My Funny Farm - Chapter 25 – Life is a Funny Farm

 

My Funny Farm

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 25 – Life is a Funny Farm

 

Darn it all!  I wasn’t supposed to have to worry about things like this.  In fact, I wasn’t supposed to have to worry about anything at all.  Now look.  This poor excuse for a diaper was not just soaked with pee-pee, but I had a load of poo-poo in it too.  And I was still waiting for them to bring me a new one.  Where were those darn staff members when you needed them?  They only seemed to be around when you didn’t need anything.

“Hello Craig.”

I looked up to see one of the male prison guards standing in my open doorway.  But the best thing was the diaper he had in his hand.

“You asked for this?” he said politely.

“Yes!” I said as I got up from my bed and hurried to the door.

He seemed startled as I got close.  “Oh my,” he said.  “You…uh…smell a bit.  Can you handle it yourself?”

I couldn’t believe he would even ask.  He must have been one of the new ones who hadn’t grown overly lazy yet.  “I’ve got it,” I told him, even though I’d rather that someone else would take care of it for me.  That’s what was supposed to happen.  That’s what used to happen before I got shoved back into this lousy place.

Ten minutes later, I was happily enjoying the fresh diaper, when my little room got invaded by James, Ashley, and that detective, Kinsley.  Visitors!  At least I had a fresh diaper under my pants and didn’t smell so bad anymore.  The moment Ashley saw me, she ran to me and enveloped me in a huge hug.  “Oh Dad,” she said.  “I’m so sorry!”

“Yeah,” I agreed with her.  “I don’t want to be here.  Why am I here again?  I was just starting to get used to everything at home.”

“No you weren’t,” she replied.

“Yes, I was.  I was starting to enjoy it.”

“No,” she said.  “You only thought you were enjoying it.”

How would she know if I was enjoying something or not.  I was!  End of story!  I looked to the others.  “What’s going on?”

“Dad,” James said, “I’m sorry.  When you told me there was a conspiracy against you, I kind of blew you off.  I didn’t believe you.  But as it turns out…”

“You mean there really was something?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” Detective Kinsley confirmed.  “And I’m afraid it turned out to be much worse than anyone realized.  We’re here now to fill you in, and hopefully it will help to set you straight on a few things.”

She set her laptop computer on the small dresser in my room.  As she was getting things ready, I turned to James.  “Uh…son,” I said.  “I’m sorry, but before I left home I decided that maybe you aren’t the best person to be handling my affairs.  I mean, Bill is a professional, so I going want to change everything over to him.”

I expected him to be angry.  Instead, he said.  “Let’s see how you feel about that after you see some of what we’re going to show you.”

The detective started the video playing, and I was shocked to see my nursery back home.  “Who was taking the pictures?” I asked as I saw myself crawling after Nichole into my bedroom.

“It was a hidden surveillance system,” James told me, just as I watched myself suddenly fall to the floor.  I was shocked.  “What happened?  I don’t remember falling like…”  I looked closer.

“I thought she killed you,” Ashley told me.  “Keep watching Dad…and listen!”

Kinsley swapped that video for another one that showed me strapped down to the changing table with my legs tied way up over my head.  Nichole was trying to shove something in my ass.  “There!” I said excitedly.  “I told you she was doing things to me.  I don’t know what the hell that thing is but it was big!”

“It’s called a tunnel plug,” Kinsley explained.  “It’s a hollow cylinder made to keep your sphincter wide open.  You literally can’t stop yourself from defecating, and you can’t feel it happening either.”

The video suddenly switched to show her standing back with her cellphone, and suddenly the me in the video was going mad with pain.

“Oh Dad…” Ashley said.  “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.  She was killing you and nobody believed it.”

“I believed it,” I told them.  “That thing hurt!”

“I’m sure it hurt,” Kinsley told me.  “But not as much as the things she did to you that didn’t bring you physical pain.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied.

“Here,” she said as she pulled up another video.  “This one you’re going to have to listen to carefully.”

I suddenly saw myself lying on the couch with my head in Nichole’s lap.  She was talking to me.  I listened closely and heard her telling me one thing at a time all about how I wanted to be a baby, and then how I would only use the words pee-pee and poo-poo, and that I would love playing with the toys, and…the list seemed to go on and on.

