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MODERN SCIENCE HAS YET TO FIND A CURE Approx. 4900 wds. Michael Lee Smith
That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time . . . -John Stuart Mill
Somehow I expected the door to a nut house to be barred or something. You'd knock, some invisible intercom would buzz to life with a voice strained through wire mesh: "What do you want?"
Or maybe when you stepped onto the lawn a couple of white-suited orderlies would whisk from out of nowhere, corner you, and sweep you in before you have second thoughts, knowing that anyone who considered checking themselves in, who took the trouble to get themselves as far as the business end of the parking lot, belonged here.
Wasn't the case. The building disguised itself in nondescript brick and glass—like any ordinary medical office building—sensible conservative landscaping on either side of the sidewalk. That should have been my first clue.
I stood, holding the door handle, feeling a nameless fear. Tried to see inside without appearing as if I were trying to see in. Looking for the two orderlies. Maybe the door was the boundary, they were waiting, lurking inside.
Given a lot of thought these last few days to the alternatives to what I'm doing—committing myself. Alternatives? Not that big a menu, really. Suicide. But it’s so messy. Or, I know I'll screw it up somehow. Won't ingest quite enough capsules, even if it's a thousand. Be one or two capsules short of fatal. Some fluke in my physical makeup will tolerate those thousand capsules, or almost tolerate them, leaving me a Veggie in some institution, getting my diaper changed, drooling. Masturbating with all the cavalier indifference of a monkey at the zoo. Friends will come and see me and try to act as if they aren't embarrassed.
I keep wanting to make this feeling more universal, this feeling of confusion and despair cast over me like a rotting blanket. If it is universal, then I can accept it. If the rest of humanity can survive it, why can't I?
That's the question I've come to get answered. 
I feel the door handle, slick now with the sweat from my palm. Try to release it but my hand holds on like some kind of small animal, clinging for its life. See movement from inside, inside the nuthouse that looks like a claims adjustment office. Woman's walking toward me across the faux-granite linoleum tiles. Hear the soft noise of her sensible shoes, though of course, I can't really hear it through the glass. Just know the sound's there. See? I have a grasp on reality. I know what accompanies the contact of shoe sole with vinyl tile. See?
Big horse smile she shines on me, standing a safe distance from the door. Behind the smile and her oversized red horn-rims, she’s sizing me up. I know what she sees—relatively sane-looking man, middle-aged, about as frazzled by life as the next guy, nothing too serious.
My hand falls from the door handle. Feet's fail me, propel me backward only a few steps. She cocks her head. Drop of hot sweat cascades down my forehead and into my eye. Wipe it away as she realizes I'm not harmful, pushes the door open and stands, holding it.
"May I help you?"
Look up, above the doorway, and read the address there, feigning confusion. "Oh. Sixty-seven sixty. I have the wrong address."
"What address were you looking for?" She has a knowing look. One that almost offers a name to the fear I'm feeling.
I'm not telling her that the world's turned gray. Not telling her about the volcano eruption that must have somehow gone unreported, covering the world in a gray shroud. But who's fooling whom? she can see that in me anyway. Know it's as evident as if I were carrying one of those old-fashioned advertising placards on my chest. In spite of every molecule in my body resisting, I begin crying then. I'm hypnotized to cry. The faucet, I guess, is programmed to crank itself open at this very moment in history. Must all be planned. Because I can't do a thing about it.
Behind her the two orderlies approach. Through tears I get a watery version of the no-nonsense in their expressions. Kick into action, handling me as if I were some lost little boy found crying at some large public event, gently, kindly. Look exactly like I expected them to. Every fiber in my body screams at me to run. Feets fail me once again.
And it's that simple. Took mere minutes and I was inside. Effortless almost. Into a whole new world. Isn't that something?
Why is it I can't tell them the reason I'm here? Is it their laughter I fear? The diminishment of my torture to mere humor?
I used to laugh about it, after all. Used to.
