Something Like Hope (12 page)

       
T
oday I get to leave the facility for a med trip. Cinda and three other girls have cavities; I need to have my front teeth capped. No dentist will come to the facility, so we have to drive twenty miles to the nearest city.

As much as I hate dentists, I am eager to get out. Don’t get me wrong; riding in a state van with shackles on your hands and feet is not my idea of fun, but it’s a break from the facility.

And there is cool stuff to see. Cyrus, who is driving the van, points out red-tailed hawks and a bunch of deer. And for the first time I get to see Amish people. There’s this buggy pulled by a horse. It’s moving real slowly on the side of the road: a black horse pulling a plain black carriage with that bright orange triangle nailed to it. Cinda and I stare into the carriage to see the family inside. There’s a father, with one of those Abe Lincoln beards. He’s wearing a black hat. Next to him sits his wife. She’s wearing a
white bonnet and is very plain-looking. Behind them you can see the heads of two or three small children. They look so comfortable, bundled up together under warm blankets.

Then we drive by this farm. It has a battered old house surrounded by fields. Cyrus slows the van and points to an Amish guy. He is plowing the field with a big brown horse. He wears suspenders and a straw hat and rides a kind of old-fashioned plow I’ve never seen before. They move slow and steady, the point of the plow digging into the dirt.

It is really quite a scene. The sun hangs just above the distant trees, making the whole field glow. And in the center of this soft orange light is an old-fashioned man and his horse. It’s like the world or the earth or whatever is so pleased with this scene that it can’t help but draw attention and point it out to us. “Look,” it says, “because there’s still wonder.”

Cinda starts giggling in delight. The other girls laugh outright and say that it’s mad corny. I don’t know how to explain my own feelings. A warmth surges up inside me, like I’m seeing something really important and powerful, and it doesn’t even matter if I understand it; it’s enough just to be here and look. It’s so strange, but I don’t want the moment to be broken by words.

It’s like sneaking up on something very special that isn’t meant for you, like getting lost in the woods and finding a fawn taking its first steps. Does that sound corny? I don’t care if it does. I’ve never seen anything like that before,
but I always wanted to. That Amish farmer isn’t doing anything to impress anyone. He isn’t fronting or putting on a show; he’s just doing his regular work like he’s done every day since he was a boy. But he fits in perfectly, with the horse and the field and the glowing sun around him. It is so beautiful, though I can’t really explain why.

Then Cinda breaks the spell and starts asking questions. “Cyrus, what kind of horse is that? How does the plow stay straight? Why not use a tractor—is the man too poor to afford one?” Most of the questions are legitimate, but some are ridiculous. “Cyrus, that horse is pretty big. How long do you think its penis is?”

She laughs, that crazy energy building up inside her. She turns freakish, obsessing about the horse’s genitals, making up songs where she rhymes “Niagara Falls” with “horse’s balls.” I tell her to shut up, because she’s getting on everyone’s nerves and Cyrus is having a hard time driving. The other guard in the front seat keeps whispering to him about what to do. But there isn’t anything to do. Either she shuts up or she doesn’t. She isn’t reasonable or logical, and I don’t think the guards ever really get it. Crazy is just plain crazy. You can’t make sense of it.

Cinda listens to me and, for the most part, quiets down. If you don’t know her, you’d think she’s a cute kid. Even though she’s seventeen, she looks only about twelve or thirteen. She has this short sandy-colored hair and the palest blue eyes. Almost gray. Her skin is very pink and she blushes easily. She’s bone thin and has no breasts. It’s like she skipped puberty and decided to stay a little girl.
But not really, because she is always making bizarre sexual comments to people.

I think that’s what freaks everyone out so much about Cinda, this split between what she looks like on the outside and how she really is. Sometimes, at least. That’s why the guards are afraid of her. This wispy seventeen-year-old with the chopped-up hair and pale blue eyes actually scares people.

