Chapter Fourteen: Scarlet O’Hara
After my session with Dr. Regents, I was escorted back to Room
57 again. I was feeling quite proud of myself and how I handled things telling
Regents I would go along with anything he and the staff decided upon, so I
could get better and go home.
I still had to get through another visit with Adam, and I
hadn’t come up with a Mariska Hargitay answer or plan to that one yet. How to
handle the husband that tried to kill me? My preference would be to steal a
knife and kill him, but then I would end up in a prison for the criminally
insane, so I let that idea go quickly, but within my mind, I retained the idea
of Adam being dead any way the Universe saw fit to handle that. I did not pray
for his salvation, no I prayed daily for his demise. It was the only way I was
going to get out of this place.
The days passed, but not easily. I yearned for clean, soft
sheets, decent food, a new pillow, underwear that fitted, and my dog Finn. I
never asked about Finn again, knowing it would cause me to appear insane. God,
I wondered how Adam forged the lies in my doctor’s reports. How he forged
Finn’s death from a veterinarian. Heck, Regents probably never even checked out
Adam’s story. If he had I wouldn’t be there. They were getting a lot of money
from the government for my stay at Waverly, so no rocking boats to help me
would benefit them.
I was allowed to go to the dayroom more now that I gave in
to all that was asked of me. I took their pills, I ate their porridge, I played
their games well. The days passed and it was coming up on three Sundays so that
meant Adam would be coming to visit. If I play-acted the way I was with the
doctors and staff, he would know what I was up to. I had always heard never try
to outcon a con, so I decided to be the same cray he told everyone I was.
Right before Sunday came, I asked Arthur if there were any
way he could accompany me on the visit? He was surprised at my request, and
said it was highly unusual, but he could ask Dr. Regents or Nurse Rat—we had
both started calling her that behind her back—whether they would make a
one-time exception, considering the medication Regents put me made it hard for
me to walk steadily. I needed a wheelchair and Arthur was one of the aides. He
was on a higher scale of aid, but it might still work out.
He asked me what was the real reason I wanted him to
accompany me on the visit.
I looked down and pretended I was having a bit more anxiety
lately, but I didn’t want Regents to know, or they would probably give me more
pills. It was mostly when Adam came that it happened, but I asked for that to
please be our secret.
Arthur frowned and as his brows turned down. He told me it
wasn’t a good idea to have secrets here, but he thought maybe this time it was
okay.
I smiled a shy childlike grin and thanked him.
I didn’t hear any more about my request at all, and I hadn’t
seen Arthur to ask. Sunday came and I was about sick at my stomach knowing I
had to face evil Adam the wife killer and pretend again. Maybe it was a good
thing Arthur wasn’t going with me. He would notice the change in me from how I had
been acting with the staff. Or wait, maybe something happened to him, because
he hadn’t been to my room at all for a day and a half. Now I really was having
some severe anxiety. I felt like my lungs were not working and my throat was
tight. I began taking in big breaths, so I could get more air, when the door
opened, and it was Arthur. He hurried toward me saying, “What is wrong, what is
wrong, Miss Jayne?” And then he realized I was hyperventilating. He said, “You will
be fine, I will be right back.” He left and came back with a small paper sack. He
put it around my mouth and told me to hold it tight, and to breathe in and out
of the bag. I did as he told me and soon the heaving breaths stopped, but the
tears started.
Arthur told me to get ahold of myself, because Adam was
outside, and he had gotten permission to take me to Adam and stay with me. I
instantly calmed down. Arthur apologized for not letting me know, but he had
been “tied up,” then he excused the term, and changed it to he had been busy
with a new patient.
He then went out into the hall and brought in the worst
excuse for a wheelchair I had ever seen. It was from the dark ages with
restraints and stains where people had peed and pooped on the old leather seat.
I stared at it, then up at Arthur with sickened eyes. I put my hands over my
mouth and nose as I lowered my head in duress. “Dear God, please, help me,” I
said in a low muffled voice.
Arthur apologized for the condition of the chair, and told me
it was the only way they would allow him to go with me. He got a clean towel
from the bathroom and placed it on the urine-stained seat, and put his hand out
to assist me to the chair. That was the first kind thing that had happened to
me in months. I felt like a princess being escorted to the ball. That thought
lasted for less than two seconds and I was back to the reality of a mental
institution, if you could call it that. Damn place was run by Ratchet and
Regents. Neither of them had a clue of anything but their greedy pocketbooks
and their sick jobs. I had often wondered how many people in that place were
truly mentally ill. How many others like me had been put there by false means, either
by a parent or husband or crooked Judge. That was why we were not allowed to
sit together or have conversations in the day room.
Arthur finally asked me if I was alright.
I giggled and told him yes that I was in one of those
trances, like when you were in school, and it happened, and one of your friends
would wave his or her hands in front of your face and ruin your wonderful
escape into trance land, where all bad was removed and the trance would take
you to the fairies in the forest forever.
Arthur laughed and told me I best not tell anyone else that,
or more pills might be handed out to me, then we both laughed as Arthur pushed
the old buggy chair down the hall toward the big steel doors to the outside
world and evil Adam. I stayed silent, yet continued thinking about our one
laugh considering a laugh was a foreign and rare noise at Waverly, where horror
hid behind lies and cheating using human beings as bait.
