As I followed through the dilapidated wards, memories of those long-ago graveyard shifts were brought sharply back to me - by the sound of heavy keychains jangling, by the reek of Pine Sol over urine, especially by the faces. All those curious stares from doorways and corridors gave me a very curious feeling. It wasn't exactly a memory but there was something familiar about it. It was the kind of tugging sensation you get when you feel that something is needed from you but have no notion what it is, and neither does the thing needing it. I guessed that maybe it was just information. Over and over I was drawn from our parade by looks so starved to know what was going on that I felt obliged to stop and try to shed some light. The faces did brighten. The likelihood that their sorry situation might be exploited as the set for a Hollywood movie didn't seem to disturb them. If Superintendent Mortimer decided it was all right, then they had no objections.
I was touched by their trust and I was impressed with Mortimer. All his charges seemed to like him. In turn he admired my book and liked the changes it had wrought in the industry. The producers liked that we liked each other, and before the day was over everything was agreed: Dr. Mortimer would permit use of his hospital if the movie company would foot the bill for a much-needed sprucing up, the patients would be paid extras, I would write the screenplay, the hype of moguls would pull in a heap of Oscars. Everyone would be fulfilled and happy.
"This baby's got big box written all over her!" was the way one enthusiastic second assistant something-or-other expressed it.
But driving back to Eugene that evening I found it difficult to hold up my end of the enthusiasm. That tugging sensation continued to hook at me, reeling my mind back to that haunted countenance at the hospital like a fish to a phantom fisherman. I hadn't confronted that face in years. Or wanted to. Nobody wants to. We learn to turn away whenever we detect the barbed cast of it - in the sticky eyes of a wino, or behind a hustler's come-on, or out the side of a street dealer's mouth. It's the loser's profile, the side of society's face that the other side always tries to turn away from. Maybe that's why the screenplay I eventually hacked out never appealed to the moguls - they know a loser when they have to look away from one.
Weeks passed but I couldn't shake that nebulous nagging. It put a terrible drag on my adaptation efforts. Turning a novel into a screenplay is mainly a job of cutting, condensing; yet I felt compelled to try to say not only more but something else. My first attempt was way long and long overdue. I declined the producers' offer to rent me a place up near the hospital so I could browse around the wards and maybe recharge my muse. My muse was still overcharged from that first browse. I wasn't ready to take another. For one thing, whatever it was that had got me so good was still waiting with baited looks; if it got me any better I feared it was liable to have me for good.
For another, it seemed to be communicable, a virus that might be transmitted eye to eye. I was beginning to imagine I could detect traces of it in friends and family - in fretful glances, flickers of despair escaping from cracked lids, particularly in my father's face. It was as though something picked up from the hospital had passed on to him, the way the fear inside a fallen rider can become the horse's. It was hard to believe that a mean old mustang raised on the plains of west Texas would inexplicably develop a fear of emptiness. He had always been too tough. Hadn't he already outlasted all the experts' estimates by nearly five years, more from his own stiff-necked grit than from any help they had given? But suddenly all that grit seemed gone, and the sponge collar that he wore to keep his head up just wasn't doing the trick any more.
"What'd this Lou Gehrig accomplish that was so dadgum great?" was the sort of thing he had taken to asking. "No matter how many times you make it all the way around the bases, you're still right back where you started - in the dirt. That's no accomplishment."
He swept the sports page from his lap and across the lawn, exposing the withered remnant of his legs. I had dropped by and caught him out on the backyard lawn chair, reading the newspaper in his shorts.
"I'm sick of home plate is what it is! I feel like a potted plant."
"Well, you ain't no tumbleweed anymore," my mother said. She was bringing another pot of coffee out to us. "He's working up to buying that used motorhome down the street is what it really is - so I can drive him to the Pendleton Roundup."
"Maybe he wants to go to Mexico again," I said. Buddy and I had rented a Winnebago some years before and taken him on a hectic ride over the border. I had wanted him to come on at least one of those unchartered trips that he used to warn me against. He came back claiming that the only thing he'd got out of it was jumping beans and running shits. I winked at my mother. "Maybe he wants to go into the jungle and look for diamonds, like Willy Loman."
