INTRODUCTORY NOTE:This is the eleventh installment of the novel "Times Fool". The first installment was published here on February 18th.
As much as I faced the task of breaking up this project into installments with a certain amount of trepidation, sure enough it quickly became clear that copying it into Compendium: The Kitchen Sink in this manner would be more beneficial than not. Already I see ways to prune and shape the story lines and clean up any bullshit that needs cleaning up just through the act of copying and pasting and re-reading. It won’t be perfect, but…
There are five story lines here, and while I hesitate to go into too much detail, preferring to let the stories tell the story, the ways they connect and braid together will probably gain clarity quite a bit further down the line, so stick with it.
I hope I’ll get some interest here, but also, more than anything perhaps, I am excited to be able to another draft to the evolution of the novel through this process. It’s fun and feels right.
I’ll present installments of varying lengths every other Tuesday. Your email program may truncate these installments due to their length. Clicking on the title of the email will take you directly to the substack site where the installments can be seen in full.
Thanks for reading.
“I tell you that this water is poison and still you walk into it? Stupid man” Cresh sounded more desperate than angry as she spread the salve over his sunburnt skin. “Look at this” and she lifted his foot and pointed at his toes and the top of his foot a wave washed over at the same moment she grabbed him and forced him back to their place near the fire. There were small blisters forming on some of his toes. The rest of his skin where the sea touched it was growing angry and red. It hurt. He wept silently. He had never felt this way before.
“This is good. It is fine. No worries.” Cresh said as she finished rubbing the salve into his skin. She was quite tender about this but not really intimate... not in the way Jerome would expect in relation to the feelings he was having. Her breasts brushed against him repeatedly as she spread the ointment on him. Even through the rough parka he could feel nipples. Her hands were strong but sensitive on his tender skin and she would brush over his own nipples rather carelessly, although that made him swoon in both embarrassment (he had never felt embarrassed about such things!) and desire.
Cresh had him turn on his back and she went directly to his affected foot. She seemed not to notice his engorgement. It tented his parka. This would have been the source of immense amusement at the collective. She either ignored it or did not notice. Her attention was on his blistered toes and the reddened skin of his foot. There was a plant she brought from the other side of the dune (she called it the lahoon... everything was the lahoon or the Sea. She had used that word since they left the dome, but he didn’t understand it until they got to the sea). She spread the salve thickly on the affected parts of his foot and wrapped it in the plant, which was wet and quite slimy, but once wrapped around his salved foot it took away the irritation, itching, and the pain.
As Cresh leaned back after treating his foot her elbow bumped his erection. This made it even more unlikely that he would be able to restrain or convince it to return to a flaccid state, or at least less obvious.
She bumped it again, feigning that she hadn’t meant to, and then gave him a broad smile as she laid her hand around it. “Aha! Now we take care of this?” and she laughed. It was a good, open and alluring laugh...even coming from someone who looked so different from anyone Jerome was accustomed to having sexual feelings for. He could not help himself and he laughed too. Her eyes sparkled as they laughed together and when she began stroking him though his parka and he moaned through the laughter. She lifted her leg and straddled him. She moved his hands to her breasts and his thumbs found her nipples. Soon his mouth found her wetness. It tasted fine. It tasted like the sea air smelled and he plunged his tongue inside her. His cock was exposed to the wind now, straining into it.
Everything sounded like the sea and the wind. Everything joined together, wet and loud and fecund... as if the poisoning of the sea had never happened.
Patient Notes
Pt 4357 William “Billy” McKeon
approx. 30 years old
diagnostic origin, hysterical conversion due to family trauma
current diagnosis, dementia praecox secondary to complicated grief and trauma
prognosis: guarded if adequate discharge is not devised
admit date March 9, 1905
April 29, 1905
Went to the church to see Father Mike before coming to the hospital. He told me how, on the night of the riots, he threatened the crowd outside the church with denial of the Holy Eucharist if they did not cease their sinful violent pursuit of their neighbors. He was surprised how well that worked although there continues to be grumbling and tension. He seemed to appreciate my listening to him. I was relieved as well to talk about my own conflicts related to the McKeon’s care, his family, and my feelings of guilt for including the Morrows without thinking it through. He urged me not to let my feeling of guilt and remorse interrupt the work I am doing. He then talked at length about his own feelings of lack of self-worth and his sinfulness. This was startling to me. He had such deep feelings about his failings. I wondered how his work as a Priest had not relieved some of his feelings of failure and sinfulness. He admitted that sometimes his duties as a Priest complicated and made the depth of his inner depravity an even harder, heavier, cross to bear. I was curious about the strength of the word depravity but did not press for details. He stood abruptly and matter-of-factly “We all go on, some days the weight hardly noticeable, other days we can barely stand… but we do… I’ve sent for Donald.” And at that moment little Donald entered and embraced Mike. “I am going to send this young man to the best school of music and voice I can find… he’s a genius!” Donald immediately asked how his father was and when he could see him. I told him we could bring him over to see his father, if his father is well enough, later in the week. I asked if he would sing for him and he said he would. “Red is the Rose”. Donald says that’s his father’s favorite song. He used to sing it to his mother. Donald suddenly looked frightened, but Father Mike reassured him that it was okay to talk about his mother here in the church. “I’m not allowed to at home, Uncle would be very angry…” I took my leave then. Father Mike reminded me to have a good time with Matthias this evening. And not to worry. I wondered what he meant by that?