“Now listen carefully!” Kinsley suddenly said.

I paid attention to the video again and heard Nichole telling me all about how I would only think of James as a young boy from now on, and that he wasn’t qualified to handle my financial affairs.  I would want Bill to do that instead.”

Kinsley stopped the video.  “That’s why you suddenly wanted Bill to do it.  Because Nichole told you to want it.  Not because James isn’t qualified.  In fact, if you can still use what little reasoning is left in your head, you’d remember that your son James is far more qualified than Bill is.  But don’t worry, Bill won’t ever stand a chance of touching your money.  He’s going to jail for a very long time.  Along the Nichole, Michael, and Bill’s lawyer who drew up the paperwork and demanded a cut of all your money they planned on extorting from you.”

“Extorting?” I asked.

That’s what this was all about.  And it turned out that Nichole has quite a history of defrauding people out of their money.  The family set that nursery up for you in good faith, trying to help you.  But Michael and Nichole got other ideas on how to use it against you.  Then they brought in Bill to help them.  It wasn’t your entire family against you, just Bill, Nichole, and Michael, oh, and their lawyer.  Emily and Caitlin started crying the moment I began showing you this.  They both were doing it out of their love for you.  Like I said, Nichole though had a long history of using hypnotism to steal people’s money.

I was still trying to understand it all.  Most of it I didn’t remember happening so Kinsley was kind enough to play a segment of Nichole telling me I wouldn’t remember being hypnotized at all and that I wouldn’t  even consider Nichole capable of doing such a thing…which is just what I had thought about her.

Still confused, I asked.  “What happens now?”

“Now?” Kinsley said.  “Now you stay here and let the doctors work with you until you’re well again.  Then…I guess that’s up to you.”

Let the doctors work with me?  I didn’t have much faith in the doctors in that place.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Kinsley, James, and Ashley sat down at a conference table with two of the center’s doctors and the primary administrator.

“I’m Charles Lackley,” the administrator told them.  The head of this facility.  “You demanded to meet with me and our entire staff of doctors, but I’m not going to call any of them in here when I see no reason for it.  In any case,”  He pointed to a very young looking man at the table.  “That is Doctor Jasper.  He is the one who has been assigned to your father’s case in the past.”  He pointed at a female doctor sitting next to Jasper.  “Doctor Hasfell was in the hall and was kind enough to agree to attend this meeting as well.  Mr. Bryson has been here before.  We know all about his condition, which is only that he wants to commit suicide.”

“Guess again,” Kinsley told them.  “I think you’ll all change your mind as soon as you see some of what I’m about to show you.  And just so you understand, all of what you’re about to see has been entered as criminal evidence for the court system.  The only reason we’re allowing you to see this much is because it’s necessary for you to see it for Mr. Bryson’s mental and medical needs.”

“Criminal?” Lackley asked.

“Very!” Kinsley told him.

She turned her laptop so that they could see the videos and started at the beginning.  It didn’t take long until both doctors and the administrator appeared to be very concerned.  When the videos she allowed them to see ended, Kinsley said, “That woman, Nichole, ran a systematic course of hypnotic conditioning on him, three days a week, three times each day.  And worse, as you can see, she presented those ideas to him in such a way that they were completely logical, and so that he would want to accept them before she even told him what her ideas were.  According to my sister who is Mr. Bryson’s usual therapist, hypnotic conditioning like that can often leave residual effects in someone, even after they’re told not to follow those instructions anymore.”

“From what we saw, Doctor Hasfell noted, she did indeed manage to get him to the point where he would be declared incompetent.  We saw that he can’t read hardly anything anymore, and he can no longer count either.  It’s ludicrous!”

“And she had a longer list of instructions she was planning on sticking into his head,” Kinsley told her.  “We just got there before she could get to them all.”

“It’s a good thing too,” Jasper agreed.

“Mr. Lackley,” James said.  “I’m very sorry, but my father has absolutely no faith at all in the doctor you assigned…Doctor Jasper here.  I’m sorry,” he said to the doctor, “but that’s simply the way it is.  He has mentioned it to us a number of times.  My father is old enough now that to him, you look like you’re still in high school.”

