The Crazy Chronicles, Part 9: Beginnings

"I said, 'Hello, I think I'm broken',
and though I was only joking,
it took me by surprise when you agreed - Diamond Rio, "You're Gone"

“Looking back you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life- and it was you. It is not too late to find that person again.” - Robert Brault


Tuesday, 6 a.m.

I hadn't slept for more than twenty minutes at any given time for the last 3 days. Instead of being exhausted, I felt rejuvenated. I was energized and experiencing a type of clarity I hadn't had since I was a teen. I felt like I was a part of something important here and it was making a difference.

As I sat and sipped my coffee, the nurse yelled for Blayne to come down for his blood pressure check. What came out, however, was, "Bland! Pressure check!" When a couple of minutes went by and he didn't appear, she bellowed again. "Blannnnnnd! Pressure check! Nurse's station!" She breezed by the break room, rubber soles squeaking, and continued bleating as she headed for his room. "Bland! Wake up! Pressure check!"

Carter and I exchanged one knowing look across the table.

The nurse returned with a very green and sweaty boy behind her. "Ok, Bland, sit down and -"

"Blayne," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"Excuse me?"

"My name is BLAYNE. BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAYNE. Not Bland."

"Bland, Bland, whatever," she dismissively answered as she wrapped the cuff around his arm. If looks could kill, she would have been dead before she could administer the first pump.

Molly walked in and sat in the first chair she found, in the corner. I introduced her to everyone in the room and gave her the daily self-inventory sheet.

"This is to write down your goal for the day," I explained, "and what you're working on with your doctor. It's confidential, so don't worry about what you write. You don't have to share it. Did you sleep okay?"

She nodded and smiled, weakly. "I have real bad diarrhea," she softly said. There was no embarrassment, just fact. I loved this woman already.

"If you ask the tech, they'll give you something to settle your stomach," I told her. She glanced uncertainly at the desk and nodded. I realized that this woman was simply too meek and unassuming to ask for anything from anyone. "I tell you what," I said. "You fill out your paperwork and I'll go see what I can do."

I went to Beth and explained the situation. She quietly pulled Molly away, arm around her shoulder, and walked her to the nurse's station while murmuring in her comforting way. I very much admired Beth.

A short while later, we were called to line up for breakfast. The stragglers were always the same people, so we waited while they were rounded up.

Apparently, Blayne's name was quite the tongue twister for some. Sheila, one of the morning tech's, looked around for him and when she didn't see him in line for roll call, she started calling his name.

"Has anyone seen Bland?" she asked.

"Um, it's Blayne, and he's still detoxing," someone answered.

"Hmph. Well, I'm not bringing any trays back," she grumbled. "Bland! Blannnnd! Are you coming for breakfast? No trays coming back!"

As I cringed in anticipation, Blayne busted through his bedroom door and started shrieking, "BLAYNE! BLAYNE! FUCKING BLAYNE! MY NAME IS BLAYNE!"

The tech was unperturbed. "Are you coming for breakfast or not?"

He looked like he was about to cry again. "Jesus. You people are incredible," he mumbled as he turned back into his room and shut the door.

"Welcome to Fieldcrest, hope your name is Bob!"Carter chirped to no one in particular.

"Let's go, people."


Tuesday, 3 p.m.

"What about you, Crystal?" the therapist asked. "You're always very attentive, but you don't say much."

I took a deep breath. I didn't know if I was ready for all of this. It felt pathetic, somehow. Let's see who has the most fucked up stories! "What do you want to know?"

"Look at your childhood as an adult. What's the first thing you would have considered traumatic?"

A memory instantly sprang to mind. I was seven years old. I had found a small bird suffering a head wound from what had probably been a nasty kid with a BB gun. I gently cradled it and took it home where I padded a shoe box with cotton balls. After cleaning the wound as much as I could, I administered water and soft bread with a Q-Tip. My mother didn't mind me tending to my animals as long as I didn't keep them in the house, so I found a warm spot in the barn and secured the lid of the box to make sure the wild cats couldn't get to him. I checked on him obsessively.

We often had relatives at our house. There were bonfires and barbecue's and booze. There was always beer and whiskey.

My uncle teased me mercilessly about the bird. "He's gonna die," he slurred. "It's just a stupid bird. Why are you wasting your time with a bird?"

I was timid and shy and I just tried to stay away from him. I was proud of my bird and his continued survival.

One particularly cold night, a bonfire was going outside. I had checked on Harvey (my bird), changed his bedding and put a blanket over the top of his box to keep him warm. I went back inside to warm up in front of the fire in our living room. I heard a tap on the window and looked over to see my uncle leering in at me from outside. As I watched in horror, he held Harvey up to the window and twisted his head off. I screamed, long and loud, somewhere inside. As he laughed at my expression, I slipped off to my bedroom and buried my head under my pillow to cry.

The therapist was waiting.

"I was raped when I was seven. I guess that was traumatic back then," I finally answered.

"You don't sound so sure," the therapist said, surprised.

"Well, it doesn't affect me, now. It hasn't for a long time. When I think about it, it's with mild revulsion and pity for the girls and boys who fed my cousin's appetite after me, but...everyone's been raped or molested. It's almost commonplace now. I'm not special."

"You don't think that changed the way you handled some aspects of your life? The way you developed relationships with men? The way you felt about yourself?"

"No. Because if it did affect anything I did later in life, then he continued to rape me. He took my innocence and that's enough. He wasn't taking anything else."

"You sound pissed."

"No. Disgusted. He disgusts me."

"Who did you tell?"

"No one."

"Why?"

I hesitated. "I thought I had done something bad."

"So, you told no one because you felt guilt. And, yet, you say it doesn't affect you, now?"

"Right."

"Bullshit."

This was not what I was used to. And it was only beginning.