The Madman's Tale

Chapter 1

I can no longer hear my voices, so I am a little lost. My suspicion is they would know far better how to tell this story. At least they would have opinions and suggestions and definite ideas as to what should go first and what should go last and what should go in the middle. They would inform me when to add detail, when to omit extraneous information, what was important and what was trivial. After so much time slipping past, I am not particularly good at remembering these things myself and could certainly use their help. A great many events took place, and it is hard for me to know precisely where to put what. And sometimes I'm unsure that incidents I clearly remember actually did happen. A memory that seems one instant to be as solid as stone, the next seems as vaporous as a mist above the river. That's one of the major problems with being crazy: you're just naturally uncertain about things.

For a long time, I thought it all began with a death and ended with a death, a little like a nice set of bookends, but now I'm less positive. Perhaps what truly put all those moments in motion all those years back when I was young and truly mad was something far smaller or more elusive, like a hidden jealousy or an unseen anger, or much larger and louder, like the positions of the stars in the heavens or the forces of the ocean tides and the inexorable spin of the earth. I do know that some people died, and I was a lucky child not to join them, which was one of the last observations my voices made, before they abruptly disappeared from my side.

Instead, what I get now instead of their whispered words are medications to quiet their noises. Once a day I dutifully take a psychotropic, which is an oval-shaped, eggshell blue pill and which makes my mouth so dry that when I speak I sound like a wheezing old man after too many cigarettes or maybe some parched deserter from the Foreign Legion who has crossed the Sahara and is begging for a drink of water. This is followed immediately by a foul-tasting and bitter mood-elevator to combat the occasional black hearted and suicidal depression I am constantly being told by my social worker that I am likely to tumble into at just about any minute regardless of how I actually do feel. In truth, I think I could walk into her office and click up my heels in pure joy and exaltation over the positive course of my life, and she would still ask me whether I had taken my daily dosage. This heartless little pill makes me both constipated and bloated with excess water, sort of like having a blood pressure cuff wrapped around my midsection instead of my left arm, and then pumped up tight. So I need to take a diuretic and then a laxative to alleviate these symptoms. Of course, the diuretic gives me a screaming migraine headache, like someone especially cruel and nasty is taking a hammer to my forehead, so there are codeine-laced painkillers to deal with that little side effect as I race to the toilet to resolve the other. And every two weeks I get a powerful antipsychotic agent in a shot by going to the local health clinic and dropping my pants for the nurse there who always smiles in precisely the same fashion and asks me in exactly the same tone of voice how I am that day, to which I reply "Just fine" whether I am or not, because it is pretty obvious to me, even through the various fogs of madness, a little bit of cynicism and drugs, that she doesn't really give a damn one way or the other, but still considers it part of her job to take note of my reassurance. The problem is the antipsychotic, which prevents me from all sorts of evil or despicable behavior, or so they like to tell me, also gives me a bit of palsy in my hands, making them shake as if I was some nervously dishonest taxpayer confronting an accountant from the IRS. It also makes the corners of my mouth twitch slightly, so I need to take a muscle relaxant to prevent my face from freezing into a permanent scare-the-neighborhood-kids mask. All these concoctions zip around willy-nilly through my veins, assaulting various innocent and probably completely befuddled organs on their way to calming the irresponsible electrical impulses that crackle about in my brain like so many unruly teenagers. Sometimes I feel like my imagination is similar to a wayward domino that has suddenly lost its balance, first teetering back and forth and then tumbling against all the other forces in my body, triggering a great linked chain reaction of pieces haphazardly falling click click click around inside of me.

It was easier, by far, when I was still a young man and all I had to do was listen to the voices. They weren't even all that bad, most of the time. Usually, they were faint, like fading echoes across a valley, or maybe like whispers you would hear between children sharing secrets in the back of a playroom, although when things grew tense, their volume increased rapidly. And generally, my voices weren't all that demanding. They were more, well, suggestions. Advice. Probing questions. A little nagging, sometimes, like a spinster great-aunt who no one knows precisely what to do with at a holiday dinner, but is nevertheless included in the festivities and occasionally blurts out something rude or nonsensical or politically incorrect, but is mostly ignored.

In a way, the voices were company, especially at the many times I had no friends.

I did have two friends, once, and they were a part of the story. Once I thought they were the biggest part, but I am no longer so sure.

Now, some of the other people I met during what I like to think of as my truly mad years had it far worse than I. Their voices shouted out orders like so many unseen Marine drill sergeants, the sort that wear those dark brown green wide-brimmed hats perched just above their eyebrows, so that their shaved skulls are visible from the rear. Step lively! Do this! Do that!

Or worse: Kill yourself.

Or even worse: Kill someone else.

The voices that shrieked at those folks came from God or Jesus or Mohammad or the neighbor's dog or their long-dead great-uncle or extraterrestrials or maybe a chorus of archangels or perhaps a choir of demons. These voices would be insistent and demanding and utterly without compromise and I got so that I could recognize in the tautness that these people would wear in their eyes, the tension that tightened their muscles, that they were hearing something quite loud and insistent, and it rarely promised any good. At moments like those, I would simply walk away, and wait near the entranceway or on the opposite side of the dayroom, because something altogether unfortunate was likely to happen. It was a little like a detail I remembered from grade school, one of those odd facts that stay with you: In the event of an earthquake, the best place to hide is in a doorway, because the arched structure of the opening is architecturally stronger than a wall, and less likely to collapse on your head. So when I saw the turbulence in one of my fellow patients become volcanic, I would find the arch where I thought the best chance of surviving lay. And once there, I could listen to my own voices, which generally seemed to watch out for me, more often than not warning me when to make tracks and hide. They had a curiously self-preservative streak to them, and if I hadn't been so stupidly obvious in replying out loud to them when I was young and they first joined my side, I probably never would have been diagnosed and shipped off in the first place, as I was. But that is part of the story, although not the greatest part by any means, but still, I miss them in an odd way, for now I am mostly lonely.

It is a very hard thing, in this time of ours, to be mad and middle-aged.

Or ex-mad, as long as I keep taking the pills.

My days are now spent in search of motion. I don't like to be sedentary for too long. So I walk, fast-paced, a quick march around the town, from parks to shopping areas, to industrial sections, watching and observing, but keeping myself on the move. Or else I seek out events where there is a waterfall of movement in my view, like a high school football or basketball game, or even a youth soccer game. If there is something busy going on in front of me, then I can take a rest. Otherwise, I keep my feet going five, six, seven or more hours per day. A daily marathon that wears through the soles of my shoes, and keeps me lean and sinewy. In the winter, I beg unwieldy, clunky boots from the Salvation Army. The rest of the year, I wear running shoes that I get from the local sports store. Every few months the owner kindly slides me a pair of some discontinued model, size twelve, to replace the ones that have been side walked into tatters upon my feet.

In the early spring, after the first melt-out of ice, I march my way up to the Falls, where there is a fish ladder, and I daily volunteer to monitor the return of salmon to the Connecticut River watershed. This requires me to watch endless gallons of water flow through the dam, and occasionally spot a fish climbing against the current, driven by great instincts to return to where it was itself spawned where, in that greatest of all mysteries, it will in its own turn, spawn and then die. I admire the salmon, because I can appreciate what it is like to be driven by forces others cannot see or feel or hear and to feel the imperative of a duty that is greater than oneself. Psychotic fish. After years of gallivanting about most pleasantly in the great wide ocean, they hear a mighty fish-voice deep inside them resonating and that insists they head on this impossible journey toward their own death. Perfect. I like to think of the salmon as if they are as mad as I once was. When I see one, I make a pencil notation on a form the state Wildlife Service provides me and sometimes whisper a quiet greeting: Hello, my brother. Welcome to the society of the crazed.

There is a trick to spotting the fish, because they are sleek and silver-sided from their travels in the salt of the ocean so many scores of miles away. It is a shimmering presence in the glistening water, invisible to the uneducated eye, almost as if a ghostly force has entered the small window where I keep watch. I get so I can almost feel the arrival of a salmon before it actually appears at the base of the ladder. It is satisfying to count the fish, even though hours can pass without one arriving and there are never enough of them to please the wildlife folks, who stare at the charts of returnees and shake their heads in frustration.

But the benefits of my ability to spot them translates into other advantages. It was my boss at the Wildlife Service who called the local police and informed them I was completely harmless, although I always wondered how he deduced that and have my sincere doubts as to its overall truthfulness. So I am tolerated at the football games and other events, and now, really, if not precisely welcomed in this little, former mill town, at least I am accepted. My routine isn't questioned, and I am seen less as crazy and more as eccentric, which, I have learned over the years is a safe enough status to maintain.

I live in a small one-bedroom apartment paid for by a state subsidy. My place is furnished in what I call sidewalk-abandoned modern. My clothes come from the Salvation Army or from either of my two younger sisters, who live a couple of towns away, and occasionally, bothered by some odd guilt that I don't really understand, feel the need to try to do something for me by raiding their husbands' closets. They purchased me a secondhand television that I seldom watch and a radio I infrequently listen to. Every few weeks they will visit, bringing slightly congealed home-cooked meals in plastic containers and we spend a little time talking together awkwardly, mostly about my elderly parents, who don't care to see me much anymore, for I am a reminder of lost hopes and the bitterness that life can deliver so unexpectedly. I accept this, and try to keep my distance. My sisters make sure the heat and electric bills are paid. They make certain that I remember to cash the meager checks that arrive from various government aid agencies. They double-check to make absolutely sure that I have taken all my medications. Sometimes they cry, I think, to see how close to despair that I live, but this is their perception, not mine, for, in actuality, I'm pretty comfortable. Being insane gives one an interesting take on life. It certainly makes you more accepting of certain lots that befall you, except for those times when the medications wear a bit thin, and then I can get pretty exercised and angry at the way life has treated me.

But for the most part, I am, if not happy, at least understanding.

And there are some intriguing sidelights to my existence, not the least of which is how much of a student I have become of life in this little town. You would be surprised how much I learn in my daily travels. If I keep my eyes open and ears cocked, I pick up all sorts of little slivers of knowledge. Over the years, since I was released from the hospital, after all the things that were going to happen there did happen, I have used what I learned, which is: to be observant. Pounding out my daily travels, I come to know who's having a tawdry little affair with which neighbor, whose husband is leaving home, who drinks too much, who beats their children. I can tell which businesses are struggling, and who has come into some money from a dead parent or lucky lottery ticket. I discover which teenager hopes for a college football or basketball scholarship, and which teenager will be shipped off for a few months to visit some distant aunt and perhaps deal with a surprise pregnancy. I have come to know which cops will cut you a break, and which are quick with the nightstick or the ticket book, depending on the transgression. And there are all sorts of littler observations, as well, ones that come with who I am and who I've become for example the lady hairdresser who signals me at the end of the day to come in and cuts my hair so that I am more presentable during my daily travels, and then slips me an extra five dollars from her day's tips, or the manager of the local McDonald's who spots me pacing past, and runs after me with a bag filled with burgers and fries and has come to know that I am partial to vanilla shakes, not chocolate. Being mad and walking abroad is the clearest window on human nature; it is a little like watching the town flow along like the water cascading past the fish ladder window.

And it isn't as if I am useless. I once spotted a factory door ajar at a time it was always closed and locked, and found a policeman, who took all the credit for the burglary that he interrupted. But the police did give me a certificate when I got the license plate of a hit-and-run driver who knocked a bicyclist senseless one spring afternoon. And in something awkwardly close to the takes-one-to-know-one category, as I cruised past a park where children were playing one fall weekend, I spotted a man and I knew as soon as I saw him, hanging by the entranceway, that something was completely wrong. Once my voices would have noticed him, and they would have shouted out a warning, but this time I took it upon myself to mention him to the young preschool teacher I knew who was reading a woman's magazine on the bench ten yards from the sandbox and swing set and not quite paying enough attention to her charges. It turned out the man was recently released and had been registered just that morning as a sex offender.

This time, I didn't get a certificate, but the teacher had the children paint me a colorful picture of themselves at play, and they wrote a thank-you across it in that wondrously crazy script that children have before we burden them with reason and opinions. I carried the picture back to my little apartment and placed it on the wall above my bed, where it is now. I have a musty brown life, and it reminds me of the colors I might have experienced if I hadn't stumbled onto the path that had brought me here.

That, then, more or less, is the sum of my existence, as it is now. A man on the fringe of the sane world.

And, I suspect I would have simply passed the remainder of my days this way, and never really bothered to tell what I know about all those events I witnessed had I not received the letter from the state.

It was suspiciously thick and had my name typed on the outside. Amid the usual pile of grocery store flyers and discount coupons, it stood out dramatically. You don't get much personal mail when you live as isolated a life as I do, so when something out of the ordinary arrives, it seems to glow with the need to be examined. I threw the useless papers away and tore this open, curiosity pricked. The first thing I noticed was that they got my name right.

Dear Mr. Francis X. Petrel:

It started well enough. The trouble with having a first name that one shares with the opposite sex, is that it breeds confusion. It is not uncommon for me to get form letters from the Medicare people concerned that they have no record of the results of my latest pap smear, and have I had myself checked for breast cancer? I have given up trying to correct these misguided computers.

The Committee to Preserve the Western State Hospital has identified you as one of the last patients to be released from the institution before its doors were permanently closed some twenty years ago. As you may know, there is a movement under way to turn part of the hospital grounds into a museum, while releasing the remainder for development. As part of that effort, the Committee is sponsoring a daylong "examination" of the hospital, its history, the important role it played in this state, and the current approach to treatment of the mentally ill. We invite you to join in the upcoming day. There are seminars, speeches, and entertainment planned. A tentative event program is enclosed. If you can attend, please contact the person below at your earliest convenience.

I glanced down at the name and number whose title was Planning Board Co-chairperson. Then I flipped to the enclosure, which was a list of activities planned for the day. These included, as the letter said, some speeches by politicians whose names I recognized, right up to the lieutenant governor and the State Senate Minority leader. There would be discussion groups, headed up by doctors and social historians from several of the nearby colleges and universities. One item caught my eye: a session entitled "The Reality of the Hospital Experience A Presentation." This was followed by the name of someone I thought I might remember from my own days in the hospital. The celebration was then to finish off with a musical interlude by a chamber orchestra.

I put the invitation down on a table and stared at it for a moment. My first instinct was to toss it with the rest of the day's trash, but I did not. I picked it up again, read through it a second time, and then went and sat on a rickety chair in a corner of the room, assessing the question that had been posed. I knew people were forever going to reunions. Pearl Harbor or D-Day veterans get together. High school classmates show up after a decade or two to examine expanding waistlines, balding pates, or augmented breasts. Colleges use re unions as a way of extorting funds from misty-eyed graduates, who go stumbling around the old ivy-decked halls recalling only the good moments and forgetting the bad. Reunions are a constant part of the normal world. Folks are always trying to relive times that in their memory were better than they really were, rekindle emotions that in truth far best belong in their past.

Not me. One of the by-products of my state of mind is a devotion to looking ahead. The past is a runaway jumble of dangerous and painful memories. Why would I want to go back?

And yet, I hesitated. I found myself staring at the invitation with a fascination that seemed to flower within me. Although the Western State Hospital was only an hour's ride away, I had never returned there in any of the years after my release. I doubted anyone who'd spent a single minute behind those doors had.

I looked down at my hand and saw that it was shaking slightly. Perhaps my medications were wearing thin. Again, I told myself to toss the letter in the wastebasket and then take off across town. This was dangerous. Unsettling. It threatened the very careful existence that I had stitched together. Walk fast, I told myself. Travel quickly. Pace out your normal routine, because it is your salvation. Put this behind you. I started to do exactly that, then stopped.

Instead, I reached out for the phone and punched in the numbers for the chairperson. I waited through two rings, then heard a voice:

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Robinson- Smythe, please," I said a little too briskly.

"This is her secretary. Who is calling?"

"My name is Francis Xavier Petrel…"

"Oh, Mr. Petrel, you must be calling about the Western State day…"

"That's correct," I said. "I'll be there."

"That's great. Now let me just put you through…"

But I hung up the phone, almost scared of my own impulsiveness. I was out the door and pounding the pavement as fast as I could, before I had a chance to change my mind. I wondered, as the yards of concrete sidewalk and black macadam highway passed beneath my soles and the storefronts and houses of my town went unnoticed by my eyes, if my voices would have told me to go. Or not.

It was an unseasonably hot day, even for late May. I had to transfer buses three times before reaching the city, and each time it seemed that the mingling of hot air and diesel engine fumes had grown worse. The stink greater. The humidity higher. At each stop I told myself that it was completely wrong to go back, but then refused to take my own advice and kept going.

The hospital was on the outskirts of a small typically New England college town which sported equal numbers of book shops pizzerias, Chinese restaurants, and low-cost clothing stores with a military bent. There was a slightly iconoclastic character to some of the businesses, however like the bookstore that specialized in self-help and spiritual growth tomes, where the clerk behind the counter looked like someone who had read every book offered on the shelves and hadn't found any that helped, or the sushi bar that looked a bit bedraggled, and the sort of place where the fellow slicing the raw fish was likely to be named Tex or Paddy and speak with a drawl or a brogue. The heat of the day seemed to emanate from the sidewalk beneath my feet, radiant warmth like a space heater in winter that has only one setting: hot as hell. The small of my back was sticking unpleasantly to the one white dress shirt I owned, and I would have loosened my tie were I not afraid that I wouldn't be able to straighten it again. I wore the only suit I possessed: a blue wool go-to-a-funeral suit that I had purchased secondhand in anticipation of my parents' deaths, but they had, as yet, managed to stubbornly cling to breath, and so this was the first occasion I'd ever worn it. I definitely thought it would be a good suit to be buried in, because it would undoubtedly keep my remains warm in the cold earth. By the time I was midway up the hill toward the hospital grounds, I was already vowing that it would be the last time I ever consciously put it on, no matter how infuriated my sisters would be when I showed up at the wake they had planned for our parents in shorts and an outrageously loud Hawaiian print shirt. But what could they truly say? After all, I'm the crazy one in the family. A built-in excuse for all sorts of behavior.

In a great, curious joke of construction, the Western State Hospital was built on the top of a hill, overlooking the campus of a famous women's college. The hospital buildings mimicked the college, lots of ivy and brick and white framed windows in rectangular three- and four-story dormitories, laid out in quadrangles with benches and stands of small elm trees. I always suspected that the same architects were involved in both projects, and the hospital contractor simply stole materials from the college. From the sky, a passing crow would have assumed that the hospital and the college were more or less the same place. The same bird would have failed to see how different the two campuses were until one stepped inside each building. Then he would have seen the differences.

