by Wally Lamb
The birthday kids and their parents got up and left, taking the noise with them. In the sudden quiet, I looked around to see if anyone was listening. Watching him. Was he just yanking my chain—putting me on for some sick reason. “Dr. DiMarco?” I said. “Our Dr. DiMarco?”
Now something had malfunctioned, Thomas said. The radio receivers were heat-sensitive and Thomas had made himself a cup of hot cocoa and scalded the inside of his mouth. Since then, he’d begun to pick up other messages as well. He’d tried to rip out the receivers but he’d only cut the inside of his mouth.
“Yeah?” I said. “Let’s see.”
He opened wide and pulled at both sides of his cheeks. There were raw, purple gashes on his gums and tongue, slashes in the roof of his mouth. That’s when I started to get really scared: when I saw how he’d mutilated himself like that—saw where that blood Ma had seen had come from.
“What . . . what do these messages say?” I asked. I was afraid to hear his answer.
He told me about a voice that had been encouraging him to hang our mother’s crucifixes upside down, another that kept ordering him to go to the maternity ward at the hospital and strangle the infants. He wasn’t sure whose the latter voice was, but it might have been someone from the Manson family. Maybe Charles Manson himself. He wasn’t sure. “You should hear the way he talks,” Thomas said. “It’s disgusting.” He took a sip of his shamrock shake. “Nothing I can repeat in public.”
“Thomas?” I said.
“Then there’s another voice—a religious voice. He keeps telling me to memorize the Bible. It makes sense, really. Once the Communists take over, watch out! The first thing they’re going to do is burn every single Bible in the United States. Don’t think they won’t, either. That’s why I’ve started memorizing it. Who else would do it if I didn’t?”
I felt light-headed, robbed of oxygen. This wasn’t happening, I promised myself.
“Is this . . . is this the same voice that’s telling you to do the other stuff?”
“What other stuff?”
“The bad stuff.”
Thomas sighed like a parent whose patience was ebbing. “I just told you, Dominick. It’s a religious voice. He disapproves of everything the other voices say. They bicker all night long. It gives me headaches. Sometimes they scream at each other. You know who it might be? That priest that Ma used to listen to on television. On Saturday nights. Remember? He had white hair. I can see him, but I can’t remember his name.”
“Bishop Sheen?” I said.
“That’s it. Bishop Sheen. He’s our father, you know? He impregnated Ma through the television. It can be done; it’s more common than anyone thinks. ‘This is Bishop Fulton J. Sheen saying good night and God loves you.’ . . . I don’t know. It might be him, but it might not. You know that Dr. DiMarco and the Manson family have orgies, don’t you? In Dr. DiMarco’s office. One of them guards the door so that patients don’t walk in on them accidentally. They do anything they want to each other. Anything. It’s disgusting. That’s why I’m in danger. Because I know about the link between Manson and the Communists. I shouldn’t even be out here in public like this. It’s a risk. I know too much—about the plan to blow up the sub base, for instance. They’re very, very dangerous people, Dominick—the Communists. If they ever suspected I’ve begun to memorize the Bible, I’d be shot in the head. There’d be orders to shoot on sight. Listen! ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; the earth was waste and void; darkness covered the abyss, and the spirit of God was stirring above the waters.’ I’m only up to chapter 2, verse 3. It’s a lifetime’s work. It’s risky business. How’s Dessa?”
“Dessa?” I said. “Dessa’s . . . “
“That’s why I had to break it off with her sister, you know. It was too dangerous. They might have hurt her to get at me. What was her name again?”
“Her . . . ? Angie? You mean Angie?”
He nodded. “Angie. It was just too dangerous, Dominick. Do you want the rest of my fries?”
That conversation—and the psychiatric lockup that followed it later that night, Thomas’s first—occurred a full ten months after the panic attack that had made my brother trash our jointly-owned typewriter in May of the previous year. In the interim, the war had escalated, man had walked on the moon, and I’d tried as hard as possible not to see what was coming—what, inch by inch, had already arrived.
