“Bit lax on the security, Crawford. You don’t even lock your door these days?” a man asked. He had a deep voice, a little snide and haggard, as if maybe he smoked regularly.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Roger, nothing happens here that I don’t see.” It was the warden.
“Can we get to the goods? There are a few canapés and cute nurses back there with my name on ’em.”
Ricky heard the warden sigh and move closer to the desk. He held his breath tighter, listening as the man leaned his weight onto the desk, half sitting on it. The wood groaned, deafening to him as he tried not to make a sound, as he tried to disappear into the desk itself.
“Phase Two will begin soon, Roger, I assure you,” the warden said, sounding put-upon.
“Soon? Why not tomorrow? What’s the hesitation? Do you know how many palms I had to grease to get those facilities to cough up a name? I had to mail those Brookline pamphlets to the kid’s parents six times. Six. And now every day wasted is another day I’m paying for the electricity in this place. This whole thing is becoming too costly.”
“Warden Crawford knows what he’s doing,” the woman said, mirroring the warden’s irritation. “What’s that saying? You can’t rush perfection?”
“Well, he certainly rushed with you,” Roger sniped back.
“That’s enough,” the warden cut in. “Carie, I appreciate your support, but I can speak for myself in this matter. Phase Two has been postponed because the subject is unusually cooperative and docile this time. It’s a good sign, naturally, a willing Patient Zero is the goal. My previous attempts were by necessity less ambitious; they were the groundwork, not the complete project. I simply want ample time to observe him before moving forward with the treatment. These are human beings we’re talking about, Roger, not lab mice. They are complex. Complicated. What is becoming too costly is the further acquisition of suitable specimens.”
“I’ll be dean soon,” Roger told him, equally exasperated. “You can have your pick then. I will be dean soon, won’t I?”
“The warden is stacking the committee but these things take time,” the woman, Carie, answered. “You can’t just snap your fingers and get that kind of power.”
“Not now, at least,” Roger added with a rasping chuckle. “Do you always let her talk to you like this?”
“I appreciate her unfiltered input.”
“That makes one of us. Fine. Fine. Just hurry this along, all right? Phase Two needs to start sooner rather than later,” Roger barked. “I don’t want any surprises down the line. I want this technique of yours absolutely perfected. This kind of money pays for perfect, Crawford, not sloppiness.”
Food and beds for Brookline my ass, Ricky thought bitterly. He wondered if all the guests knew what their funds were really raising or just the “top donors.”
Ricky heard footsteps clap toward the door.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Roger said, “I’ll be seeing about those canapés.”
The door opened and closed. Ricky relaxed a little, forgetting that there were still two people in the room, one of whom was perched directly above him.
“Jerk,” he heard the woman mutter.
“Yes,” Warden Crawford agreed. “But a useful one. How are you feeling? Headaches? Nosebleeds?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Now tell me more about this new subject. Can I meet him?”
“In good time, Carie. In good time. There will be plenty of time for you to see him after his transformation begins.”
The door flying open sounded like a gunshot. Ricky started, hoping against hope that the warden didn’t hear or feel him jump under the desk.
“Nurse Ash? What is it?” the warden demanded. His weight eased off the desk, and the next moment he was stomping across the office.
“You had . . . It’s . . . Sir, you had better come and see.”
The office emptied as quickly as it had filled and Ricky finally released his breath. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, barely believing his own luck. Then he crawled out from his hiding spot and carefully replaced the folders, making sure to find the correct place in alphabetical order. He padded silently to the door, which had been left open, and glanced into the hall. It sounded like the commotion from the cafeteria was beginning to spill into the rest of the asylum.
