Chapter 27
The Hatter staggered in, an attendant on each arm, with vacancy in his eyes and giggles now muffled and drunk-like, his legs rippling like a man being led to the guillotine. Dance heard the Hatter in his bed suddenly asleep inhaling snores and exhaling, “hee, hih, har.” The dormouse tossed his sheet and got up.
In the lunchroom, Balfour was laughing at the quiz show, pissing off Beelzebub.
“What’s so fuckin’ funny about a washer and drier?”
Someone’s lovely so pretty mother sat on her bed talking with Guinevere.
“I don’t know, Sheila. I’m done with the treatments. I asked to stay here instead of going to the front ward. I feel a little better. I think Dr. Ziegler wants to keep me a few more days to be on the safe side. I’ll probably be discharged Monday of Tuesday.”
Guinevere’s situation was more uncertain. Now 18, she had a history as a “stubborn child,” in and out of juvenile detention, drunken broken home, drug abuse, spells of razor-sharp depression, two suicide attempts, a 29-year-old abusive boyfriend, an obsession with death.
“They’re pumping me with Elavil and Librium. I’ve been here two weeks and Bobby hasn’t come to see me. I do feel safe here. I don’t have to see my mother’s asshole boyfriends or my dickhead brother throwing up from heroin.”
“I’m so sorry about the way your life is going, Sheila. I hope the social worker can help you out, and I think Dr. Stoukides is very perceptive. Make sure you tell him everything you’re feeling. You’re so young. You can still go back to school, find a nice little job. And Lord, from what you’ve told me about Bobby, you shouldn’t see him at all.”
“But I love him. It’s the only feeling I have in my life.”
Billy the Kid walked up and down Larimer all in black like a cop on his beat. ....Saint John.... was in the shower masturbating oh heaven it all comes back to me now. Dance walked by 305, and Richard Wayne was reading a Zane Grey novel with intensity. Dance knocked come in.
“How are you Dance?”
“Simply divine. You seem perfectly sane without evidence of ecstasy or rapture. Where are you from?”
“Well, originally from ....South Dakota..... Now we live in ....Upton..... I’m an electrical engineer, though I’m not sure I’m still employed. I did a pretty good job of tearing the office apart.”
“Like an Indian raid?”
“I suppose you could say that. And the Indians won.”
“Crazy Horse,” said Dance, and he got up and left the room.
Galahad and Billy Budd lay on their backs at 311 Larimer talking about drugs. Budd wasn’t interested in drugs but listened because there was no other noise.
“I dropped that shit and stars started exploding. Me and my friend, Jake, hit the dirt like the Chinese were coming over the hill at us. I was like John Wayne with my hair on fire. We got up and ran out of the woods and practically smashed into a McDonald’s. We went in, and I swear it was Frankenstein and the Bride of Dracula serving blood-dripping cheeseburgers. They were laughing like they were high as a fuck. We sat down to eat and some robots walked in. You could hear their motors. We got out of there and sat on the curb. I could hear a tree talking, saying: “you be fucked ....bowie.... yo’ ass is gwine down muhfuh.” I laughed my ass off and waited for the police from Dunkin Donuts across the street. ....Sparks.... kept shooting out of my fingers and lighting up the parking lot.”
“That’s sounds like one hell of a good time,” said Budd. “You’ve come to the right place.”
“That was psilocybin. It’s the dealer hit of acid that got me here. I was incoherent for five days. I don’t even remember how I got to ....New Jersey..... The police didn’t know what to do with me. My father came to get me, and I gave him quite a lesson in the art of being fucked up. He brought me here, and I agreed to do a voluntary. Everyone figured I was schizophrenic. They were all set to give me the chair when I came out of it.”
“Shock treatments?” asked Budd.
“Yeh.”
Budd laughed.
Chapter 28
Supper time on white coat Friday night. The last licks of sunset shone through the ..West Larimer.. window in flames like hell with ugliness as beautiful as beauty itself. Second shift. Regan’s co-bitch, Goneril. Sisyphus and Babe Ruth the attendants. Sisyphus always checking the rooms, emptying barrels, looking at the notes, checking the rooms, emptying barrels, looking at the notes. He was about 45 years old. Babe Ruth was about 25. Babe was a nice guy, bursting out of his clothes, enthusiastic, always eating or drinking something, attentive to all the stories he heard with no prejudice or hardness of heart. His mother had died two weeks earlier, and you would see him a few times sniffing looking out the window at ..East Larimer...
Macaroni and cheese, peas, rolls and butter, milk, apple sauce, and coffee. Only the ward-restricted sat for supper this time: Balfour, Galahad, McBride, Magdalene, ....Saint John...., and Billy the Kid.
“Why can’t you go to the cafeteria, Galahad?” asked Dance.
“They figure I’ll have a bad influence on the kids down there.”
“What about you, Balfour?”
“I haven’t asked. Maybe if I ask I can go down.”
“....Saint John....?”
“I get violent.”
“I haven’t seen you violent.”
“Not yet.”
“I was going to the cafeteria,” said Magdalene, “but they saw me letting a guy feel me up under the table.”
“What about the guy?”
“He got discharged.”
“I’m new, and I want to kill somebody,” said Billy.
“What about you, Mr. Fuck?” asked Balfour.
“Well, my friends, special preparations are being made with rock star guest speakers and all sorts of prominent maniacs and Abraham Lincoln with a caterer from New York and all our friends we've ever known with transfigured assholes and all the doctors dancing and cutting in for Bovary and a 10 minute sexual revolution.”
“How long do you figure that will take?” asked ....Saint John.....
“I’d say Tuesday.”
“It all comes back to me now,” whispered ....Saint John.....
With that, Dance stood, chewing and swallowing a mouthful of macaroni.
“My fellow loons: I am a kike on a hike looking for Jews with nothing to lose. We are gathering like monarch butterflies to ....Mexico...., cool reincarnations of the original psychopathic apostles, more lately Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Napolean, and Cochise. We are the reverends whose asses shall be kissed on high by the marauding sub-saints who will serve us in their proper places in the kingdom, so help me cheezus. This is bitchin’. Complete with a wiseass James Dean messiah. It is good to see you again, my friends!”
“This is pisser!” exclaimed the Kid.
Dance sat hard to fork-dropping applause that drew in the face of Sisyphus.
“Fuck off, you simpleton Cong hippie!” yelled ....Saint John.....
Sisyphus disappeared. He knew talk of things Vietnamese preceded violence. In a moment, he returned with Babe and two other attendants.
“Bob, come on out into the corridor. We want you to go into seclusion for a little while.”
....Saint John.... stood and began to make circular motions with his arms and hands with his index and little fingers extended like he was casting spells, his face contorted and farcical.
“Everyone please leave the room!” yelled Babe.
Everyone left the room but Dance.
“You, too, Dance!”
Dance studied the situation with intensity.
“It’s the last of the 9th, two out, man on third under a heartsick moon. ....Saint John.... up, a 3-2 count, the sad crowd silent in the Christ-shocked night.”
....Saint John.... lunged at his attackers and was quickly wrestled to the floor. Goneril appeared with the psycho squirt gun and swiftly struck and emptied it into ....Saint John’s.... ass. Strike three. They dragged ....Saint John.... still writhing to 307 Larimer and strapped him to the bed. He cried out faintly, over and over: “Fuck off forever.”
The food was cold, and supper was over. The starry night descended onto the weeping beech with generations of jailhouse romance. The trays were cleared as others returned from the cafeteria, oblivious to the haunted madness of ....Saint John.....