HEART, LIVER AND SOUL

Follow up from New Beginnings.

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
~Thomas Campbell, "Hallowed Ground"


Pindar Institution.

A squat grey old building. Once a general hospital, but now specialising in mental disorders amongst youths.

Not an unkind place… However a state run place and so money isn't so available. Care isn't so available. But damn, it's free. What do you want for nothing? What do you expect? These are the unwanted kids and teenagers. The suicide attempts. The abused… the drug addicts and whores. These are the results of years of neglect by their caregivers and unfortunately usually the neglect will continue even though these unfortunates are meant to be getting the very best care available.

Of course they're not!

One of these guests is a boy of about sixteen… maybe younger, maybe older… who knows. The lad himself surely doesn't know. He just about managed to communicate that his name was Sam and then everything cut out. He closed down. He wouldn't speak or make eye contact. The only way Sam would communicate was with screams and yelps.

He had nightmares… he would wake up clawing at his face and screaming… just a long single pitched scream.

Sam wouldn't connect with a therapist. He wouldn't connect with a social worker who was assigned to him. He was violent, somewhat incontinent… he was a bed wetter and sometimes just didn't seem to realise that he was sitting in a pool of his own urine. He never blinked. He stared ahead all the time. His eyes reacted to light, but he didn't seem to react to sound… They thought he had hearing problems. They thought he had sight difficulties. One of his eyes looked inwards towards his nose.

He twitched, scratched and pinched himself. He had problems using a knife and fork or even a spoon and would rather eat with his fingers. He didn't seem to feel hot or cold and so care was taken when he bathed or had warm drinks. He kept scalding himself, burning his mouth.

Sam comforted himself with masturbation, whereas this wasn't a forbidden act it was discouraged when he was in public places.

'Try to remember to only do that if you are in your bed.' They told him. But it seemed he kept on forgetting.

He never stood with his back to a door or window. He walked sideways if he could with his back pressed against a wall. He spat, bit, kicked and generally causes a commotion when he was asked to take medication. They wanted to stabilise his panic attacks. They wanted him to relax, but relax wasn't something Sam ever did. They monitored him closely because another thing Sam never seemed to do was sleep and this of course was impossible. Everyone had to sleep, but if Sam did, it was with his eyes open… and constantly making odd noises and twitching. Sam's sleep sounds were almost a cry. A soft keening sound.

They had decided what was wrong.

Sam had been found in deep snow, mostly naked, hyperthermia crawling through his bones. Two skiers had seen him and at first thought it was a distorted lump of rock. Then they saw it stumble and move. What they found was a half dead, emaciated creature. They made a travois and dragged him back with them. Sam had somehow made his way into Canada.

Authorities checked missing persons, but nothing popped up on their screens. They waited for him to talk, but the only word he ever said was his name… and that arrived with out an accent. They had no idea where he'd come from. They could clearly see his battered and scarred body. They could see where his arm had been broken and had mended badly. They had to re-break it and try to straighten it again. They filled him with nutrients via a drip in his arm and they did every test available. Brain scans, hearing tests, blood tests. They took samples of his straggly long hair. They showed him pictures of things to try to get him to react and all Sam ever did was cry and scream. It was decided that he was likely the off spring of some one living in the back woods. It was thought that Sam had severe learning difficulties and the word autism was thrown around a bit, but the real problems Sam had they had no idea of. They could see scars on his back. They suggested that he'd been tortured and maybe sexually abused, but they didn't want to cause him distress by checking on that.

Sam was horribly hard to sedate. Nothing seemed to work. Sometimes a strong dose of something in his thigh stopped him from clawing at his face, but it never lasted long. Sam seemed to drag himself down into his own empty sedated world. He didn't need the meds.

Now he was at Pindar. Most of the kids here had severe handicaps. A lot of them were in wheelchairs. Sam could walk, Sam could run… but Sam couldn't tell people what it was he was so scared of. He couldn't tell them why he couldn't look out of a window, or go into a room he'd not been in before.

