Schizo by Nic Sheff Page B

crossed.
    There’s a loud noise as the front doors seem to slam open and two police officers, one male and one female, carry a screaming man, hog-tied, through the main entranceway.
    â€œFucking cocksuckers!” he screams.
    Two more men are dragged in the same way behind the first, so all three of them can be heard screaming together.
    â€œFuckers! Motherfuckers!”
    The receptionist woman comes back then, walking just in front of an extremely short man with close-cropped hair and a dark-colored suit and necktie. The man introduces himself as Detective William Demarest, but tells me to call him Bill. I shake his hand and thank the woman, who smiles at me before heading back to her desk.
    Detective Demarest—Bill—says that I should follow him, and so I do, walking behind him through a side door and away from those three different hog-tied men screaming profanities.
    â€œI-I’m sorry,” I stutter out as we make our way down the cramped hallway past identical windowless offices with different nameplates tacked up on each door. “You must be really busy.”
    There are trophy cases piled high with different awards and a collection of different badges framed on the yellowed walls.
    â€œOh, yes, busy, busy, busy,” he says in a booming bass voice. “It sure does get crazy in here sometimes. This city’s just full of them—crazies, I mean. I’ve been here goin’ on twenty-five years, but I still can’t get used to it. Suppose you never do. I thought goin’ from homicide to missing persons was gonna be easier somehow. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
    He turns in to the office with his name on the door, and I go in after him.
    â€œTake a seat there,” he tells me, pointing to the only chair in the room.
    â€œAh . . . are you sure?” I ask, considering, as I said, there’s literally no other chair in the office.
    â€œYeah, sit. I’m all right. Here . . .” He pushes some papers onto the floor and moves the lamp and then sits on the corner of the desk so he looks like a little kid, maybe, or like Kermit the Frog, his legs dangling.
    Besides the desk and the papers and the lamp and the one chair, the rest of the office is nothing but filing boxes all stacked one on top of another. The walls are completely blank, and there’s not even an inch of free floor space.
    â€œSit down,” he tells me again.
    And so I do, holding my backpack on my lap as I lean against the hard metal chair.
    â€œAre you just moving into this office?” I ask dumbly, not sure of what else to say.
    He laughs good-heartedly, running his stubby hand through his lack of hair. His nose is very wide, and he has a scar on his chin running straight across like he’s been divided into segments.
    â€œYou’d think it to look at this place, wouldn’t ya?” he says, smiling. “But, no, I’ve been here a whole year. Took over for Detective Marshall. Did you know him, then?”
    â€œN- . . . no. But he was working on my brother’s case.”
    Demarest nods, still smiling. “Yes, yes. Louise told me. Let’s see, I’ve got the file here. I’m sorry, son; I know your family’s been going through a hard time.”
    He begins rummaging through the boxes of files scattered everywhere.
    â€œBelieve it or not,” he continues, still riffling, “there’s a whole system I got worked out here. I got every case filed just so. Only . . . only sometimes I outsmart myself, you know what I mean? I think myself into a corner. You ever do that, son?”
    Standing up straight, he turns and looks at me as though trying to read in my face the answer to his question.
    â€œNope, nope, I don’t figure you do. You’re a smart one, I bet, always got everything put back in its proper place. Isn’t that so?”
    He goes back to looking while I try to say