Crabbe

by William Bell

  WILLIAM BELL

  Fitzhenry &Whiteside

  For Megan and Dylan

  ST. BARTHOLEMEW’S GENERAL HOSPITAL TORONTO, ONTARIO

  CERTIFICATE OF ADMISSION

  DATE: Nov. 15

  NAME IN FULL: Franklin Crabbe

  ADDRESS: not available at this time

  O.H.I.P. NUMBER: unknown

  PERSON TO BE NOTIFIED: no name given

  ADDRESS: not available

  DIAGNOSIS ON ADMISSION:

  – physical exhaustion

  – pneumonia, both lungs (minor)

  – injury to left hand: two fingers amputated (see acc. file)

  – general evidence of exposure

  RECEIVING DR.

  COMMENTS:

  Patient transfered from Huntington General Hospital after emergency operation left hand: two digits amputated.

  Patient admitted ward 4. Further information see file.

  Crabbe’s Journal: 1

  Sometimes at night after they’ve turned out the lights I sit up in bed and just watch the highway. I prop up the pillows behind me, lean back on the headboard, link my fingers behind my head and sort of drift off. It’s a nice, quiet time: there’s no noise from the ward except the soft. Squeak of a nurse’s shoes on the floors or maybe a distant cough, and I can let my mind slip through the window out across the frosted lawns and naked shrubs to the road which is lit dimly by amber lamps.

  I like to watch the moving lights and listen to the sounds of motion. The cars sift through with a sibilant whoosh, moving fast. It’s the trucks I like best though. They power along, lit up with coloured lights around the cabs and along the trailers, the big diesels snorting and grinding up the grade.

  I suppose I spend a lot of the day watching the highway too. It’s pretty boring in this place, especially since they moved me to a private a few days ago. I can always go to one of the wards and get up a game of checkers or cribbage with one of the men but that gets tedious after awhile. A lot of them watch T.V. but I don’t. There’s nobody my age on our floor since I came -all the teenagers are up on Fifth in the psycho ward. I’m in this ward because they don’t quite know what to do with me.

  The only real point of interest is my daily hour with Dr. Browne. He’s the shrink who’s got the job of discovering What’s Wrong With Crabbe. Until today, I’ve held him off pretty well - mainly because he’s easy to figure and his methods are obvious. As soon as I find out what role he’s going to play that day I can put on a corresponding costume and try to keep him under control until the interview is over. Acting sincere helps.

  Maybe I should explain. He will always be either Father, Friend or Firm. He doesn’t have much faith in honesty, I’ve discovered. When he’s Father he will be all authority and show great paternal concern for me. And he’ll control the discussions (if you can call them that) without trying to pretend he isn’t. As Friend he’s the funniest — though of course I never let on. He tries very hard to get down to my level and be a pal, one of the boys. He even takes a few pathetic shots at slang. Only his expressions are from the movies or a thousand years out of date: “What’s goin’ down today, Franklin?” Last meeting he told me as I left that I probably thought I was a “groovy guy.” Can you believe it? I broke up when I heard that one. Luckily I was almost out the door. His nurse gave me a strange look.

  Firm is the touchiest for me because then he isn’t messing around with textbook methods. He even shows anger at times. I try to steer him off Firm because that’s the biggest threat to me. He comes too close then.

  So play the game with him — by my rules. I know it’s cynical but I have to do it. It’s like he doesn’t listen, like he’s already decided what you should be saying. I tried to tell him that I don’t want to talk about what happened, that I just want to be left alone. But, like most adults, he doesn’t hear. “Why did you want to die, Crabbe?” he asked me one time. Useless to tell him that I didn’t want to die. But he kept on, pulling out these bloody obvious shrink tricks like the three F’s, circling me like a predator looking for an opening.

  Like most grown-ups, he thinks teenagers are basically stupid and easily manipulated. He thinks he can find feeling with an X-ray machine. People my age may not know how to juggle the books or play politics, but feelings we know about.

