(2005) Wrapped in Rain

by Charles Martin

  This was why Mutt eyed his applesauce. He had no desire to be strapped with electrodes and have a catheter shoved up his penis, but at this stage his paranoia had run rampant and there were only two venues left for them to sneak the medicine into his system: applesauce in the morning and chocolate pudding at night. They knew he enjoyed both, so compliance had never been a problem. Until now.

  Someone had dolloped the applesauce into a small Styrofoam cup on the corner of his tray and sprinkled a swirl of cinnamon into it. Except the cinnamon wasn't all on top. He glanced upward and sideways. Vicki, his longlegged nurse with Spanish eyes, long jet-black hair, short skirts, and a knack for chess, would be in here soon waving a spoon in front of his face and whispering, "Mutt, eat up."

  Mutt grew up growing his own apples and making his own applesauce-a childhood favorite-with Miss Ella every fall, but she didn't use the same ingredients. She pureed the apples, sometimes mixing in canned peaches they had put away that summer and maybe even a little cinnamon or vanilla extract, but she left out the secret ingredient now hidden beneath the cinnamon swirl. He liked Miss Ella's better.

  From his bedroom window, Mutt could see three prominent landmarks: Julington Creek, the Julington Creek Marina, and the back porch of Clark's Fish Camp. If he leaned far enough out the window, he could see the St. Johns. On several occasions, the staff had rented Gheenoes-sort of a canoe with a square stern that was impossible to overturn or sink. They'd launch from the marina and take patients on early afternoon strolls up the creek only to return the boats to the marina owner who affectionately referred to his across-the-creek neighbors as a "dang-sure bona fide nuthouse!"

  With one eye walking around the rim of the Styrofoam cup, Mutt glanced outside and admitted that in seven years, he'd heard and watched a lot of acorns fall. "Millions," he muttered to himself as another one bounced off the windowsill and sent a nearby squirrel chattering through the grass, tail raised high. Lucidity was fleeting, a by-product of the pills. But so was the silence. And at one point, he'd have done anything, or let them do anything to him, to quiet the ruckus in his head.

  He looked around and noted with satisfaction that his room was not padded. He wasn't that far gone. That meant there was still hope. Being here didn't mean he couldn't reason. Being crazy didn't make him stupid. Nor did it make him Rain Man. He could reason just fine; it's just that his reasoning took a bit more circuitous route than that of others, and he didn't always land on the same conclusion.

  Unlike the other patients, no one had to tell him he was standing on the ledge. He had felt his toes reach out over the rock's end long ago. The chasm was deep, and riding around was not an option. There was only one way across. The patients here could look down into the chasm and they could look back, but getting across meant they had to sprout wings and jump a long, long way. Most would never do it. Too painful. Too uncertain. Too many steps had to be untaken or taken back. Mutt knew this too.

  There was really only one way out of here alivestrapped down tight in the back of an ambulance and swimming in Thorazine. Mutt had never seen anyone leave through the front door who was not tied like Gulliver to a stretcher. He always listened for the beeps, the paramedics' hard heels clicking on the tiled floors, the stretcher wheels clickety-clacking over the grout, and the doors sliding open and shut every time somebody was rolled down the hall and signed out, and then the sirens as they sped away under the stoplights. Mutt wouldn't let that happen to himself for two reasons. First, he didn't like the noise from the sirens. It gave him a headache. And second, he'd miss his only true friend, Gibby.

  Gibby, known in the national medical community as Dr. Gilbert Wagemaker, was a seventy-one-year-young psychiatrist with long, stringy white hair to his shoulders, ambling legs, big and round Coke-bottle glasses often tilted to one side, dirty fingernails that were always too long, and sandals that exposed his crooked toes. Aside from his work, he had an affinity for fly-fishing. In truth, it was his own addiction. If it weren't for his name tag and white coat, he might be mistaken for a patient, but in reality-which is where Gibby hoped to bring most of his patients-he was the sole reason most of the patients hadn't been carted out the front door by the paramedics.

  Seventeen years ago, a disgruntled nurse hung a jagged piece of yellow steno paper on his door and hastily scribbled, "Quack doctor." Gibby saw it, took off his glasses, chewed on the earpiece, and studied the note. After a thorough inspection, he smiled, nodded, and walked into his office. A few days later he had it framed. It had been there ever since.

