Out of the Ruined Place

Moira Keeley

Chapter One

The Doctor glanced up as the door shut behind Gabriel and the nurse carrying Catherine’s baby. He asked himself why he had to do this. Why did this have to involve him? Gabriel had plenty of cold blooded killers on his payroll. Why force him to do it? Yes, he had killed for Gabriel before - but not like this - not someone so innocent, so vulnerable. He contemplated this as his finger slowly pushed up the needle, reducing the fatal dose. Maybe if he just gave her half - in her condition it might kill her anyway - and then again it might not. There isn’t any doubt that even if she didn’t die by his hand Gabriel’s goons would finish her off. But at least that way he could tell himself that she might have a chance. It wouldn’t really have been him. He remembered reading somewhere that when they issue guns to a firing squad, there is always one that is loaded with blanks; that way each man can believe that perhaps his own hands are clean.

He turned to Catherine, told her she wouldn’t suffer. Damn Gabriel.

 

Two men, both in their early thirties, wheeled a gurney into an examining room. They turned toward the medical examiner who was sitting at a cramped desk.

"You still here Jose?"

"Yeah. This double I’m pulling is turning into a triple, nineteen hours on the clock. I’m getting too old for this." Jose was a man of dark hair and complexion. He was in his late forties - and on this night he looked even older, and he looked exhausted. Jose removed his glasses, pinching his nose.

"Amir just called. There’s been another subway fire. He’s been stuck on a train for over two hours. He’s on his way now - walking." He looked over at them. "Another one, huh?"

"The investigator for the DA’s office."

"No kidding? The one that’s been missing?"

"Yup. Joe Maxwell I.D.ed the body."

"Well, I’ll just do the prelim." The M.E. rubbed his neck and shoulder. "I’ve had enough for one night."

"Know the feeling." Carl moved to open the body bag, it was only three quarters of the way closed. "Oh for...the zipper’s jammed. Throw me those pliers, Hector."

"What? City property - defective? What a shock! Think there’s anything that’s issued by the great City of New York that isn’t a piece of crap?" Hector wondered.

"Sure as hell not my paycheck - that’s definitely crap!" Carl returned.

Jose rolled his chair forward, removed a needle from a tray. "No argument here. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I took this job."

They all turned as an Emergency Medical Technician entered; he was tall, a young black man, pushing his way into the already too crowded room. "You folks got room for one more?"

"Ah Jesus!" Carl exclaimed, shaking his head. "We got half the City back logged in our ice box as it is. Man, they’re dropping like flies tonight."

"Whatcha got?" Hector asked him as he followed the EMT out.

Carl and Hector hurried along the corridor after the EMT and out to the parking lot where another EMT, a middle aged man, was unloading a stretcher. He handed a clipboard to Carl, who signed off on the paper work and handed it back to the EMT who tore off his own copy. The younger EMT indicated the body.

"This one’s a real bummer. Crack addict -she had a baby tonight. The little one’s hanging on but her, her heart just gave out. Sad huh? Could have been a new beginning for her."

"You believe this guy?" Asked the older EMT. "Like a kid was gonna make a difference to a crack whore!"

"Do you believe this guy?" Returned the younger man, shaking his head.

Carl and Hector grinned at each other shaking their own heads. "The Bert and Ernie show continues." Carl muttered. They quickly loaded the body onto a morgue gurney and headed back into the building.

"And don’t come back tonight. We’re full up." Carl yelled after them.

The men re-entered the morgue and pushed the gurney into a large and crowded refrigerated room. Carl took the chart from the gurney, complaining about the amount of paper work they had piling up. They moved into the first room via a door that swung in either direction. The medical examiner was standing over Catherine, removing his rubber gloves. Carl walked over to a desk and set down the chart he was holding.

"You can take her. Amir can do the rest. I just can’t keep my eyes open - and my back is killing me." Jose sighed. He made some notes on her chart and laid it next to Catherine’s body.

"I just took some blood and tissue samples." He looked down at her, concerned and puzzled. "She just gave birth, probably right before she expired." He shook his head. "Well, whatever. I’m outta here. You guys can take a break ‘til Amir gets here."

