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Book 2 of the Psychotic Break Series by Duncan MacLeod
Copyright 2017 Duncan MacLeod
Smashwords Edition
Discover other stories and novels by Duncan MacLeod
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M3X1(0 (Book 3 of the Psychotic Break Series)
A Quarter (Book 4 of the Psychotic Break Series)
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CHAPTER ONE - RIDING THE RAILS
Clackety-clack clackety-clack clackety-clack clackety-clack; the sound of the metal wheels rolling across the ties forms the soundtrack to my cerebral meltdown. I’m somewhere between Fremont and Milpitas now. The train doesn’t roll; it meanders. The summer sun in the East Bay is beating on my boxcar, turning it into a sauna reeking of Vidalia onions and cow sweat. Outside the car I can smell the acrid Dumbarton Salt Flats commingling with raw sewage.
When I clambered aboard this slow moving train, I had envisioned a romantic journey with plenty of time to nap and snack to the gently swaying beat of the rails. Sadly, the boxcar is not designed for passengers, and the swaying motion is more a series of violent jerks every 200 feet. Lying down has proven to be a big mistake. I’m in danger of vomiting my granola bar. Snacks are out of the question.
Nausea grounds a person. My brain activity is redirected from flights of fancy towards keeping from barfing all over my travel clothes. Right now I’m facing forwards, sitting upright with my back against the rear wall of the boxcar, taking shallow breaths and fanning myself with a folded paper fan made from a discarded YMCA flier. I have a moment to reflect on my situation as I lurch and jerk towards an unknown destination.
The mental fog akin to having my brain ripped out and replaced with milk-soaked cotton balls has lifted since I started at the Schizophrenia Project. The ensuing mental clarity teetered for several delightful moments at the point where my mind and my mood were in that harmonious state doctors call “feeling normal” before toppling over into a freshly mown patch of insanity. The euphoria lasted long enough to get me on board this train, AWOL, with a backpack full of stolen granola bars and a bad case of motion sickness. This is what it’s like to withdraw from Prolixin.
I’m aware now the crappy feeling in the hospital was more than half due to the nasty drugs they had me on. I am so much more powerful and aware and capable when I’m not taking them. Yeah, okay so I need to slow down and think before leaping on board moving trains.
Whoosh! A fast-moving train zips past and blows some more fetid diesel dust into my squalid cabin of seasickness. I’m pretty sure I’m in Milpitas now; the train makes a screeching turn towards the West. I smell the junkyard. Outside, a cast-off doorless refrigerator hosts a multi-colored pile of consumer waste in 1960’s hues of pink, orange and green. One refrigerator hangs open like the mouth of a desiccated mummy, stained with blackened spinach, spilled milk, and Worcestershire sauce. The egg crate gapes like a jaw full of empty sockets where missing teeth should be.
Here in Milpitas there are still RR Xings without automatic arms. Clanging bells and flashing lights sound their naive warning to motorists. Buses must stop at these crossings and open their doors to listen for trains before proceeding. Parked at one these crossings in an ancient International Harvester trucks sits an old rancher, wrinkled like a piece of nylon stuffed in haste under a mattress ten years ago and just removed. He leans his head against the window of his driver side door. Our eyes connect as I pass by. In that human moment, I can’t resist the urge to wave, and he waves back. I’m on Earth; he sees me, and I am part of the great California landscape.
In the middle of an abandoned broccoli field stands a billboard announcing “Stoneridge Estates, Coming Summer 1988.” The Silicon Valley, once known as the California fruit bowl, is turning into a wilderness of concrete, cheap stucco and skateboard ramps.
