Eddie's Shorts - Volume 1

by M. Edward McNally

  After supper the patients who have been behaving well are allowed to go outside, weather permitting, and that day it is sunny and I'm one of the observers assigned to take them. Willow Farm is a big old ramshackle place with tall windows and columns and porches all over: It used to be a plantation a long time before it was a treatment facility. There are lots of spreading green grounds and woods all around it, and in the back of the main building which houses the facility there is a nice grassy slope that we keep mowed down short, with white iron benches scattered around under some shady old sycamores. It's nice and cool back there and the patients know that they can't leave the mowed area unaccompanied, so they mostly settle down around on the benches and listen to the music. The music is part of Dr. Cester-pronounced-Chester's program and is pumped all through the building real quiet, though the speaker on the roof of the veranda in back is on louder so it carries. Today the music is Pavarotti singing Brindisi (I know this because I've heard it a good thousand times before) which is too bad because Dave, one of the Somatoform Disorders, isn't outside on account of him being convinced Dr. Wallace has stolen his spine. Dave usually sings along with that kind of music, and he has a real nice voice.

  John Hernandez is my partner observer that day and he goes out on the grass in the sun with eight of the patients. John plays a little golf on his off days, so he stands out there looking down the hill, and he pretends the big flashlight he's carrying, even though it's noon, is a golf club. He loosens his shoulders and starts doing some swings, acting like he's hitting off over the woods at the base of the slope. Each time he hits he shades his eyes with a hand and peers out over the woods, and some of the patients on the benches do the same thing. See that's what I mean about odd-seeming things being taken differently: John is staff, so he can hit invisible balls out over the woods with a flashlight and it's no big deal, but if he were a patient someone would probably change his dosage.

  Bobby Lee is one of the patients out there with us, he is next to me on the veranda that runs the length of the old house's back side. He is one of the Schizos, so Bobby Lee is not his real name. The Doctors won't let the staff call any of the patients by anything but their real names, even though a lot of the Schizos and Disassociatives and MPD's don't know what their real names are and look at you real funny when you use them, like they're not sure you're talking to them. So when the Doctor's aren't around we usually call the patients by what they'll answer to.

  "You want to go on down to the grass, Bobby Lee?" I ask. He can't by himself on account of he is in a wheelchair and there is no ramp.

  Down on the lawn John Hernandez gets a hold of a good one and a couple of the Diso Schizos on a bench clap their hands.

  "No thank you, Pete," Bobby Lee says with his deep drawl, "I can see fine from our present elevation."

  Bobby Lee is an elderly black man who must have been pretty tall when he had his legs. His hair is almost all white except for a grey streak that runs through the center of his pointed beard that comes down almost to the red quilted blankets piled around his lap. His hair on top is bunchy like wool but pretty high on his forehead, though you generally can't see it because he usually wears a slouching grey felt hat with yellow braid. He is the one I want to talk to first about my Dad, but now that we're alone on the veranda I can't remember just how I wanted to say this.

  "Uhm, well, you just let me know, okay?" I say.

  Bobby Lee turns to me in his chair and pats my arm fondly, "I will indeed, my faithful Old War Horse." He smiles up at me real kindly and I try to smile back but it doesn't come out quite right. Bobby Lee sees it right away.

  "General, is something troubling you?" he asks, looking honestly concerned. A lot of the Schizos have different sorts of "Affective" problems, either from their major disorders or as side effects from medications. What that means is that lots of times they sort of do the wrong thing when something happens, like when Sam's roommate Malcom hung himself overnight and Sam couldn't stop laughing until Dr. Palumbo sedated him. Bobby Lee doesn't have any of that unless he's on a heavy Electro Convulsive week. Normally he's about the sharpest guy on the Farm. Except for the doctors, I mean.

  "Well, sort of, yes sir I guess it is," I say, but I don't go on from there. I can't remember just how I meant to start.

  Bobby Lee uses his left hand on a wheel to roll his chair back so he's facing me.

  "General, I do hope that any of member of my command should feel entirely comfortable in speaking with me concerning any matter." He leans forward and takes my hand. His hand is a lot smaller than mine and feels bony, like the skin is just gritty paper wrapped around it. But his grip is real strong when he wants it to be.