The physical line of demarcation was a single-lane black macadam road, not even adorned with a sidewalk, that curved up one side of the hill, and a riding corral on the other, where the even better-heeled students among the already well-heeled, exercised their horses. I saw that the stables and the jumps were still where they had been when I'd last seen them twenty years earlier. A solitary horse and rider were going through their paces, circling endlessly around the oval beneath the early summer sun, then accelerating into the jumps. A Mobius strip of action. I could hear the harsh breathing of the animal as it labored in the heat and see a long blond ponytail protruding from beneath the rider's black helmet. Her shirt was black with sweat, and the horse's flanks glistened. Both seemed oblivious to the activity taking place above them, farther up the hill. I walked past, heading to where I saw a bright yellow-striped tent had been erected, just inside the tall brick wall and iron gate to the hospital. A printed sign said registration.

A large, overly well-intentioned lady behind a card table outfitted me with a name tag, pinning it to my suit coat with a flourish. She also equipped me with a folder that contained reprints of numerous newspaper articles detailing the development plans for the old hospital grounds: condos and luxury homes because the land had a view of the valley and the river in the distance. I thought that was odd. In all the time I spent there, I could never remember seeing the blue band of the river in any distant vision. Of course, I might have thought it was an hallucination, anyway. There was also a brief history of the hospital and some grainy, black-and-white photographs of patients being treated or passing the time in the day rooms I scanned the pictures for faces I recalled, including my own, but saw no one I recognized, except that I recognized everyone. We were all the same, once. Shuffling about in various states of dress and medication.

The folder contained a program for the day's activities, and I saw a number of people heading in to what I remembered was the main administration building. The lecture scheduled for that time block was a presentation, by a history professor, entitled "The Cultural Significance of the Western State Hospital." Considering that we inmates were limited to the grounds, and more often than not, locked in the dormitories, I wondered what he would find to talk about. I recognized the lieutenant governor, surrounded by several aides, shaking hands with other politicians as he walked through the door. He was smiling, but I couldn't recall anyone else ever smiling when they were escorted into that building. It was the place you were first taken, and where you were processed. There was also a warning in large block letters at the bottom of the program, stating that many of the hospital's buildings were in significant states of disrepair, and dangerous to enter. The warning requested that visitors limit themselves to the administration building and to the quadrangles for safety purposes.

I took a few steps toward the line of people heading into the lecture, then stopped. I watched the crowd dwindle, as the building devoured them. Then I turned, and walked quickly across the quadrangle.

It was a pretty simple realization that struck me: I wasn't there to hear a speech.

It did not take me long to find my old building. I could have walked the paths with my eyes closed.

The metal grates that covered the windows had rusted, the iron burnished by time and dirt. One hung like a broken wing from a single brace. The brick exterior had faded, too, dulled to a earthy brown color. The shoots of ivy that were springing forth green with the season seemed to cling with little energy to the walls, untended, wild. The shrubbery that used to adorn the entranceway had died, and the large double doors that led into the building hung loosely from cracked and splintered jambs. The name of the building, carved into a gray granite slab on the corner, much like a tombstone, had suffered as well: someone had chipped away at the stone, so that the only letters I could make out were mherst. The a that had begun the title was now a jagged scar.

All the housing units had been named after in some person's cosmic sense of irony famous colleges and universities. There had been Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, Williams and Wesleyan, Smith and Mount Holyoke and Wellesley, and, of course, mine, which was Amherst. The building named for the town and the college, which in turn had been named after a British soldier, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, whose original claim to fame had been heartlessly equipping rebellious Indian tribes with blankets infected with smallpox. His gifts managed to swiftly accomplish what bullets, trinkets, and negotiations could not.

There was a sign nailed to the door, and I walked up to read it. The first word was danger, written in large print. Then there was some blah-blah-blah legalese from the county building inspector, which amounted to an official condemnation of the building. It was followed, in equally large letters: NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY.

I thought this was interesting. Once it had seemed to those who occupied the building that we were the ones being condemned. It had never occurred to any of us that the walls, bars, and locks that made up our lives would one day face the same status.

It appeared, as well, that someone else had refused to obey the admonishment. The door locks had been worked over with a crowbar, a device that lacks subtlety, and the doors were ajar. I reached out and pulled hard, and with a creaking noise, the entranceway slid open.

A musty smell filled the first corridor. There was a pile of empty wine and beer bottles in the corner, which, I guessed, explained the nature of the other visitors to the building: high school kids searching for a place to drink away from spying parental eyes. The walls were streaked with dirt and odd graffiti slogans in different hues of spray paint. One said bad boys rules I supposed so. Pipes had ripped through the ceilings, dripping fetid dark water onto the linoleum floors. Debris and trash, dust and dirt filled each corner. Mixed with the flat smell of age and disuse was the distinct odor of human waste. I took a few steps forward, but had to stop. A sheet of wallboard had pulled away and fallen across the corridor blocking the path. I saw the center stairs to my left, which led to the upper floors, but they were littered with even more refuse. I wanted to walk through the dayroom, off to my left, and I wanted to see the treatment rooms, which lined the first floor. I also wanted to see the upper floor cells, where we were locked up when we struggled with our medications or our madness, and the dormitory bunk rooms, where we slept like unhappy campers in rows of steel beds. But the stairway looked unstable, as if it would sway and collapse under my weight if I tried to climb it.

I am not sure how long I remained inside, squatted down, bent over, listening to the echoes of all that I had once seen and heard. Just as when I was a patient, time seemed less urgent, less compelling, as if the second hand on my watch slowed to a crawl, and the minutes passed reluctantly.

Ghosts of memory stalked me. I could see faces, hear sounds. Tastes and smells of madness and neglect came back in a steady tidal rush. I listened to my past, as it swirled about me.

When the heat of recollection finally overcame me, I rose stiffly and slowly exited the building. I walked over to a bench in the quadrangle beneath a tree, and sat down, turning my face back to what had once been home. I felt exhausted and breathed in the fresh air with effort, more tired in that moment than I was after any of my usual sorties around my hometown. I did not turn away, until I heard some footsteps on the pathway behind me.

A short, portly man, a little older than I, with thinned-out, slicked-down black hair streaked with silver, was hurrying toward where I was sitting. He wore a wide smile, but a little anxiousness in his eyes, and when I faced him, he made a furtive wave.

"I thought I would find you here," he said, wheezing with the effort and the heat. "I saw your name on the registration list."

He stopped a few feet away, suddenly tentative.

"Hello, C-Bird," he said.

I stood and held out my hand. "Bonjour Napoleon," I replied. "No one has called me by that name in many, many years."

He grasped my hand. His was a little sweaty with exertion and had a palsied weakness to the grip. That would be the result of his medications. But the smile remained. "Me, neither," he said.

"I saw your real name on the program," I told him. "You're going to give a speech?"

He nodded. "I don't know about getting up in front of all those people," he said. "But my treating physician is one of the movers and shakers in the hospital redevelopment plan and it was all his idea. He said it would be good therapy. A solid demonstration of the golden road to total recovery."

I hesitated, then asked, "What do you think?"

Napoleon sat down on the bench. "I think he's the crazy one," he said, breaking into a slightly manic giggle, a high-pitched sound that joined nervousness and joy at once and that I remembered from our time together. "Of course, it helps that everyone still believes you're completely crazy, because then you can't really embarrass yourself too badly," he added, and I grinned along with him. That was the sort of observation only someone who had spent time in a mental hospital would make. I sat back down next to him and we both stared over at the Amherst Building. After a moment or two, he sighed. "Did you go inside?"

"Yes. It's a mess. Ready for the wrecker's ball."

"I thought the same back when we were there. And everyone thought it was the best place to be. At least that's what they told me when I was processed in. State-of-the-art mental health facility. The best way to treat the mentally ill in a residential setting. What a lie."

He caught his breath, then added, "A damn lie."

Now it was my turn to nod in agreement.

"Is that what you will tell them. In the speech, I mean."

He shook his head. "I don't think that's what they want to hear. I think it makes more sense to tell them nice things. Positive things. I'm planning a series of raging falsehoods."

I thought about this for a moment, then smiled. "That might be a sign of mental health," I said.

Napoleon laughed. "I hope you're right."

We were both silent for a few seconds, then, in a wistful tone, he whispered, "I'm not going to tell them about the killings. And not a word about the Fireman or the lady investigator that came to visit or anything that happened at the end." He looked up at the Amherst Building, then added, "It would really be your story to tell, anyway."

I didn't reply.

Napoleon was quiet for a moment, then he asked me, "Do you think about what happened?"

I shook my head, but we both understood this was a falsehood. "I dream about it, sometimes," I told him. "But it's hard to remember what was real and what wasn't."

"That makes sense," he said. "You know one thing that bothered me," he added slowly, "I never knew where they buried the people. The people who died while they were here. I mean, one minute they were in the dayroom or hanging in the hallways along with everyone else, and the next they might be dead, but what then? Did you ever know?"

"Yes," I said, after a moment or two. "They had a little makeshift graveyard over at the edge of the hospital, back toward the woods behind administration and Harvard. It was behind the little garden. I think now it's part of a youth soccer field."

Napoleon wiped his forehead. "I'm glad to know that," he said. "I always wondered. Now I know."

Again we were quiet for a few seconds, then he said, "You know what I hated learning. Afterward and everything, when we were released and put into outpatient clinics and getting all the treatment and all the newer drugs. You know what I hated?"

"What?"

"That the delusion that I'd clung to so hard for so many years wasn't just a delusion, but it wasn't even a special delusion. That I wasn't the only person to have fantasies that I was the reincarnation of a French emperor. In fact, I bet Paris is chockablock filled with them. I hated that understanding. In my delusional state, I was special. Unique. And now, I'm just an ordinary guy who has to take pills and whose hands shake all the time and who can't really hold anything more than the simplest job and whose family probably wishes would find a way to disappear. I wonder what the French word for poof! is."

I thought about this, then told him, "Well, personally, for whatever it's worth, I always had the impression that you were a damn fine French emperor. Cliche or not. And if it had really been you ordering troops around at Waterloo, why hell, you would have won."

He giggled a sound of release. "C-Bird, all of us always knew that you were better at paying attention to the world around us than anyone else. People liked you, even if we were all deluded and crazy."

"That's nice to hear."

"What about the Fireman. He was your friend. Whatever happened to him? Afterward, I mean."

I paused, then answered: "He got out. He straightened out all his problems, moved to the South, and made a lot of money. Had a family. Big house. Big car. Very successful all around. Last I heard, he was heading up some charitable foundation. Happy and healthy."

Napoleon nodded. "I can believe it. And the woman who came to investigate? Did she go with him?"

"No. She went on to a judgeship. All sorts of honors. She had a wonderful life."

"I knew it. You could just tell."

Of course, this was all a lie.

He looked down at his watch. "I need to get back. Get ready for my great moment. Wish me luck."

"Good luck," I said.

"It's good seeing you again," Napoleon added. "I hope your life goes okay."

"You, too," I said. "You look good."

"Really? I doubt it. I doubt very many of us look good. But that's okay. Thanks for saying it."

He stood and I joined him. We both looked back at the Amherst Building.

"I'll be happy when they tear it down," Napoleon said with a sudden burst of bitterness. "It was a dangerous, evil place and not much good happened there."

Then he turned back to me. "C-Bird, you were there. You saw it all. You tell everyone."

"Who would listen?"

"Someone might. Write the story. You can do it."

"Some stories should be left unwritten," I said.

Napoleon shrugged his rounded shoulders. "If you write it, then it will be real. If all it does is stay in our memories, then it's like it never happened. Like it was some dream. Or hallucination thought up by all of us madmen. No one trusts us when we say something. But if you write it down, well, that gives it some substance. Makes it all true enough."

I shook my head. "The trouble with being mad," I said, "was it was real hard to tell what was true and what wasn't. That doesn't change, just because we can take enough pills to scrape along now in the world with all the others."

Napoleon smiled. "You're right," he said. "But maybe not, too. I don't know. I just know that you could tell it and maybe a few people would believe it, and that's a good enough thing. No one ever believed us, back then. Even when we took the medications, no one ever believed us."

He looked at his watch again, and shifted his feet nervously.

"You should get back," I said.

"I must get back," he repeated.

We stood awkwardly until he finally turned, and walked away. About midway down the path, Napoleon turned, and gave me the same unsure little wave that he had when he'd first spotted me. "Tell it," he called. Then he turned and walked quickly away, a little duck like in his style. I could see that his hands were shaking again.

It was after dark when I finally quick marched up the sidewalk to my apartment, and climbed the stairs and locked myself into the safety of the small space. A nervous fatigue seemed to pulse through my veins, carried along the bloodstream with the red cells and the white cells. Seeing Napoleon and hearing myself called by the nickname that I'd received when I first went to the hospital startled emotions within me. I thought hard about taking some pills. I knew I had some that were designed to calm me, should I get overly excited. But I did not. "Tell the story," he'd said to me. "How?" I said out loud in the quiet of my own home.

The room echoed around me.

"You can't tell it," I said to myself.

Then I asked the question: Why not?

I had some pens and pencils, but no paper.

Then an idea came to me. For a second, I wondered whether it was one of my voices, returning, filling my ear with a quick suggestion and modest command. I stopped, listening carefully, trying to pluck the unmistakable tones of my familiar guides from the street sounds that penetrated past the laboring of my old window air conditioning unit. But they were elusive. I didn't know whether they were there, or not. But uncertainty was something I had grown accustomed to.

I took a slightly worn and scratched table chair and placed it against the side of the wall deep in the corner of the room. I didn't have any paper, I told myself. But what I did have were white-painted walls unadorned by posters or art or anything.

Balancing myself on the seat, I could reach almost to the ceiling. I gripped a pencil in my hand and leaned forward. Then I wrote quickly, in a tiny, pinched, but legible script:

Francis Xavier Petrel arrived in tears at the Western State Hospital in the hack of an ambulance. It was raining hard, darkness was falling rapidly, and his arms and legs were cuffed and restrained. He was twenty-one years old and more scared than he'd ever been in his entire short, and to that point, relatively uneventful life…

Chapter 2

Francis Xavier Petrel arrived in tears at the Western State Hospital in the back of an ambulance. It was raining hard, darkness was falling rapidly, and his arms and legs were cuffed and restrained. He was twenty-one years old and more scared than he'd ever been in his short, and to that point, relatively uneventful life.

The two men who had driven him to the hospital had mostly kept their mouths closed during the ride, except to mutter complaints about the unseasonable weather, or make caustic remarks about the other drivers on the roads, none of whom seemed to meet the standards of excellence that the they jointly held. The ambulance had bumped along the roadway at a moderate speed, flashing lights and urgency both ignored. There was something of dull routine in the way the two men had acted, as if the trip to the hospital was nothing more than a way-stop in the midst of an oppressively normal, decidedly boring day. One man occasionally slurped from a soda can, making a smacking noise with his lips. The other whistled snatches of popular songs. The first sported Elvis sideburns. The second had a bushy lion's mane of hair.

It might have been a trivial journey for the two attendants, but to the young man rigid with tension in the back, his breathing coming in short sprinter's spurts, it was nothing of the sort. Every sound, every sensation seemed to signal something to him, each more terrifying and more threatening than the next. The beat of the windshield wipers was like some deep jungle drum playing a roll of doom. The humming of the tires against the slick road surface was a siren's song of despair. Even the noise of his own labored wind seemed to echo, as if he were encased in a tomb. The restraints dug into his flesh, and he opened his mouth to scream for help, but could not make the right sound. All that emerged was a gargling burst of despair. One thought penetrated the symphony of discord that if he survived the day, he was likely to never have a worse one.

When the ambulance shuddered to a halt in front of the hospital entrance, he heard one of his voices crying out over the stew of fear: They will kill you here, if you are not careful.

The ambulance drivers seemed oblivious to the imminent danger. They opened the doors to the vehicle with a crash, and indelicately pulled Francis out on a gurney. He could feel cold raindrops slapping against his face, mingling with a nervous sweat on his forehead, as the two men wheeled him through a wide set of doors into a world of harshly bright and unforgiving lights. They pushed him down a corridor, gurney wheels squealing against the linoleum, and at first all he could see, as it slid past, was the gray pockmarked ceiling. He was aware that there were other people in the corridor, but he was too scared to turn and face them. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the soundproofing above him, counting the number of light fixtures that he rolled beneath. When he reached four, the two men stopped.

He was aware that some other people had stepped to the front of the gurney. In the space just beyond his head, he heard some words spoken: "Okay, guys. We'll take him from here."

Then a massive, round, black face, sporting a wide row of uneven, grinning teeth suddenly appeared above him. The face was above an orderly's white jacket that seemed, at first glance, to be several sizes too small.

"All right, Mister Francis Xavier Petrel, you ain't gonna cause us no trouble now, are you?" The man had a slightly singsong tenor to his words, so that they came out with equal parts of menace and amusement. Francis did not know what to reply.

A second black face abruptly hovered into his sight on the other side of the gurney, also leaning into the air above him, and this other man said, "I don't think this boy here is going to be any sort of hassle. Not in the tiniest little bit. Are you, Mister Petrel?" He, too, spoke with a soft Southern-tinged accent.

A voice shouted in his ear: Tell them no!

He tried to shake his head, but had trouble moving his neck. "I won't be a problem," he choked out. The words seemed as raw as the day, but he was glad to hear he could speak. This reassured him a bit. He'd been afraid, throughout the day, that somehow he was going to lose the ability to communicate at all.

"Okay, then, Mister Petrel. We going to get you up off the gurney. Then we going to sit down, nice and easy in a wheelchair. You got that? Ain't gonna be loosing those cuffs on your hands and feet quite yet, though. That's gonna come after you speak to the doctor. Maybe he gives you a little something to calm you right down. Chill you right out. Nice and easy now. Sit up, swing those legs forward."

Do what you're told!

He did what he was told.

The motion made him dizzy, and he seemed to sway for a second. He felt a huge hand grab his shoulder to steady him. He turned and saw that the first orderly was immense, well over six and a half feet tall and probably close to three hundred pounds. He had massively muscled arms, and legs that were like barrels. His partner, the other black man, was a wiry, thin man, dwarfed by his partner. He had a small goatee, and a bushy Afro haircut that failed to add much stature to his modest height. Together, the two men steered him into a waiting wheelchair.

"Okay," said the little one. "Now we're going to take you in to see the doc. Don't you worry none. Things may seem nasty-wrong and bad and lousy right now, but they gonna get better soon enough. You can take that to the bank."

He didn't believe this. Not a word.

