The Contortionist's Handbook Read online

  Most people look at an object and see the object, force their hand to copy what their eye sees. But that object is getting filtered through a brain with years of associations to and memories of that object, so they fail. Ask someone to draw a tree and the lifetime of trees in their head says That’s not good enough. That’s why children use symbols. A stick topped with a blast of swirls. Brown crayon, green crayon. Burnt Sienna and Forest Green. Maybe a dozen Fire Engine Red dots, though they’ve never seen a real apple tree, much less had one growing in their front yard.

  The trick is to forget those associations. If you can see the tree upside down, you’re looking at a tangle of unfamiliar shapes. Draw the space between the branches instead of the branches themselves. Most people can draw better than they know, but they can’t turn their amnesia on at will.

  I make the pentagons look harder than they are. I pause for show, double-checking that I’ve drawn five points and five faces, though I don’t need to.

  “Thank you, Daniel.” The Evaluator starts a clean sheet on his yellow pad, shifts in his seat to cross his legs, says, “Now, can we talk about this headache?”

  FOUR

  “Okay.” Eye contact, then shift to mirror him. This part’s easy because it’s all true.

  “You said it started Friday?”

  “Yeah. Near the end of work.”

  “Can you describe it for me?”

  “At first, nothing. It’s a feeling I have. I know it’s coming.”

  “And then after this ‘feeling,’ what happens?”

  “Blue. Anything blue stands out, gets brighter.” I use my hands again. “Then sound like the hum from a dental drill or a wood chipper. Tight and fast so it makes my head hurt. It’s not in any one place. I can’t handle light or noise.”

  “So, it comes on gradually. Does it fade gradually, as well?”

  “No. Once I know it’s coming, it’s about an hour before it hits. Then it stays. When it stops, it’s immediate.” True, true and true.

  “Are there any waves in between, with the pain coming and going?”

  “No.” Pause. “I mean yes, but from the pills. Not on its own.”

  The Evaluator scribbles. I’m watching his notes when he’s not watching me. My answers in shorthand, then columns of abbreviations: PS, PM, xxx—with one circled—HG, HE. Maybe he’s just doodling and will write whatever he wants at the end of all this, in which case I’m finished. Can’t think about that.

  “And you said this lasted four days?”

  “Four days, yeah.”

  “And the painkillers helped?”

  “Sort of. I’d take one, and the pain would fade, then creep back. So I’d take another one. Same thing. I tried to hold off until the pain was at its worst before I took any more, but I couldn’t. So, I’d take two, but the same thing happened. Then three. You can take it from there.” True, true, true and true.

  “Interesting. What you overdosed on was a painkiller targeting the muscles and shouldn’t have had any effect on a migraine. You’ve had headaches like this before, then?”

  “Twice before, yeah,” I tell him. False.

  “How recently?”

  “Over the last couple of years.”

  “When was the last one?”

  “About a year ago.”

  If I’ve had just one, then it’s an anomaly so he’ll look for any Recent Stress or Trauma. And I haven’t told him that my parents—the Fletchers, anyway—are dead, so I’ve got a chance to derail that conclusion before he makes it. My stories have to be solid. I wrote them out six times, every detail of every scenario, careful not to create too much consistency among their circumstances. I want him to conclude that the headaches are infrequent, random, and that I’m aware of my actions and that the overdose was an accident. He’s looking for signs of depression but also for a somatoform disorder—imaginary pain.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It started at work. At the time, I drove a forklift at a loading dock. I hadn’t been there for long, so I wasn’t used to it. The noise in the warehouse was nonstop and my head hurt like a son of a bitch when I got home. I noticed the blue, but didn’t. That make sense?”

  He nods. I continue:

  “I took some aspirin, had a drink and figured it would go away. The next day it was so bad I couldn’t see.”

  “Where were you working?”

  “At a freight forwarders in San Pedro,” without delay. They never existed. I’d forged three pay stubs with different dates, then run them through the wash, and left two in the pocket of my jacket, the other in my glove box.

