Mental Twistitution

By Brian Harrison

In desperate need of money for his newly opened mental asylum, Dr. Cylus Pine begins work with a producer of a reality show to use his facility for the basis of a brand new show that airs for 24 hours. When things go horribly wrong, Dr. Pine begins to wonder if its scripted or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Harrison
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311909305

Brian Harrison

I'm a Southwestern Michigan resident and grocery clerk for over a decade, being trained in nearly every position. I am a grocery manager by day, musician, writer, tie collector, and Oreo enthusiast by night.

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Prologue

I’m not so sure about this. Dr. Pine replied, sitting in a cement rec room that wasn’t yet finished with drywall. There were still buckets and construction equipment scattered around, windows weren’t installed yet, just plastic coverings, much like some of his patients used to prevent blood splatter from staining the floor. In the corner there was a can of spilled red paint that construction workers clearly tried but could not clean up efficiently enough, the one place the plastic tarp wasn’t.

What aren’t you sure of? The Host questioned; who was an old man, older than Dr. Pine, and considerably more shaven. His facial hair peppered with white hairs as if he had some innocence sprinkled on his face to give it some spice or more likely, personality. Dr. Pine though was becoming prematurely wrinkled from arguments with patients, family members, nurses, doctors, and law enforcement officers and now with TV executives, Hosts, ad-men, lawyers, sponsors, critics and publicists. Even Dr. Pine knew right away that being a TV executive wasn’t this man’s first calling. His hands were scarred like that of a mason. What did he really do with his hands that dried them out, unless he constantly washed them, like a germ-a-phobe, or worse criminal?

You’re creating an atmosphere that encourages disorder. Dr. Pine replied.

So? The Host replied, more as a statement of agreement. And, ‘your point is?’

It’s unhealthy.

No, he intonated as if rebuking a dog that was threatening to do something it knew it shouldn’t, it’s lucrative, the Host replied raising his voice just enough to send a spittle of saliva through the air. Dr. Pine was at first offended, but he knew if he wiped it off then he would allow the Host to view he had power over him, which he knew he didn’t. This man didn’t know the true type of people Dr. Pine dealt with on a daily basis.

And that’s immoral. Dr. Pine replied, taking the high ground. But he knew even then that it was a losing battle. The odds that this TV executive had debates of morality and still won were high and he knew where, in essence that rated this man on the in the low 30s on the Bob Hare psychopath checklist. He was still new to the business, now ten years out of medical school.

Immorality isn’t up for debate, we are literally going to show how mental disorder corrupts a society, how it invades and infects.

Why?

For money, why else?! The Host replied, as if there were no other morality to be lived.

Not for science? Dr. Pine asked, still sitting.

Why do you think scientists go into the medical field? What, to cure cancer? The Host began to fiddle with the cufflink, hidden from Dr. Pine’s view.

As a matter of fact, yes!

There is too much money infested, in the survival of cancer—

Don’t you mean invested? Pine interrupted, asking the Host.

No, I mean infested, The Host reiterated, annoyed. If cancer didn’t exist, think of the jobs and money that would be lost. He replied, If mental illness didn’t exist, we may in fact have a utopian society. Because democracy as we know it today would dissolve, who knows what would happen to our capitalistic society. There was an infestation by the morbidly amoral through manipulation for a stance that was understood by Pine.

You think we would have a utopian society because murder becomes socially unacceptable if we cure mental illness instead of treating it? Dr. Pine replied, It would effectively say that there was no more war, hate, racism and no more bigotry. No need for politics, social order, or a defined religion. He paused a moment letting his own tongue get used to saying the words, And you think doing this show will create that?

And those things will always exist because of our cultural and societal nature to nurture greed. The Host too paused a moment to consider the question, No, this show won’t begin changing society into a utopia.

"And as a doctor, why should I agree to allow you to not only do this but film it in my facility."

Because it’s beautiful, The Host replied, finally saying, Simply because it’s perfect.

