by Vanda
The stairs going up to Scott’s floor were steep, and murals covered the surrounding walls. The guard told us the murals had been painted in the thirties as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. They once were rich in color, but now were dull and faded behind a layer of dust. I was glad to have a companion to climb these steps with me this time, but I worried the stairs might be too much for Mattie’s seventy-seven-year-old legs. She was pretty tough, though.
At the top there was an elevator, and we squeezed in with the other visitors. A woman behind us said to another woman, “Did you know the higher the floor the more seriously ill the patients are?”
“Really?” the other woman said.
“The ones on seven are the criminals. I’m sure glad my son’s not there.” The door opened, and she got off on the fourth floor. A man in a business suit got off on five. The woman getting off on six turned toward Mattie and me briefly with a look of pity or scorn, I wasn’t sure which. When the door opened on seven, fear shook my insides more this time than before. The first time, I hadn’t noticed the policeman sitting on a high stool near the door. The policeman’s hand rested on his gun handle, his billy club hanging from his belt.
“Mattie, why don’t you visit with Scott alone for a while. He’d probably like to see you by himself. I’ll stay by the door.”
Mattie gripped my hand. “Don’t leave me alone in here. I’m scared half outta my wits.”
We walked toward the visiting area, the smell of ammonia and diarrhea surrounding us. Faint laughter. Men sitting at tables smoking cigarettes, the air surrounding them a thick yellow. A laughing man being wrapped in a strait jacket by two bulky Negro orderlies. A white man jumped up on his chair and recited as if he were a politician running for office. The words he threw at us had the rhythm of language. They seemed like they should mean something, but they were strings of made-up words like my mother would recite when she was locked up in a place like this. Mattie wrapped her arm around mine. “Where’s Scottie?”
Our eyes scanned the crowded tables. No Scott. “I’ll ask someone. You wait here.”
“Don’t leave me.” She choked my arm. I spotted Mr. Donahue, the male nurse from the day before. With her arm still wrapped around mine, I dragged Mattie with me. “Excuse me, Mr. Donahue.”
Mr. Donahue turned, coughed, and blew cigarette smoke in my face. “What can I do ya fer, honey?”
“Scott Elkins. Do you know where he is?”
He looked at his watch. “Hey, Murch!” he called across the hall to his friend behind the desk. “You see that cute Elkins boy anywheres?”
“Right there,” Murch yelled back, pointing down the hall.
A large Negro orderly had one of Scott’s arms around his neck, and a skinny Negro orderly held him on his other side. Scott’s feet, covered in thin slippers, scraped along the floor as his head bounced up and down like he was asleep. Mattie and I ran to him. “What’d you done to him?" Mattie cried out. “My boy, my boy.”
“We ain’t done nothin’ to him,” the skinny orderly said. “We jes’ be bringin’ him back.”
“It’s the medication,” I told Mattie. “They said they were going to take him off it, but it looks like they didn’t.”
“Ma’am,” the large Negro man said, “If ya moves aside we can gets him so’s ya can talk to him jes’ fine. He a little wore out.”
We followed behind as the two orderlies dragged Scott past the men sitting at the tables. In the back, there was row after row of metal beds hanging from the walls. The large Negro pulled one down, and the other man hoisted Scott onto the wrinkled sheets.
Scott curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around his middle, moaning.
“Scottie?” Mattie whispered, leaning close to him. She jumped back. “Oh! He smell somethin’ awful.”
“They does after the treatment,” the large Negro said.
“Well, can’t you clean him up?”
“No, ma’am, not yet. That be part of the treatment.”
Mattie leaned over Scott, “Scottie, honey? Can you sit up?”
Scott moaned more.
Mattie turned to the Negroes. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Ain’t nothin wrong with him, ma'am," the large Negro said. “It be the treatment. They all gets like that.”
“Come on, Abe, we gots to get outta here,” the skinny Negro said to the large one.
“Yeah, I’s comin.”
