Abigail

Abigail is a seventeen year-old girl experiencing hallucinations of her dead father.

At the site of the accident, someone called 911.  From far away, all you could see would have been a once-white car that looked as if God, in his wrath, had crushed it in his hand and dropped it back down from the skies, and you could see fire,  and it was so hot that when you looked at it, it made everything around it look like it was liquid, flowing, dreamy.  Behind the white SUV there was a smaller blue car with a young man outside, surveying the damage of his only prized possession.  Next to the blue car was a silver Honda minivan, with a woman wailing hysterically, collapsed through the rear sliding door on the side.  Inside the white car, an ’01 Lexus, a girl’s body lay limp pressed against the seat of her car by airbags.  The boasting Lexus, having belonged to her stepfather, was totaled beyond repair.

The gurney had a white pad on it held up by yellow metal and black wheels.  Red straps held the girl on the board as the vehicle raced to the West wing, where there were big red letters on the side: AMBULANCE.  They wheeled Abigail Sharps’ body out and rushed her inside.

Inside St. Paul’s Hospital, a woman was wailing into the strong arms of a man as a shorter, older man in a white coat tried to talk to her.  The woman was slim and tan, with brown curls reaching down past her shoulders.  The man had the stature of a football player, with a stubbly beard and mousy brown hair cut short above his ears.  He wore a white collared shirt and a light blue tie with navy pants and dress shoes, giving the appearance of a lawyer, a broker, an accountant.  She wore expensive Swiss trail shoes, running shorts, and a pink shirt that read VASSAR in big, black, boasting letters across the chest.  The seemingly perfect couple was the subject of prying eyes all around. 

“She has minor injuries thanks to the safety of the car,” said a short man with dark hair and a white coat on to the man and the woman.  “As for the others…” a cloud washed over his face.  “I hope you have a good lawyer.”

The woman looked up, tears streaming down her face, running streams of black down her sun-baked face.  Her eyes were red and only slightly open.  Her hair was tangled, and the man’s blue silk tie was spotted with black globs and water stains.  “What do you mean, Dr. Gewanter?”

He ignored her question and proceeded to move on.  “Because of her condition, we can’t keep her here long.  Since the psychiatric unit at this hospital is so small and because of the nature of her condition, we are referring her to the state institution.  It’s about 90 miles away, I have an information packet for you here-” he reached into his lab coat, but was interrupted.

            “What do you mean, state institution?” This was the first time the man had spoken since his arrival at the hospital.

            The woman looked puzzled.  “Nature of her condition?”

            Dr. Gewanter smiled sympathetically, the way doctors smile when they tell someone they have cancer, and they have a small chance of survival, but it will be hard.  He smiled the way people smile when they feel sorry for someone else, the way someone smiles when they see someone mentally retarded struggling to keep up in the world.  He smiled the smile of a psychiatrist who had to deliver shocking news.

 

                        ******

 

            “Here you go, sweetie.” A plump black woman handed Abigail a small stack of cloth: two pairs of  navy blue elastic-waist pants, two white shirts, three pairs of socks with little rubber grippers on the bottom.  “You can give me your clothes and underwear you have on now.  They aren’t allowed.  Shoes aren’t allowed, either.”  Abigail stood there, silent.  “Well,” the woman said, watching her.  “Go on.  I have to do a body search, too.”  Abigail looked at the woman and narrowed her eyes.  “It’s procedure,” she explained.  “Cavity search and body check.  I log every scar, every freckle you have.  It’s to keep you safe.”  She was wearing a nurse’s uniform.  Her scrub shirt was purple with yellow rubber ducks on it, and her pants were plain purple.  Her shoes were white and fastened with Velcro.  Abigail stared at a duck on her shirt.  The duck seemed to watch her undress, to taunt her as she stood there, begrudgingly exposed.  Abigail slowly lifted her shirt off, revealing perfect bronzed skin underneath.  She clenched her teeth as she took off her jeans and stood on the cold, hard floor.  “I need you to take your bra and underwear off,” the woman said.  Abigail shook her head.  “Okay,” continued the woman, “I can do this the easy way or the hard way.  Your choice.”  There was a scream and a bang from outside Abigail’s door.  “That,” she said, pointing toward the door, “is the hard way.”  Abigail, teeth grinding,  stood in front of the woman naked.  “Squat,” she ordered as she wrote notes down on a clipboard with an outline of a human body.    

