Shades of Eva (28 page)

“It sounds like you,” I said. “Anything
else?”

“They want a man.”

“Well, where are we going to find one of
those?”

Amelia ignored my wit. “We’ll give them a
call later today if you’re up to it. You’ll need to sound coherent.
You’ll tell them you just received your pistol license if they ask.
I have papers for you.”

“You have a pistol permit for me? I’ve never
even shot a gun!”

“Yes. Well, we’ll need to address that. And
you have previous security experience in Arizona on the border, and
you will bring those references, too. You’re new to the area and
love people with disabilities. Got it?”

So that was it! Another alias! “What if the
superintendent recognizes me?” I said.

“I think you’ll be fine. That was
twenty-five years ago when she last saw you.”

“Even you said you recognized me in
Washington from old pictures. ‘Your high school picture gave you
away?’”

“You were eighteen in that. I doubt Anna’s
seen you since you were knee-high to your father’s testicles.”

That was a visual I didn’t need. “That
doesn’t even make sense!” I said. “So what new name do I get to try
this time?”

Amelia was smiling. “Your alias will be
Chester Imil.”

Amelia went into the bathroom and left me
alone to think about it.

Chester Imil?

“I don’t like it,” I shouted toward the
bathroom. “It sounds like I am ill. That’s not very funny.”

“It’s an anagram,” Amelia hollered back.
“For
Mitchell
—get it?”

I shook my head. It was ridiculous to try
and play that sort of game with these kinds of people. And Chester
Imil? “Talk about raising suspicion,” I mumbled to myself. “Why not
James Bond or Martin Bozeman or something cool like that?”

Amelia came out of washroom drying her
hands.

“You’re Chester ‘Chet’ Imil!” She tossed a
towel at me and hit me in the face with it. “I like it. And it’s on
your pistol permit already. Just remember: you’re from Arizona,
you’re decisive, secure, fairly introverted, and you don’t care
what people think…and wear short sleeves…and get some sleep. You
look like shit.” 

By the time the red digitals
read
9:00 a.m., I still hadn’t slept, but the pills were doing their
thing. I couldn’t tell if it was the Valium or the Dilaudid that
was working, but it didn’t matter. I finally relaxed. My head
wasn’t hurting anymore, and neither were my stitches—and I wasn’t
wasted—at least I didn’t think I was.

My face did feel a little funny, but that
was it.

I stood up and looked in the mirror. That’s
when I knew something wasn’t right. I wasn’t smiling but I had a
broad smile on my face. I almost jumped back when I saw it as if a
smiling neighbor from the next room had just peered through some
strange rectangular hole in the wall at me. I didn’t feel like I
was on the verge of laughter, but if that was my reflection, then
someone had just told me the world’s funniest joke.

I drew back and took a second to do a quick
check of the rest of my body. Everything seemed to be there. My
ribs weren’t digging into my lungs anymore, and I actually felt
like reading. So I did—at least I skimmed—smiling broadly all the
while—both books Amelia had given me, cover to cover.

Amelia had gone in to shower. When I was
done skimming and felt I had a fairly good grasp on the Williams
boys’ literature, I picked up the newspaper with the circled ad in
it, took note of the number, and dialed the Asylum. 

A receptionist named Daisy answered to my
surprise. Was this the Daisy that liked young, rugged men? I felt
myself smiling again, and thinking, what young Midwestern girl
doesn’t like young, rugged men?

What an ingenious profile!

An image of the laughing face in the mirror
came to mind and then I heard myself giggling stupidly into the
phone as Daisy said hello for the second time. 

I cleared my throat.

“This is Chester…Chester Imil.” The name
sounded about as horrible as did the sound of my voice. I sounded
like some sick cross between Vincent Price and Michael Jackson. For
some reason, I was registering a higher pitch than what I was used
to, as if I was overly excited about something.

I cleared my throat again and tried to start
over.

I heard Amelia shout who are you talking to
from the shower, but I ignored her. “I’m interested in the
securities position, there?” I expressed my interest with the
intonation of a question.

Again I cleared my throat.

