Page 47 of In a Haze

“What makes you trouble, Joe?”

Shifting his face just a little so his eyes connect with mine, he grins. “You don’t think picking locks and breaking into a female patient’s room is bad enough?”

I smile, because I get his point, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. “But why are you here in the first place, Joe? You haven’t been taking your meds for how long now and you seem fine to me. So tell me.”

His face softens then as his eyes examine mine. When he turns his face back to the window, he says, “I had a hard life growing up. I actually spent most of my teenage years on the street. That’s where I learned to fight—and steal.”

“And pick locks?”

He lets out a soft chuckle. “Yeah. It was all about survival.”

“So what brought you here?”

Before he speaks, he turns to look at me. “I murdered someone.” As my eyes grow wide, he puts a hand on mine. “Self-defense. But I told you I’m bipolar, right? Well, my defense attorney convinced the jury that I was temporarily insane when I killed the guy and that’s why I’m here.”

“But you weren’t?”

His eyes shift to my hand he’s holding. “If you’re asking if I knew what I was doing when I did it, then yeah, I did. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“But it was self-defense?”

“That’s what I told them.”

I turn my hand so that I can squeeze his and I wait till he looks at me. “ButI’masking you, Joe.”

I don’t know if he trusts me enough to say, and some sick, twisted part of me that I didn’t know existed till now considers telling him I’ll forget it anyway.

Licking his lower lip, he sucks it into his mouth, pondering his next words. “There were a lot of us squatting in an abandoned building actually not far from here. It was winter—cold—but even without heat, a building protects you from the elements and the worst of the weather, especially if you have a sleeping bag and huddle with other people, which most of us did.

“There was this guy…he was probably about my age, maybe a couple years older, but there was a mom with two teenage daughters. One night, he just took the younger one. The mom asked me if I could find them. It was snowing that night, so I was pretty sure he didn’t take her out of the building, so I knew I just had to look from top to bottom. When I went up to the top floor, I could hear her crying and screaming, but when I got there, it was too late. He’d already raped her.

“The guy had already left, and I took her to her mom. We wound up calling the cops and they took her to the hospital. I don’t know what happened to her family but they never came back to the building.

“The guy did, though, and I confronted him. He had no remorse, and I didn’t figure the cops would ever catch him. We didn’t even know his name. We just called himRemy. There was something in his eyes, Anna, something that told me he’d do it over and over and over. So I killed him.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.”

“So it wasn’t self-defense, but—”

“But I was playing judge and jury. Don’t think that wouldn’t get me second-degree murder—and I don’t kid myself. I could see them pinning murder one on me just because I already had an impressive rap sheet. I killed him because he was going to spend his whole life ruining girls. That might have been something some people would consider noble, but the American justice system wouldn’t smile on it, any more than they cared for the way I played Robin Hood.”

I remember that story. And I can’t help it. I love Joe all the more.

I ask, “So how long will you be here?”

“If I had to guess? For fucking ever.”

*

Before we were separated and herded off to our rooms, Joe and I made plans. Later tonight—muchlater—he’ll break in my room and then we’ll examine files. It will be the first time out of this place that I will actually remember.

But I’m only kidding myself. It’s not like I’m really leaving. I’ll just be outside the patient area.

Still…I’m a little excited about it. Alotexcited, actually. I might get a glimpse at my former life.

I’m glad Joe finally opened up to me, and despite his words, I do find what he did to be noble and just—but I also wonder if maybe his mind has been altered here like mine. With the blank slate I have, I ponder how easy it might be to suggest different things to be about who I used to be. Like my husband. Is he real? Did I really have two children with him? Or is that what they wanted me to think?