The two orderlies steered him forward, into a small waiting room. There was a secretary behind a gray steel desk, who looked up as the procession came through the doorway. She seemed an imposing, prim woman, on the wrong side of middle age, dressed in a tight blue suit, hair teased a bit too much, eyeliner a little too prominent, lip gloss slightly overdone, giving her a contradictory sort of appearance, a demeanor that seemed to Francis Petrel to be half librarian and half streetwalker. "This must be Mr. Petrel," she said brusquely to the two black orderlies, although it was instantly obvious to Francis that she didn't expect an answer, because she already knew it. "Take him straight in. The doctor is expecting him."

He was pushed through another door, into a different office. This was a slightly nicer space, with two windows on the back wall that overlooked a courtyard. He could see a large oak tree swaying in the wind pushed up by the rainstorm. And, beyond the tree, he could see other buildings, all in brick, with slate black roof lines that seemed to blend with the gloom of the sky above. In front of the windows was an imposing large wooden desk. There was a shelf of books in one corner, and some overstuffed chairs and a deep red oriental carpet resting on top of the institutional gray rug that covered the floor, creating a small sitting area off to Francis's right. There was a photograph of the governor next to a portrait of President Carter on the wall. Francis took it in as rapidly as possible, his head swiveling about. But his eyes quickly came to rest upon a small man, who rose from behind the desk, as he came into the room.

"Hello, Mister Petrel. I am Doctor Gulptilil," he said briskly, voice high-pitched, almost like a child's.

The doctor was overweight and round, especially in the shoulders and the stomach, bulbous like a child's party balloon that had been squeezed into a shape. He was either Indian or Pakistani. He had a bright red silk tie fastened tightly around his neck, and sported a luminous white shirt, but his ill-fitting gray suit was slightly frayed at the cuffs. He appeared to be the sort of man who lost interest in his appearance about midway through the process of dressing in the morning. He wore thick, black-rimmed glasses, and his hair was slicked back and curled over his collar. Francis had difficulty telling whether he was young or old. He noticed that the doctor liked to punctuate every word with a wave of his hand, so that his speech became a conductor's movement with his baton, directing the orchestra in front.

"Hello," Francis said tentatively.

Be careful what you say! One of his voices shouted.

"Do you know why you are here?" the doctor asked. He seemed genuinely curious.

"I'm not at all sure," Francis replied.

Doctor Gulptilil looked down at a file and examined a sheet of paper.

"You've apparently rather scared some people," he said slowly. "And they seem to think you are in need of some help." He had a slight British accent, just a touch of an Anglicism that had probably been eroded by years in the United States. It was warm in the room, and one of the radiators beneath the window hissed.

Francis nodded. "That was a mistake," he said. "I didn't mean it. Things just got a little out of control. An accident, really. Really no more than a mistake in judgment. I'd like to go home, now. I'm sorry. I promise to be better. Much better. It was all just an error. Nothing meant by it. Not really. I apologize."

The doctor nodded, but didn't precisely reply to what Francis had said.

"Are you hearing voices, now?" he asked.

Tell him no!

"No."

"You're not?"

"No."

Tell him you don't know what he's talking about! Tell him you've never heard any voices!

"I don't exactly know what you mean by voices," Francis said.

That's good!

"I mean do you hear things spoken to you by people who are not physically present? Or perhaps, you hear things that others cannot hear."

Francis shook his head rapidly.

"That would be crazy," he said. He was gaining a little confidence.

The doctor examined the sheet in front of him, then once again raised his eyes toward Francis. "So, on these many occasions when your family members have observed you speaking to no one in particular, why was that?"

Francis shifted in his seat, considering the question. "Perhaps they are mistaken?" he said, uncertainty sliding back into his voice.

"I don't think so," answered the doctor.

"I don't have many friends," Francis said cautiously. "Not in school, not in the neighborhood. Other kids tend to leave me alone. So I end up talking to myself a lot. Perhaps that's what they observed."

The doctor nodded. "Just talking to yourself?"

"Yes. That's right," Francis said. He relaxed just a little more.

That's good. That's good. Just be careful

The doctor glanced at his sheets of paper a second time. He wore a small smile on his face. "I talk to myself, sometimes, as well," he said.

"Well. There you have it," Francis replied. He shivered a little and felt a curious flow of warmth and cold, as if the damp and raw weather outside had managed to follow him in, and had overcome the radiator's fervent pumping heat.

"… But when I speak with myself, it is not a conversation, Mister Petrel. It is more a reminder, like "Don't forget to pick up a gallon of milk…" or an admonition, such as, "Ouch!" or "Damn!" or, I must admit, sometimes words even worse. I do not carry on full back and forth, questions and replies with someone who is not present. And this, I fear, is what your family reports you have been doing for some many years now."

Be careful of this one!

"They said that?" Francis replied, slyly. "How unusual."

The doctor shook his head. "Less so than you might think, Mister Petrel."

He walked around the desk so that he closed the distance between the two of them, ending up by perching himself on the edge of the desk, directly across from where Francis stayed confined in the wheelchair, limited certainly by the cuffs on his hands and legs, but equally by the presence of the two attendants, neither of whom had moved or spoken, but who hovered directly behind him.

"Perhaps we will return in a moment to these conversations you have, Mister Petrel," Doctor Gulptilil said. "For I do not fully understand how you can have them without hearing something in return and this genuinely concerns me, Mister Petrel."

He is dangerous, Francis! He's clever and doesn't mean any good. Watch what you say!

Francis nodded his head, then realized that the doctor might have seen this. He stiffened in the wheelchair, and saw Doctor Gulptilil make a notation on the sheet of paper with a ballpoint pen.

"Let us try a different direction, then, for the moment, Mister Petrel," the doctor continued. "Today was a difficult day, was it not?"

"Yes," Francis said. Then he guessed that he'd better expand on that statement, because the doctor remained silent, and fixed him with a penetrating glance. "I had an argument. With my mother and father."

"An argument? Yes. Incidentally, Mister Petrel, can you tell me what the date is?"

"The date?"

"Correct. The date of this argument you had today."

He thought hard for a moment. Then he looked outside again, and saw the tree bending beneath the wind, moving spastically, as if its limbs were being jerked and manipulated by some unseen puppeteer. There were some buds just forming on the ends of the branches, and so he did some calculations in his head. He concentrated hard, hoping that one of the voices might know the answer to the question, but they were, as was their irritating habit, suddenly quite silent. He glanced about the room, hoping to spot a calendar, or perhaps some other sign that might help him, but saw nothing, and returned his eyes to the window, watching the tree move. When he turned back to the doctor, he saw that the round man seemed to be patiently awaiting his response, as if several minutes had passed since he was asked the question. Francis breathed in sharply.

"I'm sorry…" he started.

"You were distracted?" the doctor asked.

"I apologize," Francis said.

"It seemed," the doctor said slowly, "that you were elsewhere for some time. Do these episodes happen frequently?"

Tell him no!

"No. Not at all."

"Really? I'm surprised. Regardless, Mister Petrel, you were to tell me something…"

"You had a question?" Francis asked. He was angry with himself for losing the train of their conversation.

"The date, Mister Petrel?"

"I believe it is the fifteenth of March," Francis said steadily.

"Ah, the ides of March. A time of famous betrayals. Alas, no." The doctor shook his head. "But close, Mister Petrel. And the year?"

He did some more calculations in his head. He knew he was twenty-one and that he'd had his birthday a month earlier, and so he guessed, "Nineteen seventy-nine."

"Good," Doctor Gulptilil replied. "Excellent. And what day is it?"

"What day?"

"What day of the week, Mister Petrel?"

"It is…" Again he paused. "Saturday."

"No. Sorry. Today is Wednesday. Can you remember that for me?"

"Yes. Wednesday. Of course."

The doctor rubbed his chin with his hand. "And now we return to this morning, with your family. It was a little more than an argument, wasn't it, Mister Petrel?"

No! It was the same as always!

"I didn't think it was that unusual…"

The doctor looked up, a slight measure of surprise on his face. "Really? How curious, Mister Petrel. Because the report that I have obtained from the local police claims that you threatened your two sisters, and then announced that you were intending to kill yourself. That life wasn't worth living and that you hated everyone. And then, when confronted by your father, you further threatened him, and your mother, as well, if not with an attack, then with something equally dangerous. You said you wanted the whole world to go away. I believe those were your exact words. Go away. And the report further contends, Mister Petrel, that you went into the kitchen in the house you share with your parents and your two younger sisters, and that you seized a large kitchen knife, which you brandished in their direction in such a fashion that they believed that you intended to attack them with the weapon before you finally threw it so that it stuck into the wall. And, then, additionally, when police officers arrived at the house, that you locked yourself in your room and refused to exit, but could be heard speaking loudly inside, in argument, when there was no one present in the room with you. They had to break the door down, didn't they? And lastly, that you fought against the policemen and the ambulance attendants who arrived to help you, requiring one of them to need treatment himself. Is that a brief summary of today's events, Mister Petrel?"

"Yes," he replied glumly. "I'm sorry about the officer. It was a lucky punch that caught him above the eye. There was a lot of blood."

"Unlucky, perhaps," Doctor Gulptilil said, "both for you and him."

Francis nodded.

"Now, perhaps you could enlighten me as to why these things happened this day, Mister Petrel."

Tell him nothing! Every word you speak will be thrown back at you!

Francis again gazed out the window, searching the horizon. He hated the word why. It had dogged him his entire life. Francis, why can't you make friends? Why can't you get along with your sisters? Why can't you throw a ball straight or stay calm in class. Why can't you pay attention when your teacher speaks to you? Or the scoutmaster. Or the parish priest. Or the neighbors. Why do you always hide away from the others every day? Why are you different, Francis, when all we want is for you to be the same? Why can't you hold a job? Why can't you go to school? Why can't you join the Army? Why can't you behave? Why can't you be loved?

"My parents believe I need to make something of myself. That was what caused the argument."

"You are aware, Mister Petrel, that you score very highly on all tests? Remarkably high, curiously enough. So perhaps their hopes for you are not unfounded?"

"I suppose so."

"Then why did you argue?"

"A conversation like that never seems as reasonable as we're making it sound now," Francis replied. This brought a smile to Doctor Gulptilil's face.

"Ah, Mister Petrel, I suspect you are correct about that. But I fail to see how this discussion escalated so dramatically."

"My father was determined."

"You struck him, did you not?"

Don't admit to anything! He hit you first! Say that!

"He hit me first," Francis dutifully responded.

Doctor Gulptilil made another notation on a sheet of paper. Francis shifted about. The doctor looked up at him.

"What are you writing?" Francis asked.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. I want to know what you are writing."

Don't let him snow you! Find out what he's writing! It won't be anything good!

"These are just some notes about our conversation," the doctor said.

"I think you should show me what you're writing down," Francis said. "I think I have the right to know what it is you're writing down."

Keep at it!

The doctor said nothing, so Francis continued, "I'm here, I've answered your questions, and now I have one. Why are you writing things about me without showing me? That's not fair."

Francis shifted in his wheelchair and pulled against the bonds that restrained him. He could feel the warmth of the room building, as if the heat had suddenly spiked. He strained hard for a moment, trying to free himself, but was unsuccessful. He took a deep breath and slumped back into his seat.

"You are agitated?" the doctor asked, after a few silent moments had passed. This was a question that didn't really need an answer, because the truth was so obvious.

"It's just not fair," Francis said, trying to instill calm back into his own words.

"Fairness is important to you?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Yes, perhaps Mister Petrel, you are correct about that."

Again the two men were quiet. Francis could hear the radiator hissing again and then thought that perhaps it was the breathing of the two attendants, who had not budged from behind him throughout the interview. Then he wondered whether one of his voices might be trying to get his attention, whispering something to him so low that it was hard for him to hear, and he bent forward slightly, as if trying to hear.

"Are you often impatient when things don't go your way, Mister Petrel?"

"Isn't everyone?"

"Do you think you should hurt people when things don't go the way you would like them?"

"No."

"But you get angry?"

"Everyone gets angry sometimes."

"Ah, Mister Petrel, on that point you are absolutely correct. It is, however, a critical question as to how we react to our anger when it arises, is it not? I think we should speak again." The doctor had leaned forward, trying to inject some familiarity in his demeanor. "Yes, I think some additional conversations will be in order. Would that be acceptable to you, Mister Petrel?"

He didn't reply. It was a little like the doctor's voice had faded, as if someone had turned the volume down on the doctor, or as if his words were being transmitted over a great distance.

"May I call you Francis?" the doctor asked.

Again, he did not respond. He did not trust his voice, for it was beginning to mix together with a swelling of emotions within his chest.

Doctor Gulptilil watched him for an instant, then asked, "Say, Francis do you recall what it was that I asked you to remember, earlier in our talk?"

This question seemed to bring him back to the room. He looked up at the doctor, who wore a slyly inquisitive look on his face.

"What?"

"I asked you to remember something."

"I don't recall." Francis snapped his reply.

The doctor nodded his head slightly. "But perhaps, you could remind me, then what day of the week it is…"

"What day?"

"Yes."

"Is it important?"

"Let us imagine that it is."

"Are you sure you asked me this earlier?" Francis said, stalling for time. But this simple fact suddenly seemed elusive, as if concealed behind a cloud within him.

"Yes," Doctor Gulptilil said. "I'm quite sure. What day is it?"

Francis thought hard, battling against the anxiety that abruptly crowded past all his other thoughts. Again he paused, hoping that one of the voices might come to his aid, but again, they had fallen silent.

"I believe it is Saturday," Francis said cautiously. He said each word slowly, tentatively.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." But this word fell out of his mouth with little conviction.

"Do you not recall me telling you earlier it was Wednesday?"

"No. That would be a mistake. It is Saturday." Francis could feel his head spinning, as if the doctor's questions were forcing him to run in ever-concentric circles.

"I think not," said the doctor, "But it is of no importance. You will be staying with us for some time, Francis, and we will have another opportunity to speak of these things. I'm certain that in the future you will remember things better."

"I don't want to stay," Francis replied quickly. He could feel a sudden sense of panic, mingling with despair, instantly welling up within him. "I want to go home. Really, I believe they are expecting me, and it is close to dinnertime, and my parents and my sisters, they all want everyone home for dinner. That's the rule in the house, you see. You need to be there by six, hands and face washed clean. No dirty clothes if you've been playing outside. Ready to say grace. We have a blessing before we eat. We always do. It's my job some days to say the blessing. We need to thank God for putting the food on the table. I believe today it's my turn yes, I'm sure of it so I need to be there, and I can't be late."

He could feel tears stinging at his eyes, and he could hear sobs choking some of his words. These things were happening to a mirror image of himself, and not quite him, but himself slightly apart and distant from the real him. He struggled hard to make all these parts of himself come together and focus as one, but it was difficult.

"Perhaps," Doctor Gulptilil said gently, "you might have a question or two for me?"

"Why can't I go home?" Francis coughed the question out between tears.

"Because people are frightened for you, Francis, and because you frighten people."

"What sort of place is this?"

"It's a place where we will help you," the doctor said.

Liar! Liar! Liar!

Doctor Gulptilil looked up at the two attendants and spoke next to them. "Mister Moses, will you and your brother please take Mister Petrel to the Amherst Building. I have written out a scrip for some medication and some additional instructions for the nurses there. He should get at least thirty-six, perhaps more, hours of observation before they consider shifting him into the open ward." He handed the clipboard across to the smaller of the two men flanking Francis, who nodded his response.

"Whatever you say, Doc," the attendant said.

"Sure thing, Doc," his huge partner replied, stepping behind the wheelchair, grasping the handles and rapidly spinning Francis around. The motion made him suddenly dizzy, and he choked back on the sobs that were filling his chest. "Don't you be so scared, Mister Petrel. Things gonna be okay soon enough. We're gonna take good care of you," the large man whispered.

Francis did not believe him.

He was wheeled back through the office, into the waiting room, tears streaming down his cheeks, his hands quivering against the cuffs. He twisted in the chair, trying to get the attention of either the large or the small attendant, his voice cracking with a combination of fear and an unbridled sadness. "Please," he said, piteously, "I want to go home. They're expecting me. That's where I want to be. Please take me home."

The smaller attendant had his face set, as if the pleas coming from Francis were hard for him to hear. He placed his hand on Francis's shoulder and repeated, "You gonna be okay, now, hear me. It's gonna be okay. Shush now…" He spoke as he might to a baby.

Sobs wracked Francis's body, emanating from deep within him. The prim secretary looked up from her seat behind the desk with an impatient and unforgiving look on her face. "Quiet down!" she ordered Francis. He swallowed back another sob, coughing.

As he did so, he looked across the room and saw two uniformed state troopers, wearing gray tunics and blue riding pants above polished knee-high brown boots. They were both strapping, tall, taut pictures of discipline, with close-cropped hair and their curved and cocked officers' hats held stiffly at their sides. Each wore a glistening leather Sam Browne belt, polished to a reflective shine, and a holstered revolver high on their waist. But it was the man that they flanked that quickly attracted Francis's attention.

He was shorter than the troopers, but solidly built. Francis would have guessed his age to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He stood in a languid, relaxed fashion, his hands cuffed in front of him, but the language of his body seemed to diminish the nature of the restraints, rendering them less restrictive and more as if they were merely an inconvenience. He wore a loose-fitting single-piece navy blue jumpsuit with the title mci-boston stitched in yellow above the left hand chest pocket and a pair of old, worn running shoes that were missing their laces. He had longish brown hair, that poked out from beneath the edges of a sweat-stained Boston Red Sox baseball cap, and a two-day shadow of a beard. But what struck Francis first and foremost were the man's eyes, for they darted about, far more alert and observant than the leisurely pose he maintained, taking many things in as rapidly as possible. The eyes carried something deep, which Francis noticed immediately, even through his own anguish. He could not put a word to it instantly, but it was as if the man had seen something immensely, ineffably sad that lurked just beyond the horizon of his vision, so that whatever he saw, or heard or witnessed was colored by this hidden hurt. The eyes came to fix on Francis, and the man managed a small, sympathetic smile, that seemed to speak directly to Francis.

"Are you okay, fella?" he asked. Each word was tinged with a slight Boston-Irish accent. "Are things that rough?"

Francis shook his head. "I want to go home, but they say I have to stay here," he answered. And then piteously, and spontaneously, he asked, "Can you help me, please?"

The man bent down slightly, toward Francis. "I suspect there are more than a few folks here who would wish to go home and cannot. Myself presently included in that category."

Francis looked up at the man. He did not know precisely why, but the calm tones the man used helped to settle him. "Can you help me?" Francis blurted out, repeating himself.

The man smiled, a mingling of insouciance and sadness. "I don't know what I can do," he said, "but I will do what I can."

"Promise?" Francis asked suddenly.

"All right," the man said. "I promise."

Francis leaned back in the chair, closing his own eyes for a second. "Thank you," he whispered.