"Uh-huh," Daddy grunted. The sudden sweep of the papers had tilted his head; he was pushing it straight with his hand. "Maybe he don't, too."
"Another cup of mud?" my mother asked to change the subject.
I shook my head. "One cup of that stuff is plenty; I've got to work tonight."
"How you coming with it?" my dad wanted to know.
"Slow," I said. "It's tough to get the machine up to speed."
"Especially when you ain't run the thing in a dozen years." He had his head steady enough to get me with his old, stiff-thumb-in-the-ribs look. "If you expect to have that movie out in time to benefit from my opinions, you better crank 'er up to speed pretty damn quick!"
It was the look that flashed a second later, after the stiffening went out, that got me. I finished my coffee and stood up. "That's where I'm headed out to right now," I said. "To crank 'er up."
"Better not head too far out," he growled, reaching for another section of the paper. "I'm liable not to wait for you to get back."
Mom met me at my car. "They have him on tap for another one of those spinals Saturday," she said. "He hates the nasty things, and they scare the dickens out of me."
"Spinals aren't dangerous, Mom: I've seen dozens of them."
"Ever think that might be why he wants you to be around, you knothead!"
"Take it easy, Mom, I'll be around," I promised. "Thanks for the mud."
So when Dr. Mortimer called the following Thursday to invite me to join him at the annual convention of psychiatric superintendents, I told him I'd better stay home and keep at our project.
"But it's in Florida this year!" he explained through the phone. "At the Disney World Hotel! The movie people will pick up your tab."
Again I declined. I didn't mention my father. "I'm a little stuck with the script," I explained.
"They said they thought a trip like this might help unstick you. This year's entertainment is The Bellevue Revue. I saw them two years ago in Atlantic City. Positively hilarious. I bet you could pick up some fresh angles from those Looney Toons. Also, the keynote speaker? They've dug up the author of that beatnik bible, Now Be Thou. You've perhaps heard of him? Dr. Klaus Woofner?"
I said yes I had, and that I'd be interested to hear what he was talking about these days - "But not right now."
"They've got you a ticket waiting at the Portland airport: United to Orlando at three thirty." Mortimer sounded as excited as a kid. "A free trip to Disney World, you lucky dog - think of it!" I told him I would; I had a good twenty-four hours to make up my mind. "I'll phone you tomorrow morning and let you know what I decide."
"I'm sure it'll be a load of laughs," he urged. "Honestly try to make it."
I said I was sure, too, and that I honestly would, though I had no intention whatsoever of driving a hundred and fifty miles to Portland, then flying all the way to Florida, not even to hear old Woofner huff and puff.
The next morning I didn't feel quite as firm about it. The night had cranked me backwards and left me feeling uncertain. I had shitcanned most of my old draft and made a fresh start, and the new stuff was already looking old. A little break away from it looked more and more inviting. On the other hand, a drive to Portland in my wishy-washy condition would be a tas
k. By the time it was getting late enough that I had to make the call to Mortimer, one way or the other, I was in the middle of a quandary. I decided that I had best consult the I Ching for an answer; the oracle has helped me clear up more than one wishy-washy quandary. I had just carried the book to the breakfast table when the dogs announced the arrival of a car. Betsy opened the door for a well-dressed young man with a monotone voice.
"Good morning, Mrs. Deboree. I'm Dr. Joseph Gola. Dr. Mortimer sent me down from the hospital to pick up your husband."
"Pick up my husband?"
"And drive him back to Portland. Dr. Mortimer was afraid there could be a problem getting gas."
That weekend was the peak of the Arab oil embargo. Governor McCall had motorists buying gas on odd or even days, according to the last digit on their license plates, and there were still reports of craziness at the pumps.
"The patients call me Joe," he introduced himself. "Joe Go."
Joe Go was a young Irish-Italian, wearing a hopeful expression and a St. Jude the Obscure pin for a tie clasp. He was very soft-spoken. After he accepted a chair and a cup of coffee, he shyly asked about the picture-covered book in front of me.
