Intra-cranial

Everyone who comes in here has one little mistake they made one too many times.

The year is 1999, and Benjamin Miller will soon attend his first court-required therapy session. After jumping off a bridge twice and showing no care for his own wellbeing, he’s been deemed by the Court of Los Angeles to be “a risk to the safety of himself and others,” and sent to seek help.

After being about 20 minutes late, the psychiatrist, Noah Baker, walks in and sits in the padded chair next to the recliner on which Benjamin lies.

“What took you so long?” Benjamin snarks.

“I’m a therapist. If I was on time, something would be wrong,” Noah replies.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Benjamin says in an exhausted exhale.

“You’ll never get better with that attitude,” Noah replies sarcastically. “So, let me look over your one mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Benjamin says, confused.

“Everyone who comes in here has one little mistake they made one too many times, which makes them come here,” Noah explains.

“My only mistake was letting the law drag me here,” Benjamin says.

“Actually, I think it was your awful diving technique, which failed twice.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a good therapist, not a bad comedian,” Benjamin says, visibly annoyed.

“I can be both, if you’d like.’

“Be whatever will get this over with faster.”

“Very well, and I was just enjoying our conversation.”

For about seven minutes, Noah looks through the manila folder he was given before he works up the nerve to ask, “So, what led to your unfortunate situation?”

“You have eyes, don’t you? Read the folder on your desk,” Benjamin responds.

“This is nothing more than a half-baked description of an underpaid government worker. I want you to tell me.”

Benjamin sighs and begins to speak.

“My parents came from Russia to the United States in 1971. I was conceived in 1975, and born in 1976 as Alexei Abramov. My mother contracted leprosy from an unwashed needle which was used in a scramble for painkillers for my birth, and died on my fourth birthday. My father couldn’t handle the situation and put me into foster care. The only thing I had from my parents was a Russian accent which didn’t help in any way.

“I was adopted by a man named Gerald Miller. He took me to his house, a ratty little 2-story building with barely drinkable water. He was a mean old man. He made me clean up after him, get the mail, and answer the door for him. Whenever I didn’t comply, he’d threaten to send me back to foster care and would wave the adoption papers in my face. The only thing that gave me the energy to wake up every day was a stray dog who I named Cheddar, after the first meal I gave him. I would continue to give him whatever scraps I saved during the day. I would feed him at night, after Gerald would fall asleep.”

“How did that make you feel?” Noah asks.

“It made me hate him. I hated that ‘thing’ more than Tommy, more than dad, more than the tiny little bug that hitched a ride on the needle that killed my mother!” Benjamin yells, when out of nowhere, he throws his hat against the wall, which knocks down a framed kid’s drawing.

“Calm down! We have all the time in the world to fix whatever gear in your head isn’t working right,” Noah says as he walks over to the drawing, picks it up, and reattaches it to the wall next to the window.

“What gear do you mean?” Benjamin says, attempting to calm down.

“The gear that decided it was time for a swim,” Noah says, trying to lighten the situation.

Benjamin stops, then lets out a small chuckle.

“So, you mentioned a ‘Tommy.’ Who might this be?” Noah asks.

Benjamin cringes, takes a deep breath, and begins to speak.

“While I was living with Gerald, there was this boy: Tommy. Every day I went to school, Tommy would wait outside to throw rocks at me, and yell, ‘Why did you come here, Commie?! Why can’t you just go home?!’

“He would get out of his classes 10 minutes before me and repeat the same routine as the morning, except his friends would cheer him on and sometimes join in,” Benjamin says in an agitated voice.

“How long did this go on for?” Noah asks.

“Two years,” Benjamin replies.

“What made it stop?” Noah further asks.

“I don’t want to say. You might lock me away if you know,” Benjamin says worriedly.

“You don’t have to worry about that. Everything said in here, stays in here.”

“I commonly would get higher scores on my tests than Tommy and his friends. But one day, I heard someone say, ‘Wow Tommy, you got worse scores than the Ruski. You must be really dumb.’”

Every kid around Tommy started to laugh and point at him, even his friends, who also were barely above failing. Once he locked eyes with me, I knew exactly what he was thinking of doing.

He started walking towards me aggressively, and said: “Hey, Commie, if you’re so smart, what am I about to do?” I tried to walk away, but he quickened the pace, grabbed my arm, pulled me around, and punched me in the nose.

I was on the ground trying to stop my nose from bleeding when he kicked me in the back while laughing. All the children around me laughed. Not one person tried to help me. Once it stopped being fun, the crowd started clear, leaving me there for about 20 minutes.

“I finally worked up the strength to get up and walk home. When I got home, Gerald was waiting in the doorway. He yelled at me about not getting into fights, but I was so hungry and tired that I didn’t listen to him at all. This set him into a rage, where he slammed the door in my face and made me sleep on the porch.

“When I walked to school the next day, Tommy wasn’t there. I walked a little more down the path, and I saw Tommy and his friends in an alleyway, gathered around something. I walked closer to them to see what was happening.

“They were kicking Cheddar and throwing rocks at him. In that moment, the sheer hunger, anger, and hatred I had was too much for me to manage. I ran right up to Tommy, tackling him and beating him relentlessly. His friends were shocked. They all ran away in fear. I don’t know how long I was hitting him for, but I do remember that I couldn’t hit him any longer.”

“That’s quite the story,” Noah says, “But now, let’s jump forward to the first jump and what led to it,” Noah continues.

“Okay,” Benjamin says, then continues, “I got a job in that burger joint, Saint Rose. You know, it was founded in 1962. What a restaurant.” Benjamin stops to make sure he has the facts right, before continuing:

“I worked there from 1992 to 1994, but I never felt happy. I crossed that bridge every day getting to work. But one day, I wondered if things would be better over the edge. So I pulled over, set my hat down, and jumped.

“Jumping wasn’t that bad, but falling was. I woke up in that hospital on Calaroga Avenue. When I woke up, they asked if I fell off by accident, so naturally I said it was an accident. They asked for money when they released me, but I didn’t have any. They made me sign an endless number of documents, then let me go.

“I lost my job and felt like things couldn’t get any worse. So I wanted to take another stab at it. The hardest part this time was pulling myself up with a cast on my dominant arm. I took a deep breath, then took a step forward. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I woke up a second time.

“I couldn’t convince the doctors that it was an accident this time. They told me on the way out that I had nerve damage that would prevent me from doing repetitive motion for extended periods of time. They held me in state custody before making me come here.”

“All right. I’d like a day to put together the information I’ve collected from you. You are free to leave. I thought you might like a little alone time, so I told the guards to let you walk back unescorted,” Noah says before opening the door to show himself out.

On the way back, Benjamin thought that since he couldn’t get another job, his life was over, so he went back to the bridge.