Sitting in the darkened rec room of the second building in his dream mental asylum for the criminally ‘insane,’ Dr. Pine finally spoke, It’s a utopia for mental instability? The light from the midmorning sun came in through the yellow stained plastic that covered the opening of the window created a jaundiced like coloring on the newborn surface of the walls of his growing building. A womb, to birth out new, challenged, but rehabilitated souls.

You could say that.

So you feel comfortable here?

Touché Dr. Pine, The Host laughed, realizing the connotation, as he adjusted the cuff from under his suit jacket.

What are your intentions? Dr. Pine asked.

"I want the viewing public to realize their desensitization to the criminally insane. I want them to make a judgment as if it was a scripted show, but in all reality, it’s a documentary of reality that is currently happening. It’s live television. The Host paused a moment, By defining the show as something that it is not, by playing off the known rules of the genre, we can in fact bring new attention to the field of psychology, you and I can do that! In addition, we can make a fortune by not only re-defining the television genre but the psychology that not only causes it to persist but inspires it."

How? What are you documenting? And what are you attempting to redefine? What would my role in all of this be? Dr. Pine asked, knowing that he would have to treat him as a patient in order to get more information out of him. Even though it was hard to breathe in the room, void of the oxygen this man sucked from it, he knew the altruistic stance the Host believed he had as his goal was not to be trusted. There was something hidden that he needed to learn that would show the type of man he was truly dealing with.

First, documenting the deconstruction of the mind. The viewers will assume they are watching a reality show that is scripted, but when bad things happen their desensitization will force them to ignore their morals and ethics. The Host explained. But Dr. Pine feared that this could inevitably increase the involvement of psychiatry in the country’s healthcare, patients losing their grip on reality on a mass scale. Secondly, by doing this it may very well help doctors like you not only discover how, but when and why people become desensitized to their own morals and ethics. Psychology to rehabilitate, then rehabilitate the patient from their dependence from psychology, isn’t that what you do here? Finally, you would oversee their treatment; handle their debriefing so to speak.

Dr. Pine knew it wouldn’t redefine the field of psychiatry but what made this guy, this host believe he had that type of influence or control was intriguing in a deviously rancid type of toxicity? The influential power he felt he possessed if he reached his goals made him very unpredictable and frightening to Pine.

There was no cure for psychopathy, but Dr. Pines’ previous patients were different, they had something more emotionally involved in their psychopathy. However federal funding to protect the public from criminal psychopaths, if states could get it, were life changing – on all accounts. He didn’t want his facility to be viewed as a prison but a place where people go to get help – and change. So far he’s had 100% success, given he’d only had ten patients in ten years and he was hemorrhaging money. He wanted to be a private and well guarded facility. Dr. Pine didn’t know how long that would last by signing a TV contract and how he could balance the privacy, but how else was he to get the money he so desperately needed.

Pine sat there, overwhelmed by the proposal. And if I were to agree? He didn’t understand how the show was going to show something that a network would agree to. He wasn’t in the business of marketing mental illness reform. But he was afraid that its intention was secretly to create schizophrenia. And his involvement could cause him to lose his license to practice. Was it worth the gamble?

We would write up a contract, requirements and you would be paid like no other doctor. The Host paused a moment, And I have to mention that I have received some political backing as well.

Political backing? How does a potential TV show receive political support?

I am close friends with a local senator whom is attempting to bring forth new legislation on medical health of criminals that would dramatically change who is and who isn’t eligible for the elusive ‘guilty by cause of insanity,’ which is legal terminology, not medical. With your agreement, not only would you be named as the head doctor of the new facility but your struggling new practice would get federal funding. While just from the state level at first, but the proposals will pass. This place would get the much needed facelift it so deserves. He replied with palms up, acting like a Christ-like figure coming to Pine, offering him absolution of his debts…even if they were just financial. For a split second Pine wondered if this Host was going to use the revenues of the show to launder money back to this senator somehow.

