On Fire

by Dianne Linden

  “No.”

  “Any family to help you out?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You should stay here as long as possible then. Tell them you’ll cut your wrists if they send you out. It might work a time or two, until they catch on.”

  He gets up and goes past the food line and into the kitchen. When he comes back he’s carrying a bowl of chocolate pudding. “Last week’s,” he says. “The cook used to be a patient here. She saves it for Howard.”

  “I’m confused,” I say. “Are you the Howard you keep talking about?”

  He acts like he hasn’t heard me. “What’s your name?”

  “No idea.”

  “You’re a John Doe?” He clucks his tongue. “Do you have a diagnosis yet?”

  “Do I need one?”

  The guy I’ve decided is Howard leans his elbows on the table. “That’s why the doctors are asking you all those questions. They go through this book until they find the name that goes with what you have and then,” he snaps his fingers, “bingo!”

  “Bingo what?”

  “Bingo they know what to call you. And where you fit in.”

  “What if I don’t fit anywhere?”

  Howard seems to think this over for a minute. “Then you’ll have to be careful,” he says, “because they’ll make you fit. It’s their job.”

  7

  BINGO

  I DON’T MEET WITH THE SNEEZING doctor the next time. It’s a different one. Dr. Charon. He’s a bobble-head. As soon as I sit down in his office he says, “I have reason to believe your name may be Dan. Does that sound familiar?”

  This doctor has the kind of voice you get when you suck the helium out of a balloon. He waits for my answer.

  I’ve decided to take the nurse’s advice and cooperate. I’ve also decided I’d like to be somebody, even if that’s not who I really am. I answer, “Well, I’ve definitely heard the name before.”

  “So you feel you might be Dan?”

  “Dan.” I say the word out loud and nod my head. “I feel it’s . . . familiar.”

  “Do you have any idea what your last name might be, Dan?”

  I don’t of course, but being in limbo is not that comfortable. I think I may be ready for one. “I’ve . . . ,” I say “Yes?” The doctor jumps right in. It looks like he wants me to have a name, too.

  “I think that I’ve . . . er . . . ”

  “ly? You’re saying Iverly. Is that it?”

  “Maybe.” I take my time. “Yes,” I say. “I think it could be.”

  “That’s confirmation!” His pen dances across the notebook on his desk. “First name Dan.” He writes as he talks. “Last name Iverly. Middle name or initial unknown.”

  His hand comes up. I see a flash of something — maybe light hitting a ring on one of his fingers. He sits back in his chair, I think a happy man.

  I also feel happy about the way things have gone. It’s obvious you need some kind of label in this world I’m in. Now I have one.

  “I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe her when your cousin — ” the doctor pauses. I think he’s glancing down at his desk, “Matti came in looking for you. You remember Matti?”

  I don’t. “Matti . . . ?”I say. My brain is slow. I’ve already forgotten my last name.

  “Iverly. Your cousin. I had some doubt about her story, I’ll admit. Then I had a call from the person in charge of Emergency Social Services in Kingman confirming what she told me. Now you’re confirming what I learned from him.

  “Everything’s beginning to fit together. I’ll have to see if the story checks out, of course. But we’re very far behind on the paper work. So many lost people coming out of the fire. I’m willing to accept Dan Iverly as your name.”

  His chair squeaks like rusty nails on glass as he swivels back and forth. “I can see how it happened. You’re visiting family. You go out hiking. Not a smart idea, but you get lost somewhere in the fire area. No food. No water. You fall, perhaps. Hit your head. And bingo.”

  I believe I’ve heard the magic word. “That’s my diagnosis?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “In layman’s terms I believe it is.” He sits forward and begins to write again. “You’ve had a psychotic break brought on by severe stress. Keep taking your meds and with any luck you’ll make a complete recovery.”

  “And without luck?” I ask. “Also in layman’s terms.”

  ”But you are lucky. You were lost. Now you’re found. End of story.”

