Growing Up Next to the Mental Read online

  “I gotta get home,” I said, all too aware that Dad would be up soon, if not already.

  “You gonna go home lookin’ like that?” he said, correctly suspecting I was out and about without authorization.

  He had a point.

  “C’mon,” he said, retrieving the bike, shutting it off, and wheeling it on down to the open rear doors of the big kitchen. “Wait here.”

  He disappeared inside, then reappeared a minute later at that other door he used to covertly come and go. He opened it a crack, waving me over.

  I pushed the bike over to where he was.

  “Hurry on, b’y,” he said.

  “I can’t go in there . . . can I?”

  “Up to you.”

  Well, when he put it that way . . .

  I had no idea where I was going, if it was safe, or allowed, or what. But I had nowhere else to go.

  So I followed, removing my helmet and leaving it on the seat of my bike, in the same spot normally reserved for his big flag. Where was that thing, anyway? I’d never seen him without it. And where had he been all these weeks and months?

  Pinch test: negative.

  I tagged along through the narrow hallway, where even I had to duck to avoid exposed lengths of piping and yellow-glow bulbs hanging by threads every six feet or so.

  Mr. Monchy, meanwhile, manoeuvred his six-foot frame with ease through the tight quarters he must’ve travelled a hundred times or more.

  “Where we goin’?” I asked, wondering how long I could hold out before the claustrophobia kicked in.

  “Just a little farther,” he said.

  “What about my bike?” I asked in an effort to keep my mind off the confined space that now really seemed to be closing in on me.

  “It’s fine where it is.”

  Easy for him to say. If anything happened to that, on top of taking it without asking, I would finally have a good reason to end everything after all. Or maybe he was going to do that for me, anyway.

  We turned one more corner before coming to a door simply marked storage.

  It took almost a minute for the single ceiling bulb inside to fully buzz to life, revealing shelves and shelves of spare everything, from Styrofoam plates and utensils to bedsheets, pillowcases, and yes, several small white cases marked first aid.

  He grabbed one and handed it to me, then used all his strength to pull one corner of a tall white cabinet away from the wall.

  “After you,” he said, gesturing with his hand for me to proceed.

  I peered in behind at an opening half the height and width of a normal door.

  “Are you serious?” I said. “I’m gonna be shot for coming this far. And so will you.”

  “Can’t get much worse for me,” he said. “They kept me off the field for months just for talkin’ to you. I got nothin’ to lose, and you need some patchin’ up.”

  He had me at “nothin’ to lose.”

  Truth be told, I wasn’t scared at all. This was like every little hideout I ever wanted somewhere in my house. Some secret entrance leading to a self-contained space where I could be out of sight and mind and watch all the TV shows that I wanted to watch. But my little forts made of couch pillows and assorted blankets paled in comparison to what he had goin’ on.

  It must’ve backed on to the big kitchen, the hustle and bustle of which I could hear plain as day through the paper-thin wall. Some hard pounding on or through that would save me if things did go south. I also had the ability to make a monumental racket if the situation called for it, as staff at the Janeway could attest.

  So, on I went.

  “Just tug down on the string in the middle there,” he instructed.

  I did as he said, producing limited light in the space that had all the charm, amenities, and roominess of a jail cell, minus the bars and toilet.

  It was cramped—maybe six by eight? But overall too cool to compete with any phobia—claustro or alleged homo.

  A small cot that was clearly too short for his body, stacks of books that doubled as small tables, and an old square rug in the middle of the floor that once soaked up all the snow and salt from boots in our basement.

  I looked down at it, then at him.

  “What?” he said innocently, shrugging his shoulders. “It was outside with your garbage.”

  True. But what of the two big sweaters and blue windbreaker slung over the iron railing at the end of his cot? Granted, the disappearance of the hideous Christmas turtlenecks hadn’t caused half the upheaval as when I lost stuff. And the windbreaker, shared by all three sisters, had been a constant source of aggravation on account of several bent zipper teeth.

  So, none of the booty had really been missed.

  “Why do you keep taking stuff from our house?” I asked, knocking one of my long-time burning questions for him off the list.

  “Had to keep up appearances.”

  He snipped off a section of gauze to soak in a small bowl of rubbing alcohol.

  “What appearances?”

  “That’s a longer story. Now hold still . . . it’s gonna sting a bit.”

  A bit? Jesus H. It was brutal, but necessary to nip in the bud any infection from that rusty chain.

  It was only then, while trying to stay still for “Dr. Monchy,” that I noticed the array of newspaper clippings taped to the yellow paint that covered the bumpy concrete wall above his cot.

  “There,” he said after a few minutes. “That oughta hold ya.”

  My hands went straight to my neck and the bandage he’d loosely wrapped around it.

  “I can’t walk in my house with this thing on. They’ll know right away.”

  He walked over to the cot, grabbed my sisters’ windbreaker, and handed it to me.

  “That should hide it for now, but they’re gonna find out sooner or later. Can’t hide scratches like that forever.”

  I wanted badly to stop and see what all the clippings were about, but I knew I had to get home.

