Ghouls

Someone had erased the precaution roster and drawn a warped face; John thought of a comic reflection, which it probably was, though he’d made no enemies here. He walked by a closed door on which had been plaqued PSYCHO-NEUROLOGY, ECT. He’d heard it could break bones from reactive muscle contractions, and his social worker had once told him that it worked by effectuating minor brain cell death. Great therapy. At least he’d never had to go in.

Nurse Dallion stood waiting at the end of the wing. Beside her, two men in starched green work clothes were busy installing a Scanray metal detector. Better late than never, he thought sarcastically but with real remorse. A day ago a Class III patient had smuggled in a bottle cap and cut his wrists.

On the wing door was a sign that read: PREVENTION OF ELOPEMENT IS EVERYBODY’S JOB. John regarded the power housing automatically. Electromagnetic surface blank, he thought. Twelve-hundred-pound hold, 3-watt running differential at 24 volts, cadmium strike plate. Takes all of a minute and a half to defeat.

Nurse Dallion smiled frailly and waved to a face in the med station. There was a metal clack, then the door chunked open like a bank vault.

“All ready?” she said.

“Are you kidding?”

Nurse Dallion laughed brokenly, a cracked whisper; he followed her out. The door hummed and sucked shut. Down an empty corridor and to the left, three avocado-colored elevators stood like portals to a pale void.

Nurse Dallion pressed the Down button. She handed John his checklist. “You only have three more stations to go.”

John took the list. Only three more fucking stations.

The nurse unconsciously fingered a tiny American flag pinned to her collar. She was a ghost in her white dress, her white shoes, and her white stockings. She had pale freckles on very white skin, and seemed as thin as the anorectics. John had always liked her, and her weird, nervous aura—he could easily picture her an in-pat.

She looked just past him, as if leery of muggers. “The first floor is kind of confusing, especially at this hour. If you get lost, just look for a directory board, they’re all over… Any questions?”

John surveyed the last three marks on the sheet.

14 MHC- Dr. Herman

15 Travel Unit

16 Baggage Claim/Housekeeping

“Who’s Dr. Herman?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s chief of the psychiatric division; his office is downstairs in the mental hygiene clinic.”

“Not another staff board—”

“No, nothing like that; it’s just him. He likes to talk to all restored patients before they leave.”

Restored, he thought. What terminology.

A muffled bell chimed, and the middle elevator yawned open. John stepped in and turned around; its closeness made him think of a coffin on end.

Nurse Dallion’s smile ran slits down her cheeks. Without realizing it she had turned the flag pin upside-down. “Take care of yourself, John,” she said. “And God bless.”

“I won’t miss this place, but I will miss you—” and before he could say anything more, the doors had closed, leaving him to face painted metal.

The elevator droned, lowering. He’d had a fear as a child that one day he’d take an elevator down and it would open into hell. His mother, with seared-red flesh and horns in her head, would reach in and take his hand.

The elevator faltered open to show him a deceptively large lobby. He slipped into a throng of people who moved chaotically through the main junction: patients, janitors, technicians, doctors in white tunics, and unshaved medical residents with stethoscopes slung over their shoulders. At the right moment he squeezed out of the stream and sat down in a very uncomfortable chair made of chrome wires. This was the waiting area. Waiting for what? he thought. Here, patients stood or sat in perfect stillness. They were all very old. No women, just men bent and cracked by age; they made the area a sea of wizened faces, sunken heads, and jaundice-darkened eyes. Some straggled on canes, tipped walkers, and prosthetic limbs. One tall, thin man shuffled through the aisle in blue pajamas and robe and squeaky sponge slippers, pulling with him a wheeled plasma stand; an IV line drooped like an umbilical from an upturned bottle of clear liquid and disappeared under his robe sleeve. A man in a battery-powered wheelchair rolled by; the motor made a sound like a toy car. Another man in a manual chair passed in the opposite direction; his right leg was gone below the knee, leaving only a bald knob of flesh to jut from his rolled pajama cuff. John noticed lots of men in wheelchairs—lined up in front of windows, clogged in the aisles, parked by tulip-like ashtrays, all displaying different variations of dismemberment. This limbo seemed the fortune they’d inherited for fighting the Germans. To finish the glimpse of despair, John saw two techs pushing a gurney into the freight elevator. The gurney contained a man who had no arms or legs at all.

Oppressed, he got up and followed a long L-shaped corridor away from the lobby. This hall, too, was flooded with people moving in both directions. Some stopped to talk, and this particularly infuriated him. He wanted to shove them out of the way. A female security officer eyed him suspiciously; then he realized that most of those he passed were staring. The preceding years on the ward had helped him forget about the condition of his face. He would have to prepare himself now to be stared at for the rest of his life.

His journey through the hospital led him past a canteen, a jammed cafeteria, and a noxious-smelling automat. A black directory at the end of the hall read MHC with an arrow pointing right. In another moment he faced the bizarre room number 1D122.

The clinic was an odd network of short corridors and closed doors. Only a third of the overhead fluorescents seemed to be working. John approached a lexan-fronted reception partition, and withdrew his VA ID card. It was a pretty card, a white square with a purple triangle and the letters SERVICE-CONNECTED. He handed his card over the halfboard to a reed-thin receptionist with green eye makeup and metallic-blond hair. He wondered how she could sit up straight; her breasts each were clearly the size of a baby’s head. “I have an appointment to see Dr. Herman at eleven,” he said.

Her green eyelids slivered. She took the card, stiffening at the sight of his face. “You’re the one out- processing today?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” she said. Her cleavage blared; he envisioned nipples with the circumference of coffee cups. As she began scribbling in a green log book, more signs harassed him. NO SMOKING PLEASE, MEDICATION BY APPOINTMENT ONLY, ARMED ESCORTS MUST SIGN IN WEAPON SERIAL NUMBERS HERE. Facing him was a Day-Glo poster which read GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE, and under it a trade calendar advertising McNeil anti- depressants. The contradiction was so outrageous he could’ve laughed.

“You can wait in the office,” the receptionist said. Her breasts rose slightly, like balloons, when she handed back the card. “Second door on the right. Dr. Herman will be with you shortly.”

The office was dark and cramped and vaultlike. It had no windows. One painting adorned the front wall, a perverse swirl of dark colors, some patient’s OT project, no doubt; John had seen them everywhere, and even painted a few himself. There was no couch here; he’d been in dozens of psychiatrists’ offices over the years, but never had he seen a proverbial couch. An industrial-gray desk sat hugely off to one corner; heaps of books and papers threatened to overrun its top. The desk was a show-place for psycho-paraphernalia. A dark blue paperweight shaped like a Stelazine pill; a haloperidol thermometer; pens and pencil cups bearing names of numerous trade drugs; a flier: What every doctor should know about extrapyramidity; a plastic Xanax calendar; and a blotter advertising Mellaril. In one corner stood a coat stand draped with white lab coats, and still another was occupied by an old Royal 440 typewriter. Bookshelves seemed divided between psychiatric texts and anthologies of American literature and poetry.

John took a cane chair right of the desk. Beside him was a table on which rested a queer aluminum ashtray stuffed with butts. His nostrils constricted at the tinge of tar.

The psychiatric chief seemed to materialize rather than enter. Dr. Herman stood slender and statuesque and too striking to be a man of this trade. Fine lines composed his face; his hair was dark, modestly styled, and only traceably gray. He reminded John of someone who might be in a Shakespearean troupe, or a historical society.

“Ah,” Dr. Herman said. “You must be John, from upstairs.”