Читать книгу The Blind - A.F. Brady - Страница 10

There is a new patient starting this week. No one wants to work with him. His file is nearly empty, and the rumors churning among the staff have been filling in the blanks with horror stories and nonsense. (He murdered his last counselor; he refuses to do paperwork; he’ll be a nightmare patient.) Even I don’t want to work with him, and I’m the one who takes all the patients no one wants. No one really knows what he’s all about; what’s true, what’s a rumor. He has one of those charts where nothing is clear. He obviously hadn’t answered the questions during the psychosocial evaluations. Most of what was written was garnered from his physical appearance and intake materials. He was definitely in prison; those records are clear. For twenty-some years, although somehow the charges aren’t written in his file. Then halfway houses for years after prison. And now he’s mandated to treatment as a condition of his probation.

We take so much of our power for granted; it only really exists because our patients aren’t aware of their ability to fight against it. And then this guy comes in and starts unsettling everything. I guess I respect him, in a way. I had been napping in my office hoping that something would change, and I guess this guy may be the one to change it.