Chapter Thirty-Five #2
When I crack my eyes open, I glimpse, through the slit of the cell’s back window, the drab gray of another morning getting ready for the sun to break through on the horizon.
Lying there, I recall the dream I’ve just woken up from.
Emily and the twins are in a paddleboat on some lake.
I’m happy that Niko’s alive again or wasn’t dead after all.
For some reason, I’m not in the boat; I’m swimming after them, trying to catch up.
When I hear something behind me and look back, I see a bear, dog-paddling after me.
I swim faster, but the paddleboat has gotten far ahead.
The bear is gaining on me. I can hear it chuffing and growling. When I look back, its eyes meet mine.
“But it’s baked chicken leg night,” Manny says.
“You don’t want to miss chicken leg night, do you?
” He’s up on his bunk in just his skivvies, his scrawny legs dangling over the side.
I’m sitting on my storage box, my face in the book I’m pretending to read so he’ll shut up.
It’s not working. “Last week you skipped Jamaican meat pies and now this? I wish you’d just tell me what’s bothering you, Corby.
Maybe if you talk it out, you’ll feel better. ”
Without looking up, I tell him I’ve been on this same freaking page for ten minutes now and I’m wondering whether he’s going to shut up anytime soon.
“Is it about your wife? Or—”
“Leave it alone, Manny.”
“Are Piccardy and his wingman still bothering you? I thought that had died down, but has it?” Now he’s really pissing me off because he’s getting too close to the truth.
And yes, their harassment seems to have stopped, but the assault served its purpose.
The toy cops must be so proud of themselves now that they’ve shut me up and shut me down.
Out in the corridor, CO Sullivan shouts five minutes till chow call. Manny jumps down from his bunk, pulls on his pants, and slips his feet into the frayed checkerboard Vans I wear as slippers. He used to ask me whether he could wear them. Now he just assumes they’re his.
“Is it about your daughter? The custody thing?”
“Stop it, Manny! You’re not my shrink.”
“No, I’m your friend.”
When I look over at him, the compassion in his eyes hurts so much that I have to look away.
He’s my only real friend in this place. Well, he and Javi over at the library.
“Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so surly lately, but I’ve got less than ten months left in here.
All I want to do is lie low and keep crossing off those days on my calendar. Okay?”
“I still think you should put in a request to talk to someone.”
“I already did, okay?”
I’m disappointed to see I’ve drawn the short straw. It’s Blankenship again. He’s on the wall phone, talking to someone he’s calling “sweetheart.” He holds up his be-with-you-in-a-minute finger and gestures that I should take a seat.
I don’t. I just stand there, looking around the room where I was told to meet him.
Pink cinder-block walls, dirty blue plastic chairs on either side of a chipped metal table, bulletin board with nothing much posted on it, an almost empty bookshelf.
This is nobody’s office; it’s just a room where you’re sent when you put in a request to see someone, which I did two weeks ago.
Why am I even here? I just need to keep my head down, keep my mouth shut, and keep counting the days until I’m out of here.
That documentary I saw last week about “the Greatest Generation” talked about how those guys who had survived the brutality of war came home and kept their memories to themselves.
Compared to what those soldiers and sailors suffered, what happened to me is nothing.
Blankenship looks different. Better than I remember him looking.
Nice suit, matching necktie and pocket square.
Looks like he lost some weight. New wife maybe?
Some younger woman who’s given him a makeover?
Didn’t he used to be bald? “No, don’t book it yet, sweetheart.
I know it’s a good deal, but the flight’s not going to fill up between now and when I get home tonight.
” This is ridiculous. I signal to him that I’m leaving.
“Hold on,” he says. He tells Sweetheart he’s got a patient waiting and he’ll see her shortly after five. Adds that he loves her, too.
As he hangs up the phone, he checks his watch.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says. “I’m Dr. Blankenship.
And you’re…” He looks down at the pass I just gave him.
“Corbin Ledbetter.” No recognition of our earlier exchange, not that I should have expected it.
It was almost three years ago. “So what can I do for you, Corbin? Tell me what’s happening.
” He may look different, but he still has that high-pitched voice.