"It's just an I Ching," I explained, "with its cover collaged with photographs. I was about to ask it whether to go or not to go. Then you showed up. I better pack my suit."
"Better pack the book too," he said with a grin. "In case we need to ask about coming back."
Betsy was completely taken by his altar boy innocence. While I packed she kept bringing him coffee with blueberry muffins and big smiles. The kids on the other hand had nothing but frowns for Doctor Joe. After all, they had never been to Disney World - not to Disneyland in Anaheim, even. If innocent young company was what was needed in Florida, couldn't I take one of them along? They each made their bid a few times, then moped off in protest, all except for little Caleb. The ten-year-old remained at the table in his long Grateful Dead nightshirt and his longing face. He yearned to go as much as his brother or sisters, but it wasn't Caleb's style to mope off and maybe miss something else. He was the only one that came outside to wish us farewell, too.
"Remember to bring us something back from Disney World, Dad," he called from the porch, his voice brave. "Something neat, aw-right?"
"Aw-right," I called back as I climbed into the car. I waved but he didn't wave back - he couldn't see me through the Lincoln's tinted safety glass. The thing was big as a barge. I told Doctor Joe he'd better back it out instead of trying to turn around between our blueberries. "They're hard enough to keep alive."
He started down our drive in reverse, twisting out his door to try to miss the deepest holes. I buckled my seatbelt and rolled with the bouncing. After a night of getting nowhere on my own, I found I liked the idea of being picked up and carried away. I was leaning back to try the cushy headrest when, from out of nowhere, something yanked me straight up and wide-eyed, something deeper than any of our chuckholes.
It was that same tugging sensation again, to the tenth power - still as enigmatic and even more familiar, like a dream so meaningful that it jolts you awake, then you can't remember what it was about. It only lasted a second or two before it faded, leaving me dumbfounded. What the hell was it? Simply the thought of going back up to that hospital and having to face that face again? Some kind of hangfire out of the past bounced loose?
"What's the best way back from here?"
It took a moment to realize the young doctor was asking me the best way back to Portland. He'd come to the end of our driveway.
"Well, I go that way if I'm in a hurry." I pointed up the hill. "Or down through Nebo and Brownsville if I've got time for a peaceful cruise."
He backed around headed downhill. "We've got plenty of time," he said, and reached over to open a leather case that was waiting on the seat between us. It looked like an old-fashioned sample case for patent medicines. Neatly arranged between the dividers was an extensive selection of those miniature bottles of brand liquors, dozens of them.
"It looks like things have changed since I was connected with the mental health business," I observed.
"Some ways yes, some ways no," he said, choosing a tiny Johnny Walker. "Less restrictions, more medications. Still no cures. Help yourself."
Conversation was sparse. The young man was more of a one-liner than a talker, and I would have been content to keep quiet and go over the mystery of that thing that had hit me back in the blueberries, or go to sleep. But with the help of the long drive and the medicine kit we gradually got to know each other. Doctor Joe had rebounded into psychology after flunking out of the field of his true interest: genetics. Both the Latin and the Gaelic sides of his family had histories of mental disease, not to mention a lot of crazy poets and painters and priests. Joe said he had inherited a lot of bad art, blind faith, and troubling questions. Also, he said he was going to the convention for the same reason I was - to see Dr. Klaus Woofner. He said he had been a fan since his undergrad days at Queens.
"I've read every little thing written by him, plus that huge pile of shit about him. They called him everything from the Big Bad Wolf to Old Sanity Klaus."
He gave me a look of hopeful curiosity. We were on a stretch of empty two-lane through the gentle pasturelands above Salem, the cruise control set at a drowsy forty-five.
"The old goat must have been some sort of hero, yeah? to get so much shit started?"
Yeah, I nodded. Some sort of hero. I closed my eyes. Could the old goat get it finished was what I was curious about.