I have to admit that sometimes she scares me. Like this one time when I caught her watching me sleep. But most of the time I think she’s just sad and pathetic. She was abused like the rest of us, but in her case it broke her mind. One minute she’s okay, then the next she’s screaming, crying, saying bizarre things. Sometimes she needs to go to the hospital, but they rarely keep her for long. She masturbates constantly, and wets the bed unless she takes special pills. Sometimes she refuses her meds and gets really out of control.

In the van, Cinda is quiet, staring out the window. I forget about her and talk to Cyrus. He tells me more about the Amish, how they live the way people did hundreds of years ago. He says they make their own clothes, grow their own food, teach their children in their own schools. They don’t trust outsiders and take care of each other in ways we couldn’t understand.

I get so wrapped up in Cyrus’s talk and my own thoughts that I don’t notice Cinda. Her shackles have been rattling for several minutes, ever since we passed a burned-up old house with melted garbage in the front yard. Her
cuffs rattle insanely, but I just figure she’s playing with herself again. And who could blame me for not wanting to deal with that? I slide away from her on the vinyl bench seat, at least as far as the shackles will allow.

But something is wrong, I think, because it’s too quiet. Cinda is staring out the window with a blank look. Her eyes are dead, vacant. Her hands rest palms-up on her lap. The left wrist is sliced open along the veins. It’s an ugly jagged cut, made from the edge of an ashtray lid. It looks like she pried the lid off the armrest and cut the hell out of herself with it. The blood is bright red, spurting out of the wound. It makes dripping noises on the plastic floor mats.

There’s a moment when my heart stops cold. I have the feeling like the whole world is ending. Like I’m going to die, which doesn’t make any sense. Cinda’s the one who’s bleeding. My sneaker slides on the warm blood. All I can think of is getting it off my shoe. I don’t want to touch it. It’s slippery now but will soon turn sticky.

As best I can, dealing with my own cuffs and Cinda’s, I grab hold of Cinda’s wrist and clamp my hand down over the wound. She doesn’t seem to notice and continues to stare blankly out the window. I choke back tears and try to sound calm, but my voice is panicked, screeching. “Cyrus, Cinda’s bleeding. We gotta go to the hospital. It’s bad.”

Without hesitating, Cyrus pulls over to have a look. The other guard is useless. Cyrus takes off his jacket and stuffs it through the gap between the top of the cage and the van’s roof. It gets stuck and I have trouble pulling it
the rest of the way through because my hands are shaking so bad. Cyrus says, “Wrap it as tight as you can around the cut and then squeeze it hard with both your hands. Don’t let go until we get to the hospital and the doctors tell you to back off. Talk to her, Shavonne. Tell her nice things and don’t stop talking.”

Then he says to the other guard, “Get your ass back there and help.” The guard asks what to do. “I don’t give a shit!” Cyrus says. “Just get back there and help in some way. Talk to the girls, tell them it’ll be okay. Take off your goddamn jacket and put it around Cinda. She’s probably in shock.” Cyrus is clearly losing his temper, but he’s still in control. I’ve never seen him like this, but I’m glad he’s the one in charge.

My hands are squeezing the jacket around the wound. I feel sick, like I might throw up. This girl’s life, her blood, is soaking through the jacket and coating my hands. It’s warm and slick. I feel the rhythm and also the pressure of the flow. It’s my job to keep that force from spilling completely out of her.

“Cyrus, my hands are covered in blood. There’s so much blood. I can’t do this.” I have to get out of here. I can’t do this. It’s too fucked up. It reminds me of something bad, but I can’t remember what. Don’t want to remember.

“That’s okay, Shavonne. You’re doing a good job. Just keep squeezing. She’ll be okay.”

I pray for the second time this month.
Please God, don’t
let this girl die. Don’t let her die
. I also pray to be taken away from this.

