speeding onwards || norman & bernadette
Twenty-two years.
Norman, now with a clean bill of mental health, had to spend twenty-two years in a psychiatric care facility before anyone was convinced that he was fit to be seen in public again. Because he wasn't his mother, not anymore. He didn't get as kiss close, in your face, personal. He was no longer a knife attack personified, remixed, set to an old jazz tune; that warm gush of blood against the white shine of a bathroom floor. That slip slide sound upon entrance to some poor girl's bucket of innards. He was no longer the screams that accompanied the last few breaths of a dying victim.
Norman-- Norman just wasn't that type of guy.
He remembered, now, the bits that he wasn't supposed to recall. When he'd told the tale in group therapy, once, someone told him, "You're a cold blooded guy," and Norman gave them a look, just a look. One that clearly said, you have ten seconds to say something relevant before I sink this pen so deep in your leg that you shit a whole fucking monologue, and the tap tap tap of his fingers against his plastic chair counted down the numbers to the death sentence.
But Norman wasn't his mother. He doesn't get all romantic about music like his mother did, but he put just as much passion into his work as she had done, so long ago; he still put just as much pride in his abilities.
And when that nobody from before, in group therapy, had tried to sabotage Norman, had called him a psycho (a name which spread like wildfire throughout the excited madhouse crowd), Norman felt the liquid black emotion seeping into his heart; but he worked with it, professionally, like how a real man of class would go about it. The nobody sort of stood there and sweated.
Norman looked at him. Smiled, sweet like molasses. He wasn't that type of guy-- not anymore.
It was late afternoon, with the sun beating relentlessly down on the back of his neck. Norman ran a hand over it uncomfortably as he double-checked the address. Glanced again at the door, then to the scrap of paper in his hand. Behind him, the county sheriff -- nothing but supportive -- waved him goodbye like a doting mother before driving off. Taking a deep, somewhat shaky breath, Norman rang the doorbell and waited, rocking slightly on his heels like a bored child.
Government mandated therapy wasn't Norman's idea of a good time. Unfortunately, with his insistence on living in his childhood home, and on running his motel again, the sheriff -- the state -- had pressed the need for counseling. Luckily, they'd allowed Norman to pick one out for himself. Someone out of the way, a small business, not in an elaborate office, but in a home.
A drop of sweat ran down the side of his neck. He swallowed, nervously, and waited.