On that first night of many nights when I drove my brother between the brick pillars and onto the grounds of the Three Rivers State Hospital, I went home to our shared bedroom on Hollyhock Avenue and dreamed a dream I have remembered ever since.
In it, my brother, Ralph Drinkwater, and I are together, lost somewhere in the Vietnamese jungle, wading ankle-deep in muck. A sniper, perched in a tree, raises his rifle and aims. No one sees him but me; there’s no time to tell the others.
I duck, pulling Ralph down with me. There’s a dull crack. A bullet rips through my brother’s brain. . . .
25
“Almond, peanut butter, or crunch?” Lisa Sheffer asked.
“The usual,” I said. “One of each.” I fished into my wallet, slid three bucks across the desktop.
Since my brother’s commitment at Hatch, I’d had five meetings with Sheffer and had bought fund-raiser candy bars for Thomas each time. It was part ritual and part thanks to Sheffer for watching out for him. Part connection between me and my brother during our state-enforced separation: a candy bar bridge, a link of chocolate, nuts, and sugar. It was the first thing Thomas asked about whenever she saw him, Sheffer said. Had she seen me? Had I bought him any candy bars?
“Make sure your daughter remembers me when she graduates from Midget Football and becomes a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader,” I said.
“Oh, please,” Sheffer groaned. “I’d have to shoot myself.”
I asked her if her daughter looked like her.
“Jesse? No, she looks like the sperm donor.” I guess I must have looked at her funny. “My ex-husband,” she said. “If I think of him as the sperm donor instead of the toad I was stupid enough to marry, it doesn’t make me seem like such a bad judge of character.” She fished a picture out of her desk and passed it over: a chubby brunette in a pink leotard.
“She’s a cutie,” I said. “Seven, right?”
“Seven going on thirteen. You know what she wants to do when she grows up? Wear eye shadow. That’s it—the sum total of her future goals: wear blue eye shadow with glitter in it. Gloria Steinem would be furious with me.”
I had to smile. “I met Gloria Steinem once,” I said.
“Yeah? Where?”
“Down in New York. At a Ms. magazine party. Me and my wife.”
“Really? Geez, Domenico, I wouldn’t have automatically assumed you were on the guest list. What was the occasion?”
“My wife—my ex-wife—had started a day care program with her friend at Electric Boat. For working women, single moms. It was right after the Boat started—”
The phone rang. “Excuse me,” Sheffer said.
I told myself I had to stop doing that: talking about Dessa all the time, forgetting to put the ex in ex-wife. It was pathetic, really: the abandoned husband who couldn’t let go. You got a divorce decree and a live-in girlfriend, I reminded myself. Get over it.
“Yeah, but Steve, what you’re not understanding is that I’m in the middle of a meeting,” Sheffer told whoever was on the other end of the phone. I picked up the picture of her kid again. It was kind of funny: this little girlie-looking girl belonging to Sheffer, with her crewcut and her wrist tattoos.
“I’m not saying I forbid it, Steve. I’m not in a position to forbid anything. I’m just saying it’s not particularly convenient right now because I have someone in the office with me.” She held the phone in front of her and mouthed the word asshole. “Fine,” she said. “Fine. Send him up then.”
She banged the phone back down and moaned. “God forbid that clinical needs should interfere with the ma
intenance schedule,” she said. “I’ve been asking for two weeks to have that light replaced.” Her head nodded toward the dead fluorescent tube above my head. “Suddenly, it’s now or never, meeting or no meeting.”
I shook my head in sympathy. “So, anyway,” I said. “You told me over the phone you wanted to talk about the hearing? Wanted to ‘brainstorm’ or something?”
She nodded, refocusing herself. “Okay, look. Here’s the deal. The Security Review Board meets on the thirty-first. Halloween. That gives us less than a week to build our case.”
“Our case?” I said. “I thought you were undecided about whether he should or shouldn’t stay here.”
