The Tower

I remember the first time I saw the place; a looming presence in the late night fog, the moon taunting me over the barbed wire fence as I followed the officers through the front gate. They buzzed us in, stopping me a mere few feet from the doorway as I stepped through to strip me of my belongings and place them in a small brown bag.

"No jewelry," the crooked one said sternly as he caught a glimpse of my locket, having caught the gaze of the officer standing beside me. I was frozen - the heart shaped locket was a gift from my father before his recent death. He stared at me with cold eyes, "I do not consider patience a virtue. No jewelry. You can remove it, or I can remove it for you."

My eyes welled as I unclipped the chain and handed it over to him with shaking hands. I watched him throw it in the bag and place it into a safe. I looked at my feet as I followed him to a small one-bed room. The nurse placed my bag on the ground and looked down at me as I sat on the cot, staring down at my feet.

"Young man, could you make eye contact with me?" I wouldn't look at her. After weeks of fear, false hope, utter shock, I was too exhausted to look at any more of them tonight. She didn't seem too offended by my lack of response, and after a brief pause she proceeded to speak, "the horn sounds every morning at 6 A.M. sharp, you have a 15 minute grace period to get yourself out of bed before staff comes to assist you. All of our hygiene products are under lock and key, so if you aren't ready for your shower immediately after medication at 8 A.M. -," "I don't take medication," I cut her off abruptly, raising my head to meet her eyes.

Her face did not change. She held my gaze like a stern mother, but at least she didn't feel threatening. "Mr. Thomas, I will not discuss the nature of your stay here at Creekside without the prescense of your psychiatrist. Now, I can assure you that he will be here to meet you before the sound of the horn in the morning to discuss your treatment plan, along with medication." Surprisingly, I was still holding her gaze. I'm not sure if either of us even blinked.

"How long am I going to be here?" Her eyes softened a bit, grinning softly, "if you're not ready for your shower immediately after medication is dispensed at 8 A.M, you will have to wait until the following morning. We do not remove hygiene products throughout the day, we do not allow outgoing phone calls from the facility, any incoming phone calls must be approved by the director and are monitored and recorded for safety purposes, and they are not to exceed 10 minutes. At 11 minutes, the call will disconnect and you will be flagged by the director and temporarily suspended from receiving any incoming calls. Do you understand this?" I was too tired, tonight wasn't the night to over-engage. I nodded my head slowly.

"My name is Penny. Welcome to Creekside Tower, Mr. Black."

I gazed out at that taunting moon through the bars of my window. I reached my hand to my chest, trying to mimic myself tracing the swirls and creases that enveloped the locket I'd kept around my neck since I was 10. "Goodnight..."

And she was not off base; every morning, through the fog and dust and the distinct smell dusty old warehouse boxes. From there, we went about our routine. Medication, talk to a nurse, try to stay away from everyone to avoid a potential confrontation. It's not that I disliked them, some of them were actally quite pleasant to talk with at times, but sometimes I lose my temper, and it's not a particularly smart idea to risk that with a paranoid schizophrenic or a sociopath that smiles at you but secretly thinks of slicing you through your major arteries.

It's strange, it never happened to me before the night that brought me here. I was always a pretty mild-mannered kid, not great at making friends but not particularly aggressive or delusional. I suppose I'm following in my mother's footsteps, one of my father's greatest fears. The irony is almost humorous; although, my mother's schizophrenia never caused her to harm anyone until the day she took her own life. Maybe I'm angry at myself for what I did, angry that I can't remember what happened to somehow bring myself to justify it.

Thankfully, I get tired quickly. In the morning, I get my 1200 mg of lithium. When I first came they broke my doses up a little more, but once they added the daily Zyprexa and Seroquel, they decided it was probably best to just let me dose twice a day all together. I don't stay awake long enough throughout the day to do much more than that.

I think that's really what has developed my anger in such a profound way; I don't know why it happened, how could I possibly be capable of it? Sure, he wasn't around much, but I loved my father. I knew how much he loved me. I will say, I did hate his job. I've never been one for politics; the "image" obsession of it all. He really gave himself a run for his money, being single father with a high school drop out too unmotivated to even pursue a GED, just to have a psychotic break and put a bullet through him with his own hunting rifle at dinner right in front of his assistant.

Eventually, I grew used to the idea that my life would be spent in solitude here. It could be worse, I suppose. That seems to be the way it goes - you reach that moment in time where you're finally willing to be complacent and accept a new normal, and someone waits until you walk right underneath the fan and throws up a huge bag of flaming shit. That's the only way I can describe what happened the day that I walked through "The Tower."