Sam knew that Floyd was gone. He could feel that terrible empty place inside of him. It was like what small spark of spirit he'd owned had been blown away… ripped out. That miniscule bit of soul he'd been nurturing and holding close and tight and loving and keeping secret… that was gone too… Sam was empty of all emotion other than fear. He knew Iolanda was out there somewhere and he knew that the man was coming after him. He could hear him calling his name in the wind. He could see his face reflecting back at him in windows, on water… he could see his horrible face in the pattern on the floor tiles. He could hear him… 'I'm going to get you boy… you can't hide from me. I ate your father and I'm going to eat his dirty spawn… I'm on my way dog… can't hide from me… I'm going to kill… kill, kill, kill you like I killed Flanders.' And this was the constant Sam now had… the same message as though played on a loop… over and over again… never stopping. The only thing that shielded Sam's ears from the onslaught was screaming.

o-o-o

Initially Spencer returned to the small house with the wrap around porch. Rossi took him home after he'd been in hospital for a few days to check over his physical state, which though he was battered, bruised, malnourished and depressed, there wasn't anything major going on. At least not on the surface. They sent him away with a list of things to eat and some ointment to put on the few open wounds he still had and told him that he should stay with friends for a while.

Spencer laughed at them inwardly but nodded an understanding nod outwardly. Rossi asked Spencer if he wanted to come and stay with him for a while and Spencer turned down the offer. 'I'm OK.' But Rossi knew that he couldn't possibly be OK and more so, if he was then there was something seriously wrong.

'You know where I am if you need me.' Dave told Spencer as they both stood in Reid's lounge and Spencer said that he was very grateful for everything and he sat in his tatty leather chair and stared at the wall.

The following day he drank coffee and then made arrangements to have all of his things taken back to his apartment in the city. He couldn't live here alone. Not here where Floyd had thought they would have a lovely life as a family. A family which didn't exist any longer. Sam had run off that day and into the night and had never been seen again… And so today, three months later, Spencer was in his apartment sitting in his tatty chair trying to think of an excuse not to go out for a drink tonight with Dave.

The man was forever asking Spencer out for a drink. Dave was worried about him, that was obvious, but Spencer wasn't ready.

Spencer wasn't ready to talk to a counsellor or a therapist. Spencer wasn't ready to show talk about his grief and his guilt and his loneliness. He wasn't ready to talk about his plans to end his life and go to what ever dark hole Floyd had ended up in. What he did do every day was walk down to the small cemetery. They'd collected up enough bones to be able to bury something. They'd got there before the head had been removed… small mercy. At least they had a head and some chewed up bones. At least there were a few lumps of soft torn bits to enclose in the casket. Cremation had been suggested, but Spencer had insisted that burial was the only thing which was acceptable. And so every day Spencer went to the cemetery and he sat with his back to the head stone and with a book on his lap and he read… he read poetry and novels and biographies and he described pictures, read news papers and each time there he would leave something. Sometimes he'd leave a sprinkling of herbs… sometimes a small dram of whiskey… or he'd pour out some rose scented water, or maybe just a few tears… He never left flowers. He never left trinkets. One day he found that someone had been there and had laid some roses. It shouldn't have bothered him. He should have been happy that someone else remembered Floyd, but it enraged Spencer. He pulled the roses apart. He tore each petal from the long straight stems and let them be blown away in the wind. Another time someone had placed a white opalescent stone on the top of the head stone. Spencer stood for a while and wondered who would have done that. The only name he came up with was Emily. He didn't know if he was right, but he snatched it from the black of the head stone and threw it as far as he could. He wiped with the cuff of his sleeve over the top of the head stone, trying to get rid of any taint she might have left. Oh yes Emily might have thought she had something special going with Floyd, but was she there that day? Did she see? Did she have any idea? NO! And Spencer wasn't going to accept her sympathy. He wasn't going to accept it from anyone but Rossi and that was still hard to stomach.

