Open Mind: Chapter Sixteen

Chapter 16

There was one weekend when I was in kindergarten when my mother was out of town for the entire weekend for some sort of nursing conference, and it was just me and my dad. Try as he always might, my father was never entirely the responsible parent. While my mother always tried to make sure our dinners together met the food pyramid’s high standards, my dad argued on our weekends alone that pizza “has pretty much the whole triangle” in every slice. I looked forward to those weekends the most – pizza and Cheers re-runs. My mother was not amused after her trip to find that I'd memorized the entire theme song, and she absolutely was not amused with my impromptu performance of it outside of my Uncle Wilmer’s funeral the following weekend.

The highlight of that weekend with my dad was when he took me out on the winding backroads in his pickup truck. The cabin of the truck reeked of motor oil, stale cigarettes and dust from the gravel of the roads, but I didn’t care. Dad’s truck was fun. It was big and spacious and most importantly, it was his. And on that weekend, it was ours.

Once we had driven a few more miles away from home, down into the parts of the backroads that no one ever traveled, he pulled the truck over as far as he could without sinking into the gravel moat that ran down either side of the road. He unbuckled his seatbelt and patted his leg.

“Do you want to have a go at it, Sky?”

I’d imagined myself driving the truck so many times, but I always thought that there was no way that he’d ever let me behind the wheel.

“What if I crash?”

“I won’t let you crash. I promise.”

“I never got to drive before.”

“Oh geez, I sure hope not, kiddo.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Of course you can, sweetheart. There’s nothing to it.”

I looked at him skeptically. Was it a test? Dad let me get away with a lot of things that I shouldn’t have. Scary movies after 8:30? Getting ice cream on the way home before dinner? Strapping a bottle rocket to that ugly Barbie Aunt Stacy got me for Christmas just to see how high she’d go before she exploded? All classic Dad activities which enabled both of our worst impulses.

But this? A bridge too far. Now he was just talking crazy.

“Mom will be so mad.”

Dad cleared his throat and shook his head playfully. “Ah yeah, you’re probably right. Wouldn’t want her Mom senses tingling all the way in Memphis, now would we?” There was a child-like twinkle in his blue eyes that always accompanied some trick.

“You really think she would know?” I asked slowly and with growing doubt. “I mean, it’s not like she has a camera in here.”

“Not yet she doesn’t.”

“Besides, I mean, you’re right here. I'd just tell her you told me to do it.”

“Woah there! You’d just throw your old man under the bus like that?”

“No!”

“Now I don’t know if I want you driving my truck,” he said with a grin.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it! I want to drive really, really bad!”

Dad looked at me, as if he were debating tirelessly with himself over the decision. The manufactured pain on his face was convincing for my five-year-oid self.

“Please, Dad. I’ll be super careful.”

“Alright, alright. You wore me down. I'll let you drive.”

My face lit up and I squealed with joy. He patted his lap again and I unbuckled my seatbelt. I plopped on his lap and shimmied into position in front of the steering wheel. I put my hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 -- I don’t remember where I had picked up that knowledge, but I imagine it must have been some TV show or cartoon.

“My girl, a natural already! Look at you at 10 and 2,” my father cheered in a sing-song tone. “Now, all you gotta do is grip the steering wheel tight. I'll press on the gas and you keep her steady. You ready?”

I nodded confidently. As soon as he pressed the gas, I held the wheel steady in place. We started to move; slowly at first but picking up speed. I could hear my dad whispering words of encouragement under his breath and it filled me with pride.

“Now turn the wheel left.”

I jerked the wheel to the right and with a thud we ended up in the ditch. I cried out and jumped from my father’s lap. He cried out too and cursed, but not at me. Never at me. After a few deep breaths, he let out a soft, measured sigh.

“Should have taught you left from right before, huh?”

He spent several minutes spinning the wheels in the gravel.

And it was that spinning of the wheels that jogged my trip down memory lane on a rainy day of group therapy. That feeling of giving all my effort just to end up staying in the same place. That feeling of knowing that you have to get out, but nothing you try seems to work. That was the feeling that swelled in me. Everything outside of Open Mind felt like a colossal waste of time.