McKeon is once again reconstituting under the careful and caring watch of a non-restrictive and non-punitive, non-pharmacologically sedated approach. He thanked me for allowing him time in the solarium (it is a very bright day, it does him good). He wonders where his friend might be and I relate that his friend, the gentleman with whom he has created such a riotous clamor some time ago, had been released and was back with his family. He wants me to relay his good wishes and wonders out loud when he will go home. Then reframes: “When will a home be found for me?” I asked him when he thought he might be ready to go home, should one be found for him. He was unsure. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. I reminded him that with strict adherence to hygiene and cleanliness there is every indication that he would not have to worry about hurting anyone. He said “we’ll see… today I feel quite fit…” I asked him if he would like to see his son and told him that his son would like to sing for him. His eyes welled up. He wiped at them and complained that he thought he had become “such a woman” because he cries so easily now. His attendant assured him that only the strongest know the value and bravery involved in tears. He took that into serious consideration and then said “yes… yes… I’d love to see Donny… my girls too. My girls too, if they can break away.”
Treatment: Arrange familial visits. Increase independent time on the unit and in solarium. Offer newly instituted heated bath treatments and colon cleansing.
***
Patient Notes
Pt 4357 William “Billy” McKeon
approx. 30 years old
diagnostic origin, hysterical conversion due to family trauma
current diagnosis, dementia praecox secondary to complicated grief and trauma
prognosis: guarded if adequate discharge is not devised
admit date March 9, 1905
April 30, 1905
Patient Psychiatric Case Review and Peer ConferencePatient Remote History and Description
William McKeon is a 34-year-old man of Irish descent. His grandfather immigrated from Ireland and was immediately conscripted into service of the army during the War Between the States. He was taken prisoner at the second battle of Petersburg and was relocated to Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp, where he died. William’s own mother died when he was quite young, and his father died not long after. William was cared for by his grandmother.
Admission Presentation and Recent History
William was transferred to St. Christopher’s Asylum upon an emergency release from the Jerilyn State House for the Criminally Insane and Imbecile due to shortage of beds. As noted in progress documentation it was some time before staff at St. Christopher’s could determine the location of his domicile, his family, the nature and circumstances of his emerging mental dementia and insanity.
Eventually it was determined that Mr. McKeon’s mental state deteriorated in the weeks after his wife’s death in a recent outbreak of typhus in the city. Mr. McKeon’s youngest daughter and unborn child were also victims of the disease. It is taken under consideration that William is most likely an asymptomatic carrier of the typhus virus, having been documented to have been in daily contact with a known carrier. Appropriate measures have been taken in light of this to prevent spread of the virus in the hospital with no known cases emerging in staff or patients since the first week of Mr. McKeon’s admission. Earlier cases that emerged in the hospital could not be determined to be as a result of contact with our patient as there were a number of smaller outbreaks in the hospital and in the city that followed the epidemic that took the lives of Mr. McKeon’s wife and children.
On admission our patient was non communicative. He could not care for basic hygiene and feeding (complicating his potential infectious status and making urgent the need to have his mental status reconstituted). He displayed dangerous levels of self-harm, specifically deep self-wounding via scratching and hitting, hair pulling and other attempts to blind himself or cause grievous self-injury. Later it was determined that central to his dementia was the belief that he must kill himself to protect his family, and that he had killed his wife and offspring and was being told by voices he must find a way to destroy himself to protect his surviving children.
Early Treatment
Complete isolation from general patient population was instituted complete with therapeutic and twenty-four-hour five-point restraint in a restraining room. Ice wraps and large doses (see medication record) of various approved sedating and neurological shocks were employed. It was considered at one time, prior to Dr. Golden taking over the role of primary care physician, that he might be malingering. A test was given which showed that malingering was not in evidence. It should be noted that none of these treatments were successful beyond sedating the patient and calming the urge to self-harm. He was still unable to independently care for his most basic needs and remained non communicative, and it increasingly appeared he was responding to inner stimulus and voices.
Current status and treatment
Currently, after a wavering but consistent improvement, Mr. McKeon speaks of finding a home for himself. He believes, with good reason, that he would be unable to return to living with his children. He fears infecting them and his extended family is more than reluctant to allow him to return home with them. No placement has been found.
He continues to have difficulty discussing his wife’s and children’s demise without indications of regression deeper into his dementia. His tolerance of discussion of his family and his immediate and tragic history have improved over all but is still tentative.
He attaches readily to others and to caregivers. He shows some resistance to routinely accepted therapeutic interventions as practiced and many have proven to be ineffective as noted above. It is believed that he responds best to compassionate and attentive care, allowing him to set his own recovery pace. There has been some conflict on the treating team due to his resistance and lack of response to the accepted modern treatment methodology and interventions.
Plan
To be determined and discussed at this meeting. Some community contacts have been made that may prove helpful in placing our patient in the care of those who can assure his safety and successful return to community life. He has been a successful gardener and landscaper in the past and it is presumed he might be able to return to that profession. He has verbalized this would be a satisfactory long-term goal.
So much is boundary-less so much is suffering so much is pain permanent ecstasy of some kind of knowing everything one dream some people familiar and strange I enter the battlefield and am surrounded by brothers and by brothers of brothers some long long ago forest of blood and ancient cannons of dirt sprayed into the air now now now standing in the field a hundred years later watching and waiting for ghosts waiting for the drapery of time to part and seeing ghosts hearing cries of the dying and dismembered seeing blank faces of those there who remember all battles all travelers to the past all remembrances arriving in the same moments scrim upon scrim fluttering in the lazy soundless breeze of the illusion of time I have become the eye the umbrella of generations or I have become some end point—
who are these people crying who are these silent ones who arrive in some ancient vehicle to see even more ancient battlefields grown over and softened blood and lost buttons rings shoes once on feet hats filled with offal glasses cooking utensils the dirt that old love letters become they are remembering in much the same way these dreams remember carts of soldiers taken to a filthy fort somewhere filthy filthy shit crusted shoes and I am one of them I am that one there time time time all stories concurrent all generations the same generation a young mother running from a flying machine running through a field the earth cracking open and filling with blood and icy putrid crystal clear waters will I never wake? will I never really sleep?