The doctor rolled his shoulders, looking mournful as they wheeled Catherine into the cold room next door. Why did he still let this job get to him?

Carl informed Hector that he had a bottle in his locker. They nodded to each other.

"Sounds good to me." Hector answered as they left Catherine with the rest of the bodies.

 

For a long while the room was silent. Then the sheet over Catherine began to stir. She awoke with her skin prickling, her teeth chattering. She was shivering with cold. She pulled the sheet down slowly, looked around the room. Where was she? She shook her head, trying to focus. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened to her. The last few days and nights came back in bits and pieces, very unclear. What she did remember was that she was in danger - a captive. Catherine pulled the sheet the rest of the way off of her - tried to sit up. She fell back - rested a minute - tried again. This time she succeeded. She pushed herself off of the gurney, sending the clip board to the floor. She picked it up but was unable to focus on the words written on the papers attached to it. She looked around her in growing horror as she realized that the other occupants of the room were no longer alive. Where was she?

She attempted to walk, her gait very unsteady. She leaned herself against another gurney, the clip board in her hand falling onto the body. There was a white plastic bag with the name of a hospital on it in front of her. The contents were half spilling out. Clothes! She looked at them and then hesitated, pulling down the sheet of the occupant. It was a woman of about her own age with light colored, mid length hair. She too, was wearing a hospital gown. Catherine’s focus shifted in and out, her legs felt numb. But she was determined. She took the plastic bag and pulled out the personal effects. She struggled into the clothing: loose fitting pants, shirt and sweater of a very cheap make - worn looking and stained - and an inexpensive pair of sneakers. Catherine had to lean against the gurney to hold herself up; a couple of times she nearly blacked out. But she wouldn’t let herself. She was going to get out of there.

She stuffed her hospital gown into the bag and tucked it under her arm, making her way toward the door. She stopped when she heard voices. Carl and Hector were talking over the drinks they had poured themselves in paper cups. Amir had just arrived, already worn out and frustrated from his subway experience. They were commiserating about their heavy workload. Catherine headed in the opposite direction. She found a hallway and half supporting herself against the wall, she made her way down the corridor as quickly as she could. It led to an outside door. She drew in her breath as she came out into the chilly night air. Freedom!

She started down the steps, but her feet slid out from under her; she landed on a step, pulled herself up, and continued on down the stairs and then on down the street. Her determined focus began to dissipate. But she had to put distance between herself and her captors. She made decent progress at first, not traveling in any particular direction but away from the morgue. She tried to speed up but soon slowed her pace, becoming more and more disoriented. She could not remember what it was she was trying to get away from. She dropped the bag she was carrying. She began walking into objects - a mailbox, a garbage pail. But she kept moving as the panic inside her gained momentum. Where was she going? What had happened to her? Her skin itched. She had pains in her stomach. She staggered, fell, picked herself up again - kept moving. A car screeched to a halt. She was in the middle of a roadway. She attempted to cross the street but veered off to the side and tumbled over again. A man came to her aid. Frightened, she pulled herself up and struggled toward the sidewalk. She had almost no control over her legs now; she was so tired, so confused. But she had to find...something. There was something she needed to do. She rested for a moment on the sidewalk and then tried to rise. She was unable. She lost consciousness.

When she came to someone was talking to her but she couldn’t understand the words. Someone was patting her face, was trying to lift her, take her somewhere. No. Had they found her? Were they taking her back? She roused herself just as she had in the morgue. She started to fight - to fight with everything Isaac Stubbs had taught her. She punched, kicked, scratched, bit. Someone turned her over, handcuffed her hands behind her back and held her to the ground with their knee in her spine.

"62Adam to Central - requesting a bus at this location for a violent mental aided." She heard someone say. She continued to struggle but it was useless. She felt other hands being placed on her, holding her down. She gave up as the voices and the lights faded away.

 

The days, weeks, months ran into each other. They were hazy, disconnected, incoherent - filled with injections to keep her quiet, to keep her from fighting. She seemed to remember someone shocking her with electricity. She remembered the endless needles, the way her mind slid in and out of conscious thought. She knew they had kept her in restraints much of the time. She remembered little else.

