-one day a month (confessions of a mad man)-

[Bernie (DELETED 4405)]

"In the dark there was madness, truly horrible, rancid-madness and he spoke to me. He did. She did." My head shook left violently, shoulders and arms did too. "He did." I corrected myself.

"Who spoke to you?"
"The wall did. The man in the wall. I swear he was there between the plaster. Let me show you."

I stood from the tan lounge chair. I sat in the same chair every Wednesday. That chair was comfortable. As I walked over to the corner of his office the comfort left me. I grew cold and empty. My hands clammy. The feeling took me back there. To the darkened room. To where I stayed for years.

Unsteady, I pointed up towards a spot in the wall. A spot not within the office but of the memory I was reliving. My room (or cell) was a small confine consisting of a shallow bed, a toilet, a steel door with bars and a locked trap door large enough to exchange a food tray. The food was terribly tainted, and I got no utensils. The warden told me I was not privileged enough to use them.

"Here." I directed again. "He was right here. I'm certain of it."

"Right there, Howard?"
I nodded, "Right where the tape line was covered over with egg shell white. I hated the blue that was there. So I picked at it. The disgusting baby blue, hospital blue. I chipped it away to hear him clearer but they re-painted over the crack. Filled it with paste and painted my room."

"Howard?" The doctor spoke and eyes never left the clipboard in which he wrote upon.
I shook my head to shake away the utter loneliness.

"Howard?"
I gasped. My eyes fluttered and realized I was standing in an office. "Stop that!"
Now he looked up from the paperwork.

"My name is Bernie!" I flipped my lid like a light switch and ranted on. "I told you that. I told you that!" I rushed back to the comfortable chair while wagging a finger towards the man. He was a funny dressed man. He never wore jeans. Always slacks, a button down shirt, and vest. His vest was a busy plaid. I hated his vest. The colors-colors that I couldn't tell if they were green or purple or grey. They all blended together in discontinuous lines. They looked like **** to me. I focused upon his brow. Beneath it lie a pair of thin framed spectacles. I wanted to smash them to pieces, smash them right into his face.

"That is not my name." I slapped the file on his clipboard. It shook in his lap. "My name is Bernie. They told you it was Howard, didn't they? Didn't they!"

He did not move a muscle. He was not frozen into place. He did not look scared. He responded with a challenge, "Are you sure your name is not Howard?"
"Stop that!" I pleaded and covered my ears, closed my eyes. "LA! LA! Stop that! My name is Bernie. My name is Bernie." My eyes swelled. My tongue taste like metal. I jumped and ranted the same lines again. Cupping my ears tighter, humming a tune to make the pain in my head go away.

"Okay. Okay." He gave in and scratched something into the file.
"Okay?"

"Bernie? That is your name." He nodded reassuringly.

A moment of silence passed.
My bones relaxed.
The pain drifted.
I began again.

"He was here. You see the crack? Don't you? He was. He.." I moved away from the doctor and back to into the corner of the room. The corner that mimicked the corner of my confinement. I did hear a voice that night. A voice I was unfamiliar with. It was mine, but I did not know it then. I believed it was a man from the other side of the wall. Although the cellmate there would disagree.

"Bernie?"
"Yes."
"Bernie look at me."
"Yes."

"Where are you now, Bernie?"
"I'm here."
"Where are you?"
"Where I always go on Wednesday. In your office."
"But where were you just then?"
"When?"
"When he spoke to you."

Stillness.

"That will be all for this session."
"Okay."

I left without another word. I left not knowing whether I told him anything. I was supposed to tell him something. Tell him about me. About what happened. Why I was admitted into the Asylum in Gambondale.