Occasionally, I liked to offer up some time for clean-up duty. My mind was still trying to adjust to being so sedated, and it gave me some time to feel like something a litlte more than an out-cast of society. I pushed my broom lazily, soaking up the sunset through the barred windows as I passed them through the hallways. Lloyd, my little safety shadow, was sitting in a chair in the middle of the hallway bored out of his skull and scrolling through his cell phone. That's when I saw it - or rather, I ran into it as my meds started to kick in. A broad double door with a sign labeled "Authorized Personel Only,"

I didn't think too much of it at the time, as two doctors walked through the door and grabbed Lloyd's attention. "Mickie, move away from that door, please. It's time to go to bed." I watched the door close as he put his hand on my shoulder to guide me back to my room, peering down the hallway for a brief moment before it closed completely. I don't even remember falling asleep that night. But, something funny happened that night - I woke up.

I sat up quickly, as if I was having a bad dream. Why am I awake right now? 2 months in here and it hasn't happened since my first week. I rubbed my eyes and walked out to get some water. The nurse behind the count stood up quickly, "Mickie, what's wrong? What are you doing up?" I was too tired to answer her, I kept walking toward the counter. She picked up the phone and instantly starte dialing out to the doctor. "I just need some water," I finally brought myself to tell her. "I'm going to order you some medication, go back to your room and lie down if you'd like to take it orally."

I woke up quicker than I had in a while, squinting at her, "I just need some water," I repeated, elevating my voice infrustration. What's this woman's problem? "Do people really never wake up for water? I see about 4 people sitting here who are clearly psychotic wandering around the halls," I grabbed the cup and walked into my bedroom with it, using my bathroom sink to fill it up with water. Within moments, she was in my room with two men holding a cup of medication.

"Now, I'm going to need you to take this and get back in bed. It's late. I'll leave some water by your bed." At this point, I'm way too offended accept it. "What is it?"

"It's Haldol and benedryl," my eyes widened before letting out an uncontrollable laugh.

"No, I'm not taking that. I didn't even do anything, I just woke up for --" and that was it. The men grabbed me, held me to the bed as I cursed and yelled and tried as hard as I could to kcik them off, and the last thing I remember is her giving me the shot. I guess I fell asleep.

Thankfully, my memory served my very clearly the next morning in spite of my heavy dose. The horn sounded at 6 A.M., I took my dose of lithium, and asked to see my psychiatrist. Thankfully, there wasn't much protest. I guess they figured he could offer me an explanation logical enough to deter me from growing overly inquisitive. Within an hour, they escorted me into his office.

"Good morning, Mick. I heard you had an.....eventful night last night," he tilted his head and folded his hands together. I can't stand this guy. "I woke up to get water and they threw me on my bed and shot me with haldol," I said firmly, locking eyes with him to attempt to get my point across. Dr. Hazel let out a sigh and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, "Mick, you're on -," "don't call me that." He raised his eyebrows and grinned, somewhat enjoying my surprise change of attitude. "Well, what should I call you?" I ignored the question, doing the best I could to stick to the point. "I don't watch haldol just because I woke up. I don't understand why it happened."

There was a long uncomfortable silence before he pursed his lips and said, "okay, I understand that. How about we increase your evening meds? Make sure you get a good night's sleep and don't have any interruptions?" I could feel my face getting hot. "I've caused no problems here. I've followed your rules every day, I haven't had one incident - ," "last night.....Michael," I slammed my fist on the table, "last night was NOT an incident. Last night was a nothing. I want to see cameras -," it hit me, I had to stop myself. I took a deep breath. "What's this really about, Mick? I can imagine it feels really personal to be accused of something that you have absolutely no recollection of."

My face grew even hotter, but I knew I had to bite my tongue. "I'll take more medication." He smiled at me, pleasant and satisified, and opened up his laptop, "absolutely. I'll put the order in now." I walked out of his office feeling helpless, unheard. I know I wasn't blacked out, I know I wasn't crazy. I know I remember what happened. But that's the problem, it wont matter. I'm the guy that killed his dad, anything I say sounds crazy.

Why do they want me to take so many meds? I shook the thoughts out of my head as they came in trying to avoid sounding like my mother, but I couldn't shake it. They never check under my tongue. Throughout my entire time here, I've never refused my scheduled medication. I didn't refuse it this morning. I told myself that it wasn't safe, I could hurt someone on accident if I started changing things secretly, but the thoughts nagged me. For the next week, I tonuged my medication. Every single dose.

I tried to maintain my dreary composure, but I started to feel the effects. Every night, I was having a recurring dream. I'm sitting at the table with my father eating steak and eggs, our favorite breakfast for dinner. He wasn't eating; he just sat there, staring at me. "Mick, I need you to understand something...," two shots. I'm back in the hallway, he's standing with me. We're holding hands, and he smiles down at me. He presses our fingers together on the pad next to the double doors. I hear the horn, I wake up.

