Growing Up Next to the Mental Page 13
Jerry with a J reached for the stack of books to his left and yanked one from the middle so fast that the stack swayed but stayed standing.
All I could see was some of the cover emblazoned with the Union Jack. He pulled out a little old picture that had been doubling as a bookmark and passed it over. Dare I say father and son looked pretty normal flashing big smiles as they jointly held up one big fish.
“We got the warden to snap that one, right next to the Gander River,” he said with obvious pride. “I remember we had to run right to the car then, to escape the blackflies. It was awful. Just trying to stand still for two or three seconds to take the picture . . . they’d be in your eyes, your nose, behind your ears . . . in your ears.
“That was a good day,” he said, laughing and snivelling through a couple of very glassy eyes.
In the meantime, I was looking at the face of “buddy in the river”—Frankie—for the first time.
I really didn’t know what to do or say. Instead, I pondered my parents’ tired refrain about how lucky we were not to be saddled with the kind of hardships others endured. It didn’t seem as tired to me anymore.
I searched for anything that might shift the conversation somewhere, anywhere else.
I watched as he slipped the photo back into the book and closed it again with the cover front and centre.
Right! The flag.
“So, what about the whole flag thing and all that,” I said excitedly. “You had that with you since day one, right?”
He, too, seemed uplifted by the change in tone and subject matter.
He eased himself off the cot and onto his knees, reaching under to pull out two identical well-travelled brown cases, just like the one my trumpet came in—and stayed in more than my parents would’ve liked. He flicked open the latches on one, and the lid popped open on its own.
“Ain’t easy gettin’ the whole damn thing folded and stuffed inside, so that’s where it’s staying for now.”
It was the flag, all right. Only question now was, why?
“Something to do with war? You’re always marching with it.”
“Goes with the book, sort of,” he said, handing it to me.
The Battle of Monchy le Preux.
“Everyone knows about Beaumont-Hamel because of what we lost there,” he said. “This one was almost a year later and not much better for the Regiment. They sent home the flag by mistake after my grandfather had already returned—or what was left of him, anyway. Lost both legs, and his mind.
“Amazing what they managed to do, though . . . just the ten of ’em. And to defend and save the town that bears our name. We were all pretty proud of that, especially Frankie. He started that whole thing with the flag. I just kept it goin’—for him, starting the day he died.
“But it also helps keep up appearances.”
What did he mean by that? That was twice now.
“You said that before. About taking our clothes. Whaddaya mean?”
He reached for the other case and popped it, too.
A godawful stench instantly and easily filled the little room.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what is that?” I asked, scrunching up the skin and bones in my face.
“Yours,” he said.
He proceeded to pull out the green parka Frankie had on when I found him. I recalled recognizing but not knowing it was my dad’s at the time.
“They took him right from the river back here to the Waterford, for me to identify, and left the clothes. They burned all of that in the incinerator, except the coat. We were good at takin’ stuff from your basement, just not very good at returning any of it.”
Actually, hospital staff did that for them, coming by every now and then with our name-tagged clothes that had turned up in the Waterford laundry or dry cleaning.
“I’m not so sure Dad will want that back now, but I still don’t understand what you mean by keeping up appearances.”
“I mean sometimes I know the difference. Most times, actually.”
“The difference in what?”
“Between normal and not normal. I know that carrying this thing around the field is not normal. And that sneaking in to take clothes from your basement is not normal.
“But I don’t really want them to know that. The flag and clothes and stuff, that was all Frankie’s ways. I just picked up where he left off. It keeps up the appearance of my ‘unfitness.’ Which is just fine with me for now.”
Okay, I thought, with some trepidation.
“So, you know when you’re being crazy and when you’re not. Aaaaand you don’t want anyone to know because you want to stay living here. At the Waterford Hospital. The Mental. That about sum it up?”
“That’s pretty much it, yes.”
“So, you really are crazy, then.”
“Ha. They’re pretty sure there’s something wrong with me, but they don’t really know what. Officially? I’m depressed. And that’s true, ever since Frankie died. He’s all I had left. His mom died giving everything she had to bring him into this world.
“Thing is, I can manage the ups and downs. I know the difference. I know what’s wrong. And that’s the trick. A big part of being normal is being self-aware. Seeing things as most others do, and realizing when something’s wrong or inappropriate.
“Me, I had to accept that my brain was off and I had to take something . . . and still have to take something to even me out. They call ’em antipsychotics.
“Frankie didn’t always take his. He didn’t like his doctor much. Neither did I.
“But I’ve been dealing with it almost fifty years—a lot longer than him—so I kinda got a handle on it over time. The hardest was accepting I wasn’t normal. For a long time I was in denial. You feel like your normal life, as you knew it, is over. I wouldn’t take anything, and it got me into trouble . . . doing all kinds of stuff I couldn’t even remember.