Signal. Signal. No.
Just stars.
no
no signal—
Patient Notes
Pt 4357 William “Billy” McKeon
approx. 30 years old
diagnostic origin, hysterical conversion due to family trauma
current diagnosis, dementia praecox secondary to complicated grief and trauma
prognosis: guarded to good if adequate discharge is devised
admit date March 9, 1905
May 1, 1905
Stopped to see McKeon after the peer review and conference yesterday, and to introduce Matthias to him as Matthias has a great interest in cases of this type; specifically cases that typify a commonality between battlefield exhaustion and the reactions to multiple deaths and extreme complicated grieving and other trauma.
Billy was quite friendly and outgoing. That sense of humor he showed when he had a friend on the unit resurfaced. He teased Matthias and I, asking us if we were making trouble on the unit with the boss and then he winked at us, said he thought we looked quite good together, smiling broadly. This was a bit off-putting. I could feel myself blush. McKeon pointed at me and laughed. Matthias took it in stride and took the informality of the moment to initiate a line of questioning I had only been able to hint at.
Matthias asked “I understand your wife has passed away, that must be very hard for you”, to which Billy stated without dropping a beat “It has been very difficult indeed sir, I don’t know what I’ll do without her… but I think the children will miss her most.” Matthias went on “It must be difficult for you to be away from them” and they went on to discuss how Billy felt he must get well as quickly as he can so he can be a father to them, though this time in the hospital was necessary because he was just a burden and fright to them as he was. I was able to interject that Billy would have a visit from his son and maybe his daughters soon.
I was almost envious about this easy and automatic, skilled, interchange between Matthias and McKeon. But later Matthias put me at ease later as we spoke of it. He pointed out that he was seen by McKeon as a kind of ultimate expert and one from far away. He noted how it is often easier to talk deeply to people one knows will not be encountered again… compartment mates on a train, say, or those one meets on a short trip by ship… and he often took the opportunity in similar situations to open some doors for his colleagues with challenging patients who have difficulty with disclosure. The transferential nature of our relationship to one another, McKeon’s to me and vice versa, while ultimately good and therapeutically productive, might create a block for McKeon who wishes me to see him in the best light possible.
As we left McKeon he promised Matthias to work hard to go home and then reminded us to behave ourselves… again embarrassing me beyond all necessity. Matthias reminded me as we left the unit that we hide very little from our patients, and it’s a good thing, not that we are required, nor is it recommended, that we talk about the insights and innate transferential knowledge they intuit about us… it just means we are being successful, We are reaching them. And he congratulated me.
Matthias must leave tomorrow. Too short a visit. He agreed to stay with me, so I’ve been able to stretch our companionship out more than expected. But naturally, I will miss him very much. And I have told him so. His presence has also dampened Dr. Breath’s overt challenges to my method of care… Matthias is quite renowned, and Breath cannot resist the power of academic and professional celebrity. During the presentation Breath remained complimentary and attempted to take credit for McKeon’s progress. This was hardly a surprise.
Today McKeon is talkative and happy as I have ever seen him. We agreed I would bring his son to see him at the earliest convenience. I explained that he was being looked after by Father Mike. McKeon was reserved about this, for an unstated reason. “Perhaps better him than Laura’s brother…” We spoke of his interaction with Matthias. I told him Matthias had left to go back east and then home to Vienna. McKeon said “you will miss him”. I admitted as much; that he had been a great support here in my practice and in the hospital. We discussed discharge options. There are few that he knows of. He thinks that he might do well to find a rooming house from which he might find work, although it will be difficult to find something without work.
I asked him if he would like to try to talk about Laura and Sharon. He became tearful but agreed he must. Agreed to start tomorrow.
Treatment: Sent message to Father Mike to arrange visit from Donald. Also wondered if I might locate James and see if he might act as a resource for housing and employment. I believe there are attendants here that maintain contact with him since he left employment here. Arranged for accompanied walk on the grounds and in the neighborhood as is expected pre-discharge.
My grandfather gave perfect advice. That is not to say he was a perfect person. The stories Dad told about him and the things I learned after his death proved how absolutely human he really was. But when I was a child he was steady, funny, calm and wise. Everyone should have someone in their life like that when they are growing up.
Mom and Dad had their own problems. Their own big problems. As much as one would like to forgive them for the things they did that defied good sense and, in the end, were self-sabotaging and damaging… to me, maybe especially to me. As much as I wanted to (and did) blame their self-destructiveness on the times, on poverty, on the constant emergence of crises that defined their lives, I came to understand that the choices they made were often a result of some other persistent blind spots.
And maybe it was that feeling of frantic grasping for whatever one can to keep afloat in the rising floodwaters (metaphoric and then, real) that resulted in how they continually made poor choices. I’ve stopped asking why… or rather, tried to squelch that rumination when it rises up, usually when my own troubles threaten to drown me.
Perhaps the dreams of Grandpa on the beach are a part of this.
They are all gone now. It is night. The little footholds I have managed to cobble out of the ongoing upheaval, the great changes, have all been stolen. One by one. Some by my choice, my intuition that I must move on for my sake and the children's.