There was an awkward pause and then the
water from the shower shut off.

“—
Oh, you mean the security guard
position?”

“Yes, the guard position?” Again I put it in
question form like some valley girl.

I heard Amelia step out of the tub and I
stood up again and crossed to the mirror to check my face. I
thought maybe I should hang up and try again later, but it was too
late. I’d already given her my name. Then I heard myself say, “I
have a pistol permit to shoot guns from out of Arizona, there.”

Amelia came out of the bathroom with a towel
around her as I was leaning as close as physically possible to the
mirror without pressing my nose to the glass. I was still smiling
broadly.

“—
That will be fine,”
Daisy said.
“—Can you come in around one this afternoon?”

Amelia was now close enough to me that she
could hear Daisy’s question. She was standing behind me with her
arms crossed. I could see her reflection in the mirror, and she
wasn’t smiling.

“One is fine,” I told Daisy, who then
proceeded to give me directions to the Asylum, but I was too busy
studying the upturned corners of my mouth to write anything down.
That was okay, I figured—Amelia knew how to get there.

I thanked Daisy and hung up.

I turned around to look at Amelia. She’d
picked up the television remote and threw it at me. It hit me in
the leg, which made me laugh. “What in the hell are you doing?” She
said, re-crossing her arms.

She was still wrapped in her towel, but
dripping all over the rug. I don’t think I ever saw a prettier
picture in my entire life as that. I started walking toward her.
“You said we don’t have a lot of time,” I said. “Check out is at
eleven o’clock and it isn’t going to take me that long to absorb
what I need from these books.”

Amelia uncrossed her arms and put her hands
on her hips.

I put my arms out in front of me and started
walking toward her like a mummy.

“You’re high, and don’t touch me!” Amelia
said, finally cracking a smile.

“I haven’t felt this good in years,” I
replied, reaching playfully at her with both hands and muttering
ooooh.

Amelia proceeded to try and jump onto the
bed she was standing by to get away from me, but I caught her
before she could. I started tickling her mischievously, and the two
of us started laughing almost uncontrollably. She was pushing me
away, but she wasn’t fighting me. At some point wrestling around on
that bed with her, Amelia’s towel fell off. She was on her back and
I was on top of her. I began kissing her, and slowly felt the
tension in her body fall away as she relaxed into the mattress
beneath me and into my arms.

I relaxed into her and for the first time in
a long time, made love to a woman.

Amelia watched me tenderly, staring deep
into my eyes, those emerald greens never leaving mine. I watched
her eyes closely, sensing emotions I’d never cared to sense before.
I saw first: a playfulness, and then a curiosity…then fear. I saw
sadness, and then a fertile passion that made my heart race. I saw
lust and then I saw what looked like love emerge in her eyes as our
bodies heaved violently against one another and then slowed,
inevitably, to a gentler swaying, and then something like relief
moved in behind us. 

I held her for as long as she let me, trying
my best to let her know that I wasn’t going to let her go without a
fight. She was smiling, then laughing, failing in her effort to
throw me off of her. She collapsed into the mattress again and let
me hold her.

“I’ll get in and I’ll get the ball rolling,”
I said, finally relinquishing my embrace of her.

“Let’s just hope the pills you took wear off
by one o’clock or I’m a little bit afraid of what might happen to
Daisy pants. She’s very pretty.”

I thought I detected a bit of jealousy in
Amelia’s tone, but then again, it also sounded a little like
concern.

“You have nothing to fear,” I told
her. 

Amelia nodded as if she had just sized me
up. “Yes…let’s hope not.” 

A few minutes later we ordered
room
service. I ate until my stitches tightened up, and then I sat down
to further digest the books. I read until I became a little sleepy,
and when I was fairly content that I’d gotten the gist of what each
doctor was trying to explain, I showered but didn’t shave, threw on
some cologne Amelia had purchased for me, a pair of Wranglers and a
new tee shirt, grabbed my bomber jacket from the armchair, and told
Amelia, “Let’s go.”

