Car, yellow, Saturday
Characters: Cal and Reggie Setting: Clinic, afternoon sometime
In the wake of Adam’s visit, Cal had pushed for the plan to catalog the clinic with Becka in the hopes of distracting them both from Adam’s turmoil, and so far? It had worked as well as he could hope. Not only had they detailed everything waiting in the clinic and captured it in lists, but Cal was confident now that he had a good, working idea of where things were in the clinic. It’d make it easier to respond in a crisis, that was for sure.
Still, he knew that even after letting Becka head off there was still more work to be done. In theory, there was a visitor coming down that Cal had yet to meet. Without a tighter schedule, though, it was all a matter of ‘when’. He’d headed to the kitchen for a quick sandwich, grabbing a book from the library before heading back down here to settle in to wait. Which Cal was most definitely doing now, sipping a water as he sat at one terminal station with his book open, a little stack of provisions nearby for the eventual exam with Reggie.
Reggie had slept in for the first time in years. Prisons were a bit hard with restrictions, and they didn’t like people sleeping until the afternoon. Reggie had the feeling that he was going to really like this place over prison, unless this turned into some social experiment to see how long it would take to drive a bunch of prisoners insane. He hoped it wasn’t something like that. He had high hopes for this place.
After grabbing something from the kitchen for a breakfast/lunch meal, he looked up where the clinic was supposed to be and headed down. Who would put a clinic in a basement? Seemed kind of strange, but whatever. Sandwich in one hand, he knocked on the door to the clinic, calling out in a sing song voice, “Oh doctor doctor! You’re next patient is here!” Reggie was special, obviously.
Making a note to start keeping the door open just to avoid that sort of thing in the future, Cal hopped up from his seat to pop it for Reggie, ready with an easy grin and nod at the sight of the other man. “You must be Reggie, c’mon in,” he greeted, stepping back to make room. “Cal Royce, but Cal suits me just fine.” He’d prepared what he could, laying out tools for stimulus tests, visual responsiveness, and memory assessment; but Cal doubted he’d be able to do much more today than confirm what Reggie had told him on the terminals. Still, it never hurt to double check everything, or to get some idea of Reggie himself.
Reggie took a bite of his sandwich and grinned, chewing and swallowing before he said anything else. “Pleasure to meet you, Cal,” he said as he walked further inside, looking around at the tools that the doctor had sitting out. He actually vaguely recognized most of it, as it had all been used on him before. The doctor at the prison had tested all this stuff with him, but if Cal was going to be his doctor now, he had to see just what he could and couldn’t do. “So, what should we be doing to get all of this started, then? All my problems are up in here,” he said, tapping his temple, “so I don’t think things like blood tests are too necessary.”
“No worries, I figured this get-together would be more about that anyway,” Cal assured him, stifling a flicker of annoyance over Reggie bringing food into the clinic. “Though, so we’re all good? No food where I might be dealin’ with medical conditions in the future. You’re good for now.” He wasn’t usually a forceful personality, but with this place? Cal was willing to lay down a few rules to preserve its’ sanctity. “As for gettin’ started, you said it was a car crash that gave you your troubles, yeah?” he went on, “There’s a few tests I’d wanna run for my own insight, but did the docs who treated you put a name to it at all? There’s a lot of technical terms for brain damage, and it’d make it simpler for us both if you knew which you were dealin’ with.”
He had to bite back a laugh when the doctor told him not to bring any more food in. “Sorry, doc,” he said quickly. “I’ll be honest with you. I only woke up about half an hour ago or so. I’m not an early morning person when I can help it.” That was his way of letting him know that he hadn’t been able to eat anything yet. “Promise to be a good boy and not do it again, though.” He nodded when he was asked that it was a car crash that gave him the problem. “I gotta admit that I don’t know exactly what the term for it is. The docs that treated me in the prison weren’t too friendly, and I sort of got it during what put me in the prison. I can tell you all my symptoms, though.” He thought for a second. “I woke up without any of my memory, although in the past three years most of it has slowly filtered back. I’ve still got some holes, though. I also get these killer migraines that just debilitate me.”
Cal nodded again in consideration, pulling out the chair at the other desk and gesturing for Reggie to sit as he did the same. “No comfort to you, but what you’re describing is pretty common with people who endure severe head trauma and survive. Retrograde amnesia, not as much, but the migraines definitely are,” he offered, “And the memory loss itself? Well, with a bit of luck even those holes’ll fill in over time, somethin’ I think you’ve got better chances at if you’re willing to make these visits regular.” He’d never tried this, of course; long term cognitive rehabilitation was foreign soil to Cal, though he’d read over the practice before. But he wasn’t about to share any of that willingly. If Reggie asked? Sure.