The images troubled me deeply; and though I knew it may have been caused by skipping doses, my curiosity grew stronger with every morning that I woke to the horn. I started to make my way back to the doors during cleaning duty more and more trying to catch a glimpse of what may be inside, hoping someone else would open the door, but no one ever came through again.

One night, I woke before the horn. I stayed in bed a while, listening to the nurses chatter at the nurse's station and listening for the aides to make their rounds. I had to get to the hallway, I know it isn't far. I'm agitated, my side effects are amping up my frustration. I had to see what was behind the doors. I had to make this dream go away forever. I waited quietly, listening for the aide to leave my doorway once he'd accounted for me. I peered quietly from around the corner of my door. The nurse was enveloped in her phone now, all of the others retiring back home for the night. I jolted swiftly through my doorway, walking from the nurse's view and following the aid as he approached the end of our corridor.

I'm not sure what my plan was at the time, but I had to get outt. As he turned around, shocked to see me closely tailing him, I threw him to the wall, knocking him unconscious as his head hit the hard cemet. Paicked, knowing that she heard, I snatched his key fob from his wrist, unlocked our corridor, and jolted through the door.

I ran as fast as I could, it was only a matter of time. Jolting through the doors one by one, I started to hear the alarms for a code red. I was on the last floor, bolting down the hallway as fast as my heart could stand, hearing all of the staff on the floor below me making their way up to me quickly. I scanned the key fob against the door, slammed it behind me, and turned around to a dark hallway.

It was eerie, quiet. I didn't even see any doors, any office rooms. I know I watched two doctors walk from behind the doors, where did they come from? I ran down the empty halway until I found a staircase. Dim light, spiraling up the hallway, I could hear the faint sound of voices. The sound of staff behind me grew a bit more quiet as I reached the top, approaching a locked door. There was no place for a fob; only a key, and there were none that I could find. I dropped the floor of and peered beneath the crack of the door. A long hallway - vague shadows, bars.

I grabbed the handle and shook it a bit, hearing the soft voices go quiet. When nothing happened, I shook harder. My shaking turned to kicking, beating against the handle until finally...

The door opened abnormally slowly for the force i used. I pushed it open, turning around at the sound of men running through the corridor of the Tower. I walked by the cells in shock: people, so many of them. They darted back toward the wall as I moved through the corridors quickly, away from the sound of approaching staff. Cells where people lay limp in bed, staring at the ceiling in hospital gowns. Buckets in each room. Nearing the end of the hall I darted to the only door I saw, ripping the door open with such force only adrenaline could be to blame, and that's when I found it.

Possibly the largest single room in the asylum, files consumed the walls surround two small separate desks. There were four more of these rooms, how many files were there? I quickly drug one of the desks across the room to jam the door, and began sorting through files. I pulled out a manilla folder labeled, "E.D. Olsen," "M.A. Clarke," I scattered through them as quickly as I could, from whistleblowers to immigrants to people who were suspected and cleared of terroris, and then there it was....

My heart sank. My folder, M.R. Black. My father's photo. Surveillance footage. Letters documentation of recorded audio, stating he'd discovered a local hospital was lobotomizing illegal immigrants, whisteblowers, police brutality survivors, hundreds and hundreds of conflicts of interest. His home was raided, his son was sedated, and he was shot at point blank range along with his assistant; and then I heard it, a small clink. I felt my stomach drop to the floor as I ran my fingers over the locket. Before they catch me, I have to have the picture inside of the locket before they find me.

I fought to open the jammed locket, but head to leap up toward a small sun window over the desk as I heard the banging on the door. They were here. I popped the window open as quickly as possible and shoved my frail body through it, just barely avoiding a fall as my feet hit the roof of the building. I'm not sure why, but I was in awe of it. At the top of the building for the first time in 2 months, free of barred windows, feeling the gentle brush of soft rain on my face. I recollected myself and banged the locket against the roof, knowing I had to get his photo out before they found me, and it finally broke. I grabbed the tiny photo and pushed it into the pocket of my scrubs when I noticed it: a chip. A tiny, compact flash drive hidden inside the locket. Before I could gather my thoughts, arms reached from the other wise of the window and threw me to the the floor. I guess I fell asleep after that.

I'm awake, but not really. I can see the room around me, but I can't move. I can hear his voice near me, my doctor, but I can't make out what he's saying. I'm so tired, the light is so bright, I can't focus. Finally, he lowered the light from above my head. "Good morning, Mick. I wish I could tell you that I hate this is our last meeting, but we all knew it was only a matter of time," he grinned at me as he removed the locket and it's contents from my pockets. I've always hated that guy. Two more people come in, but they get behind me before I can see them. The horn sounds, I guess I fell asleep after that.