Getting Dunn, page 7
“A topless place?” It sounded like it didn’t quite register with Jordan.
“Yes, sir. And she looks good, more muscular than the others and no breast augmentation, but she has her own fan base, if you will.” Strickland felt a little out of line describing her appearance, but his relationship with Jordan had become somewhat less formal since they both left active duty. Strickland knew he was in the subordinate position but he still sometimes attempted conversation that was more congenial.
Strickland continued.
“She’s done two shifts since I got here. The rest of her time, typical work hours anyway, she volunteers at a suicide hotline.”
“You’re shittin’ me.” Jordan half laughed.
“No, sir.” Strickland didn’t allow himself to laugh. “It’s a place distraught people call in to talk to someone. She works with various partners, an odd collection.”
“She does that all week?”
“I estimated forty to fifty hours last week.” Strickland searched for the right words. “Sir, several times I’ve witnessed her leaving the storefront where the hotline is located to go for a walk or get some air. Then, she breaks down in tears.” Strickland knew that Jordan would sense that as significant.
“Hmmm, I don’t like the sound of that,” Jordan said.
“She goes to psychotherapy weekly. I’ve seen her leave a session and it appeared she had been crying there, as well.”
“Clearly, she’s unstable,” Jordan stated matter-of-factly.
“Yes, sir,” Strickland said.
“That’s exactly what we were afraid of.”
Strickland stayed silent.
“Stay close to her. Do what you have to do assess where her head is,” Jordan said.
“Should I make contact with her?” Strickland said.
Jordan took time to think. He wasn’t sure. Originally, he had planned on just keeping an eye on everyone involved. If and only if they presented a problem, he would simply eliminate them according to protocol. Jordan hadn’t counted on Strickland making contact. That is, except to kill someone when the situation called for it.
“Do you think you could talk to her without her getting suspicious?” Jordan asked.
“Sir, I was very close with Trent. It wouldn’t be strange for me to look her up. You know, old friends, closure, that stuff.”
“I don’t like it. It seems like unnecessary risk.”
“If I presented it like I was having trouble with Trent’s death and that I came to her for support, it wouldn’t draw suspicion.”
“And what if she doesn’t buy your story? What if she continues to behave in an unstable manner?”
Strickland got quiet.
“Strickland—did you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What if she seems to be a danger?” Jordan raised his voice.
“Then, sir, I will eliminate her according to protocol,” Strickland said.
Strickland thought about Trent. He thought about how Trent had been the best friend he had ever had and how things got in the way. And Jordan. He’d do anything for Jordan, without really being certain as to why he felt such loyalty. He thought about TJ and how she must feel.
Things were complicated. Missing his best friend didn’t mean he had to forfeit making a living, a living he deserved after all the military shit he had had to put up with. He could separate the two. One was emotional and the other was practical, simple, about getting what he needed.
Strickland leaned back on the hotel bed and let his mind go to TJ. His best friend’s girl, a cliché he was uncomfortable with, went through his head. But seeing her dance topless had created conflicting emotions in him. He was both excited and revolted by it. She’d looked hot up there. It had fostered an image of her that he had never allowed himself to visualize before. At the same time, she seemed less the woman he’d wanted all these years and more a slut doing it for money.
Strickland didn’t spend a lot of time getting in touch with his feelings. He had learned long ago that it got in the way of doing what was necessary. He was still a soldier; he had to keep his actions sharp and clear.
There were times, though, that he tired of not permitting himself to feel.
Chapter Fourteen
“Let’s go over your dreams,” LaMontagne said. TJ immediately felt a sense of panic.
“I thought dream analysis was Freudian bullshit and you followed cognitive-behavioral theory,” TJ said.
TJ had only entered into therapy after learning as much as she could about the process. Like everything else TJ did, she had evaluated her decision to get therapy carefully. She researched various schools of psychotherapy and methods and found that cognitive-behavioral therapy yielded the most consistent results in the shortest period of time. Since she hated the idea of being in therapy, she wanted it to be efficient as possible.
Dream analysis was outdated Freudian crap. Everything she had read said most evaluation studies found it useless. And she didn’t want to talk about the sex dreams she’d been having.
“I do practice cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally borrow techniques from other disciplines. Sometimes dreams make for good discussion,” LaMontagne replied without hesitation.
“I don’t come to therapy for lively banter.”
“Trust me. Why do you want to avoid a dream discussion?”
TJ didn’t have a good answer. She didn’t really want to say “embarrassment.” But she knew LaMontagne wouldn’t let this go.
“My dreams are all about sex. They’re almost pornographic,” TJ said, and looked down at her Nikes. “I’m embarrassed by them when I’m alone, let alone discussing them with another woman.”
“Another woman or another person?” LaMontagne asked. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, trying to look TJ in the eye.
“What’s with all the Freudian bullshit? Christ…”
LaMontagne let it get silent.
