Free Bird
“Things just couldn’t be the same ‘cause I’m as free as a bird now.” Her voice blended with the music and the thick ribbons of smoke that billowed out of the incense. She glanced over at Benny who was just injecting another hypodermic needle into the nook of his arm. He was so calm and serene; one of the rare occasions when he wasn’t beating her. Jill still bore a lovely three week old bruise on her right thigh.
The drug flowed through her veins like the thickest honey. It made her arms heavy and it took all her strength to lift her hand and place it on Benny’s chest. His heart was hammering underneath his stained white tee shirt like the beat of the oarsman keeping tempo. Above her the ceiling swirled and danced with a million stars and glaciers.
“Jill, your hair looks like fire. No! Like your head’s bleeding! Yeah, that’s it! You’re head’s bleeding, Jilly.” Benny said before bursting into a hysterical fit of giggles. After three years of this stuff, the heroin still hit him hard. “And I never knew your eyes were so green. Like grass.” More giggles. She licked her dry lips, rolled over on her side, and closed her eyes. Just as she could feel herself slip into obscurity, her bedroom door was forced open but her willpower was gone and she fell into a deep slumber filled with dragons and policemen rolling on icy moons.
The voices outside the door were muffled. It was like swimming in a congealed mixture of mud and Jell-O and not knowing which way was up towards the surface, towards air, towards consciousness. Jill could feel her eyes swiveling in their sockets underneath the heavy blanket of eyelids but lacked the determination to open them. Instead she listened as two pairs of feet stepped into her room. They talked in hushed, rough voices; the sound of throats that had choked on cigarettes for too long.
“Seizures, she said. Real bad ones. The boyfriend was just lyin’ on ‘er and laughin’. Sick son of a bitch. I don’t see why he’s not in here with her.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, those kind of hard drugs can mess you up real bad.” These were not voices she knew. The click of the door alerted her that they had left and after a few minutes she forced one eye open, then the other. The pillow smelled like urine and bleach, a vile smell that had her gagging. The walls were white, the kind where if you picked the paint off in just the right places, you would find traces of blood and vomit staining the drywall. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, she noticed that a white gown was draped over her frail frame, the ones little girls on humid New Orleans nights wore to bed. This room was not her own.
“Where am I? Where am I?” Jill moved around the room, her hand brushing up against the furniture, panic setting in. She screamed as she paced the room’s length, “WHERE AM I? WHERE AM I?” Jill rushed over to the opposite wall, picked up the cheap plastic chair that sat at a small desk, and hurled it at the door. It crashed and ricocheted back to its original spot while the two men casually walked back in, grabbed her upper arms and threw her onto the bed like a rag doll. A smaller figure moved in behind them.
“So you’re Miss Shaw, huh? Not a wise move to overdose with your conditions.” What conditions? Jill couldn’t imagine calling hypomania and schizophrenia ‘conditions’. She lifted her head to stare in defeat at the female nurse standing in the doorway.
“Who are you, blondie? And why am I here with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb flattening me against this damn bed?” The nurse yawned.
“My name is Ingrid. And you’re here with Chris and Nathaniel pinning you to that damn bed because you’re a lunatic.” That stung deep. Jill thrashed, but with two giants holding her down it was pointless. Ingrid yawned again. “Now, if you don’t mind, my shift is over. The night shift head nurse, Amanda, will make sure you don’t hurt yourself. Goodnight, my pet.” She turned on a sharp stiletto heel and left with the two bimbos following.
Amanda had her take more pills than you could ever find in a pharmacy; Lamictil, Neurontin, Thorazine, and some nasty fish oil. By midnight, Jill was fast asleep.
She was back in her old room, watching as yesterday’s events unfolded after she had fallen asleep. Lyza busted through the door as Jill watched her own body writhing in a fit of seizures. “Jill! What’s going on? Benny, get off her!” Lyza screamed as she sat on the bed, placing Jill’s head in her lap. Across the room, Jill could barely see that at the time, her eyes were open and she had seen everything. Lyza’s cell phone was in her hand dialing 911 within seconds, the paramedics arriving minutes after that. A neck brace was put onto her convulsing body and she was carried out on a stretched while Lyza followed and Benny continued to laugh. This had been her overdose.
Jill awoke in a cold sweat. The sun had barely begun to rise. She had gotten six hours of sleep at the most. Looking towards the west wall, she noticed Lyza sitting there painting her nails like usual.
