The Gift - 3

When Eli stepped out into the courtyard of the St. Thomas Mental Health Institute, he had to shield his eyes against the light. It wasn’t a particularly warm day—a cool breeze was blowing by—but the sun was high in the sky and blindingly bright.

The courtyard was the closest thing some people at the institute got to freedom; a place where they could roam around without being confined by walls, where they could see something other than small, hospital-like rooms and offices and evaluation sheets, where they could feel like they were still part of society. It wasn’t much to look at: a mown lawn with a few benches, a garden, a pavilion, and a badminton net. But it was an open area and that counted for something in a place like this.

Eli sat down on one of the benches and drifted off to sleep with his head leaned back. He dreamed of faceless soldiers, pitch-black nights lit up by fires and machine guns; he dreamed of screaming children, of shadows and eerie silence; he dreamed of a figure stumbling towards him from the dark, blood-soaked and babbling; he dreamed of himself in a desert, alone except for a dove that circled overhead and then landed gracefully before his feet; he dreamed that the dove spoke to him, though its words were incoherent; then he dreamed of Sarah and Hallie, standing at the end of a long hallway, the hallway getting longer and longer as he tried to run to them.

He was awakened by a shake to the shoulder. When he opened his eyes and looked up, there was a man standing over him. The man looked to be about fifty, gray-haired and gray-bearded, about six feet tall though he was hunched over. Eli had seen him a time or two but had never spoken to him.

The man was holding an acoustic guitar, most likely from the activity room. (Sometimes “clients”—that was what the people receiving mental health services were called—could take items from the activity room with them outside, so long as, A, they brought them back undamaged, and B, they did not use them for anything other than what they were supposed to be used for.) He sat next to Eli and started playing. He played a song about the end of the world—about how the world needed to end so that it could be reborn, and about how humanity needed to burn so that it could be cleansed.

“So, uh, that was quite a song,” Eli said once the man had stopped playing. “Did you write it?”

“Sure did,” the man replied. “I write all my music.”

“Why did you decide to write about the end of the world being a good thing?”

“Name me one other musician who’s done that.”

Eli couldn’t think of a single one. “Point taken. So does your song have a name?”

“Nope. Don’t name my songs. Don’t like ‘em to be labeled.”

“Do you play professionally?”

“Depends. Does playing on the street count as professionally?”

“Did you make any money off of it?”

“People tried to offer me money. Never took it, though. To me music should be free. It’s a form of expression. No one should have to pay to hear someone express themselves. It should be like it was back in the good old days, when people used to gather together and just sing, without demanding rewards for it.” The man shook his head. “Capitalism—the never-ending itch in the world’s asshole.”

Eli chuckled.

“Nah, man,” the man continued, “my music is my gift to the world. And it’s real music, y’know? None of that techno shit. Just me and my guitar.”

“That’s not your guitar, is it?”

“Nope.” He stroked his fingers over the strings. “But it does the job just as well, and I’m the only one here who uses it so it feels like it’s mine. By the way,”—the man stretched out his hand towards Eli—“my name’s Joe. Joseph according to my birth certificate, but I’ve gone by Joe so long Joseph doesn’t even feel like me anymore.”

Eli chuckled again and took Joe’s hand. “Eli,” he said.
 
“Eli,” Joe repeated. “You Jewish?”

“Sort of . . . not really. My parents were Jewish, but they weren’t in my life for very long. My foster parents raised me as a Christian. Now I’m not sure I even believe in God.”

Joe nodded like he understood. “Religion sure ain’t for everybody,” he said.

“You got that right.”

“It’s too set in stone, y’know? There’s only one road to salvation. You’re either saved or you’re lost. There are a billion ways to go to hell but only one way to get into heaven. Who can live up to that? It’s ludicrous.”

Eli smiled. He liked this Joe fellow. “Why are you in here?” he asked. “You’re the sanest person I’ve met in weeks. And that’s including my psychiatrist.”
       
“Panic Disorder,” Joe answered. “That’s the label they gave me. Basically I freak out for no apparent reason. Start shaking and feeling like something bad’s gonna happen. It makes plenty of sense when you consider the society we live in, but you know these headshrinkers, they’ve gotta make a buck. What about you?”

Eli looked away from Joe, his eyes falling on a tree at the edge of the courtyard—a massive tree with a truck about as big around as he was, towering over all the other trees surrounding it. It looked out of place, and yet like it was exactly where it belonged. “They say I tried to kill myself,” Eli said.

“Did you?”

“No.”

There was a pause, then Joe asked, “Do you want to die?”

“I just said I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“I didn’t ask if you tried to kill yourself, I asked if you wanted to die.”

Eli didn’t answer.
 