As it was, Cal just started sorting through the little pile he’d prepared, coming out of it with a blank pad of paper, a deck of cards, and a small flashlight. “For today what I’d like to do is check for any impairment, if you’re okay with that, and go over a few little exercises you can do daily to keep your memory centers working strong, cool?”
Reggie sat down, nodding as the doctor explained that some of his symptoms were common. “I hate that those migraines are common to anyone. I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy,” he admitted. Those things pretty much destroyed his entire day when he got them. “Well, at first it started with me not remembering anything. The prosecutor actually thought that I was doing it to gain sympathy.” Sounded utterly stupid to Reggie, though. Then again, someone claimed the Twinkie defense and won. He supposed it could be a defense tactic, although he didn’t know what it had to do with his case.
“I’ve got a short attention span, too, but it wasn’t exactly perfect before,” Reggie admitted to Cal. “So, that might be another symptom.” He nodded at Cal’s requests. “Yeah, all of that sounds fine to me. Let’s get this started then.”
“Alright,” Cal started as he slid his own paper in front of him, “Startin’ off, I’d just like to check your responses to basic stimuli, an’ we can get a chance to go over anything about this place you might be wonderin’. I’m not some expert, only been here four days now, but I figure it’s longer than you have, yeah?” He grabbed the flashlight, clicking it on and leaning across the desk to aim it at Reggie’s face. “Follow the light while we talk, and I’m gonna give you a few words here, I jus’ want you to repeat ‘em. Car, yellow, Sunday,” he said, starting to move the light from side to side, then up and down as he watched Reggie’s eyes intently. It was a simple test, one he’d be keeping track of through their meeting, but gauging short-term memory was important.
“Sounds like a good plan then,” Reggie said, ready for whatever the doctor had to throw at him. “And anything that you know about this place would be helpful. I only got here yesterday, after all.” He understood that this place hadn’t exactly been going for long, but someone that had been here for four days likely knew a good bit more than someone who had just been here for one day. “Right, follow the light. Got it,” he said, eyes starting to move with the light as Cal moved it left to right. “Car, yellow, Sunday,” he repeated. His eyes stayed with the light for the first couple of moves, but then they stayed over to the left almost as if something had caught his eye. Then he blinked and started following it again.
Cal’s lips pursed thin at the tiny break in focus, catching it as it happened but not breaking from his own movement as he passed the light through one last sweep. “There’s not much i know that’s too crazy,” Cal told him as he clicked the light off, “Most of this place seems to run like normal, outside-world life, you know? Cook your own meals, do your own laundry, do what you like with the time between. Haven’t run into anyone who seems like they’re best avoided yet, either. And damn if that ain’t a relief,” he explained with a laugh. “There was some hardasses where I was ‘fore here. Atlanta USP, by the by. How ‘bout you?”
“Probably for the best that there aren’t any real hardasses in here then, huh?” Reggie asked, watching Cal as he clicked the light off. He blinked a few more times, trying to clear a few of the spots in his eyes that the light had caused. “So a little more like a halfway house than anything else then?” Not too bad, and most halfway houses weren’t anything resembling this nice. “And Rikers, New York. Wonderful place to spend the last three years, let me tell you that much,” he joked with a snort. “I’m pretty sure that the place purposefully gathered the biggest pieces of garbage in human history and stuck them in one place just for kicks.” Then again, it was a jail, so it wasn’t supposed to be about puppies and birthday parties.
Cal gave a flicker of a smirk at the summation, nodding in agreement. “I heard a lot about Rikers’, did time with a few boys who’d been in there,” he shared, thinking on the statistics he’d actually digested during his psychiatric classes on criminal behavior. “And yeah, it’s definitely not the normal deal, I won’t be complainin’.” He couldn’t hold the smile for long, though, not before the slightly more professional air took back over. “Down side is that we still got limits, even here. Like in your case, without your medical history and a lot more gear than I think they’ll give, I couldn’t offer too much detail in a diagnosis,” he segued, “But if you’ve got the migraines and gaps in memory, there’s some things we could try. One of ‘em’s just vigilance; maintaining a regular diet, healthy sleep schedule, and some kind of exercise routine can pay off. Try noting whatever foods trigger the hypersensitive smell aspect and avoid that.”
It sounded fairly mundane, Cal knew; but for what Reggie was asking there was no real way to stop it, only to prevent recurring conditions. “Now, for the missing portions of time? I’m not a neurologist or anything, but I think you could try some rehabilitative therapies. Card games, crosswords, things like that; the idea is to directly engage your mind instead of just letting you be passive through the day. You want things with structure and rules, because rules breed repetition and that opens up memory centers,” he explained patiently, hoping Reggie wouldn’t find this useless. Some cons had, back when Cal had been a doctor. But some people put medicine up with magic: doctors showed up and everything got fixed. In reality? Sometimes it was slow and tedious, and sometimes it was for nothing.