It was funny. Like Jack Patton in Kurt Vonnegut's novel, HOCUS POCUS, who "Had to laugh like hell," at any and all obstacles the world threw his way, I had to make it funny. If I failed, which obviously I have, it might just drive me mad. And my “condition’s” progression will soon leave me sporting the latest in custom-tailored canvas camisoles. Doing the "Twist and Shout" to some ear-splitting refrain exclusive to my ears.
I saw that foreshadow coming, so I had to make this dilemma that has taken control of my life funny. Beyond that, I had to unload it onto other innocent bystanders, friends and acquaintances, compelling disregard of my morals, since my story, my problem, could only be illuminated at the expense of another human being. Someone I liked. Well, maybe that was going too far—yes, way too far, but nevertheless, another human being deserving dignity. As if some large, invisible hand grabbed me and squeezed, out came my story at any available lapse in conversation; words spilled from my lips like freed animals. And with much shaking of their heads, friends and acquaintances agreed that its irony had a strong element of humor attached. Perhaps the guilt in that action, the bargain price for which I auctioned off a parcel of morals greased the wheels to my present "condition."
Some joke, I think now, sitting in this . . . examination room. Suspect that's what it is, anyway. I was led here by the orderlies shortly after my appearance at the front door. They were polite to a fault, as full of humor as robots. That's what they seemed to me, robots, except that that's such an obligatory way for an insane person to see other human beings that I tried to make them unrobotlike. One of them handed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. He tried to smile. A robot wouldn't have tried that, a sympathetic smile. Then they left.
Examining room is white. Or they've tried to make it white, but it's gray. Of course I've already reported that everything is gray. Styrofoam cup is gray. Paper in front of me, the one I'm supposed to be filling out: gray. With black lettering which I've yet to attempt to read. Releases, I imagine. Questionnaires. Competency tests.
They'll find that I'm of above average intelligence. Wait a minute! Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what smells like a wet dog. Consider that astonishing theory for a few minutes—how closely intelligence might be linked to insanity. But a scream echoes down the hallway, forces itself under the crack in the door, and like some kind of Chinese puzzle, unfolds, taking up the entire mass of the room and reminding me, in none too subtle terms, where I am.
They would laugh. They will laugh. I imagine my potential therapist falling out on the floor in hysterics. Or worse—they won't understand at all. They'll shrug and say: "That's life." That's life?
"That's life," might be a cute lyric from a Sinatra song, but it doesn't explain shit. Life is not a veiny demon with boils for eyes, pissing injustice on humankind. And even if it is, there are some realms that remain untouched. Some sanctuaries. Aren't there? Have to be.
Art? Literature? Music?
A quote comes to me, one of my favorites, one that attaches itself easily to my dilemma—John Stuart Mill, lamenting the decline of individualism in Great Britain—That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time. Is there anything conformity and commercialism hasn't corrupted? Can’t they answer that here, of all places?
Woman dressed in a nursing uniform arrives and helps me fill out the forms. I don't tell her anything that might hint at distress; I'm waiting for the Big Cheese. Don't dare risk diluting my story. Slip into my well-adjusted personality as easily as slipping into a pair of silk pajamas; act as happy as a lark until she informs me that unless I have some problem, some fairly major psychological disorder, they don't have room to keep me. Take the easy way out and tell her I've been hearing voices.
She leads me to a room and there I ease into the bed and cover my head with the pillow. Don't want to hear any more screams that push themselves under doors and become unfolding Chinese puzzles. It’s all I can do to keep my own inside.
The next morning I sit in the patient dining room looking down into a bowl of watery oatmeal and mull over the lack of ceremony in my new home. Unceremoniously awakened and herded here. Someone just walked in and unceremoniously informed this pitiful assemblage that group would begin in five minutes.
Occurs to me (if "occurs" can be likened to a pall-peen hammer slammed to the bridge of the nose) the lack of individual attention being paid to me. Being molded into one of a homogenized herd of defectos against my will. Just by entering here, I've cast myself into something beyond my control. Note the tired face of the orderly as he notes me—just another new face in the dining room. That realization makes me shudder. Makes me want to lean forward and silently, without drawing attention to myself, drown in Lake Oatmeal. That feeling is exactly what I was attempting to escape out there! Out there in the real world. What irony!