What could they offer? Dr. Pine asked hesitantly, almost insulted, but federal funding, that was enticing, and it would be constant and consistent. And it was something he couldn’t pass up, even if he had to allow filming there.

That it’d be the most private and guarded medical facility in the country. You won’t even be able to find it on Google Maps, with no fly-zones, no visitation or media crews without government consent and you’ll never have to give any interviews. There will be no internet, just internal communication. Cell phones won’t even work within the fence, if you want. And what’s the worst that could happen?

Chapter One

I hated being a movie critic. I hated the movies I was forced to like and dislike because the newspaper was somehow connected to studios and already had a marketing plan based on what I blogged. I hated the contrived children movies, the Michael Bay action-porn movies, the Nicholas Sparks formulistic shit Bieber-tweens just ate up. No one listened to movie critics anymore; we have no stance, no clout, no importance. The only thing that mattered was the YouTube trailers and the gorilla style marketing campaigns the studios spent millions on. It’s all in how you spin the shit that hits the fans.

What movies did I like? None, I hated movies. So why do it? Simple: I got paid good money for being the guy everyone wanted to prove wrong. I knew people would go see a movie just because I said it was stupid. And they’d go see an art movie that I wrote to sound like a Meryl Streep movie. A co-worker once described writing as, The power of the minds ability, by choice, to create a series of words that causes a person to mentally bleed out via tears is just as unnerving as the choice to pull the trigger of a gun. He was always a long-winded kiss ass.

Five months ago I developed insomnia. My mind was always thinking up movie scenarios and situations. If watching bad movies weren’t bad enough, dreaming about them didn’t help. I’d begun to view my life as a movie. When I walked into the mall, I looked around and thought about what if a gunman opened fire, how would I react? What would I do to save the day? I even did it at the doctor’s office; what if he told me I only had seven months to live, Sorry, I meant you have two months to live, see I even think about the proper time a movie would use.

The next thing I knew the phone rang, it was about ten at night so I was expecting it to be the editor of the Atlanta Journal wanting my latest review.

I know I’m late, I’ll send my review to you in about 30 minutes. I mumbled, due to my lack of coffee and amount of bad one-liners used to bash Paranormal Activity 666.

Hello, is this Dale Bowman? A deep voice asked.

Yeah, who is this? I asked, hoping it wasn’t a salesman for underwear of the month. I’ll never do that again.

"This is the Host from the reality show you sent your audition tape to, Reality Mentality. Do you remember that at all?" A man said rather enthusiastically, given the time of the night. I sat there, I looked at the caller ID and it simply said ‘blocked caller’ as I actually expected from hosts of untelevised TV shows.

Yes, I remember it. I thought I sent that tape in over a year ago? Before reality TV, TV critics applied for new competition TV shows rather than general public in order to write themselves into what they critiqued. It was very manipulative, but yes in my case it was due to the need for stimulation and some sense of self-worth. Plus there was a lot of money in it for everyone by having a guaranteed in for each other. Unfortunately because of it, the world received the Kardashians. My girlfriend at the time thought it would be fun. She was always making me do weird shit like travel to Panama for the weekend just to do a zip-line across the canal, or mountain bike alongside the Great Wall of China – regret that, the gunshot still hurts my left leg when it rains or when I eat General Tso’s chicken.

"I am pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as a contestant on Reality Mentality. You should be getting a letter in three days with further information about what you need and how to prepare. Congratulations and have a good night!" I hung up the phone; it was unrealistic of me to believe that a movie critic from a small town in Missouri, trying to make it big in the ATL was a contestant on a reality show.

BANG BANG. You’re tired and getting stressed out, it’s just your imagination Dale. Just let the sleeping pill consume you.

BANG. It’s your memory of the movie. It’s just a memory. BANG BANG, Fuck! Who is it?! I yelled.

But there was no reply.

BANG BANG. Damnit, what do you want, do you know what time it is? I stood up and walked to