  Last session, for instance, he was Father. He kept me waiting outside his office, as usual. When I went in he was sitting in his customary pose behind his desk. To look at his office you’d swear he never did anything in there all day. Not a thing was out of place. On his large desk top were a phone (black), a brass lamp, a pen, a green blotter with leather edges, and one clean ashtray-all in exactly the same place each day. I did my best to fill up the ashtray with burnt matches.

  He always looked the same too: three-piece suit, dark tie, white shirt. Mr. Respectability. He was short and pudgy with fat little fingers and three chins. His heavy horn-rimmed glasses frequently slipped down his nose. He was almost bald but hadn’t accepted the fact yet.

  In a way, Dr. Browne looked a little like a fat, elementary school kid who somehow managed to sneak into the principal’s office and was trying out the chair just for fun. I often wondered if his shoes touched the floor: the chair was one of those high-backed jobs with solid, upholstered arms and he looked lost in it.

  On this particular day he was being Father, so my comfy chair was carefully placed a little to the left of centre across from him. We made the ritual small-talk that was supposed to break the ice. Was I comfortable? Was the food all right? — stuff like that. Then he started in, but with an indirect approach.

  “By the way, Franklin, I’ve meant to talk to you about your smoking.” He crossed his pudgy legs and rested his hands lightly on the chair arms. On his right little finger was a gold signet ring that looked like a collar on a tiny piglet.

  I was, at that point, in the middle of filling my pipe, which isn’t easy when your left hand is bandaged and has only two fingers and a thumb. I zipped up the tobacco pouch and jammed it into the back pocket of my jeans. I struck a wooden match on the metal zipper of my pants and put it to the bowl, blowing out a cloud of soft blue smoke (the colour of smoke you see on a lazy July morning when your campfire is coaxing the chill out of the air). Then I flipped the spent match toward the ashtray — and missed.

  The shrink frowned. He reached out and picked up the match between thumb and forefinger, handling it like it was a fly dropping, and let it fall into the glass ashtray. He leaned back.in his chair, pretending not to be annoyed that the ashtray had been violated.

  “Your general health is up to par now,” he continued, “owing to the excellent care you’ve received since you were admitted two weeks ago. But, as we know, Franklin, smoking is injurious to one’s health and you are well on your way toward developing a habit that may well prove exceedingly difficult to master.” Plastering on my Concerned Look, I flashed what I hoped would be an innocent smile.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Fa — er, Doctor, I don’t inhale the smoke.” I almost blew it that time. “And anyway,” I said, leaning forward, “I read in the Science Canada magazine that pipe smokers develop cancer eighty-seven point nine percent less than cigarette smokers.”

  This was a lie, but I figured he couldn’t have read every magazine in the world. I thought the “point nine” was a nice touch.

  “Anyway,” I hurried on, “I like smoking — enough to balance the risk, that’s for sure. How do you like the aroma of this tobacco?”

  Browne would never admit it smelled like dehydrated camel droppings — which it does if you’re not smoking it. He performed a dramatic inhalation and said, “It’s quite pleasant, actually, Franklin.”

  Before he got rolling I jumped in again, “I know smoking is a vice, Doctor, I really do.
But I think most people have at least a couple of vices, don’t you?”

  “Well, I suppose that’s true.”

  Off I ran again. “What vices do you have, Doctor? I’m sure they’re only small ones.” Then, sincere again: “I hope you don’t think I’m nosey. I was just wondering.”

  I try to ask as many questions as I can, especially if he’s being Friend or Father. He feels obliged to answer me so he can keep up the con, the pretence that we’re having a nice chat. And that uses up part of the hour. Eventually he has to be “rude” and interrupt my inane questions to get us back on the path he intends us to walk that day. For another thing, asking questions helps me keep on top and better able to defend myself. He has to begin circling again, looking for another opening.

  “Well, we are hardly here to talk about me, are we Franklin?” Browne liked rhetorical questions. He got back to the pipe. “No, I’m just interested in your pipe, there. It looks quite old. Briar, isn’t it?”

