The Madman's Tale (12 page)

But into that sudden void, Lanky stepped. His voice was quivering, on the verge of tears. “If we are to blame for all that is happening, then there’s no hope for any of us. None.”

This was said with such unbridled despair that several of the other people in the session, who had been quiet until then, immediately muffled cries. One old man started to tear up, and a woman wearing a pink ruffled housecoat, far too much mascara on her eyes, and tufted white bunny rabbit slippers cut loose with a sob. “Oh, that’s sad,” she said. “That’s so sad.”

Francis watched the social worker, as he tried to regain control over the session. “The world is the way the world has always been,” he said. “It’s our own part in it that concerns us here.”

It was the wrong thing to say, because Lanky jumped to his feet. He was waving his arms suddenly above his head, much the way he had when Francis had first encountered him. “But that’s it!” he cried, startling some of the more timid members of the group. “Evil is everywhere! We must find a way to keep it out! We must band together. Form committees. Have watchdog groups. We must organize! Coordinate! Make a plan. Raise defenses. Guard the walls. We’ve got to work hard to keep it out of the hospital!” He took a deep breath, and pivoted, searching out all the members of the group session with his eyes.

Several heads nodded in unison. This made sense.

“We can keep evil out,” Lanky said. “But only if we’re vigilant.”

Then, his body still shaking with the effort speaking out had taken, he sat
back down, and once again folded his arms across his chest retreating into silence.

Mr. Evans glared at Peter the Fireman, as if he was to blame for Lanky’s outburst. “So,” he said slowly, “Peter. Tell us. Do you think if we’re to keep Satan outside these walls, perhaps then we should all be going to church on a regular basis?”

Peter the Fireman stiffened in his seat.

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think—”

“Shouldn’t we be praying? Going to services. Saying our Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s and Perfect Acts of Contrition. Taking communion on every Sunday? Shouldn’t we be confessing our sins on a near constant basis?”

Peter the Fireman’s voice grew low and very quiet. “Those things might make you feel better. But I don’t believe—”

But Mr. Evans interrupted him a second time. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, an edgy cynicism in each word. “Going to church and all sorts of organized religious activities would be highly inappropriate for the Fireman, wouldn’t they? Because the Fireman, well, you have a problem with churches, right?”

Peter shifted in his seat. Francis could see a slippery fury behind his eyes, which he had never seen before.

“Not churches. A church. And I had a problem. But I solved it, didn’t I, Mister Evans?”

The two men stared at each other for a second, then Evans said, “Yes. I suppose you did. And see where it has landed you.”

At dinner, things seemed to grow worse for Lanky.

The meal that night was creamed chicken, which was mostly a thick, grayish cream and not much chicken, with peas that had been boiled into a state where whatever claim they might once have had on being a vegetable had evaporated in the heat of the stove, and hard baked potatoes that had the same consistency as frozen, except that they were as hot as coals taken from the bottom of a fire. The tall man sat alone, at a corner table, while the other residents of the building jammed into seats at the other tables, trying to give him space. One or two residents had tried to join him at the start of the dinner, but Lanky had waved them away furiously, growling a bit like an old dog disturbed from its sleep.

The usual buzz of conversation seemed muted, the ordinary clatter of dishes and trays seemed softer. There were several tables set aside for the elderly, senile patients, who needed assistance, but even the hovering, attentive busywork of feeding them, or aiding the catatonics who stared blankly ahead,
barely aware that they were being fed, seemed quieter, more subdued. From where he was seated, chewing unhappily on the tasteless meal, Francis could see that all the attendants in the dining room kept tossing glances at Lanky, trying to keep an eye on him, as they went about the business of taking care of the others. At one point Gulp-a-pill put in an appearance, spent a few moments intently observing Lanky before speaking rapidly with Evans. Before he left, Gulp-a-pill wrote out a scrip, which he handed to another nurse.

Lanky seemed oblivious to the attention he was drawing.