  “What did you do when it wouldn’t stop?”

  “I went to a clinic to get some painkillers. I’d just started working at the freight dock, so I didn’t have insurance.” False. I had not gone to a clinic complaining of symptoms I did not have just to receive the latter-day version of take two aspirin. Clinics had to be careful about issuing pharmaceuticals to people working scams.

  “Do you remember which clinic?”

  “No. It was some free clinic down in Long Beach.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “They said nothing was wrong, which pissed me off because I never get headaches. Ever. Not even with a hangover. They gave me some Tylenol and told me to come back if it didn’t get any better.”

  “Did you go back?”

  “Yeah.” False. “I said it hadn’t stopped.” False. Sometimes I’ll wrap an ice cube in foil, crush it with my teeth, spit it out. I can score a prescription for Demerol or Vicodin or something, anything, that I can duplicate for a Chinatown pharmacy that doesn’t bother to verify them. “This time, he gave me a prescription for codeine. But I couldn’t use it because I’d been in there until after the pharmacy closed.” False, false, false. “The next day I felt okay, but a little shaky. I hadn’t eaten much for those three days. I never even used the prescription.” It was in my wallet. I’d made a replica, right down to the doctor’s signature, but had to change the name it was issued to, since I wasn’t Daniel Fletcher a year ago. And suicide/ headcase/junkies didn’t keep narcotic prescriptions unredeemed, so that would work in my favor.

  Target conclusion: I had seen a doctor and did not have a somatoform pain disorder. I had done everything possible, within reason, given my circumstances.

  “Was that last headache a year ago as severe as this one?”

  “Not even close.”

  “And how long ago was the headache prior to that?”

  “About eight months before.” I base my story on the truth, mimicking the current frequency.

  “Was it worse? How did it compare with these other two?”

  “It was as bad as this one, but it quit a little bit sooner. Really bad.”

  “So, you had one less than two years ago, then one a year ago, though not as bad. And a severe one that started Friday, correct?”

  “Yeah.” Meaning: They’re not progressive. They’re not getting any worse and there’s nothing to be alarmed at. If I’ve done this right, he’ll want to change subjects at this point. He makes notes, I sigh and rub my eyes.

  “Mind if I step out for a smoke?” I ask. I’ve got a one-in-a-thousand chance he’s got enough confidence to let me out alone, in which case I’m not coming back.

  “Not at all,” he says, “I’ll have Wallace escort you.”

  Outside, Wallace raps with a hospital rent-a-cop, both of them standing between me and the door. We’re on a smoking balcony and there’s a three-story drop between me and the ground. I finish a paper cup of water, light my first smoke in nearly five days, and the flaccid synapses in my head crackle awake, I feel the static between my ears stop, the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree grain-silo information dump that I can’t filter, decipher or contain when I’m like this—it all stops. Sometimes I can be so smart, and sometimes the simplest task is like playing a hundred simultaneous chess games from memory, in the space of minutes.

  What I know: If the Evaluator is married, it
’s to his work. He looks tired behind his glasses, is on his second or third cup of coffee. Middle-aged, idealistic hippie, hence his job within the System instead of a lucrative private practice at his age.

  A workaholic chained to the here-and-now, which makes me his momentary mission in life, which is bad, bad, bad. Perversely, stubbornly idealistic and like every other Evaluator I’ve ever met, evidently incapable of turning his expert scope onto himself.

  “You about ready, sir?” Wallace calls from the doorway. Always says sir. I’m starting to like him.

  “One more, if it’s all right with you. I think I’ll be in there for a while.”

  Wallace laughs, says, “Take your time, sir.”

  I chain a fresh smoke, inhale long, close my eyes and piece together his notebook inside my head. I’m fortunate the Evaluator writes in shorthand so he’s not guarded with his notes. That’s a sign of experience, which tends to be good. He’s methodical, writes in chunks across the page, keeps his abbreviations in segregated columns. The electric spark of knowing cracks in my head and I exhale a stream of smoke.