“You can put your clothes on now, honey.” The woman left the room.  Abigail dressed and surveyed her surroundings.  There was a desk with a plastic chair.  Beside the desk were cubbies built into the white, cinderblock wall.  The desk, the chair, and the cubbies were all deep burgundy.  There was a twin bed frame with a blue rubber mattress on it.  The bed frame, made of pine, had notches in the side for something Abigail was not sure of.  There was one plastic blue pillow.  Overhead, on the ceiling, was a single fluorescent light with a switch by the door.  Under her socked feet was a cement floor painted white with a drain in the middle.  That was all there was. 

 

            ***************

            January 15

Today the man in the white coat told me I cannot leave until I write in this book.

                        I did not mean to crash the cars.

                                    I did not want to hit David.  He was in the middle of the street.  Now I am in the  hospital with crazies.

They gave me a shot yesterday. I am supposed to write about how I was feeling, but I was not feeling anything and I did not feel the shot.  I only fell asleep.

 

 

 

January 16

Today I am supposed to write about what I was feeling when I crashed the car.  I do not remember how I felt when I crashed the car, all I remember is the hospital and all the white people in white coats with white gloves.  I remember the doctor who was asking me questions and he was short with dark hair.  He asked me if sometimes I felt like I could fly, and I told him yes, because sometimes I do feel this way.  He asked me if sometimes I hallucinate and I said no, of course I do not hallucinate, I am not insane.

 

                        ********

            After three sharp knocks on the door, a woman walked in.  She wore a white ribbed turtleneck and black slacks.  Over her white ribbed turtleneck hung a laminated photo ID:  Dr. E.  Morrison, Psycho. Unit Two. “Can we talk for a little bit?”

            “Yes.” Abigail looked down at the floor and sat on her plastic bed.

            “So,” began the doctor, “what brings you here today?”  She said it as if they were in a grocery store, or a country club.

            “The doctor at St. Paul’s said I had to come here.”

            “But why did he say that?” Her pen was already moving swiftly along her clipboard.

            “I crashed.”

            “You crashed? What did you crash?”

            “My car.”

            Morrison nodded, and her brow furrowed.  “When you crashed the car, did you feel like you were invincible?”

            “No. Someone was standing in the street.”

            “Did you swerve so that you didn’t hit them?”

            “Yes.”

            “Abigail, how fast were you going to begin with?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “But it was pretty fast, was it not?”

            “Yes.”

            “Over seventy?”

            “Yes.”

            “Over eighty?”

            “Yes.”

            “Over a hundred?”

            “Not over a hundred.”

            “Okay.   And why were you driving so fast?  Did  you feel like you could fly?”

            “No.”

            “Do you sometimes feel like you can stay awake for days?”

            “Yes.”

            “When you feel like that, are you very excitable?”

            “Can you just stop asking me questions?”

            “Easily angered?”

            “No, just stop asking me questions.”

            “Okay.” Dr. Morrison’s pen ran frantically across the page, writing notes, checking boxes.  She paused a minute before continuing: “Do you ever feel very sad, tired, or like there is no point in living?”

            “Yes.  What would be the point of living with Michael?”

            “Who’s Michael?”

            “Delaney’s husband, who else?”

            “Who is Delaney?”  She seemed extremely bored.  This routine was routine at the hospital, and Dr. Morrison did it multiple times per day.

            “My mom, can you stop?”

            “Do you use drugs or alcohol? Do you smoke?”

            “I drink sometimes.  Used heroin twice, but I threw up and didn’t do it again.  I don’t like marijuana.  It makes me feel stupid.  I used cocaine once.  I liked it but it made me feel sick.”

            “Did the cocaine make you feel not sad anymore?”

            “I’m not sad.”

            “And when you drink, when do you drink?   At parties, or by yourself?”

            “Both.  Usually at parties but sometimes by myself, when I can’t sleep, or when things are chasing me.”

            “Describe how things chase you.”         

            “I don’t know how to describe it.  Just sometimes things come after me.”

            “Do they want to kill you?” Dr. Morrison’s hand was scribbling furiously across the clipboard and turning pages.  She seemed to enjoy it.  Never once did she look up at Abigail, but kept her eyes fixed on the papers in her lap.  Abigail didn’t say anything.  She looked at the wall and wondered when the questions would be over.  “Do you ever cut or burn yourself?”

            “No.”

            “Do you feel like you want to die sometimes, and have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

            “Yes.”

            “I see.  Do you want to feel better?”

            “I feel fine.”

            “Right.  Well, we’re going to try you on some Depakote and see if that doesn’t make you feel better.”