Onion Songs

SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Now, this place has no mirrors. They were all removed before I came. Rowley, who seems perfectly normal except for his worship of the letter “T,” says it’s because of the glass—potential sharp edges and all of that—which makes perfect sense, of course. The fact that I didn’t think of that right away, that the danger wasn’t immediately apparent, could be symptomatic to a professional’s eyes I suppose.

In any case, I suspect that it’s more than an issue of shards of glass and the damage they might do to hands or a face. Sometimes I imagine what it must have been like for these people, the only friends I have left in the world, when they had mirrors to contend with. To be on your way to a dinner party at the Queen of the May’s tree house, anxious to discuss the rise of unsweetened misery with her grand counselor the unzippered fly, and then to have to confront this image of an old man in a hospital gown, his butt hanging out, hair much whiter than he remembers, and the expression on his face so frail and weepy—well, it would be quite a come down in the world I think, quite a trip down to the abandoned shore.

So why encourage the upset? Banish the mirrors. Rowley tells me that the first step, however, was to remove the smaller mirrors but to cover the larger ones with thick layers of cardboard and tape. What a scene that must have been! To see these great panels with their reflections draped—and to wonder—and you just know they all did—what secrets were being hidden from them.

The one in charge (Is it another doctor? I have no idea.) would have done well to have asked Rowley, or the General, Stuttering Will, any of them. Ask a madman. The faces of the past are everywhere, rising out of the shadows, shining in the windows, curled into the folds of stained pajamas. Ready to cling and travel with you like airborne seeds or balls of cat’s fur.

And still there are worse things than memory. There is regret, and failed anticipations. There are those faces as well, the lives you have turned your back on.

The General marshals his troops. The chairs with their sturdy legs perform admirably—no resistance there. But the lamp and the seat cushion refuse to cooperate at every opportunity, not even waiting for the General to turn his back. He reaches out a hand to steady them into place, but the hand is shaky. It’s the new medication but I’m not sure if the General realizes this. He thinks he’s getting too old for this, but he’s really only thirty-six.

I have heard that at one time the General had quite a responsible job. Vice president of paper clips and coat hangers or some such. Then at some point he could not do it anymore. He missed his place, lost his bookmark. Forgot his lines. It’s almost surprising, the number of men in here simply because they forgot their lines and couldn’t do their jobs anymore. I think that is part of what happened to me, but maybe not all of it.

The ballerina crashes into the TV whilst performing her pirouette. The others complain, but I help her up. “I left my slippers on my other feet,” she tells me, and dances off toward the sunroom.

On television a man in a nervous black suit delivers a lecture on job interview techniques. In their battered chairs my fellow audience members hang on his every word, but do not take notes. Some combinations of medicines play havoc with a person’s handwriting. They may make it more difficult to read. It has been three months since I last opened a newspaper, and my fourteen letters home remain unwritten.

“Who better to sing the song of the tragic tractor?” John whispers into the ear I reserve for secrets.

Ants perform an intricate maneuver across the wallpaper by my left shoulder. One line of their travels duplicates the slogan of a popular cold medication.

Sitting in the darkest corner of a too-bright room, Bob says goodbye all day long.

And by the door to the lunchroom/visiting room, one of the male nurses attempts to wave me over. A young actress from an old television series peers like a scared bird from beneath his left arm. From the way the male nurse stands, I do believe he wants to have sex with her.

Upon further examination I realize this is my daughter come to visit, and I understand I must separate her from the nurse’s bad intentions as quickly as possible.

I hurry over, ignoring the protests of separated Siamese twins—one black and one white—who sit on the floor each day, commenting on the invisible skin that connects them, that is forever being trampled upon by oblivious passers-by. When I reach the young woman, my daughter, she walks me into the lunchroom for our visit. I hug her awkwardly, and what I get back from her is more than mere awkwardness. I sense her fear that if I hug her too completely she will be compelled to remain here forever.

“Dad, you don’t belong here. I want you to come home.”

I look around knowing what she means, but not quite able to parse that meaning. This is my home—this is where I live. And the idea that fragile human beings, so ill at ease in their own bodies, could actually “belong” anywhere is quite beyond me.

“This is home,” I say simply, careful not to reveal any of the many complications. Normal people never want to hear about the many complications. It scares them, or worse, makes them angry.

She bites back a tear, re-enacting a scene I have witnessed in many movies and television shows. I wonder which one she has copied this particular instance from.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Dad.” She’s come to me without patience, which I must admit makes me a bit apprehensive.

“I think my doctors would disagree.”

“You’re here voluntarily, Dad. Your doctor told me. He says you can leave anytime you want. So why don’t you leave?”

This is unexpected, and I feel the smile I’ve maintained since first seeing her falling away. For just a moment I get a glimpse of how I must seem to her, this aging man, her father, who has given up and chosen the institution to hide out the rest of his days.

The windows begin to cry, and the floors sigh with the weight of the invisible. “Don’t take my bag of sleep,” I say to her, thinking there may be nothing I can do to convince her of my aberration. I turn to watch the windows weep.

“Do you know what the weather is like outside, Dad?”

“It’s raining, my love. I’m not crazy.”

“Then come home, or whatever you want to call the place. Come with me.”

The roof is on fire above me. I can smell the children’s burning flesh. Soon there will be no more roof, and I will stare straight up to Neptune.

I look at her. She is crying. I can remember the little girl she had been and I feel terrible. “I can’t decide who to be,” I say, beginning to cry myself.

“Just be yourself, Dad.” Her anger is obviously genuine—it’s worn into her face. I am grateful to recognize that.

Somewhere, in another hall, Shirley is waiting for the Insect King. She is dressed in white, with three folds of newspaper over her head. I know this because this is what she does every day. She has married and divorced the Insect King many times. Theirs is a troubled relationship.

“Dad, why aren’t there more visitors?”

I don’t know how to explain this to her. “We get visitors,” I tell her. “Every Saturday afternoon…” But I can’t go on. Bob and Shirley, the General, the Ballerina, they’ve all wandered into the lunchroom. They sit down, they get up, they wander around the room. Cold like a hand rubs at my arm.

“She wouldn’t want you to be like this…” my daughter is saying, has been saying. I wasn’t listening.

“What did you say, honey?”

She looks at me oddly. “Mom. I was saying that Mom wouldn’t have wanted you to act like this after she died. She would have wanted you to keep it together.”

The cold in my arm settles deeper, and despite myself I look up, toward the window.

And there I am, pacing back and forth, gesturing angrily. I move my head in front of my daughter’s face, afraid that she might see. But she can’t see, of course.

And as I turn my head I see myself again, a gentler, more contented me, standing behind my daughter and getting ready to caress her with his hands. And somehow this one is even worse than the other one.

“Get away from her!” I scream, and before I know it the male nurse is behind me, dragging me away. My friends protest the aggressiveness of this solution, even the Siamese twins. My daughter cries like a little girl, inconsolable, and that is the worst of this.

In my room, the light bulb speaks disparagingly of the night. Dust beneath my bed dances to the sad songs the walls would sing if only they had mouths.

I gaze out of my one face and a hundred faces of me stare back, all angry for my failure of ambition and terrible lack of care. If I am not careful I know they will be the death of me.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I whisper quietly. “I don’t know how to be.”

And the faces come, and come again, to make one vast and unforgiving stare.