Take two with Dr. Menchy today, I realize as I open my eyes.
My breakfast arrives under the locked door, per usual. It’s hot cereal day, though by the time it gets to me it’s rarely hot. I scarf it down anyway. Quite simply, it’s never enough.
I follow the warden to the showers and get hosed down, then return to the cell to get dressed. A clean jumpsuit is sitting on the side of my bed.
As I zip up the suit, the guard – all of 23, maybe 24 years old – appears at the door.
“Mr. Wilson?” he says.
“Yes,” I say, turning toward him, startled.
“Dr. Menchy is here.”
“Already?” I ask. “I didn’t expect her ‘til 10.”
“Well, Sir, she’s here. Are you ready?”
“Why not?” I say as he locks me into his cuffs.
We walk down the hall and back into the interrogation room where Junior (as I’ve come to call the young man) removes the cuffs and nods. Silas and Theodora enter.
“Paul, good morning. Did you have a good night’s sleep?” Silas asks, extending a hand.
I grin, in spite of myself, and shake his hand. “I did, actually.”
“Good,” he says. “You remember Dr. Menchy? I’ll be joining her in the discussion today, if you don’t mind.”
I look toward the two-way mirror. “What’s the difference? Out there, in here.”
“Great,” he says. “Now, Doctor, if you’d like to pick up where you left off?”
The doctor nods. “Sure. Mr. Wilson, I’m afraid I jumped the gun a bit in our last session. While I do believe you are mentally and emotionally fit for trial, there are a few more questions we need to cover before we can say for certain that we’re able to send you to court.”
I laugh, again in spite of myself. “What, exactly, are those?” I ask.
She nods and looks toward Silas. I’m sensing tension. Why is Silas here anyway? Doesn’t he trust her?
“Well,” she says, opening that damned file and her pen. “We covered everything leading up to you working off your debt to Armand, but we didn’t get any further …”
This woman just makes me laugh, yet again. I sit quietly for a full minute, watching the second hand tick-tock its way around the face of the clock.
“Paul?” Silas finally prompts.
I inhale deeply and look toward Theodora.
“I believe you decided we were done, Doctor,” I tell her. “That ain’t my fault.”
She looks down at her papers and waits, no eye contact with me or Silas.
I watch the second hand again. A full two minutes pass.
I decide I can’t take it. “Well?” I ask.
Dr. Menchy shifts in her seat.
“Yes, well, be that as it may, we do need to have that conversation.”
I look toward Silas. “Is that why you’re here? To finish her job?”
Silas leans back in his seat and I can see that I have him agitated. Do I care? That would be no. Frankly I’m getting pissed.
“Paul, you and I haven’t known each other for very long …”
“Seriously, Silas, haven’t we done this already? If she’s the one you’re bringing in to evaluate me, hasn’t she already made her evaluation? Why aren’t we getting on with all this?”
Silas nods. “Technically, yes, she has made a recommendation that you’re fit for trial. But she hasn’t heard the full story from you herself, so that recommendation isn’t going to carry the proper weight in court. She can’t testify that she’s heard your entire story. So, if you must know, this is a bit imperfect, but we’re here now to ensure that you get the full and fair trial you deserve.”
“But I did these things! I gambled! I killed Mick!” I tell them. “This isn’t news!”
“Yesterday, you didn’t remember confessing,” Dr. Menchy interrupts, a decided edge to her voice. “Now, you do? What’s different?”
I sigh, and take a deep breath in. “May I stand?”
“No, Paul, you may not,” Silas says, standing up himself. “Answer the doctor’s question.”
I lean up to the table and cross my hands, staring at Dr. Menchy in the eyes.
“Look, Doctor, he threatened Trish. Armand threatened my daughter. He had me by the nosehairs. Mick’s head on a platter was the only thing that would level the playing field for him.”
Out of nowhere, Silas speaks. “What about your history with Mick?”
I sit back in my chair, stunned at the inquiry. “How did you know about that?”
Silas paces in front of the two-way mirror, then leans against it. “Isn’t it true that you and Mick were musicians around the same time that Armand was managing him?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“How’d you do out there?”
I hadn’t thought of myself behind a drumset in years, and the idea gave me chills. It had been the only thing I’d ever aspired to do, that I ever wanted to do.
I shake my head. “Not well. Scourlous Pigs didn’t exactly resonate.”
Silas smiles. “Great name, though. Did the two of you ever do business together?”
I shake my head. “We opened once for Mick, before he was THE ‘Mick Righteous’. Armand was around. That’s the first time I met him.”
“And what was the second time?” Silas asks.
“Back here, in Middle Valley. Ran into him at the Riverside. This was before there was any talk of Mick, or body parts, or any of that.”
“So you reconnected?” Dr. Menchy asks.
I nod. “Yeah. He seemed to appreciate having a friend in uniform,” I tell them. “He never promised anything, but said he was trying to break back into the music business. Wanted to put me out there front and center, he said. Wanted me to come by and meet some of the guys.”
“And that’s when you realized he wasn’t exactly cavorting with musicians?” Silas asks. “That they were basically bookies with bank accounts?”
“Yes,” I say. I look up above the door and realize the clock is indicating that 45 minutes have gone by already.
I sit back, quiet, and look at the ground as Dr. Menchy observes. Silas sits down across from me.
He leans forward, then turns toward the doctor. “I think that’s enough for today.”
Words I’m thrilled to hear.
“Mr. Wilson, we’ll have one more session, if you don’t mind,” Dr. Menchy says, once again closing her file folder.
I shrug and look toward Silas. “Do I have a choice?”
Silas shakes his head. “I’m afraid not,” he says, then turns to wave at the window in the door.
As it opens and Junior places the cuffs on me, Fleetwood Mac’s pounding drum line from The Chain enters my brain, that song written amidst failed relationships and broken promises for the members of the band.
Much as I had mastered that riff, I had never understood the song.
And if you don’t love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain
– Fleetwood Mac, “The Chain”
All of a sudden, the song makes perfect sense.
Gunnar Olafsson