Milpitas fades into Santa Clara. In the distance I can see the mountains of Los Altos and spiny fingers of the triple Ferris Wheel at Great America. It was only three years ago I was enslaved at that godawful amusement park for 3.35 an hour selling a juice-like substance in plastic containers designed to look like the artificial fruit flavor they contained. Grape punch came in a bulbous purple bunch of grapes, orange liquid came in an orange globe. For some reason, fruit punch came in a red ovoid with a green top and was always mistaken for a strawberry. “Is this strawberry juice”? The concerned mother would ask, and I, having heard the question for the 47th time that hour, had learned to nod. No one could tell the difference between artificial strawberry and fruit punch anyway. They wouldn’t fire me for my little half truth, would they? There were no secret shoppers lurking about, ensuring clients of Great America were having the optimum juice buying experience. It was no Disneyland. So I had no real reason to explain, “No, although it looks rather like a strawberry, it’s an industrial impressionist interpretation of what a fruit punch would look like if it had grown on a tree.”
I connect with the lonely teenager in his polyester uniform, his jaunty newsboy cap perched to one side, selling juice in self-reflexive containers to the masses of sugar-hooked Great Americans. That was me. During the gloomy, lonely summer I could never have imagined after graduation from a fancy prep school I would land in a mental hospital. I had no idea mental illness lurked in the dark recesses of my consciousness. We all listened to Morrissey crooning “How Soon Is Now"? that summer, all of us, and we all felt the same sad isolation, didn’t we? Why aren’t we all in the asylum, and why haven’t we all arrived en masse to ride this train? How did I get here, alone?
Clackety-clack chunk-chunk-chunk. The boxcar lurches again and nausea sweeps over me in a vomitous wave. I guess hobos need their sea legs before attempting to ride these uncomfortable cars. How did I get here? How did I get here? What were the signs? How could I know I would wind up all alone in a boxcar, a diagnosed schizophrenic, queer and nauseated? Was it sports? I hated sports; I never saw the point. Someone was always going to win and someone was always going to lose (usually me) so what was the point in trying? Was that schizophrenia? Was it my love handles formed in fifth grade after a bad case of mononucleosis? Was that the clue I was a future lunatic? I had breasts in junior high and some of the kids called me “titty boy.” Was that why I turned out schizophrenic? Was it because I had to plug my ears and close my eyes during the scariest parts of monster movies? Was it because I was (and still am) afraid of Bigfoot? How could I know it would all end like this? Will I ever get better?
But maybe I already am getting better. I still see aliens on the Number 27 bus, but now I know I’m not supposed to be seeing them. Pens move by themselves all the time, and it isn’t the sign of the end of days. I just have to learn how to filter out all the extraneous messages I receive from unknown voices and I’ll be okay.
Clackety-clack thunk-thunk-thunk. Outside my boxcar are more boxcars, empty cars, underachieving railroad cars. All around, the number of tracks multiplies as my car slows then stops, surrounded like another boxcar in line at the railroad unemployment office. The car jars me when it screeches in reverse for a few hundred yards, and then comes to a stop again.
A few hot fly-stained minutes float by and it occurs to me we’re parked somewhere in San Jose.
San Jose is one of those cities you could skip visit
ing for a whole lifetime, even if you lived a few miles away. Such has been the case in my life. Although I’ve always wanted to go to the Winchester Mystery House with the ghost of Sarah Winchester howling “Keep building! Keep building"! I have never done so. I know I must have passed through San Jose on my way to a real destination like Santa Cruz, but I have never stopped here. Once I tried to catch a different bus to work at Great America. It left me off in an unfamiliar place which may have been San Jose. That’s how lost I am now as I hop from my immobilized boxcar and climb my way to freedom. I’m lost, but not far from home. Home. Will my bed be waiting for me there? Is it even my bed? It’s just borrowed, a crash pad in the mental health system. The sun beats overhead; noontime. By now someone from Central City Day Treatment will have called, wondering why I am not attending their mind-numbing Tinkertoy and glue festival. I should be making portraits of Native American faces out of dried kidney beans, macaroni and black yarn right about now. The whole lodge may be in a panic looking for their missing client. I’ve been gone for hours.
