Very confused in his mind, he walked off to get a drink one afternoon. He strolled down a country road with farms and seminaries all around. He eventually called Reva Baumwell from a tavern under rocky mountains over the Hudson.
?I told Tom I wouldn?t be able to kill anybody,? he said. ?I was right. I was right this time. That fuck thinks anybody can do it. Shit, everybody isn?t built that way. Jesus Christ, I?m hearing voices, Reva.? He almost started crying over the phone. He was losing control and it was horrible.
?One message at a time,? Doctor Baumwell said. ?What?s
Hurt someone, you mean? Hurt who, Benjamin? Hurt yourself? Hurt me??
Thomas Berryman watched teenagers crowding the steps of Carnegie Hall. A silvery sign with attached glossy photos announced that Blue Oyster Cult was appearing that evening.
Berryman was in a pay phone directly across the street from the concert hall on 57th Street. He was calling a man in the Belle Meade section of Nashville, Tennessee.
A gruff southern man?s voice finally came on the other end of the line.
Berryman spoke in a slow, deliberate monotone. He gave out his name. He said he was calling in reference to a man named Harley Wynn.
?What about him?? The southern man seemed to be an authoritarian.
?He?s dead. I just had to have him shot,? Berryman continued the monotone.
The southern man?s voice cracked. ?You had him what??
A city bus applied loud air brakes a few feet from the glass booth window. Berryman found himself looking at a naked blond man promoting
magazine on the side of the bus. ?Hello, hello?? he could hear in the receiver.
The bus started up with a sick, heavy grumble.
?You knew my rules,? Berryman began to talk again. ?I don?t know what Wynn saw around here. He was supposed to pay us some money, then go back to Tennessee.?
?Well, I don?t know about that part,? the southerner said. ?He told me he had other business keeping him in New York. I had no intention of interfering with you.?
?I don?t believe you,? Berryman said flatly. He?d decided to take the offensive.
?Goddamnit, I didn?t,? the other man exploded. ?Listen you ?? he started to say.
Berryman raised his voice over the man?s next few words. ?I?ve already begun on your business. I have your money,? he said, ?the first half anyway. I?ve had to spend some of it. Do you want me to continue??
The southerner spoke without hesitation. ?Of course continue. Go on with it. Wynn is a very small part of this thing.?
?I?m planning to be in Nashville the first week, the last week in June,? Berryman said. ?You should have the remaining money. You won?t hear from me until then.?
The southerner added a few conditions of his own. Then the phone call was over.
Berryman took a long, deep breath. He?d momentarily lost control of the situation, but now he had it back.
He left the booth running a white comb back through his curly black hair.
I don?t know at what point, but at a definite point, within the span of say five minutes, Ben Toy began to talk indiscriminately about anything that came into his head.
He talked about mathematics, about God?I think, about his parents in Texas, my nineteen-fiftyish oxblood loafers, lobotomies, Martin Luther King ? all kinds of ridiculous, moronic things that didn?t coordinate.
It was scary, because I?d started to believe there was nothing really wrong with Toy.
?My mother used to dance in Reno, Nevada,? he spoke very seriously to me. ?That?s why nobody in Potter County wanted to take her out for a goddamn celery soda.?
I slowly stood up, no shirt on or anything, and I called Asher.
He came, and then three more aides came running. They walked Toy back onto the hall, and he went quietly, meekly. I filially turned off the Sony, which had been silently going about its business.
Ronald Asher was closing the heavy quiet room door when I arrived on the hall. The other three aides and a nurse who was just a young girl were standing around with him.
?He broke off a fucking needle in his ass,? Asher said.
I gave him an uncomprehending look and peeked in through the observation window.
?Annie gave him the needle, and then he just flip-flopped over on it.?
?It came out,? the young nurse said.
?Jesus,? I said. ?I don?t believe the way he just ? went off. Poof.?
?Believe it,? the nurse smiled.
?I don?t know where Ben?s head is,? Asher said: ?Shulman thinks he knows.?
?Too much Psilocybin,? a tall aide in a Levi?s shirt said.
?A lot of patients just let their minds run loose when they?re in here,? Asher said. ?Some of them are crazy