He slipped out into the corridor and ran back down toward the lobby, trying to push past the guests who were pouring out, scandalized. They streamed around him, ignoring him, and finally Ricky sidled against the wall of the cafeteria, watching the chaos unfold as the warden tried to take control of the situation. Dennis had begun banging his fists on the wall, roaring in outrage when three orderlies tried to muzzle him and drag him to the ground. He very nearly fought them all off, throwing his huge arms around, pounding one of the orderlies so hard in the head the man crumpled to the floor. Patty had finally been sedated and silenced, but now Angela was in hysterics over her friend being tackled.
His eyes scanned for Kay, but it was Nurse Ash who found him first. He felt rather than saw her, a ferocious little hand clamping around his wrist.
“Where were you?” she demanded.
Two last guests thundered past them, the woman sobbing into her husband’s handkerchief.
“What are you talking about?” Ricky scrambled to think up a good story.
“Where were you?” Nurse Ash said again. He had never seen her so angry. “And this time, don’t lie.”
“What is Phase Two?”
Nurse Ash had only just finished pushing him into his room. She froze as she reached to close the door. Her head lowered a little, her shoulders hunched, like an animal catching wind of a distant, alarming scent.
Finally, she said, “I have to go back to see if the warden needs assistance isolating the other patients.”
“Just tell me, I can handle it,” Ricky said, still standing. Out in the hall, he could hear the chaos of the evening dwindling, the warden’s voice carrying as he tried to reassure and calm the last lingering guests. “What is Phase Two? Is something going to happen to me?”
She made to leave but thought better of it, apparently, instead shutting the door to cut off the noise in the corridor. Her gaze wasn’t friendly, but she didn’t seem angry now, just wary.
“Okay,” Nurse Ash said carefully. She straightened up, no longer the frightened animal, and crossed her arms over her nurse’s coat. “Enough of this. I know you left the party tonight. Where did you go?”
Ricky shook his head. His palms were still sweaty with nerves, and he could feel a tightness building in his chest. This was what it always felt like before he lost his temper—the surge of adrenaline, the sudden urge to slam his fist into something. It couldn’t be her, he wouldn’t even consider attacking her, but he felt dangerous. Wired. “I’m not answering your questions if you refuse to answer mine.”
“You are a patient here, Ricky. How many times do you need to be reminded? This is a facility. There are rules. Where did you go?” Her eyes flared but she didn’t raise her voice. “What did you see?”
He knew it. She wasn’t his friend. She was one more person who would sell him out in a heartbeat—one in a long line that included his dad, his parents, the boys at school. He wanted to scream. Now, he realized, getting any assistance or sympathy whatsoever was a lost cause. The warden was planning to do something to him and he still had no idea what. Phase Two. A dose of . . . something. And he had his buddies involved, too, somehow. That made it worse. What had the warden called him? A specimen?
He sat down hard on his crummy mattress and stared straight ahead. “It doesn’t matter, does it? What I saw or heard . . . My mom isn’t coming back for me this time, is she? I really screwed up.”
It wasn’t an act. His limbs felt shaky. Defeat or resignation, whatever it was, it felt terrible. And now he had snuck out, gotten caught, and for what? So he could hear one more person’s plans for him. Plans he could neither understand nor stop.
“You att
acked your stepfather,” Nurse Ash said, her tone shifting. Now she sounded kind. She was bargaining. She walked toward him, stopping at the edge of his bed. She was so young. How had she come to be a nurse so young? The job was already wearing on her, he could tell, the lines at her eyes and around her mouth too deep for someone her age. What was it like, he wondered, to work at a place like this, to watch people your own age suffering or just wasting time, counting the days of their youth they would never get back?
“You hurt him,” she reiterated. “It’s not a joke, Ricky. You went through two treatment facilities before this one. You have a serious problem with your temper, you know, and your family is worried about you. The going out at all hours, skipping class, the . . .”
“Boys,” he muttered.
“Your parents brought you here for a reason,” she said. “Can’t you try and understand that?”
“I do,” Ricky said, and he meant it. “Yes. You’re right. I have a problem with my temper. But I don’t feel like I’m getting treated for that here. Something is going on. You can tell me whatever you want but I know it’s true. You can’t seem to decide if you’re on my side or the warden’s. I don’t know who those friends of his are or what Phase Two is but I know when I’m being lied to. I’m not a child.”