She picked up a paper clip. Moved it end over end across her desk. “Well, Domenico, I had insomnia last night,” she said. “And somewhere around my twelfth or thirteenth game of solitaire, I joined your team.”
I looked at her. Waited.
“I really wasn’t sure before—I kept going back and forth—but I’ve come to the conclusion that another year here at Hatch would probably do him more harm than good.”
“What happened?” I said. “Did something else happen?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, really. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Which means what?”
“He’s been taking a little teasing here and there—at meals, at rec time. Don’t worry. We’re monitoring it. The trouble with Thomas—with anyone who’s paranoid—is that he tends to perceive run-of-the-mill ribbing as proof of grand conspiracy. Someone says something, and he immediately sees it as part of some master plan. And, of course, when he gives someone a big reaction, it invites more of the same. But he and Dr. Patel and I are working it out. Developing some strategies he can use when someone starts teasing him.”
“You know what sucks?” I said. “This security clearance bullshit. The way I can’t even see him.” I picked a candy bar up off her desk and waved it. “The way I gotta communicate with these things.”
She assured me my security clearance would be coming soon. That the teasing was nothing out of the ordinary. “He’s safe,” she said.
“Oh, yeah. Safe with all the psycho-killers and pyromaniacs and God knows what else. Not to mention the goons in uniform. If he’s so safe, what made you decide he needs to get out of here?”
She sighed. “Well, ironically enough, the security. The inspections, the surveillance cameras, room checks—all the routines and precautions that keep it safe. The bottom line is: this is a very threatening environment for a paranoid schizophrenic. People are always watching you. I just think he could be better served, long term, at a facility where security is less of an issue.”
“But nothing else happened? He didn’t freak out in the dining room again or anything?”
“He’s better, Dominick. Really. His wound has healed nicely. The psycholeptics are starting to kick in. And he knows what to expect now—what the day-to-day routine is. But I’ll be honest with you. He’s miserable here—scared, withdrawn. It’s sad. I just feel that a maximum-security forensic hospital is an inappropriate placement for him.”
“Which is what I’ve been trying to tell everybody right along!”
She nodded. Smiled. “So, okay, you’re ahead of the rest of us. Go to the head of the class. Anyway, I’m going to help you fight for his release.”
Sheffer took out a legal pad and we began to plan our arguments for the Review Board: the things she’d say, the things I’d say. It was crucial that I be there to advocate for him, she said. It would show the board that Thomas had family support—a safety net to fall back on. She wanted to know if Ray was planning to attend. Given Ray and Thomas’s past history, I said, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not. Sheffer suggested that Ray be there—sit there—but not say anything. “You’ll be the spokesperson; he can be the ‘extra.’ Okay?”
“Okay with me,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’ll be okay with Ray.”
“Do you want to ask him about it? Or should I?”
I looked away. “You,” I said.
Together, Sheffer and I came up with a list of potential advocates for Thomas’s release: former docs, staff members at Settle, people from the community who might be willing to write a letter on his behalf. We divided the list; each of us promised to approach half. “Now,” Sheffer said. “We have to talk about the unit team recommendation.”
There was a knock on the door. “Maintenance,” Sheffer said. “Come in!”
But it was Dr. Patel’s little grapefruit-sized gray head that poked around the door. I’d have preferred the janitor.
“Hello, Lisa,” she said. “Hello, Dominick.” She explained to me that Sheffer had mentioned I was coming in for a meeting; she wanted to see me for just a minute. Was this a convenient time? “Yeah, sure, Rubina,” Sheffer said. “I’ve got something I should check on, anyway. I’ll be back in five minutes.” She closed the door behind her. It was a setup.
Doc Patel cut to the chase. “You missed your appointment yesterday,” she said.
I reminded her I’d phoned and left a message with her answering service.
“Which I received,” she said. “Thank you. But that is not the point. My point is: why did you cancel, Dominick?”