The Lincoln's horn woke me. We were in an insane jam of cars all trying to gas up before the weekend rush. The hospital was less than a mile away but we couldn't get through the snarled intersection where the gas stations were. Cars were lined up bumper-to-bumper for blocks. Joe finally swung about and took a wide detour around the tangle. By the time we got to the gate at the hospital grounds, the dashboard clock showed we had less than a half hour before flight time. What's more, the drive up to the main building was blocked by a police car slanted into the curb. We couldn't get around it.
"Grab your bags!" Joe switched off the Lincoln right where it sat. "Maybe Mortimer's still on the ward."
He sprinted off like a track star. I picked up my shoulder bag and my suitcase and followed groggily after him, reluctant to leave the big car's torpor. But that surprise at my morning Ching should have forewarned me; this was not going to be a peaceful cruise. When I rounded the squad car I encountered a tableau that stopped me in my tracks.
The car was still idling, all four doors open. At the rear a stout state trooper and two overweight police matrons were trying to bring down an Unidentified Flying Object. The thing was far too fast for them, a blur of noise and movement, whirling in and out of the haze of exhaust, hissing and screeching and snarling. Honking, too, with some kind of horn-on-a-spear. It used this spear to slash and honk at the circle of uniforms, holding them at bay.
Two burly hospital aides came loping to help out, a sheet stretched between them dragnet fashion. Reinforced thus, the herd charged. The UFO was silenced beneath half a ton of beef. Then there was a high, sharp hiss followed by a beller of pain and the thing whirled free again. It scurried right through the legs all the way around the herd into one rear door of the car and out the other, twittering curses in some language from a far speedier dimension. By the time the pursuers had circled the car, their quarry was arrowing down the drive for the open gate. The herd was already slackening their halfhearted chase - anybody could see that there was nothing earthly capable of catching up - when, to everybody's astonishment, the arrow missed that huge two-lane opening by a good five feet and crashed full tilt into the Cyclone fence. It spronged back, spun erratically a moment on the gleaming green, then went down a second time under the welter of uniforms. There was a final piteous little squank from beneath the pile on the lawn, then nothing but heavy puffing and panting.
"Come on!" Joe had returned and jerked me out of my gawk. "Don't worry. You
couldn't hurt that little cyclone with fifty fences."
He led me through a lobby full of carpenters, past the elevator, and up a long, echoing ramp. The ramp leveled off to a metal door. Joe unlocked it and I found myself back on Dr. Mortimer's ward. Everything was in upheaval for the Hollywood renovation, new stuff and old piled in the halls. Mortimer wasn't in his office. Neither was his secretary. We hurried past the staring patients to the nurse's station at the ward's intersection. The duty nurse and the secretary were both there, sharing a box of Crackerjacks.
"Omigod!" the nurse exclaimed as though caught. "Dr. Mortimer just left."
"Left for where!"
"The lot... Possibly the airport."
"Joannie! You get on the phone to the main gate."
"Yes, Dr. Gola." The secretary hurried back to the office.
"Miss Beal, you try the CB in the lobby, in case he's still at the motor pool. I'll run down to the lot."
The nurse trotted off, Crackerjacks rattling in the pocket of her white cardigan. Joe sprinted back the way we'd come, leaving me alone in the fluorescent buzz.
Well, not exactly. Robed specters were trolling back and forth past the windows and open half door of the nurse's station, casting looks in at me. I turned my back on them and sat down on the counter, pretending to peruse a back issue of OMNI. As the minutes hummed past I could feel eyes picking at my neck. I traded OMNI for a copy of National Enquirer, rattling the big pages. The hum seemed to caramelize right over the noise of the paper like a clear glaze. Spells in the blueberries. U.F.O.s on the lawn. Now this. I am in no condition for this. Then the glaze was shattered by a screech at the Admissions Door.
"- fascist snotsucking shitmother pigs! Don'cha know whosoever wields the Diamond Sword of ACHALA wields burning justice? Where's my cane you ignorant assholes and don't whisper to me Cool it! Like, you're so hip? So with it? Don'cha know this messing with blood sacraments in the name of revolution must fucking cease?"