhole!” Keisha surprises everyone at the lunch table, including, it appears, Sukanya, whose fork pauses for a moment before piercing the next bite of her special-order kosher meal. “I got my walkin’ papers today and I am outta here.”

Isabel feels a knot in her stomach.

How come she gets to leave? She’s barely opened up in group.

“I gotta hand it to my insurance company. It’s like they read my mind or somethin’. Just as I’m getting sick and tired of this place, they send my doctor a letter sayin’ they ain’t coverin’ me anymore. So I get to go home, baby. Home sweet home.” Keisha says this so loudly that a group at the next table stops eating. It is very disturbing for patients to hear about someone going home from Three Breezes. Many are patients for extended periods of time, so to see that someone in their midst is leaving is like restless soldiers hearing of someone going AWOL.

“Keisha, okay, I know what you’re going to say but just hear me out.” Isabel isn’t quite sure what she’s going to say. “Group’s just now getting good and maybe your insurance company will go eighty-twenty with you on coverage. I’m sure your doctor can talk to them about it.”

Keisha gives Isabel a mournful look, but Isabel knows immediately that Keisha is too young to know that even a horrific thing like a mental institution can turn out to be the best thing for you. She knows Keisha is homesick, tired of her fits of rage and her subsequent restraint. She wants her mother and her own bed.

“No way, baby, I’m outta here. No more salad bar that’s been sittin’ here since I was in diapers. No more sharps closet. No more padded cell. Freedom, baby!”

Isabel slumps in her chair. Her bitterness at being left behind is palpable. “How’re you getting home? When are your parents coming?”

“To-morrow night.” Keisha split the word in two. “I just left a message with my sister, Mo, and she’s going to tell my mama to come up right after she gets out of work.”

“What time’s that?”

“‘Bout nine. What’re you, the human dry erase board or somethin’? That reminds me, after tomorrow I ain’t got to sign out no more.”