Chapter 41

The common area was the usual buzz of activity. Patients played board games. Some watched the televisions mounted high on the walls, while others paced up and down the halls. Some talked to themselves, and several sat in chairs, waiting for visitors. Charlie kept his usual low profile, even though today would be anything but usual. He hadn’t heard from Eddie since leaving his room, but that didn’t much matter. He knew what had to be done, and with George’s help it would happen.

The last person Charlie wanted or expected to see that morning was Rachel. She tapped him on the shoulder. Charlie spun around, startling her.

“Hey!” she said. “A little jumpy today?”

Charlie could hear his blood pounding in his ears. He needed to be alone. Rachel had the capacity to ruin everything.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “Perhaps a little, after the other night, I mean.”

Rachel’s eyes sparkled with concern. “Yes. I know. I heard about that. Dr. Shapiro mentioned the incident in our morning staff meeting. I’m so sorry, Charlie.”

For a moment Charlie let himself become lost in Rachel’s interest. Then, quick as he’d succumbed, he iced up. He needed to get her out of the way.

“What do you want, Rachel?” Charlie’s eyes narrowed. He allowed himself to become aggressive, hostile even.

Rachel took a step backward. “I just wanted to update you on the situation with the judge,” she said. “I think we can get you a hearing the day after tomorrow. But I have to say, last night’s incident didn’t help your cause much.”

Charlie nodded. “I’m sure the staff is even warier of me now,” he said. “It must have been a dream. Perhaps it was something triggered by the hypnosis.” Offering a logical explanation and accepting responsibility for the incident might be enough to get her to move along and leave him alone.

“You have counseling scheduled for today?” Rachel asked.

“Yes. In the afternoon, I think. But I’m done with group.”

“I do hope that will change,” Rachel said.

Charlie was aware of her style now, though her compassion seemed boundless. The worse his situation deteriorated, the more determined Rachel seemed to help. Perhaps, Charlie thought, the same could be said of his attraction to her. The more unbalanced his life became, the more appealing she seemed. He brushed those thoughts aside.

“Listen, Charlie,” Rachel said. “It’s not common practice, but I’d be happy to talk to you as a friend if you need. Sometimes that can be the best therapy of all.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” Charlie said. “I’ll think about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie kept careful watch over George. Without the benefit of clocks to synchronize their plan, the two had agreed to use hand signals to communicate. Per the plan, George was engaged in a game of checkers against Maliek. When the game was over and George gave Charlie the sign, everything would start to happen. Fast.

“Charlie, there is something else I want to talk to you about,” Rachel said. “Something about Joe.”

“I don’t care about Joe right now, Rachel. And I don’t care much about you, either. I want you to go away from me and leave me alone.”

“But, Charlie …,” Rachel said.

“What part of ‘go away’ don’t you get?” Charlie asked. “Leave me alone, now.” He kept his voice low.

The harshness took Rachel by surprise. She stepped back. “Please, Charlie,” Rachel said. “Don’t be like that.”

Charlie couldn’t let up now. “Don’t you get it, Rachel?” he asked. “I don’t want you to talk to me. I don’t want you to be near me, and I don’t want a friend. I want you to go away.”

The hurt in Rachel’s eyes stung Charlie more than he had expected. She backed away but did not avert her gaze.

“You need help, Charlie,” she said. “You need to trust us.”

“What I need is for you to disappear, Rachel.” Charlie spat out the words through clenched teeth. “You did this to me. You’re the reason I’m here. I never want to see you again. Is that clear enough for you? Get away from me!”

Charlie couldn’t believe the harshness of his own words. Still, they rang true. If he had never contacted Rachel in the first place, he might never have been locked up in this hellhole.

Rachel covered her mouth. Charlie thought he saw tears well up in her eyes. Without another word, she turned and raced down the hallway. He watched as she exited through the floor’s security doors and then disappeared down the stairwell.

The timing couldn’t have been better, even though he felt sick about what he had said. The moment she was gone, George finished the game of checkers. He locked his fingers together, stretching his arms and his interlocked hands high above his head.

This was the signal Charlie was waiting for. The show was about to begin. Charlie took the cue and moved closer to the security doors that sealed off the floor’s only entrance and exit.

With his hands still locked together above his head, George screamed, “You’re a cheater! A cheater!”

With that, George thrust his balled hands downward, smashing them hard onto the gaming table. Checker pieces clattered onto the floor, sent in every direction by the force of the impact. Maliek stood up and retreated.

From his vantage point, Charlie could still see the action unfolding, but he stayed close enough to the doors to ensure that the plan worked as designed. Charlie couldn’t believe how well George was playing it up. It was an Oscar-worthy performance, only lacking a film crew to capture the beauty of it.

“I didn’t cheat!” Maliek said. “I won the game fair and square.”

“You’re a cheater!” George yelled again. Following their choreography to perfection, George flipped over the gaming table, which sounded a deafening crash as it eventually settled to a stop on the floor.

Nurses rushed to the unfolding drama but kept their distance. George picked up a chair and pushed it threateningly at them, in the way a lion tamer would to keep a predator at bay. They hadn’t discussed that particular move during their planning, but the improvisation added a level of authenticity to George’s outburst.

Following protocol, Charlie watched the day nurse in charge pick up the phone at the nurses’ station, presumably to dial security. Charlie kept his position against the wall. He was standing to the right of the security doors. Once they opened, he’d have only seconds to react.

“George, put the chair down,” one of the nurses said. “Listen to me, George. You need to put it down.”

“Get away from me! Get away!” George shouted.

Orderlies and several nurses had formed a semicircle around George and closed in. Charlie’s heart raced. Although his eyes were fixated on George, his ears were attuned to the doors. He was waiting for the buzzer, a sound that would allow security to enter and him to leave.

A nurse had come over to the doors with her card key in hand. She kept peering out the small window of one of the thick ward floor doors, ready to press the buzzer the moment security arrived. She pressed the open button at the same instant security rang the bell. The doors buzzed loudly in Charlie’s ears and then were thrust open. Two sizable armed men burst into the room and darted off in George’s direction.

The nurse took no notice of Charlie. Her focus, as with every staffer on the floor, was on George. The doors started to close. They were on a hinge and closed slowly enough for Charlie to use his foot as a doorstop.

Propping one of the doors open, Charlie wasted no time in making his exit. If the doors didn’t close within a certain amount of time, a buzzer would sound an alarm. Removing his foot from underneath the door, Charlie slipped his body through the shrinking crack between the door and the doorjamb. At last, he was outside the floor walls without an escort. Charlie’s footsteps echoed loudly in the stairwell as he bounded down the concrete steps, two at a time.

At the bottom landing, he pushed open the unlocked fire exit door. He emerged into the sunlight and breathed the fresh air for the first time in days. With adrenaline still coursing through him, Charlie somehow managed to keep his pace unhurried. He kept his eyes focused forward, careful to not look around and perhaps rouse suspicions. Charlie breathed in the coolness of the fall day. His skin prickled with excitement.

Never looking back, Charlie headed east, away from the main campus, down a grassy knoll toward busy Belmont Street. He walked with calm, unhurried steps. It was just like a free man would walk.