TJ looked out the window and watched rain drizzle down the office window. She looked back at her shoes. She knew LaMontagne would let the silence go and eventually TJ would break. Since coming to therapy she had learned that silence was LaMontagne’s favorite tool to get her to talk. Sitting in close proximity to another person in silence inspired one to speak. Otherwise, it felt like being on an endless elevator ride. Taking a deep breath, she began.
“I’m usually having sex with Trent. He’s inside of me and we’re fucking. We’re covered in sweat. I can see him hard, I can see his face when he gets off, the details are all there. It’s really explicit. It makes me feel weird when they’re over.”
TJ took LaMontagne’s silence as a signal to keep talking. She didn’t want to, but knew she’d have to.
“When I wake up I’m masturbating or just finishing,” TJ felt flushed.
“To orgasm?” LaMontagne asked.
“Yeah.”
LaMontagne nodded and sat back.
“Then can you sleep?”
“Yeah.” TJ felt like squirming but resisted. She felt that anxiety that accompanied sharing something that she’d never wanted another human to know. She felt her face flush and the tension in her muscles throughout her body.
“Do you masturbate any other times?”
“No.” Could she not let this go? TJ wanted to be anywhere else.
LaMontagne went quiet. She waited.
TJ continued to fight the urge to squirm. She wanted to demonstrate to the doctor that this topic didn’t shake her. She became conscious of the fact that she was keeping perfectly still and wondered if that gave away her level of anxiety. Becoming acutely aware of one’s body language had to communicate something.
“It doesn’t feel right. But that has nothing to do with my feelings about masturbation. I have no problem with that, never have. It…”
LaMontagne waited.
TJ felt tears well.
“It doesn’t feel right with him gone. Like it’s too, I don’t know, superficial. Too self-centered—hell, is there anything in the world more self-centered?” TJ tried a laugh but felt sick in her stomach.
“You don’t feel it’s right to have any pleasure since his death,” LaMontagne said.
TJ sat back. She looked out the window. The rain came down hard now. She tried hard to suppress tears but they ran down her cheeks like the rain outside on the window. Inside, she felt completely out of control. She tried too hard to keep her system of checks and balances, to live life in a calculated way. Her system had failed to work properly, and it left her overwhelmed.
“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it? LaMontagne said.
TJ held off the tears as best she could. It seemed like the one point of control to focus on. They ran down her face just the same. TJ sniffed when she physically had to. When she had to inhale, the crying choked her. That was enough to make the tears come harder. She put her face in her hands and bawled.
“It’s okay to cry,” LaMontagne said softly.
TJ’s stomach clenched and the hurt ran through her. Now, she didn’t care what she looked like or sounded like. It went beyond that, and she let it out because she had no choice. There was a point where emotion couldn’t be contained. TJ had reached her breaking point.
“I don’t understand why he did it. It was such a bullshit, cowardly thing!” She cried hard, and the sadness melded with anger, almost rage. Her hands became tight fists.
“There’s no question suicide is a selfish act, maybe the most selfish act there is,” LaMontagne said firmly. The softness had left her voice and was replaced by an affirming tone.
“Every time I feel that, though, I hate myself.”
LaMontagne didn’t say anything. Instead, she looked directly at TJ.
“He must’ve been fucked up, I mean really fucked up and hurting. But why…” TJ’s crying kicked in again and she couldn’t speak.
LaMontagne leaned forward, folding her arms on her knees. She waited for a moment before encouraging.
“Finish that.”
TJ swallowed and tried to catch up with her breathing.
“Why didn’t he reach out to me? Why didn’t he let me know? Didn’t I matter? Didn’t—God damn him. He was just like my father.”
LaMontagne let TJ’s crying slow before she spoke. She spoke very carefully.
“The two most important men in your life killed themselves. They ended their lives without a word to you and left you alone.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what they fuckin’ did.” TJ’s face was red from the weeping and she wiped her nose with a wadded tissue.
“And you’re left with a feeling that you don’t deserve pleasure. Why is that?”
TJ found it difficult to think clearly.
“Huh? I’m not sure I understand.”
LaMontagne leaned forward.
“You,” LaMontagne pointed at TJ for emphasis. “You don’t feel like you deserve pleasure. They killed themselves. And you don’t deserve to feel good.”
TJ squinted. She thought hard. LaMontagne remained quiet.
“You’re saying that they did something to themselves. They acted selfishly without concern for me. Now, I’m the one feeling like shit.” TJ looked out the window. The rain had let up.
“Do you need to be punished for the choices the two men in your life made? Choices they made without consulting you?” LaMontagne said. She spoke deliberately.
TJ sat silently. “But I still don’t feel like I should feel good about anything,” TJ said.
“Because you were somehow responsible for their choices?” LaMontagne said.
TJ let it sink in. She had to admit there were some ah-ha moments in therapy, when she conceived something in a new way that was completely out of sync with everything she had believed, consciously or unconsciously. She had read that suicide survivors often felt responsible for the deaths of their loved ones but she had dismissed the notion that she felt that way.
Until now.