“Rick—”
Nurse Ash snapped her head sharply to the side, hearing what he did—a loud, anguished scream from the basement below them. Her cheeks turned bright red at the sound. Good. She heard it, too. It was the perfect punctuation mark.
He turned away and lay down on the mattress, lying flat on his back. “You can give me a dose of whatever, you can try to shut me up or change me. But I know the warden is hiding something. That you’re all hiding something. I’ll find a way out of here and I won’t forget who helped me and who didn’t.”
There was still the little piece of paper he had saved with her remarks on it. Monster. Butcher. No, he wouldn’t forget. Now there were other words bouncing around in his head thanks to the warden. Specimen, dose, transformation.
Ricky took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was afraid, deeply afraid now that the anger was gone, but he couldn’t let her see that. “I’d like to be alone.”
In-room isolation lasted for two days. By the end of it, Ricky was almost glad to see the warden again when he opened the cell door. The man stood watching his patient for a long moment, calculating something. His spectacles shimmered in the bright light of the corridor, the glass so reflective that Ricky couldn’t make out the man’s eyes, just white circles.
“I think everyone has calmed down since that unfortunate outburst,” the warden said coolly. He sounded like a disappointed parent. “Why don’t you come with me so we can discuss your interpretation of those events.”
Ricky dragged himself out of bed and shuffled to the door. He hadn’t bathed in two days and his hair was rumpled and oily. His patient’s trousers and shirt were new but had already begun to take on the stench of his unwashed body. Silently, his jaw locked in place, Ricky followed the warden out of his room.
“I gather that you and Keith Waterston are becoming close,” the man said.
Ricky no longer mistook this for polite conversation. He’d decided he wouldn’t take anything the staff said as simple chitchat. It was all intentional. It was all invasive.
“I make friends easily,” Ricky said without emotion.
They snaked through the corridors leading from the recreation room at the south end of the building down the stairs to the lobby and then left, leaving behind the relative tranquility of the waiting chairs and magazine-strewn tables to the administration hall. A group of nurses had gathered at the dispensary and fell silent as the warden walked by with Ricky in tow.
“That’s certainly true. Nurse Ash is fond of you, too,” the warden said.
“I don’t know,” Ricky said, feigning indifference with a shrug. “She seems to treat everyone the same.”
“Mm. She speaks highly of you, though. Cooperative patients are a blessing. You are also not far from her age and good-looking. Young ladies notice you, Ricky. Surely you notice them, too?”
Did that mean she never ratted on Ricky for having left the gala room? He’d assumed that was the reason for his isolation, but maybe everyone had been isolated as punishment for the commotion. The warden didn’t seem angry, so maybe she really hadn’t mentioned any of their conversation that night to him.
“I’m not in here to find a date,” Ricky said. “I have . . . issues with my temper. It makes me act out. I am here to treat those issues.”
“That’s very mature of you.” He sounded actually impressed, like he bought it. “And you’re right, of course. All we have to do is get control of your impulses to anger, and you will be good to go.”
The warden ate one of his mints as he led them through his office door. He showed no sign of slowing, which meant they were going back to the basement. Was this Phase Two? Was it time for the dose? Ricky tried not to panic, but at the same time, he felt—as he had during their first interview—strangely encouraged by the warden’s words. He squinted at the man’s back, and he tried to make an assessment of the man based on the small handful of moments he’d spent with him. Maybe Nurse Ash was mad, too. Maybe working in this place had gotten to her like it was getting to him.
Warden Crawford didn’t seem like a threat, but Ricky knew it was dangerous to trust any adult promising something that sounded way too good to be true, and keeping him in an asylum with no intention of addressing his “perversion,” as Butch liked to call it, was way, way too good to be true. He knew it was only a half-truth, anyway—he doubted the “transformation” the warden had spoken of on the night of the gala was as minor as he was making it sound now. The crushing confusion of it all hung heavy on Ricky’s shoulders.