The secretary interrupted the conversation with a sharply punctuated command directed to the smaller of the two black attendants. "Mister Moses. This gentleman…" she gestured toward the man in the jumpsuit, "is Mister…" then she hesitated slightly, before continuing seemingly purposefully not using his name,"… the gentleman that we spoke about earlier. The troopers will accompany him in to see the doctor, but please return promptly to escort him to his new accommodations…" this word was spoken with a slight edge of sarcasm,"… as soon as you get Mister Petrel settled over at Amherst. They are expecting him."

"Yes, ma'am," the larger brother said, as if it was his turn to speak, although the woman's comments had been directed toward the smaller of the two men. "Whatever you say, that's what we'll be doing."

The man in the jumpsuit looked down at Francis again. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Francis Petrel," he replied.

The man in the jumpsuit smiled. "Petrel is a nice name. It's a small seabird, you know, common to Cape Cod. They are the birds you see flying just above the waves on summer afternoons, dipping in and out of the spray. Beautiful animals. White wings that beat fast one second, then glide and soar effortlessly the next. They must have keen eyes to be able to spot a sand eel or a pogy in the surf. A poet's bird, to be sure. Can you fly like that, Mister Petrel?"

Francis shook his head.

"Ah," the man in the jumpsuit said. "Well, perhaps you should learn. Especially if you're going to be locked up in this delightful place for too long."

"Be quiet!" one of the troopers interjected with a gruffness that made the man smile. He glanced over at the trooper and said, "Or you will do what?"

The trooper didn't reply to this, although his face reddened slightly and the man turned back to Francis, ignoring the command. "Francis Petrel. Francis C-bird. I like that better. You take things easy, Francis C-Bird, and I will see you again before too long. That's a promise."

Francis was unable to respond, but felt a slight sense of encouragement in the man's words. For the first time since that horrible morning had begun with so many loud voices, shouts and recriminations, he felt as if he wasn't completely alone. It was a little like the harsh noise and constant racket that had been filling his ears all day had diminished, like a radio's blaring volume turned down slightly. He could hear some of his voices murmuring approval in the background, which relaxed him a bit more. But he did not have time to dwell on this thought, for he was abruptly wheeled out of the office, into the corridor, and the door shut resoundingly behind him. A cold draft made him shudder and reminded him that as of that moment all that he had once known of life had been changed and all that he was to know was elusive and hidden from him. He had to bite down on his lower lip to keep the tears from returning, swallowing hard to remain quiet and let himself be diligently steered away from the reception area and deep into the core of the Western State Hospital.

Chapter 3

Limp morning light was just sliding over the neighboring rooftops, insinuating its way into my sparse little apartment home. I stood in front of the wall and saw all the words I'd written the previous night crawling down a single long column. My handwriting was pinched tight, as if nervous. The words were arranged in wavering lines, a little like a field of wheat as a breath of warm wind passes over. I asked myself: Was I truly that scared, the day I arrived at the hospital? The answer to that was easy: Yes. And far worse than I had written. Memory often blurs pain. The mother forgets the agony of childbirth when the baby is placed in her arms, the soldier no longer remembers the pain of his wounds when the general pins the medal on his chest and the band strikes up some martial tune. Did I tell the truth about what I saw? Did I get the small details right? Did it happen quite the way I remembered it?

I seized the pencil, dropped to my knees on the floor to the spot where I'd ended my first night at the wall. I hesitated, then wrote:

It was at least forty-eight hours later that Francis Petrel awakened in a dingy gray padded cell, tightly encased in a straitjacket, his heart racing, his tongue thick, thirsting for a drink of something cold and some companionship… It was at least forty-eight hours later that Francis Petrel awakened in a dingy gray padded cell, tightly encased in a straitjacket, his heart racing, his tongue thick, thirsting for a drink of something cold and some companionship. He lay rigidly on the steel cot and thin dark-stained mattress of the isolation room, staring up past the burlap-colored padded walls, to the ceiling, doing a modest inventory of his person and his surroundings. He wiggled his toes, ran his tongue over parched lips, and counted each beat of his pulse until he could detect a slowing. The drugs he'd been injected with made him feel entombed, or at least blanketed with some thick, syrupy substance. There was a single glowing white lightbulb encased in a wire screen high above him, far beyond his reach, and the glare hurt his eyes. He knew he should be hungry, but wasn't. He pulled against the restraints, and knew instantly that was futile. He decided he should call out for help, but first he whispered to himself: Are you still here?

For a moment, there was silence.

Then he heard several voices, all speaking at once, all faint, as if muffled by a pillow: We're here. We're all still here.

This reassured him.

You need to keep us hidden, Francis.

He nodded to himself. This appeared obvious. He felt a contradictory set of criteria within himself, almost like a mathematician who sees a complicated equation on a chalkboard that could have several possible answers. The voices that guided him had also landed him in the current fix and there was little doubt in his mind that he needed to keep them concealed at all times, if he ever hoped to get out of the Western State Hospital. As he assessed this dilemma, he could hear the familiar sounds of all the people who traveled in his imagination agreeing with him. These voices all had personalities: a voice of demand, a voice of discipline, a voice of concession, a voice of concern, a voice that warned, a voice that soothed, a voice of doubt, and a voice of decision. They all owned tones and topics; he had grown to know when to expect one or the other, depending upon the situation around him. Since the angry confrontation with his folks, and the police and ambulance had been summoned, the voices had all clamored for attention. But now he had to continue to strain to hear them, which made him furrow his brow with concentration.

It was, in a way, he thought, part of getting himself organized.

Francis remained on the bed uncomfortably for another hour, feeling the closeness of the narrow room, until a small porthole in the only door opened with a scraping noise. From where he lay, he was able to see by lifting himself up like an athlete doing a stomach crunch, a difficult position to hold for more than a few seconds, because of the straitjacket. He did see first one eye, then another, peering in at him, and he managed a weak: "Hello?"

No one responded and the porthole slammed shut.

It was another thirty minutes by his reckoning before the porthole opened again. He tried another hello and this one seemed to work, because seconds later he heard the sound of a key being worked in the lock. The door scraped open and he saw the larger of the two black attendants, pushing his way into the cell. The man was smiling, as if caught in the midst of a joke, and he nodded at Francis not unpleasantly. "How you doing this morning Mr. Petrel?" he asked brightly. "You get some sleep? You hungry?"

"I need something to drink," Francis croaked.

The attendant nodded. "That's the medications they gave you. Make your tongue all thick, kinda like it be all swollen, huh?"

Francis nodded. The attendant retreated to the corridor, then returned with a plastic cup of water. He sat on the side of the cot and held Francis up like a sickly child, letting him gulp at the liquid. It was lukewarm, almost brackish, with a slight metallic taste, but at that moment, just the mere sense of it pouring down his throat, and the pressure of the man's arm holding him, reassured Francis more than he had ever expected. The attendant must have realized this, because he quietly said, "It gonna be all right, Mr. Petrel. Mr. C-Bird. That what that other new man called you, and I'm thinking that's a fine name to go by. This place a little rough at first, take some getting used to, but you gonna be just fine. I can tell."

He lowered Francis back to the bed, and added, "The doctor gonna come in to see you now."

A few seconds later, Francis saw Doctor Gulptilil's round form hovering in the doorway. The doctor smiled, and asked, in his slight singsong-accented voice, "Mr. Petrel. How are you this morning?"

"I'm all right," Francis said. He didn't know really what else he could say. And, at the same time, he could hear the echoing of his voices, telling him to be extremely careful. Again, they were not nearly as loud as they could be, almost as if they were shouting commands to him from across some wide chasm.

"Do you remember where you are?" the doctor asked.

Francis nodded. "I'm in a hospital."

"Yes," the doctor said with a smile. "That is not difficult to surmise. But do you recall which one? And how it was that you arrived here?"

Francis did. The mere act of answering questions lifted some of the fog he felt was obscuring his vision. "It is the Western State Hospital," he said. "And I arrived in an ambulance after having some argument with my parents."

"Very good. And do you recall what month it is? And the year?"

"It is still March, I believe. And 1979."

"Excellent." The doctor seemed genuinely pleased. "A little more oriented,

I would suspect. I think today we will be able to remove you from isolation and restraint, and begin to integrate you into the general population. This is as I'd hoped."

"I would like to go home now," Francis said.

"I am sorry, Mister Petrel. That isn't yet possible."

"I don't think I want to stay here," Francis said. Some of the quavering which had marked his voice the day he'd arrived threatened to reemerge.

"It is for your own good," the doctor replied. Francis doubted that. He knew he wasn't so crazy to be unable to see that it was clearly for other people's good, not his. He didn't say this out loud.

"Why can't I go home?" he asked. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"Do you recall the kitchen knife? And your threatening words?"

Francis shook his head. "It was a misunderstanding," he said.

Doctor Gulptilil smiled. "Of course it was. But you're going to be with us until we come to the realization that we cannot go around threatening people."

"I promise I won't."

"Thank you, Mister Petrel. But a promise isn't quite adequate under the current circumstances. I must be persuaded. Utterly persuaded, alas. The medications you have been given will help you. As you continue to take them, the cumulative effect they have will increase your command of your situation and help you to readjust. Then, perhaps, we can discuss returning to society and some more constructive role."

He spoke this last sentence slowly, then added, "And what do your voices think of your presence here?"

Francis knew enough to shake his head. "I don't hear any voices," he insisted. Deep within him he heard a chorus of assent.

The doctor smiled again, showing slightly uneven rows of white teeth. "Ah, Mister Petrel, again, I'm not completely sure that I believe you. Still" the doctor hesitated "I think that you can succeed in the general population. Mister Moses here will show you around and fill you in on the rules. The rules are important, Mister Petrel. There are not many, but they are critical. Obeying the rules, becoming a constructive member of our little world here, these are signs of mental health. The more you can do to show me that you can function successfully here, the closer you will step each passing day toward returning home. Do you understand that equation, Mister Petrel?"

Francis nodded vigorously.

"There are activities. There are group sessions. From time to time, there will be some private sessions with myself. Then there are the rules. All these things, taken together, create possibilities. If you cannot adjust, then, I fear, your stay here will be long, and often unpleasant…"

He gestured at the isolation cell. "This room, for example" and he pointed at the straitjacket "these devices, and others, remain options. They always remain options. But avoiding them is critical, Mister Petrel. Critical to your return to mental health. Am I being quite clear about this?"

"Yes," Francis said. "Fit in. Obey the rules." He repeated this inwardly to himself, like a mantra or a prayer.

"Precisely. Excellent. Do you not see, already we have made progress? Be encouraged, Mister Petrel. And take advantage of what the hospital has to offer." The doctor rose up. He nodded at the attendant. "All right, Mister Moses. You can release Mister Petrel. And then, please, escort him through the dormitory, get him some clothing, and show him the activities room."

"Yes sir," the attendant snapped off with a military crispness.

Doctor Gulptilil waddled off through the door to the isolation room, and the attendant went about the task of unsnapping the bonds of the straitjacket, then unwrapping the sleeves from around Francis, until he finally came free. Francis stretched awkwardly, and rubbed his arms, as if to restore some energy and life to the limbs that had been locked so tightly. He placed his feet on the floor and stood unsteadily, feeling a sensation of dizziness overcome him. The attendant must have noticed, for a huge hand grasped his shoulder, preventing Francis from stumbling forward. Francis felt a little like a baby taking his first step, only without the same sense of joy and accomplishment, equipped only with doubt and fear.

He followed Mister Moses down the corridor on the fourth floor of the Amherst Building. There were a half-dozen six-by-nine padded cells arranged in a row, each with a double-locking system and portholes for observation. He could not tell whether they were occupied or not, except in one case, when they must have made some sound passing by, and from behind a locked door he heard a cascade of muted obscenities that dissolved into a long, painful shriek. A mixture of agony and hatred. He hurried to keep pace with the immense attendant, who didn't seem fazed in the slightest by the otherworldly noise, and who kept up an impressive banter about the layout of the building, the hospital, and its history, as he passed through a set of double doors, leading down a wide, central stairway. Francis only vaguely remembered ascending those steps two days earlier, in what seemed to him to be a distant, and increasingly elusive past, when everything in what he had thought of his life was totally different.

The building's design seemed to Francis to be every bit as crazy as its occupants. The upper floors held offices that abutted storage rooms and isolation cells. The first and second floors held wide-open dormitory-style rooms, crowded with simple steel framed beds, with an occasional footlocker for possessions. Inside the dormitory rooms there were cramped bathrooms and showers, with multiple stalls that he immediately saw delivered little in the way of privacy. There were other bathrooms off the corridors, spaced up and down the floor with men or women marked on the doors. In a concession to modesty, the women were housed on the north end of the corridor, the men on the south. A large nursing station divided the two areas. It was confined by wire mesh screens and a locked steel door. Francis saw that all the doors had two, sometimes three double deadbolt locks on them, all operated from the exterior. Once locked, he noticed, there was no way for anyone inside to unlock the door, unless they had a key.

The ground floor was shared by a large, open area, which Francis was told was the primary dayroom, and a cafeteria and kitchen large enough to fix meals and feed the Amherst Building's residents three times each day. There were also several smaller rooms, which he gathered were devoted to group therapy sessions. These dotted the ground floor. There were windows everywhere, which filled the Amherst Building with light, but every window had a locked wire mesh screen on the outside, so that the daylight that filtered into the building penetrated past bars tossing odd grid like shadows on the slick, polished floors or the glowing white painted walls. There were doors seemingly placed willy-nilly throughout the building that sometimes were locked, requiring Mr. Moses to pull out a massive key chain from his belt, but other times were left open, so that they simply pushed through unimpeded. Francis could not immediately detect what the governing principles were for locking the doors.

It was, he thought, a most curious jail.

They were confined, but not imprisoned. Restrained but not handcuffed.

Like Mr. Moses and his smaller brother, whom they passed in the hallway, the nurses and the attendants wore white outfits. An occasional physician, or doctor's aide, social worker or psychologist passed them by. These civilians wore either sports coats and slacks, or jeans. They almost all, Francis noted, carried manila envelopes, clipboards, and brown folders under their arms, and they all seemed to walk the corridors with a sense of direction and purpose, as if by having a specific task in hand, they were able to separate themselves from the general population of the Amherst Building.

Francis's fellow patients crowded the halls. There were knots of people, pressed together, while others stood aggressively alone. Many eyed him warily, as he passed. Some ignored him. No one smiled at him. He barely had time to observe his surroundings as he kept pace with the quick march that Mr. Moses adopted. And, what he saw of the other patients was a sort of motley, haphazard collection of folks of all ages and sizes. Hair that seemed to explode from scalps, beards that hung wildly down like the people in old, faded photographs from a century earlier. It seemed a place of contradictions. There were wild eyes everywhere that fastened upon him and measured him as he passed by, and then in contrast, muted looks, and faces that turned to the wall and avoided connection. Words and snatches of conversation surrounded him, sometimes spoken to others, sometimes spoken to inner selves. Clothing seemed to be an afterthought; some people wore loose-fitting hospital gowns and pajamas, others dressed in more regular street garb. Some wore long bathrobes or housecoats, others jeans and paisley shirts. It was all a little disjointed, a little out of whack, as if the colors were unsure what matched what, or the sizes were just off, shirts too loose, pants too tight or too short. Mismatched socks. Stripes conjoined with checks. There was a pungent smell of cigarette smoke virtually everywhere.

"Too many folks," Mr. Moses said, as they approached a nursing station. "Got beds for two hundred maybe. But got nearly three hundred peoples crowded in. You'd think they'd figured that part out, but no, not yet."

Francis didn't reply.

"Got a bed for you, though," Mr. Moses added. At the nursing station, Mr. Moses stopped. "You gonna be A-OK. Hello, ladies," he said. Two white-clad nurses behind the wire mesh, turned toward him. "You looking ever so sweet and beautiful this fine morning."

One was old, with graying hair and a well-lined, pinched face, but who still managed a smile. The other was a stocky black woman, far younger than her companion, who snorted her reply like a woman who had heard nice words that amounted to false promises more than once. "You always talking so sweet, but what it be you need this time around?" This was said in a mock-gruff tone, that caused both women to crack smiles.

"Why, ladies, I'm always looking only to bring a little joy and happiness into your lives," he said. "What more?"

The nurses laughed out loud. "Ain't no man ever not looking for something," the black nurse said. The white nurse quickly added, "Sweetheart, that's the God's truth."

Mr. Moses also laughed, while Francis suddenly stood awkwardly, unsure what he was to do. "Ladies, may I be presenting you with Mister Francis Petrel, who be staying with us. Mister C-Bird, this fine young lady be Miss Wright, and her lovely companion, there, be Miss Winchell." He handed over a clipboard. "The doctor listed out some meds for this boy. Look to be pretty much the usual."

He turned to Francis and said, "What you think, Mister C-Bird? You think the doc maybe prescribed a cup of hot coffee in the morning and a nice cold beer and a plate filled with fried chicken and cornbread at the end of the day? You think that's what the doctor ordered?"

Francis must have looked surprised, because the attendant quickly added, "I'm just having some fun with you. Don't mean nothing."

The nurses looked over the chart, then placed it along with a stack of others on a corner of their desk. The older one, Miss Winchell, reached below a counter and brought forth a small, cheap plaid cloth suitcase. "Mister Petrel, this was left for you by your family."

She passed it through an opening in the wire mesh, turning to the attendant, saying, "I've already searched it."

Francis took the suitcase and fought back the urge to burst into tears. He had recognized it instantly. It was a bag he'd been given as a gift one Christmas morning, when he was young, and because he'd never actually traveled anywhere, he'd always used for storage whenever he wanted to keep something special, or something unusual. A sort of portable secret place for the items collected during childhood, because each small item was, in its own way, a sort of journey in itself. A pine cone collected one fall; a set of toy soldiers, a book of children's verse never returned to the local library. His hands quivered slightly as they ran across the fake leather edging on the satchel, and he touched the handle. The zipper on the bag was open, and he saw that everything that the bag had once held had been removed, replaced with some clothes from his drawers at home. He knew instantly that everything that he'd accumulated in that bag had been emptied out and discarded. It was as if his parents had packed what little they thought of his life into the small luggage, and sent it to him to send him on his way. He could feel his lower lip trembling, and he felt completely and utterly alone.

The nurses passed a second gathering of items through the wire. These included some rough sheets and a pillowcase, a threadbare army surplus olive drab wool blanket, a bathrobe much like the ones he'd already seen on some patients, and some pajamas, again like those he'd already seen. He placed these on top of the suitcase and lifted both in front of him.

Mr. Moses nodded. "All right, I'll show you your bed. Get your stuff squared away. Then what have we got for Mister C-Bird, ladies?"

Again, one of the nurses checked the chart. "Lunch at noon. Then he's free until a group session in Room 101 at three with Mister Evans. He comes back here at four thirty for free time. Dinner at six o'clock. Medications at seven. That's it."