“Lyza! I’m so happy to see you!” Jill lunged forward as Lyza glanced up at the body hurtling towards her. “I’m so sorry!” Jill wrapped her arms around her friend, but found that Lyza was not a solid mass. She was air, a hologram almost. “What’s going on?”
“Jill, I’m nothing more than your imagination. I’m here to help you, Jill. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. Benny, get away from her!”
“I was only having a bit of fun!” Jill turned around and noticed her psychopathic boyfriend hanging off the edge of the bed. “Try and kill the mood, will you Lyza?”
“What are you two and why are you here?”
“Why, we’re here to keep you company, Jilly. You’re going to be here for a long time, you know. Three months, Ingrid said. Three months. Then you’ll be free! Free as a bird, Jilly!” Benny’s wide grin and obnoxious laugh had her reeling.
“Don’t listen to him, honey. He’s just crazy.”
“I’m not crazy! She’s the one who’s crazy! She’s locked inside a mental institution and talking to two people who aren’t even here! I’d call that crazy.” Benny reached out and pulled his fingers through Jill’s fiery hair, sliding right through the strands. “Look at your red hair! Your head’s bleeding, Jilly! You’re bleeding!”
Jill recoiled and backed herself up against the door and began to scream, covering her ears as Benny continued to chant.
“Look at your red hair! Your head’s bleeding, Jilly! You’re bleeding!”
“Stop it! Just leave me alone!”
Nathanial was the first to arrive, followed by Ingrid and Chris who picked her up and put her on the bed next to Benny who whispered in her ear while they drugged her up. Lyza placed a transparent hand on Jill’s forehead while a needle was forced into her arm. It reminded her of the good old days with Benny and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the incense hazing up the room with the late afternoon sun on their bare skin.
“Jill, please fight it. I don’t want to lose you.” Lyza said as she disappeared behind closed eyelids.
Benny continued to chant, “Your head’s bleeding, Jilly. You’re bleeding!”
After two weeks of semi-good behavior, Ingrid had allowed Jill to keep a radio in her room. It sat on the top table next to her bed and it played all night long. It was the only thing these days that let her sleep peacefully without the crazy dreams those drugs gave her. Especially that fish oil. It gave her nightmares. Lynyrd Skynyrd was still calming last night’s episode with a live version of “Free Bird”, her favorite song.
“Jill, mind if I talk to you a sec?” Lyza sat in the corner as she had done the first day she had appeared, painting her nails a deep red. Jill quietly sat on the bed, playing with the new knitting set Chris had bought for her. Good behavior paid off sometimes.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I need you to get out of here. Benny’s coming real soon. I don’t know when, but I overheard the guards talking about it. He scheduled a private meeting with you sometime this week. You have to run, Jill. Just run away and hope that you don’t run into him.”
“Lyza, I don’t understand.”
“No need to. Just go!” Outside the thundering footsteps of the Three Musketeers slowly crept towards the door with a softer pair of feet trailing behind. Jill’s knitting needles clattered to the floor, dragging the old yarn with it. “Too late.” Jill snatched up her knitting and pretended to continue as Ingrid walked in with the guards behind her.
“Jill, my pet, you have a visitor!” Ingrid said, flourishing her arms to present a sullen looking Benny. She quickly ushered the two giants out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Jill with a very pissed off boyfriend.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Getting an overdose of all things!” Benny shoved her onto the bed, pinning her arms beside her head and putting all his weight onto her torso. “I’ve been in hot water with the law for the past two weeks, trial’s tomorrow! Do you know how much a lawyer costs? Lots of money, Jilly. Money we don’t have.” He snarled; spit flying all over her face. Before she could react, he was reaching down for the hem of her gown.
“Don’t!” she could barely hear herself as she remembered the beatings she had received for saying no.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t,” he said, getting off of her and sitting in the chair that Jill had placed at the end of her bed. “You know the one thing that could get me in trouble now, Jill? You. You saw everything. Lyza’s already gone and taken care of. She can’t say anything against me from six feet under.” Jill felt her jaw drop and tears well in the corner of her eyes. From inside the waistband of his jeans, he lifted a small silver revolver. He opened the barrel and showed her that there was but one bullet in it. Russian roulette was his favorite game. He spun the barrel, clicked it back into place, and pointed it between her eyes.
“Benny, don’t!”
The bullet was through her head before she took another breath.
Benny placed the gun back into the waistband of his jeans, going over to Jill and running his fingers through her bloody red hair.
“Your head’s bleeding, Jilly. You’re bleeding.”