He slowed his steps accordingly.
“Why are we going back down there?” he asked.
“You sound nervous, Mr. Desmond.”
The warden’s heavy footfalls already echoed on the steps. He didn’t hesitate and he didn’t wait for Ricky to keep up.
“Maybe I am nervous.”
“Don’t be nervous. I’ve stated my intentions, haven’t I? A kinder, gentler future for medicine, remember? You have nothing to fear from me,” he said. It was a caring voice. A fatherly sort of voice, low and filled with wisdom, plus something that resembled cheer. “I’m simply taking you to see a fellow patient.”
“Who?”
Was it Kay? His mind raced. What if while he had been subjected to in-room isolation, she had been dragged down here for something even worse than shock therapy? He was jumping to conclusions, yes, and panicking, too. But he couldn’t help himself.
The warden’s sudden, sharp bark of laughter startled Ricky, and he stumbled a little on the steps. Automatically and quickly, the warden swiveled and caught his arm, steadying him. He continued down the stairs without a hitch. “Just full of questions today, aren’t we? Where is your sense of adventure, Mr. Desmond? Your sense of mystery.”
His sense of mystery was all he could think about lately. Ricky kept his mouth shut and followed. He began to shake from the cold, feeling acutely how long it had been since he’d enjoyed real sunlight. The way down seemed darker this time, but he knew what to expect and didn’t stumble again. He wondered how the patients down here even survived. How did they get through the nights when he was freezing after five minutes?
Down they went, farther and farther. He had forgotten how long it took. It seemed faster, or at least more urgent, in his vision, always that booming heartbeat luring him forward.
When they reached the lower ward, the warden pulled one of the milling orderlies aside and pointed to the way they had come. Protection. He didn’t want them to be interrupted again. Ricky doubted Nurse Ash would show up this time. He pressed his lips together, staring up at the orderly as he lumbered by. The man didn’t spare him a glance, going to his post and manning it like a statue of a sentry.
> They stopped outside the second door on the left. The ward was mostly silent this time, but still Ricky’s glance strayed to the last door on the right. Was she in there right now, the girl from his dream? He turned his attention back to the warden, afraid to be caught staring.
The door scraped open, shrieking, so heavy even the solidly built warden had trouble with it. A minty breath gusted down toward Ricky as the man sighed with exertion, and then Ricky was peering inside, hopeless against the tide of curiosity.
“Ah, excellent,” the warden drawled, motioning inside the cell. “Here is our little star. You remember Patty, of course. I thought you might like to see how she’s doing after that extraordinary performance.”
The cell was not appointed the way Ricky would have expected. It was bright, for the moment, with almost blindingly white surgical lamps set up on either side of a hospital gurney.
Patty lay strapped down to the bed, her almost-crossed eyes darting in every direction. They landed on Ricky and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Their expressions matched, he assumed, because he felt like he was intruding—not just on Patty but on some kind of serious surgery. Nurse Ash stood next to the patient, looking miserable, her hands fidgeting with a full syringe. A metal table had been set up next to the bed, holding a few surgical implements scattered across a piece of clean paper.
“Patty was making steady improvement, but it was slow progress,” the warden said. “With progress that slow, it becomes much easier to fall back. Sometimes, as hard as it may be, we need to help a patient make a leap forward. The gentler approaches are not always effective. You try, you fail, you come to grips with your limitations concerning certain defects of the mind.”
All warmth or sense of friendliness was gone from his voice. He didn’t sound like a disappointed father anymore but cold and removed, as if he’d learned how to be a human from a medical textbook. His eyes were hollow as he looked down at Patty. She struggled on the bed, but only until the warden raised his hand and gestured to the nurse, who hesitated before sliding the needle of the syringe into Patty’s arm.