  Last year he had been given a lifetime achievement award by a national society of twelve hundred other quack doctors. In his acceptance speech, he referred to his patients and said, "Sometimes I'm not sure who's more crazy, me or them." When the laughter quieted, he said, "Admittedly, it takes one to know one." When pressed about his use of ECT in specific cases, he responded, "Son, it doesn't make much sense to allow a psychotic to remain psychotic simply because you are unwilling to force the issue of either ECT, medication, or their benefits. The proof is in the pudding, and if you get to Spiraling Oaks, I'll serve you a dish." Despite his controversial remedies and what some considered forty years of overmedicating, Gibby had a remarkable track record of returning the worst of the worst to an almost level playing field. He had seen fathers return to their children, husbands return to their wives, and children return to their parents. But the success stories weren't enough. The halls were still full. So Gibby returned to work. Often with a 6-weight fly rod in one hand.

  Gibby was one of two reasons that Matthew Mason was still alive and ticking-albeit sporadically. The other was the collective memory of Miss Ella Rain. Since his admission seven years, four months, and eighteen days ago, Gibby had taken Mutt's case personally. Something he shouldn't have done professionally, and yet personally, he had.

  For Mutt, the voices came and went. But mostly, they came. As he watched the creek crest at 10:17 a.m., the voices were tuning up. He knew the applesauce would quiet them, but for the last year, he had been trying to get his courage up to skip his morning dessert. "Maybe today," he said as a Ski Nautique pulling a wake boarder and two teenagers on jet Skis flew down the creek toward the river. Soon thereafter they were followed by a white Gheenoe almost sixteen feet long and powered by a small fifteen-horse outboard skimming across the top of the water. Mutt focused on the picture of the Gheenoe- the fishing poles leaning over the side, the red-andwhite bait bucket, the trolling motor, and the two young boys wrapped in orange life jackets.

  At probably twenty knots, the wind pulled at their shirts and jackets but not their hair, because their baseball caps were pulled down tight, pushing on their ears and almost hiding their crew cuts. The father sat in back, one hand on the throttle, the other resting on the side of the boat, watching the water, the bow, and his boys. He eased off on the throttle, turned toward shore, and searched the lily pads for an open hole or a break large enough to drop their worms, beetlespins, and brokenback Rapalas. Mutt watched them as they passed beneath his window, sending their small wake up through grass and cypress stumps. After they were gone, the sound had faded, and the water stilled, Mutt sat on the edge of his bed and considered the look on their faces. The thing that puzzled him was not what they did show, but rather what they didn't. No fear and no anger.

  Mutt knew the drugs only narcotized him, quieted the chorus, and numbed the pain, but they did little to address the root problem. Even in his present state, Mutt knew the drugs would not and could not silence the voices forever. He had always known this. It was just a matter of time. So he did what anyone would have done with new neighbors. He walked over to the fence, stuck out his hand, and befriended them. Problem was, they weren't very good neighbors.

  When Gibby interviewed him after his first week, he asked, "Do you consider yourself to be crazy?"

  "Sure," Mutt responded without much thought. "It's the only thing that keeps me from going insane." Maybe it was that comment that caught Gibby's eye and
caused him to take a particular interest in the case of Matthew Mason.

  From middle school onward, he had been diagnosed as everything from schizophrenic to bipolar to schizoeffective to psychotic, manic-depressive, paranoid, longterm, and chronic. In truth, Mutt was all of those things at once and none at the same time. Like the changing tides in the creek outside his window, his illness ebbed and flowed depending on which memory the voices dragged out of his closet. Both he and Tucker dealt with the memories, just differently.

  Gibby soon learned that Mutt was no regular schizoeffective-schizophrenic-manic-depressive psychotic with severe post-traumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive disorders. He discovered this after one of Mutt's sleepless periods-one lasting eight days.

  Mutt was roaming the halls at 4:00 a.m. and had mixed up his nights and days. He had yet to become aggressive, combative, or even suicidal, but Gibby was wary. By the eighth day, he was carrying on eight verbal conversations at once, each vying for airtime. On the ninth day, Mutt pointed to his own head, made the "Shhhhh" sign across his lips with his index finger, and then wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to Gibby. The voices, I want them out. All of them. Every last one.