“Why?” She hated when I did that: answered her by repeating her question.
“You’d had a difficult time of it the session before and then you didn’t show up yesterday. Naturally, I’m wondering if—”
“It was the weather,” I said.
“Yes? The weather? Explain, please.”
“They were . . . they were predicting rain on Wednesday and Thursday.”
She shrugged. “My office is indoors, Dominick.”
“It’s the end of the outdoor season. The painting season. I got this house I’ve got to finish—big job—and with everything else that’s happened, I haven’t. . . . We’ve had frost two nights in a row now.”
She shrugged again.
“Your work’s not seasonal,” I said. “Us lunatics keep you busy all twelve months of the year. But I can’t afford to—”
She held up her hand to stop me. “You’re being flip with me,” she said. “That’s a defense. I would prefer a more direct response.”
“Look,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help. I do appreciate it. But I just don’t have the luxury right now—if it’s a decent weather day—to leave the job site and go over to your office so I can rag about my brother. Not with November almost here. Not with this client named Henry Rood who keeps calling my house every other minute.”
“It’s interesting,” she said.
“What is?”
“That you refer to our work together as a ‘luxury.’ For me, a luxury is a hot bath on a weekend afternoon, or a trip to a museum, or the time to read a good novel. Not something as emotionally demanding as what you’ve begun. You are doing enormously difficult work, Dominick. Don’t devalue it, or yourself, like that.”
I got up and walked the four or five steps over to Sheffer’s barred office window. Looked out at that sorry excuse for a recreation area they had out there. “I didn’t mean luxury,” I said. “Jesus. Do you always have to take every word I say and—”
“Dominick?” she said. “Would you look at me, please?”
I looked.
Her smile was sympathetic. “I know that you were in a great deal of pain during our last session,” she said. “Your recounting of Thomas’s first severe decompensation—his hallucinations, his lacerating the inside of his mouth—these are such sad, frightening memories for you to have to relive. And such vivid memories, my goodness. The detail with which you recall those disturbing events indicates to me that you have been carrying an enormous burden for a very, very long time. So in my opinion, Dominick, the work we’ve been doing—unearthing these memories, dealing with their toxicity, if you will—this is important for your emotional health, perhaps in ways that you cannot yet assess.”
“Their ‘toxicity,�
� huh?”
She nodded. “Think of your past as a well in the ground,” she said.
Jesus, here we go again, I thought: Doc Patel, Queen of the Metaphors.
“Wells are good things, are they not?” she said. “They give life-sustaining water, they replenish. They support. But if the underground spring that feeds the well—and by that, I mean your past, Dominick—if the spring is poisoned, toxic for some reason—then the water cannot sustain. Do you see the comparison I’m making?”
“Yup.”
“And what is your opinion, please?”
I made her wait. “My opinion is that housepainting is how I put bread on the table,” I finally said.
She nodded. “And therapy will sustain you as well, my friend. My concern yesterday when you failed to keep your appointment was that our process may have frightened you. Overwhelmed you.”
“I was painting,” I said. “I had to paint.”
She reached out and patted my arm. “Very well, then. Would you like to reschedule your missed appointment or wait until next week?”
“Actually,” I said. “Now that you bring it up.”
I told her I’d been thinking about putting the whole process on hold for a while. Not quitting or anything, I said. Just postponing things until the dust settled a little.
“Yes? Then that’s something we’ll need to talk about the next time we meet. Shall we reschedule your missed appointment?”
“Let’s . . . let’s just hold off until Tuesday,” I said. “My regular appointment.”
“Which you will honor?” she said. “Rain or shine?”
I nodded. She shuffled the files in her hand. Headed for the door.
“Wait,” I said. “I wanted to ask you something, too. How are you . . . which way are you planning to vote?”
She turned back toward me. “Vote?”
“On my brother? That team unit thing’s coming up in three or four more days, right? The recommendation? Are you going to recommend he stays here, or gets transferred back to Settle, or what?”