  Far left, easy: My verbal responses with his abbreviated notes beside a column of numbers. I know the questions—they’re always the same subject and approximate order, so those are his numbers.

  Middle column: Abbreviation codes for patient behavior, my behavior. Eyes, hands, posture, paralinguistics—sighs, volume shifts, etc. HN the moment I said that sleight of hand was a nervous habit. Perhaps Habit, Nervous or Hand, Nervous. Other H notes: HG when I push my hair out of my eyes. Hair/Hand/Habit, Grooming, I think. If H is for hand, then I can nail E for eyes and P for posture or body language.

  The right side: Three x’s, one circled. Never seen that before, but if he knows what he’s doing, he’s clocking my responses and placing them within the context of my answers. I’m guessing xxx with one circled is a before/during/after, nonverbal response key. If I’m right, and it’s some mnemonic-chronology tool, then I’m way ahead of him. I’ll test it out.

  If the Evaluator lives for his work, and I’m his work right now, I could be in trouble. He could go digging deeper than is good for me. He could be doing that right now.

  I grind my cigarette out on the balcony rail, toss it into the roses below, say to Wallace, “He’s probably wondering where I am. Ready when you are.”

  August 18, 1987

  Richard Carlisle, M.D., Ph. D.

  Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health

  Referral assessment of patient Daniel John Fletcher at request of Dr. Brian Lomax, Trauma Center Director at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. Per Dr. Lomax, patient is to be interviewed to evaluate claims of unintentional painkiller overdose and assess potential suicide risk.

  Preliminary Mental Status Evaluation

  I interviewed the patient on site at Hollywood Presbyterian. Patient was groomed and presentable under the circumstances, though looked at least two years older than his stated age of twenty-five. While this could be a result of his emergency room ordeal, I will still attempt to ascertain long-term drug and alcohol abuse.

  Patient said he was “all right,” and his mood and affect is appropriately euthymic. Patient is right-handed (see attached ER report notes on polydactyly). Patient exhibited no outward signs of stress or discomfort. The only fidgeting exhibited was a series of distracted, sleight of hand routines with his cigarettes while I made notes; patient was observed flipping a quarter end over end across the back of his knuckles, back and forth. Otherwise calm and cooperative with the interview.

  Patient is quite lucid and has exhibited initial signs of high intelligence and memory, and performed well on all tests of memory, recognition, direction, orientation, etc. He is fully oriented as to time and place. In all, his Access Level of Consciousness is “Alert,” with an overall Mental Status test score of 30/30.

  Will interview for signs of depression or bipolarism, drug use, and evidence of a somatoform pain disorder.

  -R.C.

  CHRISTOPHER THORNE

  FIVE

  Maybe you stiffed somebody for a lot of cash. Maybe that somebody wears three-hundred-dollar sweatsuits and runs his business in a coded ledger out of a pawnshop back room or pool hall or bar. Maybe you slept with some other guy’s wife while he was doing time. The worst life has to offer doesn’t scare him anymore and he wants to find you when he’s out. Or maybe he’s a career pencil pusher, hairline making a retreat to the back of his skull halfway through his third decade and he’s had one too many anonymous parking lot dings on his precious convertible and been yelled at by his boss once too often and ignored by the waitresses in the short skirts and you are his breaking point.

  You need to disappear. Maybe find somebody your age, with your stats, with no family, friends or police record who’s at death’s door and will sell you his name for a few hundred bucks. But the odds are against you finding someone like that. So you need to work from the beginning.

  Find a name. Check tombstones, obituaries, estate sale Bibles. Find something familiar but not obvious, distinct but forgettable: Norton, Dillon, Harris.

  Occupations: Cooper, Porter, Taylor, Donner, Thatcher, Barber, Farmer.

  Materials: Wood, Silver, Steel.

  Flora: Branch, Fields, Weed.

  Fauna: Wolf, Bird, Crow, Hawk.

  Titles: Sheriff, Sage, King, Pope, Priest.

  Colors: Brown, Black, White, Green.