She did not seem to be able to speak. She had tried a number of times but no words came. And she did not like to be touched - could not stand it actually. But she had learned that if she fought them, tried to get them to take their hands off her, they would drug her. So she endured it, screaming inside, but maintaining a calm composure outside.

She had a vague memory of Christmas; of sad looking decorations and tarnished tinsel garlands lining the sterile hallways while piped in Muzac played the same loop of nondescript Christmas carols over and over. She knew it was cold outside. It snowed pretty often. They eventually let her sit in the common room. She stared out the dim, wet windows at the rooftops below their floor as the accumulation mounted. The snow turned from white and glittering to black and sooty in a matter of hours. They mostly left her alone now, to stare out at the weather. As long as she cooperated - as long as she did what the staff told her to do - as long as she let herself be led. As long as she swallowed their pills which they handed her in small, ribbed, white paper cups. But she began to think of ingenious ways of getting rid of them - the pills. She held them under her tongue and then disposed of them later. Words became clearer to her. She began to understand the conversations of the nurses and doctors, some of the other patients even - those who were coherent.

But she still sat quietly by the hour, looking out of the window at the buildings surrounding the one she was contained in. She was quiet, biding her time. It would be nice if she had a name. She didn’t. Some of the nurses called her honorifics like dear and honey but she knew these weren’t meant as endearments. They just didn’t have a name for her. Why would they? She didn’t have a name for herself.

Sometimes she tried to imagine who she was. She was a princess locked in a tower. She was a news reporter working on a story. She was an heiress whose relatives were trying to steal her inheritance. She made up happy endings to these scenarios. The relatives were found out and an honest lawyer came to take her out of this place. Her editor finally appeared to tell her that it was time to go, that she had done enough research. Her prince arrived. He wore a black cape and had long golden hair and he carried her out through the window, but she could never quite see his face.

Sometimes they brought her in to see the doctor. He didn’t speak to her. What would be the point? She couldn’t answer. He mostly just sat across a table from her and caught up on his paper work. Once he asked her if she could write, even gave her a pencil and paper - and she did try to, but she found she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t control the pencil. She wasn’t surprised. She knew she couldn’t read either. There were some magazines in the common room. She had tried to read but found the letters jumped about, skittered off the page when she tried to organize them in her mind. She suspected it was the drugs. But she was almost drug free now. Had her mind then, been permanently damaged? Would she ever be able to read again? She knew she used to, because she remembered words from books. She didn’t remember anything else. But she knew a lot of poetry. That’s another thing she did as she kept watch at the window. She recited words to herself - all sorts of words.

But mostly she just watched; watched and waited. She knew there was a locker room where the staff changed from their street clothes into their work uniforms. Valentines Day came and went. This time they decorated the hallways with wrinkled lace dollies and crumpled cupids that looked like they were manufactured at the turn of the century.

Still she sat in her corner - speaking to no one, quiet as a mouse; a little mouse. Then her time came. There was a fight between several patients in the common room - a knock down drag out. All hands on deck. The staff descended upon the scene from all directions. The main door was left unlatched. She quietly slipped out and down the hallway. She had noted the door the staff emerged from when they came on duty. She found herself standing in a locker room. Most of the lockers were locked; but she systematically moved down the rows of compartments - some were unsecured - some contained clothing. She finally opened one with an entire ensemble: coat, scarf, gloves, hat, galoshes. Pay dirt!

She quickly pulled on the outer ware over her hospital issue garb. She wrapped the scarf high, pulled the hat low being sure to tuck her hair into it. She headed for the exit. There was a heavyset man behind a metal grate reading a paper. She deliberately made enough noise so that he would look up.

"Leaving early tonight Dolores?" She nodded, waved her hand in a gesture of goodbye, kept her face averted. He buzzed her out.

She was surprised to find that the facility she had been incarcerated in was not entirely occupied by psychiatric patients. She had merely been in one ward that took up one floor of a hospital. She entered an elevator and rode to the bottom. She left the building through the ER entrance. She was free!