  Even though I can't remember how I was going to start, all of a sudden I'm talking anyway. There on the veranda in back of the main building at Willow Farm, while John shortens his grip on the flashlight and makes invisible chip shots at a sycamore, I tell General Lee about my Dad the college professor, and the Bobcats that are after him.

  I'm taking his word for that, I haven't seen the Bobcats myself, but I have heard them making noise. It will be like this: Me and Dad are eating early in the morning when all of a sudden Dad will drop his fork to the table and hold one finger up in the air. He's got real long, skinny white fingers, and it's like he's shushing me or something, though I haven't been saying anything. Neither has he, because he's not real talkative like usual in the morning, so it's quiet, but he holds the finger up anyway, and I stop chewing. We wait. Dad's wearing those granny looking Dr. Palumbo glasses of his, and he looks up from behind them and flicks his eyes, they're real blood-shot in the morning, all around the ceiling. After a second there's the noise again - something scampering across the curved roof of the trailer. I've been hearing that for years and up until Dad got here I just figured it was the squirrels, there's about a million of them in the trees all around the park, but Dad doesn't think so. He looks back at me and says, "Bobcats!" Then he jumps up and runs around the table as best he can, seeing as how there's not a lot of clearance between it and the wall counter, but he's not a big guy so he manages. And while he's running around he barks at the ceiling, and whatever's up there scurries quicker and the noise goes away. Dad thumps back into his chair and sort of half-laughs to himself and starts fishing in the pocket of the shirt he slept in for another smoke.

  I mention to Bobby Lee that my Dad is a drinking man, so I know that a lot of time he's probably confused on a lot of things. He seems pretty sure about the Bobcats though.

  "And there's more to it than that," I say. "Sometimes he just starts talking real, well, sort of odd. Like Monday, I was cleaning up the kitchenette, dusting all the cabinets, then wiping down the counters, then draining the fridge, then mopping the floor, and as I'm finishing up I smell cigarette smoke and look over and there's my Dad in the end of the little hall to the bedroom, where he's been sleeping, you know, though it's the middle of the afternoon, and he just looks at me and says something like, 'Politic, cautious, and meticulous. Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse.' Well, I don't know what to say to that, and after another minute he just turns back around and goes back to bed for three more hours."

  Bobby Lee listens real close as I tell him this, nodding every so often. I just keep on talking, about my Dad. Most nights he has gone out and he hasn't always gotten back by morning. Since I work both day and night shifts at Willow Farm on different days, we've only been at home together a couple of times, and then if Dad's not eating he's most always sleeping.

  "It just seems," I tell Bobby Lee, trying to sort of wrap up because I think I might be rambling and besides that it is almost time to go back in. "It just seems like it's sort of strange, I mean here I don't really know the guy at all, but he's my Dad and he's moved into my trailer, and I mean except for the first day or two we haven't hardly said two words, not counting these things my Dad throws in like, 'Once more into the breech, dear friend!' when I was coming in to work Monday night and he was going out at the same time.
I guess I'm just saying that I don't really know how to make out any of this, what he's saying and doing, I mean."

  Bobby Lee nods. "You have not shared any of this with General Grant, I assume?" he asks. I takes me a second to recall that 'General Grant' is what he calls Dr. Palumbo.

  "Ah, no sir. I wasn't just sure that..."

  "That is most likely wise," Bobby Lee interrupts, narrowing his eyes. "This is just the sort of information he would use as leverage over one of my command."

  "So you don't think I should tell him?" I ask. Bobby Lee shakes his head a little wildly. Almost too wildly for a bit, because for just a second it looks like he's having a Dystoniac shaking fit, which several of the patients on heavy Haldol or Thorazine programs get occasionally.

  "Tell no one!" he snaps, stopping his head shaking and staring up at me. He grabs my hand in one of his, and as John calls from the lawn that it's time to go back in Bobby Lee squeezes hard enough to hurt. I decide to take Bobby Lee's advice for a while, but I change my mind after things with my Dad get worse.

  *

  I get off work a bit early Thursday, at about seven in the morning. Instead of driving straight home, though, I take the county roads into Tuxedo. It is grocery day and I like to go to the store before it gets busy. With my Dad living with me I will need to buy more food, too. The Winn Dixie doesn't open until eight so I park the truck in the lot and wait.