April 22, 1995: 10:36 AM

The Coastal State Asylum at River Bluff sits
high atop a set of sprawling hills overlooking a valley, one
anchored by another institution: this one of higher learning.
Southwestern Michigan University fills up the better part of the
valley southwest of Coastal State. From the lowlands you can see
the Asylum’s 110-foot water tower protruding from the treetops like
a giant stake in the ground. There was no way to miss it, and
toward it we drove.

We made our way along University Drive past
the red brick buildings of the Southwestern campus, past Monument
Stadium where the Southwestern Voles play their hockey, and past
Vole Stadium, where several of the university’s athletic teams
compete. Vole Stadium anchors the east end of the University
grounds, situated closest to the hills that lead up to the Asylum
campus. You could say Vole Stadium was the Asylum’s closest
neighbor.

There are two roads leading to Coastal
State: Sacramento Drive, a curvy, uphill side-street that runs
behind Vole Stadium, and Bronson Avenue, a winding, uphill road
that defines an alternate entryway into the east side of the
Asylum.

The rear, or south boundary of Coastal
State, is defined by a series of steep ravines, covered by a sparse
forest of pines. The western edge of the grounds is bordered by a
residential side street and a bank of trees that obscure any real
view of the buildings from there. Between the west wing of the
Asylum, and that street, lays 300 yards of open field.

Along Bronson Avenue there are a set of old
Institutional dormitories that have been converted to other uses.
The old female dormitory, in fact, in which my mother spent several
years, is now a juvenile detention center. Nearby is a smaller
administrative building now owned by the University. Continuing up
Bronson you intersect Sacramento Drive. Turn left, you go back
toward the University and the valley. Turn right, you see two
entrances to Coastal State—one on each side of the road.

The main entrance to the south is a roadway
called Kern Circle. It’s actually a semi-circular road; it once
wound around the Asylum proper and back onto itself, but now it
extends from the front of Admin past the chapel to the east,
alongside the East Wing and back to the rear of the property where
supply is delivered to the grounds. Kern Circle terminates back
there.

There are two large parking lots nearest the
street in the front accessible from Kern Circle. These sit directly
in front of an administrative complex (or Admin as I call it). Just
beyond these lots, there’s a gated entryway where a guard’s shack
sits.

The north entrance off Sacramento Drive is
almost hidden. It’s more of a driveway. If you turn that way, the
drive leads you to a series of hidden outbuildings and abandoned
dormitories, older parts of the grounds no longer in use and
probably for sale. Contrary to the manicured landscaping adorning
Kern Circle and the main entrance, with its grove of shrubs and
well-trimmed trees spread across its pristinely fertile grounds,
things are overgrown to the north as if the land is working hard to
devour a set of boils festering on its surface.

Each building back there has a name etched
into a large stone capping its main entryway. North Hall is perhaps
the largest of these outbuildings. It measures three-stories tall.
The Hall seems to be sinking into a mire of black-eyed susans at
its base. The branches of several weeping willow trees growing
unchecked and unimpeded seem to be smothering her from all sides.
Some branches have actually penetrated the Hall through some of her
broken windows.

The scene reminded me of fingers prying deep
into a throat for some reason, and if you listen just right,
especially with a few narcos streaming around in your blood, it’s
possible to hear North Hall retching from those fingerlike
braches. 

If I thought Father Time had forgotten about
downtown River Bluff, I had a similar feeling sitting in an idling
car outside of that old abandoned dormitory. Unlike the downtown,
still an active hamlet of small shops and pedestrian activity, the
north entrance led to an area of land completely isolated,
abandoned, and seemingly left to rot. There was no activity there
save the slow drowning and gagging going on in North Hall, and it
was quite depressing.

Amelia said that this side of the Asylum was
a kind of haven for squatters and drug addicts. I asked her if I’d
have to guard this side of the campus. She told me it would be part
of my motor patrol if I did get hired in, but unlike the main
grounds of the Asylum proper, this portion of the property had
police presence and was co-owned by the University.

“You won’t have to fight with any squatters
or addicts back here,” Amelia said. “If you drive through and see
something, you just report it to police and they’ll take care of
it.”