Sparta

by Roxana Robinson

  Those ideas—grace and forgiveness—seemed to exist in another part of the world. This was the third part, an upper layer, composed of aerial currents that, if you could only be carried up to them, would sweep you off. They would lift you above the clouds, above the great systems of violence and turbulence that stretched over the surface of the world, the systems that composed the weather, the storms of anguish and grief and despair. The storms of guilt and shame. You would be lifted from it, and those things would fall away from you the way water evaporates to become purified, an essence, a fine, rising mist.

  He had no real hope for this; it was a kind of dream. What he had done made those things unavailable to him. But still he held in his mind the possiblity that it could happen. The possibility that he would find a way to that layer.

  * * *

  This semester he was taking another class: political economics. An introduction to the interaction between economics and politics, voting theory and elections. It started on the twenty-ninth. By then he’d have started his treatment at the VA.

  He’d read up on this, knew what to expect, knew his rights. He was focused on the appointment, as though he were trekking across the desert and it was the oasis. He’d been traveling toward it for months. He’d watched its inverted reflection hovering above the horizon, promising shade, solace, rest.

  26

  On the twenty-second, Conrad received an automated message from the VA, leaving him a number to call back. The return call took over an hour as Conrad maneuvered his way through waits and transfers, recorded voices and announcements, repeating his name and ID and case number over and over until he was finally connected to a human voice, a man who managed to sound both official and offhand.

  The man told Conrad he could have an appointment in Mental Health in three months.

  “I’ve already waited three months,” Conrad said. “You’re saying three more?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the man. “That’s what I can offer. That’s how we work it.”

  “How do you work it?” Conrad asked. “So no one can use it?”

  “This is the way it works,” said the man.

  “It actually doesn’t seem to work,” said Conrad. “If someone needs medical assistance, why keep him waiting six months before you give it to him? If I had a broken leg, how would you describe this system as working?”

  “Do you have a broken leg?” the man said.

  “I do not,” said Conrad, “but that’s—”

  “Are-you-a-danger-to-yourself-or-others?” He rattled off the words like the names of train stations. “If you pose a risk to yourself or others, I can give you an earlier appointment.”

  Conrad looked around the room, at the angular chair, the table in the corner, stacked with books. He rubbed the back of his head. He said nothing for a moment.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “You are a danger to yourself or others?”

  “Yes,” Conrad repeated. He drew a deep breath: focus. “And also I believe that the VA is required by law to provide an appointment within thirty days, maximum.”

  “All right.” He sounded suspicious, as though Conrad might be pretending to be mentally ill. “Let me look for another date.” After a long time he came back. “February twenty-second.” The day before Go-Go came back.

  “Right,” Conrad said. “Thank you.”

  He leaned back against the sofa. Thirty days. He could make it.

  * * *

  On the day of his appointment Conrad got up early. He hadn’t slept well the night before, and each time he woke, he had taken another pill, trying to hammer himself back to sleep. Jack’s prescription had run out, but Conrad had gotten another from his mother—some doctor friend or colleague. Now the inside of his head felt as if it were lined with cotton, but also with electricity. He felt dumb but wired.

  He pulled open the curtains. The sky was overcast; a soft gray cloud cover layered over Queens. The river below was pewter, with flickers of silver where the wind ran across it. Conrad took a shower, then shaved carefully. He didn’t want to show up with nicks and blood all over his neck. He put on good clothes: clean khakis, a proper shirt, a tweed jacket. He looked in the mirror, straightening the tails of the jacket, examining himself. This was like a job interview. Actually, he should be going in unshaven and unwashed; he should look homeless. Wasn’t he trying to persuade them that he was crazy?

  His head still felt stuffed and unresponsive, but he felt good. He ate a bowl of cereal, pulled on a parka, and headed out. He’d buy coffee on the way, get his head in shape. Outside it was cold, with a gusty, exhilarating wind that flapped at him erratically, changing directions and swirling small bits of trash into tiny tornadoes.

