But Inside I'm Screaming. Elizabeth Flock
the story. And with the evening news anchor out of town, all the network had was Isabel Murphy, who was spontaneously combusting on national television.
“Isabel, what the hell is going on?” Ted was one step away from reaching across the anchor desk and strangling his only hope. “Isabel! Jesus Christ, Isabel! Snap out of it!”
Isabel watched Ted’s small calamari lips moving. His voice tangled up with others talking at her and confused her.
Chip, the man behind the voice in her ear, was in front of her. “Isabel? Do you need a doctor? What’s going on?” Normally unflappable, Chip was nearly as frantic as Ted. This was the kind of thing that lost people jobs. Possibly the biggest news story of the year and Isabel was single-handedly wrecking the network’s reputation.
“Isabel, you have got to listen to me.” John Goodman, the senior producer on duty, was towering over her. His words were measured but powerful. “You have got to go live right now, do you understand? Whatever is going on, we can fix it when this is over. But right now, you have got to go live.”
Isabel brought John’s stern face into focus.
This is the man who hired me. The man who took a leap of faith in me when no one else would.
“Okay,” she whispered through ventriloquist’s lips. No one heard her but John.
“Okay? You’ll do it? Okay?” he double-checked while nodding to Ted and Chip.
“Okay,” Isabel said meekly.
I’ve got to do this.
Chip ran back into the booth.
He had left her earpiece on so she heard the voices thundering at one another in the control room. “This is a mistake, Ted. I told you I didn’t want her in the chair tonight.” Chip’s voice.
“What, she’s not used to live television? Give me a fucking break.”
“Okay, Isabel, let’s try this again.” Chip had regained his composure. “In thirty seconds.”
Please. Please.
“Nice and easy.” Chip was trying to soothe her.
Please. Calm down. Please. Please.
“I have to protect my reporters, Sargent,” Isabel heard John challenge Ted. “And I’m telling you, this is not a good call to make with Murphy right now! Where’s Roberts? Get him in here.”
“Fifteen seconds.” The knot, ever-tightening in Isabel’s stomach, threatened to erupt in vomit. “Ten, nine, eight, seven—cue music—five, four, three, two…”
Last chance.
With the camera trained on her, Isabel opened her mouth to speak but closed it when no words came out.
Please. Please no.
“No fucking way!” Ted shouted in the booth. “Go to a graphic.” As Ted barked orders, Chip tried to coax Isabel one last time.
“Get her off the air!” Ted yelled. Isabel flinched at the volume of the words still piped through her ear. “Get her off the fucking air! She’ll never make air again, if I have anything to say about it. Not on this network. She wants to go down, fine. But she’s not taking this network with her, goddammit!”
So, let’s dance the last dance…let’s dance…the last dance…
“If you threaten her, I swear to God I’ll make your life miserable,” John warned Ted.
To-oo-night…
“She’s over. She’s finished,” Ted ranted.
“If she is it’ll be her choice, not yours,” John volleyed back. “You hear me?”
“Do I need to remind you who you’re talking to, Goodman?” Ted’s voice a decibel lower.
“Just give her some room right now. Agreed?”
Look at you. You disgust me.
Ted looked through the glass door into the newsroom. His assistant was running across the room to him.
He opened the door. “What? You reach him?”
“He’s five minutes away,” she panted.
He turned back to John. “She’s lucky Roberts is in town or I’d wipe the floor with her. Okay, Chip, let’s get the desk ready for him. The computer’s all booted up, right? Melissa, go down to the lobby and hold an elevator open for him. We got some water by the desk in case he’s thirsty? Good.”
Move. You have to get up now. It’s over. Move.
Two
It’s so thin and small it seems impossible that it can end a human life.
Do it.
Two long, quick slices and the pain bleeds away.
So why am I hesitating? Do it.
Isabel knows that she is scared to slit her wrists. She’d rather find a painless solution. To her it sounds like something Yogi Berra might have said: I’d kill myself but it’d hurt too much.
The white porcelain feels cold to her as she climbs, fully clothed, into the tub.
This is it. This makes the most sense. Do it.
Isabel looks from the metal blade balancing on the edge of the bathtub to the sink counter where her sleeping pills are neatly arranged. Plan B. The last time she tried swallowing pills she did not take enough and woke up with a stiff tube snaking down her throat, pumping charcoal into her belly. For hours she vomited up the black coal as unsympathetic interns scowled and mixed up more of the pitch-black concoction that’s meant to absorb the poison.
Maybe I’ll try the pills again. That’s much easier. And this time I’ll take the entire bottle and throw in some Tylenol PM for good measure. That’ll work.
She pulls herself up and out of the bathtub. After pushing down and twisting the prescription bottle open, she turns on the faucet. Then she finally gives in to the magnetic pull of the mirror facing her. She had resisted it until now, knowing her face, however exhausted, haggard or gaunt, would betray her fear.
Look at me. Jesus. Who is this looking back at me?
She looks back down to the running water.
Thirty-five years of living, thirty-five years packed with classes she excelled in, jobs she succeeded at…Isabel’s thirty-five years all boiled down to one moment, an image she pulled out and focused her inner eye on whenever she despaired.
In the image is five-year-old Isabel, pretty and shy, quietly curled up on the floor alongside the family dog, a huge Saint Bernard named Violet. The two slept together almost every night, the enormously fat Violet providing enough body heat to warm the tiny child nestled against her. Isabel’s parents took many photographs of this scene, but it is Isabel’s own recollection she relies on in times of confusion. When she needs to feel comforted, to feel safe. Lately the image was becoming mentally frayed with overuse.
Thinking of the warmth of Violet’s belly, the steadiness of her breathing, the softness of her thick coat, Isabel is once again momentarily transported away from her pain.
How did that little girl end up alone and desperate in a cold New York City bathroom trying to decide whether to slash her wrists or swallow a fistful of pills?
What else is there? What else can I do?
Three
Isabel gingerly touches her upper chest and winces at the pain. Her throat feels sore from the plastic tubing, her stomach raw from being angrily pumped the day before.
“Hi.” Isabel’s mother, Katherine, is waiting on the sidewalk in front of the freshly washed SUV.
She