Free As I Die Lying by Scott Nicholson

trickled from a classroom down the
empty hall. Normal people, normal noise. I sat there having a
conversation with myself. Or maybe I’m just making this up, more
revisionist history because the truth is too unbearable.
    "And there's the fact that most documented
cases of MPD occur in women who were sexually abused as children.
There are hundreds of psychiatrists who still don't believe it
exists. Besides, now they call it ‘dissociative disorder.’ Fancier
name."
    “ Are you going to go
Freudian on me?” I said. “Use my traumatic childhood as an excuse
for all the terrible things you’ll do later?”
    “ Your brains are Freud or
scrambled, but you’ll always be Jung at heart.”
    The door opened beside us. Mrs. Bell poked
her head out and said, "Richard Coldiron?"
    "Yes, ma'am." I stood and walked into her
office.
    "Let me handle this," I whispered to Mister
Milktoast.
    "What's that?" Mrs. Bell said, sitting behind
her big wooden desk. Her hair was white, like stuffing that had
spilled out of a hole in a pillow.
    "Nothing." I slouched into the chair that
Mrs. Bell waved me toward.
    "Look on the wall," Mister Milktoast said
inside my head. "A shrinking certificate. Be careful."
    Pipe
down , I commanded.
    Mrs. Bell shuffled some papers on her desk.
"So, what seems to be the trouble, Richard?" she finally said,
smiling as she looked into my eyes. Hers was a Grinch smile, one
that looked like children's torn flesh was hidden behind the tight
lips.
    I studied my shoelaces. "No trouble,
ma'am."
    "That's not what I hear." She rattled her
papers.
    "Well..."
    "We can talk about it. Everything you say
stays with me. Our little secret."
    Oh, great. Secrets. "There's nothing to talk
about."
    The Grinch smile slid downward. Her chair
squeaked as she leaned back. "When there's family turmoil such as
this..." She paused and looked at the pale-green cinder block wall
as if she had a window. "...then it's bound to have some kind of
negative impact on the innocent."
    I shrugged. She obviously didn’t understand
the concept of “guilty bystanders.”
    "When you lose a loved one, sometimes the
grief gets buried,” she said. “It's okay to let it out."
    "I'm fine, really. I just like to keep things
to myself."
    "Hmmm. Just remember that it wasn't your
fault."
    Mister Milktoast echoed her
in my thoughts. Hear that, Richard? It
wasn't your fault. How original.
    I got a sudden headache. The bad voice came
out like acid vomit.
    "Oh, yes the fuck, it was ," the voice roared
inside my head. My veins split, my eyes watered. For a second, I
thought I had said it out loud, but Mister Milktoast assured me I
hadn’t. Of course, he might have been lying. While you can always
trust me, and I’ve found him more or less reliable, everyone has an
ulterior motive, and don’t ever forget it. All bets are off in
revisionist history.
    Mrs. Bell saw me wince. Then I was gone,
inside, and all I could do was watch and wait. The Bone House was
safe, but like a bomb shelter, it both protected and
imprisoned.
    "It's okay to feel sad," she said, and her
smile was back. Grinch with an appetite for all the sweet little
Cindy Lou Whos of the world.
    "It was my fault,” the voice told her,
using my mouth and lips and vocal chords and lungs. "But I'm not a
damn bit sorry."
    Mrs. Bell nodded slowly and seriously. "Now
we're getting somewhere. Let these feelings out."
    She scribbled on a notepad while talking to
herself. "'Problems with authority? Possible Oedipus complex?
Post-traumatic stress disorder?'"
    She had a long conversation with the thing
that had taken over my mouth.
    And they thought I didn't associate well
with others. They hadn’t met Little Hitler yet.

 
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
    Ottaqua, Iowa. 1989.
    I was in my senior year of high school,
filling dreary days as if they were journal entries, the secret
dairy of an uninspired life. A miserable memoir written in
invisible ink. I wish I had typed it then instead of having to do
it now, when memory