Reid wanted to know why Rossi had let Floyd go in that damned place alone. He wanted to know why back up took so long. He wanted to know why Rossi was sitting warm and dry and comfortable in his car whilst Floyd was being torn apart by dogs! He wanted to know why! Why was it allowed to happen! Why did it take them so long to find them? And where is Sam? Why are they not looking for Sam? Why are they saying that this is all now up to the courts to decide. Where the hell… where the living hell did Iolanda go? Why wasn't he arrested? Why isn't he on death row? Why do they only have five people in custody? Why is it all taking so long…?

Today he was reading William Blake… 'The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,'

Spencer sat on a red and black blanket and he lit some candles and he was there until it was almost but not quite dark. Nothing could get Spencer out after dark… nothing.

And so tonight he sat in his chair and he'd unplugged the phone and he'd sat there with the coffee mug balanced on his knee and his eyes red and puffy and he picked at some new sores and scabs on his inner arm between his wrist and his elbow and when he'd finished there he rubbed at his toes and he frowned at the small marks and swore that he'd stop being self destructive… at least until he could score again…

Grief does terrible things to a person's spirit and soul. Spencer was of the opinion that the grief was more destructive than the drugs. The drugs could help him go somewhere else for a while. It could wipe away that tearing ripping feeling in your chest and replace it with soft memories of lovely times. It could take you from the hard spite filled anger to a walk in the forest holding the hand of the man you loved. It could take you from wanting to step out in front of a train to remembering that time in the shower, or in the tub… or talking quietly with the bed covers wrapped around you… it could take you to laying in front of an open fire with a pile of books… reading to each other… It never seemed to take Spencer to the times he was being beaten and abused. It didn't take him to being nailed to a floor or a table or chained to a radiator… he was never rushed away to have someone spitting angry obscene words in his face. He was never taken to be dragged by his hair across the floor… but he did have the orgasmic pleasure of remembering being held by his throat against a wall… He came around from his swirling dreams that time with a howl… and he had to go and change his clothes.

He called Dave.

'I'm sorry… I can't make it. Headache.' It was the excuse he usually made. 'I was wondering if there was any news on Sam?'

There was no news on Sam. He'd run off never to be seen again. 'Are you sure that he got out?' Though Rossi knew he was sure.

'I watched him. I distracted Iolanda so that he could have more time.' And a sigh. 'I remember it.' But maybe he didn't feel so sure about it any more. Maybe it was part of the muddled dreams he was having.

'When he turns up, I'll let you know.'

They'd stopped looking for him? 'You've stopped looking?'

'There's no sign of him, Spencer. The snow… the weather…'

'You think he's dead.' Spencer said slowly.

Rossi sighed. He'd rather talk to Spencer to his face, but that was a pleasure which was becoming harder and harder to get. 'There are a few reasons why Sam might not have turned up. We have to consider them all. Maybe he's hiding somewhere. Maybe he had an accident… maybe he…' Rossi stopped and Spencer could hear him pacing. 'It's not that we don't care, but we've run out of places to look.'

Spencer put the phone down. He didn't want to hear that! It was just not right. They couldn't just stop looking for him! It was insanity. Spencer also paced for a while. He kicked at the small wooden coffee table… he punched at a wall and he left the apartment with a slam of the door, running down the stairs two at a time and getting the train to a dark corner of the world where he could make this damned life go away and the good one come back again… if only for a minute or two…

And he knew that it wasn't real… but make believe was better than this empty reality.

o-o-o

He crouched on the steps and waited. He waited so long that he thought he might have turned into stone… or maybe just a blob of a great nothingness. Floyd was miserable beyond what misery could be classed as. He was pissed off. He was sulking. He wanted to know what was going to happen. Why was he here? Iolanda ripped his heart and liver out; he felt it leaving him. He felt the bastard rip his life away. He saw him through his foggy dark red glowing eyes, walk away with parts of him.

