Eureka (23 page)

“I think it was in that
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
movie down in Georgia,” said another woman, who also did not sound familiar.

Johnny was from Savannah! That’s why it was in the movie! You idiot!

Otis picked up the song:

Otis stopped singing and listened to the applause of the people in the room he had chosen not to see.

THERE WAS AN
outburst from “That Old Black Magic.” It came in response to a male nursing attendant who, as someone did every morning, was giving Otis a bath in the hospital bed. Otis had graduated from tubes that took away his various wastes to a bedpan, although, unbeknownst to anyone, he was able to go to the bathroom on his own as well as wash himself.

His minders and doctors would find out, all in
his
good time.

The attendant, who Otis believed was named Bud, said as he put a hot washcloth on Otis’s back, “Now, how does that feel this morning, Mr. Halstead?”

Otis sang:

Within seconds, several other people were in the room listening to Otis. He didn’t look at them, but he knew they
were there. They stayed to applaud when he finished with the lines:

Bud was a black man, but that had nothing to do with Otis’s choosing the song. He hoped Bud understood and was not offended and did not think Otis was a racist. Otis remembered a race-sensitivity class he and the other executives at KCF&C had attended a while ago. The instructor had said all white people should assume that all black people they met thought all white people were racists. It struck Otis as a stupid way of thinking, but it stuck with him. He couldn’t get the assumption out of his mind every time he met or talked to a black person, even one named Bud who was bathing him in a hospital bed.

Later, a female nutritionist said to him that for supper, he might try something else for dessert besides chocolate fudge. Otis had already imagined serious meetings by Drs. Severy and Tonganoxie and others to contemplate why Otis Halstead seemed obsessed with chocolate fudge. Was there a serious fudge event in his childhood? Maybe an uncle he hated had choked to death on chocolate fudge?

Otis’s response to the nutritionist was four lines of the Mercer tune “Hooray for Spinach,” from a movie called
Naughty but Nice.

Within minutes, Otis had a plate of spinach before him. He frowned until it was taken away. Then they brought him a small bowl of mashed spinach, which he also frowned away.

Then came a glass of milk, which he sipped dry through a straw.

He burped loudly to a round of clapping.

The next day he sang from the same song:

That was what led to Otis going outside for the first time since arriving at the Ashland Clinic.

Several people picked him up from his bed and sat him down in a wheelchair. They had no idea he could walk on his own. He also acted as if he couldn’t keep his head up straight, so they strapped it loosely against the back of the chair, the same way they did his chest, stomach, arms, and legs. No need to rush things.

It was a nice day outside. A nice spring day. That clearly wasn’t a Christmas decoration he’d seen on the ceiling. Must have been an illusion—a mirage. Or something else. Well, there’s the sun up there, and the sky is Kansas blue, and the clouds are white. Good for all of them. Everything is where it should be, looking the way it should look here in the Sunflower State.

And the air feels good. Hooray for air! Let’s hear it, Johnny Our Huckleberry Friend!

They rolled him to what appeared to be a patio, not unlike his patio in Eureka that was called an outdoor entertainment area. Here there was also something hard and gray, like concrete or slate, and there were big cottonwoods and sycamores all around.

Anybody have a spare Red Ryder BB gun?

Several people were sitting in chairs in a semicircle facing him. He recognized three of them: Madison Severy, Russ Tonganoxie the shithead, and Bob Gidney. This must be something important, for the three of them to be here. He tried to make eye contact with each of them one at a time, as a way of saying hello—also of giving them a progress event to discuss. There was another man and a woman sitting across from him, but he did not recognize them, so he did not lock eyes with them.

I’m Buck the scooter man. Who are you?

Too bad Johnny Mercer died. Boy, could he have written a great song called “Scooter Man.” It could be the fun-filled Huckleberry Friend kind of story about a bald-headed bloodsucking insurance executive who headed west on a 1952 Cushman Pacemaker, fell through a condemned bridge, and instead of drowning, became a singer just like Johnny Mercer.

“We think you can talk,” said Bob Gidney, “as well as look at us straight in the eye, as you did just now.”

“You’re playing games with us, aren’t you, Otis?” said the shithead Russ Tonganoxie.

“I feel strongly, Otis, that the words are there for you to speak, and all it takes is for you to decide to speak them,” said Mad Severy. “You spoke one—‘Sharon.’ You can speak others.”

Bob Gidney said, “These other two people with us are Drs. Ruth Humboldt and Clay F. Sublette. They’re psychiatric colleagues of ours from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.”

Otis moved his eyes toward the pair.
What does the F stand for?
was the only question he could think of to ask, if he were in the business of asking questions. I met a great young man whose name was T. He came to see me at the clinic, but Mad wouldn’t let him in. T spelled his name without a period, á la Harry S Truman. Is your F with or without a period, Doctor?

Bob Gidney continued, “Drs. Humboldt and Sublette have done a lot of work with the mental rehabilitation of near-drowning victims. But they have never encountered—personally or in the literature—any cases like yours.”

Dr. Sublette said, “That’s right, Mr. Halstead. No one has ever substituted singing for speaking the way you have. If people can sing, they can also talk. That is true even for those recovering from trauma, as you are.”

