And, like a high school dance, there were elements that blended and that would not. Like the clean-up committee, they stayed on the sidelines waiting for the crowd to thin out and the water to stop before they could leave.
Soap washing off mixing with blood dripping out.
I was having an out-of-body experience. Watching the blood and soap dance and mix, not dance and keep to its own, was hypnotic.
It didn't hurt.
At least I don't think it did.
It could have been the whiskey, it could have been the cocktail of prescription meds I scooped up from the cabinet over the vanity starting to kick in.
It didn't hurt.
In fact, it wasn't until I got in the shower, that I found out I was bleeding.
I shouldn't have been surprised.
They'd started with the drugs--everybody wants clean hands.
I don't know if they were afraid to put their hands on me because of my age, or they just had a thing for needles, but when they finally got ready to work on me, they decided to go straight to the point.
I don't know what they gave me, but I could feel the surge of warmth pour through my body like when they give you a hot towel at the barber, or a warm blanket at the hospital.
That very pleasant feeling was followed almost immediately by the overwhelming urge to pee.
This was their opening strategy, they were going to force me to talk so I could avoid the embarrassment of pissing my pants.
I smiled. I actually smiled at that point and I know it made them mad.
They were trying to be all serious and scary and they were counting on embarrassment.
Comes a point, you live long enough, that stops being a thing: embarrassment loses its hold over you.
It's different for everyone, but you know you've reached that point when you spend a little too much time talking to people young enough to be your grandchild and the hair restoration ads stop being funny.
I was an early victim of embarrassment and it took over my life for a long time. I was embarrassed by everything. And not that awkward embarrassment that comes from being a teenager; I was consumed by the thought that everyone--whether they knew me or not--was consumed by thinking about and judging me. It wasn't until I could walk into that gym and be in command of my own body, not until I knew for certain that it would do what I was asking that I could begin to raise my head and look people in the eye.
Looking people in the eye was a big thing in my house.
My dad said it was a privilege and not a right. You look a man in the eye when you are his equal and not before. You look a man in the eye when you take his life. It's transactional, an exchange: you trade your amateur status for a seat at the big table.
I understand that now, but only because I wasted a lot of time waiting for an invitation. I kept expecting that I would be deemed worthy. All I had to do was collect enough merit badges and I would graduate to the big table. I had buckets of merit and there was never a sear for me: you circle the chairs listening to the music, but when it stops there is never an open seat.
That's what it felt like to be me.
And that was the me that these "professionals" thought they had strapped to that chair: the guy who would roll up his dog rather than piss himself.
I love my dog.
I can always get more pants.
Turns out, my "hosts" had more drugs in their store and they worked through a bunch of them.
They tried several different hypnotics and amphetamines--separately and together--anti-psychotics, pro-psychotics. (Before they got bored and started beating me, I think they were just making shit up the way teenagers experiment with alcohol: a little of this and a little of that.)
It is often surprising to me how and where you learn that benefits of experience. Jim used to say that life is prologue and it took the longest time to figure out what he meant.
At one point, I felt certain that he meant you accumulate skills and experience and like it is some sort of account that you can draw from to confront challenges and identify opportunities. It's only as I have gotten older that I see it as more of a toolbox: you draw on elements and apply them as circumstances demand.
When you're young, the box is small and the tools are inexpensive--they don't hold an edge and they feel rough in your hands. Time goes by, you get better tools, higher quality and, most importantly, you learn how to use them.
During my time at The Farm, we had a whole course on interrogation by drugs. More than anything, this was the course that everyone feared.
You have to remember this was shortly after the war and whispers had been heard about MKUltra. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had gone into the field and come back "changed." We didn't know what had happened or who was doing it, but we all were certain that there was "brain stuff" going on and we didn't want to end up in the produce section.
Nobody was certain where he came from but they had a guy teaching the interrogation course that they "found" somewhere in Europe right after the War.
He was considered such an important asset that nobody knew anything about him.
When you got to The Farm, the first thing you heard was about this class and the second thing was somebody's version of The Instructor's history with the company. Some said he was an asset and others were equally certain he was a penalty--the "cost" of unfettered access to West Berlin.
"Instructor 37" was a name right out of the Saturday morning serials, but it didn't stick. Everyone called him The Beefeater.
He got that name because his fondness for the gin.
Morning, noon, or night, it didn't matter what was going on, or who it was going on in front of, he was never far away from a glass, some ice and a siphon.
The Beefeater was the heavily-accented boogeyman that you told your deepest and your darkest secrets too, whether you wanted to, or not.
They called it a "course" but this was education not in the Socratic sense, but in the same way that birds teach their young to fly--by kicking them out of the nest. You were not going to be given theory, instead they administered the actual drugs and evaluated your responses. If you managed to keep your shit together, didn't freak out too badly on the way down, then you made it to graduation.
Almost everybody did; most of those that didn't it was because of what they said when they were under--usually stuff that hadn't shown up during the checks.
The more time I spent in the field, the more I came to appreciate the value of that experience. It's not until you've had the needle in your arm and heard the words that you swore would never be said come tumbling out of your mouth that you really understand what interrogation can accomplish and at what price.
Spending time with The Beefeater you understand that nobody really says anything under the needle that they weren't prepared to say anyway. The drugs give you the permission to betray yourself and to betray your country.
And, once you understand that, the drugs have no hold on you: you can always get clean pants.
So then they started beating me and that's when I knew I was able to escape.