“They weren’t so much voices in my head as they were plans I’d convince myself I was supposed to act on. And then one day I dropped my pants at a kids’ soccer game, and all hell broke loose. Two ‘hero’ dads tackled me to the ground. Couple of punches to the head, I don’t know how many ‘accidental’ kicks to the nuts, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“That wasn’t my only freak-out, but it was the juiciest news-wise. That one sealed my fate a bit, I’m afraid.
“But I suppose it could’ve been a lot worse. There was lots of pressure on the judge to throw me in the Pen until the trial. I’d have to thank the legal aid lawyer for gettin’ me out of that one. Took ’em fourteen days to decide I was staying here.
“‘He’s not mental, he’s just a scumbag pervert,’ one lovely old lady yelled my way as they were leading me out of the court.”
It made sense that he wanted to talk—a lot—likely having no one else to talk to for some time. Other than staff, doctors, or other patients. But it was gettin’ late, and the thought of breaking curfew and no mini-bike for the weekend was weighing heavy.
“Anyway, I know I have to take my meds now or risk another trip to HMP. And they have long memories down there, I hear. Just not worth it. Not yet, anyway.”
We were startled by a commotion in the kitchen on the other side of the wall—mostly laughing and the sound of beer bottles being yanked from their cardboard case.
That was my cue.
I made it in the basement door with three minutes to spare, which greatly reduced the odds of questions as to my whereabouts. I shuddered to think of my parents’ reaction had they known where I’d been and with whom for the past couple of hours.
My God, if I told anyone about my Monchy visits, it could be curtains for both of us. They promptly ended a year later, anyway, when they renovated the exterior and that entrance/exit, including the big screechy door, disappeare
d altogether.
He still made his rounds around the field. But we both knew it’d be pretty weird for me to break off from friends to strike up a conversation.
“Hey, Flag-Fag man! How’s it hangin’?!”
I don’t think so.
I had no real choice, however, than to engage in the usual snickers and stares as he passed close by.
“Just keeping up appearances,” I’d argue.
Fact is, any chats we had after the reno were few and far between. But it was like we were mutually unoffended and understood.
After all, he was trusting me with a couple of big secrets: his private little second home in the basement, and the fact that he wasn’t as mental as the powers-that-be thought.
What could possibly go wrong?
20
“All rise.”
The sound of about 200 rear ends reluctantly detaching from their seats reverberated through the cavernous old courtroom at the clerk’s instruction.
The judge entered through a private side door and dutifully ascended to his place on the raised bench, which was, by no accident, higher up than everyone else.
The stoic clerk checked over her shoulder with the judge, then resumed.
“Court is now in session. Chief Justice Raymond Sinnott presiding. Who appears?”
The introductions were all but drowned out by the creaks and groans from the weathered wooden pews in the gallery as everyone sat back down again.
“Ready to go?” the all-business Chief Justice asked, simultaneously motioning for a sheriff’s officer to bring the prisoner up from the lockup in the basement of the imposing stone structure that was the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The no-neck brick of a man bowed customarily and turned to leave but paused as counsel for the defence addressed the court.
“If I may, m’Lord. That won’t be necessary.”
The young barrister couldn’t have been a year out of law school, yet here he was defending the seemingly indefensible before the Chief Justice of the Trial Division in hallowed Courtroom No. 1.
The disturbing facts were never in dispute, while the number of bloodstained exhibits displayed on a long table in front of the empty jury box reminded all and sundry of the beastliness of the crime.
One man wailing away on another with a shank—namely, the jagged half end of a broken chair leg—in the sweat-stinking gym at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary. What he managed to do to the poor fella in less than thirty seconds was plain animalistic.
That’s how long it took for the first guard to arrive and intervene, the handful of other inmates having immediately recoiled to a far wall as the bludgeoning began.
I was nearing the five-year anniversary of my inevitable job as a reporter with the Daily News. Still, the graphic police photos of deeply lacerated flesh, several partially torn-off fingers, and stab wounds to the chest, back, and anus almost made me urge.
It reminded me how those bland, all too common Criminal Code terms like aggravated assault or murder just never did a story justice. The devil was always in the details.
This was certainly the epitome of that.
The victim, characterized unapologetically as a “yappy rat” by the accused during his first perp walk, had bled out before help arrived. His assailant just stood over him, watching as the guy begged for his life, for his wife and kids, gasping for another breath before his mouth froze, his eyes rolled up, and he passed away.
“Am I to assume this has something to do with your client?” His Lordship queried in a calm, aristocratic tone.
The young man adjusted his black robe evenly over his shoulders before grasping the lapels with both hands.
“Yes, m’Lord. I can certainly appreciate the considerable effort involved in getting here today, m’Lord, for everyone, given the weather. However, I regret to inform the court that we are unable to proceed with jury selection at this time, m’Lord.”
