Me, Myself and Why? (6 page)

“This before.”

The man-boy Clapp now tilts his head,
tilts his head, tilts his head . . .
He does not know that I am here, I am here . . .
. . . allll daaaay looong, ’cause
The wheels on the bus go round and round . . .
. . . I am here . . .
. . . round and round . . .
George the Crotch gets closer now, closer now,
closer now, and the wheels on the bus . . .
“What the fuck

are you doing

here?”

He hisses.

I hiss back

“Hush,

There’s something here,”

Something here,
Something here,
“Of course there is,”

he grumbles back.

“Three goddamned fucking Tenors are here, and
a hundred fucking cops with no idea how completely
fucked up you are yes I said it you’re fucked up
and if you don’t let Cadence back I’m going to stop
whispering and say it louder and cute Jimmy Clapp
will cancel your date and they’ll put you in a
padded room where you belong and I’m not afraid of
you fucking bitch I don’t care what you think and
don’t look at me like that you know I hate that look
I’m just trying to solve this case like you we’ve
got a job to do so can you get Cadence back here
so we can fucking do it?”
Alllllllllllll

Daaaaaaaaaaay

Loooooooooong

Wait.
We did that part already. He talked to Shiro. He doesn’t know it’s me
Know it’s me
Know it’s me
Surprise!
George the Crotch won’t look me in the eye
Look me in the eye
Look me in the geese
And the wheels on the bus go
“Cadence can’t come back,

she’s not ready.”

So I step up to a body and

See three tenors.

See how they sing.
Calendars and posters, calendars and posters,
Calendars and posters, calendars and posters,
Something borrowed, something new,
Something new, something new.
“It all looks cutie, but
Cadence?”
It’s man-boy Clapp, who doesn’t know,
Doesn’t know,
Doesn’t know.
“Date’s off,” I say,

and walk away.

Alllll daaaaay loooooong.
Heeeey . . . hellooooo, sis!

Chapter Eight

FROM THE PATIENT FILES OF DR. CHRISTOPHER NESSMAN

CASE FILE #216B

SUBJECT: SHIRO JONES

Shiro Jones, hereafter 216B (see Case files 216A and 216C, as well as Root file Jones-216, code-named HYDRA, EYES ONLY; written and verbal authorization from MOTHER required before access allowed), suffers from multiple personality disorder.

Though arguably the personality with the most serenity and emotional strength, 216B is also the most volatile.

216A is the group’s most socially integrated member of the trio. She has friends, understands basic social mores, and conducts effective if limited engagement with local law personnel and other key partners.

216B is the group’s secure hiding place . . . and usually (but not always) the first to emerge from 216A. She keeps 216A safe, emotionally and physically. She plays an enforcement role at times, both internally and externally.

216B’s relationship to 216C is more difficult to characterize. If my suspicion is true—the “C” personality was created at the moment of defining trauma which caused dissociation—then “B” may have emerged later, as a “buffer” between the two dramatically different personalities. This would correspond with their perceived ages (B is the youngest at 23, C believes herself to be 24, and only A is correct in believing herself to be 27).

The personalities are as different physiologically as they are emotionally. Valium dosages appropriate for 216B generally risk overdose when administered to 216A and are not nearly enough to sedate 216C.

While hypnotism has had some enlightening and calming effects with 216B and her “sisters,” I have noticed increasing resistance to hypnotic sessions. This is troubling, as switching personalities is quite a bit like a hypnotic suggestion in the first place; it is for that reason multiples exist. More disquieting, their resistance is a major roadblock to reintegration.

If they succeed in throwing off their interest and willingness to be put under, we will need to find some other way to (a) communicate with all three, (b) keep the two less socially adept personalities under control, and (c) find out another method to encourage integration. 216B was the first to develop resistant behavior—perhaps, again, a protective or mediating tactic, meant to keep the other two personalities separate.

Many of these findings have greater detail elsewhere in this file, but their examination is useful in reviewing the transcript of June 26 (attached).

TRANSCRIPT: AGENT INCIDENT REVIEW

01:20, SEPT 26, 2010

BOFFO REGIONAL OFFICE, MINNEAPOLIS

PSYCHIATRIST: NESSMAN

COMMENTS
: Expectations were for agent 216A to arrive. Instead, 216B was dominant at the time. This is irregular behavior, as 216A is generally fastidious about keeping appointments.

Session begins 3120 hours, BOFFO building, Minneapolis, Minnesota

DR. NESSMAN
: I won’t waste time with small talk, Shiro.

SHIRO
: What an astonishing surprise. Are you well?

NESSMAN
: What happened at the crime scene?

SHIRO
: You know what happened. Do not waste my time.

NESSMAN
: I heard from others. I’d like to hear from you.

SHIRO
: Which part?

NESSMAN
: You arrived shortly before BOFFO staff left the scene.

SHIRO
: So? I come to help Cadence occasionally at crime scenes.

NESSMAN
: Yes, well, that’s the point. It wasn’t Cadence who asked you to come.

Chapter Nine

Why had I showed up? Nessman might be an unimaginative bore in Sears suits and bad cologne, but it was a fair question.

One I knew was coming. The man was as subtle as a brick to the frontal lobe. Which just about explains modern psychiatry.

“Shiro? Did you hear me?”

“I have not gone deaf since our last interminable session. She could not see it. I could.”

He pretended to doodle. It was shorthand. Old shrink trick. I could read and write shorthand by the time I was six. I could read it upside down by the time I was six and a half. Cadence could not, but occasionally she would glance at Nessman’s pad of meaningless (to her) squiggles, which I could decipher later. Her photographic memory came in handy now and again, which almost made up for her cowardly inhibitions.