“We are not discussing it, Adrianna.” Mrs. Sherril sat in the front of the group therapy room with her arms folded and her legs crossed as tightly as her straining jeans would allow. The ink pen wedged between her index and middle finger rapped furiously against her forearm – the only indication visually of her mounting frustration.

“Of course not. Because you all know that you messed up with Tasha and did her dirty.”

“There’s nothing more to talk about in group on that. If you want to take it up with your therapist on your own time, you are more than welcome.”

“Then what the hell am I doing here wasting my time!” Adrianna stood up and tossed her plastic chair across the room. “You aren’t here to help us. You just want to lock us up long enough to keep us quiet and dope us up till we can’t think straight anymore.”

Adrianna stormed out of the room and down the hall to the left. Mrs. Sherill unclipped the radio from her belt loop and calmly asked for “eyes” on Adrianna. She looked up at the wide-eyed group of kids in front of her and smiled her fake, everything-is-fine smile.

“Are you gonna stop her?” asked one of the girls from the back of the room.

“I don’t need to. That’s what we have other staff members for, Terry. Now, I believe we were discussing feelings of hopelessness and anger before--”

A scream carried down the hall, followed by a crackling voice over the radio, “we are going to need you, Sherril.”

“God bless it,” Sherril muttered under her breath. She turned her attention back to me. “Skylar, please continue the lesson from here. You’re the resident expert on anger, aside from She-Hulk down the hall there.”

Without another word, Mrs. Sherril tossed the Expo marker to me and charged out of the room. I felt the eyes of the room shift to me. I turned around to a sea of confused, anxious kids and teenagers waiting on my next move.

“You lead, Terry,” I said before tossing the marker to her. She swatted the marker down like a cat swatting at a bird.

“Why the hell should I lead?”

“Because Adrianna needs me. These kids need you right now. Just, talk about whatever.”

“Can we talk about the Cardinals,” asked one of the boys.

“No, we ain’t talking about no damn baseball,” Terry shot back. “If I’m leading, we are talking about dinner because I am so hungry, you guys.”

I left the group in Terry’s capable hands as I rounded the corner and headed down the hall. It was clear there was a stand-off outside of the Comfort Room door. Adrianna had her arms outstretched wide to keep the two staff members from pushing her into the room. Mrs. Sherril was in the middle of the two staff members trying to talk to Adrianna.

“This does not have to be like this, Adrianna. We just want you to get calm and get safe, that’s all.”

“You just want me to shut up! You just wanna put your hands on me and hurt me, like you hurt Tasha!”

“I never once hurt that girl,” Mrs. Sherril snapped.

“Maybe not, but your girl over here sure did. She about snapped Tasha’s pinky finger in half, I heard. Lost control and unloaded on her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” spat the staff member that Adrianna had been addressing. I had seen this staff member around many times, but I never learned her name. She always had a horrible energy to her – a feeling that she did not want to be here that was even greater than some of the residents that were here against their will.

Adrianna cackled, taking great pleasure in the staff member’s mounting frustration. “We all know, Miss Janet. We all know your jacket smell like cat piss and ain’t nobody here like you. We know you get dropped off by that crackhead lady in the shitty Honda because we see her in our window every Tuesday and Thursday when you work. We know you is miserable and lonely and you take it out on kids because we the only ones who can’t fight back.”

“Be quiet!” Miss Janet threw Adrianna into the room with one huge shove. Adrianna fell back into the room, and I scrambled to get a better view. The three staff members collapsed onto Adrianna and held her down as she screamed.

“Get the hell off of me!”

“You need to calm down and stop fighting before we can let go, Adrianna.”

“I am calm! Get the hell off me!”

“This is not calm. You need to take some deep breaths, Adrianna.”

With a roar of anguish and rage, Adrianna managed to throw one of the staff members off of her arm and roll over. With her loose arm, she slammed her fist into Miss Janet’s jaw. She tried to swing a second time, and Miss Janet pinned her back onto the ground. Adrianna was face down, and I could hear her gasps for air.

“You need to let her up, Janet,” the other staff member said.

“No way,” Janet said, wiping a bit of blood from her lip off on the collar of her shirt. “She’s not about to get another sucker punch off on me.” Miss Janet pushed harder on Adrianna’s arm.