  His appointment was for eight-thirty. He stopped for coffee on the street. He wanted not a cinnamon-mocha-tofu-latte from a fancy shop, but a plain regular black from the stand on the corner—two dark-skinned guys up inside a tiny, shiny mobile cabin. He stood in a line of people on the sidewalk waiting for coffee and bagels, everyone shifting from foot to foot, hunching their shoulders from the cold. When it was his turn, Conrad asked for one black, no sugar. The man was round-faced, with black hair and big bags under his eyes. He grinned at Conrad and said, “Okay, boss!” as though they were buddies. Conrad smiled back. It was starting out to be a good day. He was on the subway by seven-thirty, sipping his coffee as the cars rattled along underground, heading south fast. Everything was going right. He was awake, dressed, caffeinated, and on time, hauling balls across town. Today was the day, and he was on it.

  He got off at Twenty-third and walked east toward the VA. The street was crowded, already noisy and bustling. He liked being part of this surging tide, fast and full of energy. It was a downtown, blue-collar group, the men in knitted watch caps and parkas, the women in puffy coats and limp synthetic scarves, pushing strollers, or in tight jeans and high boots and short parkas, their arms linked. Trucks and buses groaned past, funneling exhaust into the cold air. Cars honked: everyone was already pumped up, on their way.

  Conrad arrived at 8:10. Early. He wanted his record here to be perfect. He pushed through the slow revolving door. The black guy with the beret was on duty again, standing by the low oval counter. He gave Conrad a friendly chin-up of recognition. Conrad nodded back, grinning. A good omen.

  At the admissions booth Conrad gave his ID number, and was sent to a different floor. This waiting room, too, was full. There were some other men his own age, from Iraq and Afghanistan, but more of them were older: Vietnam vets with grizzled sideburns and gray faces and drooping alcoholics’ eyes. Everyone looked at him when he came in; no one spoke.

  Conrad checked in at the counter. This receptionist was a man in his fifties, with a round head and very black skin. Conrad filled out the forms and sat down to wait. He felt both restless and tired. Anticipation kept him on edge; his foot twitched to a jerky rhythm as though he were listening to music. He kept checking his watch; he didn’t want to be a pain in the ass. After an hour he went up to the counter again.

  “Hey there,” he said. “My name’s Farrell. Just checking on my appointment. I think it was for eight-thirty. It’s now nine-thirty.”

  The man looked up at him indifferently. He wore square black-rimmed glasses, and the whites of his eyes were deep yellow. “Everyone in this room has that same time of appointment,” he said. “We’ll call you when it’s your turn.”

  Conrad sat down. He should have brought a book. He’d have brought the fucking Iliad if he’d known he’d be here for most of the day. He didn’t like the sight of the silent vets, all of them summoned for the same time, all of them ignored, all waiting patiently, their time considered valueless.

  Conrad had earned this appointment, he had earned it by every moment of the last four years. He had the right to this meeting, with someone from his own world who’d understand him, know what he’d been through. Someone who knew and respected him. The long minutes began to feel like insults.

 
After half an hour a young black woman appeared in the inner doorway. She wore a white lab jacket over jeans and a tan cardigan buttoned up the front. Her hair was pulled back by a hair band.

  “Farrell,” she called out, her eyelids heavy. She sounded audibly disinterested. She held a sheaf of folders against her chest. Conrad raised his hand and stood up. “Zuccotti, Gadruso.”

  Two more men stood up.

  “Gadruto,” one of the men corrected her.

  She ignored him. “Follow me.” She spoke loudly, as though they were far away. She turned and set off down the hall. It was narrow and shabby, the cream walls badly scuffed, the floor dull. The woman stopped beside an open door. “Room twelve-oh-nine,” she said. “Farrell.”

  She stood waiting. The door of 1209 was open.

