The End of the Road (25 page)

Someone downstairs turned a radio on loud, and I jumped to my feet. It was three o’clock: the half-minute that I thought I’d spent not getting up to go to the bathroom had been an hour and a quarter! A moment later I hurried downstairs to the car; I drove out past the Morgans’ at sixty miles an hour, out in the country to Vineland, and to the Remobilization Farm. I found Mrs. Dockey in the entrance hall, tying up large corrugated boxes with rope.

“Where’s the Doctor? I have to see him right away.”

She jerked her head toward the back of the house. As I went through the reception room I noticed rolled carpets, disarranged furniture, and more paper boxes.

“You’re upset,” the Doctor observed as soon as he saw me. Dressed in a black wool suit, he was reading the Sunday paper on the back porch, which in cold weather was converted into a sun parlor. He was, fortunately, alone: most of the patients were either taking the air out front or lounging in the reception room. “Sit down.”

“I had a touch of my trouble this afternoon,” I said.

“Immobility?” He put down his paper and looked at me more carefully. “Then you haven’t been applying the therapies.”

“No, I’ll confess I haven’t. I’ve been awfully busy lately.”

It was cool outside, even chilly, but the sun shone brightly, and out over a marshy creek behind the farmhouse a big gray fish hawk hung motionless against the wind. I didn’t know where to start.

“If that’s so,” the Doctor said critically, “I don’t understand why you were immobilized.”

“I think I can explain it. What I’ve been doing is trying to straighten out some problems that have come up.”

“Well. This time I’m afraid I’ll have to know the problem, since it developed after you started therapy. Maybe we’d better go into the Progress and Advice Room.”

“I can tell you right here. It won’t take long.”

“No. Let’s go into the Progress and Advice Room. You go on in—tell Mrs. Dockey so she’ll know where we are—and I’ll be there in a minute.”

I did as he said, and a little while later he came in and took his position facing me. He’d changed into a white medical jacket. His reason for insisting that we use the room was apparent: not only was the patient’s story useful, but in the Progress and Advice Room the very telling of it became a kind of therapy. I felt as a patient must feel on the traditional psychoanalyst’s couch—asking not just for assistance but for treatment.

“Now, what is it?” he asked.

With my knees straight in front of me and my arms folded across my chest, I told him as best I could the story of my brief affair with Rennie, and its consequences. To my surprise it came rather easily, so long as I stuck to the actual events and made no attempt to explain anybody’s motives. The most difficult thing was to handle my eyes during the telling: the Doctor, as usual, leaned forward, rolling his unlit cigar around in his mouth, and watched my face the whole time; I focused first on his left eye, then on his right, then on his forehead, the bridge of his nose, his cigar—and it became disconcerting that I couldn’t hold my eyes still for more than a few moments. I told him all the details of my search for an abortionist, and even my interview with Peggy Rankin. It was enormously refreshing to articulate it all.

“There’s no question at all about Rennie’s resolve,” I said at last. “She’ll commit suicide tonight if I can’t tell her something definite, and I ran out of possibilities at eleven-thirty this morning. It was after that that the paralysis set in, and it lasted until an hour or so ago, when somebody downstairs from me turned a radio on. She’ll shoot herself five or six hours from now.”

“Is this your idea of a tranquil existence?” the Doctor demanded irritably. “I told you to avoid complications! I told you specifically not to become involved with women! Did you think your therapies were just silly games? Were you just playing along with me to amuse yourself?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Of course you do. For a long time you’ve considered me some kind of charlatan, or quack, or worse. That’s been clear enough, and I allowed you to go on thinking so, as long as you did what I told you, because in your case that sort of attitude can be therapeutic itself. But when you begin to disregard my advice, then that attitude is very dangerous, as I trust you see now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you understand that if you’d kept up with your treatment you wouldn’t be here right now? If you’d studied your
World Almanac
every day, and thought of nothing but your grammar students, and practiced Sinistrality, Antecedence, and Alphabetical Priority—particularly if you thought them absurd but practiced them anyway—nothing that happened would have been a problem for you.”

“Frankly, Doctor, I’ve been more concerned about the Morgans lately than about myself.”

“And you see what’s happened! Why, if you’d been consistent, even a little obvious, in applying your therapies, I don’t think any of it would have happened in the first place. I didn’t tell you to make friends! You should have been thinking of nothing but your immobility.”