Her feet swam in the galoshes, they were meant to be worn over shoes; she had been wearing only slipper socks. She shivered in the extreme cold. "The very dead of winter". She walked fast away from the building. She had meant to shed the coat as soon as she could in case a notification had been put out over the air for officers patrolling the area. But it was too cold. She would have to risk it. She kept to the shadows - skirting the buildings and alleyways. It was almost morning when she had found a drop box for clothing outside of a church. She dug through a black plastic bag someone has dumped there full of unwanted clothing. She found another coat. It was a man’s coat: too large, ugly. She was hardly in a position to be choosy. She exchanged the coat for hers, or rather, for the nurse’s. She pulled on an old pair of black jeans over her hospital pants. She was moving again.

She walked without taking note of any particular direction. By dawn she was in another part of the City, walking north along Central Park West. The park was on her right, residential buildings on her left. She hesitated at one, then passed it by. She had no place to go, no one to go to. She was free. But she was alone.

 

The first couple of days were the hardest. She found that she was not welcome in the area of the City where she felt most comfortable. City Police and private security officers and even building doormen didn’t allow oddly dressed citizens to loiter in the more affluent areas. She was forced into the less secure areas of the City. She drifted uptown; there she found soup kitchens, churches, and out reach centers. She survived as well as she could. Some hospitals and cafeterias deliberately left unopened milk and orange juice containers sitting outside their back entrances. There were restaurants that handed out whatever was left in the pot, any uneaten bread to the homeless people who occupied the City in horrendous numbers.

Her first week out she was grabbed and dragged into an alley by a man who intended to sexually assault her. He picked the wrong target. She smashed an empty beer bottle over his head, left him to bleed in the alley. She never looked back.

But she had learned something. Better not to be conspicuous. Better to keep her head down and her eyes averted. She noticed that the youths who loitered around stores looking to lift items all wore the same thing: a dark colored, hooded sweat shirt. When you pulled the hood over your face and the sleeves over your hands the store owner or any other concerned citizen would be unable to identify you later, couldn’t even tell your race or sex. That was what she was seeking - anonymity - invisibility.

At her first opportunity she obtained one of these from a woman, a homeless advocate, who stood on the street corner giving out warm clothing and trying to make a difference. She tried to speak to Catherine. But Catherine had no words, and anyway, what could the woman have done to help her?

Catherine had spent some of those first really cold nights in the shelters that dot the poorer neighborhoods. But they were noisy, violent places; they reminded her of the psychiatric ward. She only patronized these on nights when the wind flew around the corners where she huddled; when she felt she might otherwise freeze to death - when her feet and nose had gone numb, when her hands were too stiff and raw to bend, when her skin stung with the freezing temperature and she felt sure that she was never going to be warm again.

But mostly she wandered the City, her coat buttoned on top of her oversized black hooded sweat shirt which she pulled down over her face, the sleeves flapping over her hands; shrouded, anonymous, a nobody in a City of Somebodies and nobodies. She wanted employment. But couldn’t imagine what she could do that anyone would find worth paying for.

Well, one thing. But she wasn’t going to do that. The women of that profession congregated on the corners in clusters. She passed by them often enough. They mostly ignored her until one of their number had overdosed in an alley. Catherine couldn’t call 911; instead she ran to the corner, signaled to the women, they followed her into the alley, called an ambulance for their co-worker.

After that they all had a friendly word for her as she quietly walked past them. Sometimes they bought her a sandwich and a soda at the corner Deli. They laughed at her, told her they could make her over, told her she could sell what they sold. Catherine would just smile and shake her head. They were sure she was simple minded, not quite right in the head. They felt sorry for her. Even with their lives in the condition they were in, they took the time to feel sorry for someone they deemed to be worse off than themselves. Catherine was somewhat horrified by their rough speech, their bold words, but she was amused too - and touched by their concern.

She found a job though; for a while anyway. She had been standing in an alleyway when she witnessed a restaurant dishwasher being fired. He had been slouching outside the kitchen door smoking a joint. The manager of the restaurant stormed out, fired him on the spot. Catherine gathered her courage right there and then. She approached the man, gestured that she could wash dishes. He told her he would try her out.

