The Madman's Tale (50 page)

Then Little Black pushed through the door, and left him alone with the three new men.

Francis watched as the large retarded man sat on the edge of the bed and gave his doll a hug. Then he began to rock back and forth, with a little half grin on his face, as if he was slowly assessing his new surroundings. The Dancer did a little spin, and then went over to the barred window and simply stared out at what remained of the afternoon.

But the third man, the stocky one, spied Francis and seemed to stiffen instantly. For a second, he recoiled. Then he rose up and pointed accusingly at Francis and stepped quickly across the floor, dodging the beds, and right up into Francis’s face. He was hissing with rage. “You must be the one,” the man spat, his voice barely a whisper, but filled with an awful low noise of anger. “You must be the one! You’re the one that’s looking for me, aren’t you?” Francis did not reply, but pushed himself back tight to the wall. The man lifted a fist and held it beneath Francis’s jaw. His eyes flashed fury but it was contradicted by the snakelike sound of his voice, words that filled the space around them like a rattler’s warning sound.

“Because I’m the one you’re looking for.” He sliced words from the air.

Then, with a nonchalant smile, he pushed past Francis and out the door into the hallway.

B
ut I knew, didn’t I?

Perhaps not right at that moment, but soon enough. At first, I was still taken aback, surprised by the vehemence of the admission thrust in my face. I could feel a quiver within me, and all of the voices shouted out warnings and misgivings, contradictory impulses to hide, to follow, but mostly to pay attention to what I understood. Which was of course, that it didn’t make sense. Why would the Angel simply walk directly up to me and confess his presence, when he had done so much to conceal who he was? And, if the stocky man wasn’t really the Angel, why had he said what he did?

Filled with misgivings, my insides a turmoil of questions and conflicts, I took a deep breath, steadied my nerves and rushed through the dormitory door in order to trail the stocky man out into the corridor, leaving the Dancer and the retarded hulk behind. I watched him as he paused, lighting a cigarette with a dandified flourish, then looking up and surveying the new world that he’d been transferred into. I realized that the landscape of every housing unit was different. Perhaps the architecture was similar, the hallways and offices, dayroom, cafeteria, dormitory spaces, storage closets, stairwells, upstairs isolation cells all following more or less the same pattern, with maybe little design distinctions. But that wasn’t the real terrain of each housing unit. The contours and topography were really defined by all the variety of madnesses contained within. And that was what the stocky man hesitated, assessing. I caught another glimpse of his eyes, and I knew that he was a man usually on the verge of an explosion. A man who had
little control over all the rages that raced around his bloodstream contending with the Haldol or Prolixin that he was given daily. Our bodies were battlefields of contending armies of psychosis and narcotics, fighting from house to house for control, and the stocky man seemed to be caught up as much as any of us in that war
.

I didn’t think the Angel was
.

I saw the stocky man push aside an elderly senile fellow, a thin, sickly sort who stumbled and almost fell to the floor and just as nearly burst into tears. The stocky man persisted down the corridor, pausing only to scowl at two women rocking in a corner singing lullabies to baby dolls held in their arms. When a wild-haired, disheveled Cato in loose pajamas and long, flowing housecoat, harmlessly meandered into his path, he screamed at the blank-faced man to move aside, and then continued on, his pace quickening, as if his footsteps could keep the beat defined by his anger. And every step he traveled took him farther, I thought, from the man we were pursuing. I don’t think I could have said exactly why but I knew it with a certainty that grew as I followed down the corridor. I could see in my imagination precisely how when the fight broke out in Williams that had been orchestrated by Lucy, the stocky man had been instantly caught up in the trading of blows, and that was why he was transferred to Amherst. An addendum to the incident. He wasn’t the sort who could ever idly sit back and watch a conflict unfold, shrinking into a corner, or taking refuge against the wall. He would respond electrically, leap in immediately, regardless of what the cause was, or who was fighting whom, or the why or wherefore of any of it. He just liked a fight, because it allowed him to step away from all the impulses that tormented him, and lose himself in the exquisite anger of trading blows. And then, when he rose, bloodied, his madness wouldn’t allow him to wonder why he’d done what he’d done
.

Part of his illness, I recognized, was in always drawing attention to himself
.

But why had he been so specific, thrusting his face up to mine? “I’m the man you’re looking for”?

In my apartment, I bent forward, leaning my head up against the wall, placing my forehead against the words that I’d written, while I paused, deep within my own memories. The pressure against my temple reminded me a little of a cold compress placed on the skin, trying to reduce a childhood fever. I closed my eyes for an instant, hoping to get a little rest
.

But a whisper creased the air. It hissed directly behind me
.

“
You didn’t think I would make it easy for you?”

I didn’t turn. I knew that the Angel was both there and not there
.

“
No,” I said out loud. “I didn’t think you would make it easy. But it took me some time to figure out the truth
.”

Lucy saw Francis emerge from the dormitory, trailing after another man and not the one that she’d sent him to keep an eye on. She could see that Francis’s face was pale, and he seemed to her to be riveted on what he was doing, almost oblivious to the predinner half step, do-si-do square dance of anticipation going on in the crowded corridor. She took a stride in his direction, then stopped, knowing somewhere within her that C-Bird probably had a reasonable grasp on what he was doing.

