Worship You

Chapter Twenty-One - Juvee Dee

I won't pretend it's easy. The State Juvee facility where I was sent is still jail. You're not free. You don't decide when you eat. You don't decide when to shower, to brush your teeth, to use the toilet. They decide for you. Everything in Juvee is on the Bell, the bell rings to wake up, the bell rings and you go to eat, the bell rings and you go to sleep. And although it's not as intense, probably, as real prison, you're still stuck inside with a bunch of baby criminal psychopaths. Or at least half of them are. So you have to be on your toes.  

Because someone's always looking to get over on you. For instance the first day I was there, this big ape sat down my table at lunch and made me give him my desert. I didn't want to make a problem my first day so I handed it over. Although I have to admit I did think of pushing it into his big fat face. But I was determined not to have any trouble and serve out my sentence as a model prisoner. I wanted to get out in the year. Later that day, I caught the big ape on the stairwell away from the cameras, sucker punched him in the Adam's apple and pushed him over the rail. Luckily for him he landed on his head. He told the guards he'd fallen down the stairs and I didn't have any trouble from him anymore. 

But even so, it's not real jail. They're making more of an effort to reclaim you, to rehabilitate you, to make a citizen out of you. They go through the motions of trying to help. Every Thursday afternoon, a grad student from Syracuse visits the jail and teaches us Creative Writing. He was very sincere and I enjoyed the class. 

We also have group therapy. And once a week, I have a private appointment with a shrink. He's not a bad guy, really, he's young, just out of grad school, doing some sort of psychotherapy internship at the local hospital.  

He's not really a psychiatrist, he's more of a counselor or social worker. He spends most of his time asking me what I want to do when I get out of jail. Or detention as he calls it. I kind of trust him. And sooner or later I started telling him the whole story of me and Cassie. 

One day, after I'd been talking to him about that night in the woods and the trippy drugs that she gave me and the way I felt afterwards, he asked me, "Do you know what a sociopath is?" 

I sensed a trap.  

"It's supposed to be a person without a conscience or something, right?" 

"That's part of it," he said. "I think we'll talk about this a little bit next time. Meanwhile I'd like you to read a couple of books. There's also a website on the Internet that I think is very helpful for people who had interactions with psychopaths. Psychopath is sort of another word for sociopath." 

"You think Cassie is a psychopath?" 

"Don't get angry. I won't say whether she is or isn't. I can't be sure. I've never met her. You read the material and you can tell me." 

"She loved me." 

He nodded, smiling slightly in a superior kind of way I didn't like. 

"You think she didn't?" I was getting really angry. 

"I think you loved her. And that's what matters. That's all I care about." 

"I think you're way off here," I said. 

"Maybe. Cassie's not here. Cassie's not my client." 

He always called me "client" as if I had hired him or something. 

Then he said, "What do you think the psychiatrist that testified for the prosecution thought of her?" 

"He was in love with her," I blurted and wished I hadn't.  

"Really? I read his reports, his testimony. She sounded like a criminal master mind the way he described her." 

"Man. You're all nuts. She was the victim in this." 

"Your victim?" 

"Of course not. I'm talking about what she went through with her old man." 

"Yes. Yes that was bad." 

"Yeah." Did he really think so? 

"Look. I'm not sure what to say about it, David. As I said, I haven't met her. But just going on what you've told me, you were dealing with a person who claims to have a personal relationship with some sort of a pagan deity. She claims to cast spells. 

"She never said that." 

"Sorry, that's true. Nevertheless, it's unusual, don't you think?" 

"I told you what she did to Linda 7." 

"Yes. That's another thing that makes me wonder. Sociopaths have deep insights into another's weaknesses." 

"This was more than mind games. She turned Linda 7 inside out." 

"Yeah. But what do we know? I mean, what facts do we know? You were dealing with a person who gave you drugs and psychotropic drugs, it sounds like. You were doing wild and reckless things and you ended up killing a man. I don't think..." He trailed off as if he didn't want to say what he was thinking. 

I started to get very angry. I raised my voice, something I'd never done with him before. I'd so far been very calm inside, mostly because of the medication they had me on.  

But the thing that was interesting is that he didn't react the way people usually do when I scream at them. He stayed the same, looking at me in that neutral, friendly way that he had, which I was sure was a professional shrink thing, but whatever, it was relaxing. I was on my feet by this time pacing back and forth waving my arms and shouting, telling him he had no right to talk that way about somebody he didn't know, somebody that was so important to me, somebody who had been through so much. And on and on like that. When I got tired, he quietly asked me to sit down. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I sat down. 

"I know Cassie is important to you. I just want you to look at it a little more objectively. A little more moderately?" 

"Moderately? Is that all you have to offer? I don't want moderately. When I was with Cassie, I was alive. Everything mattered. Don't you understand? I'm not interested in moderate. I want Cassie."  

"I know. And that's what we have to work on." He looked at his watch, and closed his notebook. "We'll talk about this next week. I think this is really good." He smiled and stood up and shook my hand. 

I read a little bit of what he gave me, but it was mostly crap. There was no way that she was one of those crazy people. She never hurt me like that, she never lied to me like that. Not once, that I remember. 

Anyway, next appointment, I told him that I wasn't buying it. That just because Cassie was special, that didn't mean she was a fake. 

"I don't doubt that you had a deep connection to this girl. But because of it, you've been incarcerated. If you are to be released any time soon, I have to be reasonably certain you will never see her again. Because I'm sure that will be a condition of your parole." 

I heard that. Unless I gave up on Cassie, I'd serve the full five years. On top of that, I was here because of clemency. For all I knew, if i didn't cooperate and make the right noises, they could kick in my full twenty years in prison if they felt like it.. I seemed to recall Goff telling me something along those lines just before he wished me bon voyage for the last time. I shrugged and nodded my head, making a show of willingness to play along.  

"Let's go over it again," he said, "Start the story from the beginning. Tell me about the first time she ever spoke to you." 

So I told him the whole thing from the beginning one more time.  And again.

And again.

And it came out the same way every time.