Part 18 (1/2)
He blinked and laughed deeply; he squared his shoulders and edged forward.
Fred's blue eyes darted nervously, the kitten's back arched and he scampered under a sofa.
Barrett too flinched at the abrupt s.h.i.+ft in her patient.
”Where to start?” He shot his trembling hands into the s.p.a.ce between their chairs. ”A strong vibrato is all well and good, but this gets to be a problem.” His eyes narrowed to slits and his voice was breathy as though the words were being squeezed from his chest.
”It affects your playing,” she commented, pressing back into her chair, her mouth dry, feeling unprepared to deal with this.
”It does. Any chance I could entice you into a duet or two?”
”That's not why I'm here. Tell me more about you and the medication.”
”This is such an old story,” he replied, putting his hands down. ”If you're not a freak before you take the pills, they turn you into one.”
”What do you mean?”
”Remember what he ... I ... used to look like?”
”Yes, we discussed that last week.”
”Well most of that was because of the pills. The first thing they had me on was Mellaril and I finally convinced them to stop it because it made me grow b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Which I was having enough problems without having them turn me into a woman.”
”What kind of problems?”
He lunged forward in his chair.
Barrett tensed, fearing he might attack.
He stood and looked at her with a perplexed expression. ”I want to show you something,” he walked over to a bank of bookcases, opened a gla.s.s door and took out a double-sided bra.s.s picture frame. ”This was me,” he handed it to Barrett.
Barrett felt the cool metal as she looked into the brilliant blue eyes of an adolescent Jimmy. To say he was beautiful would miss the mark. The photographer had caught him with a ray of light that cut across wheat-blond hair, cornflower-blue eyes, and flawless skin. It was an angel's face. The frame was hinged, and on the other side was the matching portrait of Ellen. She too was lovely, but where Jimmy's features were delicate and feline, hers had a squarer, almost masculine, cast.
”I was seventeen in that picture. I didn't look much different from that when I went into Croton ...” he stood behind his chair and stared at Barrett. ”Can you imagine what happens to boys who look like that in places like Croton?”
”It couldn't have been easy.”
Jimmy sank back into his chair. He retrieved his pictures from Barrett and put them in his lap. ” Easy? ... there aren't words to cover it.”
”What happened?”
”How did we get here?”
”You were telling me reasons why you didn't like the pills, and how the Mellaril gave you gynecomastia.” She heard the words leave her mouth. She sounded canned, and resisted the urge to look at her watch.
”b.r.e.a.s.t.s ... that's right. Even when I gained all that weight they still came after me.”
”You were raped?”
”Yes.”
”Did you report it?”
”I'm surprised,” he said.
”About?”
”I would have thought you'd already know this. Unless you're playing some kind of game where you want to see if the story I tell is the same one in the record. Which is it, Dr. Conyors? Is this a game?”
”No. I've been meaning to go back through your Croton records, but they're archived on microfilm and I haven't had the chance.”
”Good. I would hate to think that you'd play games around something like this. To come into my house and ask me about things best left alone.”
”You don't have to talk about this.”
”I don't, do I ... but then what will go into your report? How will you label me? Do I become resistant or is the term noncompliant? Either way, I hold few cards. It's funny-not haha-but sad how, if I'd gone to regular jail, I would have gotten out much sooner and there'd be none of this constant surveillance. But we were too young to know what was going on.”
”We?”
”Ellen and I.”
”What did she have to do with your going to Croton?”
”Nothing, but if she'd known ... it would have been different.”
”Interesting ... It's not easy to successfully argue a not guilty by reason of insanity defense. There has to be clear and convincing evidence for a judge to even allow it to be presented.”
”Look around you,” he said. ”Things go differently if you have money.”
”So you think you purchased that defense?”
”Well, let's say that my parents were not eager to have their son's face plastered all over the dailies. It was more ... palatable for me to be crazy.”
”So they were the ones who pushed for the defense.”
”Yes ... although I freely admit that I wasn't in my best frame of mind at the time.”
”You heard voices.”
”I did.”
”Do you still?”
He paused, ”At times.”
”Inside or outside your head?”
”Outside.”
”Do you recognize the voices?”