It's relieving to me when, after a moment, I remember our herd's destination: group. Ah, there will be my salvation. That's where I can become an individual!
Was it the fear of being mistaken for one of my faceless fellow patients that made me blurt out my secret? I only know that amid the sounds of chairs being dragged across carpeted floor into a circle; amid soft sounds of throats being cleared, and hands folded across one another, I felt the nocturnal serpent of fear crawling up my spine. Cold scales slithering against my skin.
Grasp for some sort of relief, focusing on the therapist— looks like too much of a therapist to be a therapist. That's my first impression, anyway. A Hollywood cliché in wire-rimmed glasses, cardigan, sporting a goatee. A parody! In a world filled with parodies.
But too quickly (or just in time, for the snake's tongue is flicking at my ear) the attention of those in the circle falls upon me. Like filling squeezed from a Twinkie, out comes the sentence:
"Tickle's got a publisher." Comes out as if I've been holding my breath. Maybe I have.
Moment of silence roars by. Therapist leans forward.
"Pardon me?" he says.
A sigh escapes me. With the words I've spoken comes the realization of the gaps in my disclosure. Enormous gaps.
Another silence fills the room. Faces study me. Collective vacuum in the room, pulling my lips apart, tugging at words. I fight it.
"I beg your pardon?" I say.
"You said someone had a publisher."
"I did?"
"Yes." Heads nod around the circle.
"I— I did not." Heads shake.
Tick. Tick. Tick. My watch says that.
"Look," I say. "I'm not going to stay here if you accuse me of saying things I didn't say."
Therapist flashes a patronizing smile, a version they're generous with here.
"No one said you have to stay. You're free to go."
Bluff. They won't let me leave. He's just—
"Look," I say, again. "What I've got to say . . . well, it's a long story. I'm sure it'll be a long, boring story for anyone not involved in my business." Plaster on a big shit-eating grin. "I'll be glad to go over it with you. One on one, after group." Glance at the guy next to me, with his shirt on wrong-side out, hoping the therapist will catch my drift. Few minutes ago, at breakfast, an old dude who calls himself Popeye, and whose electric razor voice gave me pause, asked for my extra piece of toast. I'm sure Popeye, and the guy with his shirt on wrong-side-out, will have valuable insights into my problem.
"Why are you here?"
Takes a moment to distill all the reasons into one that might sound logical.
"To get help."
"Then you shouldn't really care if your story's boring."
Checked out then—did what I often do when pushed into a corner—went trout fishing in an icy stream somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Over, or under, or amid the sweet soft sound of crystal water rushing past my thighs, heard the therapist's voice. It was a faint sound. From beyond a distant mountain. No longer a grating parody of something Hollywood might conjure as a "therapist." Rather have my balls fitted with electrodes than witness one more cliché, whatever its form.
I was unable to fish very long. Brain refused to allow such unproductive nonsense, something so soothing. Instead, it compelled me to review what I would tell The Therapist in our "one-on-one," if granted the opportunity.
How to convey my depravity? A writer. A writer struggling against the trampling hoards, unsatisfied and uninspired trying to emulate the obviousness and gratuity of current "commercial" literature—not out of any sort of snobbery or contempt for, what seemed to me, the literature of escapism, but that the deeper and more intricate questions in contemporary life held more personal appeal and inspiration.
How to convey my sense of disbelief and frustration at the news that Harold Tickle is being published! Tickle, a fellow member of the little writing group to which I belonged; Tickle, who is—lets face it, a terrible writer—a walking, talking, keyboard pecking manufacturer of obviousness and gratuity in its most blatant and banal form. And who beyond that, beyond just being a hideous writer, is a right-wing bigot, a chauvinist, a know-it-all, a home-siding salesman!, and a frothing family-value religious hypocrite, whose only redeeming quality is that he is unaware of his hypocrisy. His "inspirational" story reads like an attempt, by a melodramatic old-timer, deep in the throes of sentimentality and senility, to novelize the absolute worst of every old, yellowed strip of clichéd celluloid ever created—about a failed man who is persuaded by a dead priest (the priest at the orphanage where he was raised!) to travel across the country in pursuit of "lessons" that might be learned from ordinary "folks." Talk about turning the clock back!