"You get all that, Mister C-Bird?"

Francis nodded. He didn't trust his own voice. He could hear, echoing deep within him, orders to comply, keep quiet, and stay alert. He followed Mr. Moses through a door into a large room with some thirty to forty beds lined up in rows. All the beds were made up, except one, not far from the door. There were a half dozen men lying on beds, either asleep, or staring up into the ceiling, who barely looked in his direction as he entered the room.

Mr. Moses helped him to make the bed and stow his few clothes in a foot locker. There was room for the tiny suitcase, as well, and it disappeared into the empty space. It took less than five minutes to square him away.

"Well, that's it," Mr. Moses said.

"What happens to me now?" Francis asked.

The attendant smiled a little wistfully. "Now, C-Bird, what you got to do is get yourself better."

Francis nodded. "How?"

"That the big question, C-Bird. You gone have to figure that out for yourself."

"What should I do?" Francis asked.

The attendant leaned down toward him. "Just keep to yourself. This place can get a bit rough, sometimes. You got to figure out everybody else, and give 'em what space they need. Don't be trying to make friends too fast, C-Bird. Just keep your mouth shut and follow the rules. You need help, you talk to me or my brother, or one of the nurses, and we'll try to see you straight."

"But what are the rules?" Francis said.

The large attendant turned and pointed at a sign posted high on the wall.

NO SMOKING IN SLEEPING ROOM

NO LOUD NOISES

NO TALKING AFTER 9 PM

RESPECT OTHERS

RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY

When he finished reading through twice, Francis turned. He wasn't sure where to go or what to do. He sat down on the edge of his bed.

Across the room, one of the men who had been lying down staring at the ceiling, feigning sleep, abruptly stood up. He was very tall, well over six and one half feet, with a sunken chest, and thin, bony arms that protruded from beneath a tattered sweatshirt with the logo of the New England Patriots on it, and stovepipe legs that jutted from lime green surgical scrubs that were six inches too short. The sweatshirt sleeves had been sliced off just below the shoulders. He was far older than Francis, and wore stringy gray-tinged hair in a matted clump that fell to his shoulders. His eyes were suddenly wide, as if half-frightened and half-furious. The man instantly lifted one cadaverous hand and pointed directly at Francis.

"Stop it!" he shouted out. "Stop it, now!"

Francis shrank back slightly. "Stop what?"

"Just stop! I can tell! You cannot fool me! I knew it as soon as you came in! Stop it!"

"I don't know what I'm doing," Francis replied meekly.

By now the tall man was waving both arms in the air as if trying to clear cobwebs from his path. His voice was rising with each step he took across the room, "Stop it! Stop it! I can see through you! You can't do it to me!"

Francis looked around for somewhere to run, or to hide, but he was hemmed in by the man lurching toward him and the back wall of the room. The few other men in the dormitory were still asleep, or ignoring what was happening.

The man seemed to have stretched in size, growing in ferocity with every stride. "I know! I could tell! From the moment you walked in! Stop now!"

Francis felt frozen with confusion. Inwardly, his voices were all screaming in a cascade of conflicted advice: Run! Run! He's going to hurt us! Hide! His head pivoted around, trying to see how he could escape the tall man's onslaught. He tried to will his muscles to work, at least rise up from the bed, but, instead, he shrank backward, almost cowering.

"If you will not stop, then it's up to me to stop you!" the man shouted. He seemed to be preparing himself for an assault.

Francis lifted his arms to fend off the attack.

The tall man gargled out some sort of gathered war cry, lifted himself up, puffing out his sunken chest and waving his arms above his head. Seemed ready to leap on Francis, when another voice sliced across the room.

"Lanky! Stop there!"

The tall man hesitated, then turned in the direction of the voice.

"Just stop right there!"

Francis was still huddled back against the wall, and he couldn't see who was speaking until the tall man turned around.

"What are you doing?"

"But it's him," the man said to whomever had come into the dormitory. He seemed, in that moment, to have shrunk in size.

"No, it's not!" came the reply.

And then Francis saw that the man fast approaching was the same man he'd met in his first minutes in the hospital.

"Leave him alone!"

"But it's him! I could tell as soon as I saw him!"

"That's what you said to me when I first showed up. That's what you say to every new person who comes into the hospital."

This made the tall man hesitate.

"I do?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I still think it's him," said the tall man, but oddly, most of the passion had fled from his voice, replaced by questions and some doubt. "I'm pretty sure," he added. "He absolutely could be, I'll say that." Despite the conviction contained in the words, the tenor of the voice was filled with uncertainty.

"But why?" said the man. "Why are you so sure?"

"It was just, when he came in, it seemed so obvious, I was watching, and then…" The tall man's voice tailed off, fading. "Maybe I'm wrong."

"I think you're genuinely mistaken."

"You do?"

"I do."

The other man came forward. He was grinning now. He stepped past the tall man.

"Well, C-Bird, I see you're all settled in."

Francis nodded.

The man turned to the tall man. "Lanky, this is C-Bird. I met him the other day in the administration building. He's not the person you think he is any more than I was the other day when you first spotted me. I can assure you of that."

"How can you be so certain?" the tall man asked.

"Well, I saw him come in, and I saw his chart, and I promise you, if he was the son of Satan sent here to do evil inside the hospital, there would have been a notation on it, because it had all the other particulars. Hometown. Family. Address. Age. You name it, it was there. Nothing about being the Antichrist."

"Satan is the great deceiver. His son would be equally clever. Probably be able to hide himself. Even from Gulp-a-pill."

"Ah, possibly. But there were policemen with me, and they would have been trained to spot the son of Satan. They would have had flyers and handouts, and those pictures like they have on the walls at the post office, you know what I'm saying? I doubt even the son of Satan could have hidden from a pair of state troopers."

The tall man listened intently to this explanation. Then he turned to Francis.

"I'm sorry. I was apparently mistaken. I can see now that you are not the person I have been on the lookout for. Please accept my sincerest apologies. Vigilance is really our only defense against evil. You have to be so careful, you know, day in, day out, hour after hour. It's exhausting, but utterly necessary…"

Francis finally managed to crawl off the bed and stand up. "Yes. Of course," he said. "It's perfectly okay."

The tall man reached out and shook Francis's hand, pumping it enthusiastically.

"I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, C-Bird. You are generous. And clearly well mannered. I'm sincerely sorry if I scared you."

To Francis the tall man suddenly seemed far less frightening. He simply seemed old, tattered, a little like an out-of-date magazine that has been left on a table for far too long.

The tall man shrugged. "They call me Lanky," he said. "I'm here most of the time."

Francis nodded. "I'm…"

The other man interrupted. "C-Bird. No one seems to use their real name in here."

Lanky moved his head up and down rapidly. "The Fireman's right, C-Bird. Nicknames and abbreviations and the such."

Then he pivoted, and quickly marched back across the room, and tossed himself down on his bed, staring back up at the ceiling.

"He doesn't seem to be a bad fellow, and I think in reality, which is a poor word to use in this fine place, I believe he's actually pretty harmless," the Fireman said. "He did exactly the same to me the other day, shouting and pointing and acting like he was going to take me on single-handedly, thus protecting society from the arrival of the Antichrist, or the Son of Satan or whomever. Any odd demon that might accidentally land here. He does that to everyone who enters whom he doesn't recognize. And it's not altogether crazy, too, if you think about it. There seems to be a significant amount of evil around in this world, and it has to be coming from somewhere, I'm guessing. Might as well stay vigilant, like he says, even here."

"Thank you, anyway," Francis said. He was calming down, a little like a child who thought he was lost, but somehow spots a landmark, that gives him a sense of location. "But I don't know your name…"

"I don't have a name any longer," the man said. This was spoken with just the slightest touch of sadness around the edge, replaced swiftly by a wry half smile that was tinged with some sort of regret.

"How can you not have a name?" Francis asked.

"I've had to give it up. It's what landed me here."

This made little sense to Francis. The man shook his head, amused. "I'm sorry. People have started calling me the Fireman, because that is what I was before I arrived at the hospital. Put out fires."

"But…"

"Well, once my friends called me Peter. So, Peter the Fireman, that will have to do for you Francis C-Bird."

"All right," Francis replied.

"I think you'll discover that the naming system here, makes it a little easier. Now you've met Lanky, which is as obvious a nickname for someone who looks like he does as one could possibly have. And you've been introduced to the Moses brothers, except everyone calls them Big Black and Little Black, which, again, seems like appropriate casting. And Gulp-a-pill, which is easier to say and far more accurate given his approach to treatment than the doctor's real name. And who else have you run into?"

"The nurses outside behind the bars, Miss…"

"Ah, Miss Wrong and Miss Watchful?"

"Wright and Winchell."

"Correct. And there are other nurses as well, like Nurse Mitchell, who is Nurse Bitch-All and Nurse Smith, who is Nurse Bones because she looks a little like Lanky, there, and. Short Blond, who seems quite beautiful. There's a social worker named Evans called Mister Evil whom you're going to meet soon enough, because he's more or less in charge of this dormitory. And Gulp-a-pill's nasty secretary's name is Miss Lewis, but someone dubbed her Miss Luscious, which she apparently hates, but can't do anything about, because it has stuck to her as tightly as those sweaters she likes to wear. She seems to be a real piece of work. It might all seem very confusing, but you'll get it all straight in a couple of days."

Francis took a quick look around, then he whispered, "Are all the people in here crazy?"

The Fireman shook his head. "It's a hospital for crazy folks, C-Bird, but not everyone is. Some are just old, and senile, which makes them seem a little odd. Some are retarded, so they're slow on the uptake, but precisely what got them landed here is a mystery to me. Some folks seem merely depressed. Others are hearing voices. Do you hear voices, C-Bird?"

Francis was unsure how to answer. It seemed as if deep within him there was a debate going on; he could hear arguments suddenly swinging back and forth, like so many electric currents between poles.

"I don't want to say," Francis replied hesitantly.

The Fireman nodded. "Some things it's best to keep to oneself."

He put his arm around Francis for a moment, steering him toward the exit door.

"Come on," he said. "I'll show you what there is of our home."

"Do you hear voices, Peter?" Francis asked.

The Fireman shook his head. "Nope."

"You don't?"

"No. But it might be a good thing if I did," he replied. He was smiling as he spoke, just the slightest touch at the corners of his mouth, in a way that Francis would come to recognize soon enough, that seemed to mirror much about the Fireman, for he was the sort of person who seemed to see both sadness and humor in things that others would see as merely moments.

"Are you crazy?" Francis asked.

Again the Fireman smiled, this time letting out a little laugh. "Are you crazy, C-Bird?"

Francis took a deep breath. "I might be," he said. "I don't know."

The Fireman shook his head. "I don't think so, C-Bird. Didn't think so when I first saw you, either. At least, not too crazy. Maybe a little crazy, but what's wrong with that?"

Francis nodded. This reassured him. "But what about you?" he continued.

The Fireman hesitated, before replying.

"I'm something far worse," he said slowly. "That's why I'm here. They're supposed to find out what's wrong with me."

"What's worse than being crazy?" Francis asked.

The Fireman coughed once. "Well," he said, "I guess there's no harm. You'll find out sooner or later. I kill people."

And with those words, he led Francis out into the corridor of the hospital.

Chapter 4

And that was it, I suppose.

Big Black told me not to make friends, to be cautious, to keep to myself, and obey the rules, and I did my very best to follow everything he advised except that first admonition, and, when I look back, I wonder if he wasn't right about that, as well. But madness is also truly about the worst sorts of loneliness, and I was both mad and alone, and so when Peter the Fireman took me aside, I welcomed his friendship along the descending road into the world of the Western State Hospital, and I did not ask him what he meant when he said those words, although I guessed that I would find out soon enough because the hospital was a place where everyone had secrets but few of them were kept close.

My younger sister questioned me once, long after I was released, what was the worst aspect of the hospital, and after much consideration, I told her: the routine. The hospital existed as a system of small disjointed moments that amounted to nothing, that were established merely to get Monday to Tuesday, and Tuesday to Wednesday and so on, week after week, month after month. Everyone at the hospital had been committed by allegedly well-meaning relatives, or the cold and inefficient social services system, after a perfunctory judicial hearing where we often weren't present, under thirty- or sixty-day orders. But we learned quick enough that these phony deadlines were as much delusions as were the voices we heard, for seemingly was always the determination. So, a thirty-day commitment order could easily become a twenty-year stay. A simple downhill path, marching steadily from psychosis to senility. Shortly after our arrival we all learned that we were a little bit like aging munitions, being stored out of sight, deteriorating with every passing moment, rusting and becoming increasingly less stable.

The first thing one recognized at the Western State Hospital was the biggest lie of them all that no one was truly trying to help you get better, no one was actually trying to help you go home. A lot was said, and a lot was done, ostensibly to help you readjust to society, but these were mostly shows and fictions, like the release hearings that were held from time to time. The hospital was like tar on the road. It stuck you in place. A famous poet once quite elegantly and naively wrote that home was the place where they always took you in. Maybe for poets, but not for madmen. The hospital was about keeping you out of the sane world's eyes. We were all bound by medications that dulled the senses, stymied the voices, but never did completely away with anything hallucinatory, so that vibrant delusions still echoed and resounded throughout the corridors. But what was truly evil about our lives was how quickly we all came to accept those delusions. After a few days in the hospital, it didn't bother me when little Napoleon would stand next to my bed and start talking energetically of troop movements at Waterloo, and how if only the British squares had cracked under the assault of his cavalry, or Blucher had been delayed upon the road, or had The Old Guard not withered under the hail of grapeshot and musketry, how all of Europe would have been changed forever. I was never exactly sure that Napoleon actually thought he was the emperor of France, though at moments he behaved that way, or whether he simply obsessed with all these things because he was a small man, shunted away in a loony bin with the rest of us, and he more than anything wanted to signify something in life.

All of us mad folks did; it was our greatest hope and dream, we wanted to be something. What afflicted us was the elusiveness in achieving that goal, and so, instead we substituted delusion. On my floor alone, there were a half-dozen Jesuses, or at least folks who insisted they could communicate with Him directly, one Mohammad who fell to his knees three times a day, praying to Mecca, although he was often pointed in the wrong direction, a couple of George Washingtons or assorted other presidents, from Lincoln and Jefferson right up to LBJ and Tricky Dick, and more than a few folks, like the truly harmless but occasionally terrifying Lanky, who were on the lookout for signs of Satan or any of his minions. There were folks obsessed with germs, people terrified of unseen bacteria floating in the air, others who believed that every bolt of lightning during a thunderstorm was aimed directly at them, and so they cowered in the corners. There were patients who said nothing, spending days on end in total silence, and others who blasted and despairs. One of the men that I came to like was called Newsman. He wandered the hallways like some present day town crier, spouting headlines, an encyclopedia of current events. At least, in his own mad way, he kept us connected to the outside world, and reminded us that events were taking place beyond the walls of the hospital. And there was even one famously overweight woman, who occupied hours playing a mean game of Ping-Pong in the dayroom, but who spent most of her time considering the issues connected with being the direct reincarnation of Cleopatra. Sometimes, however, Cleo only thought she was Elizabeth Taylor in the movie. One way or the other, she could quote virtually every line from the film, even Richard Burton's, or the entirety of Shakespeare's play, as she slammed another winner past whoever dared play the game against her.

When I think back, it all seems so ridiculous, I think I should laugh out loud.

But it wasn't. It was a place of unspeakable pain.

That is what the people who have never been mad cannot understand. How much every delusion hurts. How reality just seems beyond one's grasp. A world of desperation and frustration. Sisyphus and his boulder would have fit in well at the Western State Hospital.

I went to my daily group sessions with Mister Evans, whom we called Mister Evil. A wiry psychiatric social worker with a sunken chest and an imperious attitude that seemed to suggest that he was somehow superior because he went home at the end of the day, and we did not, which we resented, but which was unfortunately the truest kind of superiority. In these sessions, we were encouraged to speak openly about why we were in the hospital, and what we would do when we were released.

Everyone lied. Wonderful, unbridled, optimistic, runaway, enthusiastic lies.

Except Peter the Fireman, who rarely contributed. He sat beside me politely listening to whatever fantastic fiction either I or one of the others came up with, about getting a regular job, or returning to school, or maybe joining an uplifting program that might serve to help others afflicted as we were. All these conversations were lies with one singular and hopeless desire at their core: to appear to be normal. Or, at least normal enough to be allowed to go home.

At the start I sometimes wondered if there hadn't been some private but very tenuous agreement between the two men, because Mister Evil never called on Peter the Fireman to add something to the discussion, even when it turned away from ourselves and our troubles into something interesting, like current events such as the hostage crisis, unrest in the inner cities, or the Red Sox aspirations for the upcoming year all subjects that the Fireman knew a great deal about. There was some malevolence the two men shared, but one was patient, the other administrator, and at the beginning it was hidden away.

In an odd way, I very shortly came to think as if I was on some desperate expedition to the farthest, most desolate regions of the earth, cut off from civilization, traveling deeper and farther away from all that was familiar into uncharted lands. Harsh lands.

And soon to be harsher, still.

The wall beckoned me, even as the phone in the corner of the kitchen started to ring. I knew it would be one of my sisters, calling to find out how I was, which was, of course, the way I always am, and, I presume, the way I always will be. So, I ignored it.

Within a few weeks, what remained of the winter seemed to have retreated in sullen defeat, and Francis moved down a corridor at the hospital, searching for something to do. A woman to his right was mumbling something plaintive about lost babies, and rocking herself back and forth, holding her arms in front of her as if they contained something precious, when they did not. Ahead of him, an old man in pajamas, with wrinkled skin and a shock of unruly silver hair, stared forlornly at a stark white wall, until Little Black came along and gently turned him by the shoulders, so that he was now staring out a barred window. The repositioning with its new vista brought a smile to the old man's face and Little Black patted the man on the arm, reassuring him, then ambled over toward Francis.

"C-Bird, how you doing today?"

"I'm okay, Mister Moses. Just slightly bored."

"They are watching soap operas in the dayroom."

"Those shows don't do much for me."

"You don't get behind that C-Bird? Start in to wondering just what's gonna happen to all those folks with all those strange lives. Lots of twists and turns and mystery that keeps folks tuning in. That don't interest you?"

"I suppose it should, Mister Moses, but I don't know. It just doesn't seem real to me."

"Well, there's also some people playing some cards. Some board games, too."

Francis shook his head.

"Play a game of Ping-Pong with Cleo, maybe?"

Francis smiled and continued to shake his head. "What, Mister Moses, you think I'm so crazy I'd take her on?"

This comment made Little Black laugh out loud. "No, C-Bird. Not even you that crazy," he replied.