I left Angela Nana’s encampment largely out of a feeling that I would not be safe there. I stand by that decision though I’ll never know if I was right or wrong. Surely the Intersection has been a safe enough place for the months, years, we stayed there… even through the terror of the fograin and the constant reminders of death and futility.
And now this.
John is with me. He has that innate savvy that makes him a survivor.
But he blames himself. Apparently, he saw the machines lift Paul and the twins into the bowels of the machines that came. What for? What possible need can any place or anyone have for stolen humanity? And where are they taken?
Suddenly it was as if the rising waters and waves spawned by the ice fields, glaciers, and ice caps melting and the increasing dearth of anything that looked like snow anywhere, began to eat away at the systems that had been built that had connected everyone the world over. There was great joy in this connectivity… but also suspicion. Rightfully so. But it didn’t last long. That interconnectedness. As if the connecting of all the populations on the planet could not actually withstand the knowledge of how much they were related, how implacably knotted into one mass they were. And the elite were wary of this connection from the start. It took their control away.
Then there were the diseases. Defying all the hubris of the scientific community they rose from remnant populations of wild animals, from the thawing permafrost, from the stubborn tenacity of the smallest single celled intelligences to break down and circumvent any of the most sophisticated barriers all the money and intelligence in the world could put together.
Grandpa lived through the first wave. The one that took Nana and seemed to feast on the lives of the elders. It subsided and, like every other time before and after, we thought we could go on. We thought we were done.
After that first one, Dad actually had a job for a time. It was when felons were no longer prevented from working and were needed to help shore up infrastructure and projects initiated by the ruling elite largely to project optimism and calm while facing the daunting tasks involved in patching up the increasingly battered structures of living. Optimism and being in-control. Dad’s felonies seemed like small potatoes compared to the jobs that had to be done to rebuild the structure of an economy that had been brought to its knees by a communicable microscopic organisms set free because someone ate a wild boar.
I was pregnant with Judith. She was born shortly before the onset of the second wave. I still am glad Grandpa was able to meet her. She was a beauty. And Jacob and Grandpa got along very well.
I think those dreams… on the beach with grandpa waving me on as he is overtaken…those dreams have a reality in them I can barely fathom. Even now. Now.
I am despairing, here and now. I don’t allow such depth of loss to surface very often. But the fire is comforting. John sleeps soundly, fitfully. Every once in a while, he’ll whimper and jerk. One becomes accustomed to that in the children. They do not sleep peacefully anymore.
*
When I cried Grandpa would tell me stories. When I tried to write little poems or got excited about something I was reading he told me more stories. He and Nana would bring me paints and canvasses until there was nowhere to put them and nowhere to find them at reasonable prices. When food was more likely the gift.
Grandpa told stories about when he was very poor and not working. He told me about his job in a bookstore and all the books he read… some which he gave to me. I wonder where those books are now? I wonder where any books are now. They seemed to disappear. People tell one another stories. Good stories too. But I miss the books. When the waves came much was lost.
To tell you the truth, people seemed more distraught by the loss of electronic media. They let the books, the industry that had made and distributed them, fall to the wayside. Trees, the sources of pulp and inks, became more priceless. It was thought to be anti-social to make or buy books, just as gas and oil pipelines fell out of fashion. Lord knows how a comparison was made but it was. Still, people, usually people grandpa’s age, had and cared for their book collections and shared them with people close to them. Dad had never been that interested. Mom read quite a bit before one of the viruses took her eyesight.
I wish I knew where Mom was. She left early during the start of the great waves. African Americans were scapegoated and felt more strength in numbers, so she went with her cousins in hopes of reaching Chicago where a large community was forming. She and Dad had split several years before. I was on my own. But then I was always pretty much on my own. I was the adult in the house. I don’t think about that much. The way I figure it, it was a help more than a hindrance, considering what lie ahead… what I am forced to do now. Just to live. Just to go forward. Some do not. Go forward that is. Even if they have food. Food is rarely the problem. It can be found. We need so much less.
The rumor is that Chicago is a toxic ruin now. The lake turned to a stew of invisible poisons that no municipal water filtration system was capable of detecting or stopping. It happened in a number of days. Even that seems less than shocking somehow. Still… I think of ways she might have survived.
After all, I am alive. And I have John. A smart boy. All my kids are smart. And Judith. Judith. What a star. I wonder what became of her body. Her lithe dancer’s stance. I would have made sure she had ballet… jazz too… if times had been different.
If.
When I first came to the Intersection, before the fograin, when much seemed possible even in the ruins, I told almost everyone I met there the stories my grandfather told me about travels he had and how these same intersections were full of people… travelers and truckers taking a meal off the road. Surveying one another, sometimes talking, exchanging stories. Sometimes fighting too. Crime. Drugs.
He told me about a trip he took. During that trip he was just a few years older than I was when he told me about it. A trip with his grandmother. He told me this after the first wave of disease and places like the highway intersections had been identified as primary transmission locations and largely abandoned.
Mysterious transmissions. Escaping scientific explanation. All sorts of rumors. All sorts of cures and explanation for why some people seemed immune or particularly susceptible. And it changed with every new wave… each one the same and each one different. The intersections and then the highways themselves were closed to all but long-distance shipping or military travel. It was okay. Soon no one had the means to travel anyway.
But Grandpa told me the story of his travels with his grandmother. Across the country. She had rescued him from a failing job selling books. Books. Bibles. (“Bibles! Can you believe that! Me selling fucking Bibles!” he would laugh) and they took a tour together that she conducted, a road trip through the historical heartland of the piedmont mountains and coast of the mid-Atlantic and upper south of the country… through battlefields, and even Washington DC.