Overripe with vagaries and generic description, as deep as the proverbial spoon, Tickle's "story" grinds from one uncreative anti-climax to the next, never astray from the most obvious and anti-brilliance ever deep-sixed by the least discriminating of editors.
But, the catch! Tickle has a publisher! Reality of that, tied to the large and growing file of rejects I've collected, brought me here. Too much of a joke to be real! More of a joke than I could ever imagine and create. Sit in front of the keyboard till I turned to dust, and couldn't create that scenario!
Sure, one could explain it away by the fact that Tickle's a salesman, and that eventually the true value of his beads and trinkets would be realized. But what salesman could swing a sale of such a dubious product? Even initially? Or one could say that the "inspirational" genre, at which Tickle claimed to be aiming, held a different audience than did literary writing. Not that different!
Everything I'd been taught about writing—that readers demand three-dimensional characters, that readers demand conflict, motivation, depth, good prose, proper spelling, a beginning, a middle, an end—all that seemed to have been turned upside down by Tickle's four-word, holier-than-thou, finger-rammed-down-throat-inducing pronouncement! "I have a publisher."
Therapist pulled me, drenched, once again, in a cold sweat, from my recollection of Tickle. Room was now vacant, except for him and me.
Stared at him a moment, cleared my throat, started my story, then stopped.
"I have to show you," I said, rising from my chair. "You'll understand it fully when I show you."
Looked up at me, quizzically.
"I'll be right back."
Rushed to my room, tore open my briefcase and extracted a portion of Tickle's story that I had copied and saved. Grabbed an excerpt of my novel as a comparison. Nothing else would illustrate the injustice as well as the real thing. No amount of talking would explain my presence in this building. My questions.
Rushed back to his office and shoved the two samples at him.
"The more explaining I do," I said, slightly winded, "the more insane I'll appear. Read these. You'll see what I mean. One's a portion of Tickle's story, the other's mine."
Reluctantly he took the papers. Leafed through them.
"I'm sorry, I'm a doctor, not a fiction critic." Looked up. "If you say your story is better than his, then . . . well, I believe you believe that. But as for the reality, I can't be the judge."
Heart sank. Ran out of my chest, beneath my shirt, into my trousers, down my leg, filled up my shoe and overflowed onto the tiled floor.
"There are larger questions here," The Therapist said, scrutinizing me behind his little wire-rims. "More important issues to deal with." Pushed the papers back toward me, like they were death warrants with his name on them.
Took a moment to click. "Yeah, right. I know how you see it. A sane man doesn't check himself into a mental institution because someone gets published and hedoesn't. Right? Those are your questions, or your type question. Here's mine, and it seems very redundant to have to ask these questions of you, of all people: Is it insane for a sane man to explore the age-old question of self-identity? Is it insane for a man to put that exploration into characters and situations he creates, so as to answer those questions for himself and possibly others? Is it insane for a sane man to feel an insane sense of injustice when his work, because of its nonconformity, is passed over in favor of something so unoriginal and poorly done, but more 'commercial' possibly, at least in theme?"
I was loosing him. Looking at me like I was explaining Theory of Relativity in Tibetan verse.
Quickly, desperately: "And if we expand that beyond the arts, to science, to medicine, to religion, to matters of the spirit, what then? Is "pop" psychology your ticket, Doc?"
Hand on a rope of familiarity. Had pulled a curtain open behind his eyes. In his territory now. "There's always a penalty to pay for nonconformity," he said with confidence. "I'm not condemning it, I'm simply reporting the fact."
Long moment. Tense. I asked, "So that's it then? That's what I came here to learn? There's a penalty for nonconformity?"
He was still trying to hand me the two stories. I took them.
Appeared ready to dismiss me. Gaze drifting impatiently away. The implication was, of course: there may be truth in what I said, but it hardly made up for the fact that I'd checked myself into a mental institution. What I had said carried little relevance to the overall scheme of things.