"Can I get an outdoor slip?" Francis asked abruptly.

Little Black looked at his wristwatch. "I got some folks going outside this afternoon. Maybe plant some flowers on this fine day. Take a little walk. Get some of that fresh air. You go see Mister Evans, he fix you up, maybe. It's okay with me."

Francis found Mister Evil outside his office, standing in the corridor deep in conversation with Doctor Gulp-a-pill. The two men seemed animated, gesturing back and forth, arguing vehemently, but it was a curious sort of argument, for the more intense it seemed to get, the lower and softer their voices became, so that eventually, as Francis hovered nearby, the two men were hissing back and forth like a pair of snakes confronting each other. The two men seemed oblivious to everyone in the hallway, for more than a few other inmates joined Francis, shuffling about, moving right and left, waiting for an opening. Francis finally heard Gulp-a-pill say angrily, "Well, we simply cannot have this sort of lapse, not for a moment. I hope for your sakes they show up soon," only to have Mister Evil respond, "Well, they've obviously been misplaced, or maybe stolen, and I'm not to blame for that. We will keep searching, that's the best I can do." Gulp-a-pill nodded, but his face was set in a curious anger. "You do that," he said. "And I hope they're discovered sooner rather than later. Make sure you inform Security, and have them provide you with a new set. But this is a serious breach of the rules." And then the small Indian abruptly turned and walked away without acknowledging the presence of any of the others, except for one man, who sidled up to the doctor, but was dismissed with a wave before he could speak. Mister Evans turned toward the others, and was equally irritated: "What? What do you want?"

His very tone caused one woman to instantly snatch a sob from her chest, and another old man to shake his head negatively, and stumble off down the corridor, speaking to himself, more comfortable with whatever conversation he could have with no one, than the one he could have with the angry social worker.

Francis, however, hesitated. The voices of caution inside his head shouted: Leave! Leave now! but Francis paused, and after a moment, mustered up enough courage to say, "I would like an outdoor pass. Mister Moses is taking some people out to the grounds this afternoon, and I'd like to go with them. He said it would be okay."

"You want to go out?"

"Yes. Please."

"Why do you want to go out, Petrel? What is it about the great out-of-doors that seems to be attractive to you?" Francis could not tell whether he was mocking him directly, or merely making fun of the idea of stepping beyond the front door of the Amherst Building.

"It's a nice day. Like the first nice day in a long time. The sun is shining and it's warm. Fresh air."

"And you think that is better than what is offered here, inside?"

"I didn't say that, Mister Evans. It's just springtime, and I wanted to go out."

Mister Evil shook his head. "I think you mean to try to run away, Francis. Escape. I think you believe that you can duck away from Little Black when his back is turned, climb the ivy and vault the wall, then run down the hill past the college before someone spots your flight and catch a bus that will take you away from here. Any bus, you don't care, because any place is better than here; that's what I think you mean to do," he said. His tone had an edgy, aggressive note.

Francis instantly replied, "No, no, no, I just want to go to the garden."

"You say that," Mister Evil continued, "but how do I know that you are telling me the truth? How can I trust you, C-Bird? What will you do that makes me believe that you are telling me the truth?"

Francis had no idea how to reply. He did not know how anyone could prove that a promise made was truthful, other than by behaving that way. "I just want to go outside," Francis said. "I haven't been outside since I got here."

"Do you think you deserve the privilege of going outside? What have you done to earn that, Francis?"

"I don't know," Francis said. "I didn't know I had to earn it. I just want to go outside."

"What do your voices tell you, C-Bird?"

Francis took a small step back, for his voices were all shouting, distant, yet clear, instructions to get away from the psychologist as fast as he could, but Francis persisted, in rare defiance of the internal racket. "I don't hear any voices, Mister Evans. I just wanted to go outside. That's all. I don't want to escape. I don't want to take a bus somewhere. I just want some fresh air."

Evans nodded, but locked his lips into a sneer at the same time. "I don't believe you," he said, but he pulled a small pad from his shirt pocket and wrote a few words on it. "Give this to Mister Moses," he said. "Permission to go outside granted. But don't be late for our afternoon group session."

Francis found Little Black smoking a cigarette by the nursing station, where he was flirting with the pair on duty. Nurse Wrong was there, and a younger woman, a new nurse-trainee called Short Blond because she wore her hair cropped close to her head in a pixie like style that contradicted the bouffant do's of the other staff nurses, who were all a little older, and a little more committed to the sags and wrinkles of middle age. Short Blond was young and thin and wiry, with a boy like physique hidden behind the white nursing outfit. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and seemed to glow softly beneath the over head lights of the hospital. She had a slight, hard-to-hear voice that seemed to slide into whispers when she was nervous, which, as best as the patients could tell, was often. Large noisy groups made her anxious, and she struggled when the nursing station was swarmed at the hours medications were dispensed. These were always tense times, with folks jostling back and forth, trying to get up to the wire-enclosed window, where the pills were arranged in small paper cups with patients' names written on them. She had trouble getting the patients into lines, getting them to be quiet, and she especially had trouble when some pushing and shoving took place, which was often enough. Short Blond did much better when she was alone with a patient, and her reedy, small voice didn't have to battle with many. Francis liked her, because, at least in part, she wasn't that much older than he was, but mainly because he thought her voice was soothing, and reminded him of his own mother's years earlier, when she would read to him at night. For a moment, he tried to remember when she had stopped doing that, because the memory seemed suddenly far distant, almost as if it were history, rather than recollection.

"You get the permission slip, C-Bird?" Little Black asked.

"Right here." He handed it over and looked up and saw Peter the Fireman walking down the corridor. "Peter!" Francis called, "I got permission to go outside. Why don't you go see Mister Evil, and see if you can come, too."

Peter the Fireman walked up quickly. He smiled but shook his head. "No can do, C-Bird," he said. "Against the rules." He glanced over at Little Black, who was nodding in agreement.

"Sorry," the attendant said. "The Fireman's right. Not him."

"Why not?" Francis asked.

"Because," the Fireman said quietly, slowly, "that's my arrangement here. Not beyond any of the locked doors."

"I don't understand," Francis said.

"It's part of the court order putting me here," the Fireman continued. His voice seemed tinged with regret. "Ninety days of observation. Assessment. Psychological determination. Tests where they hold up an inkblot and I'm supposed to say it looks like two people having sex. Gulp-a-pill and Mister Evil ask, and I answer, and they write it down and one of these days it goes back to the court. But I'm not allowed past any locked doors. Everybody's in prison, sort of, C-Bird. Mine is just a little more restricted than yours."

Little Black added, "It ain't a big thing, C-Bird. There's plenty of folks here who never get to go out. Depends on what you did that got you here. Of course, there's plenty, too, who don't want to go out, either, but could, if they only asked. They just never do ask."

Francis understood, but didn't understand, both at the same time. He looked over at the Fireman. "It doesn't seem fair," he said.

"I don't think the concept of fair was truly one that anyone really had in mind, C-Bird. But I agreed, and so, that's the way it is. I stay put. Meet with Doctor Gulp-a-pill twice a week. Attend sessions with Mister Evil. Let them watch me. See, even now, while we're talking, Little Black here and Short Blond and Miss Wrong are all watching me and listening to what I say, and just about anything they observe might end up in the report that Gulp-a-pill is going to write up for the court. So, I pretty much need to mind my p's and q's and watch what I say, because no telling what might become the key consideration. Isn't that right, Mister Moses?"

Little Black nodded. Francis found it all to be oddly detached, as if they were speaking about someone else, not the person standing in front of him. "When you speak like that," he said, "it doesn't sound like you're crazy."

This comment made Peter the Fireman smile wryly, one side of his mouth lifting up, giving him a slightly lopsided, but genuinely bemused look. "Oh my gosh," he said. "That's terrible. Terrible." He made a slight choking sound deep in his throat. "I should be even more careful then," he said. "Because crazy is what I need to be."

This made no sense to Francis. For a man who was being watched, Peter seemed relatively unconcerned, which was in opposition to many of the paranoids in the hospital, who believed they were constantly being observed, when they weren't, but took evasive steps nevertheless. Of course, they believed it was the FBI or the CIA or perhaps the KGB or extraterrestrials who were doing the watching, which made their circumstances significantly different. Francis watched the Fireman turn and head off through the dayroom doors, and thought that even when he whistled, or perhaps added some obvious jauntiness to his step, it only served to make whatever saddened him all that much more obvious.

The warm sun hit Francis's face. Big Black had joined his brother to lead the expedition, one at the front and one at the rear, keeping the dozen patients making the journey through the hospital grounds in single file. Lanky had come along, muttering about being on the lookout, as vigilant as always, and Cleo, who spent some time staring at the ground, and peering at the dirt beneath every bush and shrub, hoping, as she said to anyone who noticed her behavior, to spot an adder. Francis guessed that an ordinary garter snake would nicely serve the serpent part of the bill, but not the suicide part. There were several older women who walked very slowly and a couple of older men, and three middle-aged male patients, all of whom fit into the bedraggled, nondescript category that marked folks who had been assimilated into the hospital routine for years. They wore flip-flop sandals or work boots and pajama tops beneath frayed and threadbare woolen sweaters or sweatshirts, none of which seemed to quite fit or match, which was the norm for the hospital. A couple of the men had sullen, angry expressions on their faces, as if the sunlight that seemed to caress their faces with warmth infuriated them in some internal way that defied understanding. It was, Francis thought, what made the hospital such an unsettling place. A day that should have brought relaxed laughter instead inspired quiet rage.

The two attendants kept to a leisurely pace as they moved through the hospital grounds toward the rear of the complex, where there was a small garden. A picnic table that had been through a rough winter, its surface warped and scarred by the weather, held some boxes of seeds and a red child's play bucket with a few trowels and hand shovels arranged within. There was an aluminum watering pail and a hose attached to a single faucet that rose up on a lone pipe directly from the ground. Within a few seconds, Big Black and Little Black had the outdoor group on their hands and knees in the swatch of dirt, raking and tilling with the small hand tools, preparing the earth for planting. Francis kept at this for a few moments, then he looked up.

Beyond the garden was another piece of ground, a long rectangle enclosed by an old wooden picket fence that had once been painted white, but had faded over time to a dull gray. Weeds and unkempt grasses pushed up in tufts through the hard scrabble earth. He guessed that it was a cemetery of sorts, because there were two faded granite headstones, each slightly out of kilter, so that they looked like uneven teeth in a child's mouth. Then behind the back picket fence was a line of trees, planted closely together to form a natural barrier and obscure a metal link fence.

Then he glanced around, back toward the hospital itself. To his left, partially obscured by a dormitory, was the power plant, with a smokestack that released a thin plume of white smoke into the blue sky. Hidden under the ground, leading to all the buildings, were tunnels with heating ducts. He could see some sheds, with equipment stored to their sides. The remaining buildings looked much the same, brick and ivy, with slate gray roof lines Most were designed to hold patients, but one had been converted to a dormitory for nurse-trainees, and several others redesigned into duplex apartments where some of the younger psychiatric residents and their families stayed. These were discernible because they had telltale children's toys scattered about in front, and one had a sandbox. Near the administration building there was also a security building, where the hospital's guard staff checked in and out. He took note that the administration building had a wing with an auditorium, where, he guessed staff meetings and lectures were given. But all in all, there was a depressing similarity to the complex. It was hard to discern precisely what the designer's layout had meant to suggest, for the buildings had a haphazard arrangement that defied rational planning. Two would be right next to each other, but a third would be angled away. It was almost as if they had been slapped down into space without any sense of order.

The front of the hospital complex was enclosed by a tall redbrick wall, with an ornate black wrought-iron entranceway. He couldn't see a sign out front, but he doubted there would be one, anyway. If one approached the hospital, he guessed, one already knew what it was, and what it was for, so a sign would have been redundant.

He stared at the wall and tried to measure it with his eyes. He thought the wall at least ten to twelve feet high. The wall was replaced on the sides, and on the back end of the hospital by chain-link fencing, which was rusted in many spots and topped with strands of rusted barbed wire. In addition to the garden, there was an exercise area, a swatch of black macadam, which had a basketball hoop at one end and a volleyball net in the center, but both these items were bent and broken, blackened by disuse and lack of care. He couldn't imagine anyone using either.

"What you looking at C-Bird?" Little Black asked.

"The hospital," Francis replied. "I just didn't know how big it was."

"Many, too many, here now," Little Black said quietly. "Every dormitory filled to bursting. Beds jammed up close together. People with nothing to do, just hanging in the hallways. Not enough games. Not enough therapy. Just everybody in here getting real close together. That ain't good."

Francis looked over at the huge gate that he'd passed through on his first day at the hospital. It was wide open.

"They lock it at night," Little Black said, anticipating his question.

"Mister Evans thought I was going to try to run away," Francis said.

Little Black shook his head and smiled. "People always think that's what the folks here will do, but it don't happen," he said. "Even Mister Evil, he's been here a couple of years, but he should know better."

"Why not?" Francis asked. "Why don't people try to run away?"

Little Black sighed. "You know the answer to that C-Bird. It ain't about fences, and it ain't about locked doors, although we got plenty of those. There's lotsa ways to keep a person locked up. You think about it. But the best way of all doesn't have anything to do with drugs or deadbolt locks, C-Bird. It's that hardly anybody in here has some place to run to. With no place to go, nobody goes. It's that simple."

With that, he turned away and tried to help Cleo with her seeds. She hadn't dug the furrows deep enough or wide enough. She showed some frustration on her face, until Little Black reminded her that servants spread flower petals in her path, when her namesake entered Rome. This made her pause, and then redouble her efforts, until Cleo was digging and scraping through the moldy, gravelly ground with a determination that seemed genuinely profound. Cleo was a large woman, who wore brightly colored smocks that billowed around her, concealing her extensive bulk. She wheezed often, smoked too much, and wore her dark hair in scraggly streams down around her shoulders. When she walked, she seemed to lurch back and forth, like a rudderless ship blown off course by high winds and choppy waves. But Francis knew she was transformed, when she took up a Ping-Pong paddle, shedding her unwieldy size almost magically, and becoming svelte, catlike, and quick.

He looked back over at the gate, and then to his fellow patients and slowly began to grasp what Little Black had been saying. One of the older men was having trouble with his trowel; it was shaking hard in a palsied hand. Another had become distracted, and was staring up at a raucous crow perched in a nearby tree.

Deep inside him, he heard one of his voices speak sullenly, repeating what Little Black had told him, as if to underscore each word: No one runs, because no one has any place to run to. And neither do you, Francis.

Then a chorus of assent.

For a moment, Francis spun about, his head pivoting wildly. For in that second, beneath the sunlight and the mild spring breezes, his hands already caked with dirt from the garden, he saw what could be his future. And it terrified him more than anything that had happened so far. He could see that his life was a slippery thin rope, and he needed to grasp hold of it. It was the worst feeling he had ever had. He knew he was mad, and knew, just as surely, that he couldn't be. And, in that second, he realized, he had to find something that would keep him sane. Or make him appear to be sane.

Francis breathed in hard. He did not think this would be easy.

And, as if to underline the problem, within him his voices argued loudly, making a racket. He tried to quiet them, but this was difficult. It took a few moments for them all to reduce their volume so that he could make some sense out of what they were saying. Francis glanced over at the other patients, and saw that a couple of them were eyeing him closely. He must have been mumbling something out loud, as he'd tried to impose order on the assembly within him. But neither Big Black nor his brother seemed to have noticed the sudden struggle that had engaged him.

Lanky had, however. He had been working on some dirt a few feet away, and he lurched over to Francis's side.

"You'll be okay, C-Bird," he said, his voice cracking a little with some emotion that abruptly seemed to be spinning a bit out of control. "We all will. As long as we keep up our guard, and keep a weather eye out. Got to keep close watch," he continued. "And don't turn your back for a minute. It's all around us, and it could happen any time. We have to be prepared. Like Boy Scouts. Ready for it when it comes." The tall man seemed more agitated and desperate than usual.

Francis thought he knew what Lanky was speaking about, but then understood that it could be almost anything, but most likely concerned a satanic presence on earth. Lanky had a curious manner, where he could slide from manic to almost gentle in the course of seconds. One instant, he would be all arms and angles, moving like a marionette, strings being pulled by unseen forces, and the next diminished, where his height made him seem no more threatening than a lamppost. Francis nodded, took a few seeds from a package and pushed them into the dirt.

Big Black rose up and shook his white attendant's outfit clean of dirt. "Okay, folks," he said cheerily, "gonna spray this place with some water and head on in." He looked over at Francis, and asked, "C-Bird, what did you plant?"

Francis looked down at the seed package and said, "Roses. Red ones. Pretty to look at, but hard to handle. They've got thorns." Then he got up, got into line with the others, and marched back toward the dormitory. He tried to drink in and store up as much fresh air as he could, for he feared it might be some time before he got out again.

Whatever had caused Lanky to loosen his already weak grip on the day, persisted at the group session that afternoon. They gathered, as usual, in one of the odd rooms inside Amherst, a little like a small classroom, with twenty or so gray metal folding chairs arranged in a rough circle. Francis liked to position himself where he could stare out past the bars on the window if the conversation got boring. Mister Evil had brought in that morning's paper to spur a discussion on current events, but it only seemed to agitate the tall man even more. He sat across from where Francis perched next to Peter the Fireman, shifting about constantly in his chair, as Mister Evil turned to Newsman to recite the day's headlines. This the patient did extravagantly, his voice rising and falling with each reading. There was little good news. The hostage crisis in Iran continued relentlessly. A protest in San Francisco had turned violent, with a number of arrests and tear gas deployed by helmeted police officers. In both Paris and Rome, anti-American demonstrators had burned flags and effigies of Uncle Sam before running wild in the streets. In London, authorities had used water cannon against similar protestors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had taken a beating and there had been a riot in a prison in Arizona that hadn't been quelled without grisly injury to both inmates and guards. In Boston, police were still puzzled by several homicides that had taken place during the prior year, and reported no new leads in the cases which involved young women being abducted and molested, before being killed. A three-car accident on Route 91 outside Greenfield had claimed a pair of lives, and a lawsuit had been filed by an environmental group accusing a large local employer of dumping untreated waste into the Connecticut River.

Every time Newsman paused in his reading, and Mister Evil launched into an effort to discuss any of these stories, or others, all discouragingly similar, Lanky nodded his head vigorously and started mumbling, "There! See. That's what I mean!" It was a little like being in some bizarre revivalist church. Evans ignored these statements, trying to engage the other members of the group in some sort of give-and-take conversation.

Peter the Fireman, however, took notice. He abruptly turned to Lanky and asked him directly, "Big Guy, what's wrong?"