This train yard is surrounded by a high chain-link fence. There are no people around, at least not where I can see them. This is one of those in-between places, where industrial technology holds court and humans are secondary considerations. There are no sidewalks, no paths, no exit, just hundreds and hundreds of railroad tracks. At last a gap in the fence appears and I wriggle my way through onto the street. There’s sunshine, warehouses, piles of industrial wreckage, and a lone taco truck.
I approach the owner inside his rolling business, my first human interaction since this morning when the alien sent me rolling south on the doomed freight train.
“Excuse me sir, can you tell me where the bus is"?
“Mande"? He doesn’t understand my English.
“Busco el autobús.” Tenth grade Spanish comes flooding back to me.
“No hay.” There’s no bus. I’m sure the mixture of astonishment and disappointment on my face can be understood universally. He smiles and asks “Por dónde vas"?
“San Francisco” I answer. I won’t be finishing my trip to L.A. I have to give up.
“Ahorita me voy a Fremont, cerca el BART Estation. Allí le puedo llevar.” How kind, he will take me to the Fremont BART.
I climb aboard his rickety roach coach. Together we reverse my journey, his pots of rendered animal fat and chopped chicken clanging about in the tiny taco kitchen behind us. My Spanish is terrible, so we nod and smile at one another. He asks me, “Usted tiene familia"?
“No, señor. Mi madre y yo, nada más.”
“Y cómo qué no, un hombre tan guapo como usted"?
I have to think about it. Why don’t I have a family. Well, apart from being a schizophrenic faggot, there’s no reason. Will he understand this obvious answer, or did he have motives when he just complimented my looks by calling me guapo? What is this taco vendor thinking? “Soy joven, señor.” I blame my lack of wife and kids on my youth.
“Ah. Sí. Todos los güeros esperan hasta la vejez.” Yes, whitey waits til he’s old. He puts a well worn hand on my knee and pats it and smiles. Taking inventory of the situation, I conclude this kind old man has a hidden agenda. There is a familiar gleam in his eye, and I’m not sure how to handle this. A block further down, I can see the BART sign. At the light, I open my door, hop out, bow and wave.
“Muchísimas gracias, Señor.”
“De nada.” His smile doesn’t fade. I doubt he was coming on to me, but I wanted to be safe. BART is ten paces away; it was time to go anyway.
CHAPTER TWO - INFORMATION
On Ninth Street I worry about what kind of trouble I’m in. Just because a pen moved I decided to throw my whole mental health career out the window. I fucked up. How did I tumble from Ivy League to homeless schizo mental health dropout? And now I’m in such big trouble. A cop car goes up Ninth. They’re looking for me. My mother will be real proud when she hears about this. Should I flag down the cop and save them the trouble? Too late. Inside the Furniture Mart I can hear the collective sighs of one hundred frustrated workers looking for a purchase order to complete their paper trails. Across the street is the Friends meeting house. I have always wondered why they chose to put it on such a noisy street, while they sit in silence listening for the still, small voice of God. A lost butterfly floats past me. There isn’t a tree, a flower, not even a weed for blocks and blocks. Keep flapping your wings, buddy, you’ll find something eventually.
There’s the Underground, where just a few months ago me and Donny met with Lola to do some smack. A heavy lead curtain separates my present self from the carefree self of yestermonth. I could no more return to such ease and adventure than a fly could pass through a glass window, and I buzz, crash my frantic wings in a vain attempt to return to the past. “Let go,” a voice whispers inside my head, and I fall to the dusty windowsill of the present moment.
At the door to Northeast Lodge, I chicken out and go inside the liquor store instead. Dixie is inside, buying a coke. Her heavy sandals slap hard against the concrete and linoleum floor. I expect her to come running to me and tell me how cops are after me but she’s in such a Thorazine daze she just flaps past without paying me the least notice. I buy a bag of barbecue Fritos. They taste good and help settle my upset stomach.
The payphone in the doorway of the liquor store is broken, but it lets you dial directory assistance for free.