Eyebrows raised, heads turned, and disgust-filled chatter erupted in the room until Sinnott stifled it all. “Order in my court,” he bellowed, pointing at the crowd in the gallery.
“While I realize that many of you are new to our procedures here, be advised that subsequent outbursts will not be tolerated, lest you find yourself before me for another, even less pleasant reason.”
As if being chosen for jury selection was in any way pleasant to begin with.
He paused to scan the courtroom on the off chance someone might utter an ill-advised retort, then returned his attention to the slightly shaken public defender.
The lawyer leaned forward and planted both hands firmly on the old rustic wooden table before him, emitting a sigh he hoped would intimate his mutual displeasure with the unexpected turn of events.
“Um, yes, m’Lord. It appears, m’Lord, that the accused—my client—will require an additional seven days of assessment at the Waterford Hospital . . . on the advice of the doctors there, of course, m’Lord.”
Lawyers, especially newbies, were wont to slip in as many “m’Lords” as possible in an effort to curry favour with a judge and to buy time to bridge their thoughts, in the same way an MHA overuses “Mr. Speaker” ad nauseam.
By sheer coincidence, MHA also stands for Mental Health Act. Imagine that.
Anyway, Chief Justice Sinnott sat back and rocked slowly in his oversized leather chair, removing his reading glasses and slipping the end of an earpiece in his mouth to chew on as he pondered the development.
“Counsel for the Crown?” he asked as he gnawed.
“I’m afraid it is what it is, m’Lord,” chimed the diminutive yet feisty female prosecutor.
His Lordship sprang forward and sat upright, tossing his glasses aside.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, counsel for the defence has indicated that his client—the accused in this matter—will not be available . . . until next week, as I understand it?”
“Sorry, m’Lord. This being a Friday, it would be the week after next.”
Yes. It was a Friday, wasn’t it? The simple reminder made everything just a little more palatable.
Sinnott continued: “Unfortunately, what this means is that your efforts to fulfill your obligations as potential jurors have gone for naught today. I apologize to you for that. However, you should know that this is not an uncommon occurrence in complicated matters such as these . . .”
In short, the court was sorry for dragging everyone’s ass down here for nothing on what was easily one of the coldest, most annoying weather days of the year: a wind chill in the minus twenties, aiding and abetting that hazardous phenomenon where ice fuses to pavement, impervious to salt.
“But I’m not an unreasonable man,” the judge added in a markedly different, mischievous tone. “So, under the dreary circumstances inside and out, I withdraw my earlier instruction for quiet and grant you all permission to groan and whine to your heart’s desire. You have thirty seconds.”
Sinnott was odd like that. One minute by the book, the next not at all. He really did consider it his courtroom.
There was a momentary “Is he serious?” reaction before everyone seemed to take him up on the offer, beginning with idle, miffed banter, before building to a crescendo of raucous bitching and complaining.
“An eye for an eye—let him fry!” chanted a small group at the back with matching placards. I was shocked Sinnott allowed that, since such overt displays of bias were taboo in court.
Others, including the victim’s friends and relatives, were decrying any attempt to “let him off” with a country-club sentence to be served “in the comfy confines” of the Waterford.
For the record, comfy confines would not be the first words I’d use to describe the Mental.
“Time!” Sinnott said suddenly, intently holding his wristwatch like a stopwatch.
“Time’s up. You’re welcome.” It reminded me of the argument sketch from Monty Python.
Then it was right back to business.
“I think it’s best we adjourn, now, so I can meet with counsel in chambers. And then we’ll go from there.”
The clerk stood again. “All rise.”
The line of reporters immediately filed out of the courtroom in hushed haste, making individual beelines for privacy to call back to base and inform editors of the perp’s no-show and extended stay at the Waterford.
Rushing out through the main foyer, I was stopped in my tracks by the east-west sideways snow visible through the big windows of the double front doors.
“Good luck with that,” a sheriff’s officer seated at her desk to my left said to her computer screen.
As tempting as it was to engage the attractive, uniformed authority figure, I resisted and instead shot her a “thanks for nothing” glare as I retreated back through the foyer and into the main hallway.
I paused to think of a private phone that no one else had thought of, then excitedly recalled a small conference room under renovation at the top of the main stairwell. Unfortunately, my booted feet were late responding to the epiphany, and my right one clipped the first stair, causing my kneecap to smash into the steel edge of the second.
“Ffffffuuuuuhhh . . .”
I managed to mute the “K” but not the telltale sound of someone collapsing on stairs after missing one. Intense pain sent sharp tingles up my spine, into the back of my neck, and throughout my head.
There was a brief lull in the beaver-busy hall behind me as people stopped to assess the seriousness of the mishap. I concealed my grimace and gingerly resumed my upward trek. Just get up there and out of sight, I told myself, suddenly aware of fluid running down my right leg from the gash I must’ve opened up.
“This yours?”