A British couple called Jenny and Howard Nash found me on an old, rarely used, trail. More dead than alive. Septicemia had set in and my organs were failing. I had what they call a thready pulse, meaning my body barely had the strength to push the blood around. The two of them kept me alive for the hour it took for help to arrive. In a way they are two of the most important people in my life, yet I have no idea what they look like. Apart from a small grainy picture in a local paper that covered my story. I say covered, it was half a dozen lines, below a photo of the couple, on page 5. I could have made the nationals and maybe TV, but for the fact there'd been a freak category 4 hurricane at the same time. Thanks to that and a few other shitstorms I narrowly missed out on my 15 minutes of fame. Not that I was in any condition to give a crap.
They told me my heart stopped a couple of times on the helicopter flight to the nearest hospital. It was touch and go for 2 days apparently. I couldn't possibly comment. Sometimes dying is the easiest and best option. Because when I eventually woke up and my life restarted, it was an unbearable burden. There was quite a list of injuries. I'd broken ribs, bruised a kidney, fractured my left ankle and had a blood clot on my brain the size of fried egg. My arm was the worst, in my humble opinion. It had become infected, right down to the bone. Which meant in the next few months I had 4 surgeries. Bone grafts and steel pins to hold things together. There was a cage around my lower left arm for 6 weeks. They'd had to remove some of the bone due to infection and there was a real possibility I'd have had a much shorter withered arm.
I'd just had my entire life demolished, down to the insecure foundations. Things were a little complicated though. I had no family to speak of. A couple of distant cousins who didn't know I existed, but that was it. My parents had both been only children and their parents were deceased. I had nobody. The little monster that slithered out of those mountains didn't need anybody. I was sure of that.
My mother had dual British and Canadian citizenship and my father had both French and US citizenship. There was a bit of a battle over who had responsibility for me. Everyone fighting to avoid it, as far as I could tell. Eventually the good old USA gave up the fight and accepted me. It was where I'd been at school that year. Though I could be wrong on that. When you moved around and changed schools as often as I did, with my globe trotting parents, it was hard to keep track. Looking back I'd say I'd been mainly home schooled. My mother had a doctorate, my father was also a university graduate. Things that I didn't know back then. Only finding out when I looked through their possessions over a year later.
I eventually found myself in a hospital outside Olympia, the capital of Washington state. Perhaps I should have already stated this, I hadn't said a single word to anyone. I was mute. Intentionally so. I didn't want to speak. I had nothing to say. I was a child anyway. Thrown into a system that presumed it knew what was best for me. I believe what disturbed them most was me not making any noise. The staff knew what they were doing to me was painful. I didn't let out a murmur. I doubt I even winced. No matter what they did to me I kept my face still. My breathing regular and my attention on some inanimate object.
They tried everything to get me to talk. Sticking me in a small ward with other kids. Having sympathetic nurses encourage and pander to me. Eventually, when that didn't work, I saw a shrink. That's about all I did. See him. You see, as soon as I heard I was due to have a "counselling" session, I began to read up on the subject. Reading was what I did the majority of the time. What I found out was one of the most powerful psychological tools is silence. The police use it, lawyers use it. Psychologists and psychotherapists use it. People it seems need to fill that silence. And when they do, they give away some of their secrets. Knowing this I made sure I never filled the silence.
I don't even know the name of the guy. It didn't matter to me what names they had. Their labels meant nothing to me. All I could see was a solid mass of otherness. You know the way societies turn on those who don't fit into their assigned boxes. They pretend to be inclusive when it's just that they exclude people for different reasons. Well fuck you society. I'm excluding you. So 3 times a week I spent an hour with a man who wanted me to talk. By the third week he was the one talking. Coaxing me out of the self imposed silence. I know the only thing he found out from those sessions was that I was capable of speech. I simply chose not to speak.
By the fourth week he'd given up. He got paid the full hour regardless of what he or I did. Do you want me to feel sorry for him? I didn't want or need anyone to be sorry for me. I didn't want to hear those whispered conversations between the staff. Their words filled with pity. I didn't pity them, though they were so stupid and unaware of what life could throw at you. How it could break you, shatter your life in a split second. Destroy everything, then carry on as though nothing had happened. Because in a way nothing had happened. How could it, when the nothing was happening to someone else? So the psychobabble man told me he didn't see any point in continuing the sessions. At which point, to his surprise, I got up and started to leave. I chose to speak then. For the first time since I'd been whimpering and wailing about my parents. I can remember my words. I'd been practising them for days.
"This has all been very enlightening doctor. I'm sure your late wife would be proud of your efforts."
His jaw dropped.
"How did you...?"
"There's a picture of your wife and you on your desk. Taken when you were both young. You're currently in your late forties. There are other pictures plastered about the room. Pictures you've used to personalize your space. None of your wife currently. For the last few weeks you've been filling a lot of your time looking at the pictures on your phone. I could see them reflected in the window behind you. You have many pictures of your wife, but they are all of her when she was younger. You still wear a wedding band, so I assumed correctly you hadn't divorced. It wasn't a certainty, but it seemed most likely she'd died. I took a chance."
He looked scared. I was a 12 year old, talking to him like that. While he'd been trying to get inside my head I'd been rooting around inside his. The sorrow and love he'd shown were obvious to me.
While I wasn't as talkative as I'd once been, I began to speak. I became a boy of few words. Emotionless, monotone words. Shortly after that, they discharged me from hospital into the caring arms of child services. They used to be called orphanages, back in the day. Things had changed though. Instead of being consigned to an institution for however long it took you to leave, they have foster care. God bless those who foster, because I surely didn't. By Christmas of that same year I'd been placed with 6 families. The longest I'd been with any of them was two weeks. I know they were predominantly wonderful, caring people. I was the one that didn't care. It's amazing how much chaos and strife you can cause by being uncooperative. Passive resistance. To bathing for example. I would not bath, no matter what they did. In one case I very nearly got a foster dad to hit me. Honestly he should have beaten the crap out of me. I almost broke his nose when he tried to push me into the shower. Then threatened him with the police if he laid another hand on me. Telling him I'd say he tried to molest me. I was an evil little shit.
I refused to change my clothes as well. When one family threw my old stuff in the trash I went around naked for two days. I got my clothes back. A bit dirtier than before to. I'd warned them not to wash them. I could stare into these people and see their fear. Believe me I had a lot of staring contests. I never backed down. Everytime I forced them to look away, it was a victory to me. I know it's pathetic. They were good, kind people who didn't deserve what I did to them. On the other hand, what did I do to deserve losing my entire family?
I spent a lot of time in the Child Services offices. I had my own seat. The one I sat in while they had case conferences about me. One thing's for sure there was a lot of talking about me behind my back. Not that it mattered, I didn't listen to them when we were in the same room. Where they tried to encourage, negotiate, bribe, bully and cajole me into acquiescence.
Near where I always sat, was the office of one of the heads of department. That was where I first saw her. I don't think she ever saw me. Why would she? Most of what happens around us is ignored. Almost every time I was there, she'd come in. Long dark hair, with some kind of American Indian hair decoration. Tiny blue and white beads that hung a few inches down the left side of her face. It told me something about her. That she was an Indian for a start. Her skin coloring was another clue. There was much more though. Which intrigued me. I wanted to get inside her head. Take a look around. There were hidden depths there, of that I was sure. I was young enough to think I was smart. That 120 mile trek through the wilds of Canada had given me the impression I was worldly and mature. Now I know I was stupid and naive.
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