Gabby The Cutter

“I feel like a bug under somebody’s shoe.” The new girl was spread out on a chair, the scars on her arms like chaotic spider webs. When Ron called her out in group she made no attempt to hide her contempt for him, Hillcrest and the rest of us.

“Why do you feel that way?” Ron asked calmly.

“Why do you think?” She spit the words out, her ferocity like an unhinged shutter in a windstorm.

“Who are you angry with?”

“Everybody! Y’all think you can judge me, but you don’t even know who I am. So, FUCK YOU!” She stood up and kicked a table.

Those nearest moved out of her way.

Ron leapt to his feet. “This behavior is unacceptable.”

“Fuck you!” She screamed as she ran her fingers through her blonde hair, clenched her fists and pulled out two wads.

Rosie ran into the room. She and Ron grabbed the girl’s shoulders. She struggled violently in their grasp, throwing punches at Ron and clawing at Rosie’s face as they carried her down the hallway. She kicked her feet and gnashed her teeth like a feral beast. We listened to her screams until the door of the Time Out room slammed shut. After that her wail was muffled, like the ominous screech of an owl in the distance.

I looked at Alex in awe. This girl was the most exciting thing to hit the ward since Justin, the Bible eater. We were both impressed. Not only was she a total mental case, she was gorgeous.

She’d showed up a two days before. We were coming back from occupational therapy. Alex and I were charging up the stairs doing our usual routine: him growling in his best James Hetfield, “Back to the ward!” while I responded with a guttural snarl, “You will do! What I say!” And then in unison. “Back to the ward!” As we smashed through the door, we stopped in our tracks. There she was, in a Mötley Crüe shirt, standing at the nurses’ station with her head down. When she looked up through matted strands of hair, her face was feline. Alex broke the spell. “Rock and roll,” he said in his bad English accent.

On the ward, she kept to herself. In the common room she sat alone, barely registering anybody’s presence. During group she scowled and refused to participate. She marched along reluctantly through the various daily activities, never smiling or showing any reaction beyond a deathray gaze.

“She’s so fucking cool,” I enthused to Alex and the other guys. “What do you think she’s in for?”

“Murder?” Ryan suggested.

“You think so? That would be awesome.”

After her episode in group, she spent a day in the Time Out room. The next morning she was back in group. Ron wasn’t taking it easy on her.

“Would you like to talk about what happened yesterday, Gabrielle?” he asked.

“Don’t ever call me that. Nobody calls me that. I’m
Gabby.”

“Well, Gabby, I think it’s important to discuss what’s bothering you.”

“Do I have a choice? You gonna lock me up again if I don’t do what you say?”

“We’re only trying to help.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“What’s upsetting you, Gabby. What are you feeling right now?”

“Right now?”

“Yes, this very moment.”

“I’m sick of hearing everybody whine about their puny little problems. Wah, wah, wah, my parents don’t love me. Wah, wah, wah, mommy didn’t put my math test on the fridge. Oh, woe is me, daddy didn’t come to my ballerina recital. Boo. Fucking. Hoo. I’d like to see you hafta deal with a real problem.”

“What do you consider a real problem?”

“I’m no expert.”

“Do you have a real problem?”

“I got no complaints. Next.”

Gabby seemed happy to be left alone, and everybody was more than willing to oblige. But I was desperate for any interaction with her. If our eyes just happened to meet for a split second, I tried to smile, though mostly I looked away quickly. Every conversation within her earshot was for her benefit. I spent hours thinking of witty things to say, hoping to break through her hardened façade.

After she’d been on the ward for about a week, Gabby sat down on the couch near the pool table while Alex and I were playing a game. She flipped through a tattered copy of People as we passed the cue back and forth to make our shots. I watched her in my periphery, racking my brain for a snappy comment.

When Alex sneezed, his whole body shuddered from the expulsion like he was having a fit. His convulsions usually came in triplets with a minute or so delay between each.

After the third outburst, I said, “Goddamn you!”

Gabby looked up as Alex stared at me in disbelief.

“Oh, man.” His voice was anguished. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. Now I’m going to hell.” He sobbed dramatically for effect.

I glanced in Gabby’s direction and shrugged. “He was gonna burn in hell anyway.”

She went back to her magazine, but not before I noticed a faint smile.

The next day, during free time, I gathered all my courage and sat down next to Gabby.

“What’s up?”

“Not much.”

“Cool.”

After a moment of awkward silence, she said, “I’m dying for a smoke.”

“It sucks, I know. I was there myself. For three weeks. They told you about the second level and all that shit?”

“Yeah, but I ain’t doing nothing for these assholes.”

“I don’t blame you. It seems like the worst thing in the world. I felt that way too, when I first got here. But you don’t really hafta give them what they want. All you gotta do is fake it. That’s what I’m doing. We’re all faking it. They think their system works, but it’s all bullshit.” I knew I was talking too much, but there was little I could do about it. I opened my mouth and the words just spilled out.

“These people are weirding me out,” she said. “I wanna get the hell outa here.”

It was hard to look her in the face. Her black eyes were like ink spots on parchment. There was a small mischievous sparkle in the onyx depth that transfixed me.

“Are you really from LA?”

“Yeah, my dad was transferred to Saks with the Army.”

“Oh, I’m from Ohatchee.”

“Really? Is Ohatchee close to Saks?”

“We’re practically neighbors. I drive through Saks all the time.”