It was hard work. But Catherine found that she was a hard worker. One of the waiters dubbed her Chica on her first shift for lack of a better name. It stuck. The manager would hand her cash at the end of each night. She was excited. She was earning money! She thought it would be nice to have a bed to sleep in. But when she rented a room in one of the cheap hotels in the area she awoke scratching the next morning - bed bugs. She arrived at the restaurant early and washed her hair out in the utility sink in the back. She went back to sleeping outside, on the subways, anywhere she could find a place to rest.

After about a week she tried again. She had noticed, in her wanderings through the City, some hostels on 94^th Street. They were mostly occupied by foreign students visiting the City. Catherine was surprised to realize that she knew French almost fluently - that she had a little Italian and German too. She could even pick up a word here and there in Dutch. Where had she learned all this?

The hostels were cheap and sparse and you had to share a bath, but they were clean. For Catherine they were paradise and whenever she could scrape enough money together she would check in and stay till check out time - enjoying the clean sheets on the bed and taking several hot showers.

The job only lasted a few weeks however. The owner came in one night. He was a middle aged man with a loud voice - paunchy and bald with a comb over. He looked her up and down. The other kitchen help, the chefs, the waiters, all knew Catherine couldn’t stand to be touched. She just about jumped out of her skin if you got too close. They respectfully kept their distance from her. She was quiet and hard working and she was helpful if you needed an extra pair of hands.

But the restaurant’s owner didn’t know this when he eventually showed up, didn’t know or didn’t care. While Catherine was busy at her work he came up behind her and put his hand where it didn’t belong. She turned the hose, the steaming spray of water she was using, into his face. She whirled around and struck him with the large plate in her hand, sending crockery flying everywhere, and her molester sprawling against a counter where he struck his head, then sank to the floor, semi-conscious.

She looked around at the open mouthed kitchen help. ‘They’ll call the police’ was her first thought. They would find out who she was - an escapee. They would lock her up again. She sprinted for the door. No one stopped her. Understandable why she had been locked up in a mental facility. She had wondered why. Now she knew. First the man in the alley, now him - she was dangerous.

Catherine crouched in an alleyway. If she could have she would have cried; but she had taken crying off the menu. Since she had come to herself in the hospital she had refused to allow herself the luxury of tears. Now she just didn’t cry - period. Better that way, better to be too numb to feel.

But what to do now? They would be looking for her. But she had no name; maybe the owner would just chalk it up to a lesson learned. Somehow she didn’t think so. She dared not linger in the area for fear of being recognized and arrested.

So she rose up, headed south for the other end of the City. She made her way down Seventh Avenue. It was an hour before dawn when she approached Central Park. She stood on the broad sidewalk bordering the park and absently dug her toes into the crevices between the irregular, worn cobble stones. The cobbles were probably placed there well over a hundred years before. The park was deserted at this hour. The many and varied trees stood dark and still. The tall, thin, black lacquered lamp posts had the look of another century; they glowed with a sharp, bright light, casting eerie shadows on the giant, dark glacial rocks that hovered over the winding pathways. She took the path closest to Central Park West. She passed under the many intricately craved stone and brick bridges that span the walkways. She passed the playground where the stone hippos serve as climbing apparatus for the children who visit the park. She passed the swamp that runs into the reservoir.

And twenty blocks south of her, Vincent, returning below, stood and lent against the tunnel entrance wall, gazing back into the park. His night’s sojourn was over. "I am here at the gate alone." He could hear the bird song warning of the coming daylight. Yet he stayed still, listening, loath to leave. It was not the odor of flowers, the heavy, heady fragrance of new blossoming lilacs that hung in the air that held him there. Suddenly and inexplicitly - he had a sense of expectation. Something was coming his way. Something beyond hope, greater than anything. He remembered a poem of Tennyson’s, and he believed it was the scent of spring blossoms that had reminded him of it. Vincent breathed in the failing night air, then turned and entered the tunnels as the dawn began to light the morning sky. And twenty blocks above him, Catherine paused, sat on a park bench, and listened to the poetry in her own head.

There has fallen a splendid tear, From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near; And the white rose weeps "She is late;"

The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;" And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread,

My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would her hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.

 

The first joggers had begun to appear; and the early risers walking their dogs. The park drives were still closed and Catherine could still enjoy the quiet peace of this place, so remote from the City streets.