I dial 411 and wait for the recorded voice to ask, “What city please?” before speaking.
“I’m sorry ma’am, I’m just scared and I need someone to talk to. Can you talk"? There’s a pause while the operator comes on the line.
“I’m sorry sir, but my average handle time per call needs to be 30 seconds or less.”
“Well, would you consider praying for me, then"? My question pierces the cold isolated heart of the call center.
“Yes sir, I will. Can I get you the number for anything"?
“No, ma’am, just a prayer.”
“God bless you, sir.” She disconnects. I love directory assistance.
In my haste to flee Northeast Lodge, I forgot my key in my room, on the dresser near the moving pen, so I have to buzz in. Beep.
“Hi, who’s there"? Connie’s voice is familiar and comforting.
“Ethan.” The door buzzes.
Inside, there are no cops to escort me back to jail. Dixie sees me this time and says, “Come on Ethan, it’s time for Deli Project. We’re making oatmeal cookies.” She climbs the stairs towards the kitchen.
I follow her. Elliott is already wearing his apron and placing potatoes in a series of neat rows. Barbara, the deli project manager, sees me and beams. “There you are! I thought you were in your room. I sent James to get you and he never came back. Listen, we need some potatoes sliced thin for potato chips using this mandolin. Do you think you can handle it if I show you? You have to wear protective gloves, okay"?
I nod, dumbfounded.
In boarding school, they have their shit together. If you were to miss one class let alone a whole day of classes without an excuse, they would have phoned your parents, suspended you from classes, and brought you before the discipline committee – a jury of your peers who would pronounce a judgement upon you for your indiscretion. The mental health system is less organized than Elliott’s potatoes.
*
In the middle of the night, I wake with cramps. There is someone in the upstairs toilet so I have to take the back stairs before my bowels erupt. Outside the paint-smudged window is the Northeast Lodge parking lot on Dore Alley. Shadowy figures dart about; ghosts in a graveyard in some mysterious dance; a mating ritual. Note to self: check out the parking lot one night.
The toilet on the first floor landing is free. On the way back upstairs, I pause to watch the activity out the rear window. The men (for they could only be men) are clad in black leather, shrouded in darkness. Only the occasional flicker of a match, followed by the red glow of a cigar, divides the inky black murk into puddles of light.
Who are these black-clad men? Do they know I am watching in the night?
I shiver and return to the pale comfort of my polyester sheets and acrylic blanket. It’s 2:45 am and soon the dawn will bring another day filled with far less adventure than the day before.
CHAPTER THREE - MICHAEL G. PAGE
On coffee walk with the crew I hear someone calling my name. “Ethan? Ethan? Is it you”? I pause and the flock of coffee-mad inmates waddles past me. In their wake is Michael Page.
It has been a year since I last saw Michael Page in New York holding court over a gaggle of club kids at Danceteria. His hawk-like features, with the most intense angry eyebrows and a shiny beak of a nose, made him look like he was about to vomit predigested worms into their little squawking mouths. I heard he had fled New York for the warmer pastures of San Francisco, but never saw him until now. He looks the part for this city in his grey dungarees with an East German military bag. No makeup, no homemade fun-fur costumes, just the bare self. What a spectacular inconvenient coincidence it is to run into him here, with all my current posse in tow.
“Ethan, who are all these fabulous hags"?
I blush, stammer, explain “They, uh, they live in the same building as me.”
“Girl, I heard all about you from Sister Ekoplasma.”
“You did"? I turn a deep shade of embarrassment red.
“They let you walk around? I thought it was a lockdown at General Hospital.”
“Uh, no. It’s-um-I’m not in the hospital anymore.”
“Oh, you’re at a halfway house"?
“Three-quarter way house,” I correct him.
Michael sniffs and smiles at me. “Going to Café Soma"?
I nod. He hooks his arm through mine and walks beside me towards the café.
“You know, I’m crazier than all you bitches put together. I just haven’t let them find out. If they did, they would put me away forever.”
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