Behavioural Crises

“Hey Bob, this patient needs a – ”

“Ah, nope. You’re not getting anything from me.” The blonde doctor looked up from the computer in the reception desk.

“Wha – why?” Gerard asked.

Bob eyed the clock that hung right above their heads. Gerard followed Bob’s gaze and wilted immediately.

2 : 58 p.m.

“Two minutes to three.”

“Oh come on, Bob. There’s still two minutes. Please?” Gerard tapped his finger on his clipboard anxiously.

“You need two minutes to walk out of this hospital.” Said Bob, who turned his attention back to the screen once he saw the pout on Gerard’s face.

“Well, fine. Give that patient a jar of morphine and make sure it looks like diluted coke. Add air.” Gerard said defeated and slipped out of his white lab coat.

Bob chuckled. “I’ll make sure he’s dead by the time you come back.”

Gerard smacked his left arm playfully. “No, seriously. Give Mr. Hockins 20cc morphine, the pain from the surgery he had the day before seems to be killing him. I think we might have to talk about it when I come back.”

Gerard made sure he made his point clear before leaving the reception area for his compulsory break. Gerard turned back for his book on his way out, receiving suspicious glances along the corridors. He rolled his eyes when Toro tapped his invisible wristwatch and mouthed ‘out’.

He quickly grabbed the Dante Club from his messenger bag and turned towards the door, but stopped when the view of the Blackwell Park across the river outside his office window came into sight. The young doctor approached the full height window and leaned over. Feeling the nausea building up at the pit of his stomach, Gerard stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a Kleenex pack. He struggled to pull one out and started scrubbing on the clean glass. He tried harder and harder, but the tiny black spot just wouldn’t go away. He stopped to study it closely. Damn it, he cursed. Feeling more frustrated, Gerard could only scrub harder.

Knock. Knock.

Go away.

Bob stepped in, but stopped sharply when he saw his friend rubbing on the clear glass fiercely. He quickly recovered from his shocked state and paced towards Gerard. Bob grabbed Gerard's wrist and yanked him away from the window. The black haired doctor nearly yelped when he felt a sudden force pushing him backwards.

“I thought you were out.” Bob spat coldly. He tried to control his emotion, but he couldn’t.

“I – ” Gerard glanced between his colleague and their hands still freeze framed in the air. “I – I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Bob knew he had nothing to be sorry for.

He loosened his grip on Gerard's wrist and snatched the piece of Kleenex. By the look on Gerard's eyes, Bob knew he was anxious. He slammed the tissue onto the window and forcefully scrubbed it once, twice, three times. Gerard winced at the pounding sound.

“Bob – ”

Bob pulled Gerard’s slightly smaller frame into his arms and held him tight. “I’m sorry.” He whispered in a low voice.

He circled soothing patterns on Gerard’s back, hoping to get the elder one to relax. And Gerard did. He leaned into Bob’s embrace and buried his face into the nape of his neck. They both sighed.

Bob held Gerard even closer, if that was possible. He was so upset when he saw what Gerard was trying to get rid of so madly. Desperately wanting to get rid of a tiny spot on a wide clear glass window was considered a display of perfectionism. Perfectionism was an out branch of OCD, it shows symptoms such as perfectly aligning objects at complete or aligning object perfectly parallel etc. It is easily confused with OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder) as they share some of the symptoms like the above, but can be defined clearly once realized that in OCPD, it is not stress-related.

Many people may have come across the word ‘perfectionism’ in their everyday life and thought referring someone as the ones who believed in perfectionism was something to laugh about, but serious or what they call ‘pathological’ cases of perfectionism was anything but funny. People who believed in perfectionism, believed that perfection can and should be attained. In its pathological form, it is a belief that anything less than perfect is unacceptable. At pathological levels, this is considered an unhealthy belief. And Bob wished nothing but for Gerard to be healthy.

They stayed in that position for a couple of minutes more. Bob let go of Gerard and patted his head. “You should go now.”

Gerard nodded obediently and let Bob lead him out of the hospital. Bob did not go back to work immediately after making sure Gerard was gone. He sat on the wooden bench beside the main entrance and tried to relax himself.

Bob knew he was too harsh on Gerard a few minutes ago. After all, it wasn’t Gerard's fault, it never was. He just needed time to get use to the fact that, the Gerard he knew before, was gone. He didn’t know where he had gone, but he knew why he was gone. All because of this goddamn job. When they were young, they vowed to be one of the best doctors in the finest hospital in New York City. They thought that was going to make them the happiest man alive. They thought that was their dream. They thought that was what they fight for, through all those college years. But then he would admit, he never thought his best friend would break down under the pressure and develop all those countless mental problems.

It was his fault. It sounded immature, but it seemed understandable. If only he had figured out break downs and mental problems was what Gerard was going to suffer from after studying medical with him for what felt like longer than seven years, he would have encouraged him to continue his art career. Why did he have to persuade Gerard? The carefree and cheerful Gerard was gone, the sparks in his eyes had faded. A crumbled and worn torso, a frame that seemed to be getting thinner and thinner each day was what left.

Why? He questioned himself.

*

Out of hospital area, in the warm summer breeze of July, Gerard was strolling along the buzzing streets of New York City. His shadow followed him silently as people on the streets brushed past him carelessly. Despite hating to leave the hospital for a half an hour break during work, he did liked the feeling of being the only one who was having his free time in this stressful city.