  Tuxedo is not a big town. It is on both banks of the Willow Run, but that is not much more than a crick, and little more than a trickle in summer. From about anywhere in the town you can pretty much see the rest of it, and from the Winn parking lot I can see the top of the junior high across the Run. It is a big old brick building that was put up in the forties as the school for everything from kiddy-garden to high school. I haven't been in there for sixteen years, but all of a sudden I start thinking about the library that is next door to it. I think I still have a library card, and sure enough I find it in a back fold of my wallet with the lucky two-dollar bill Aunt Emma gave me when I was five. The card is old and yellow, but I can still make out my name, Jimmy Braithwaite, written in faded blue ink. My teachers always said I had nice handwriting, that was the one thing I could do all right.

  I start the truck up and drive it across the Main street bridge to the junior high school side of town. The library is right there where I remember in the school's shadow - just a little grey bump of a building. I pull up in front but the hand-lettered sign in the window says that the library doesn't open until ten in the summer. I wait in my truck.

  Just before ten, the lady I guess is the librarian now pulls into the lot in a little shiny red car. She is young and very pretty, with lots of light brown hair, and she sees me sitting in my truck and doesn't get out of her car. I know I'm a sort of spooky looking big guy in my white coat with a Braves cap on backwards, and I guess if I was a pretty young lady I'd keep an eye on me, too.

  I sit in the truck and try to think of something I can do to let her know that I don't mean no harm and all I want is to check out a book about bobcats so I can show my Dad that they don't live around here and he doesn't have to worry. A couple of days he has gone out in the woods and I guess sort of wandered around with a bottle or two, "Communing" he calls it, or "Thoreau-ing," and once when he came back he was talking about bobcat prints. There may be bad things out in the woods, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure there's no bobcats.

  I can't think of anything to do that would let the librarian know that this is all I want, and she just keeps looking out of her car at my truck with her hands still on her steering wheel. I start the truck again and drive back to the Winn Dixie.

  I don't know that Dad would believe a book anyway, so I guess the whole thing was all a stupid idea in the first place, and now I feel bad for scaring the poor librarian lady for no good reason.

  It is soon after I get home that my Dad leaves with the hammer, so I decide that Friday, Bobby Lee or no, I should try to talk to a doctor.

  *

  Doctor Palumbo has three locks on his office door, all of them take different keys. He has a huge key ring he generally carries on his belt, must of us staff do, but for some reason his office keys are not separated from all the others. It takes him more than two minutes to go through all his keys until he gets the right three and opens the door.

  He leads the way into his office, and the hissing starts as soon as he turns the lights on. Dr. Palumbo's office is in a first floor back corner of Willow Farm, with two big tall windows on both the outside walls, the kind that stick out from the building and have benches on the inside. The windows are all covered with heavy shutters, and as all the old furniture - the huge desk, the tall-backed chairs - and the wooden floor are all shades of brown, the office is always dark even with the lights on. It's sort of like a big wooden cave at the end of a hall, and the cigarettes he smokes in there make it all smell dry and abandoned. There are things living in there, though.

  The hissing comes from a clear plastic case a bit taller than a shoe box. It's sitting on a bureau against a wall next to a special lamp that puts out a sort of purple-blue colored light. Some of Dr. Palumbo's degrees and things are framed on the wall behind it, all the walls are pretty much covered with certificates and papers written in old-fashioned looking letters, under glass.

  "G'afternoon, ladies and laddies," Dr. Palumbo says towards the hissing box. He has an odd way of talking - the staff says it is because he is originally from N'Orleans - and Doctors Wallace and Cester-pronounced-Chester are always sort of teasing him about it, even though he's their boss. He's everybody's boss. He tosses his clipboard on the bureau and picks the clear case right up to his face, the top is heavy black plastic with air holes and it's got a handle just like a brief case. He holds the case to eye level, just inches in front of his silver-rimmed granny glasses, scrunching his nose up to get the little lenses right in front of his eyes. In the case there is about an inch of wood-chips, a cardboard tube from a toilet paper roll, and four hissing cockroaches from Madagascar. Each one looks like a fat piece of grape-fruit that has gone bad and turned black, only they've got legs and waving antennas the size of knitting needles. I'm still at the office doorway, but I can see them in the case crawling on top of each other.