  “Ummm” — sincere look of concentration — “I’m not sure, Doctor. What’s briar?”

  “Briar is a dense wood. The boles on the roots are used in making pipes. I believe the best briar comes from the Mediterranean. The wood —”

  He caught himself and steered back on course.

  “That pipe looks very well used. You must have got it from someone. A gift perhaps?”

  See what I mean? How obvious could he get? The pipe was a gift, sort of, but one I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about. It was the basis of his strategy this session. He saw it as a weak spot in the defences that I fought like hell to keep intact every day. He planned to get me talking about the pipe, where I got it and so on, until the wall was breached. Then he’d move past my defences and ransack my head for information. But you could see the attack coming miles away.

  “Oh,” I smiled, “I really can’t remember where I got this pipe, Doctor. My memory isn’t too reliable at times. I don’t know why.”

  Browne had been sitting back in his large chair, his elbows resting on the arms. He was making a little steeple with his fingers. When I handed him the line about my memory he pounced forward and slapped his hands down onto the top of the desk.

  “But you do, Franklin, you do know.” He was as close as he ever came to a shout. “I’ve told you several times,” he exclaimed impatiently, “we have blanks when our mind is hiding something it does not wish to confront and master. Memory blanks are proof that we need to talk these things out, Franklin. I’ve been through all this with you before.”

  “Well, yes. I guess I forgot.”

  He ignored that one, and sitting back, rebuilt the steeple. I don’t know why he said “we” all the time. There was nothing wrong with his memory (or mine for that matter). Maybe he was trained in a kindergarten class.

  “I sometimes wonder,” he continued, “whether our memory lapses aren’t a bit selective, Franklin.” “Doctor?” I was playing for time, now. My pipe had gone out so I slowly fished a match out of my shirt pocket and deliberately struck the match under the overhanging ledge of his desk. He pretended not to notice but you could almost hear him gritting his teeth, imagining the obscene streak of sulphur on the underside of his glowing, virginal desk top.

  “What I mean,” he explained with the patience of a school marm, “is that I think sometimes you are, um, putting me on. You forget significant things at signifi­cant times.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, all innocence. “You merely inquired about my pipe and I said —”

  “Look, Franklin, let’s forget the pipe,” he said, a little of the Firm approach slipping into his tone. “Let’s just forget it. Our hour is passing quickly and I —”

  “Yes, so it is,” I interrupted, “and I certainly do enjoy — ”

  “Please don’t interrupt,” he shot back. Leaning forward again, arms on the desk, he linked his little sausages together into one tiny double fist. He meant business now.

  “And please,” he went on, “listen. I’m not pleased with your progress, Franklin. Not pleased at all. All along you’ve resisted my efforts to help you face your problems square on. But it must happen. It must. We ignore our inner problems at our peril. You were brought to this hospital extremely run-down physi­cally — and on the verge of emotional disturbance. Nobody knows where you’ve been for the last few months. You refuse to tell us. You refuse to discuss why you ran away. You pretend — yes, pretend — don’t give me that look — to forget what transpired during your absence. You will not even acknowledge the effects your actions have had on your poor parents. And, most dangerous of all, you avoid altogether the attempt to end your own life. You imagine, apparently, that no one can see that scar on your left wrist. Furthermore —”

  “I think our time is up, Dr. Browne,” I cut in. I leaned over and banged my pipe in the ashtray to get the ashes out. I’d had enough of this crap.

  His pudgy face grew red like a round thermometer splashed with hot water.

  “Don’t interrupt me. And sit down in that chair. ”

  Browne had never been like this before. His professional calm evaporated. He was becoming human before my eyes. But I’d had enough. My control was slipping too.

  “I will not sit down. Don’t order me around. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? Do you think I’m a simpleton that you can manipulate day after day? You don’t know me! You’ve never tried to talk to me like I was a human being. You think I’m just another nut case like those poor buggers you’ve got chained upstairs. ”

  I was really rolling, now. A lot of junk was coming to the surface, demanding to be spit out.

