Free The Hand That Feeds You by A.J. Rich Page A

world’s largest penal colony.
    I saw my patients in a small annex off an overcrowded ward where the fluorescent lights were on 24-7. A TV played from 7:00 a.m. to midnight. The men were dressed in orange jumpsuits and looked as if they had been living in a Greyhound bus terminal waiting for a bus that never came.
    After Amabile and I were ID’d, searched, and cleared, we walked the maze of hallways with bars over the windows, and doors that only the guards could open.
    My office, which I shared with three other degree candidates, was six feet by eight feet, smaller than a cell, and contained two identical folding chairs and a gym locker.
    My first patient was a skinny white guy with a buzz cut and a cauliflower ear sentenced to nine months for exposing himself at the Metropolitan Museum, in the Greek-sculpture wing. He had stationed himself at the end of a line of marble nudes and waited for schoolgirls on a field trip. He showed no remorse and contended that he was innocent, that his fly was open without his knowledge.
    He always started our sessions with a joke to try to rattle or charm me, I couldn’t always tell which. It was more than that—he only responded to my questions with jokes.
    “Prisoner,” he began, “ ‘Look here, Doctor! You’ve already removed my spleen, tonsils, adenoids, and one of my kidneys. I only came to see if you could get me out of this place!’ Doctor, ‘I am . . . bit by bit!’ ”
    “Are you asking me to get you out of this place?” I asked.
    “A man escapes from a prison, finds a house, and breaks into it, looking for money, but only finds a young couple in bed. He orders the guy out of bed and ties him up in a chair. While tying the girl up to the bed, he gets on top of her, kisses her on the neck, then goes to the bathroom. While he’s in there, the husband tells his wife, ‘Listen, this guy is an escaped prisoner, look at his clothes! He probably hasn’t seen a woman in years. I saw how he kissed your neck. If he wants sex, don’t resist, don’t complain, just do what he tells you. If he gets angry, he’ll kill us. Be strong, honey. I love you.’ ‘He was not kissing my neck,’ the wife said. ‘He was whispering in my ear. He told me he was gay, thought you were cute, and asked if we kept any Vaseline in the bathroom.’ ”
    “Are you frightened of being raped in here?”
    “A psychiatrist makes his rounds in the mental hospital one morning. ‘How are you feeling today?’ he asks the first patient. The patient is naked, his penis is erect, and he is dropping peanuts on it. He turns to the shrink and says, ‘I am fucking nuts. I’m going to be here for a while.’ ”
    “Are you accepting the fact that you are going to be here for a while?”
    “You know, Doc, I think I’m allergic to your face.”
    I awaited the dreaded punch line.
    “Yeah, my dick gets swollen every time I see it.”
    “We’re stopping early today,” I said, signaling through the reinforced window in the door for the guard to relieve me.
    I remained on the folding chair reminding myself why I agreed to do this work. If only Bennett had been as obvious as this exhibitionist joker. How many sociopaths does it take to change a lightbulb? One. He holds the bulb while the world revolves around him.
    •  •  •
    I saw Doug and Candice one more time.
    I served them omelets and home fries and Doug asked for hot sauce. They didn’t recognize me—a combination of my waitress uniform and my cut and colored hair and their generally hungover condition. When Doug dropped his knife and asked for another, I brought a steak knife and considered plunging it into his chest, two inches below his clavicle, where a natural gap exists between the ribs. Maybe it was my mother’s hand that stilled mine in this defining moment. Or maybe I realized that stabbing Doug would just be the form my self -destruction would take. Then there’s the fact that vengeance requires incrementally larger