The boy was chunky, freckled, and pugnacious. He had dirty orange hair that looked crew-cut with a weed-whacker. I didn’t like him. Neither did the other kids. His name was Nick Wong, which was weird because he wasn’t Asian, and neither were parents--if any parent would claim him. He beat up his mom once and then gave his grandma a black eye when she restrained him. Grandma Wong fell down and broke her hip, but Nick didn’t care. He looked down at her with an animal gleam in his eyes, hating her for her weakness.
His mom thought discipline would cure him of his antisocial tendencies. So what did she do? Signed him up for martial arts. Maybe a Mr. Miyagi clone would render Nick docile. No such luck--this just added weapons to his arsenal. It was like giving a suicide terrorist a nuclear bomb, or strapping brass knuckles onto the fists of an extreme fighter.
Now when Nick is cornered in the psych center, he assumes a classic ninja pose. Except Nick would bludgeon your groin instead of kicking you in the head. And when you went down, he would keep kicking, oblivious of the blood and suffering flaying open at his feet. Sometimes I wonder if he even sees human degradation. It’s my theory that those who are violent and cruel are unable to grasp that others feel pain.
I found Nick in his closet that morning. I was making my morning rounds, checking each room to make sure the kids were safe in their beds. Nick’s was made up perfectly. You could bounce Jell-O on its crisp, tense surface. Usually he was up doing yoga in his own narcissistic way, stretching and flexing his body, savoring the feel of his muscles contracting. I looked past the bathroom and saw his closet door open.
Nick had confiscated a belt. Belts were contraband, taken by staff on patient admission. Nick had looped the belt around his neck and created his own gallows pole with the closet handle. He was slumping on the floor, trying to use his weight to strangle himself. He kept scooting up and then ramming himself down, as if this would wrench apart his cervical spine. When he saw me looking, he stopped. Turned and stared at me with casual malice. I was too shocked to move.
“What are you doing?” I whispered stupidly.
He slipped the noose over his head, ignoring the chafe marks on his neck. Tossed it to the side, as if it was an amputated limb. He wouldn’t allow me the luxury of ‘rescuing him’.
“What the hell does it look like?” he sneered. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what a suicide attempt is.”
“Why?” I had no control over what I was saying. My brain had gone numb, like flesh deprived of circulation that can no longer feel.
“Because it feels good, idiot. Why are you here, anyway?”
“I’m checking up on you.” It sounded lame even to my own ears.
“Well you’re a shitty aide. I can count the minutes between your rounding. I know exactly when your dumb ass is going to pop his ugly face into my room. Fifteen minutes. Just enough time to hang myself. Don’t you know that? Anyone with a brain keeps it unpredictable. If every kid in this place was suicidal, you’d have a litter of dead bodies to send to the morgue.”
His scorn was lacerating. But he was right. I was a horrible worker. Why? Not because I couldn’t keep a punk like Nick Wong from throttling himself. It was because I didn’t care about him, and despised his wanton cruelty, and felt the world could do with one less serial killer in the making. So maybe I waited an extra ten minutes, hoping the belt would tighten and Nick’s pathetic attempt at gaining attention would be successful, his legs kicking helplessly as oxygen was cut off from his darkening brainstem.
I wasn’t always this insensitive, but something is changing in me. The more I see aberrant behavior, the more it becomes normal, and jaded cynicism creeps in, adding layers of dead skin to the callus that protects my conscience from feeling too much.
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