“Something about the crime scene bothered her. She became upset.”

“What was upsetting her?”

Yes, that was the question.

“Shiro?”

“Something about the number three,” I muttered, nibbling on a knuckle. I quickly stopped; the knuckle was scabbed and swollen. My sister was up to her old tricks, no doubt. I wondered if she had killed someone. Why was I thinking about her?

“It’s not like either of your sisters to disappear out of a crime scene,” he was jabbering. Among other things, Dr. Nessman enjoyed sharing facts I already knew. Next he would tell me the forecast called for breezy and seventy-six degrees.

“Cadence is a coward.”

“So you say,” Nessman said drily. Calculated to make me defend my opinion. That stopped working when I was nine. “Luckily she has you to race to the rescue.”

“Ride.”

“What?”

“The cliché you are looking for is ‘ride to the rescue.’ ” I eyed his shorthand.
Subject is showing her usual unwillingness to take part in the therapy process. Seems easily distracted.

Therapy process.

Therapy process.

Process: a procedure; a course; a development.

All words that imply progression.

Subject is showing her usual unwillingness to take part in the therapy process.

Subject thinks you are a douche.

Sure. I have been in the therapy process since I was three. As far as I could tell, it had not followed any course or developed at all. It just sucked up my Wednesdays.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nessman said in what he thought was his soothing voice. It was really his “please hit me in the teeth” voice.

“There are not enough words in English or Japanese to put across how strongly I doubt that.”

“We’ve been talking about this for a while, Shiro.”

“Talking about what?”

“Your mother. Your father. What happened when you were three. What happened right in front of you when you were three.”

I glanced to the left, eyeing the door. “I have work to do.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Don’t you think you’ve hidden from the truth long enough?”

“I. Never. Hide.”

“Oh, Shiro. We both know that isn’t true.”

I folded my arms across my chest and stared out the window. The minutes spun by, each one seeming to take at least a week.

“I have mentioned this to you many times,” he said quietly. “You—all of you—have plateaued. And you’re sitting in that chair thinking this is just a waste of your time.”

Damn it. Okay, maybe enough words in English. I seriously considered lapsing into Japanese—Nessman wouldn’t know
arigato
from
arrivederci
. But that was a childish refuge, and if nothing else, I prided myself on being more adult and professional than the other two put together. So I decided to stick with English—for the time being.

“We don’t have to do anything right this second. If you would just
consider
integration,” Nessman was droning, “open your mind to the possibility, I think your therapy would take a giant step for—”

“No.”

“We could just discuss it, Shiro. We don’t have to—”

“I said no!”

“And so you see,” he said after a long, careful pause, “why therapy can go only so far with you and the others. Integration—”

“Is murder.”

It was tough work to shock a shrink—or at least to get one to show it—but I managed nicely with Nessman. He even managed to sound hurt. “Shiro. I would never advocate a course of action that would hurt you, or Cadence, or . . .”

“You are a single; you cannot understand. I acknowledge that you understand our symptoms intellectually, that they can be rolled into a nice easy pack if you do not feel them. You do not
know
. You will never know.”

“So explain it to me.”

“I have a murder to solve,” I replied brusquely, standing. “Really quite a nasty one.” Nessman’s office wavered around me.

“Sit down, please, Shiro. We haven’t finished our session.” To his credit, Nessman’s voice was firm and didn’t cover up edginess. “And of course you do. You’re a federal agent. You’ll always have a murder, a kidnapping, an Internet scam. You can’t hide behind your workload this time.”

“I. Do not. Hide.”

“Please have a seat, Shiro.”

I reluctantly sat, if only to show the man respect: he knew what was inside me.

Who lived inside me.

“You were going to explain that being a single, I can’t understand your fear of integration.”

“No, that is what you were hoping I would do.
I
was leaving to get back to work.”

“But you can’t work unless you do this,” he reminded me. “It’s a condition of your employment. You know that.”

Damn it. Rule #1 of BOFFO: weekly psychiatric sessions at a minimum. I could not be sure if this was for our health, since it was not truly in BOFFO’s interest for us to get better. Perhaps the legislative committee that quietly authorized our funding needed political cover. In any case, some of us saw a shrink every day. Fortunately, my life had not plunged that far down the toilet.

BOFFO employed sociopaths, like George. Multiples, like my sisters and me. Kleptomaniacs. Pyromaniacs. Agoraphobes. Hysterics. Bipolars. Delusional psychotics. Paranoid psychotics. Schizophrenics. We were surprisingly effective—at least, no one ever complained when budget time rolled around. But of course a large problem was—

“Shiro?”

“What?”

“You were going to explain.”

I stared at him as I would at a particularly hairy bug that would not stay squashed. Perhaps that assessment was not fair; Dr. Nessman was rather handsome. Black hair, closely trimmed black beard, sparkling black eyes. Skin the exact color of a good coffee with a splash of cream. And a voice like cabernet—if he hadn’t gone into psychiatry he could have been a fine radio personality—smooth and English, just beginning to lose the accent after living and working in Minnesota for over a decade.

“I will not let you kill us.”

“Perhaps the others—”

“Feel the same.”

I stood and paced a bit; Nessman was used to it and even stretched in his chair a little. It was a nice office: large, with lots of windows. I had a fine view of the U.S. Bank Building, which was an improvement over the garbage-strewn alley below. He could not keep any sculpture in his office, for obvious reasons, but he made up for it in paintings. And Post-its. And doodle pads. And desk blotters. And posters. All featuring ponies. Ponies standing. Ponies running. Ponies playing cards with dogs.