The silver bell tinkled as Gerard entered the coffee shop.

“Doctor Way! I was just thinking about you. I thought you were sick.” An old lady cheered behind the counter with a toothy smile and ran up to Gerard.

“It’s Gerard, Mrs. Ralls.” Gerard reminded, but mirrored her warming smile nonetheless.

“It’s Margaret, too, Gerard.” The man grinned when Margaret emphasized his name exaggeratedly on purpose. He swore it sounded more like Gerthlard through her faint Italian accent, but he appreciated it all the same.

Margaret pinched Gerard’s cheeks and tugged them lightly like how all grandmas do to their grandsons. Gerard stood there defenselessly and tried hard to hide his reflex of wincing.

“It’s good to see you looking better and better each day.” Margaret let go of his cheeks thoughtfully and said.

“Thank you.” Gerard smiled and brought both his hands on to his face. Damn, it really hurts. He rubbed on his reddened cheeks and pouted. He thought he was glad that grandma Elena never was that fond of tugging human flesh. If not, he would be doomed because Mikey was more or less a stick figure, and so was the few of their cousins.

“Iced green tea latte? A friend of mine taught me how to make it last Saturday. Would you like to try? I’m sure you’ll love it!” The old lady offered with her usual wild excited mood.

“Sure, why not.” Gerard had always been great at making old people happy, one of his job requirements, kind of.

Gerard settled himself at his usual spot at a dim corner of the coffee shop after watching Margaret disappear back into the kitchen area. He stretched his hands a little and let them fell on to both sides of his chair. He looked around himself and realized something important. I forgot my book! He panicked. The least thing he wanted to happen was to spend his break time meaninglessly. There’s gotta be something.

Gerard’s eyes darted across the coffee shop and relaxed when he saw the magazine rack located beside the bay window. He walked up and started flipping through the surprisingly wide selection of magazines. Cosmopolitan, Jessica. No. Racing cars with loud engines that will make other people on the streets want to kill you. No. Celebrity magazines, Spears Pregnant Again?! No. TIME, president election.Not really interested in American politics. No. TIME, Person of the Year, Vladimir Putin – Tsar of The New Russia. Not too recent, but what the hell. Gerard pulled the magazine out of the rack.

The other magazines moved. Some of them moved to the right for about one centimeter and some of them to the left, about half centimeter. The force was uneven. Gerard thought. The thought of them moving with uneven force and causing a different distance made him uneasy. Gerard pulled the People’s magazine a little bit more to the left and tried to remember their original placing. Gerard thought he felt somebody watching him. He stopped and turned.

Hi.

The man beside the bay window with a laptop smiled at him. Gerard’s body went stoned and his mouth went dry. Is he smiling at me? Gerard turned around to make sure the man wasn’t smiling at anyone else. He heard chuckles behind him. Shit, he is smiling at me.

He wasn’t good at interacting with strangers out of hospital area. He didn’t know what to do. Yes, he had promised himself to talk to him today, but he hadn’t planned any of this yet, he was too caught up with the work in the hospital. Gerard forced a smile and dipped his head in a polite manner. The man’s smile broke into a wide grin. Gerard let his gaze wander back on to his magazine and turned away.

His heart was pounding when he sank back on to his seat. The man had already gone back to what he had been doing on his laptop. Gerard wondered had he developed another psycho problem which symptoms consist of seeing illusions. That was real, right? He was sitting there puzzled when Margaret delivered his order.

“You should go talk to him, you know?” The old lady uttered, eyeing the man sitting beside the window.

Gerard’s head snapped up, “What?” He stared at Margaret in disbelieve.

“I said you should go talk to him.”

“No, I mean, why would I want to talk to him.” Gerard didn’t mean to sound that harsh.

“Well, I thought, ” Margaret looked a bit offended. “It’s always been you two just sitting there, I thought, you two could use some company.”

Gerard gasped. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I thought you meant – something else.” He gave her an apologetic look and prayed she wasn’t hurt.

“What else can that possibly mean?” Margaret’s tone lightened.

A lot of things.

“Nothing, Margaret. I’m just being stupid.” Margaret let it go and went back to the kitchen.

Gerard sipped at his green tea flavored ice latte before opening his TIME. Margaret was right. It had always been just the two of them. He was going to talking to him anyway, right? This is not a big deal. Gerard injected the thought into his own mind. It took him a couple of minutes to believe what he was trying to convince himself was true. Just go up and say hi, then everything’s gonna be fine. Through those countless college and job interviews, Gerard knew that being positive had always been the key to success.

Gerard stood up. He grabbed his latte and TIME, and tried to convince himself for the one last time that it was gonna be just fine. A few deep breaths were taken before he could muster enough courage to drag his legs.

As he stood in front of the table beside the bay window, staring at the man’s puzzled eyes sheepishly, a realization hit Gerard’s brain hard. He should have rehearsed this first. At least in his mind he should have rehearsed this before brazenly walking up to a stranger and try to talk to him. He should have rehearsed it, analyze all the man’s possible reactions and weighted all the imaginable consequences. Despite being a really solid planner, Gerard wasn’t going to claim he was good at planning things like this as well.

“May I help you?”

Shit.