  Gibby read the note, studied it for a minute, and wrote back, Mutt, I do too. And we will, but before we send them back to their fiery home, let's figure out which voices are telling the truth and which ones are lying to us. Mutt read the note, liked the idea, looked over both shoulders, and nodded. For seven years he and Gibby had been identifying the liars from the truth tellers. So far, they'd only found one that hadn't lied to him.

  About thirty times a day, one of the voices told him his hands were dirty. When Mutt first arrived, Gibby rationed his soap because he couldn't account for its rapid disappearance. Some of the staff thought that maybe Mutt was eating it-they even took away the antibacterial Zest that Mutt specifically requested-but surveillance cameras proved otherwise, so Gibby relented.

  Like his hands, his room was spotless. Next to his bed sat one-gallon jugs of bleach, ammonia, Pine Sol, and Windex, along with six boxes of rubber gloves and fourteen rolls of paper towels-the sum of which comprised a two-week supply. Again, Gibby was slow to leave the supply in Mutt's room, but after making quite sure that Mutt had no desire to mix a cocktail and, even more, that Mutt actually used it, he loaded him up. Pretty soon his room became the model for families touring the facility or checking on their loved ones. In spite of Gibby's best hopes-which the good doctor shared with him-Mutt's eccentricity had little effect on the guy next door who, for five years, had walked into Mutt's room and routinely defecated in his trash can.

  Like most things, Mutt took the cleaning a bit far. If there was metal in his room, and it had been painted, chances were good it was paint-free now. Whether it was a textbook obsession or just something to occupy his hands and mind, Gibby was never quite sure. Through 188 gallons of cleaning solution, he had rubbed the paint, finish, and stain off everything in the room. If his hand or anyone else's hand had touched, could have touched, or might touch in the future, any surface in that room, he cleaned it. On average, he spent more of the day cleaning than not. Whenever he touched something, it had to be cleaned, and not only it, but whatever was next to it, and whatever was next to that. After that the job was anything but finished, because he then had to clean whatever he used to clean it with. And so on. The cycle was so vicious that he even put on a new pair of rubber gloves to help him clean his used pair of gloves before they went in the trash. He went through so many paper towels and rubber gloves that the orderlies finally bought him his own fifty-five-gallon trash can and gave him a case of plastic liners.

  The cycle was time-consuming, but not as vicious and consuming as the internal loops that kept him captive far more than the walls of his room. The loops were paralyzing, and in comparison, his four walls provided more freedom than the Milky Way. Sometimes, he'd get caught in a question, or a thought or idea, and eight days would pass before he had another thought. Again, Gibby was never certain whether it was truly a physiological condition or something Mutt allowed to keep his mind off the past. But in the grand scheme of things, what was the difference?

  During that time, he'd eat little and sleep not at all. Finally, he'd pass out from exhaustion, and when he woke, the thought would be gone and he'd order fried shrimp, cheese grits, French fries, and a jumbo sweet tea from Clark's-which Gibby would personally deliver. This was Mutt's life, and as far as anyone could tell, it would be indefinitely.

  The only loops that weren't paralyzing were those tied to a task. For example, taking apart a car engine, carburetor, door lock, computer, bicycle, shotgun, generator, compressor, windmill, anything with a gazillion parts all tied in some logical way to the construction of a perfect system which, when assembled, did something. Give him a few minutes, a day, a week-and he could take anything apart and have every part laid out on the floor of his room in a maze that only his mind understood. Give him another hour, day, or week, and he'd have it returned to the exact same place, performing the exact same function.

  Gibby first noticed this talent with the alarm clock. Mutt was late to show for his weekly assessment, so Gibby came to check on him. He found Mutt on the floor, surrounded by the alarm clock, which had been disassembled and spread across the floor in hundreds of unrecognizable parts. Figuring the loss was an eight-dollar alarm clock, Gibby backed out of the room and never said a word. Mutt was safe, engaged in a mentally stimulating activity, and relatively happy, so Gibby decided to check on him in a few hours. When afternoon came, Gibby returned to Mutt's room and found Mutt asleep in his bed with the alarm resting just as it should have been on his bedside table, telling good time, and set to go off in thirty minutes-which it did. From then on, Mutt became the Mr. Fix-it of Spiraling Oaks. Doors, computers, lights, engines, cars, anything that didn't work and should.

