Formal Thoughts

Overlooking the Ward’s Island in the state of New York there is an institution that only accepts patients that lack psychological disorders. The psychiatrists and other psychologists then diagnose what psychological disorder the patient could potentially have, regardless if they actually have any. The psychological disorder is then induced upon the patient via conditioning. Once the patient is properly conditioned to show overt symptoms of the chosen psychological disorder, they are remedied with the appropriate medication.
If a patient is initially diagnosed with a psychological disorder they are dismissed from the institution. Only patients that present no symptoms are admitted. Rafe had symptoms of a psychological disorder but feigned none adequately enough to be admitted into the institution. He was immediately diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder and major depression. Rafe, twenty-three, was simply trying to receive the medications for the psychological disorders he had; unfortunately, avoidant personality disorder wasn’t one of them.
Rafe was an orphan, raised on amphetamines, a social chameleon. He adapted to any circumstance, whether it required obsequiousness, servility, docility, and so forth. He was lean in stature, dirty blond mop, vapid blue eyes. He would flirt with the nurses blithely, winking at them coyly. He manipulated the doctors by pretending to know nothing about medicinal dosages, obtaining near overdoses of medication.
This routine continued and Rafe eventually got the appropriate treatment for his psychological disorder, which was ironically psychosomatic. The day he received his new medication the ambulance showed up.
There was something unsettling about the ambulance, even though it resembled an ordinary ambulance. The drivers were hidden behind tinted windows and remained inside. The institution’s staff became wary, as time passed it was apparent this wasn’t a local or ambulance regulated by the institution. The security and nurses attempted to usher everyone back into the hospital but Rafe managed to slip through. As he approached the ambulance it became increasingly sinister; its sirens mutated into cracked devilish horns.
The nurses and security had already barricaded themselves within the institution. Rafe, precariously curious, almost enchanted, crept closer to the ambulance’s steaming headlights.
Suddenly someone shouted “Get in! We’re the good guys!”
Rafe wondered why the good guys had two demonic horns sticking out of the roof of their ambulance, but hopped into the ambulance as they popped open the door for him. Two men wearing satanic Pinocchio masks were sitting in the front seats, armed with super-soakers.
One of them turned his head and looked at the other tentatively. “We’re the good guys?”
“Well if they’re the bad guys, then we must be the good guys,” his accomplice mused. “Stay in the ambulance kid,” the two men kicked open the ambulance doors, nearly unhinging them. “And put your seat belt on,” the lankier one added at the last second.
Rafe glimpses out of the ambulance window; he notices that those aren’t ordinary super-soakers.
They’re neon pink super-soakers.
The two masked men circle around the back of the institution, throwing smoke grenades and shattering the windows. Rafe can hear the nurses, security guards, and doctors all panicking, but he can’t hear any of his fellow patients. He remembers they’re probably too medicated to conduct themselves during emergencies.
Rafe speculates what the masked men are actually doing. They’re actions are clearly not compelled by monetary means, nor do they seem to want to harm anyone. They could be holding the institution up and stealing all the medication—drug addicts—but with super-soakers and in a diabolical ambulance that intermittently snorts impatiently?
Rafe watches one of the doctors fleeing from the institution, running past a wounded security guard. The doctor asks if the security guard has medical insurance and the guard shakes his head. The doctor scampers off. Rafe unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the ambulance.
“What happened to you?” he asks the guard, getting on one knee, searching for the wound.
“My blackberry ran out of power,” the guard whimpers. “I’ve got a wife and two kids to feed y’know. I mean what if something goes wrong and they can’t get in touch with me?”
“Why would you need medical insurance for a blackberry that needs to be charged?” Rafe asks, bamboozled. “And how could a doctor even help you charge a blackberry?”
“I was asking if I could use his phone, s’all. But those bastards will let you starve to death if you don’t have insurance.”
“I’d…give you my phone if I had one.”
“You don’t have a phone?” The guard blurts out, aghast. He pushes himself off the ground, wiping spidery tears from his eyes. The guard is about 6’7 and Herculean. His countenance is that of benefaction and sheer, compassionate justice. He reminds Rafe of a paladin. The guard sticks out his hand; Rafe shakes it nobly. This man exudes virtuosic charisma; being in his presence is humbling.
With an intense, bold jerk of his head in the direction of the nearest phone store, he gathers Rafe up against his chest with one arm and valiantly, valiantly raises his chin. “It is time to buy you a phone. You have been deprived of one of the most essential…” he trails off into a pedantic monologue about the necessity of cell phones.