  “Thank you,” Conrad said, and went inside. The room was small, without windows, and the walls were painted cinder block. The only furnishings were a small metal desk and two chairs. The doctor sat in a tilting armchair before the desk. A straight-backed metal chair stood at right angles to him, for Conrad. There were no books, no rug, nothing but the desk and two chairs and a calendar on the far wall.

  The doctor was in his fifties, compact and balding, with a bullet-shaped head and a close-trimmed beard. He wore metal-rimmed glasses, a striped short-sleeved jersey, and khaki pants. On his feet were thick-soled running shoes, as though he might take off down the hall at any moment.

  “Hello, I’m Dr. Chandler,” he said. “Sit down.” His eyes were pale brown. He waved at the empty chair.

  Conrad sat down. The chair was narrow and had no arms.

  The calendar was open to a Georgia O’Keeffe painting of red poppies. The month was October, the year before.

  “So,” Dr. Chandler said, glancing down, “Conrad. Why don’t you tell me about your record and your deployments.”

  All that information had already been filled out by Conrad, and it was in his file, which lay on the desk. It irritated him that Dr. Chandler had not read it. Why had he spent all that time filling it out? Conrad started over, listing the dates and places.

  Chandler nodded. “So, tell me why you think you have PTSD.” He leaned back and the chair tilted springily beneath him. He wrapped his arms across his chest. His arms looked strong, though running a little to fat.

  “I didn’t say I had it,” Conrad said. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a candy-ass condition to claim. He wasn’t naming his situation. He was only admitting that it was problematic.

  “Then why are you here?” Chandler asked.

  Conrad stared at him. He couldn’t say these words. Where was the person who understood this? Where was the voice who would speak for him, recognize him?

  “I’ve been experiencing—having—troubling symptoms,” Conrad said. Now he began to feel a kind of panic; his chest was filling up. He didn’t know how to proceed.

  “Want to tell me what they are? What might have caused them?”

  “Well, I saw a lot of combat. Both Ramadi and Haditha. There was a lot of stuff that went on.” He cleared his throat. “In Haditha, the Humvee I was in was blown up by an IED,” said Conrad.

  Spoken out loud, here in the cinder-block room, the words seemed tiny and insignificant. He paused, trying to find the words that would make the event what it had been, that would give it the size and significance it still had in his mind. But the words had nothing to do with the way the black flower of sound had bloomed inside his head, the way it kept on blooming, over and over, blotting out the world.

  Dr. Chandler nodded, hugging his soft upper arms. “Did you lose consciousness?”

  “I don’t know,” Conrad said. “It’s disorienting. You lose track of what’s going on. I might have, or I might just have felt disoriented. If I did, it wasn’t for long.”

  Chandler made a note in the file.

  “Did you report your symptoms? Were any tests done?”

  Conrad shook his head. “We were in a combat zone. I wasn’t going to leave my men because of this.”

  “So there was no report and no test.” Chandler folded his heavy arms on his chest again. “Any other episodes?”

  Conrad now felt uncertain, as though he were being cross-examined.

  “In Ramadi, in another Humvee, I was beside one of my Marines who was killed,” Conrad said reluctantly. “It happened right in front of me.” It sounded like nothing. As though he were boasting.

  Dr. Chandler nodded. “Combat incidents can be very troubling.”

  He waited. His chair creaked as he leaned back. It was on springs, and even when he was not moving, the springs made tiny squeaks as Chandler breathed.

  Conrad shrugged. “Also, I shot a man who was right in front of me, in the street. I thought he was armed, but he wasn’t. I had to step over his head.” He paused. “I guess everyone has these stories.”

  Dr. Chandler started to answer, but the phone rang on his desk. “Excuse me.” He picked up.

  “Dr. Chandler,” he said. He was looking diagonally at the floor, past Conrad’s legs.

  “No, I’m not,” he said, then listened. “How long?” he asked, still looking at the floor. “We’ll have to discuss that at a later date. I think Morton knows more about it than I do. Have you spoken to him?” There was a pause. “I talked to him last week. It would be good to get his opinion.”