Abe started to move back toward the tables when Mattie asked, “What treatment?”
“Ya gots to talk to the doctor, ma’am,” the Negro called Abrahan said.
“Come on, Abe,” The skinny orderly said. “We can’t stays back here. You knows what happen last time.”
“You be his grandma, ma’am?” Abe asked.
“I surely am. And I’m none too pleased with how my boy’s bein’ treated here.”
“Well, it be a pleasure meetin’ ya, ma’am. I’s Abraham, and the fella over there are Randall.”
“Abe, we gots to go,” Randall said, his eyes darting back and forth. “If I lose this job Daisy won’t never speak to me no more.”
“Go, then. This are the man’s grandma.” He turned back to Mattie. “I’s sorry, I can’t explain … Ya needs to be talkin’ to his doctor, ma’am, but ...”
“But?”
“He left a little bit ago. Sorry.”
“Abe,” Randall called.
“Okay. I’s comin. What ya wants with that skinny assed womens anyways?”
The two orderlies walked past the men sitting with their visitors in the recreation area.
“Ya sure ‘nough don’t get no privacy round here,” Mattie said. “Where’s the walls?” She grabbed a chair from the recreation area and put it next to Scott’s cot; he was starting to stir.
“Grandma?” he said with one eye open. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, boy. What they done to you?”
“Oh, Grandma.” Scott began to cry. “It’s awful here.”
“We’re getting you out.” I said. “Max is working on it, but you gotta be strong.”
“What are they doin’ to you?” Mattie persisted.
“They’re giving me the treatment, so I won’t be homosexual any more. It’s awful, but I gotta take it. Once it’s over, I won’t be condemned anymore. Oh, no, I’m gonna be sick.” Mattie jumped out of the way in time. Throw up landed all over Scott and the bed.
“What kinda treatment is this?” she cried out so loud everyone turned to look.
I ran down the hall and called to Abraham. He came running with a bucket. Mattie and I left the area while Abraham cleaned Scott up.
“What are they doing to him?” Mattie asked. “We gotta make them stop.”
“We will,” I said.
Dr. Shim was heading toward his office just then. “Dr. Shim! Dr. Shim! Remember me? Mrs. Scott Elkins.”
“Yes, Mrs. Elkins. You’ll be pleased to know your husband is in the faster treatment program we talked about, and he’s making marvelous progress.”
“Progress? He’s deathly ill,” I shouted.
“Oh, that. It’s part of the program, but this method is faster and very effective.”
“What is this treatment?”
“You wouldn’t want to clutter your pretty little head with theoretical principles and research studies.”
“Try me.”
“Look, all you need to know is it works. Like I told you when you insisted I get your husband into this program, 58 percent of homosexual men are cured this way.”
“Get him out of it.”
“Do you know how hard it was to get him into it? Only a few were chosen. I had to pull strings for you.”
“Now, pull strings to get him out.”
“I will not. I have a reputation to protect.”
Abraham pushed a cart at the other end of the hall. I rummaged through my purse, pulled out a memo pad, and scribbled a note on it. I hurried to catch Abraham before he turned a corner and slipped t
he note onto his tray.
* * *
I was on my fifth cup of mud, and still no Abraham. “Ya sure ya don’t wanna order somethin’?” the waiter asked. “Don’t look like your friend’s ever gonna show up.”
“No, thanks, I’m fine. I’ll have something when he arrives.”
“Suit yerself, but seems to me, the guy yer waitin’ for ain’t worth much, leaving a sweet girl like you here by yerself.”
Sitting there alone made me stand out, something I hated. It was a neighborhood diner not far from the hospital, but all the women were either seated with a man or a female companion. That was true for both the white and colored women. A couple of men, one white, one colored, sat alone at their own tables, drinking coffee and reading the paper. People look strangely at women who sit at diner tables alone. Abraham had seemed so kind, I thought surely he would meet me here, but I guess …
I was pulling on my coat, ready to leave, when I saw him standing in the doorway. At first I wasn’t even certain it was him. He wore street clothes, dungarees and a lumberjack shirt. He ambled over to me and stood at my table without sitting. “You gots somethin’ you wanna say to me?”
