Week 1 Brigits Flame- word prompt: smoke and mirrors
This is an Autiobiographical Entry with Names and Details changed to protect the not so innocent.
smoke and mir·rors: noun
Definition:
cover-up: something that is intended to draw attention away from something else that somebody would prefer remain unnoticed
Loki sat next to me on the couch: eyes front, knees together, arms crossed on chest. His features were clean-cut, hair nicely styled, a name-brand jersey draped over his muscular frame like a Ralph Loren ad for wholesome all American. Instead he was meeting with me for counseling for the first time in the alternative school program nicknamed ‘Assholes’ Last Chance.’ He had a record as long as my instep- long enough, but not yet hopeless.
I did a few questions to see what he said. Darting glances out of flat brown eyes, assessing me as I did him. Wooden answers. Closed posture. I could predict the boring little dance we’d do, a minuet of evasion, half-truth and clichés. It would take months for him to open up and I didn’t have months. I was only there for a couple of days. I needed to do something different.
“I’m a writer as well as a counselor,” I said. “Crime novels. I’m interested in writing some escape scenes and I’ve heard you’ve been in all we got and escaped from most of ‘em. Wanna tell me how you did it?”
A long pause as he finally really looked at me. I know I don’t look the part of crime novelist; a freckle-faced bosomy woman in a lime green shirt. He cocked his head, skeptical.
“Is this a confidential conversation?” he asked. I smiled, which I’ve been told is reassuring.
“Of course,” I said. “Nothing but suicidal threats, homicidal plans, or abuse and neglect is reportable.”
He leaned back, sprawling a bit now, his ropy arms covering the back of the couch. I hadn’t realized how big he was until then.
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you feel like telling me. I might want to make some notes though, if it’s really good.”
This bit of flattery opened him up like a fizzy can of Coke.
“I got out of the psych ward at Tripler Hospital twice,” he said. “They changed the procedures each time but I still figured it out. Got out of the correctional facility, too, but that was harder. See this scar?” he indicated a twisted line on his leg. “Barbed wire.”
“Cool,” I said. “How’d you do it?”
He leaned forward, took my pen, drew a floor plan of the psych ward. Described the procedures, the timetables, the routines. After checking it all out, one day he and a friend waited for the staff to be occupied, pushed a table against the barred fence, boosted each other over. The long drop “hurt like a mo-fo” but they’d escaped to the road, hitched to Waikiki and lived on the streets, panhandling until they were picked up by cops while sleeping in a big plastic recycling bin.
“What’d they do to you when you got back?”
“Put me in the Quiet Room.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Well they give you a shot when you go in there. It feels like peanut butter going through your veins. Then you’re pretty out of it and sleep a lot. I couldn’t sleep though, because the air conditioner is too cold and you don’t get a blanket.”
“Huh,” I said. My purpose in this had been to provide a chance to process traumatic experiences. But he did not seem traumatized. I saw no telltale nervousness, withdrawal, closure of body language. Instead his personality was emerging- bold, calculating, insouciant.
“So… why’d you escape?” I moved on, hoping to understand what drove him.
“Just got sick of it. People telling me when to eat, sleep, shit. It gets old.”
“What about the streets? I’ve heard it can be pretty rough out there.”
He shrugged. “Not if you know how to handle yourself. Want to know how we survived?” There was a gleam in his eye that creeped me out.
"Not particularly," I said. I waved my hands in a mystified gesture. “What changed? How the hell did you end up here?”
“I’ve decided to play the game. I want to be a lawyer.”
Spoken like a true budding sociopath. That’s the thing- they don’t see the world the way we do. We’re all marks to them. But once they decide it’s to their advantage to blend, to “pass” if you will, they disguise their lack of conscience and they can be successful. Frighteningly successful.
“Can I use some of this? In my writing?”
“Fine.” He flicked a hand, magnanimous. “Let me know anytime you want to talk. I can tell you a lot about a lot of things.” There was no mistaking the anticipation. He wanted to shock, teach me a lesson, get the upper hand. Tell me some more stories- ones I didn’t want to hear.
“Wow, I wish we had time for more,” I said, snapping my notebook shut on the escape diagrams. “Good luck with your goals. You’re obviously someone who does what he sets out to do.”
“You have no idea,” he said, and the smile he gave me looked genuine. Almost.