Chapter Fifteen
“One of them Shit Shoes,” Billy explained. “Those little yippy-yappy dogs.”
“Shitzu,” TJ said.
“Right, pain in the ass.” Billy thumbed through the New York Post. He stopped, folded the paper, and held it up to TJ.
“Speaking of shit shoes, or, in this case, shit heels!” He held up a centerfold feature. The left side had a headline, “Passing the Bucks: Over $18 Billion Unaccounted For In Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“What’s that all about?” TJ asked. She was curious even as she silently cursed herself for engaging Billy. Billy explained while TJ regretfully wished she had made a pot of coffee or pretended to do paperwork.
“Someone is getting rich off of the war. Your tax dollars are making some unethical military men richer than, well, maybe Saddam Hussein.” He read aloud:
“Auditors admitted today that a wire transfer for $500 million slated for Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for. The payment is yet another example of the corruption uncovered in the Iraq rebuilding efforts.”
Billy went to go on but TJ excused herself to the bathroom. She didn’t have to go, but she didn’t want Billy reading the whole article to her. When she got out of the bathroom she went and made coffee, straightened up the loose files on top of the file cabinet, and went back to her desk.
Unfazed, Billy continued.
“Check this part out:
“U.S. dollars have disappeared without a trace, confounding Pentagon auditors who are now trying to trace where the money went…and what exactly, if anything, the U.S. got in return.” Billy paused for a second. “That shit is unbelievable.”
“Billy, I got to do some notes,” TJ said.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. War makes strange bedfellows,” Billy said. His glasses were down to the very tip of his nose. He stopped reading aloud but continued to suck his teeth and click his tongue for emphasis when he came across something interesting in the article.
The phone rang, answering TJ’s prayers.
“Aquarius, can I help you?” she said.
The other end remained silent. TJ had been doing this long enough to be patient. She didn’t need to keep asking if the caller needed to be helped.
“Hello…” a female voice finally said.
“Yes, my name is TJ. Would you like to tell me your name?”
“Joanne.”
“Hi, Joanne.”
TJ heard her exhale and then heard something that sounded like the caller wetting her lips.
“I hear voices sometimes,” the caller said.
TJ waited to see if she was going to say more. She didn’t.
“Would you like to tell me about the voices?” TJ said. It was an open-ended question focused on repeating what the caller said, designed to get her to speak.
“They’re angry voices. They call me names. They tell me to hurt myself.”
“That sounds like something that would be really hard to deal with,” TJ said softly, trying to validate her feelings.
“Today, the medication isn’t helping. So I started to drink. Now the voices are worse. I thought they’d get better. They didn’t.”
“Joanne, are you thinking about suicide right now?” It was a direct question, and one that the Aquarius procedure called for.
“I have lots of pills. I have a razor…”
Her words were slurred. There was a chance she could fall asleep. There was also a chance that she had already taken the pills or drank enough to kill herself without taking any more action. TJ shifted in her chair and leaned forward, alert.
“Joanne, have you taken more pills than you’re prescribed today?” TJ concentrated on not being judgmental. She wanted to sound like she was gathering information, not making an accusation.
“I took the Risperdal. I also have been drinking vodka, about half a bottle so far.”
That could be dangerous, but probably not fatal. Very much cause for concern, but in her experience on the hotline, TJ had learned about the fine demarcations of suicide fatality possibilities.
“Tell me about the voices,” TJ said.
“They tell me I’m a dirty whore, that I’m a slut for fucking black men. They tell me I deserved to have been raped and beaten. They tell me to kill myself.” She slurred her words badly now, and TJ heard it worsen as the caller’s crying intensified.
TJ swallowed.
“That’s really hard. It must be difficult to live hearing voices.” Aquarius directed the volunteers to strictly use active listening and not to give advice. Sometimes TJ felt foolish and wanted to be more encouraging. Sometimes she felt mentally ill people needed more reassurance.
“I hate myself. I hate the voices. They are right. I am no fucking good.” Joanne started to cry.
“Joanne, were you raped?” TJ felt like it was an important question.
“Yes, three years ago.”
“You didn’t deserve to be raped. No matter what, you didn’t deserve to be raped.” TJ began to feel anxious. She wasn’t confident that she was helping.
“My father said I deserved it for being a nigger-fucking whore.” The slurring had gotten to the point where it was hard to understand her.
“Joanne, that must’ve really hurt.”
Joanne cried into the phone.
“I just want the voices to stop. I don’t want to hear it. I want it to be over forever.”
“Joanne, are you going to commit suicide?”
TJ just heard crying.
“Joanne! Talk to me!”
She continued to cry.
“Joanne, where are your pills?” TJ said.
“They’re right here.”
“That makes me really nervous, Joanne. Can you do me a favor and put them in another room while we talk?” It was a technique TJ had learned to bargain with a suicidal caller. At first it had seemed absurd, but her experience had taught her that some very practical things lessened the chance of a person going through with the act. Simply making the access to the means more difficult often bought the caller more time to talk through it.
