He was twenty-one years old and more scared than he'd ever been in his short, and to that point, relatively uneventful life.
The two men who had driven him to the hospital had mostly kept their mouths closed during the ride, except to mutter complaints about the unseasonable weather, or make caustic remarks about the other drivers on the roads, none of whom seemed to meet the standards of excellence that the they jointly held. The ambulance had bumped along the roadway at a moderate speed, flashing lights and urgency both ignored. There was something of dull routine in the way the two men had acted, as if the trip to the hospital was nothing more than a way-stop in the midst of an oppressively normal, decidedly boring day. One man occasionally slurped from a soda can, making a smacking noise with his lips. The other whistled snatches of popular songs. The first sported Elvis sideburns. The second had a bushy lion's mane of hair.
It might have been a trivial journey for the two attendants, but to the young man rigid with tension in the back, his breathing coming in short sprinter's spurts, it was nothing of the sort. Every sound, every sensation seemed to signal something to him, each more terrifying and more threatening than the next. The beat of the windshield wipers was like some deep jungle drum playing a roll of doom. The humming of the tires against the slick road surface was a siren's song of despair. Even the noise of his own labored wind seemed to echo, as if he were encased in a tomb. The restraints dug into his flesh, and he opened his mouth to scream for help, but could not make the right sound. All that emerged was a gargling burst of despair. One thought penetrated the symphony of discord that if he survived the day, he was likely to never have a worse one.
When the ambulance shuddered to a halt in front of the hospital entrance, he heard one of his voices crying out over the stew of fear: They will kill you here, if you are not careful.
The ambulance drivers seemed oblivious to the imminent danger. They opened the doors to the vehicle with a crash, and indelicately pulled Francis out on a gurney. He could feel cold raindrops slapping against his face, mingling with a nervous sweat on his forehead, as the two men wheeled him through a wide set of doors into a world of harshly bright and unforgiving lights. They pushed him down a corridor, gurney wheels squealing against the linoleum, and at first all he could see, as it slid past, was the gray pockmarked ceiling. He was aware that there were other people in the corridor, but he was too scared to turn and face them. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the soundproofing above him, counting the number of light fixtures that he rolled beneath. When he reached four, the two men stopped.
He was aware that some other people had stepped to the front of the gurney. In the space just beyond his head, he heard some words spoken: 'Okay, guys. We'll take him from here.'
Then a massive, round, black face, sporting a wide row of uneven, grinning teeth suddenly appeared above him. The face was above an orderly's white jacket that seemed, at first glance, to be several sizes too small.
'All right, Mister Francis Xavier Petrel, you ain't gonna cause us no trouble now, are you?' The man had a slightly singsong tenor to his words, so that they came out with equal parts of menace and amusement. Francis did not know what to reply.
A second black face abruptly hovered into his sight on the other side of the gurney, also leaning into the air above him, and this other man said, 'I don't think this boy here is going to be any sort of hassle. Not in the tiniest little bit. Are you, Mister Petrel?' He, too, spoke with a soft Southern-tinged accent.
A voice shouted in his ear: Tell them no!
He tried to shake his head, but had trouble moving his neck. 'I won't be a problem,' he choked out. The words seemed as raw as the day, but he was glad to hear he could speak. This reassured him a bit. He'd been afraid, throughout the day, that somehow he was going to lose the ability to communicate at all.
'Okay, then, Mister Petrel. We going to get you up off the gurney. Then we going to sit down, nice and easy in a wheelchair. You got that? Ain't gonna be loosing those cuffs on your hands and feet quite yet, though. That's gonna come after you speak to the doctor. Maybe he gives you a little something to calm you right down. Chill you right out. Nice and easy now. Sit up, swing those legs forward.'
Do what you're told!
He did what he was told.
The motion made him dizzy, and he seemed to sway for a second. He felt a huge hand grab his shoulder to steady him. He turned and saw that the first orderly was immense, well over six and a half feet tall and probably close to three hundred pounds. He had massively muscled arms, and legs that were like barrels. His partner, the other black man, was a wiry, thin man, dwarfed by his partner. He had a small goatee, and a bushy Afro haircut that failed to add much stature to his modest height. Together, the two men steered him into a waiting wheelchair.
'Okay,' said the little one. 'Now we're going to take you in to see the doc. Don't you worry none. Things may seem nasty-wrong and bad and lousy right now, but they gonna get better soon enough. You can take that to the bank.'
He didn't believe this. Not a word.
The two orderlies steered him forward, into a small waiting room. There was a secretary behind a gray steel desk, who looked up as the procession came through the doorway. She seemed an imposing, prim woman, on the wrong side of middle age, dressed in a tight blue suit, hair teased a bit too much, eyeliner a little too prominent, lip gloss slightly overdone, giving her a contradictory sort of appearance, a demeanor that seemed to Francis Petrel to be half librarian and half streetwalker. 'This must be Mr. Petrel,' she said brusquely to the two black orderlies, although it was instantly obvious to Francis that she didn't expect an answer, because she already knew it. 'Take him straight in. The doctor is expecting him.'
He was pushed through another door, into a different office. This was a slightly nicer space, with two windows on the back wall that overlooked a courtyard. He could see a large oak tree swaying in the wind pushed up by the rainstorm. And, beyond the tree, he could see other buildings, all in brick, with slate black roof lines that seemed to blend with the gloom of the sky above. In front of the windows was an imposing large wooden desk. There was a shelf of books in one corner, and some overstuffed chairs and a deep red oriental carpet resting on top of the institutional gray rug that covered the floor, creating a small sitting area off to Francis's right. There was a photograph of the governor next to a portrait of President Carter on the wall. Francis took it in as rapidly as possible, his head swiveling about. But his eyes quickly came to rest upon a small man, who rose from behind the desk, as he came into the room.
'Hello, Mister Petrel. I am Doctor Gulptilil,' he said briskly, voice high-pitched, almost like a child's.
The doctor was overweight and round, especially in the shoulders and the stomach, bulbous like a child's party balloon that had been squeezed into a shape. He was either Indian or Pakistani. He had a bright red silk tie fastened tightly around his neck, and sported a luminous white shirt, but his ill-fitting gray suit was slightly frayed at the cuffs. He appeared to be the sort of man who lost interest in his appearance about midway through the process of dressing in the morning. He wore thick, black-rimmed glasses, and his hair was slicked back and curled over his collar. Francis had difficulty telling whether he was young or old. He noticed that the doctor liked to punctuate every word with a wave of his hand, so that his speech became a conductor's movement with his baton, directing the orchestra in front.
'Hello,' Francis said tentatively.
Be careful what you say! One of his voices shouted.
'Do you know why you are here?' the doctor asked. He seemed genuinely curious.
'I'm not at all sure,' Francis replied.
Doctor Gulptilil looked down at a file and examined a sheet of paper.
'You've apparently rather scared some people,' he said slowly. 'And they seem to think you are in need of some help.' He had a slight British accent, just a touch of an Anglicism that had probably been eroded by years in the United States. It was warm in the room, and one of the radiators beneath the window hissed.
Francis nodded. 'That was a mistake,' he said. 'I didn't mean it. Things just got a little out of control. An accident, really. Really no more than a mistake in judgment. I'd like to go home, now. I'm sorry. I promise to be better. Much better. It was all just an error. Nothing meant by it. Not really. I apologize.'
The doctor nodded, but didn't precisely reply to what Francis had said.
