Page 17 of In a Haze

The guy frowns but it looks like he’s reaching toward the door handle, and I hear a key in the door. When he opens it, he says, “Be quick. Can you do it in five minutes?”

I nod. As I step out of the room, I see he has what look like weapons attached to his belt. Once more I have both my hands in fists, but they’re loose, because I’m hoping to look casual. I start wondering if maybe I could loosen a hem to stuff the drugs in there like Joe does, but they always take the clothes and wash them. I don’t think we have our own clothing, so I’d have to constantly rip out hems and that would probably become suspicious at some point. How does Joe get away with that?

When I walk in the bathroom, I’m grateful I appear to be alone. I decide I don’t want to try the toilet. Instead, I want to see if I can shove them into the big shower drain. The holes in it look like they’d fit all the pills, so I hunch down on the tile and start dropping in the tablets, one at a time. The only thing that would work against me now would be if the drain clogs and the pills come back up. Maybe I should have crushed them, but it’s too late now.

Before I can stand up, I hear a woman’s voice behind me. “Is everything okay?”

Oh, crap.

Standing, I turn around to find a young, thin woman I’ve never seen before. When I see latex gloves on her hands and a spray bottle in one of them, I realize she’s a cleaning person. Reminding myself that I’m not a talker, I stand up and try to look confused. Very slowly, I turn my head to one side as if I’m halfway shaking it and then I hobble toward the door. Maybe I should try to go to the bathroom now, but I don’t want to arouse any more suspicion.

I shuffle to my bedroom and close the door. When I turn the knob, I find that the door is locked automatically.

So I go back to bed, having a hard time sleeping because, once more, I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.

7

The next morning’s routines are fairly easy, now that I know what to expect. Again, I’m awakened by the nasty redhead, but she seems a little nicer to me now. Still, I don’t much like her.

Once she’s got a bunch of us in the bathroom, she says, “Callahan, I know you’ll say yes, but does anybody else want to go to church today?”

I know what church is, but I don’t know if I want to go. I don’t know if I usually attend here, and I definitely don’t know what pre-institution me did. Because Red didn’t single me out like whoever Callahan is, I think it’s safe for me to not ask to go. Or, rather, it’s not safe for me to ask to go.

As I’m waiting for my turn to use a stall, I’m thinking about that kiss again, and I wonder how many times I’ve been kissed in the past. Certainly, at my age, I’ve had at least one.

Whatismy age?

I have no idea, and my mind wanders back to Joe. The kiss seemed kind of sudden, out of the blue, but if he’s really truly been in love with me for months, maybe years, then it wouldn’t seem sudden to him. And I like him a lot. Honestly, if I can trust anyone here, it’s him.

But somehow I know that I need to be cautious. I need to make sure that I protect myself, try to stop my emotions from clouding my judgment.

I’m just not sure how to do that, especially when I feel like emotions are all I have.

So, as usual, I meet him at breakfast. When we’re making our way down the line as I push my plastic orange tray, I ask, “Do you go to church?”

“Not usually. Why? Did you want to?”

“Why would I want to?”

“Well, they don’t have it here. They hold it downstairs on the first floor where they have a chapel. They don’t let patients go unmonitored but if they think you’re less of a risk, they won’t sit right next to you. I went once. I figured if I ever wanted to escape, that might be an easy way.”

“Escape?”

“Yeah. But you know there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

I realize I know what a cat is, although I’m not sure I like the picture of skinning one. But I appreciate the info just the same. I don’t like the idea of escape right now, because I have no idea what I’m here for. For all I know, these people are keeping me alive, keeping me from the dark corners of my mind. I don’t dare leave—even though I’m engaging in a bit of what my brain told me was civil disobedience.

Still, I ask, “What do you mean by that exactly?”

“Let’s just say that locks are an illusion.”

Hmm. I’ll have to explore that topic more thoroughly with him later, when we’re not around so many people.

Soon, we’re sitting at the table we usually choose over in the corner. There are fewer patients in here today and I wonder if the whole church thing has anything to do with it. Soon, though, I forget about it to return to my own problems. “Joe, do you happen to know how old I am?”

He looks up from his fork, now heaped with part of a biscuit smothered in gravy. “I guess I never really thought about it. You seem to be in your late twenties, early thirties. I could be wrong, though. You don’t know?”

“No. I don’t have a clue. How old areyou?”

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