I told the story numerous times after I first arrived at the Intersection. I wondered out loud if this collection of the crumbling gas stations, truck stops, motels and restaurants might not be the one where he stopped with his grandmother, my great great-grandmother who had traveled much of the country by herself and even overseas.
And he told me his own stories of traveling overseas. Of standing near the Parthenon in Athens not once but 2 times! “What luck!” he would say to me… softly. In awe.
He told me about a gypsy who approached him and my Nana as they walked down the winding narrow road from the top of the Acropolis the first time they visited. She wanted to sell them a lace tablecloth. And it was a beauty.
He and my Nana had just arrived from Italy where the currency (this was before the Euro came on the scene, and long before the VC system replaced currencies the world over) was measured in the hundreds and thousands of units and the Greek currency was measured in tens. As good as my Nana was at calculating exchange rates, she ended up giving the woman ten times what she asked for the tablecloth. The woman’s eyes got very big, reported my grandfather, and as she took the money she said, “I have another … for the same price!” Grandpa and Nana didn’t discover their error until they got back to their hotel… a place with a balcony view of the Acropolis. “Can you imagine that” my grandpa would say, still chuckling about the woman getting 70 dollars for a tablecloth instead of 7. “We could watch the Acropolis while drinking retsina on our balcony! Shit… still... that tablecloth was worth at least 70 bucks.”
He also told me about the museum where all the artifacts from the Parthenon were housed. He was awed as he spoke each time he reported how, during the Peloponnesian Wars, the Athenians, having recently survived a plague of their own, fled their beloved city and on returning found their sacred temples, the entire Acropolis, in ruins. And they wept and proceeded to bury the remains from the old Acropolis with great reverence and care, preparing to build what would become one of the greatest complexes of buildings the world has ever known or would ever know. The buried ruins, once discovered in modern times, were in remarkably fine shape, some with the colors of the paint still visible. “That’s what we will do sweetheart” Grandpa said “We will bury the ruins and build something better. That’s what we will do.”
I told this story several times early after my arrival at the Intersection. A spontaneous daily gathering of people had turned into a story and history and news sharing time and was soon an unspoken scheduled event on the evolving community's daily calendar. One of those events people look back on after they have passed and, only then, realize how innately fine and beautifully real they were. But only in the past. We can only appreciate our best attributes when they are fading into memory.
They did not prepare me for this, this endlessness, these overlapping dreams… to stand in the flux of dream worlds always conscious always aware of every whirlpool and wave every influx of dark matter like waves washing over the invisible islands of light and remnants of light oh I was not prepared for this
my mind fractures or it expands it is collapsing at the same time it is becoming every mind all my genetic coding speaks all my memory and the memories of those before me
I anticipate time when there is no longer anything resembling its passing Oh
Oh
Oh
I grow painfully erect I am being tortured on the threshold of cumming forever forever I am swept away and sucked through throbbing immense universes of stars ice gods and goddesses rocketing through the cosmos I cannot grasp the concurrence of events without splitting apart into a million subatomic gluons and indescribable charges my god my god my god I want to cum I want to feel myself letting go shall I come apart shall my mind fail me can it fail me when it has become so much a part of everything before and after me after what has been taken from me life life life
life
how could they be so ignorant so self-absorbed not to understand what they stole from me from all of us from the hundreds of the slaves to their feckless and puny perceptions of the meaninglessness and Mobius of time? Why did they fail to fathom how they stole the future from me long after they lost their own consciousness and what have they left behind as if there is a behind
who
who
who
who are their descendants? who do I report to? Who do I tell? I am lost and have not found any world where I can touch down.
Oh. Let me cum. I cannot bear it. All these electric birth canals! All this light suckled and caressed by all this dark forever
*
Silence.
A man in black takes me by the hand. He wears a cross on a chain. The ancients.
Silence.
I am very small. There is a body on the bed. There is a body in a box.
The man in black holds me.
The man in black asks me to sing. “Sing for your father”
I am very small. Everyone is weeping.
The man in black has his hand on my ass. He pushes a big finger into my crack.
How can this be?
Where are the stars?
What dream is this? Who am I in this dream?
I sing.
How do I remember the words?
Silence.
Silence.
What’s happening up there?
Now be careful William.
I will… looks like---
oh, it’s an accident… oh dear—
an accident—
slow down
I am grandma
oh dear
that semi. look. It’s tipped over. wow.
They are stopped. They’ve stopped.
Yes. Man... That looks bad
Be careful William—
Looks bad… oh.
--Must have just happened
Couldn’t have been long ago…
The police.
The police are there? Are the police there yet?
Should we stop?
Looks like—
-- looks like. Oh dear. This is terrible. Just keep going… just---
--should we stop though? Do you think they need help?
Keep going William. There’s--- oh. Oh no… look
I’m trying to drive. Hey! HEY… did you see that? That guy just --- HEY!
He cut you off.
Asshole.
William.
Well. It’s not as if anyone needs another accident.
Oh… oh.. look….
Here come the police… or the ambulance…
Pull over. Careful.
Yeah. I am. Who did that guy think he was anyway.
Calm down and pay attention William
I am I am
Oh those poor people….
I am… Geez
Oh they’ve brought sheets out—
sheets?
oh those poor people. I wonder—
I wonder what happened. What’re the sheets for. Why are they holding up those sheets?
To keep people from gawking
huh?
When it’s really bad. Privacy.