“Singing mostly one particular songwriter’s songs makes it even more unusual,” said Dr. Humboldt. “Our research on the issue is clear—it has never happened before.”

“Not only with near-drowning victims, Mr. Halstead,” said Dr. Sublette, “but not with any other kind of stroke or other victims left with a mental-function impairment of some kind.”

“That’s why we think you’re faking it,” said Tonganoxie the shithead.

Bob Gidney said, “No need to get rough, Russ.”

“A man who can sing a Johnny Mercer song can talk,” Tonganoxie responded. “You know it and I know it and they
know it and everybody in the world knows it. You don’t have to be a shrink to know it.”

“Don’t use the word ‘shrink,’” Bob Gidney said. “That’s self-hate offensive.”

“This whole thing is offensive,” said Madison Severy. “This is obviously a sick man who needs treatment, not childish fights between his doctors.”

Wrong!
A childish fight was exactly what he needed, thought Otis.
Sic ’em! Fight, fight, fight! Great, great, great!

Ignoring the shrink controversy, Dr. Sublette said to Otis, “We would like to ask you some questions, if we might. We would clearly hope and prefer that you answer them—the old-fashioned way, if you will—with words, but we have composed them in such a way that moving your head slightly in a nod for yes and a shake for no will suffice. Is the strap on your head loose enough for you to respond that way? If so, please nod. If not, please shake.”

Otis nodded.

Drs. Humboldt and Sublette alternated asking questions. Sublette went first. “Our research indicates that Johnny Mercer wrote more than one thousand songs—one thousand two hundred and twelve, to be exact—that were published. Does that coincide with your information, Mr. Halstead?”

Otis nodded.

“Do you know the words to all twelve hundred and twelve?”

Otis shook his head slightly.

“More than half?”

After a pause of a few seconds, Otis shook again.

“Less than half?”

A shake.

“About half?”

Nod.

“So that means you know the words to some six hundred Johnny Mercer songs. Is that right?”

Nod.

“You’re lying, Otis,” said Tonganoxie. “Nobody in the world knows the words to six hundred of any kind of songs.”

Otis did not move his head.

“Is it correct that you learned the songs—no matter the exact number—when you were young?” Dr. Sublette continued.

Nod.

“In high school or before?”

Nod and shake.

“You mean you learned some of them in high school or before, and some of them afterward?”

Nod.

“Mrs. Halstead has told us that she had no knowledge of your ability to sing Mercer songs, or to sing at all, until your recent accident. Have you sung many Mercer songs in the last thirty-five years?”

Shake.

“Since high school?”

Shake.

“So you stopped singing like Johnny Mercer or any other way after high school?”

Nod.

“Did something happen—a specific event—that caused you to stop singing?”

Otis kept his head absolutely still.

“Did you hear the question, Mr. Halstead?”

Nod.

“But you’re not going to answer it, is that it?”

Nod.

“Why not, goddammit?” Russ Tonganoxie yelled.

“Cool it, Russ,” Bob Gidney said. “For whatever reason, he’s not going to answer the question. We’ll have to find out ourselves.”

“I think we are in the process of discovering a completely new syndrome,” said Dr. Sublette.

“I agree,” said Dr. Humboldt.

Tonganoxie, in a state of high sneer, said, “Oh, sure. Eureka! What shall we call it? The Johnny Mercer syndrome? The Halstead syndrome? Or why not simply Otis? A disease named Otis. Every time we come across somebody who only sings Mercer songs instead of talking—I’m sure there are millions of the poor souls out there, waiting to be found and helped—we’ll stroke our beards and lower our Viennese accents and say, ‘Dear patient, you have Otis and, so sorry to report, there is no cure for Otis. You will sing Johnny Mercer songs instead of talking for the rest of your life.’”

Otis listened for laughter. There was none. Not even a slight giggle. Otis would have been delighted to laugh out loud and uproariously if he had decided to do that sort of thing. Not yet.

Russ Tonganoxie may not be a shithead after all.

Bob Gidney said to Otis, “What would you like to do now?”

Otis sang from Johnny’s 1942 song “Hit the Road to Dreamland”:

Russ Tonganoxie cackled with laughter.

“He wants a nap, he’s tired,” said Dr. Sublette. He and the others were not laughing, because they were clearly unhappy.
And sad and worried and concerned. That was the way they looked to Otis, at least. Finally, Bob Gidney confirmed it.

“If we don’t come up with something, this poor man—my friend Otis Halstead—is going to live the rest of his life this way, answering questions with Johnny Mercer songs instead of spoken words,” he said. “We must do everything in our power to bring him back to his old self, his old life, his old happiness.”

Drs. Sublette and Humboldt said in unison, “We will do our best, Bob.”

“You know what I think,” said Russ Tonganoxie. “I think this man Otis Halstead has absolutely no interest in being brought back to his old life—his old happiness.”

Nod.

“You found it, Otis, you found it, didn’t you?” Tonganoxie asked.

Nod.

“Eureka. You’re yelling Eureka, aren’t you, Otis?”

Otis yelled at the top of his lungs: “Eureka!”

He decided there was no harm in giving them another word—another small progress event—to ponder and to confuse.

While Buck prepared to make his move.