  “From the very beginning you’ve treated me like a two-year-old. I’m supposed to bare my bloody soul to

  a total stranger who’s already decided I’m a suicide. Why don’t we talk at these stupid meetings? Why —”

  “I think you’d better stop now, Franklin, ” he said, his calmness returned. He wouldn’t look me in the face. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and said wearily, “You are a boy with some very serious prob — ”

  “And you,” I fired back, “are an impertinent son of a bitch.”

  I stuck my pipe in my mouth and walked out, closing the door quietly behind me.

  When I look back on my brief, empty relationship with Dr. Browne I sometimes wonder if, had he been a different kind of person, I’d have let my guard down.

  Probably not, but you never know. There are some experiences you want to share with someone, as if the experience is somehow incomplete until you include the other person in its existence. But sometimes something happens that’s so special, so much a part of what you are, you want to kind of save it, at least for awhile. And maybe forever.

  But if you save it in your head, the memories get newer memories piled on top of them, like old furniture in a dark attic, until you can’t find the originals any more.

  That’s why I decided to write all this down in a journal. Just like in school. Only this time it’s real.

  Crabbe’s Journal: 2

  I’ve thought a lot about why I ran away from home and it’s still pretty tough to put my reasons into a couple of tidy sentences. I’ve never been very good at explaining myself. Somehow, between the inside of my skull and the outside of my mouth the words get all changed around or they hide on me and I can’t get hold of the ones I want. And I grew up in a house where I was told what I thought or how I should think. I wasn’t asked. At school nobody is particularly interested in your feelings and they only pretend to be interested in your ideas.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sorry I did what I did.

  Sure, sometimes I feel guilty about the fact that I scared my parents and relatives. But deep down I’m glad I did what I did. I’m glad because it’s the one intelligent, independent, creative thing I’ve done in my life, and the one thing I’ve done for me.

  I read a story one time, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. It’s about a teenager who grows up in some dirty, soot
y slum in England. His Father is dead, his Mother is a runaround, his brother is a trouble­maker. This guy is bitter about everything, especially his Dad’s death and eventually gets into trouble and is sent to reform school. While he’s there he hatches this plan that he thinks will get revenge on the “In-laws”­ the people who obey the laws and have all the money. He’s especially interested in getting back at the Warden of the reform school who finds out the kid can run fast and wants him to run for the school in the All England race and win the big trophy.

  The kid knows the Warden is only using him, giving him extra privileges and things, so he can get the glory and show society how he’s a wonderful rehabilitator of youth. So what does the kid do? He takes all the extras the Warden gives him. Then, on race day, he leads the pack for the whole race and, a dozen or so yards from the finish, in sight of the Warden and all the bigwigs and society types who pretend concern for kids like him, he stops. He just quits cold and stands staring defiantly at all of them. The other runners pass him and he loses.

  See? Sometimes words don’t count. They fly over people’s heads or get trapped in the filters between their ears and their brain. Words are too easy to ignore, misunderstand, or twist around. Sometimes you have to act and sometimes so dramatically that people are stunned, stopped in their tracks. I don’t say I escaped for only one reason, or that it was all revenge. I was sick of my life and already sick of the future that everybody had planned for me but nobody bothered to consult me about. I wanted to be free, to opt out of the plan. But, like the runner, I wanted to do something that would symbolize what I thought and how I felt.

  So I planned the escape carefully. It was to be the one perfect act I’d perform in my life, pure, clean, like the edge of a razor.

  Crabbe’s Journal: 3

  To most people, running away without leaving a trace would be impossible. They leave breadcrumbs behind them; clues fall from them like scent. I was lucky. My Father had taken me camping with him a few years earlier. It was the only trip we’d ever done together. I guess it was supposed to make up for all the years when he didn’t know I existed. Anyway, I had overheard him telling a friend of his about the scenery but he’d forgotten the name of the lake and everything else about the trip. I was certain they’d never imagine their weak and unathletic son would ever run off to the woods.