“Back the fuck off nigger.” Rafe recognizes the voice of one of the masked men; his super-soaker is pointed directly against the man’s back. The guard ignores the masked man, continuing to prattle about cell phones. Rafe notices the masked man is lugging a black garbage bag filled with what sounds like the rattling of pill bottles.
“Psst, give the guy a cell phone,” Rafe whispers to the masked man. The man gives him a quizzical look but complies anyway as the guard begins to turn around. The guard is bloated with ecstasy, immediately texting what Rafe assumes to be his wife. The masked man and Rafe sprint back to the ambulance while the guard is captivated by the cell phone.
“Where’s the other guy?” Rafe inquires.
“He’ll be here in a couple minutes. Now shut the fuck up and get in.” Rafe shrugs and tugs open the ambulance door, crawling back to where the stretcher should be. The masked man tosses the garbage bag into the back of the ambulance; the ambulance snorts, apparently displeased at being treated so boorishly.
“What exactly just took place—”
“We liberated the institution’s patients and scavenged as many pharms as we could. My partner is still busy hoarding as many as he can.”
“I can understand why you’d want to liberate the patients, as you might have some sort of vendetta against the institution or you feel the patients are being treated like guinea pigs, which I’d have to agree with you, but why steal the meds?”
“To get high. You know how fucked up Dialudid gets you?” The man smiles. Rafe’s smirks; hey whatever right.
“So what’s with the ambulance. And what’s your name, anyway.”
“Name’s Goat,” the man spouts. “The ambulance is a some guy named Faust who made a deal with devil and when he died the devil turned him into an ambulance.”
Rafe, skeptical, assimilated this; it was difficult, as so many absurd events were happening at once that he choked on swallowing it all.
“My buddy’s named Envy. He forgot his name like two years ago or something when he hit his head really hard and was riddled with amnesia. He liked the word Envy so he legally changed his name and that’s that.”
Rafe nodded. “Why do you wear a demonic Pinocchio mask? Why not like, a Jason hockey mask or something.”
“Ah hockey mask’s are so cliché. I made this mask myself and ‘m damn proud of it. It’s about the innovation y’know, when you’re a criminal. People aren’t scared of what they see on the idiot-box. Would you be scared of Jason? I’d just laugh at the guy, he’s a gimmick.”
Rafe glances at Goat’s neon pink super-soaker. “Jason wasn’t a real criminal.”
“You know what I mean. Serial killers and shit. The good ones, they all have their unique perks.”
“Are you a serial killer?” Goat looks at me, obviously disappointed that I’d ask such a question.
“Never. We’re the good guys, remember?” He strokes his mask.
“But you’re saving people who willingly arrange situations in which they need to be saved.”
“That’s besides the point.” Goat insists.
“Why is that beside the point?” Rafe raises his eyebrow.
“I’m a bad man, you see,” Goat turns around and, seemingly detached, looks Rafe directly in the face. “Regardless if there’s always going to be someone to save, regardless if they induce their own need to be saved, saving them makes me feel like I’m doing something good.”
“Why are you a bad man?”
Goat’s complexion droops; he raises his hand to his chin and stares at the ambulance flooring in oceanic thought. Before he can reply Envy throws open the door and hops in the driver’s seat.
“Let’s scram.” He glances back at Rafe, huddled against the ambulance wall. “We taking the kid?”
“Yeah, he’s neat.”
“Where are we going?” Rafe asks. The ambulance snorts out smoke from its headlights, akin to a dragon. Envy cocks his neon pink super-soaker.
“To dispense this medication in people of need,” Envy smirks, reaching into the bag and popping open the first bottle he grabs. “Amphetamines. Heh, sweet.”
“Turn on some Aesop Rock, I’ve got that song stuck in my head. What’s it called,” Goat pushes his hand against his forehead, flustered.
“Aight. Oh, and we’re going to save more people. We’ve hit all the hot-spots already though so we might need to go domestic,” Envy mutters, popping eight pills. A Reiki guru knocks on the window of the ambulance wearing a T-shirt promoting spiritual healing. The guard with the cell phone fetish accompanies her, his arms folded. Goat rolls down the window.
“What the fuck do you want.” Rafe reaches into one of the garbage bags and pills out a bottle of Vicodin. He giggles cheekily.
“I’m afraid that you’re going to step out of the car sir, along with your partner,” the guard protrudes his chest out.
“And if I don’t?”
The guard rolls up the sleeves of his uniform. “Then I’ll just have to call the police.” Envy cackles.
“Would either of you like any spiritual healing or introduction to spirituality and the effect is has on your life?” the lady chimes; she does not use Botox, Rafe concludes.