Someone screamed. Eli followed the sound to where, at the other end of the courtyard, he saw a young man try to climb the surrounding fence—the fence that led to the outside world, to freedom. A woman was pointing at him and screaming. Service providers—that was what the staff were called—all rushed to the scene. Two of them grabbed the man around the waist and tried to yank him down. He clung for a moment, then realized he wasn’t going anywhere and gave up. Once he was on the ground again, the two service providers who’d grabbed him started ushering him towards the building. Eli’s eyes followed them as they went inside. Joe’s did as well. “You see that kinda thing here every once in a while,” he said. “You get used to it.”

But Eli already felt used to it. He’d seen people huddled in corners and running for their lives across streets. He’d seen them yanked this way and that, kicked while they were down, spat on, and shot. He’d seen them cry out to their god, even as guns were put to their heads, and die with serene expressions on their faces. He’d seen them look up at him as though they knew him on some level, as though there was something in him they could see, before he pulled the trigger.

“I wanted him to make it,” he said.

“What?” Joe asked.

“That boy,” he said louder, “I wanted him to make it.”

~

Later that same day, after lights out, Eil sat on his bed, his head against the wall behind him, and let the thoughts flow. His roommate Larry was snoring but it didn’t bother him. His mind was elsewhere—with Sarah and Hallie: Sarah and Hallie at the park; Sarah and Hallie on roller coasters; Sarah’s hand under his as they both sliced through a wedding cake; baby Hallie in a car seat, in a stroller, bouncing on his knees, finger-painting in the kitchen, hiding behind Sarah’s leg as she was introduced to her first teacher; Sarah and Hallie watching family movies with popcorn, building snowmen, going swimming, smiling, laughing, hugging him, begging him to come back home, lying dead on the floor in puddles of their own blood.

Eli shook himself out of his stupor. He looked around at his darkened room, realizing just then that he badly had to pee. He got off his bed and ambled over to his and Larry’s private bathroom.

The St. Thomas Mental Health Institute was not a quiet place at night, when darkness swallowed everything. Screaming, crying, whimpering and begging filled the halls, accompanied by the calm reassurances of the service providers. Eli heard one man several rooms down give an ear-splitting scream and then yell, over and over again, that he was on fire. “You’re not on fire, Mr. Young,” said a female service provider. But the man kept yelling, kept screaming. “Mr. Young, listen to me,” the service provider pleaded, “you’re not on fire.” Then there was a girl who was raving that the institute was really a top-secret government prison and that the service providers were really scientists whose purpose was to conduct experiments on her and the other clients. A service provider, also female, tried to encourage her to take some pills and go to bed.

Nighttime at the St. Thomas Mental Health Institute brought out people’s demons—their broken dreams, their fears, their memories, their delusions. They vibrated in Eli’s chest, and he took them in.

The bathroom only had one toilet. Eli went over to it without even bothering to close or lock the door. As he relieved himself, he felt what he immediately assumed was a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. Absentmindedly he touched his fingers to it and examined them.

His breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t sweat—it was blood.

Eli flushed the toilet, then hurried over to the mirror which hung on the wall above the rusty sink. It was in desperate need of cleaning but Eli could see his reflection. The gashes in his forehand had somehow reopened. Blood oozed through his stitches, trickling down his face. Eli gazed at them, stupefied, panicked. What was happening to him?

And just like that, a sharp burst of pain shot through his wrists. He screamed and hunched over, cradling his arms to his chest. The pain was so intense it pounded in his head. Hot, sticky blood seeped through his shirt, droplets of it falling to the floor, forming a crimson puddle. Eli leaned against the side wall and slid into a sitting position, gnashing his teeth, trying not to scream again. Larry, who’d been awoken, stood in the doorway to the bathroom. He stared for a moment at Eli as if unsure about what to do, then bolted for the door of their room and banged on it, calling for help.

Eli sucked in deep breaths. He tried counting in his head—one, two, three, four—but it wasn’t enough to take him out of reality. His wrists were on fire. The pain was shooting up his arms. Blood pattered on the floor and soaked through his clothes. What if he bled to death? Deep breaths, he told himself, deep breaths. He swallowed and kept trying not to scream.

He failed. Another burst of pain erupted in him and another scream escaped. Just let me die, he thought. If anyone's up there, please just let me die! The whole front of his shirt was drenched. Fresh droplets fell on top of the already coagulating puddle on the floor.

Two service providers rushed into the bathroom, followed by Larry. One of them tried to shoo Larry away, telling him to go back to bed, but he just stood a few feet behind them and watched. Once they were attending to him, the pain in Eli’s wrists and arms subsided, lessening to a dull throb. Eli steadied his breathing. The service providers knelt in front of him. “Jesus Christ,” one of them said. “The supervisors are gonna fry us over this.”

“What the hell did he even do?” asked the other.

Gently, they pulled his arms away from his chest, gasping at the holes in his wrists that went all the way through.