  8

  CORPSE MOSS

  HOWARD’S PLEASED WHEN HE HEARS I’m not a John Doe anymore. But he doesn’t like the diagnosis. “Psychotic break?” he says. He sticks out his lower lip and shakes his head. “Anyone could have that. It’s nothing you can take to the bank, is it?”

  Still he suggests we celebrate. “When you get your first day pass, we should take the bus in to Kingman for cokes and hot wings. My treat.”

  “When will that be?” I ask.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I haven’t had a conversation with a watch since I came in,” I say, “so I wouldn’t know.”

  Howard promises to find out. Then he’s not around for a few days and I still don’t know about the day pass.

  I miss Howard. The better I get, the harder it is to find things to do with my time.

  I still can’t read. And I’ve given up listening to cooking shows. How much frying and boiling can a guy take? My hands shake too much to be any good at stick hockey. I have the same problem with the activities in handicrafts.

  A lot of people smoke for something to do. That’s not attractive to me at this point. I also don’t have any money.

  Sitting and walking in circles is about all there is to do outside. Sports equipment is banned, I suppose for obvious reasons. I might take a baseball bat and attack another patient. Or turn it on myself. That’s assuming I have the energy to pick it up to begin with.

  They do have a beauty shop at the hospital. On a whim I go in there. “Want a hair cut?” a girl asks. She tells me her name is Angie.

  I run my hands over my head. “It’s not too far away from a pig shave now,” I say.

  “I could dye it for you,” Angie tells me. “I’ve heard a change can be as good as a rest.”

  Is corpse moss an actual colour? That’s how I’d describe my hair when she finishes with it. Hopefully she’ll take a few more classes at her beauty school in Kingman before she works on anybody else.

  I look in the mirror and see a dead person looking back at me. He’s not headless. I haven’t seen that guy in a while. “Get lost!” I say.

  Angie thinks I’m talking to her. “Sorry,” she says. “The dye kind of got away on me. Want me to buzz your hair right off?”

  “No thanks,” I tell her.

  “A few piercings would perk you up. I’m not allowed to do piercings here. But when you get out?”

  I shake my head. I’ve been pierced enough.

  9

  GOING UP

  THERE’S A BENCH OUT IN FRONT of the cafeteria I sometimes sit on. Howard finds me there one day and tells me I have to move. ”This is why I still volunteer at the hospital,” he clucks, “even though I’m not a patient anymore.” He points above his head. “Look how cloudy it’s getting. If the sky falls this is a dangerous place to be.”

  I’m not in the mood to argue so I move farther back by the edge of an abandoned brick building. I stretch out on the dead grass and look up at the sky. Howard sits down beside me.

  The clouds are all cumulus — the puffy kind little kids look at and see birds or small animals in. “I remember hearing a story about the sky falling,” I tell Howard. “Something lands on Chicken Little’s head. I believe it’s an acorn. Chicken Little thinks it’s the sky and runs around telling everybody. Goosey Loosey. Turkey Lurkey. All the friends rhyme.”

  “Howard loves that story,” he says. “But Chicken Little doesn’t think the sky’s falling. He knows it is. He and his
friends go to tell the king.”

  “Then the fox eats them all at the end.”

  Howard snorts. “There is no fox in Howard’s version. Chicken Little keeps warning people about the sky. The end.”

  “You’re serious?”

  I squint at Howard. I must do it sceptically because he says, “I suppose you’ve heard of tornadoes?”

  “I have.”

  “Well . . . ” He smiles and I hear cotton candy winding around a paper stick. “Since I’ve been working here, a tornado has never touched down.”

  He stops talking and looks over his shoulder. “Do you know those folks over there?” He points at a couple of people by the cafeteria.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I can’t see that far.”

  “Try,” he says.

  “You try. Put Vaseline on your eyeballs first.”

  “I’ll look for you, then,” Howard says.