“I, uh, hoped we could talk. Won’t you sit down?”
“You sure ya wants me doin’ that?”
“Of course. Why not?”
He pulled out the chair and sat heavily. He lifted a pack of Spuds Mentholated from his shirt pocket and hit the bottom. He sucked out the cigarette with his lips, lit it, and sat back, making a big production of exhaling the smoke. “Now, what?”
“Why don’t we order something? Waiter, oh, waiter! Have whatever you want. It’s on me. Waiter, please …”
The waiter stood on the other side of the room. He looked over at me briefly, then left to serve a Negro couple, which had just come in.
“Menus, please,” I called to him, but still he didn’t come to our table.
“What’s happened to him?” I said to Abraham. “A little bit ago he was very attentive.” As the waiter left the Negro couple’s table, jotting down their order on his pad, I called, “Waiter. Menus, please.”
He walked by us and into the kitchen as if we were invisible.
“Has he suddenly gone hard of hearing?”
Abraham laughed. “Forget it, lady. That cracker ain’t comin’ over here no time soon.”
“But we’re customers.”
“You jes’ gets off the pickle boat or somethin’? That guy ain’t comin’ over here to serve us with me sitting here with you. What world you been livin in?” He chuckled to himself and blew smoke over my head.
“I sit with … well, gentlemen … like yourself all the time. I manage a night club, and I’ve had dinner with Charlie Bird, Dizzie Gillepsie—”
“Cel’brities. They ain’t no gentlemens like me.”
“This isn’t the south. Look, he’s serving those two women over there.”
“You mean them colored women? Ya can say the word. They’s with their own kind. It’s the mixin’ the cracker don’t like. Look, lady, I ain’t gots time to be educatin’ you. Jes’ asks me what you wants so I can gets on home to my fam’ly. Yeah, I gots a fam’ly and I just finished a double.”
“This treatment. What is it? What are they doing to Scott?”
“I ain’t no doctor.”
“But you know. You’ve seen it.”
“Lady, how cans you be with a mens like that? He ain’t no mens. He’s a twinkle-toed homo. You oughta be glad them doctors trying to turn your mens back into what he were born to be. Unless you’re one of them manified girls?”
“Tell me what they’re doing to him. I’ll pay you.” I unsnapped the clasp on my purse.
“I doesn’t need your money. I gots my own. And I ain’t sittin’ here bein’ insulted by the likes of you. I gots only one reason for bein’ here.”
“What’s that?”
“His grandma. I feels bad she gotta have a boy like him. Grandmas is important.”
“Then for her. Tell me.”
He looked away, uncomfortable. “They make him drink beer.”
“But Scott doesn’t drink.”
“First, they give him a shot of some medicine, and it don’t mix right with the beer, so he get real sick and throw up all over hisself, and while he be like that they … Look, I’s can’t talk about this with no womens.”
“Please, Abraham.”
He took a couple of deep breaths. “They shows him pitchers of mens with no clothes on and mens doin’ sick homo things. Every time they puts a slide on the screen they makes him drink more beer, and he get sicker.”
“That’s horrible. Why?”
“You aksin’ me? I ain’t no doctor. It’s part of the treatment.”
“What do they do next?”
“This next is the hardest, and I doesn’t like stayin’ for that, but sometimes I has to straps them in the chair.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Miss, I’s tellin you, it ain’t right for me to be talkin’ this way with no womens, especially no white ones.”
“His grandma needs to know.”
He squirmed in his chair, obviously uncomfortable. “They puts these … things—wires, on his arms and legs, sometimes on his, uh, privates. Every time they shows him a naked man pitcher they push a button. It shoot ‘lectricity into him.”
“My God.”