  I was climbing out through the opening when his words stopped me halfway.

  “Sorry about your buddy there in the park. The kid Carter, right? Saw it in the paper. And from my window.”

  “Yeah, I really haven’t had much luck with that park, hey, b’y?” I fake-laughed before looking back. “You didn’t see him, did you? In here, when he was here?”

  “No, no. They have a separate section for the youth crowd.”

  I turned back and climbed through. He followed me back from whence we came until we got to the door. He stepped in front of me and peered out through the tiny wired window, then bumped the door open, nudged me out, then quietly pulled it to from the inside.

  Then it opened again.

  “It’s Jerry with a J, by the way,” he said, pulling it tight again.

  I put the helmet back on and, amazingly, started the bike with one kick.

  I was sidesaddle, halfway up the bank to my house, when I shut it off and wheeled it to the driveway. I eased the bike down the foot-and-a-half drop into our basement and tucked it, best I could, back into its bad hiding place, tarp on top.

  It was still very quiet in the house as I tiptoed back upstairs and into the bathroom for my first look at the carnage. Carefully unwrapping his handiwork, I flinched while I peeled away the last of the bandage from my neck.

  It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought, either. It was all red with several horizontal scrapes, but all things considered, it could’ve been so much worse.

  I jumped at the soft knock on the door.

  “Wish? You okay in there?” my youngest sister whispered.

  “Yeah,” I answered, immediately flushing to mask the real reason I was in there.

  Actually, I was relieved to hear her voice over any others. I
’d lucked out again, knowing she was the only one of my siblings who wouldn’t go right to Mom and Dad.

  I unlocked the door as an unspoken invitation to enter.

  “Oh my God. What happened?”

  I spent the next twenty minutes taking her through the mishap, but not the Mental, while she meticulously gave the wounds a thorough cleaning with warm, semi-soapy water and a generous application of Neosporin.

  “Not bad if I do say so myself,” she commented post-op. “We’ll have to leave it like this because the bandage will give it away. It’s pretty red, but that could be sunburn. Just keep your head low, if ya know what I mean.”

  I’m not sure what it says about my loving, caring parents, or the rest of my siblings, for that matter, but they never noticed first nor last. I was also pretty adept at keeping my back to everyone, and my head low, whenever I could.

  Three days later—my birthday—it was hardly noticeable. As for the small dent on the gas tank and bent front fender, all assumed it had been there before.

  I owed sis big time for that one. Her only conditions were that I never go off like that again without telling someone, and that (someday) I tell Mom and Dad what happened.

  Deal.

  19

  The rest of that summer was pure, unadult- erated mini-bike/Mental Field bliss.

  My sister and I managed to feign surprise as the mini-bike was wheeled into the kitchen on the big day. But it took a long time for me to muster the moxie to return to the “scene of the crime.”

  I wasn’t going near there, anyway, till we had a little brake adjustment.

  I still thought of Rodney every day, but in a good way.

  And I filled in Jerry-with-a-J on the fortunate turn of events involving my sister upon my return home.

  “So I got through it—somehow,” I told him during a chance run-in a week later at the stinky bus shelter near the main entrance to the Waterford.

  He had significantly curtailed his appearances in the field but was far from the elusive creature he’d been before my crash and neck-burn.

  “Don’t worry ’bout me,” he said, clearly impressed by the quick heal time.

  “What about something for that little room of yours?”

  His eyes widened nervously.

  “You never told your sister about that, did you? I’d rather you didn’t. That could cause some trouble for me.”

  “No. I didn’t tell anyone, and I won’t. How about some clothes? We got lots of that. Save you a trip to our basement!”

  That got a good guffaw out of him.

  “No, thanks. I’m good. That was never really my thing, anyway. Tell ya what, you come by that door after seven tonight and I’ll give you a good story—not for reporting, though.”

  * * * * *

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the round black and white kitchen wall clock through supper.

  “Big plans tonight?” asked Mom with a smirk.

  Was it that obvious?

  “Not really. Game of spotlight, maybe Jeff’s for a movie, or the arcade at the Village.” The latter had just opened, answering my prayers for a mall closer to home than the Avalon.

  Overall, I’d done a poor job of pretending it was just another Friday night during summer holidays, but it managed to pass muster.

  “All right,” she accepted. “But remember—no mini-bike at night, and home by nine.”

  * * * * *

  I loitered a safe distance from Jerry’s door till there was a screech of metal against metal and it opened a tad. I nonchalantly strolled over and slipped inside.

  “Shhh . . .” was the only sound he made, index finger pointed upward against pursed lips.

  I followed in silence, watching as he went through the same routine as before in order to access his little cubbyhole. Once inside, he used a small handle on the back of the big cabinet to re-conceal the opening.

  It was a pretty cool little system he had goin’ on, I mused again.

  He watched in silence as I went straight for the wall and began browsing the clippings that furnished it.

  “So, is this like your room room? Or more like a secret hideout or something?” I said while perusing the cutouts.