I scan the room. Feel the fingernails of my one hand digging into the flesh of the other. Squint to read the spine of that paperback on the bookshelf; it’s Stephen King’s The Stand . When I look back at him, I tell him that someone did something to me and it’s messing with my head.
“Go on,” he says. Waits. “If you want me to help you, Corbin, you’re going to have to be more specific.”
My right foot’s tapping against the floor like crazy. I should have walked the fuck out of here while I had the chance. “Hey, can I ask you something? Before I got sentenced, I was seeing this doctor. Dr. Patel. Didn’t she used to work here?”
“Yes, part-time. Lovely woman. You saw her at her private practice?”
“Yeah.… Yup.”
“So what did that person do to you?”
I take a deep breath and let it out, but give him an edited version. Tell him I got butt-raped but don’t correct his assumption that my assailant was another inmate.
“Did you go to the medical unit? Get tested for HIV and any other STDs?”
I lie. Say I did. “Everything came back negative.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Right?” I nod. “Have you reported this? Filed a complaint? Talked to your counselor?” I shake my head. “What about privately? Have you told anyone in confidence? A friend or a custody officer who you can trust?”
“An officer I can trust? Where would I find one of those?” He doesn’t respond. “No, you’re the first person I’ve told.”
“And this incident happened when?”
“About three weeks ago.”
He glances again at his watch. “How have things been going for you since?”
“Not so good.”
“And what are the specifics of ‘not so good’?”
“I feel nervous a lot. Scared that it might happen again. And just so freakin’ angry, you know? I’ve been having fantasies about payback.”
“But they’re just fantasies? Nothing you’re planning to act on?” I shake my head. “You having problems sleeping? Depression? Loss of appetite?”
“All of the above, actually.”
“Anything triggering you? Making you relive the memory?”
I shake my head. “No, wait,” I tell him.
“The assault happened in a storage room outside the chow hall, okay? And there’s these big sacks of onions piled up in there.
Last week, someone left the door to that room open, and on my way into the hall to eat, I got a whiff of those onions and…
It didn’t last long, but for a couple of seconds, I started breathing hard and it felt like it was going to happen again. ”
“Like a flashback?”
“More like a mini panic attack or something.”
“You’ve experienced panic attacks before?”
“Yeah. Dr. Patel? When I was seeing her, she gave me these strategies to help me short-circuit them when they’re starting. Breathing exercises, grounding exercises. And then, after I came here, she wrote me this letter, which, you know, she didn’t have to do, but it was really helpful.”
“And what did the letter say?”
“Said a lot of things. Useful suggestions to let me hold on to hope and not get sucked into the black hole of being here.”
He nods. I don’t tell him about the timing of the letter: that I got it right after he sprang me from the observation cell.
“She was really pushing the mind-body thing. Said if I was isolating—which I was—I needed to fight against it. So I forced myself to go to chow instead of skipping meals. Started exercising, playing cards in the dayroom with other guys on my tier. Later on, I got a job on the grounds crew, which was great at first. Fresh air, sunshine, physical work. Pulled me out of my funk, you know? Our supervisor was a good guy, but then they switched supervisors and there were issues.”
Another check of the wristwatch. He says our time is limited and suggests we focus on the present. “Now, since this incident, I take it you’ve been isolating again.”
Interesting that he’s calling what happened to me an “incident.” I tell him I just don’t want to be around people—that I feel on edge about everything. “Am I going to get attacked again? What’s going to happen when I get out of here? How much of my life am I going to get back?”
“When do you get out?” I tell him I have less than ten months. “Okay, well, let’s see if we can take away some of that stress you’re feeling. I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but there are protocols available to someone in your situation. Do you know about PREA? The Prison Rape Elimination Act?”
I shrug.
“It’s a zero-tolerance policy against sexual assault—a protection for people in confinement facilities: prisons, jails, lockups.
Basically, it says that if you report to PREA that you’ve been sexually abused, the allegation gets investigated promptly and thoroughly.
Theoretically, that’s what happens anyway.
It’s been around for a while and there are mixed reviews about how effective it is.
But if you wanted to go that route, it might make you feel more in control than just staying in your cell and stewing about things.
You think you might want to look into that?
” When I shake my head, he asks why not.