This City! She stood before the great lawn, riven to the spot. Delacourt theater with Belvedere Castle looming in its rear were behind her. Shakespeare in the Park. She was certain she had seen some of the performances. And the New York Philharmonic, they performed concerts on this great lawn. She listened to the imaginary music playing as the sun came full up - warming her. It was not actually a memory, she remembered no specific time she had heard it. She merely had a feeling of having been there.

She turned and walked a little further south to the Ramble, a secluded, wild growing area of the park. She lay down on one of the massive gray rocks and fell asleep. The sun was nearly overhead when she awakened late in the morning. She picked herself up and headed east toward Fifth Avenue. She found a seat in back of the Museum and made herself comfortable. She counted what little money she had left.

Well, if she found one job she could find another. She hoped. There was a sax player performing for spare change under the bridge near her and she sat and listened - captivated. Then she noticed a small, round red pin lying on the ground. She picked it up, smiled. It had a capitol M on it. Was it the color of the day? She looked around her. Yes, she saw other pedestrians with the same colored pin. When you paid the suggested entrance fee to the Metropolitan Museum of Art they gave you this pin to wear. Why not?

Catherine walked out onto Fifth Avenue. She felt exposed, but no one noticed her. She stopped at a pretzel vendor. The twisted bread wasn’t cheap, but it was large. Catherine had gotten used to subsisting on very little. She sat on the Museum steps and made a meal out of her pretzel. Then she picked up her large, fake designer bag - she had purchased it from a sidewalk vendor for five dollars - and slung it over her shoulder; it contained everything she owned in the world. She hooked the pin onto her shirt, ran her fingers through her hair, and entered the museum. The guards unconcernedly searched her bag, then ushered her through.

She knew just where she was going. She moved to her right - heading directly for the Egyptian section. And she knew what she was going to see before she turned each corner. She spent the early part of the afternoon near the Temple of Dendur, then she headed upstairs and across the museum to European Paintings. Again, she knew just where she was going - past the little Degas ballerina to the room that housed the Van Goghs. She sat on the bench and just looked around her, Cypress trees, Sunflowers (they still made her heart pound), a child learning to walk.

For the second time in one day she contemplated the beauty and wonder of this City. Yes, she was homeless, friendless, just one of the City’s countless cast-offs. But here she sat among some of the greatest paintings ever painted. They belonged to her as much as to the obviously wealthy patrons who drifted by her wearing designer clothing. She stared into the eyes of the self-portrait. Vincent was poor too, almost homeless himself at times - if it hadn’t been for Theo...yet he saw so much beauty in the world. She walked around to view the other paintings. She smiled at what she knew to be his signature -Vincent - written in bold letters. Vincent! The name resonated.

Catherine stayed in the museum till closing time. As she was leaving a private party was just coming in, congregating in a large gathering by the main door. She had her head down as she always did yet she looked up just as she was moving through the exit. A fashionably dressed woman near her started, the color draining from her face. Catherine continued on out of the museum. She heard a man behind her say,

"Jenny, Jenny are you all right?"

She almost stopped, turned around. There was something about the look on the woman’s face that had caused Catherine’s stomach muscles to contract. She hurried down the steps however and away from the Museum. Yet as she turned into the Park she began to wonder if maybe she should have stopped. Perhaps the woman knew her. Somebody must. But she kept walking, unsure, frightened. What had happened to her? Why was she so afraid all the time?

She wandered aimlessly then, looking up to find herself at the entrance to the zoo. She stood studying the bronze animals above her; a hippo, bear, goat and other animals all decorating a clock tower. She imagined them moving, twirling, and those monkeys on the top, she could see them in her mind’s eye - hitting the giant bell. Then amazingly, the clock began to chime and the animals did exactly those things. She laughed, clapped her hands. How could life be so frightening and so wonderful all at one time? She sat on a bench and waited for the half hour, then the hour to pass -so she could watch the animals dance again. Had she come here as a child? She was sure she had. There was something magical about the place, something of childhood innocence. Eventually she rose from her seat, walked south through the park, passing the pond where the children sail their boats. But it was coming on toward evening and everyone was leaving, the pond abandoned to the birds and squirrels. It was time for her to move on as well. But she would have liked to have stayed.