  “Yeah, you could call it that. My room room, as you say, is almost right above. They’d never let me keep this shit up there. This used to be the pantry for the kitchen, but it got closed off on that side when they renovated. It was just drywall on this side. Easy to cut with a packing knife. Hate to see the space go to waste. I think they just forgot it was even there.”

  I was pretty sure he’d said all of that without taking a breath. Weird. But then, where was I again? The wall before me provided all the reminders I needed. And the more I read, the more my eyes and mouth widened.

  “Body That of Waterford patient!” “Waterford Drowning Victim I.D.’d!” “Foul Play Ruled Out in Waterford Patient Death!” and “Waterford Reviewing Protocols After Most Recent Death in River!”

  I could easily tell the Daily News articles from the Evening Telegram’s. Red in the banner, for starters. The News also had larger, cleaner typeface. But it was the proliferation of those damn exclamation marks that really gave it away—in a bad way.

  “Newfoundland Constabulary Seek Culprits in Hospital Blaze!” That one wasn’t on the wall, just still in my head.

  I didn’t know whether to be impressed or creeped out by his display and the effort behind it. I mean, the vast majority of the perfectly trimmed extractions were from the Daily News. And he’d obviously made the connection after eight years or so as neighbours, or words he’d used to that effect.

  He still hadn’t interrupted me in any way, so I stepped up unsteadily on the cot for a better look. I suddenly realized the articles weren’t about deaths involving the Mental. They were about one death involving the Mental.

  I was struck by one grainy black-and-white in particular, depicting two men halfway through the act of pushing an occupied stretcher into the back of an ambulance.

  “That’s three this summer,” I mouthed quietly to myself.

  A shiver physically shook my body as I realized what I was looking at. A real image from the most surreal day of my life. It was only then it hit me that I’d never seen nor looked up any stories about that day.

  “Any of that ring a bell for ya? You were pretty young.”

  I looked back to see him sitting on the floor against the opposite wall casually clipping his fingernails.

  “Um, yes,” I said, some of Rodney’s last words to me ringing in my head: I heard he killed a guy.

  I looked hopelessly toward the blocked entrance/exit to the space as he got to his feet and approached. I backed up against the clippings, trying to keep my balance on the springy cot.

  “I won’t tell. Ever. I promise. Please don’t . . .”

  “What are you gettin’ on with? Now, hop down till I shows ya.”

  I did as I was told, watching as he reached across the little bed and carefully peeled one article off the wall.

  “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Why they put an exclamation point on that one I’ll never know.”

  You don’t know the half of it, I thought as I began reading to myself.

  Waterford Drowning Victim I.D.’d!

  Police have positively identified human remains discovered in the Waterford River one week ago. They are that of Kevin Francis Monchy, 22, a native of Glenwood and a patient at the Waterford Hospital. His body was found in the river by a young boy not far from the Bungalow in the centre of the park. Police have confirmed it is the third patient to die in the park in recent months. No foul play is suspected.

  The police-blotter item was sparse on detail, but the insinuation was obvious. It must’ve only made the paper given the public spectacle of it all. />
  The only real news to me was the name.

  “So, he was . . .”

  “My son. Turns thirty-one next week. Would’ve.”

  “So, you’re both . . . um . . .”

  “Nuts?”

  “That’s not what I was gonna say.” But it was what I was thinking.

  “Patients,” I said instead, surprising myself with the political correctness of the substitution on the fly.

  “Not bad. You’ll be a politician some day with quick and safe comebacks like that. Or hosting Open Line,” he said, laughing at his own quip. “But yes, he was. And I am. We were.”

  “But I don’t get it. You don’t seem . . .”

  Shit—I’d made the same mistake I made with Rodney, and braced for the backlash. So much for my quick and safe comebacks.

  “Schizophrenia,” he said without any hesitation or offence taken. “Frankie, me, my dad, his dad. I’m sure you’ve heard of that one.”

  I certainly had. But we only ever used the abbreviated derogatory adjective over the noun, as in, “Dr. Kent is schizo,” as a purely random example.

  I wasn’t at all fazed by revelation of the affliction, despite the word’s scary connotation. I knew he had to have something wrong upstairs, but he’d still given me no reason to bolt, which I couldn’t do even if I wanted to.

  He sat down on the cot and stared at the little piece of newspaper as if it were the first time he’d seen it.

  “I was here long before Frankie. But I knew he’d end up here some day, too. They thought I held him under just to save him from a life in this place, which, granted, isn’t much of a life. And yeah, I might’ve thought about doing something like that, but the truth is he beat me to it.”

  “And I was there.”

  “Yup, you were there. Going on nine years ago now.”

  “That’s the first thing I ever remember, ya know. In my life, actually. You were there, too.”

  He perked up.

  “Can you tell me what you remember about it? About him?”

  Is that why I was here, I wondered?

  “There’s not much to tell, really. I never saw his face ’cause he was face down, floating. And he had on all this winter clothes . . . in August. And I remember wondering how he could float with all those clothes on, or die in that little bit of water.”