“They screams. Then they shows him some pitchers of gals, you knows, in some kinda way that would make a real man get ...” He looked away, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his back pants pocket and wiped away the sweat. “Once he be lookin’ at the gals they shuts off the ‘lectricity. Sometimes they cleans him up so he be feelin’ real fine. After some days he get to hit whichever button he want: the one with ‘lectrictrity and pitures of mens or the one with no lectricity and pitures of gals.” He stamped his cigarette out in the ashtray. “I gots to go. I ain’t gonna do more.” He stood up. “You okay?”
“Yes. Thank you, Abraham.” He walked out. I couldn’t move. It all sounded like something the Nazis would’ve done, not our own American doctors.
As I pulled on my gloves, I became aware everyone in the diner was staring at me like I’d done something terribly bad. I walked out hiding my face in my coat.
Chapter 71
THERE WASN’T A moment to waste. We had to get Scott out of there. I took Mattie to meet with the lawyers Max got for her. She signed all their papers. Meeting with high-powered New York lawyers couldn’t have been easy for her, but she was determined to do whatever she had to do to get her boy out of the “loony bin.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the details of the treatment.
When I could, I broke away from work and took her to the theater or a club. I wished I could’ve brought her to Juliana’s act, but Juliana still wasn’t working. I took her to Ruth Wallis’s show of sophisticated songs. Mattie enjoyed how the maître’d and waiters tripped over their feet trying to please me. We were shown to a special table and given drinks on the house. Ruth was pretty bawdy that night, and I was afraid Mattie would be put off, but not Mattie. The bawdier the better.
Marty’s notes piled up, and I knew I should contact him, but I didn’t have anything for him, and it was hard telling him that. I thought maybe I could get him something Off-Broadway, but … between Juliana and Scott I was rarely in the office.
One morning, I stopped in at The Haven to see if the contracts from Paris had arrived yet. As I was flipping through my mail, Marty burst through my door. “At last! What kind of manager are you? I’ve practically been on my knees for a month, but you never call me.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been going back and forth to the hospital and—”
“I have no money left!” He flopped into the chair next to my desk. His clothes looked even more rumpled than usual, and his hair was a knotted mess. “What do you want me to do? Be a store clerk like my father? Is that all I’m good for
now?”
“No. But Marty, those reviews do make it harder.”
“TV is hiring. Everyone I know is making great careers and me …”
“What did you mean in your note ‘you were going to come clean?’ Are you a communist?”
“No. But I figured out what they might mean. In my freshman year, there was this guy. Really handsome. No, gorgeous.”
“Stop drooling and tell me the story.”
“He was interested in communism, so … I went with him to a couple meetings.”
“Oh, Marty.”
“I didn’t know. This guy was hot, but he was more excited about communism than me. For me—the more I learned the less I liked. Then I found out, with all their talk about equality for all people, communists hated homosexuals as much as anyone, and if they found out you were one, they’d kick you out like everybody else. The guy I liked didn’t care. He wasn’t crazy about being homosexual, anyway. So, I just stopped going. I only went to get him into bed, and since that wasn’t going to happen—well, it happened once—there was no reason to go.
“I think they want me to tell them that guy’s name. All I have to do is ruin his life, and I get mine back. I think he’s teaching in a university down south. You know what they do to teachers for being a communist or a homosexual? But I was all set to do it, Al. I made the call. All you have to do is meet with these guys, tell them your story in a private room and say you’re sorry. They write it up, and you sign your name. Nothing to it. But—I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I hung up before I said anything. Jesus, he’d get fired. I heard he has a family now, a couple of kids. No one would ever hire him again. Don’t you have any damn work for me?”
“You’re quite a guy, Buck Martin. I’m glad you’re my friend. But Broadway is dead right now. I’ve been thinking maybe Off-Broadway—”
“Off-Broadway? I really am finished, aren’t I?” He jumped out of his seat and ran a hand through his hair.
“Off-Broadway is doing important work.”
“Who’ll see me there? I’m a song and dance man.”