It was time to tell him why I had come out to see him, but he went on talking.

“Now clearly this paralysis you just had is a different sort from what you had before. In Penn Station it was inability to choose that immobilized you. That’s the case I’m interested in, and that’s the case I’ve been treating. But this was a simple matter of running yourself into a blind alley—a vulgar, stupid condition, not even a dilemma, and yet it undoes all I’d accomplished.”

“Doctor, excuse me—that girl’s going to shoot herself!”

“It would serve you right if the husband shot you. Mythotherapy—Mythotherapy would have kept you out of any involvement, if you’d practiced it assiduously the whole time. Actually you did practice it, but like a ninny you gave yourself the wrong part. Even the villain’s role would have been all right, if you’d been an out-and-out villain with no regrets! But you’ve made yourself a penitent when it’s too late to repent, and that’s the best role I can think of to immobilize you. Well!” he exclaimed, really disturbed. “Your case was the most interesting I’ve treated for years, and you’ve all but ruined it!”

For a full two minutes he chewed his cigar in angry silence. I was terribly conscious of minutes slipping by.

“Can’t you—”

“Be quiet!” he said impatiently. After a while he said, “The girl’s suicide will be entirely anti-therapeutic. Even disastrous. For one thing, the husband might shoot you, or you might even shoot yourself, you’ve relapsed so badly. These two eventualities I could prevent by keeping you here on the farm, but he might get the police to hunt for you when he finds out you’re gone, and I don’t want them out here. You’ve completely botched things! You’ve spoiled two years of my work with this silly affair.”

“Can you give her a shot of Ergotrate, Doctor?” I asked quickly.

The Doctor removed the cigar from his mouth for a moment in order to look at me the more caustically. “My dear fellow, for what earthly reason would I have Ergotrate here? Do you think these ladies and gentlemen conceive children?”

I blushed. “Well—could you write a prescription?”

“Don’t be any more naïve than you have to. You could just as well write one yourself.”

“God. I don’t know what to do.”

“Horner, stop being innocent. You came out here to ask me to abort the fetus, not to talk about your immobility.”

“Will you do it?” I begged him. “I’ll pay anything you want to charge.”

“An empty statement. Suppose I wanted to charge seven thousand dollars? What you mean is that you’ll pay up to maybe five hundred dollars. And since you’d renege on payments after the thing was done, the possible price couldn’t be more than one or two hundred. Unless I’m greatly mistaken you haven’t more than that on hand.”

“I’ve got about two seventy-five, Doctor. I’ll give it to you gladly.”

“Horner, I’m not an abortionist. I’ve aborted perhaps ten fetuses in my whole career, and that was years ago. If I performed an abortion now I’d jeopardize this whole establishment, the future welfare of my patients, and my own freedon. Is two hundred and seventy-five dollars enough for that? Or five thousand, for that matter?”

“I can’t offer you anything else.”

“Yes, you can, and if you do I’ll abort the girl’s fetus.”

“I’ll agree to anything.”

“Certainly. But whether you keep your agreement is another matter. I’m preparing to relocate the farm—no doubt you noticed the things in the entrance hall and the reception room. For a change, we’re moving because we want to and not because we have to; I’ve found a better location, in Pennsylvania, and we’re leaving Wednesday. Mrs. Dockey would have contacted you tomorrow if you hadn’t come out here today. Now, then, if it weren’t for this, the abortion would be out of the question; since we’re moving anyway, I’ll perform it tonight.”

I could scarcely believe my ears. The shock brought tears to my eyes, and I laughed sharply.

“What I’d like to do is simply give you a catheter for the girl. If she walked around with that in her for a day or two it would induce labor and abort the fetus. She’d hemorrhage a lot, but the hospital would have to accept her as an emergency case. This would be better because she wouldn’t have to come out here at all, but it takes too long; she might not even start labor until Wednesday, and she’d be so miserable with the catheter in her uterus that she’d probably kill herself anyway. Bring her out here tonight, and I’ll scrape the uterus and get it over with.”

“I will! Lord, that’s wonderful!”

“It’s not. It’s sordid and disgusting, but I’ll do it as a last resort to save your case. What you have to do in return is not only give me all the money you’ve got to help move the farm to Pennsylvania, but quit your job and come with us. I require this for two reasons: first, and most important, I want you on hand twenty-four hours a day so I can establish you on your schedule of therapies again; second, I’ll need a young man to do a great deal of manual labor while the new farm is being set up. That will be your first therapy. Perhaps my fee is too high?”