She lost sight of the two men as they headed into the dayroom, and she began to maneuver toward that room, when she saw Mister Evans steaming down the hallway toward her. He had the wild-eyed look of a dog that has had its well-gnawed bone stolen from him.

“So,” he said angrily, “I hoped you’re pleased. I’ve got one attendant over at the emergency room with a fractured wrist, and I’ve had to transfer three patients from Williams and put a fourth in restraints and in isolation for at least twenty-four hours, maybe more. I’ve got uproar and turmoil in one housing unit, and one of the transfers is probably significantly at risk, because he’s had to shift locations after several years. And through no fault of his own. He just got caught up in the fight by accident, but ended up getting threatened. Damn! I hope you can appreciate what a setback this is, and how dangerous it is, especially for the patients who come to accept one thing and are suddenly tossed into another housing unit.”

Lucy looked at him coldly. “You think I managed all that?”

“I do,” Evans said.

“I must be far more clever than I thought,” she answered sarcastically.

Mister Evil snorted, his face flushed. It was the appearance of a man who doesn’t like seeing the carefully balanced world that he controls upset in any fashion, Lucy thought. He started to respond angrily, impetuously, but, then, in a manner that Lucy found unsettling, he managed to gain control, and speak in a far more contained fashion.

“My recollection,” Mister Evil said slowly, “was that your arrangement here, working in this treatment facility was dependent on a lack of disruption. I seem to remember that you agreed to keep a low profile, and not to get in the way of the treatment plans already in place.”

Lucy did not respond. But she heard what he was implying.

“That’s my understanding,” Mister Evil continued. “But correct me if I’m wrong.”

“No, you’re not wrong,” she said, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” These were falsehoods, she knew.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” he said. “And, I presume, you intend to continue interviewing patients in the morning.”

“I do.”

“Well, we’ll see,” he said. And with the thinly veiled threat hovering in the air, Mister Evil turned and started to the front door. He stopped after a couple of strides, when he spotted Big Black accompanying Peter the Fireman. The psychologist immediately saw that Peter wasn’t restrained, as he had been earlier. “Hey!” he called out, waving at Big Black and Peter. “Hold it right there!”

The huge attendant stopped, turning toward the dormitory head. Peter hesitated, as well.

“Why isn’t he in restraints?” Mr. Evans shouted angrily. “That man is not allowed out of this facility without cuffs on his hands and feet. Those are the rules!”

Big Black shook his head. “Doctor Gulptilil said it would be okay.”

“What?”

“Doctor Gulptilil—,” Big Black repeated, only to be cut off.

“I don’t believe that. This man is under a court hold. He faces serious assault and manslaughter charges. We have a responsibility …”

“That’s what he said.”

“Well, I’m going to check on it. Right now.” Evans spun, leaving the two men standing in the corridor, as he blasted toward the front door, first fumbling with his keys, swearing when he thrust the wrong one into the lock, swearing louder when the second one failed to work, and then finally giving up, and lurching off down the corridor toward his office, scattering patients out of his path.

Francis trailed behind the stocky man, as the new resident cut a swath through Amherst. There was something in the way his head was cocked slightly to the side, his lip raised, white teeth displayed, the bend of his shoulders forward and the thickly tattooed forearms swinging at his waist that clearly warned the other patients to steer to one side or the other. A predatory, challenging walk through Amherst. The stocky man took a long look through the dayroom, like a surveyor eyeballing a tract of land. The few remaining patients inside the room shrank to the corners, or buried themselves behind out-of-date magazines, avoiding eye contact. The stocky man seemed to like this, as if he was pleased to see that his bully status was going to be easily established, and he stepped into the center of the room. He didn’t seem aware that Francis was following him until he stopped.

“So,” he said in a loud voice, “I’m here now. Don’t anybody try to fuck with me.”

As he projected this, it seemed a little foolish to Francis. And perhaps cowardly, as well. The only folks left in the dayroom were old and obviously infirm,
or else lost in some distant and private world. Nobody who might rise to challenge the stocky man was available.

Despite his voices shouting caution within him, Francis took several steps toward the stocky man, who finally grew aware of Francis’s presence and spun to face him.

“You!” he said loudly. “I thought I’d already dealt with you.”

“I want to know what you meant,” Francis said cautiously.

“What I meant?” The man mocked Francis with a singsong voice. “What I meant? I meant what I said and I said what I meant and that’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t understand,” Francis said, a little too eager. “When you said ‘I’m the man you’re looking for,’ what did you mean?”

The man brayed out loud. “Seems pretty damn obvious, don’t it?”

“No,” Francis said cautiously, shaking his head. “It isn’t. Who do you think I’m looking for?”

The stocky man grinned. “You’re looking for one mean mother, that’s who. And you’ve found him. What? Don’t you think I can be mean enough for you?” He stepped toward Francis, bunching his hands into fists, bending forward slightly at the waist, cocking his body like the hammer on a pistol.

“How did you know I was looking for you?” Francis persisted, holding his ground despite all the urgent entreaties within him to flee.