He was talking rapidly to himself, arguing back and forth, as he pushed the food on his plate about into a rapidly congealing mess. He gulped at a glass of water, gestured once or twice wildly, pointing at the air in front of him, his bony index finger jabbing the space, as if punching the chest of no one in front of him as he made a dramatic point to no one who was there. Then, just as rapidly, he would lower his face, and stare at his food, and return to mumbling to himself.

It was near dessert, squares of lime green Jell-O, when Lanky finally looked up, as if suddenly aware of where he was. He spun about in his seat, a look of surprise and astonishment on his face. His wiry gray hair, which usually fell in slimy rings to his shoulders, now seemed electrically charged, like a Saturday morning cartoon character whose finger is pushed into a light socket, except this was not a joke and no one was laughing. His eyes were wide and wild with fear, much like they had been when Francis first encountered the older man, but multiplied, as if accelerated by passion. Francis saw them search rapidly around the room, and then fasten on Short Blond, who was only a little ways away from where Lanky was seated, trying to help an elderly woman through her dinner, cutting each slimy morsel of chicken into small bites, then lifting them to her mouth as if she were a baby in a highchair.

Lanky pushed back sharply from his seat, sending the chair clattering to the floor. In the same motion, he lifted his cadaverous finger and began pointing it at the young nurse-trainee.

“You!” he cried out furiously.

Short Blond looked up, confused. For a second she pointed at herself, and Francis could see her mouth the word, “Me?” She didn’t move from where she was seated. Francis thought that this was probably her limited training. Any veteran of the hospital would have reacted much more swiftly.

“You!” he cried again. “It must be you!”

From the far side of the dining room, both Little Black and his brother started moving rapidly across the space. But the rows of tables and chairs and the crowd of patients, made their course filled with obstacles, and slowed their pace. Short Blond rose to her feet, staring at Lanky, who was now striding
toward her quickly, finger outstretched, pointing directly at her. She recoiled slightly, backing up toward the wall.

“It’s you, I know it!” he cried. “You’re the new one! You’re the one that hasn’t been checked! It’s you, it must be! Evil! Evil! We’ve let her through the door! Get away! Get away! Everyone be careful! No telling what she might do!”

His frantic warnings seemed to imply to the other patients that Short Blond was diseased or explosive. Throughout the dining room, people shrank back in sudden fear.

Short Blond retreated to the nearest wall and held up her hand. Francis could see the edge of panic in her eyes as the old man steadily descended upon her, arms flapping like bird wings.

He started to wave the other patients away, his voice rising in pitch and fury, “Don’t worry! I’ll protect us!”

Big Black was now pushing tables and chairs aside, and Little Black vaulted one patient, who had fallen to his knees in some indistinct terror of his own. Francis could see Mister Evil sweeping in their direction, and Nurse Wrong and another nurse also moving through the tangle of patients, all of whom were knotting together, unsure whether to flee or to watch.

“It’s you!” Lanky shouted as he reached the nurse-trainee, and towered menacingly above her.

“It’s not!” Short Blond screamed in her high-pitched, reedy voice.

“It is!” Lanky yelled back.

“Lanky! Stop there!” Little Black shouted. Big Black was closing fast, his own face set in an obsidian mask of determination.

“It isn’t, it isn’t!” Short Blond said, cowering, sliding down the wall.

And then, with Big Black and Mister Evil still yards away, there was a momentary silence. Lanky rose up, stretching toward the ceiling, as if he was going to throw himself down upon Short Blond. Francis heard Peter the Fireman cry out from nearby, but he wasn’t sure where, “Lanky don’t! Stop right now!”

And, to Francis’s surprise, the big man did.

He looked down at Short Blond and a quizzical look came over his face, almost as if he was inspecting test results from an experiment that didn’t precisely show what the scientist thought they should. His face took on a skewed, curious expression. Much more quietly, he gazed at Short Blond, and asked, almost politely, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she choked, “I’m sure!”