When we got outside, I took several deep breaths of clean
fresh air. Arthur warned me not to take too many, because he didn’t bring the
paper bag with us. I giggled again and thanked him for his concern. and then I
saw Adam sitting at the table waiting for me. The look on his face was marked
with a question as to who the man was, and why I was in that chair. I gave no
expression, nor did Arthur. I knew that without turning to look at him, he had
become my friend, a careful friend, but my only one.
Arthur pushed me up to the table across from Adam, and stood
behind me in a stately manner, like he was the unknown soldier’s guard. For the
first time, I felt someone had my back, even though Arthur was unable to do
anything but stand there quietly.
Adam got up to lean over and kiss me with a cheerful
greeting of how was I doing? I had to allow him, for if I had spat on him like
I wanted to do, I would have lost all privileges and been locked in my room for
days, but my face showed him the hate he had inspired within each cell of my
body. The old saying if looks could kill, my problems would have been over. Adam
continued asking me how I was doing.
I answered in my best southern accent, pretending to be
Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind. “Why, Rhett darlin’, I am havin’ the
time of my life.”
I giggled again for the third time that day! And I just knew
Arthur had all he could do not to bust a gut laughing. Even I found my response
amazing, considering the hell I was in. Adam on the other hand found no humor
in my jesting and he cursed me. Little did I realize at that moment I had
triggered his old mama again. He called me a whore, an old hag, the poorest
excuse for a mother he had ever known, and he wished me dead, and then he
caught himself and tried to fix his crazy response to my funning him.
He looked at Arthur and told him he was only joking like I
had been doing to him. That I did those crazy things all the time to upset him
and make him look bad, when it was me who was troubled not him. He kept talking
on and on to the point if he had been dead, he would have dug his own hole
before he died. I was so tickled I just sat there staring at the idiot while he
dug deeper and deeper. Not that it would do me any good, because Arthur knew he
would not be able to relay any of this to Regents, or he would lose his job. Regents
needed me crazy, but I knew at least one person now knew the truth! Arthur.
I had truly pulled off a Mariska Hargitay! I thanked the
spirits silently. We all sat without a sound the rest of the time allowed of
Adam’s visit. I was not sure Adam knew how badly he had messed up. I was
beginning to think he had that split-personality issue. He knew something went
array on his end!
But, before Arthur turned me around to take me back inside,
Adam said sternly, “Hey, Jaynie. I will be signing the paperwork next week for
you to begin Electroconvulsive therapy with Nurse Rachet overseeing.” Arthur
did a quick glance at Adam and then at me. I had a questioning look on my face
that Adam caught, due to being married to me for twenty-some years, and he took
full advantage of it. “Why Jaynie, don’t you know what that is? They will be
hooking you up to electricity, then putting a rag in your mouth, so you don’t
bite your tongue off, then they will turn the juice on and fry your fucking
brain!”
Arthur spoke up and told Adam that was enough. Adam told
Arthur to shut the fuck up, or he would be telling Dr. Regents all sorts of
stories about his visits to Jaynie, and how he, Arthur, had been inappropriate
with her, and more. Arthur’s face turned a dark shade of red, and I thought he
might lunge at Adam.
I opened my mouth and asked Arthur to please take me back to
my room, and then I did it again in a sweet southern voice, I exclaimed as I
was wheeled out of sight, “Goodbye, sweet crazy Adam Reeves. You can’t kill me,
because you’re already dead. Your mama killed you a long time ago.”
I quietly told Arthur I was sorry for putting him in this
situation. He didn’t say a word, but pushed me on past Regents, who
surprisingly also didn’t say a word. Arthur left me in my room, walked out, and
locked the door. I cried myself to sleep, even after the pills should have
knocked me out.
I woke up to horrible dreams of lightning striking me. My
body turned black, and I was running trying to get away from the lightning. My
mouth was full of dirt again, and I was choking. My body then went numb, and I
fell to the ground. The ground grabbed me with its arms as they tightened
around my body. I couldn’t breathe. The lightning then spoke to me, saying it
was sorry it hit me so hard. It didn’t mean to kill my brain. It didn’t mean to
take my voice away, or burn me black. It told me someone behind it turned the
knob up too far, and I woke up screaming into my pillow.
A different aide came rushing into my room, asking me what
in the Sam hell was I screaming about? I didn’t dare tell her that dream. It
sounded crazy even to me. I calmly told her I was sorry I disturbed anyone, but
it was only a bad dream. She backed out the door, locked it, and laughed like a
sick hyena. God how could this place continue to hide these horrors.
When I woke up the following morning, I remembered what Adam
had said about giving permission for me to have that long word something like
electro-something shock, and then I realized what he meant. Oh my God, he was
going to sign papers to allow them to give me shock treatments. I had seen
those done to people on TV shows, and if they did that it would kill brain
cells forever. What a way for Regents and Ratchet to keep people here forever,
so they would get their government payouts. Oh my God, what am I going to
do? And then I hyperventilated again, but this time I had the bag.
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