“Mrs. Sherril, please,” I pleaded.

Mrs. Sherril turned around to face me. She was laying on Adrianna’s feet to keep her from kicking, but she was able to turn just enough to see me. “I told you to watch those kids, Skylar!”

“She can’t breathe, Mrs. Sherril! Get off of her!”

“You don’t need to be seeing this, Skylar! Get to your room before I have you written up!”

Without thinking, I lunged at Mrs. Sherill. Before my body could reach her, I felt the floor drop and fall out from under me. Everything snapped to black and I felt cold and disconnected from my body. When I looked up, I was at the edge of a river. I remembered the feeling of gravel and rocks, but I could not feel them in the moment.

I had entered Open Mind.

Out in the river, I could make out the splashing and choking of some person. Fear coursed through me as I struggled to make a connection between my thoughts of movement and the actual movement of my limbs. Although I thought as hard as I could about moving my arms and legs, I could feel nothing but air – no tangible, knowable thing to connect to.

I could faintly make out the murmur of voices around me, but I could not pick out their source.

She’s dead.

She isn’t breathing.

To my surprise, pieces of gravel began to shake and move in front of me. I continued to claw at the space in front of me, and as I did so, more and more gravel gave way and shifted. After a few more attempts, my arms started to take shape and materialize. The sensation of dry, jagged rock and gritty sand against my fingertips made it clear that I was finally getting somewhere. I dug my fingers deep into the gravel and pulled my body forward with all the power I could manage.

Then, the sensation of gravel arose from my belly, and my hips, and all down through my legs. Once I could feel the gravel on the tops of my feet, I knew that I could stand. I rose to my feet, steadied myself on weakened legs, and dashed toward the river.

I paused at the bank of the river, unsure of how to proceed. I could swim in the real world, sure. But what the hell was an Open Mind river made of? There was only one way to find out. I knelt down and placed one hand delicately into the river. It burned like alcohol on an open wound, and I cried out in pain as I pulled my hand from the river. To my shock, my hand was gone – only the wrist remained. I screamed in horror, waving the absent hand in front of my face.

“What’s with all the screaming?” called a familiar voice from behind me. I turned to see Wilcox floating towards me. “There are much easier ways to summon the Vulture, you know.”

“I need your help,” I gasped. “Someone is drowning over there and I tried to swim in the water but it burns and my hand is gone and--”

“Woah, Sky. Slow down. What do you mean, your hand is gone?”

I threw up my hand to show Wilcox what I meant, but to my surprise, my hand reappeared. “Well, it was gone...”

“It wasn’t gone, you simply weren’t connected with it.”

“So, I can cross the river?”

“Yes, but you are going to really have to focus in on what it feels like to swim. That physical connection to your body is key in Open Mind.”

I turned around and was prepared to dive straight in to the water before Wilcox reappeared in front of me.

“Move, possum!”

“You better be absolutely locked in before you jump in that water, otherwise you are going to put your spirit into absolute shock and lose the connection entirely.”

“I don’t have time for this,” I snapped. “They are going to drown.”

Wilcox turned to face the drowning figure in the river, as if it had not occurred to them at all until that very moment. He sighed with frustration, snapped two of his padded fingers together, and the figure reappeared on the bank of the river between us.

“It’s... it’s Adrianna.”

“I assume you know this girl,” Wilcox said, raising his voice over the sounds of Adrianna choking on water.

“I was just there with her... she was being held down by some staff members and she couldn’t breathe...”

“Ah yeah, lucky thing we caught her before she made it too far down stream. Might not have been able to bring her back then.”

“Bring her back?”

“Go ahead and touch her,” Wilcox said with a grin. “It’s the whole reason you’re here, Skylar. The power of Open Mind and all that shit.”

I glanced at Wilcox skeptically. He gestured with his paws, as if to say get on with it already. With one shaking hand, I made contact with Adrianna’s forehead. In an instant, I was blinded by overwhelming light and the crushing sensation of every bit of atmospheric weight bearing down on every nerve in my body. As I writhed in pain, I could faintly hear the voices around me crying out:

She’s breathing!

Get off her, let her up!

Someone call an ambulance!

I thought for sure we lost her...