The doctor seemed upset.  “I’m a well qualified…”

“Stop Jasper!” the administrator said quickly.  “There are a few things we need to consider here.  First of all, if the patient and the family feel they want a change, then we should look into it.  But more than that…”  He pointed at Kinsley’s laptop.  “According to that video we just saw, her big trigger phrase to drop him into a trance is obviously ‘Nichole says to go night-night.’  We should consider that and then build from there.”

“But we would probably need the woman, Nichole, to say it,” Jasper pointed out.

“I was considering a different approach Lakley told him.  He turned to Hasfell.  He doesn’t know you does he?”

“I doubt it,” Hasfell replied.  “I never worked with him or even met him.  “I’ve got my own patients to see.”

“What if we told him your name is Nichole,” Lackley asked.  “Do you think you could work with that?”

She considered that.  “Maybe,” she admitted.  “But let me be clear, hypnotizing him again should probably be a last resort.  As his therapist pointed out, there are still residual affects to consider.”

“Let’s go with it,” Lackley decided.  He turned to Kinsley.  “I take it we can have access to work with the patient now?”

“Yes,” Kinsley replied.  “The more, the better.  I just felt you needed to see some of the evidence in this case before you did.”

“And you were right!” Lackley agreed.  “What she did while he was away from here has taken things into an entirely different direction.”

“There’s one other thing as well,” Kinsley added.  “It may or may not be true, but I have no evidence either way to say that his initial interest in suicide wasn’t caused by Nichole.  She claims she didn’t, but as I found out, I can’t believe a single word she says.”

Lackley didn’t look happy.  “We’ll take that into consideration.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

After seeing those videos, I had a lot to think about.  My mind was completely confused about everything in my life.  What was true?  What wasn’t?  Everything I felt…everything I thought…seemed absolutely true.  I did enjoy being a baby.  I did enjoy playing with all the toys.  I wasn’t the least bit interested in trying to control when I went pee-pee and poo-poo, and I enjoyed that aspect of it too.  Why should I need to read anything if everyone else would read the stories to me.  And what the heck was wrong with the way I counted?  It was perfect!  I could prove it by counting my fingers.  What were they all talking about?  It was so frustrating!!!

And then one of the staff members came and dragged me down to where the doctor’s offices were.  I was surprised when they brought me to a different room than I usually went to. 

“Mr. Bryson,” the woman in there said brightly as I walked in.  “Hi.  I’m Doctor Nichole and I’m very glad to meet you.”

Nichole?  Doctor Nichole?  What was going on here?

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

I was in that behavioral center for four months.  Four very long, very frustrating months.  James, Ashley, Caitlin, and Emily came to visit me often though.  All of them showing me more love than I ever remembered feeling from them before.

During one of Caitlin’s little visits, I finally got the courage to ask her something that concerned me very much.  “Caitlin,” I said.  “Something happened at home not too long before they pulled me out of there.  Something between you and Bill.  You said you had been to the doctor, but there was nothing wrong.  I got the impression though that something is wrong.  What’s going on?  Can you tell me?”

She smiled.  “Oh Gramps.  We just didn’t want you to worry about anything.  That’s all.”

“So you do have a problem?”

“Not the kind you think,” she said.  “Gramps…I’m pregnant.  And now, I doubt Bill is going to be around anymore.  Not only will he be going back to jail after his trial, but I’m going go divorce him as well.  I’m going to have to bring my baby up by myself.”

I looked at her.  “Not by yourself.  “I’m going to be there for you too.”

She hugged me.  “Thanks Gramps.  That’s what Emily said too.”

There was another visit from James shortly after that where he told me that they were in the process of putting my bedroom back just the way it was before they turned it into a nursery. 

“Don’t change it!” I told him.  Leave it just the way it is.”

“But Dad, why?”

I had to explain it all to him.  And I was the one with mental difficulties?