  "And how are we today?" Dr. Palumbo coos, tapping the side of the case with his finger nails. The roaches hiss louder and he chuckles before setting the case back down and going to his seat behind his desk. Right away he takes a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his white lab coat and lights one up. He notices I'm still standing at the doorway and he motions me to a chair. I take a seat in one, even though its high back isn't really wide enough for me and I have to hunch my shoulders a bit to get into it.

  "So what's on your mind, Jimbo?" he asks me, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk and looking at me over the top of his glasses, which is how he looks at the patients when he wants it to be clear he's listening seriously. It sort of makes me a little nervous. His eyes are dark black, not all that different a color than his roaches.

  Before I can answer, a hiss like I never heard before comes from the roach box. "Ho! Hang on there, minute!" Dr. Palumbo holds a finger up at me and he shoots up out of his chair and scampers back over to the bureau, leaving his cigarette burning in a black glass ashtray on the desk.

  "It's a fight!" he says, like maybe this was something he wanted for Christmas. He doesn't look back at me but he holds an arm out and waves me over. I squeeze out of the chair and go stand next to him.

  "The males are facing off!" he says. In the case, the two bigger roaches are head-to-head on top of the toilet paper tube, shoving against each other. Their thick little legs scratch over the cardboard as they fight. The two other roaches - the females, I guess - are on the other side of the case pretty much ignoring the whole thing.

  Dr. Palumbo's eyes are huge and he's grinning almost from ear to ear. He whispers at me from the side of his mouth while we watch the roaches.

  "S
ee, the reason you get two male Madagascar cackaroaches in with two females is that two males won't let the other one breed! You see this here? If these two fellows wanted, they could pair off however they desire, but cackaroaches won't do that! No, see each of these two boys here wants both of the ladies for his own self!"

  The male that's a little bit bigger than the other one, a good bit bigger than my thumb, and I've got big hands, has been pushing the smaller one slowly back. The smaller one's backside is hanging off the end of the toilet paper tube, and with one more shove the bigger one sends him over. Dr. Palumbo straightens up and claps.

  "So what's the winner do now?" I ask. Dr. Palumbo looks at me and laughs.

  "Nothing! Look at the po'boy!"

  I do. The bigger roach just stays where it is on top of the tube, waving its antennas slowly around.

  "Now that he's won, he's too damn tired to take advantage! And by the time he gets his breath back, the other male'll be ready, too! There's the beauty of it: Long as you got two male Madagascar cackaroaches, they won't ever let the other one breed, and you don't have to worry about eggs!"

  Dr. Palumbo laughs some more and shakes his head while he walks back over to his desk. The cigarette in the ashtray is dead.

  "People think human beings are the only one of all God's creatures that suffer from insanity," he says, sitting down and fishing out a new smoke. "But here these cackaroaches'll keep each other one miserable rather than both be happy! Fact is you can look at most anything in nature, and in some way, every once in a while, everything starts to look like it's plumb crazy!"

  He smiles at me and takes a big pull from his new cigarette; the paper at the end crackles like a hiss. I thank him for his time and leave before he remembers that it was me that wanted to talk to him.

  *

  It takes me some doing to find anybody else to talk to: Dr. Wallace is off Fridays and Cester-pronounced-Chester isn't in any of his normal places. He's not in the big green rooms upstairs where he does his group shouting meetings, not in the kitchens planning out menus with the staff, not in his basement office where the controls for the music he plays all through Willow Farm are. Thinking about that last thing makes me realize that there is still music playing, though I hadn't been noticing at all. It's funny, but even though the music is always on, you almost never notice it inside, except for maybe every hour or so when Dr. Cester changes tapes. Then you hear it for a short while until it sort of fades out on you. When I think about it and stop walking though, and stand real still and hardly breathing in an empty hall, I can hear it again. There are speakers everywhere, but you don't see them. Right now it is instrumental music from a movie I never saw called Chariots Of Fire. Dr. Cester has a lot of tapes, but by now we know them all by heart.