'Ah…' Floyd had cramp again. He wriggled and sat back on his butt and massaged the muscles in the back of his legs and the bottom of his feet and his toes… nine of them. He had a toe missing. Someone took it. Someone took it and put it in their pocket. A souvenir. That person dried it out and punched a hole through it and hung it around their neck like a talisman. It was his little toe from his left foot. Floyd ran his fingers over the lumpy scar and ground his teeth and swore sweet curses under his breath.

His lovely marquee tent was gone. There was a smudge left on the floor. Nothing else. His home in Hades was deleted.

'Because you are dead.' That's what the voices had told him.

'But if I'm dead, why am I here?' He wanted to know. Because really he shouldn't be here. Either he should be with The Old Woman or he should just have stopped existing and this was a puzzle. Why was he here even though Iolanda had eaten his soul.

'We will come back to you on that one.'

There was only one reason. At least only one reason Floyd could think of and that was that Iolanda hadn't eaten part of him. He'd taken it away but never got as far as chowing down on him. In which case his heart and liver were somewhere else.

'Can I go back? Can I look after Spencer?'

There was an invisible shrug, but Floyd felt it. Indecision. They didn't know what to do. They had to consider it.

'But he needs me.'

And the voices told him that if he went back as he was he'd not be the same person. Yes he'd look like the same person and he'd have the memories and Spencer would know him, but with no soul and spirit… well… he really would be just a monster.

'I'm happy for that!' Floyd bounced to his feet. He jiggled from foot to foot… a junky dance. Oh this was it! He needed his fix… he was addicted to that damned Spencer and couldn't or wouldn't carry on without him. 'I'll go to hell with him… but without him, I'm stuck here.'

'Bullshit.' Floyd was told. 'You're just a greedy bastard who wants his pretty treasures.'

Floyd had to agree with that. 'Ah… that too.' He told them… giving some leeway in case he changed his mind.

'Find Sam… he's roaming. Find him then you can have Spencer.'

Oh but that's unfair. 'No! It will be so much better if Spencer and I search for Sam together. Where is Sam anyway? Why is he missing? What happened to him? Why don't you know where he is? Why are you sending me to find him? Where the fuck is Iolanda? I need the chance to…'

'Shut the fuck up, Flanders. You're like an over excited child. Go and rest while we think about this. It's not normal.'

'But you love me! You want to make me happy.' Floyd told them… his excitement was very obvious now.

'Go and relieve yourself… dirty animal. Not here! Get out and do that.'

'You wont forget me? I only had a decade to be with him…. Just ten short wondrous years… I can't afford to waste any sitting around with my hand on my dick. I need to get down there and mend my boy and find Sam… does he need mending?'

'Everything that goes near you needs mending - but you amuse us. Go away… we can't think with you standing there waving your manhood at us.'

Floyd clicked his heels and did a bow. He got down on one knee and he placed a hand on the floor and he then stood up and did a small salute.

'Stop taking the piss and go away.' Now it was just the one voice… and he could hear the wings above him… and he could feel the down draft those wings were making.

'And what about my heart? What about what Iolanda took? Where are they?'

But the lights were out now and Floyd had nothing left to talk to. There was still that excitement though. The thought of going home and finding his Spencer all vulnerable and unhappy and he'd make everything wonderful. He'd do whatever it was that Spencer wanted to be happy. He just wanted to hear Spencer's laugh… see his smiling face… the blood, the screams, the wriggling LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER!

He ran away… 'He ran away and let me be eaten by the dogs. You know if that had been the other way around I would have stood there with him. I would have gone down with him. I would. You know that. Because that's what I did, but Spencer… no… Not Spencer! Spencer ran… like Sam… they both fucking ran away crying and blubbing and left me to be eaten by the fucking dogs. Now who am I more mad with… I think it's about equal. The fucks. All of them. The damned fuckers. I give everything for them. What do I get back? Sod all.'


Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. ~Emily Dickinson