Then this last thought takes hold. It’s a selfish thought, but I can’t drive it away.
Run
. First chance I get, I will run and get the fuck away. This is what I think, because I am a schemer; I am a selfish, heartless taker.

At the hospital I will go to the bathroom to wash off the blood. It has to be a bathroom on the perimeter, one with a window. Climb out and run. Break into a nearby house that’s empty and get some real clothes. Hitch a ride out of town. Get away from all this. It’s too much.

But then the impulse to run fades as quickly as it came. There is no way I’m letting go of Cinda until the doctors are on the scene. And then I will want to know her condition. If it looks like she’s going to die, then I’ll run. This is a better plan.

The other guard, Grinnel, gets into the back. He looks scared and nervous and is no help at all. He keeps looking at the blood on my hands, my clothes, and the floor. Then he looks at Cinda and he gags, but at least he doesn’t vomit. The other girls watch in horror.

       
A
fter the nightmare of Cinda’s suicide attempt, I crash in my bed for twelve hours straight. But instead of feeling refreshed, I awaken with a sense of dread … like the med trip is just the beginning of a series of bad things, like the dam’s broken and there’s no holding it back.

Sure enough, when I press my face against the windowpane, I can see that the nest is littered with downy feathers and shards of eggshells. It looks like it’s been ransacked or trampled. And I can’t help but think that it’s somehow connected to Cinda, like her watchfulness at the window is what really kept the predators at bay. I should probably feel sad or something, but I’m just numb because too much crazy stuff is happening. Cinda almost killed herself. The goslings are dead. The only question is, What, or who, is next?

Delpopolo knocks on my door and asks if we can talk
in the unit lounge. This is kind of strange since I always see him in his office.

“Shavonne, I heard about Cinda. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but I understand you did a remarkable job.”

“Yeah. Have you heard anything about her? Is she okay?”

“Well, she’s not okay, but she’ll survive, if that’s what you mean.”

“Mr. D, do you know why she did that?”

“Yes. There are rules about situations like this, but you’ve become as involved as anybody else. And for that you deserve to know why.”

Delpopolo tells me Cinda’s story. The parts he leaves out I fill in with guesses and some things Cinda told me before. Cinda is local. Most of the girls here are from big cities, hundreds of miles away. But Cinda’s from a shitty little farmhouse not twenty miles east.

Her father was a child molester. He molested kids in the neighborhood and also his two daughters. The family kept the secret until the eighth grade, when Cinda made a suicide attempt and was sent away to a psychiatric hospital. The hospital called Child Protective Services, and a restraining order was filed against the father, ordering him away from his house and his daughters. That night, he snuck into his old neighborhood, poured gas all around the perimeter of the house, and torched it while his wife and one daughter slept. Then he shot himself in the front yard. Only Cinda survived.

Incredibly, the guards at the Center didn’t know the story. Maybe they never read the newspaper. I don’t know. But Cyrus drove Cinda right through her hometown and past the burned-out house where her family died. That’s what set her off.
Can you imagine seeing that?

Delpopolo says I saved her life. I snap back, “I saved her life for what? So she can spend it in mental hospitals without a family? I’m not so sure I did her a favor.”

“Maybe, but that’s not for you to decide.”

I know Mr. D is trying to be decent, and I’m sorry I answered in such a sarcastic way, but it’s how I feel. The whole thing is so horrible I can’t talk to anyone about it. Cyrus is still at the hospital and the other guard quit. So no one really knows what happened or what it was like for me.

At one point, before I wrapped Cyrus’s jacket around the wound, I felt something like one of Cinda’s tendons pop up through the opening. How do I make that memory go away?

Then Delpopolo hits me with a question out of left field.

“Since we’re talking about suicide, why haven’t you killed yourself?”

I just stare at him. “Whose side are you on, Mr. D? If you want to get rid of me, just say so.”

“I don’t mean that. What I mean is that you’ve got a good point. Some people have lives that are so bad death seems like a good way out. You ever think that way?”