It must be bad. Slow down. They’re stopping again. up here… up here—
I see. I see. Man… that car must have been clipped by that truck
Something. Something terrible. Just keep moving people….
People are gawking. Never saw them hold up sheets…
They do that. When it’s bad.
Never saw anything like it. Must be—
-- looks like a whole family… terrible. terrible. …Just keep moving people. My goodness.
People will look, grandma. It’s just natural
Brake lights William.
I see ‘em. I see ‘em
Before these freeways. Before turnpikes.
huh?
You used to see it a lot before these expressways.
What?
Accidents like that. Must’ve been a whole family.
Like that?
Yeah. People would hold up sheets—
hm.
---to keep passer-bys from gawking… well… to keep people from getting distracted too… so there wouldn’t be more accidents.
That was bad
Yes. I say a little prayer.
Kinda scary. And people are so stupid… besides… people are so stupid
just think. Terrible. terrible.
makes you think.
It certainly does.
There’s that asshole that passed me—
William. Please. That doesn’t help.
People like that just make it worse.
Well yes. Yes. Of course they do. Best to ignore them if you can.
I suppose. He didn’t get very far though. He didn’t get far ahead of me. Stupid.
That gives me--- that makes me shudder inside—
that really upsets you.
Well of course. Of course it does William. Doesn’t it upset you?
Sure. Of course. But—
I say a prayer. I’m not that religious but—
I just think it sucks that people have to suffer like that. I mean out of nowhere—
yes. out of nowhere.
--and it’s no one’s fault. Not usually
that’s upsetting—
Are you okay grandma?
Don’t worry. Just pay attention. It’s still busy.
It’s starting to break up more
That may be, but everyone is going so fast, so close together—
I’m a good driver, Grandma.
Of course you are William. You’re a fine driver. It’s the other guy I worry about
Exactly
You have to watch out all the time
Are you okay.
I’m fine. I just never get used to seeing such things.
Oh?
-- somebody loses someone… out of the blue… they went for a ride, or a vacation
or driving back from Breezewood
---yes… or driving home from Breezewood.
I don’t know about Breezewood Grandma. I mean. The motel was nice but—
I never said it was nice.
It’s like there’s no center… and no one can walk anywhere. There’s no sidewalks. Just four lanes… high speed road. I mean really…. you’d take your life into your hands walking there.
I didn’t say it was nice now, did I? It’s just handy.
Such an in-between place… Everybody stopping in between going somewhere else.
The whole country’s turning into that, it seems to me.
You think?
I’ve been traveling a lot the last few years. Yes. I wonder how it will end up.
You can’t even get off these turnpikes.
Well... they are safer. They’re safer overall.
But everywhere looks the same. Same restaurants, same buildings. And then…
Stuckeys.
Stuckeys?
Haven’t you noticed? Almost every exit. A Stuckey’s…
What do they sell there anyway.
Candy. Mostly. And gas. They won’t last long.
Don’t you think so?
Who eats that many caramel pecan turtles?
Must be a lot of people… those shops are everywhere. They must sell enough—
Did we buy any William? Did we ever stop at a Stuckey’s?
Well… no—
There you go.
Hm. Mom says the candy is good. On our trips. She always says that the candy is good.
But did you stop? Did you ever stop and buy some?
I guess not. Can’t say—
See?
See?
Seems like someone’s making a lot of money NOT selling candy… seems to me anyway.
How does THAT work
I don’t know William. But it must. It’s the only thing I can figure out: someone makes money not selling the stuff they’re selling. They’ve figured it out.
I guess.
So… there we go. The traffic is getting a little more loose.
This car is great grandma… by the way… it’s a great car
Slant six.
Slant six?
Slant six. Yellow. My favorite color.
Oh?
Well… really, I got it because I could see it. You know. In parking lots. It is easy to see. And its snazzy.
Snazzy?
Don’t you think?
I guess. Sure. It’s got a certain snazzy appeal. And it did those mountain roads great.
Didn’t it?
I don’t know much about cars.
Oh?
Dad never taught me much. I don’t think he knows much either.
He’s a busy man. Didn’t they have a car mechanics class at your school?
Sure. Sure they did.
Well.
Well. I was on a college prep track. I was getting ready for college.
This is an easy car to work on.
You work on it?
Little things. Your uncle helps me out. He’s good at it. His Dad taught him.
My grandfather?
Yes. He was a car mechanic.
No kidding. I didn’t inherit any of that. I’m a klutz with mechanics.
Oh, I bet you could if you put your mind to it—
Naw. I just hold the light—
You could do anything you put your mind to
Anything except sell Bible encyclopedias—
Well… there is that I suppose—
I was terrible. And the nice people, the people who were nice to me? I just couldn’t— I mean they would have me in and everything— this one family, I remember this one family had me in and fed me. They lived in this little shack… with a porch… fans running. Black family. Everyone was home. And they would have bought the entire set—
Well… you sold them the set then?
I couldn’t.
What do you mean you couldn’t— William, that doesn’t make any sense. Watch that car. William.
I got it. I got it. Asshole.
Now William.
Sorry. What does he think he’s doing anyway?.... I couldn’t sell them the books because it was clear they were really poor. I mean really poor. That whole neighborhood was like that. They wanted to know all about me.
Oh. But you didn’t sell them a set of books?
I told them I would come back the next day to sell them the books. I mean they were really excited about them. I felt bad.
You felt bad… for what?
I didn’t go back.
Well… maybe you’re just not a salesman.
And then my supervisor told me we weren’t to sell to Black people.
He did?