“Yeah, here, touch my heart chakra. It’s right here,” Goat grabs his crotch. The ambulance grumbles, instilling a sense of doom in Rafe. He pops five Vicodin. Goat rolls the window up as Envy backs the ambulance up, which is still grumbling. The engine roars and the car speeds off at least eighty miles-per-hour, music blasting.
The ambulance rams into other cars and sends them spiraling off-road as it bombasts down the highway. Envy, high on amphetamines, is imperturbably fixated on the road ahead. Goat gets up and hops into the back of the ambulance, sitting down adjacent to Rafe.
“Once I tricked a little boy into taking designer drug pills by making him think it was candy,” Goat confessed, sighing. “He had a heatstroke and died.”
“Shit happens. You get caught?”
“Yes. That’s when I made the pact that marred my face and warped my life.”
Rafe tapped his fingers on the flooring, biting his lip. He’d been ruminating over what exactly made a person “good” or “bad”, if such traits even existed. Thoughts can be as criminal as crimes themselves; restraint is the only aspect that designates a life spent behind bars. Law is the definitive moral code we abide by, but—
“With who. What pact.”
Goat rolls his tongue over his upper teeth, reluctant to answer; Rafe obviously can’t see this behind Goat’s mask. Rafe already has an idea, though he refuses to believe it. Goat lays his neon pink super-soaker down next time; a yielding gesture. He sighs burdensomely.
And begins to laugh hysterically, slapping his knees. Rafe raises his eyebrow again. “I got you, I got you so bad.”
“You actually did make a deal with the devil, didn’t you.”
Goat continues to laugh, his eyes watering. “No, I swear to God, I never made a deal with the devil. The devil only makes deals if it’s profitable for him. He’s a wise guy; recently just got divorced with some chick from purgatory, isn’t taking it too well.”
“So you’re saying the devil exists?” Rafe stammers.
“Well, yeah. Envy and I are from hell, after all.”
“Damn straight we are,” Envy slams on the wheel, chewing on wheat.
Rafe doesn’t bother questioning the veracity of the concept of them being from hell. “Do you know if my parents are there?”
“Oh no, hell isn’t what you think it is; no rings; you don’t go there after you die because you were a bad boy.”
“Then what is it?” Rafe squints.
“Hey Envy we could pretend we’re existentialists and claim hell is life,” Goat giggles.
“If I wasn’t on speed I wouldn’t force myself to laugh at that,” he mutters, viciously chewing his stalk of wheat.
“Hell isn’t a place. It’s an incarnated being. The devil is chained to hell, ball and chain,” Goat explain, the scene set as if he was telling a scary story over a campfire in the middle of the woods at night. “She’s hot, no pun intended.” Goat guffaws, slapping his knees again. “The devil is…kind of like her pet. He does the paperwork, and the dirty work. He smokes Newports; lights them with his own breath.” The entire ambulance jolts, angered that the devil is being discussed.
Goat lies down, folding his hands behind his head. Envy spits out the window.
“Take off your mask,” Rafe dares Goat.
“Nah. You’d die of shock.” He sighs again. “So what about you kid.”
Rafe suddenly realizes that the two of them claimed they were from hell and yet insist hell is a person. He grins cunningly. “I don’t need a mask to hide my face.” Goat, startled, looks up at him. Rafe raises his knees close to his chest, hanging his arms over them. “You’re both lying.”
“About what?”
“You claim to be from hell and then try to convince me it’s a person.”
Goat, sighing once again, lies his head back down onto his folded hands. Envy abruptly slows down the car; it skids to a shrieking stop. Rafe, still grinning, pops another Vicodin. The ambulance flaps its front and wipes the windshield back and forth. Envy, deliberate, opens the ambulance door and steps out onto the highway, stretching.
Goat, bony and emaciated, struggles to sit up, sloth-like. “Alright kid, you got us. There’s no point in beating around the bush anymore.” Envy kicks at the ground. “The truth is…we’re scientists, sent from a special department of the institution to test certain subjects; see how they react to the absurd, etc. So far, you’ve performed excellently. You show no signs of portent post-traumatic stress disorder or any anxiety at all…”
Goat takes off his mask. Rafe grimaces and vomits until he dry heaves. Goat snickers and puts his mask back on. “Shame you didn’t die; now you’ll be stuck with that image for the rest of your life.”
Rafe, wiping away strings of vomit drooling from his mouth, pants, “What the hell are you.”
“Very lonely,” Goat considers, supporting his head with one arm. “You’re pretty amusing company, though I’m not sure how amusing you’ll be when the show hits the road.”
“So you’re not scientists from—“
Goat chuckles, “No.” He pulls an apple out of his pocket. “I’m just one of the good guys, remember.”