He stared at her closely. “I’m confused,” he said sadly. It was a deflation of immediate and immense proportions. One second, he’d been this avenging force, gathered as if for assault, then in a microsecond, he was childlike and small, diminished by a storm of doubts.

In that moment, Big Black finally reached Lanky’s side, and roughly grabbed the tall man by the arms, pinning them back. “What the hell are you doing!” he demanded angrily. Little Black was only a stride behind, and he stepped into the space between the patient and the nurse-trainee. “Step back!” he insisted, a command that was obeyed instantly, because his immense brother jerked Lanky rearward.

“I could be wrong,” Lanky said, shaking his head. “It seemed so clear, at first. Then it changed. Just all of a sudden, it changed. I’m just not sure.”

The tall man turned his head to Big Black, craning his ostrichlike neck. Doubt and sadness filled his voice. “I thought it had to be her, you see. It had to be. She’s the newest. She hasn’t been here at all long. A newcomer, to be sure. And we have to be so careful not to let evil inside the walls. We have to be vigilant at all times. I’m sorry,” he said, turning as Short Blond rose to her feet, trying to regain her own composure. “I was so sure.” He looked at her hard again, and his eyes narrowed.

“I’m just still not sure,” he said stiffly. “It could be. She could be lying to me. Satan’s assistants are expert liars. They are deceivers, each and every one of them. It’s easy for them to make someone seem innocent, when they’re really not.”

Now his voice lacked rage and doubt.

Short Blond stepped away from the group, keeping her eyes warily on where Lanky was being held by Big Black. Evans had finally managed to cross the room and join the tangle of people, and he was speaking directly to Little Black. “See that he gets a sedative tonight. Fifty milligrams of Nembutal, IV, at medication time. Maybe we should put him in isolation for the night, as well.”

Lanky was still eyeing Short Blond, when he heard the word
isolation
. He spun toward Mister Evil and shook his head vehemently. “No, no, I’m okay, really, I am, I was just doing my job, really. I won’t be a problem, I promise …” His voice trailed off.

“We’ll see,” said Evans. “See how he responds to the sedative.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lanky insisted. “Really. I won’t be a problem. Not at all. Please don’t put me into isolation.”

Evans turned to Short Blond. “You can take a break,” he said. But the slender nurse-trainee shook her head.

“I’m okay,” she replied, mustering some bravery in her words, and went back to feeding the elderly woman in the wheelchair. Francis noted that Lanky was still staring in Short Blond’s direction, his unwavering gaze marked with what he took for uncertainty, but, later, realized could be many different emotions.
The usual evening crowd pushed and complained at medication time that night. Short Blond was behind the wire mesh of the nurses’ station, helping to distribute the pills, but the other, older and more experienced nurses took the lead in handing out the evening concoctions. A few voices were raised in complaint, and one man started crying when another pushed him aside, but it seemed to Francis that the outburst at dinner had rendered most of the Amherst residents if not exactly speechless, at least subdued. He thought to himself that the hospital was all about balances. Medications balanced out the madness; age and confinement balanced out energy and ideas. Everyone in the hospital accepted a certain routine, he thought, where space and action were limited and defined and regimented. Even the occasional jostling and arguing, like nightly at medication time, was all part of an elaborate insane minuet, as codified as a Renaissance dance step.

He saw Lanky enter the area in front of the nurses’ station, accompanied by Big Black. The tall man was shaking his head, and Francis heard him complain, “I’m okay, I’m okay. I don’t need anything extra to calm me down …”

But Big Black’s face had lost the easygoing edge it usually wore, and Francis overheard him say calmly, “Lanky, you gotta do this nice and easy-like, because otherwise we’re gonna have to put you in a jacket and lock you up in isolation for the night, and I know you don’t want that. So take yourself a deep breath and roll up your sleeve and don’t fight something that shouldn’t be fought.”