Yeah… we talked on the phone, and I told him about this really nice Black family and he said I shouldn’t sell to colored people… he called them colored people… no one calls them colored people anymore…. or people on fixed incomes, you know, like veterans and disabled people—
what did you do?
Well, I didn’t go back. I should of, but I didn’t.
William. That doesn’t sound like you.
Well… what was I supposed to do? Tell them I didn’t think they could afford the books, and I wasn’t going to sell them any?
You say they were nice to you?
The nicest. The nicest people I met the whole time. Oh…there was this Jewish guy—
--how did you know he was Jewish?
He told me. He told me right off. I thought that was weird, but he told me. He talked a lot. And then he told me I wasn’t going to sell anything the way I was going about it. He said I didn’t know my sales talk good enough—
Well… did you?
No. Not really. He was right, but—
--but what?
I hated that thing. I hated learning it and I hated the damn books. I mean… here I am… I mean, I’m not exactly an atheist but I’m about as far from being a believer as you can be without being an atheist—
--- You’re an atheist? Now William.
Not an atheist grandma—
-- well that’s a relief. I guess. I suppose everyone has doubts
-- Oh, I wouldn’t call them doubts… maybe , um, gaping holes in my spiritual architecture…? My inner church has a foundation made of sand… bad shingles—
Oh. I see. You just don’t know.
I guess that’s a good way to describe it. A polite way. No—
A lot of people are that way, William.
More than that though—
-- you’re a searcher… you’re searching---
Naw… nothing that deep. Not really. I guess… I guess I just don’t care. I don’t think about it. I don’t think it matters… not now… not in this lousy world—
well… something must glue it all together for you…
what? What? I don’t know grandma. The more I think about it the more absurd it gets in my mind… what… some big all-powerful guy waves his wand and makes the human race… he gives ‘em choice … choice constrained by the possibility of what? predestination? Like the future is already written and they are just fooled into believing they have that choice, the choice to believe… to do good—
I think you’re over-thinking it, William
-- and what do they do? They build a friggin’ place like friggin’ Breezewood?
William. I’m going to have you pull over right now and you can hitch hike the rest of the way—
I’m sorry… but really… how ridiculous is that? And War. War. Of all the—
War?
I just can’t.
But you’re overthinking it William.
What do you mean?
It’s not about believing
If it’s not about that what is it about?
It’s about what can’t be believed in…
uh?
William. We believe because there is nothing else left to explain what we don’t understand.
So, you’re saying God understands but he’s not letting us in on it.
Well—
That’s just cruel. That’s just plain mean.
I don’t think so, William honey. No
Well then what? Because really. There I was selling these damned Bible encyclopedias and the nicest people are the ones I can’t sell them too and I’m supposed to make enough money to go back to school in the Fall because my folks aren’t going to pay for my school anymore—
What?
I want to go to another program. They don’t want me to. Nobody tells me why. Anyway… we were talking about god, weren’t we?
God isn’t about knowing William.
Oh?
God’s about not knowing.
What the hell is that guy doing… Speed limit’s 65 you fool….
Calm down William.
I’m sorry. I just don’t care much about God to tell you the truth.
You don’t have to.
Well then… why do you believe?
Honey… I don’t know if I believe or not. To tell you the truth. I’m catholic. The rituals comfort me, I guess. I can rely on them. That’s all.
The rituals?
Yes. You know. All the standing up and sitting down. The communion. The music.
I like the music.
See?
See what?
That’s all it takes. At least in my mind. Oh William. I don’t care if you believe or not. God is a dictator, at least that’s what everyone tries to make him… a dictator. A Hitler. I have to ignore that part. Besides priests and the rest have been up to no good since the start. I think they designed the church so they could be up to no good and no one would do anything about it
But you said you believe.
Well yes. But not in that. Not that. I believe in something… but not that. heaven’s no—
What then?
Hm?
What is it that you believe?
It’s hard to explain.
Try. We’ve got a long way to go, and Ohio is about as boring and flat as it gets—
You are such a smart aleck.
Well. Look around.
I like these farms… and the treelots… Reminds me of home.
Try.
My god, you remind me of your grandfather sometimes. He would get hold of something and never let it go.
No kidding.
No kidding. Well… let me put it like this. I remember after I divorced your grandfather. It was an awful time and of course no one thought I should, regardless of what he had done. Divorce wasn’t done then… and women that divorced were really shunned. But I had three kids… two daughters and I’ll be damned—
Grandma! Ha!
I’d be darned then. Darned if I let him hurt them all the way he hurt your mother. And he would. He didn’t want to change. He was torn up in ways he didn’t even recognize. But that didn’t matter. And your mother was hurt… even though she didn’t know it… I had to bring that to a stop. And I didn’t know where I would go or how I would make ends meet. Your grandfather was a hard worker but didn’t make much and besides times were hard… I didn’t want to make him have that kind of connection with us… you know? Just money. Well… it was a mess. I was a mess. I was determined but I was a mess, none-the-less. But I did it. And the day after, when I took your mother and her sister and brother to your great grandparents’ place… they had a farm near St. Joseph, they rented the place. Chickens and pigs and a few cows… Dad wanted to be a farmer more than he was ever very successful at it… but it put food on the table in those years, especially during the worse of the Depression. Anyway, I went in and we put your uncle down, he was asleep, he was just a baby really… and we sent your mother and her sister, your aunt, out to collect eggs or something. I think they knew I was close to breaking. And we are tough people. We’ve had to be. And I collapsed. Right there. It was like I passed out. I didn’t cry. I don’t much. Not really… but I swooned… I don’t even really remember. But when I came around Mama was holding my head in her lap and Dad was trying to get me to drink some water. We were so close. Physically. It was so… so… safe, I guess
They talked to you?