  “There’s a girl. She has short, dark hair and a round face. I’ve seen her here before. She kind of shines.” He holds up his hand and waves.

  “There are two men with her, both wearing black baseball caps. One’s taller. The other man’s hurt somehow, but . . . I’d say getting better and . . . ” He waves again. “You told me you didn’t have any family.”

  “I said I don’t know of any. Please quit waving,” I tell him. “They’re probably do-gooders who want to save our souls.”

  Howard goes toward the people he’s been staring at like he hasn’t heard me. “Come on, Dan,” he says. “I think they’re here to see you.”

  Eventually I get up and follow him.

  “Are you Dan?” the taller man asks. He steps around Howard. I squint at him. “Dan Iverly?” he asks again.

  “He is.” Howard pokes me in the ribs.

  “Oh,” I say. “Yes. I guess I am.”

  “You guess?”

  “No,” Howard says. “He knows he is.”

  “Then I guess that makes me your uncle Frank.” The tall man holds out his hand. My own are shaking so much I’ve put them in my pockets to hold them down. I take the right one out now. It’s moving like a tiny room fan. He clamps on to it and for a moment solves the problem.

  I think he asks me a question then. What system am I from? Do I say, “The Milky Way?” Or do I just keep that in my head?

  “This is Marsh,” Frank says, meaning the other man standing in his shadow. “I understand he took care of you while you were in Blackstone Village, living in my office.” He lists all the jobs he holds there, then adds, “But I’m down in Kingman now helping out with emergency relief.”

  A couple of times while he’s talking I feel like I’m floating above everyone else. I want to comment on that. I want to tell them I have an elevator for a soul.

  “Going up!” I want to sing out. But I keep my teeth together.

  The man he’s introduced steps into the sunlight. I don’t remember him either but I haul my hand out of my pocket again. “Hello,” I say.

  Does he shout, “Run for cover?”

  No, I think he says something about recovering. That I am.

  There’s an awkward pause after that. Then Frank turns, looks behind him and leads someone forward. “And this,” he says, “is Matti.”

  I can’t place the person who steps toward me, but she hums with energy. It’s robin’s egg blue. “Here,” she says. She reaches something out to me. It’s a ring on a silver chain. When she puts it in the palm of my hand it feels like water.

  We all go to the cafeteria to drink cokes and eat big pieces of white cake that taste like air. I continue to squint. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t see very well. The medication I’m on blurs my vision.”

  “We thought maybe you needed specs,” Frank says. He and Marsh laugh high up in their chests.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” Frank tells me. “Not that I know of anyway.”

  I put both hands around my glass of coke, leave it on the table and bend over so I can drink with a straw. I’m afraid if I pick the glass up, I’ll break it.

  We’re quiet after that. I probably have things in my head I want to say, but when everyone gets ready to leave, I can’t recall any of them.

  Matti turns and looks at me.

  “Thank you for the ring,” I tell her. “Did you buy it for me?”

  “No,” she says. “It’s yours. But you can’t keep the chain. That still belongs to me.”

  10

  FUDGE

  WHEN HOWARD’S NOT AROUND I SOMETIMES sit out in front of the hospital administration building and listen to the cars that pull up there. You never have to second-guess the condition they’re in. They’re always pretty honest about it. Trucks are the same. And buses.

  A bus pulls up while I’m there. Proud diesel engine idling like dark chocolate. People get off the bus and walk toward me. One of them stops and hands me a small, plastic bag.

  “Here,” she says. It’s Matti. I recognize her by the way she hums.

  I open the bag and right away I know what’s in it — know in this case means remember. My nose remembers. My mouth remembers. My stomach.

  Million Dollar Fudge.

  “Eat it if you want,” Matti says. She sits down on the other end of the bench. Her hum moves into a higher gear.

  I take a bite of fudge — just one bite, and there’s a reconnection somewhere in my brain.

  “You can talk with your mouth full,” she says. “I don’t care.”