Lanky's voice quavered, as he spoke: "Don't you see, Peter? The signs are everywhere! Unrest, hatred, war, killing…" He abruptly turned to Evans and asked, "Isn't there some story in the paper about famine, as well?"

Mister Evil hesitated, and Newsman gleefully said, "Sudanese Struggle with Crop Failure. Drought and Starvation Cause Refugee Crisis. The New York Times."

"Hundreds dead?" Lanky asked.

"Yes. In all likelihood," Mister Evans replied. "Perhaps even more."

Lanky nodded vigorously, his head bobbing up and down. "I've seen the pictures before. Little babies with their bellies swollen and spindly little legs and eyes sunken back all hollow and hopeless. And disease, that's always with us, right alongside famine. Don't even need to read Revelations all that carefully to recognize what's happening. All the signs." He leaned back abruptly in his steel folding chair, took a single long glance outside the barred window that opened on the hospital grounds, as if assessing the final light of the day, and said, "There is no doubt that Satan's presence is here. Close by. Look at all that is happening in the world. Bad news everywhere you look. Who else could be responsible?"

With that, he folded his arms in front of him. He was suddenly breathing hard, and small droplets of sweat had formed on his forehead, as if each thought that reverberated within him took a great effort to control. The rest of the dozen members of the group were fixed in their chairs, no one moving, their eyes locked on the tall man, as he struggled with the fears that buffeted around within him.

Mister Evil noticed this, and abruptly steered the topic away from Lanky's obsession. "Let's turn to the sports section," he said. The cheeriness in his voice was transparent, almost insulting.

But Peter the Fireman persisted. "No," he spoke with an edge of anger in his words. "No. I don't want to talk about baseball or basketball or the local high school teams. I think we ought to talk about the world around us. And I think Lanky's truly onto something. All there is outside these doors is awful. Hatred and murder and killing. Where does it come from? Who's doing it? Who's good anymore? Maybe it isn't because Satan is here, like Lanky believes. Maybe it's because we've all turned for the worse, and he doesn't even need to be here, because we're doing all his work for him."

Mr. Evans stared hard at Peter the Fireman. His gaze had narrowed. "I think you have an interesting opinion," he said slowly, measuring his words in an understated cold fashion, "but you exaggerate things. Regardless, I don't think it has much to do with the purposes of this group. We're here to explore ways to rejoin society. Not reasons to hide from it, even if things out in the world aren't quite the way we might like them to be. Nor do I think it serves a purpose when we indulge our delusions, or lend any credence to them." These last words were directed both at Peter and Lanky equally.

Peter the Fireman's face was set. He started to speak, then stopped.

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 ostrich like 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."

Lanky nodded, complacent in that moment, although Francis saw that he eyed Short Blond, working at the rear of the station, warily. Whatever doubts Lanky had about Short Blond's capacity to be a child of Satan, it was clear to Francis that they had not been resolved by medication or persuasion. The tall man seemed to quiver from head to toe with anxiety. But he did not fight Nurse Bones, who approached him with a hypodermic dripping with medication, and who swiped his arm with alcohol and stiffly plunged the needle into Lanky's skin. Francis thought it must have hurt, but Lanky showed no signs of discomfort. He stole a final long look at Short Blond, before allowing Big Black to lead him away, back to the dormitory room.

Chapter 5

Outside my apartment the evening traffic had increased. I could hear diesel sounds from heavy trucks, the occasional blare of a car's horn and the constant hum of wheels against pavement. Night comes slowly in the summertime, insinuating itself like a mean thought on a happy occasion. Streaky shadows find the alleys first, then start creeping through yards and across sidewalks, up the sides of buildings, and slithering snakelike through windows, or taking purchase in the branches of shade trees until finally darkness seizes hold. Madness, I often thought, was a little like the night, because of the different ways in different years it spread itself over my heart and my imagination, sometimes harshly and quickly, other times slowly, subtly, so that I barely knew it was taking over.

I tried to think: Had I ever known a darker night, than that one at the Western State Hospital? Or a night filled with more madness?

I went to the sink, filled a glass with water, took a gulp, and thought: I've left out the stench. It was a combination of human waste battling against undiluted cleansers. The stink of urine versus the smell of disinfectant. Like babies, so many old and senile patients had no control over their bowels, so the hospital reeked of accidents. To combat this, every corridor had at least two storage rooms equipped with rags, mops, and buckets filled with the harshest of chemical cleaning agents. It sometimes seemed as if there was someone constantly swabbing down a floor somewhere or another. The lye-based cleaners were fiercely powerful, they burned your eyes when they hit the linoleum floor, and made breathing hard, as if something was clawing at your lungs.

It was hard to anticipate when these accidents would happen. In a normal world, I suppose, one could more or less regularly identify the stresses or fears that might prompt a loss of control by some ancient person, and take steps to reduce those occurrences. It would take a little logic, a little sensitivity, and some planning and foresight. Not a big deal. But in the hospital, where all the stresses and fears that ricocheted around the hallways were so unplanned, and stemmed from so many haphazard thoughts, the idea of anticipation and avoidance was pretty much impossible.

So, instead, we had buckets and powerful cleaners.

And, because of the frequency that nurses and attendants were called upon to use these items, the storage rooms were rarely locked up. They were supposed to be, of course, but like so many things at the Western State Hospital, the reality of the rules gave way to a madness-defined practicality.

What else did I remember about that night? Did it rain? Did the wind blow?

What I recalled, instead, were the sounds.

In the Amherst Building there were nearly three hundred patients crowded into a facility originally designed for about one third that number. On any given night a few people might have been moved into one of the isolation cells up on the fourth floor that Lanky had been threatened with. The beds were jammed up next to each other, so that there was only a few inches of space between each sleeping patient. Along one side of the dorm room, there were some grimy windows. These were barred, and provided a little ventilation, although the men in the bunks beneath them frequently closed them up tight, because they were scared of what might be on the other side.

The nighttime was a symphony of distress.

Snoring, coughing, gurgling noises mingled with nightmares. People spoke in their dreams, to family and friends who weren't there, to Gods who ignored their prayers, to demons that tormented them. People cried constantly, weeping endlessly through the darkest hours. Everyone slept, no one rested.

We were locked in with all the loneliness that night brings.

Perhaps it was the moonlight streaming through the barred windows that kept me flittering between sleep and wakefulness that night. Perhaps I was still unsettled over what had taken place during the day. Perhaps my voices were restless. I have thought about it often, for I am still not sure what kept me in that awkward stage between alertness and unconsciousness throughout the dark hours. Peter the Fireman was groaning in his sleep, tossing about fitfully in the bunk next to mine. The night was hard for him; during the daytime, he was able to maintain a reasonableness that seemed out of place in the hospital. But at night something gnawed steadily away within him. And, as I faded back and forth between these states of anxiety, I remember seeing Lanky, several bunks distant, sitting up, legs folded like a red Indian at some tribal council, staring out across the room. I recall thinking that the tranquilizer that they gave him hadn't done the job, for by all rights he should have been pitched into a dark, dreamless, drug-induced sleep. But whatever the impulses that had so electrified him earlier, they were easily battling the tranquilizer, and instead, he sat, mumbling to himself, gesturing with his hands like a conductor who couldn't quite get the symphony to play at the right tempo.

That was how I remembered him, that night, as I slipped in and out of consciousness myself, right to the moment I had felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me awake. That was the moment, I thought. Start right there.

And so, I took the pencil and wrote:

Francis slept in fits and starts until he was awakened by an insistent shaking that seemed to drag him abruptly from some other unsettled place and instantly reminded him where he was. He blinked open his eyes, but before they adjusted to the dark, he could hear hanky's voice, whispering softly, but energetically, filled with a childish excitement and pleasure, saying, "We're safe, C-Bird. We're safe!"

Francis slept in fits and starts until he was awakened by an insistent shaking that seemed to drag him abruptly from some other unsettled place and instantly reminded him where he was. He blinked open his eyes, but before they adjusted to the dark, he could hear Lanky's voice, whispering softly, but energetically, filled with a childish excitement and pleasure, saying, "We're safe, C-Bird. We're safe!"

The tall man was perched like some winged dinosaur, on the edge of the bed. In the moonlight that filtered past the window bars, Francis could see a wild look of joy and relief on the man's face.

"Safe from what, Lanky?" Francis asked, although as soon as he asked the question, he realized he knew the answer.

"From evil," Lanky replied. He wrapped his arms around himself, hugging his own body. Then, in a second motion, he lifted his left hand and put it to his face, placing his forehead in his hand, as if the pressure of his palm and fingers could hold back some of the thoughts and ideas that were springing forth so zealously.

When Lanky took his hand away from his forehead, it seemed to Francis that it left behind a mark, almost like soot. It was hard to see in the wan light that sliced the dormitory room. Lanky must have felt something, as well, because he suddenly looked down at his fingers quizzically.

Francis sat upright in the bed. "Lanky!" he whispered. "What has happened?"

Before the tall man could respond, Francis heard a hissing sound. It was Peter the Fireman, who had awakened, and had swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, and was craning toward them. "Lanky, tell us now! What has happened?" Peter insisted, also keeping his voice as low as possible. "But be quiet. Don't wake up any of the others."

The tall man bent his head slightly, agreeing. But his words came out in an excited, almost joyous rush. Relief and release flooded his words. "It was a vision, Peter. It must have been an angel, sent right directly to me. C-Bird, this vision came straight to my side, right here to tell me…"

"Tell you what?" Francis asked quietly.

"Tell me I was right. Right all along. Evil had tried to follow us here, C-Bird. Evil was right here in the hospital alongside of all of us. But that evil has been destroyed, and now we're safe."

He breathed out slowly, then added, "Thank goodness."

Francis didn't know what to make of what Lanky had said, but Peter the Fireman moved over and sat at the tall man's side. "This vision it came here? In this room?" he asked.

"Right to my bedside. We embraced like brothers."

"The vision touched you?"

"Yes. It was as real as you or me, Peter. I could feel its life right next my own. Like our hearts were beating in unison. Except it was magical, too, C-Bird."

Peter the Fireman nodded. Then he reached out slowly and touched Lanky's forehead, where the soot marks remained. For a second, Peter rubbed his fingers together.

"Did you see the vision come in through the door, or did it drop down from someplace above?" he asked slowly, first motioning toward the dormitory entranceway, then up to the ceiling.

Lanky shook his head. "No. It just arrived, just one second, right by my bed. It seemed as if it was all bathed in light as if directly from heaven. But I couldn't exactly see its face. Almost like it was cloaked. It must have been an angel," he said. "C-Bird, think of it. An angel right here. Right here in this room. In our hospital. Helping to protect us."

Francis said nothing, but Peter the Fireman nodded, his own head bent slightly. He lifted his fingers to his nostrils and whiffed strongly. He seemed to be startled by what he smelled, and he took in a sharp breath of air. For a moment, the Fireman paused, looking around the room. Then he spoke in low, direct words, his voice carrying all the authority that it could, giving orders like a military commander with the enemy close by and danger in every shadow.

"Lanky. Go back to your bed, and wait there until C-Bird and I come back. Don't say anything to anybody. Absolute silence, got that?"

Lanky started to speak, then hesitated. "Okay," he said slowly. "But we're safe. We're all safe. Don't you think the others will want to know?" f "Let's make absolutely sure, before we get their hopes up," Peter said. This seemed to make sense, because Lanky nodded again. He rose and maneuvered back to his bunk. He turned and held up his index finger, the universal signal for silence, when he got there. Peter seemed to smile at him, then whispered, "C-Bird, come with me, right now. And be quiet!" Each word he spoke seemed taut with some undefined tension that Francis couldn't quite fathom.

Without looking back, Peter the Fireman began to creep gingerly between the bunks, moving stealthily in the meager spaces that separated the sleeping men. He slid past the toilet, where a little bit of harsh light sliced under the doorway, heading toward the sole door to the dormitory. A few of the men stirred, one man seemed to half rise as they crept past his bunk, but Peter merely shushed him smoothly as they went by, and the man shifted about with a low groan, changing sides and then descending back into sleep.

When he reached the door, he looked back and saw Lanky, once again, sitting cross-legged on the bunk. The tall man saw them and waved before he lay back down.

As Peter the Fireman reached for the door, Francis joined his side. "The door's locked," Francis said. "They lock it every night."

"Tonight," Peter said slowly, "it isn't locked." And then, by way of proof, he reached out, grasped the handle and turned it. The door pushed open with a small swooshing noise. "Come on, C-Bird," he said.

The corridor was darkened for the night, with only an occasional weak light shedding small glowing arcs across the floor. Francis was taken aback momentarily by the silence. Usually the hallways of the Amherst Building were jammed with people, sitting, standing, walking, smoking, talking to themselves, talking to people not there, maybe even talking to one another. The hallways were like the veins of the hospital, constantly pumping blood and energy to each central organ. He'd never seen them empty. The sensation of being alone on the corridor was unsettling. The Fireman, however, didn't seem concerned. He was staring down toward the middle of the hallway, where the nurses' station was marked by a single, faded desktop light, a small glow of yellow. From where they stood, the station seemed empty.

Peter took a single step forward, then stared down at the floor. He dropped down to a knee and gingerly touched a splotch of dark color, much as he had the soot on Lanky's face. Again, he lifted his finger to his nose. Then, without saying a word, he pointed, gesturing for Francis to take note.

Francis wasn't precisely sure what he was supposed to see, but he was paying close attention to everything Peter the Fireman did. The two of them continued to creep down the hallway toward the nursing station, but stopped midway, opposite one of the storage closets.

Francis peered through the weak light, and saw that the nursing station was indeed empty. This confused him, because he had always assumed there was at least one person on duty there round-the-clock. The Fireman, however, was staring down at the floor by the door to the closet. He pointed at a large splotch that marred the linoleum.

"What is it?" Francis asked.

Peter the Fireman sighed. "More trouble than you've ever known," he said. "Francis, whatever is behind this door, don't shout. Especially don't scream. Just bite your tongue and don't say a word. And don't touch a thing. Can you do that for me, C-Bird? Can I count on you?"

Francis grunted a yes, which was difficult. He could feel the blood pumping in his chest, echoing in his ears, all adrenaline and anxiety. In that second, he realized that he hadn't heard a word from any of his voices, not since Lanky had first shaken him awake.

Peter moved cautiously to the storage room door. He pulled his T-shirt out of his pajama pants and covered his hand with the loose end as he reached for the handle. Then he opened the door slowly.

The room gaped in front of them, pitch-black. Peter stepped forward very slowly and reached inside where there was a light switch on the side of the wall.

The sudden glare of light was like a sword stroke.

For a second, perhaps even less, Francis was blinded. He heard Peter the Fireman choke out a single, harsh obscenity.

Francis craned forward, looking into the storage room past Peter the Fireman. And then he gasped, abrupt fear and shock slamming him like a gust of hurricane wind. He recoiled from what he saw, taking a step backward and feeling like every breath he inhaled was steam-hot. He tried to say something, but even an "Oh, my God…" came out like a deep, disconnected groan.

On the floor in the center of the storage room, lay Short Blond.

Or the person who had been Short Blond.

She was nearly naked, her nurse's uniform seemingly sliced from her body and discarded in a corner. Her undergarments were still on her body, but pushed out of the way, so that her breasts and sex were exposed. She lay crumpled on her side, almost curled up in a fetal position except that one leg was drawn up, the other extended, a great lake of deep maroon blood beneath her head and chest. Streaks of red had dripped down across her pasty white skin. One arm had been stuffed sharply under the body, the other was extended, like a person waving to someone distant, and rested in a pool of blood. Her hair was matted, almost wet, and much of her skin glistened oddly, reflecting the harsh glare from the storage room light. A nearby bucket of cleaning materials had been knocked over and the stench of cleaning fluid and disinfectant stormed their nostrils. Peter the Firemen bent down toward the body, but then stopped short of feeling for a pulse when both he and Francis saw that Short Blond's throat had been sliced, a huge, gaping red and black wound that must have drained her life in seconds.

Peter the Fireman stepped back into the hallway, next to Francis. He took in a long, slow breath, then exhaled slowly, whistling slightly as the wind passed his clenched teeth.

"Look carefully, C-Bird," he said cautiously. "Look at everything carefully. Try to remember everything we see here tonight. Can you do that for me, C-Bird? Be the second pair of eyes that records and registers everything here?"

Francis nodded slowly. His eyes tracked Peter the Fireman, as the man stepped back into the storage room and wordlessly started to point at things. First the gash that cruelly marred her throat, then the overturned bucket and the clothing sliced and tossed aside. He pointed at a visor of blood on Short Blond's forehead, parallel lines that dripped toward her eyes. Francis could not imagine how they had gotten there. Peter the Fireman, lingered momentarily, as he pointed at the marks, then he started to maneuver carefully in the small space, his index finger pointing out each quadrant of the room, each element of the scene, like a teacher with a pointer rapping it impatiently on a blackboard to gain the attention of his dull-witted class. Francis followed it all, printing it like a photographer's assistant on his memory.

Peter lingered longest pointing at Short Blond's hand, extended out from the body. Francis saw suddenly that it appeared that the tips of four of her fingers were missing, as if they'd been sliced off and removed. He stared at the mutilation and realized his breath was coming in short spasms.

"What do you see, C-Bird?" Peter the Fireman finally asked.

Francis stared at the dead woman. "I see Short Blond," he said. "Poor Lanky. Poor, poor Lanky. He must have thought truly he was killing evil."

"You think Lanky did this?" he asked, shaking his head. "Look closer," Peter the Fireman repeated. "Then tell me what you see."

Francis gazed almost hypnotically at the body on the floor. He locked on the young woman's face, and was almost overcome with a mingling of fear, excitement, and a distant emptiness. He realized that he had never seen a dead person before, not close up. He did remember going to a great-aunt's funeral, when he was young, and being gripped tightly by the hand by his mother, who had steered him past an open coffin, muttering to him all the time to say nothing and do nothing and behave, for she was afraid somehow that Francis would draw attention to them all by some inappropriate act. But he hadn't, nor had he really been able to see the great-aunt in the coffin. All he could remember was this white porcelain profile, seen only momentarily, like something spotted through the window of a speeding car, as he was shunted past. He didn't think that was the same. What he saw of Short Blond was far different. It was dying at its absolute worst, he realized. "I see death," Francis whispered.

Peter the Fireman nodded. "Yes, indeed," he said. "Death. And a nasty one, at that. But you know what else I see?" He spoke slowly, as if measuring each word on some internal scale.

"What?" Francis asked cautiously.

"I see a message," the Fireman replied.

Then, with an almost crushing sense of sadness, he added, "And Francis, evil hasn't been killed. It is right here among us and is as alive as you or I." Then he stepped back into the corridor and quietly added, "Now we need to call for help."