No. People didn’t talk much when they were going through bad times. Not then. I don’t know if that’s bad or good, it’s just the way it was…. maybe it’s better now… you all seem to want to talk about everything, the important stuff stayed…. we were quiet, even about the important stuff…
Not anymore, I guess—
I don’t know. I just lay there in my Mama’s lap. Dad was leaning over the back of the couch.
They were taking care of you.
Yes. Yes they were. And I had this sense then. That’s what I’m trying to say.
What about? About what you believed, what you believe—
Well yes. Of course. That was it. Right here. I mean… what are the words for that anyway?
Are there any?
Exactly. And if we could put words to it, would it fail? What I felt then… in spite of everything falling apart… the love of my life turning into a…a…
-- the love of your life?
yes. The love of my life. He was. I loved him but I couldn’t stay with him. Not then. And they… well… there I was.
Huh.
That was as close to my idea of god, of what people jabber about when they toss around the word like they do, as I can get. You know?
Hmm
You understand?
Maybe. I think…. maybe…
Something more than safety—
You know I don’t think I’ve ever felt that.
What?
I don’t think I know that feeling. I mean I understand it when you describe it.
Yes?
Yes. But I’ve never felt it. Not like that.
Never?
Never.
100 miles to Toledo.
I hope those people are okay.
People?
--the ones in the accident, back there.
Oh. Yes. I hope so too, William. It looked bad. So… do you still want to drive… or we could get off at the next plaza and switch.
No. I’ll drive. I don’t mind.
Your folks will be glad to see you.
It will be good to be home. My haircut will surprise them.
It is very short.
It is. I think everyone in that awful town came by the barber shop to watch my hair fall.
I like it.
It’s okay.
You have a lot of hair. Like your mother.
Yeah?
What are your plans.
Plans?
When you get home.
Oh.
What do you think you’ll do?
Patient Notes
Pt 4357 William “Billy” McKeon
approx. 30 years old
diagnostic origin, hysterical conversion due to family trauma
current diagnosis, dementia praecox secondary to complicated grief and trauma
prognosis: guarded to good if adequate discharge is devised
admit date March 9, 1905
May 2, 1905
Came in to a report that McKeon had been awakened by night terrors. He was easily calmed according to the staff, and he went back to sleep, though he asked attendant to sit by his bed. When I spoke with him about it, he was shame-faced. I attempted to put him at ease, reflecting on the progress that he has made. We discussed that he no longer responds to inner stimulus, nor did the prospect of talking about his wife throw him into the depths of a regressive state he has a hard time extricating himself from. He shook his head. I asked him about the angels he has spoken of and seen in the past. Did he remember them? Were they a help? What did they mean to him? At first he was not sure what I meant. He said:”you must mean my babies…. my children…. they are my angels. They sing to me….” I asked about this. He went on to explain that singing was always a part of his family life. “Don’t you sing in your family?”, “Doesn’t everyone sing at home”. I explained that I had a tin ear, though I enjoyed listening to fine voices and singing. He asked about my parents… didn’t they sing to me? I said that my parents were both quite young when they died and that I was raised by distant relatives and at boarding schools. He shook his head as if to say how unfortunate for me.
We went on to talk about the singing he heard when he was the most regressed. He said he had foggy memories of hearing his children singing to him… from outside the solarium when he was there… in the streams of light. “It calmed me. It made me feel safe. Everything else was hell….”
I asked him if he felt that way because of Laura and his daughter and unborn child’s death. He looked away. “Yes. Of course. They were the best thing that ever happened to me. I was a street punk, doctor. An urchin. I had nothing. My father had nothing and his father before him. You hear all these stories about people like my people coming to this place, this land across the sea, land of promises and riches… but pretty soon you find out it’s a lie. My grandfather? He was taken into the torture of that war almost as soon as he stepped off the boat. Most of his family starving and enslaved in the old Country, the British lords letting us eat mud and shrivel up and die in the ditches and bogs. So he comes here only to die some miserable rot in a war he knew nothing about. He just knew he was promised shoes. He hadn’t a decent pair of shoes ever…. And you know doctor? You know what I think? I think they told those stories far and wide just to get us poor sods to come over here to fight their god forsaken bloody wars for them, those rich fecking misers… “
“Then Laura comes along. We’re both poor as dirt but something happened the day we met… and it kept on happening. I tell you she gave me life… gave me the guts not to take shite from no one. Even when I quit a job or got canned because of my blessed temper she was good with it. She said no one should have to put up with what I put up with…. and then she would kiss me… hard and fast… wasn’t nothing like those kisses”
“The kids started coming. I don’t know how I did it. How I kept us fed and in a place…. “
He fell silent, shaking his head. I let the silence be.
“These secret things… these things we can bring home with us unknown to us. It was the best time of our lives. I mean, we had heard about the typhus. People die all the time… the family stories are full of early and gruesome dyings… still, you never expect it to come home with you unknown to you…. How could I have done that?”
I repeated that question back to him. How could he have done that?
“I killed her. I killed them all.” he whispered and then he fell into my arms weeping.
I called for an attendant. He was crying hard, but it was controlled and it was good, really, it was a good cry.
Dr. Breath passed by the room and looked in and walked away quickly as the attendant entered, sat near us and we waited for Billy to stop weeping. In some way I wanted him to continue. He had so much to empty. It seemed to me. And my holding him? It seemed the most natural thing.
Treatment: Continue processing losses. Finalize arrangements for therapeutic outing in city.
***