  I would talk with a mouthful. It’s clear Matti expects me to. But there’s so much going on inside my head. Rockets launching. Comets snapping their tails as they whiz by. A new galaxy opening up. And then there’s the luscious, velvet sounding taste of what I’ve just put in my mouth.

  “Slow down,” I caution myself. “Breathe.” But I can’t stop myself. I eat another piece.

  “It didn’t seem like you remembered me when I was here before,” Matti says. “Marsh, either. He took care of you, too.”

  “I remember some things,” I say around the planetarium-show in my mouth. “I usually can’t tell if they actually happened.”

  “We put too much pressure on you the other day. I should just have come alone.”

  Matti talks about someone named Bee. A friend. Do I remember her? I shake my head, although the name might be familiar. She carries on with a string of questions like that while her voice gets farther and farther away. Or I do.

  I’m on some kind of chocolate nirvana high. Smoke comes and goes. Fire. Demons. Water. Names. Ravens fly into my life and fly away again. They talk. They don’t talk. Lights and ghosts fade.

  Am I remembering? I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing. But if someone put a microphone in my face right then and asked me to comment on the experience, I’d says Matti’s fudge should be served to patients in mental hospitals all across the country. It has done more to clear the smoke from my brain than all the green and yellow and alphabetical pills I’ve taken since I got here.

  I’m not a doctor of course. And I’ll continue to take their advice. But I will give this testimonial: by the time Matti leaves, the vision in my left eye is almost back to normal.

  11

  THE FIRE

  HOWARD HAS A THEORY ABOUT MEMORY. If something happens to you, that’s traumatic, he says — something so big it hits you in the head and knocks you unconscious — your brain sticks it somewhere dark and puts a stone on top of it.

  But this thing your brain is hiding from you will keep trying to come out, he says, so you end up using more and more of your energy to hold the stone in place. You do that because if the stone rolls away, all that painful stuff it was sitting on will come bursting out. And that can be almost as bad as whatever happened to you in the first place.

  I don’t know where Howard learned this. He may have made it up. It isn’t what happens to me. There’s no explosion when my memory starts to come back. No sudden blast of lightning.

  It’s more like wh
at happens when you dig a hole in the sand at the seashore. It’s completely empty when you’re finished, but if you check back in a few minutes, water is already seeping back in.

  I can’t say for sure it was Matti’s fudge that got me started, but hour by hour, drop by drop, my sorry life started to come back to me.

  I’d be walking outside. I’d look down at my feet and I’d see the shoes I used to wear. They had pointed toes and the sides came up and buckled around my ankles.

  “Queer boots,” my father used to call them.

  Or I’d be lying in bed in my room at the hospital and suddenly I’d be in the room I had in his house. I won’t use the word home. It was never like that.

  I’d remember how I kept all my books hidden under the bed because when he was sober my father thought reading anything but the Bible lead to a relationship with the devil. He put anything he found in the fire.

  Then when he was drunk, he was the fire.

  He never laid a hand on me, but he let me know that nothing I did would ever be good enough. Over and over I heard that I was evil. Perverse. A blot on the family name.

  I have the same dream several nights in a row. I want it to be a dream. I’m high up on an outcropping of rock. I take out my wallet and begin to pull things out of it. My school card. My library card. My driver’s license.

  I can read my name clearly on each one of them. It’s not Dan Iverly.

  One at a time, I send these cards spinning away from me and down into the gorge below. “I don’t have a name any more!” I scream. “Now I’m nobody.”

  After a while the dream is also with me during the day.

  And then it’s not a dream at all. It’s my life.

  I want to talk to Howard, but he’s suddenly not around. I try to talk to my nurse instead. I even call him by his name.

  “Morris,” I say, “I have a problem. Can we sit down and talk?”

  Morris is pushing his pill cart around. In the past there have been thefts so he won’t move two inches away from it. “Only one?” he says. “You’re a lucky guy.”