  A name people have heard before, won’t think twice about, won’t remember. You’re not looking for a baby, you’re looking for parents.

  Get a birth certificate. Write the county registrar. Insist there’s a mistake if they say your birth record isn’t on file. I keep a list of forty-five hospitals and county registrars with pending lawsuits for mismanagement and neglect. Illicit requests slide through because they’re scared of the heat another delay can bring. Sometimes I’m lucky, I’ll be setting up for a change when a hospital registry or county hall of records catches fire. Birth certificate requests take longer, but they never check their authenticity because they couldn’t if they wanted to.

  I can make a birth certificate if I have to. Twenty-five minutes, not counting aging if I don’t have a vintage paper specimen. Strong coffee, tea or chicory, room temperature, soak for one hour. Or leave it taped to a sunlit window for two weeks. Seal it inside a plastic bag with rust scraped from a nail, let the moisture make spots. Heat a bent paperclip, make wormholes. Sodium silicate on a linoleum block stamp for a watermark, because the pencil pushers will always hold it to the light. And be subtle, subtle, subtle. I saw a guy hand his fake to an SSA clerk. His overzealous paper-aging made his job look like an amusement park treasure map. They cuffed him right there, and I doubt he’s out yet.

  Work up a new signature, spend the time to get it right and real. Look through old yearbooks, junk-store postcards, used textbooks, Bibles, antique-store photographs stacked in cigar boxes, fifty cents each. Find the names, the letters, piece together one after the next. High, confident crossbars, forward slants. No underlines, flourishes—too arrogant. Don’t cross over the name or dot an i too low—too subdued. Build it, write it left-handed, upside down, give it its own style, then do it right-handed, practice, practice, practice, repetition, repetition, repetition.

  Then burn every sample and practice signature and every sheet of paper less than ten sheets beneath those practice sheets. Do not throw them away, tear them up or ditch them in a dumpster in another zip code or trust a paper shredder.

  I started doing favors for people. Big mistake. Jimmy or somebody would introduce me with words like forger or counterfeiter, sometimes with expert or master thrown in. Like I should be proud. I hated being introduced to people, and I told them not to use words like that. Whadda we call you, then?

  Told a girl once that I’d wanted to be a contortionist. Saw a guy on TV when I was younger, bend, twist and crumple his body into an airtight box no bigger than a knapsack. Stayed inside for two hours, like he didn’t breathe at
all. When they opened the box, he crawled out slowly like some strange hatching thing, every bone intact and breathing like normal. I can’t explain it, but that seems closer to what I do than anything else.

  Met a guy in a DMV parking lot, said he could get me anything I needed. Probably made his money selling his work to illegal immigrants, but I caught his eye for some reason. I hate when I catch someone’s eye, so I wanted to make sure he never came back. In the passenger seat of his ’77 Cadillac, bigger than God and twice as conspicuous, I choked back the bile from the smell of sweat and fast food wrappers while “Eddie” fiddled with a combination lock briefcase, asked if I was a cop.

  “No,” I said.

  “Anything you need, man, anything. Get you a driver’s license, or clean record if you got a DUI. Check it out.”

  Half pimp, half sideshow barker, he showed me twenty driver’s licenses with Sanchez, Lopez or something, photos of Mexican men all middle height and weight, blank Social Security cards, green cards, immunization documents and baptismal certificates. I rifled through, found a birth certificate that looked solid at first glance.

  “Any name you want, brother,” he started up again, drive-through grease fumes drifting from his glossy pimp shirt.

  “Make you a couple of years older, I can give you a deal,” he said.

  The birth certificate, for a Carlos Mejia born in 1946 in East Los Angeles, was artfully browned with time, all the data intact. I held it up to his windshield for the sun to shine through.

  “Best you can find. I got this partner who’s a real pro at this,” he said.

  The sun hit the paper, dull watermark letters glowed through the page, they said 100% acid free. I tossed it back into his briefcase and got out, shut the door behind me, heavy as a bank vault.