"Why don't you do this," he suggested, I sensed, as a way to get rid of me. "I'm no fiction expert, but we have someone here, if memory serves me, who is. Mr. Fitzsimmons." Consulted a clipboard on his desk. "Room three-six-three." Looked up and awarded me with benevolence. "Let him take a look at your stories. I'm sure he won't mind."
"A patient?" Why did I feel so patronized?
His smile widened. "You're a patient."
I'm a patient. I am a patient. My shuffle down the hallway was that of a man condemned. Had I ever set myself up. And here I was, walking of my own free will into the hands of someone in an insane asylum, a patient of all things, seeking even more validation of myself.
"Penalty for nonconformity," I said as I looked up and read the numbers on the door: three-six-three. Defeated. Knocked softly. Moment later a voice answered, sounding slightly agitated at the interruption:
"Come in."
Entered slowly, dreading what I might see.
And there he was, sitting on his bed with a tray in his lap. Wispy gray hair, uncombed. Bifocals. Papers scattered about the room. Pencil in hand, looked as if he'd been working furiously on the paper in front of him, like the mad pianist who can only play when the moon is full.
"Yes?"
Cleared my throat. "The therapist sent me to see you."
He considered that.
Held my story in front of me. Offering my perfectionist father the mangled results of my first woodshop project.
He considered that.
"You a writer?"
Nodded, not knowing whether that would be welcome information.
Grinned like card shark. Then set his pencil down and rubbed his hands together.
"Wonderful. Just wonderful."
He was thrilled, he said, to have a writer on the ward. We talked. Giddy, almost. Didn't tell him anything I had just unloaded on the therapist, with the exception that I'd written a few novels and some short stories. He seemed so happy to talk about writing that neither of us got around to much of our histories. Felt cheap and slimy about having ridiculed Tickle, who after all, was a soldier in this brotherhood Fitzsimmons so cordially and quickly welcomed me into. Didn't broach that subject. Simply slipped the folded copy of Tickle's excerpt into my back pocket.
By and by we got to my book. Mr. Fitzsimmons demanded, after reading the first few pages with much enthusiasm, that he read my manuscript in its entirety. Showed me his card, a publisher! Publishing company looked familiar even; on the way to fetch the rest of my novel tried remembering where I'd seen the name before. What section of the Writer's Market. Or at what writer's conference. And too, marveled at life, how it turns out sometimes.
Not long after my return, he shooed me away good-naturedly.
"Enough talk," he said. "I want to read this." Sat on the bed, shaking my manuscript in his hand, smiling.
Sun played on the tiled floor like a happy infant as I sat in his room the next morning. He took a sip of his coffee, set the cup back on the tray and picked up the manuscript.
Held my breath.
Squinted at me. "I think we might have something here."
Took a long moment for the words to come. "What do you mean?"
His face broke into a grin. "I think I'm looking at the next New York Times best-selling author."
Speechless.
"I'm going to publish this, son. It's deep, it's humorous where it should be humorous, it's poignant where it's supposed to be poignant, it's got all the ingredients and it's put together splendidly.
Lost his voice then. Brain traveled off to places it had long since departed. Places of hope. Places it had resided years ago when I first began writing, but visited seldom lately.
Someone would read me. I would finally have the opportunity to share parts of my soul, the parts that were impossible to articulate other than through my writing. Felt myself growing larger. Gaining substance.
But then Fitzsimmon's words pulled me back:
". . . it's just coincidental, and such good fortune for me."
"What?" Stood up, not believing what I'd heard.
"I was saying that two wonderful manuscripts in less than a month is just so coincidental and fortunate."
"You said something else. A name—"
Looked at me quizzically. "Oh yes, the other fellow. He wrote a wonderful book about a man resurrected from failure, prodded along the path by a priest, the priest of the orphanage where he was raised. Wonderful story."
Couldn't find words.
"Tickle's his name. He was here too, about a month ago."
Jack Patton materialized somewhere out in the hallway, walked into the room. Grinned at me. Then wrapped an arm around my shoulder. He laughed first.
I joined him a moment later and we stood looking down into the sweet blue eyes of Mr. Fitzsimmons, the publisher. Together we stood, laughing like hell. Man, did we ever have to laugh like hell. Back • Next Short Stories |