When they finally let me out of there, they weren’t happy with my progress, but I was.  In fact, I was more than happy.  Yes, I could read again, although I wasn’t that interested in doing it.  And yes, I could count properly again.  You want to know what straightened me out as far as counting?  A clock.  A simple clock.  But that clock was tied directly to when they allowed me to have a fresh diaper to change myself.  Remember those numbers that Nichole told me didn’t really exist, four and nine?  Well, the only time I was allowed to ask for a fresh diaper was at nine o’clock in the morning, four o’clock in the afternoon, and nine o’clock at night.  That’s it!  At least James and Ashley were bringing those really good diapers to the center for me to use, otherwise I don’t know what I would have done.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, I still needed the diapers because…well…there were a few things I simply didn’t want to leave behind.  Like wetting and messing – please notice I’m not saying pee-pee and poo-poo anymore, although I sometimes forget and still use those terms.  Hey, there’s nothing wrong with them, right?  I also love playing with the baby toys and taking naps and drinking from baby bottles and of course, sucking on a pacifier.  I can’t help it, I simply enjoyed it all.  Why couldn’t the behavioral center doctors understand that?

One other thing they never really got a chance to work with me on much at all on was my interest in girly clothes.  Since I didn’t have any there at the center, it was never much of an issue.  Doctor Nichole, or whatever her name really was, never bothered to go into it, and I didn’t see any reason to push the subject.

Did I mention I was happy enjoying the life everyone had been trying to shove me into?  Yes, I knew that Nichole had set me up to like it with her hypnotism thing, but the truth was, whether she was responsible for it or not, I did enjoy it.  And don’t forget, I had an interest in it before it all started.  In fact, at that time I was going to buy myself some…uh…fun things before any of the young ones moved into the house with me.  I just never got the chance.  So when James told me they were destroying the nursery they had built for me, I stopped him.  I loved the life they had set up for me, why should I want to end it?

And speaking of ending lives, I finally realized that I didn’t want that anymore, especially if I had a nice simple life I could live and enjoy fully.  And even more importantly, especially since I was going to have a new family member to enjoy that new life with.

As I said, I was in that behavioral center for four months before they gave up on me…or before I gave up on them.  Probably both.  I moved home and back into my nursery.  Emily and Caitlin seemed to enjoy taking care of me again, although neither of them did it to the extent they had done it before.  Still, everything was great.

Caitlin’s baby was born near the beginning of May, when spring was just beginning to poke its head around my little world.  Bill was gone for good by then and Caitlin’s divorce was final.  Baby Mallory had to be the cutest little thing in the world, and there’s no exaggeration there at all!  For the first few months, Caitlin kept the baby upstairs in her bedroom at night, but brought the baby down to my nursery every day so we could play together.

A few months later, my nursery suddenly grew another crib.  A smaller one than mine of course, and I was no longer alone in my big pink nursery.  I now shared it with Caitlin’s daughter Mallory, my great-granddaughter, and the new absolute love of my life.  Why should Caitlin build another nursery for her when mine already had everything the little girl could possibly need or want…including me.

When Caitlin or Emily didn’t care for her or feed her, I did.  When they weren’t doing it, I changed her, fed her, held her, loved her, and dried her tears.  The bars of our crib faced each other so I could keep watch over her all night and call out if there as any kind of problem so that Caitlin could hear me over the baby monitor she had upstairs in her room.  Between the three of us, that child got the best and most loving care possible.

I can’t tell you the number of hours that Mallory and I spent crawling around in our big play area together, playing with the toys, playing with each other.  Having fun.  And trust me, after she was born, our play area grew a phenomenal number of new toys, and it seems like more magically appear all the time.

You know what I discovered was fun?  Mallory and I wearing matching outfits most days.  That was incredible, and the truth was that it made me feel more like a little toddler than ever.  How lucky could an old Gramps like me get?  Huh?

So now, most days when I’m not out riding my lawnmower around the yard, I spend playing with baby Mallory on the floor of our nursery.  Very often Caitlin joins us there, and sometimes Emily crawls around and plays with us too.  All those simple baby toys are the greatest source of joy for all of us, whether alone or all together.  It’s through all those toys that we have bonded and become such a close-knit family.  A family dedicated to love…and simple fun.

Now who says I don’t have any imagination anymore?

 

The End