Francis C-Bird, and I will see you again before too long. That's a promise.'
Francis was unable to respond, but felt a slight sense of encouragement in the man's words. For the first time since that horrible morning had begun with so many loud voices, shouts and recriminations, he felt as if he wasn't completely alone. It was a little like the harsh noise and constant racket that had been filling his ears all day had diminished, like a radio's blaring volume turned down slightly. He could hear some of his voices murmuring approval in the background, which relaxed him a bit more. But he did not have time to dwell on this thought, for he was abruptly wheeled out of the office, into the corridor, and the door shut resoundingly behind him. A cold draft made him shudder and reminded him that as of that moment all that he had once known of life had been changed and all that he was to know was elusive and hidden from him. He had to bite down on his lower lip to keep the tears from returning, swallowing hard to remain quiet and let himself be diligently steered away from the reception area and deep into the core of the Western State Hospital.
Chapter 3
Limp morning light was just sliding over the neighboring rooftops, insinuating its way into my sparse little apartment home. I stood in front of the wall and saw all the words I'd written the previous night crawling down a single long column. My handwriting was pinched tight, as if nervous. The words were arranged in wavering lines, a little like a field of wheat as a breath of warm wind passes over. I asked myself: Was I truly that scared, the day I arrived at the hospital? The answer to that was easy: Yes. And far worse than I had written. Memory often blurs pain. The mother forgets the agony of childbirth when the baby is placed in her arms, the soldier no longer remembers the pain of his wounds when the general pins the medal on his chest and the band strikes up some martial tune. Did I tell the truth about what I saw? Did I get the small details right? Did it happen quite the way I remembered it?
I seized the pencil, dropped to my knees on the floor to the spot where I'd ended my first night at the wall. I hesitated, then wrote:
It was at least forty-eight hours later that Francis Petrel awakened in a dingy gray padded cell, tightly encased in a straitjacket, his heart racing, his tongue thick, thirsting for a drink of something cold and some companionship… It was at least forty-eight hours later that Francis Petrel awakened in a dingy gray padded cell, tightly encased in a straitjacket, his heart racing, his tongue thick, thirsting for a drink of something cold and some companionship. He lay rigidly on the steel cot and thin dark-stained mattress of the isolation room, staring up past the burlap-colored padded walls, to the ceiling, doing a modest inventory of his person and his surroundings. He wiggled his toes, ran his tongue over parched lips, and counted each beat of his pulse until he could detect a slowing. The drugs he'd been injected with made him feel entombed, or at least blanketed with some thick, syrupy substance. There was a single glowing white lightbulb encased in a wire screen high above him, far beyond his reach, and the glare hurt his eyes. He knew he should be hungry, but wasn't. He pulled against the restraints, and knew instantly that was futile. He decided he should call out for help, but first he whispered to himself: Are you still here?
For a moment, there was silence.
Then he heard several voices, all speaking at once, all faint, as if muffled by a pillow: We're here. We're all still here.
This reassured him.
You need to keep us hidden, Francis.
He nodded to himself. This appeared obvious. He felt a contradictory set of criteria within himself, almost like a mathematician who sees a complicated equation on a chalkboard that could have several possible answers. The voices that guided him had also landed him in the current fix and there was little doubt in his mind that he needed to keep them concealed at all times, if he ever hoped to get out of the Western State Hospital. As he assessed this dilemma, he could hear the familiar sounds of all the people who traveled in his imagination agreeing with him. These voices all had personalities: a voice of demand, a voice of discipline, a voice of concession, a voice of concern, a voice that warned, a voice that soothed, a voice of doubt, and a voice of decision. They all owned tones and topics; he had grown to know when to expect one or the other, depending upon the situation around him. Since the angry confrontation with his folks, and the police and ambulance had been summoned, the voices had all clamored for attention. But now he had to continue to strain to hear them, which made him furrow his brow with concentration.
It was, in a way, he thought, part of getting himself organized.
Francis remained on the bed uncomfortably for another hour, feeling the closeness of the narrow room, until a small porthole in the only door opened with a scraping noise. From where he lay, he was able to see by lifting himself up like an athlete doing a stomach crunch, a difficult position to hold for more than a few seconds, because of the straitjacket. He did see first one eye, then another, peering in at him, and he managed a weak: 'Hello?'
No one responded and the porthole slammed shut.
It was another thirty minutes by his reckoning before the porthole opened again. He tried another hello and this one seemed to work, because seconds later he heard the sound of a key being worked in the lock. The door scraped open and he saw the larger of the two black attendants, pushing his way into the cell. The man was smiling, as if caught in the midst of a joke, and he nodded at Francis not unpleasantly. 'How you doing this morning Mr. Petrel?' he asked brightly. 'You get some sleep? You hungry?'
'I need something to drink,' Francis croaked.
The attendant nodded. 'That's the medications they gave you. Make your tongue all thick, kinda like it be all swollen, huh?'
Francis nodded. The attendant retreated to the corridor, then returned with a plastic cup of water. He sat on the side of the cot and held Francis up like a sickly child, letting him gulp at the liquid. It was lukewarm, almost brackish, with a slight metallic taste, but at that moment, just the mere sense of it pouring down his throat, and the pressure of the man's arm holding him, reassured Francis more than he had ever expected. The attendant must have realized this, because he quietly said, 'It gonna be all right, Mr. Petrel. Mr. C- Bird. That what that other new man called you, and I'm thinking that's a fine name to go by. This place a little rough at first, take some getting used to, but you gonna be just fine. I can tell.'
He lowered Francis back to the bed, and added, 'The doctor gonna come in to see you now.'
A few seconds later, Francis saw Doctor Gulptilil's round form hovering in the doorway. The doctor smiled, and asked, in his slight singsong-accented voice, 'Mr. Petrel. How are you this morning?'
'I'm all right,' Francis said. He didn't know really what else he could say. And, at the same time, he could hear the echoing of his voices, telling him to be extremely careful. Again, they were not nearly as loud as they could be, almost as if they were shouting commands to him from across some wide chasm.
'Do you remember where you are?' the doctor asked.
Francis nodded. 'I'm in a hospital.'
'Yes,' the doctor said with a smile. 'That is not difficult to surmise. But do you recall which one? And how it was that you arrived here?'
Francis did. The mere act of answering questions lifted some of the fog he felt was obscuring his vision. 'It is the Western State Hospital,' he said. 'And I arrived in an ambulance after having some argument with my parents.'
'Very good. And do you recall what month it is? And the year?'
'It is still March, I believe. And 1979.'
'Excellent.' The doctor seemed genuinely pleased. 'A little more oriented,
I would suspect. I think today we will be able to remove you from isolation and restraint, and begin to integrate you into the general population. This is as I'd hoped.'
'I would like to go home now,' Francis said.
'I am sorry, Mister Petrel. That isn't yet possible.'