“What a coincidence.” I smiled as I stared at my sneakers.

Alex joined us.

“What’s up?”

“I just took an IQ test.” He winced. “My brain hurts.”

“So now they’re finally gonna be able to prove you’re retarded?”

“I’ve killed enough brain cells over the years to qualify for the short bus.”

“I’ve given myself whiplash, like, twenty times,” I said. “That can’t be good for the ole noggin.”

As we laughed, Scott walked into the common room and made a beeline to where we were sitting. “What y’all talking about?” He plopped down on the couch.

I introduced him to Gabby.

“So who you for, Alabama or Auburn?” Scott asked her.

“What a stupid question.”

“What? I ask everybody that question.”

“I know. And it’s stupid.”

“I don’t really care for football,” Gabby told Scott nicely. “But my family’s Auburn.”

“Oh.” Scott was disappointed. “I like Alabama.”

“I haven’t been interested in sports since I hit puberty,” I pointed out with a nervous laugh. “By the time I was twelve, it was all about music.”

“What kind of music you listen to?” Gabby asked me.

“I used to be into metal, but now I mostly listen to punk.”

“I haven’t heard much punk.”

“I can make you some tapes,” I said. “I have a stereo with a double cassette deck.”

When Ryan showed up, he walked to the abandoned pool table and looked confused. He saw the four of us talking and slowly made his way to the couches.

“How was hypnotherapy?” I asked him.

“Relaxing, as always.”

“What’s hypnotherapy?” asked Gabby.

“Downstairs they got this room,” I explained to her. “You sit in a La-Z-Boy chair and listen to tapes on headphones.”

“What do they say?”

“Who knows? I always fall asleep.”

“Me too,” Ryan said. “I don’t wake up until the tape ends. Those chairs are really comfortable. They must cost a mint.”

“You can’t remember what the voice says?” Gabby asked.

“Nope.”

“They’re definitely brainwashing us,” Alex said.

We all laughed, including Gabby.

_____________

For the next few weeks, I followed Gabby around like a lovesick puppy. I sacrificed opportunities to smoke and eat in the cafeteria just to be near her. After a week of resisting the program, Gabby had learned to play along. She started sharing in group and participating in activities. She even began wearing dresses, to ameliorate her mother’s wishes that she look more feminine. It was hard to imagine she was the same girl who had thrown such a fit when she was first admitted. But everybody got with the program eventually. There was no other way to the second level.

As we sat around the common room, discussing everything under the sun, I waited for the green light that never came. I convinced myself that our bond was deeper than what most guys and girls experienced. It was pure. I read the scars on her body and interpreted her razor vocabulary. She told me the blade was about perfection. When she ran the edge across her skin, it was like polished steel. Razor sharp perfection.

“Who’s Shane?” I asked one day. I had intentionally avoided the question despite the name carved prominently on her arm.

“He’s this guy…”

“Your boyfriend?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Why’d you put his name on you arm?”

“Stupid, huh? I was in Florida with my parents. I didn’t wanna go, but they forced me. I hate the sun. I hate the beach. I was bored and pissed. So I wrote his name in my arm. I don’t regret it, even though I never showed him.”

“Do they ever go away? The scars?”

“I hope not. In fifty years none of this will matter, you know? But I’ll always remember what I went through because it’s carved in my skin. I see them as mementos.” She laughed. “Shit, if I had a razor, I’d probably make one to remember Hillcrest.”

“What would you write?”

“I don’t know…” She thought about it with a smile. “Maybe, ‘I want out,’ or something like that…”

“Oh.” I didn’t like to think about her leaving, but Gabby talked about getting out of Hillcrest all the time. She focused on her release more than anything else. That’s how she justified her conformity. She did it to beat the program and go home.

“I don’t think they’re ever gonna let me out,” I said. “But it’s not that bad here. Being at Hillcrest is better than a group home or some other fucked up place. Plus, I never had anybody to talk to before who wasn’t freaked out by the thoughts in my head. It’s like I fit in, for the first time… in a mental hospital.” I laughed.

“Eventually you’ll leave, right? You can’t stay here forever.”

“I guess. I mean, my life is determined by a judge now.”

“What about your brother?”

During group, I mostly talked about Joey, what he was going through and what the future held for the both of us. I knew he had to be on the verge of losing his shit at the Ranch, all by himself. There were some in the group who thought I should go be with him, regardless of whether they made me cut my hair or took away my tapes. But I juggled the two rotten apples, hoping for a third that would sweeten the deal. 

“I still don’t know what’s gonna happen yet,” I said.

Gabby looked away. “I got a little brother too. I don’t think I could just bail on him.”

“What can I do?”

“You can’t just leave him there.”

“It’s not up to me.”

“Fuck that. Everything is up to you. As long as y’all are together, what does it matter?”

“You make it seem like I can just pretend I’m somebody else.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t let these motherfuckers think you don’t have a say in your own life. They can take almost everything else away from you, but they can’t take what’s inside you.”

“Yeah, well, I still don’t know what’s gonna happen. There’s my father’s trial and then after that…”

I didn’t know what else to say. I wanted to tell her so much, about the prospect of going back to Rosemead and living with my mother, about what it was like before I left, the nightmares... the Beast. I was sure she’d understand. If anybody could understand, it was her. I wanted her to tell me that if I went back to Saks, we’d hang out all the time. I would have given anything to hear those words. But we just sat there until it was time for the next daily activity.

-- from A Masque of Infamy