The Space In Between(5)

I staggered near the cops and pounded my hands against my chest. Trying to explain the situation. Someone screamed I looked crazed. What? Screw them. I’d had a bad f*cking day.
“This is getting out of control. Look, do you know who I am?” I was annoyed now—with everyone. The paparazzi. The random folks. The damn cop with his hand on his gun.
“Do you know who I am!?! Stop with the flashes!” I screamed as I barged at the paparazzi, ready to rip the cameras from their hands. Instead, I was stopped. My body began twitching, my hands shaking involuntary. Every muscle in my body became rigid, and I dropped to my knees.
I was wrong. The cop’s hand wasn’t on his gun.
It was on his taser.





MY PALMS WERE sweating as I continuously rubbed them against one another. My eyes rested on the clock’s ticking sounds. The sounds were mocking me. Time moved so f*cking slowly and I couldn’t take much more. The air was hard to breathe; I’d been in this place for far too long and was longing for my escape. Rubbing my lips together, I looked to the ground and started to count the floor tiles. That would past the damn time.
“Cooper, what are you thinking?” the old doctor with the clipboard asked me. The nametag hanging on his white coat read Doctor Downey. His thin-framed glasses fell slightly down his nose and his brown-eyes studied my face. I shrugged my shoulders and looked around. We were surrounded by other people, sitting in a circle, having our daily ‘group therapy’ session.
There were three types of people in this hell. People number one—the people who were actually crazy. Like ‘I see dead people and talk to f*cking cows’ type of crazy. People number two—the people who worked there, who looked even more insane than the crazies. Yet the only way to tell if they were mentally insane or employees of the messed up system was to glimpse at their shoes to see if they still had their shoestrings. The crazies didn’t get strings in this place. I looked at Dr. D’s shoes to make sure the shoestrings were there. Sometimes it was hard to tell.
And there were people number three. They were the people who were surrounded by others who continually attacked a person and f*cking battered them to a point where there was a snap. People number three snapped and needed a break—a vacation to the land of crazy just to avoid the truly insane individuals who were walking outside in the real world.
I sat back in my metal chair and glanced down to my shoes. I wasn’t an employee. I didn’t talk to cows. So I guessed I was a three. I looked toward Dr. D and asked him to repeat his question.
“What are you thinking, Cooper?” he asked. I laughed loudly and shrugged my shoulders. I rested my hand on my hairy face and chuckled even louder. I hadn’t been allowed to shave since I arrived and it felt strange to feel prickly hairs growing in. A daily reminder of my time spent here. You know what I was thinking? I was thinking my wife was a cheating, pregnant whore.
But I looked at Dr. D, knowing if I stated my true thoughts he’d think I needed to be in the mental health clinic longer than I wanted to be. I rubbed below my bottom lip and shrugged, “Nothing.”
He studied me for awhile. I almost thought he could see right through me. I stared back, my green eyes giving his browns quite the battle. He pushed his thin-framed glasses up his nose and nodded, turning to Claire—the born-again virgin who was addicted to cocaine. “What about you, Claire? What are you thinking?”
The older dude seated next to me smiled and whispered, “You’ll be okay.” He didn’t look insane, but his missing shoestrings told me otherwise. “You just have to go through what you’re going through to get to what you’re getting to.”
I eyed the older dude to look for clear signs that he was crazy. Some of the people in here twitched, some of them screamed, and others broke everything they could get their damn hands on. But this guy…he had calm blue eyes and a full grayed beard which somehow made me want to get to know him. He had friendly eyes. If I had to be in this place for a few more weeks, I would need an ally. I turned to him and allowed him to be my new ‘friend’. “Thanks, man. What’s your name?”
“Most people around here call me J.C. But you can call me by my real name, Jesus Christ.”
The blank stare on my face had to be priceless; I looked for a sign of sarcasm from him, but it was nowhere to be found. Slowly turning around in my seat, I remained stunned. Jesus Christ, where the hell was I?


Chapter Three

WHEN I ARRIVED to New York, I was so glad to have Ladasha come running in my direction, wrapping her arms around me. I nudged her in the arm, grinning. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”
“Ditto. Look at you! I can’t even tell you were in a cast!” It felt good to have that dang thing off my leg. Every time I looked at it, it was a daily reminder of Derrick, so having it gone was a plus. Now if only I could get my memories to disappear. Ladasha bit the bottom of her lip and narrowed her eyes. “Listen, so you’ll be staying with me and Kate at our apartment. I hope you are okay with a couch as a bedroom…” Her begging eyes appeared, hoping it would be all right, but she had nothing to worry about. I couldn’t care less.
I was out of the small town and in the city that never sleeps. The city people went to lose and find themselves. I was so ready to leave old Andrea in Wisconsin and rediscover myself, leaving all the tears and pain in the past. It had been five months since the accident, but sitting in my bedroom at my parents’ house made it feel like yesterday. And I was so sick of yesterdays.