  Dr. Chandler leaned closer to the desk. He set his fingertips on it, making a spider of his hand. Then he lifted the index finger, tapping it lightly on the desk as he talked, as though the spider were getting ready to dance.

  “Not unless you count the first time,” he said into the phone. “I think you’d better discuss this further. Why don’t you call me tomorrow. Yes. Yes,” he said. “All right, thanks.”

  He hung up and turned to Conrad.

  “Where were we?” he said.

  Conrad shrugged his shoulders. “Two deployments to Iraq,” he said. “Ramadi, Haditha. Two IEDs. A lot of other events.”

  Dr. Chandler nodded. “Combat incidents can be very troubling.” He said this as though for the first time. “How long have you been having symptoms?”

  “They started when I got back last May,” said Conrad. “They’ve gotten worse.”

  The phone rang again. Dr. Chandler raised his index finger at Conrad and picked it up. It seemed to be a different caller.

  “I didn’t know about that meeting,” Chandler said. “I hadn’t heard about it.”

  Now he was looking at the wall over his desk. Despite the big, serious-looking running shoes, Chandler’s affect was sedentary. It was the slack, heavy arms.

  “Can you keep me in the loop?” Chandler asked. “I’ll need to stay current with this whole situation.”

  When Chandler hung up, he looked at Conrad again. He swiveled the chair around and leaned back, tilting toward the wall.

  “Busy day,” he said. “Sorry.”

  Conrad nodded.

  “Your symptoms,” Dr. Chandler said. “What are they?”

  Conrad had written them all down. He listed them again: anxiety, insomnia, panic, flashbacks. Hypervigilance, depression, mood swings, rage. Impotence. Being a dick. Being unable to concentrate or focus on anything and fucking up his GMAT and pretty much fucking up his life so far. And how about being unable to rely on himself for anything, not even for being civil to his family or his girlfriend, and how about not knowing if he’d ever be able to learn anything again?

  He didn’t like saying any of these words out loud. He couldn’t explain what the symptoms felt like, or how they took him over, how powerless he became. How frightening it was to feel that his brain was not where he expected it to be.

  Here in this room it all seemed to mean nothing.

  “Are you a danger to yourself or others?” Dr. Chandler asked.

  Conrad looked at him. “Not to others.”

  He waited for the doctor to ask more.

  “Okay,” the doctor said. “So, I’m going to prescribe three medications for you,
Trazodone, gabapentin, and paroxetine.” He tilted his chair back but then leaned forward against the movement, as though he were on a horse going uphill. “There’s no test for PTSD,” he told Conrad. “Treating it is not an exact science. Some medications work for some people and not for others. We use them variously, separately, and in combination.”

  He seemed absorbed by what he was saying, and interested in the medications. “We can start you off with one protocol and see how it goes. Don’t expect any change for two weeks or so. These take a while to take effect. If you’re still having problems, we can alter it until we find the right mix.”

  He put his hands on the desk and pulled himself over to it, the chair rolling easily across the bare floor. There was something faintly repulsive about his scooting across the floor without using his legs. He took up a prescription pad and began to write. Conrad said nothing.

  This was it.

  This was all there was, this brief, useless exchange in this small, windowless room with the out-of-date calendar and the tilting chair. There would be no discussion of what had happened to him, the roaring blackness in his ears, the intrusions on his mind, the explosions of rage, the sense of sullen misery that underlay each day. The sense of confusion, and the relentless headache. All this meant nothing to anyone but him. He was trapped with it forever. This was it.

  “You don’t need to know any more?” Conrad asked.

  Chandler was still writing. “We get a lot of men with these symptoms,” he said without looking up.

  Conrad wondered if Chandler used this office all the time, if it was his own regular office or if it was like an examining room in a hospital, used interchangeably by different doctors. So that no one would feel responsible for the calendar.

  Dr. Chandler tore off a page and held it out with his left hand. His right was spidered again on the desk. He tapped silently with his index finger, waiting for Conrad to take it.