I remembered the old men in the dormitory.

“Don’t dawdle, Horner,” the Doctor said sternly, “or I’ll refuse. Your case is a hobby with me, but it’s not an obsession, and you annoy me as often as you entertain me.”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Very well. Tonight I’ll do the abortion. You’ll have to bring a check for the money, since it’s Sunday. Tomorrow you let the college know you’re quitting, and Wednesday morning be at the Greyhound terminal in Wicomico at eight-thirty. You’ll meet Mrs. Dockey and some of the patients there and go up with them on the bus.”

“All right.”

“Do you want me to explain all the things I can do to make sure you keep your promise, or at least make you awfully sorry you broke it?”

“You don’t have to, Doctor,” I said. “I’m exhausted. I’ll keep it.”

“I’m sure you will,” he smiled, “whether you are or not. All right, that’s all.” He stood up. “The patients go to bed at nine. Bring the girl out at nine-thirty. Don’t shine your headlights on the house, and don’t make noise; you’ll alarm everybody upstairs. And bring your check and your bankbook, so I’ll know the check’s as large as possible. Good-by.”

As I went out, I found Mrs. Dockey still stolidly tying up boxes in the entrance hall.

“The Doctor told me about moving,” I said to her. “It looks like I’ll be going along with you, for a while, anyhow.”

“Okay,” she growled, without looking at me. “Be there at eight-thirty sharp. Bus leaves at eight-forty.”

“I will,” I said, and half ran to the car. It was then close to five o’clock.

I STOOD IN THE MORGANS’ LIVING ROOM WITH MY COAT STILL ON, FOR IT WAS NOT SUGGESTED THAT I STAY
for dinner or anything else. Both Joe and Rennie were in the kitchen, leisurely preparing supper for the boys. They seemed in good humor, and had apparently been joking about something.

“Where have you been this time?” Rennie asked.

“Everything’s all settled,” I said.

“All you have to do is catch the next plane to Vatican City,” Joe told her, mocking the weariness and relief of my voice, “and tell the man you’re the Pope’s concubine.”

“I said once and for all I won’t lie,” Rennie laughed.

“I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock,” I said. “The appointment’s for nine-thirty. It won’t be Ergotrate.”

Rennie’s smile faded; she paled a little.

“Have you really found somebody?”

“Yes. He’s a retired specialist who runs a convalescent home out near Vineland.”

“What’s his name?” Joe asked unsmilingly.

“He wants to stay anonymous. That’s understandable enough. But he’s a good doctor. I’ve known him for several years, before I came here. In fact, I took this teaching job at his suggestion.”

They showed some surprise.

“I’ve never heard of a convalescent home out that way,” Rennie said doubtfully.

“That’s because he keeps the place private, for his patients’ benefit, and because he’s a Negro doctor with an all-white clientele. Not many people know about him.”

“Is he safe?” Joe asked, a little suspiciously. They were both standing in the doorway by this time.

“That doesn’t matter,” Rennie said quickly, and went back to the stove.

“Will you be ready at nine?” I asked her.

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

“You’ll want to come too, won’t you?” I asked Joe.

“I don’t know,” he said dully. “I’ll decide later.”

It was as though I’d spoiled something.

Back in my room, the pressure off, I experienced a reaction not only against the excitement of the days just past but against my whole commitment. It was not difficult to feel relieved at having finally prevented Rennie’s suicide, but it was extremely difficult to feel chastened, as I wanted to feel chastened. I wanted the adventure to teach me this about myself: that regardless of what shifting opinions I held about ethical matters in the abstract, I was not so consistently the same person (not so sufficiently “real,” to use Rennie’s term) that I could involve myself seriously in the lives of others without doing real damage all around, not least of all to my own tranquillity; that my irrational flashes of conscience and cruelty, of compassion and cynicism—in short, my inability to play the same role long enough—could give me as well as others pain, and that the same inconsistency rendered it improbable that I could remain peacefully in painful positions for very long, as Joe, for example, could remain. I didn’t consistently need or want friends, but it was clear (this too I wanted to learn) that, given my own special kind of integrity, if I was to have them at all I must remain uninvolved—I must leave them alone.