Neither Howie, who is Jewish, nor Mrs. Archer ('I'm Episcopalian,' she would sniff) have ever had much use for Russell. But with his retinue shrinking rapidly-only Maria, and a few of her alters, seemed to be paying any attention to him-he began to preach the gospel to Howie and to the Duchess, who had begun to emerge from her room on occasion to speak with prot.
Howie simply ignored him, but it was different for Mrs. Archer. It would be a bad joke to state that he was driving her crazy, but that was the net effect. Conversing with Russell requires a certain amount of forbearance under the best of circumstances. He tends to preach right into your face, releasing prodigious amounts of spittle with almost every word. And when she was able to escape his fervent hectoring she found herself being assaulted by Chuck's observations, expressed in no uncertain terms, that she stunk.
Mrs. Archer, who used nearly a pint of expensive perfumes weekly, was both mortified and irate. 'I most certainly do not stink!' she screeched, impatiently lighting a cigarette.
'Those goddamn things reek,' Chuck would badger. She was finally reduced to tears. 'Please,' she implored, when I happened by. 'Let him come back.'
'He wouldn't take a stinker like you with him. He's going to take me!' Chuck proclaimed.
But Russell warned, 'For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect!'
'You stink, too!' Chuck reminded him.
DURING a quick lunch in the doctors' dining room Dr. Goldfarb told me more about Chuck. He had been a middle-level government employee at one time, she said, but blew the whistle on the waste and corruption in his division at the Pentagon. For his efforts he was fired and, for all practical purposes, blackballed, both from government and corporate employment. That alone might be cause enough for disillusionment, but the straw that broke his back was his wife's divorcing him after thirty-five years of marriage. 'I couldn't have been happier,' he muttered to Goldfarb. 'I had to kiss that malodorous maw every day. P.U.! Stinkeroonie!' But the truth was that he loved his wife passionately and it was more than he could bear. Indeed, he had tried to commit suicide shortly after she left him by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. It must seem incredible to the reader to learn that he missed, but the fact is that many attempted suicides end in 'failure' for the simple reason that they are actually desperate attempts to draw attention to the sufferer's terrible, and often silent, unhappiness. Most victims don't actually want to die; they want to communicate.
Of course, not all those who feel rootless or valueless resort to this futile measure. A manic-depressive once assured me that he would never try to kill himself. I asked him how he could be so sure. 'Because,' he told me, 'I still haven't read Moby Dick. ' .
As good a reason for living as any, I suppose, and perhaps it explains why so few people have ever finished that book.
IN the midst of all the furor surrounding prot's disappearance, the reporter who had called me the previous week arrived, half an hour early, for her appointment. She was older than she appeared, thirty three, she said, though she looked more like sixteen. She wore faded jeans, an old checked shirt, and running shoes with no socks. My first impression was that freelance writing must be a poorly paid profession, but I eventually came to realize that she dressed this way for effect-to induce people to feel at ease. To that end she also wore little makeup, and only a hint of perfume that somehow brought to mind our summer place in the Adirondacks. 'Pine woods,' I would have called it. She was short, about five-two, and her teeth were tiny, like a little girl's. Disarmingly, she curled up into the chair I offered. She asked me to call her Giselle.
She came from a little town in northern Ohio. After graduating with a degree in journalism from the local college she came directly to New York, where she got a job on the now-defunct Weekly Gazette. She stayed there nearly eight years before writing an article on drugs and AIDS in Harlem, which won her the Cassady prize. I asked her about the dangers she must have faced researching that story. A friend had accompanied her, she explained, an ex-football player whom everyone in the area knew. 'He was huge,' she added with a coy smile.
She later quit the Gazette to research and write pieces on a variety of subjects-abortion, oil spills, s, and homelessness-for various periodicals, including several major newspapers and national magazines. She had also written scripts for a number of TV documentaries. She had gotten the idea to do something on mental illness after trying to find background material on Alzheimer's disease and failing to find a good generalized account of the subject 'in layperson's language.' Her credentials were certainly impressive, and I gave her the go-ahead to 'cruise the corridors,' as she put it, provided that she was accompanied by a staff member at all times, and that she enter the psycho-pathic ward for no more than three one hour visits and only in the presence of a security officer. She cheerfully agreed to abide by these conditions. Nevertheless I asked Betty to keep an eye on her.
Session Eight
I was in a very bad mood when Wednesday afternoon came around, having spent the entire morning waiting to testify in a preliminary hearing, only to have the case resolved out of court. I was glad it was settled, but annoyed that half a day had been wasted, and I had missed lunch as well. Underlying all this, of course, was my concern about prot's whereabouts.
But he returned exactly in time for our next session. Still wearing his blue corduroys, he sauntered in as if nothing had happened. I shouted at him: 'Where the hell have you been?'
'Newfoundland. Labrador. Greenland. Iceland.'
'How did you get out of the hospital?'
'I just left.'
'Without anyone seeing you?'
'That's right.'
'How did you do that?'
'I told you-'
'With mirrors. Yes, I know.' I also knew there was no sense in arguing the matter, and the tape at this point in the session is silent except for the distinct sound of my fingers tapping the arm of my chair. I finally said, 'Next time tell me when you're going to leave.'
'I did,' he replied.'And another thing: I don't think you should be telling the other patients you're going to take them back with you.'
'I never said that to any of the patients.'
'You didn't?'
'No. In fact I told them I can only take one person back with me.'
'I don't think you should be making promises you can't keep.'
'I have promised nothing.' He bit into a huge strawberry from a bowlful brought in from her garden in Hoboken by Mrs. Trexler.
I was famished. My mouth was watering. This time I joined him. Chewing hungrily, we glared at each other for several minutes like prizefighters sizing up an opponent. 'Tell me,' I said. 'If you can leave here any time you want, why do you stay?'
He swallowed a mouthful of berries, took a deep breath. 'Well, it's as good a place as any to write my report, you feed me every day, and the fruit is wonderful. Besides,' he added impishly, 'I like you.'
'Well enough to stay put for a while?'
'Until august seventeenth.'
'Good. Now let's get started, shall we?'
'Certainly.'
'All right. Can you draw a star map showing the night sky from anywhere in the galaxy? From Sirius, say?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'I have never been there.'
'But you can do so for all the places you've been?'
'Naturally.'