Rafe stands up, tripping outside of the ambulance, whose horns are now ablaze. He notices headlights incoming from behind them, on the highway. He thinks about making a run for it, clueless now as to what’s going on. The car slows down when it reaches the ambulance. The black man with a fetish with cell phones steps out. Envy laughs maniacally, rubbing his beer belly. The black man draws his cell phone out of his pocket like a pistol, aiming it at Envy. The cell phone rings.
“Shit,” the black man mutters. “I have to take this call, give me a second.” He turns around, picking up the phone; a woman is yelling at him on the other line. Rafe thinks about how many days he hasn’t brushed his teeth in. Goat pushes open the back doors to the ambulance, snapping onto the ground and clicking his boots. He sheens his neon pink super-soaker, menacingly charismatic. He resembles a holocaust survivor; Rafe assumes he must have a goatee.
“Ah fuck I forgot to take my antidepressants,” Envy whines. “Left them back at the institution.”
“We have to go back then,” Goat sulks.
“Wait,” Rafe interrupts, “they’ve got to be in one of those garbage bags.”
“Oh yeah!” Envy exclaims, his birth-marked belly jiggling with relief.
“Yo, Rafe,” Goat nods for his attention. “You like niggers?”
Rafe, indifferent, shrugs. “I guess so. I don’t really associate with them.”
“Well, you know what. I don’t like niggers.” Goat strides towards the man with the cell phone. “In fact, I don’t like niggers so much, that I’m going to rid this world of one more repulsive, superfluous niggers.” Rafe watches him aim the neon pink super-soaker at the black man’s back, who’s still busy prattling on the phone. Oil-like black sludge oozes out of the neon pink super-soaker, levitating in the air, homing in on the black man, unaware that—
Immediately the black man turns around and shields himself from the black sludge with his blackberry; he takes a photograph, temporarily blinding Goat, and dashes towards him, breaking his mask’s nose and probably his actual one too. Envy stumbles out of the car, firing his neon pink super-soaker, realizing the cell phone renders the black man immune to the sludge, throws it at him and scurries back into the ambulance, driving off and leaving Goat and Rafe behind…
Only to turn the ambulance around and run the black man over, his intestines splattering out onto the highway. Envy drives the car back and forth over the black man’s body, squashing him like someone stomping on a soda can.
“Fucking niggers,” he spits, stepping out of the ambulance. He saunters over to Goat, who’s on all fours, sputtering blood from his nose and clamping it with his hands. He yells something incoherent that sounds remarkably similar to something about niggers. Rafe, high on Vicodin, watches all of this take place dumbly, his arms hanging by his sides.
“What do you guys have against black people, anyway,” he asks.
“They’re bad people, unlike us.”
“They’re just people with different skin pigment.”
Envy shakes his head. “That’s what they want you to think. But niggers, they’re just bad people. They do bad things. Eventually there will be a war against the niggers, to exterminate them all, eliminating a large percentage of the bad people in this country.”
Rafe yawns. He thinks about how killing black people would be considered a bad thing, regardless if they’re naturally bad people. However, he knows this sort of logic would elude a gluttonous imbecile like Envy. To the right of the highway is a wheat field as far as the eye can see. Rafe walks towards the field and enters it while Envy is busy repairing Goat’s mask.
The wheat field is serene and soothing; the stalks graze him as he walks by like children reaching out to touch him. The entire field sways like that of a tide. Rafe wades through the stalks of wheat until the highway is long out of view. The stalks are like sirens, seducing him deeper and deeper into the field. He recalls Envy mentioning something about antidepressants and chuckles at the irony. He knows having a crippling psychological disorder is like a medicinal utopia for those that don’t have them, but if they were to their induce own, it would be like walking with a crutch without a limp. Rafe comprehends the appeal of having a psychological disorder: meds, the company of someone caring over you, an excuse to escape responsibility, a target to blame your flaws and anguish on.
“Hey kid,” Goat shouts as the ambulance tramples over the stalks that he passed by. “Where’ya going?”
“Nowhere, just needed to walk something off,” he shouted back. Envy whooped with joy. It seemed the night had just begun. He contemplates why Envy uses the word bad instead of evil. He’d blame it on Envy’s verbose vocabulary, but Goat uses it as well. Rafe had never heard the expression “good and bad” before. He continued to think over this as he climbed into the snarling ambulance.

“Looks like schizophrenia displaying positive symptoms,” the doctor confirms. “Patient is showing signs of paralyzing delusions, heightened senses, derailment, vivid hallucinations, formal thought disorder, and inappropriate effect.” The doctor examined Rafe’s symptoms for awhile before moving on to check on the next patient. He couldn’t help but to wonder exactly what was going on inside Rafe’s head that caused him to smile so.