"Which is why I'll at least try to play at being a good boy here," Reggie remarked. "Certainly don't want to go back to that dank hell hole." If this place was really on the up and up, then it was likely that he'd get some time shaved off his sentence and be sent along his merry little way eventually. That sounded like a bloody dream to him. "Think we can ask those higher ups in this place for my medical records? If they put me here, they got to have acess to that stuff, right?" Made more than enough sense to him.
Reggie made a face at the idea of being more 'healthy,' but he supposed if he didn't want to have all this nonsense with the headaches and whatnot to get worse, he should at least give it a try. Didn't mean that he had to like it, though. "I'm good with rehabilitative therapies for sure," he said with a nod. He actually wasn't finding this useless at all, thankfully. “Suppose it shouldn't be too hard to get ahold of a deck of cards and stuff in this place." If they weren't already supplied somewhere, then he could always just ask for them.
Grinning wider at that, Cal slid the deck he’d brought down to Reggie with a little nod. “One step ahead of you, man,” he assured Reggie, “And good, the worst thing that can come of trying is the same thing you get from not trying at all. Be patient with it, you know? It takes time for the body to put itself back in order, and losin’ your cool with it won’t make it happen any faster.” Not that Reggie seemed to need the advice, given his reception to the idea.
“I’ll put in a request with the folks in charge and see if they can’t give me your files, but just in case they try to stonewall me?” he mused, sliding a blank sheet of paper and pen to Reggie, “Do me a solid and write down somethin’ like ‘I, Reggie Delallo, hereby authorize the release of my medical history to Calvin Royce.” He chuckled a touch, hoping it wouldn’t even be necessary but wanting to keep his momentum in helping the others. “I mean, I know it ain’t like this place is running off the full scope of the law or somethin’, but this way they got no reason to say no.”
Reggie smiled at Cal when he slid him the deck of cards. "Thanks, man," he said. He certainly didn't mind messing around with cards, anyway, so something that might help his mind wouldn't be a bad thing at all. "I'm gonna admit that I'm not usually one for patience, but I'll give it a whirl. It's not like I've got nothing but time on my hands, though." There wasn't much else to do around here other than likely cause some sort of trouble, so anything to keep him busy would likely be a good idea.
He nodded as Cal explained an idea behind getting his stuff released to Cal, more as a way to cover their asses than anything. "Sure," Reggie said, writing out what Cal explained before signing his name to the bottom of it. "Nah, won't hold up in a court of law or anything, but it might be enough for the people here to release things to you." He hoped so, anyway. He'd rather find a way to make himself better than still be stuck in the dark about all of this crap.
Taking the slip back, Cal nodded in agreement at Reggie’s words. “It’s a start, for sure. And whatever they give me, if you stick with some routine then you’ve got a good chance at somethin’ coming of it. Check in with me in a few days if you feel like it, we’ll go through the stimulus checks again and see what’s what,” he assured Reggie, “And one last thing: what were those three words again?” It was a standard evaluation test, one working on the basic idea that if there was real damage, it’d affect Reggie even with a short gap between when he’d first repeated them and now. The less he remembered, the more work there was ahead of him.
“Start’s better than nothing,” Reggie said with a smile. “I’ll make sure to stick with the routine, though.” He knew that routines were good for people with memories issues like he had now. One of the few benefits of prison was that it was full of routine, after all. “Make sure to check in with you in a few days, though.” When Cal asked what the three words that he had said at the beginning, Reggie frowned, thinking for a second on it. “Yellow, Saturday, and something else,” he said, not quite remembering what the third one was. Two out of three weren’t too bad, though, right?
Two out of three would’ve been okay, albeit not what Cal was hoping for. But it still would’ve been better than the one correct answer he got. Still, he didn’t point it out to Reggie. At this point the guy had to be worried, and Cal didn’t want to make that any worse unless he could also offer more hope in a solution than he’d been able to. It was informative, though; telling him a bit more about which parts of Reggie’s mind were still accurately retaining information. “Sounds good, man. And if I get word from the folks in charge before I hear from you, I’ll send word,” he promised with a hopeful grin that wasn’t quite sincere. It was adding up fast for him here between the others’ medical needs and his own itch to document them, not to mention figuring out just what was going to come of being here at all. Cal needed answers for all of them, himself included.
Reggie nodded, a little worried himself that he knew he was missing one of the worlds, and he still couldn’t remember what the hell it was. Maybe he’d remember it later. That would at least be nice and make him feel better. “I’ll make sure to drop by again in the next couple of days. I’m hoping that the higher ups don’t fight you on the records thing, although I don’t know why they’d bother.” He didn’t think it was an issue, but he had no idea what the people that ran this place really thought. He hopped up, stretching. “See you soon, doc.”