It was a long, narrow room with an impossibly high ceiling. The walls were an indeterminate mixture of blue and green. Sickening. Except for the ceiling, which was too high, it could have been a room in the seminary’s St. Thomas Hall. But the color was not right. And of course there was no reason why it should be St. Thomas Hall.
The overhead light was lit. He wondered if they left the light on all the time. He wondered if it was day or night. He didn’t care. He was lost in a blessed void of neutrality. He couldn’t remember the past and he didn’t care about the future.
He became conscious of sounds somewhere in the corridor. Institutional sounds. People—more than a few— talking. Quietly, mostly. Somebody giving orders: Somebody must stay in his or her room till later. Crockery rattling.
Then the sound of a loudspeaker. He could hear that clearly. “Dr. Bartlett . . . Dr. Bartlett, please pick up line two.”
No doubt about it, he was in some sort of hospital. He tried for a moment, but couldn’t remember which one. Gloriously, it didn’t matter.
14
It was not at all typical of Bob Koesler. But he wanted very much to see Ridley Groendal and that would require extreme measures.
When Koesler began summer vacation, he learned, first, that Groendal was in St. Joseph’s Retreat, and second, that only members of his immediate family were permitted to visit him. How was a seminarian, fresh from college graduation, to pierce that defense?
The solution seemed obvious to Koesler. There was one exception to every rule in most institutions—the friendly clergyman. Spouses and relatives might be denied access to their loved one, but—particularly in a Catholic hospital—not the priest. He could go virtually unchallenged through almost any hospital at any time. The presumption was that a clergyman was always on business and that his business was “higher” than mere regulations.
In addition, the priest was identified by his uniform. Nothing more was needed. He did not need any ID or hospital garb. A black suit and Roman collar with clerical vest was all that was required. And Bob Koesler had that. Now that he was about to enter the theologate seminary, he was expected to add the clerical vest and collar to his wardrobe, and he had.
All he needed was an extraordinary measure of self-confidence, perhaps the Yiddish chutzpah. He could dress exactly like a priest out on professional calls. He looked like a priest—albeit a very young priest. Now he had to pass himself off as one. He had to tough it out. Brazenly enter through the front door as if he owned the place, walk by hospital staff in the corridors with no more than a curt nod, and march into Ridley’s room as if he’d been summoned to confer a sacrament or two.
Carrying off this masquerade was precisely where Koesler anticipated the most trouble. It was not in his nature to dare anyone to call his bluff. Crossing the border between Detroit and Windsor, he never tried to smuggle anything either way. He was certain his guilty countenance would betray him.
But now he was intent on seeing his former classmate and fellow parishioner. And desperately intent people are led to desperate deeds.
Three days before, he had made his first foray into the impressive brick structure on the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and West Outer Drive. Later it would be replaced by a car dealership. But now it was a sanitorium mostly for disturbed Catholics. Run by the Sisters of Charity—who, at that time, wore the imposing winged bonnets—St. Joseph’s Retreat housed every infirmity from alcoholism to schizophrenia.
Koesler’s initial adventure had been so successful that he had been emboldened to try it again. So here he was in his second attempt. He was under no delusion that this experience would qualify him to fool a border guard. Conning nuns by wearing priestly regalia was one thing; deceiving a customs agent trained to detect frauds and conditioned to expect them was quite another.
As it turned out, the second time was easier than the first. Then, some of the staff had looked at him a bit dubiously. Undoubtedly because they’d never seen him before and because he was so young—and looked it. Though his was not an impossibly youthful appearance; when he was ordained a priest four years hence, he would not look noticeably older.
But familiarity, in addition to breeding contempt, also breeds acceptance. Thus, on his second try, not only did Koesler nod to staff personnel as he passed them in the hall, several smiled as they returned the nod. A few even offered, “Good afternoon, Father.” Koesler loved it. He could hardly wait for ordination when, to paraphrase the book title, everybody would call him “Father.” This, then, was a foretaste of bliss.
Koesler knocked. Hearing no response, he entered Groendal’s room. As had been the case the previous time, Rid, arms crossed on his chest, lay fully clothed in bed. He seemed completely passive and, all things considered, not unhappy.
Koesler removed his white straw hat, dropped it on the small table and sat in the room’s only chair. Groendal regarded him for a few moments without any sign of recognition. Finally, a light seemed to go on in his eyes. “Bob! What happened? You get ordained?”
Koesler was taken aback. This was exactly the way they’d started the previous visit. “Of course not. Don’t you know where you are?”
Groendal shook his head, put both hands beneath his neck on the pillow and stretched. “It’s June, isn’t it? I’m not certain of the year . . . 1950?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmmm. Then why are you dressed like a priest? You’re not ordained. You just graduated from college.”
“Uh-huh. But we went through this before. This is the only way I can get in to see you. If they think I’m a priest.”
“You were here before?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Groendal shook his head again. “Not really.”
Koesler had never encountered any phenomenon to match this. He found it unnerving. “What’s happened to you, Rid?”
Groendal frowned and tried to concentrate. “I’m not sure, Bob. I think it’s electroshock. They give it to me every three days or so. It seems to be wiping out my memory . . . at least my memory of recent events. I can remember distant things, but the more recent things I’m not too clear on. This is a good example. You say you’ve been here before. I don’t doubt you were, especially since you say you were. Since I’ve forgotten all kinds of things over the past few days, your visit is probably gone with the rest. Sorry.”
“No need to be sorry. It’s not your fault. But what are they doing to you?”
“I don’t know. Curing me?”
“Of what?”
“Oh, didn’t they tell you? I had a nervous breakdown. The psychiatrist has a couple more technical names for it. But it comes down to a nervous breakdown.”
“Holy cow! I never knew anybody with a nervous breakdown.”
“Neither did I.” Groendal grinned weakly. “Yesterday I didn’t know what a nervous breakdown was; today I are one.” The grin didn’t last.
“What brought it on?”
“I . . . I don’t know. At least I’m not sure.”
“Was it that business at the seminary?”
Groendal looked at Koesler sharply. “What business?”
“Uh . . . between you and Charlie Hogan.”
“What do you know about that?”
“There was talk.”
“What was it? I want to know. Maybe I need to know.”
Koesler recited a synopsis of the various hypotheses that had been bandied about, especially among the philosophy students. Groendal listened with more attention than he’d been able to drum up in the recent past. The theories were substantially correct. That surprised Groendal. Scuttlebutt was rarely accurate. Those details that
