“Do you think our doctor shouldn’t treat your broken hand because someone else has breast cancer and needs more intense medical attention? You deserve to make the best recovery you can from your experience.”
“But the other people here didn’t choose to be tortured,” I burst out. “I chose to stay at Coolis. If I’d followed my lawyer’s advice and made bail, none of the rest would have happened.”
“So you blame yourself for your misfortunes. But many of the people here torment themselves in the same way: if I had not gone back to my home that morning, if I had followed my mother’s wishes and gone to see her, if I had not signed that petition. We wish we had power over our fates, and so we blame ourselves when something goes wrong. You wanted to stay in Coolis to try to understand what happened to a poor young woman you tried to help. I think that was noble. And you cannot blame yourself for the fact that men—and women—with unlimited power over the lives of others used that power in very sadistic ways. If Coolis were run along humane lines—well, your young friend would not have died to begin with.”
I tried to accept his advice, but my dreams were still so shocking that I often dreaded going to sleep. I knew if I could only rest properly, I would recover more rapidly.
“What will help you sleep?” he asked the next time we talked.
“If I could stop feeling so humiliated. I know I can’t shut down Coolis. I can’t change any prison anywhere in America. All these degradations will go on and on for any woman who lands there, the sex talk and the rape and whatever else. The law makes it almost impossible for a woman to lodge a complaint, and even if she does, the guards have so much power they can stop her voice.”
Freeman Carter was filing lawsuits for me—one against the Chicago Police Department for the violence committed against my person and against my office by Douglas Lemour. The other was against the Illinois Department of Corrections for my injuries there. Bryant Vishnikov was studying the OR films of my injuries and thought he might be able to prove they’d come from a particular set of boots. Such as those of the man Hartigan out at Coolis.
“But these cases will take years to work through the courts,” I told the Berman psychologist. “By that time I could be out of business and too broke for a settlement to help me. I want Robert Baladine to pay a price now for siccing his bent cop on me and for having me arrested on a trumped–up charge. I want that cop out of the force, and I want Baladine publicly exposed. And of course I need him off my back if I’m ever going to run my business again.” Miss Ruby had told me if I wanted to eat revenge it would give me indigestion, but it seemed to me passivity was making me sicker than revenge ever would.
The psychologist didn’t exactly endorse my wish: he told me he thought it was helpful to imagine a recovery of my own power and see where that left me.
A recovery of my own power meant I needed to recover my physical fitness. I began working out in greater earnest. Four weeks after I was found on the expressway, I ran a wobbly mile, but after that my strength grew measurably every day. On the Thursday before Labor Day, as the El Ni?o heat finally subsided into a bearable warmth, I felt ready to move on.
43 Planning Session
I’d decided it was time to move on, but I wasn’t sure where to go. My own apartment would leave me a sitting duck as soon as Baladine learned I’d surfaced. For the same reason, I resisted Lotty’s invitation to come home with her: I’d rather be killed than endanger her life one more time in one of my exploits.
It was Morrell who suggested that I spend a week or two in Father Lou’s rectory. I kept asking him to make sure he’d discussed it with Father Lou and that the priest understood the potential risk; Father Lou in the end sent me a terse note saying I was welcome as long as I didn’t smoke. The kids around the school were used to strange families moving in and out as the priest offered refuge to people who’d been evicted or were seeking sanctuary; they wouldn’t blow my cover through idle chatter around the neighborhood. And so the Friday before Labor Day I moved from the modern, warmly furnished rooms of the Berman Institute to a narrow bed under a crucifix and a bathroom holding a badly stained tub and toilet. It was still a big step up from Coolis.