  Tedious detail was not tedious to Mutt. It was all part of the puzzle. One afternoon, Mutt discovered Gibby tying his own flies. He pulled up a chair and Gibby showed him a fly he had bought at a high-end fly-fishing store called The Salty Feather-owned by a couple of good guys who sold good equipment, gave good information, and charged high prices. Gibby had bought a Clauser, a particular fly used for red bass in the grass beds lining the St. Johns. Gibby was sitting at his desk, trying to imitate it, but having little luck. Mutt looked interested, so Gibby gave him his chair, put on his white coat, and walked down the hall to check on a few patients, never saying a word to Mutt. He returned thirty minutes later and found Mutt tying his fifteenth fly. Gibby's fly-tying book lay open on the desk, and Mutt was copying the pictures. In the months that passed, Mutt made all of Gibby's flies. And Gibby started catching fish.

  But beyond engines, clocks, and flies, Mutt's most remarkable talent centered around stringed musical instruments. While he had no interest in playing one, he could time it to perfection. Violin, harp, guitar, banjoanything with strings. Especially the piano. It took him a few hours, but given time, he could make each key sing true and crisp as a lark.

  Mutt heard the fly before he saw it. His ears zeroed in on the sound, his eyes caught a flash, and his brow wrinkled as he watched it hover around his applesauce. That was not good. Flies carried germs. Maybe today was not the day to not eat his applesauce. He'd just flush the stuff and be done with it ... But he knew he couldn't do that either. Because in an hour and twenty-two minutes, Vicki, with her shiny panty hose, fitted knee-length skirt, cashmere sweater, and perfume that smelled like Tropicana roses, would walk in and ask him if he had eaten it. At thirty-three years of age, Mutt had never been with Vicki-or any other woman-and his affection for the sound of panty hose rubbing against panty hose was anything but sexual or lustful. But that kneeknocking, woman-soon-to-walk-around-the-corner sound triggered a memory-almost a remembering-that all the others threatened to squeeze out, choked by the forearm-size vines that encrusted it. The swish-swoosh sound of nylon on nylon brought back the notion of being picked up by small but stro
ng hands, of being dusted off and held close and tight to a soft bosom, of being wiped clear of tears, of being whispered to. In the afternoons, he'd lie next to his bedroom door, his ear pushed up against the crack near the floor like a confederate soldier on a railroad track, and listen while she made rounds.

  Twenty-five rubber gloves, four rolls of paper towels, and half a gallon of bleach and Windex later, the sound in the hallway at last drew close. A woman's shoes clicking on sterile tile accompanied by the characteristic swishswoosh, swish-swoosh, swish-swoosh of nylon on nylon.

  Vicki walked in. "Mutt?"

  Mutt popped his head out of the bathroom where he was scrubbing the windowsill.

  She saw the activity and asked, "See another fly?" Mutt nodded. She scanned his lunch tray and settled on his full cup of sauce. "You didn't touch your lunch at all," she said, her voice curiously rising. Mutt nodded again. She held up the bowl and said, "Sweetheart, you feeling okay?" Another nod. Her tone was an even mixture of mother and friend. Like a big sister after having moved back into the house after college. "You want me to get you something else?" she asked, twirling the spoon in her hands and tilting her head, the concern growing.

  Great, he thought. Now he'd have to clean the spoon too. No matter. He liked it when she called him "sweetheart."

  But sweetheart or not, he still didn't want anything to do with that applesauce. He shook his head and kept scrubbing. "Well, okay." She put the spoon down. "What kind of dessert do you want with your dinner?" Her reaction surprised him. "Something special?" Maybe he didn't have to eat it. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it wasn't in the applesauce. If not, then where was it? And had he already eaten it?

  "Mutt?" she whispered. "What do you want for dessert, sweetie?" His second favorite word. Sweetie. He focused on soft, dark red lips, the tautness around the edges, the way the "ee" rolled out the back of her mouth and off her tongue, and the way the slight shadows hung just below her cheekbones. She raised her eyebrows-as if telling a secret that he must swear to keep-and said, "I could go to Truffles."