Chapter 6

Sometimes I dream about what I saw.

Sometimes I realize that I am no longer dreaming, but I am wide-awake and it is a memory imprinted like the raised outline of a fossil in my past, which is far worse. I can still see Short Blond in my mind's eye, perfectly framed, like in one of the pictures that the police came and took later that night. But I suspect the police photographs weren't nearly as artistic as my memory's vision. I recollect her form a little like some lesser Renaissance painter's vivid but journalistically inaccurate imagination of a martyred saint's death.

What I remember is this-Her skin was porcelain white and perfectly clear, her face was set in a beatified repose. All it lacked was a glowing halo around her head. Death as a little more than an inconvenience, a mere momentary bit of distasteful and uncomfortable pain on the inevitable, delicious, and glorious road to heaven. Of course, in reality {which is a word I have learned to use as infrequently as possible) it was nothing of the sort. Her skin was streaked with vibrant dark blood, her clothes were ripped and torn, the slice in her throat gaped like a mocking smile and her face was wide-eyed and twisted in shock and disbelief. A gargoyle of death. Murder at its most hideous. I stepped back from the doorway to the storage closet that night filled with any number of vibrating, unsettling fears. To be that close to violence is the same as having one's heart suddenly scraped raw by sandpaper.

I didn't know her much in life. I would come to know her much better in death.

When Peter the Fireman turned away from the body and the blood and all the big and little signs of murder, I had no idea what was about to happen. He must have had a much more precise notion, because he immediately admonished me once again not to touch anything, to keep my hands in my pockets, and to keep my opinions to myself.

"C-Bird," he'd said, "in a short amount of time people are going to start asking questions. Really nasty questions. And they may ask these questions in a most unpleasant fashion. They may say they just want information, but trust me, they're not about helping anyone but themselves. Keep your answers short and to the point and don't volunteer anything beyond what you have seen and heard this night. Do you understand that?"

"Yes," I'd said, but I really had little idea what I was agreeing to. "Poor Lanky," I repeated once again.

Peter the Fireman had nodded. "Poor Lanky is right. But not for the reasons you think. He's about to get a real up close and personal look at evil, after all. Maybe we all are."

He and I walked down the corridor to the empty nurses' station. Our bare feet made little slapping sounds against the floor. The wire gate entranceway that should have been locked was swinging open. There were a few papers scattered around the floor but these could have tumbled off the desk when someone simply moved too quickly. Or they might have been swept to the floor in the midst of a brief struggle. It was hard to tell. There were two other signs that something had happened there: The locked cabinet that contained medications was wide open, and a few plastic pill containers littered the floor and the sturdy black telephone on the nurses' station desk was off its hook. Peter pointed at both these observations, just as he had earlier as we had surveyed the storage closet. Then he reached down and replaced the receiver, then immediately picked it back up to get a dial tone. He pushed zero, to connect himself with hospital security.

"Security? There has been an incident in Amherst," he said briskly. "Better come quickly." Then he abruptly disconnected the line and waited for another dial tone. This time he punched in 911. A second later, he calmly said, "Good evening. I want to inform you that there has been a homicide in the Amherst Building at the Western State Hospital in the area adjacent to the first-floor nursing station." He paused, and then added, "No, I'm not giving my name. I've just told you all you need to know at this point: the nature of the incident and the location. The rest should be pretty damn apparent when you get here. You will need crime scene specialists, detectives, and the county coroner's office. I would also suspect you should hurry up." Then he hung up. He turned to me and said, with just a slight if wry touch and perhaps a little more than interest, "Things are about to get truly if exciting." f That is what I remember. On my wall, I wrote:

' Francis had no idea the extent of the chaos about to break above his head like a thunder burst at the end of a hot summer afternoon… Francis had no idea the extent of the chaos about to break above his head like a thunder burst at the end of a hot summer afternoon. The closest he'd ever been to a crime up to that point was what he had unfortunately created all by himself when all his voices had shrieked at him and his world had turned upside down, and he had blown up and threatened his parents and his sisters and ultimately himself with the kitchen knife, the act which landed him in the hospital. He tried to think about what he'd seen and what it meant, but it seemed as if it was just beyond the reach of contemplation and more in the realm of shock. He became aware of his voices speaking in muted, but nervous fashion, deep within his head. All words of fear. For a moment he looked about wildly, and wondered whether he should just sneak back to his bed and wait, but then he couldn't move. Muscles seemed to fail him, and he felt a little like someone caught in a strong current, being tugged inexorably along. He and Peter waited by the nurses' station, and within a few seconds he heard the distinctive noise of hurrying footsteps and a fumbling of keys in the locked front door. After a moment, the door flew open and two hospital security personnel burst through. They each carried flashlights and long, black nightsticks. They were dressed in matching gray work outfits that seemed more the color of fog. Outlined for just an instant in the doorway, the two men seemed to blend with the wan light of the hospital corridor. They moved swiftly toward the two patients.

"Why are you out of the dormitory?" the first guard asked, brandishing his club. "You're not supposed to be out," he added unnecessarily. Then he demanded, "Where's the nurse on duty?"

The other security guard had moved into a supporting position, braced to assault if Francis and Peter the Fireman proved to be a threat. "Did you call Security?" he asked sharply. And then he repeated the same question as his partner. "Where's the nurse on duty?"

Peter simply jerked his thumb back toward the closet. "Down there," he said.

The first guard, a heavyset man with Marine Corps shorn hair and a neck that hung in fatty folds over his far-too-tight collar, pointed at Francis and Peter with his nightstick. "Neither of you two move, got that?" He turned to his partner, and said, "Either of these two guys moves a muscle, you let them have it." The partner, a wiry, bantam-sized man with a lopsided grin, removed a canister of spray Mace from his utility belt. And then the thickset guard moved quickly down the hallway, wheezing slightly with the press of exertion. He had a wide-beamed flashlight in his left hand, and his baton in the right. The arc of light carved moving slices from the gray hallway as he moved forward. Francis saw that the security guard jerked open the storage door without using the same precautions that Peter had.

For a moment, he stood, frozen, his jaw dropping. Then he grunted and said, "Jesus Christ!" as he reeled backward seconds after the flashlight's beam illuminated the nurse's body. Then, almost as quickly, he jumped forward. From where they were standing, they saw the guard put his hand on Short Blond's shoulder and turn the body so that he could try to feel for a pulse.

"Don't do that," Peter said quietly. "You're disturbing the crime scene."

The smaller guard had paled, although he hadn't yet fully seen the extent of hard death that lay inside the storage room. His voice was high-pitched with anxiety, and he shouted, "Just shut up, you fucking loonies! Shut up!"

The large guard lurched back again, and turned, wild-eyed with shock, toward Francis and Peter the Fireman. He was muttering obscenities. "Don't either of you move! Don't fucking move!" he said furiously. He stepped toward them, slipping in one of the pools of blood that Peter had been so cautious to avoid. Then he raced back and grasped Francis by the arm and spun him around, slamming him against the wire of the nursing station, frantically pushing his face into the mesh. In virtually the same motion, he savagely crashed the back of Francis's legs with the nightstick, bringing him tumbling forward and falling to his knees. Pain like an explosion of white phosphorous burst behind Francis's eyes, and he gasped sharply, seizing air that seemed filled with needles. For a moment, his vision spun about dizzily, and he thought he might pass out. Then, as he regained his wind, the force of the blow receded, leaving only a dull, throbbing bruise on his memory. The smaller guard rapidly followed suit, spinning Peter the Fireman about and smashing the small of his back with the nightstick, which had the same effect, dropping him to his knees with a rasping breath. Both men were immediately handcuffed, and then knocked flat to the floor. Francis could smell the unpleasant odor of the disinfectant that was constantly used to swab the corridor. "Fucking loonies," the security guard repeated. Then he pushed into the nursing station and dialed a number. He waited a second for someone on the other end to pick up, then said, "Doctor, this is Maxwell in Security. We have big trouble over in Amherst. You'd better get over here right away." He hesitated, then said, obviously in answer to a question, "A pair of inmates have killed a nurse."

"Hey!" Francis said, "we haven't " but his denial was cut off by a sharp kick into his thigh from the smaller man. He bit back his tongue and chewed on his lip. He had been spun around, and couldn't see Peter the Fireman. He wanted to twist in that direction, but also didn't want to get kicked again, so he held his position, as he heard the sound of a siren cutting through the outside darkness, growing stronger with each passing second. It was blaring as it pulled to a halt in front of Amherst, then faded like an evil thought.

"Who called the cops?" the smaller guard asked.

"We did," said Peter.

"Jesus Christ," the guard said. He kicked at Francis a second time.

He aimed his foot and drew it back for a third blow, and Francis braced for the pain, but the guard didn't follow through. Instead he suddenly blurted out, "Hey! What're you think you're doing!"

He said the question as if it were an order, no inquiry behind the sentiment, only a demand. Francis managed to turn his head slightly, and saw that Napoleon and a couple of others from the dormitory had pushed the door open, and were standing hesitantly in the entranceway to the corridor, unsure whether they could come out. The noise from the sirens must have awakened everyone, Francis realized. In the same moment, the main light switch was thrown, and the hallway burst into light. From the south side of the building, Francis suddenly could hear high-pitched, wailing cries, and someone began to slam on the locked door to the women's dormitory. The steel plates and deadbolt locks held the door fast, but the noise was like a bass drum, echoing down the hallway.

"Goddamn it!" the guard with the Marine haircut shouted. "You!" He was pointing his nightstick at Napoleon and the other timid, but curious men who'd stepped out of the sleeping area. "Back inside! Now!" He ran toward them holding his arm out like a traffic cop giving directions, brandishing his nightstick at the same time. Francis could see the men retreat in fear, and the guard slammed himself into the door, pushing it closed and then locking it tightly. He turned, and then skidded, as his foot slipped in one of the dark splotches of blood that marred the corridor. The door drumming from the women's side picked up in intensity, and Francis heard two other voices coming from behind his head.

"What the hell's going on here?"

"What're you doing?"

He turned again, and could just catch sight beyond where Peter the Fireman was stretched out on the floor, of two uniformed police officers. One of the men was reaching for his weapon, not drawing it, but nervously unsnap-ping the flap that held it in place.

"We got a report of a homicide?" one of the uniformed officers asked. Then, without waiting for a response, he must have seen some of the blood in the corridor, for he stepped forward, past the nursing station, over to the door to the storage room. Francis tracked the policeman with his eyes, and saw the man stop short outside the door. Unlike the hospital guards, however, the policeman said nothing. He simply stared in, almost, in that second, like so many of the hospital patients who stared off into space, seeing whatever it was they wanted to see, or needed to see, but which wasn't what was in front of them.

From that moment it seemed that things happened quickly and slowly, both at the same time. It was, to Francis, as if time somehow had lost its grip on the progress of the night, and that its orderly processing of the dark hours past midnight was disrupted and thrown into disarray. Before too long, he was shunted off to a treatment room down the corridor from where crime scene technicians were setting up shop and photographers were clicking off frames of pictures. Each time their flash went off it was like a lightning strike on some distant horizon and it caused the cries and turmoil in the locked dormitories among the patients to redouble in tension. At first he was unceremoniously slammed into a seat by the smaller of the two security guards and left alone. Then two detectives in plain clothes and Doctor Gulptilil came in to see him after a few minutes. He was still in his nightclothes and handcuffed, and uncomfortably seated in a stiff wooden desk chair. Francis presumed that Peter the Fireman was in similar circumstances in an adjacent room, but he couldn't be sure. He wished he didn't have to face the policemen by himself.

The two detectives wore suits that seemed slightly rumpled and ill fitting. They had close-cropped haircuts and hard jaw lines and neither man wore any sense of softness in his eyes, or the manner in which he spoke. They were of similar heights and builds and Francis thought he would probably mix them up if he were to ever meet them again. He didn't really hear their names, when they introduced themselves, because he was looking over toward Doctor Gulptilil for reassurance. The doctor, however, perched himself against one wall, and saying nothing after admonishing Francis to tell the detectives the truth. One of the two policemen sidled up next to the doctor, and leaned beside him against the wall, while the other half sat on a desk in front of Francis. One leg swung in the air almost jauntily, but the policeman sat so that his black holster and steel blue pistol, worn on his belt, were obvious. The man had a slightly lopsided smile, which made almost everything he said appear dishonest.

"So, Mister Petrel," the detective asked, "why were you out in the corridor after lights-out?"

Francis hesitated, remembered what Peter the Fireman had told him, and then launched into a brief recounting of being awakened by Lanky, and then following Peter out into the hallway, and subsequently discovering Short Blond's body. The detective nodded, then shook his head.

"That dormitory door is locked, Mister Petrel. It's locked every night." The detective stole a quick glance at Doctor Gulptilil, who nodded vigorously in assent.

"It wasn't locked tonight."

"I'm not sure I believe you."

Francis did not know how to respond.

The policeman paused, letting some silence creep around the room and making Francis nervous. "Tell me, Mister Petrel. Okay if I call you Francis?"

Francis nodded.

"… Okay then, Franny, you're a young guy. You ever have sex with a woman before tonight?"

Francis reeled back in the chair. "Tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah," the detective continued. "I mean, before tonight when you had sex with the nurse. Did you ever have relations with any girl?"

Francis was genuinely confused. Voices thundered in his ears, shouting all sorts of contradictory messages. He looked over toward Doctor Gulptilil trying to see if he could see the tumult that was taking place within him. But the doctor had moved into a shadow, and it was hard for Francis to see his face.

"No," Francis said, hesitancy marred the word.

"No, what? Never? A good-looking guy like you? That must have been pretty frustrating. Especially when you got turned down, I'll bet. And that nurse, she wasn't all that much older than you, was she? Must have made you pretty angry when she turned you down."

"No," Francis said again. "That's not right."

"She didn't turn you down?"

"No, no, no," Francis said.

"You mean you're telling me she agreed to have sex, and then killed herself?"

"No," he repeated. "You have it all wrong."

"Right. Sure." The detective looked over at his partner. "So, she didn't agree to have sex, and then you killed her? Is that the way it went?"

"No, you're wrong again."

"Franny, you've got me all confused. You say you're out in a corridor past a locked door when you shouldn't be, and there's a raped and dead nurse-trainee, and you just happen to be there? Why it doesn't make any sense. Don't you think you could be a little more helpful here?"

"I don't know," Francis responded.

"What don't you know? How to help out? Why just tell me what happened when the nurse turned you down. How hard is that? Then it will all make sense to everyone, and we can wrap this up tonight."

"Yes. Or no," Francis said.

"I'll tell you another way it makes sense: If you and your buddy got together and decided to sneak out and pay the nurse a little nighttime visit, and then things didn't exactly go the way you planned. Look, Franny, just level with me, okay? Let's just agree on one thing, all right?"

"What's that?" Francis asked tentatively. He could hear the cracks in his voice.

"You just tell me the truth, okay?"

Francis nodded.

"Good," said the detective. He continued in a low, soft, seductive voice, almost as if each word spoken could only be heard by Francis, that they were speaking some language only they knew. The other policeman and Doctor Gulp-a-pill seemed to evaporate from the small room, as the detective continued speaking, siren like enticing, making it seem as if the only possible interpretation was his. "Now the only way I can see this happening is maybe a little bit of an accident, huh? Maybe she kinda led you and the other guy on. Maybe you thought she was going to be a little friendlier than she turned out to be. A little misunderstanding. That's all. You thought she meant one thing, and she thought, well, she meant another. And then things got out of hand, right? So, really, it was all an accident, right? And look, Franny, no one is going to blame you all that much. I mean, after all, you're here. And you've already been diagnosed as being a little crazy, so this is pretty much in the same ballpark, right? Have I got it down now, Franny?"

Francis took a deep breath. "Not in the slightest," he said sharply. For a moment he wondered if denying the detective's persuasive tones wasn't the bravest thing he'd ever done.

The detective stood up quickly, shook his head once, and glanced at his partner. This other policeman seemed to vault the room in a single stride, slamming his fist against the table violently, abruptly lowering his face to Francis's so that the spittle and spray from his screamed words fell all over him.

"Goddamn it! You fucking Looney Tune! You killed her and we know it! Stop fucking around and tell us the truth or I will beat the shit out of you!"

Francis recoiled, pushing the chair back, trying to gain some space, but the detective grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him forward. In the same motion, he jammed Francis's head down, smashing it against the tabletop, dazing him. When he lurched upright, Francis could taste blood on his lips, and could feel it dripping from his nose. He shook his head, trying to regain his senses, only to be sent spinning by a vicious openhanded slap across his cheek. Pain seared his face and soared behind his eyes, and then, almost simultaneously, he felt himself losing his balance, and he fell to the floor. He was dizzy and disoriented, and he wanted something or someone to come help him.

The detective grabbed him, lifted him up as if he were almost weightless, and slammed him back down into the chair.

"Now, damn it to hell, tell us the truth!" He pulled back his hand, readying it to punch Francis again, but held up, as if waiting for a reply.

The blows seemed to have scattered all his voices within him. They were shouting warnings from locations deep within him, hard to hear and hard to make out. It was a little like being in the back of a room filled with strange and unfamiliar people speaking in different languages.

"Tell me!" the detective repeated.

Francis did not reply. Instead, he grasped hold of the chair frame and readied himself for another blow. The detective lifted his hand, then stopped. He made a grunting noise of resignation and stepped back. The first detective stepped forward.

"Franny, Franny," he said soothingly, "why are you making my friend here so angry? Can't you just straighten this out tonight, so we can all go home and get to bed. Get things back to normal? Or," he continued, smiling as he spoke, "whatever passes for normal around here."

He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Do you know what is happening next door, right now?"

Francis shook his head.

"Your buddy, the other guy who was in on the little party tonight, he's giving you up. That's what's happening."

"Giving me up?" Francis asked.

"He's blaming you for everything that happened. He's telling the other detectives that it was your idea, and that you were the one who did the rape, and the murder, and that he just watched. He's telling them that he tried to stop you, but that you wouldn't listen to him. He's blaming you for the whole sorry mess."

Francis considered this for a moment, then shook his head. The detective's suggestion seemed as crazy and impossible as anything else that had happened that night, and he didn't believe it. He ran his tongue over his lip and felt some swelling to go with the salty taste of the blood. "I told you," he said weakly. "I told you what I know."

The first detective grimaced, as if this response wasn't acceptable, not in the slightest, and made a small hand gesture toward his angry partner. The second detective stepped forward, lowering his face so that he was looking directly into Francis's eyes. Francis shrank back, awaiting another blow, unable to move to defend himself. His vulnerability was total. He squeezed his eyes shut.

But before the blow arrived, he heard the door scrape open.

The interruption seemed to put everything in the room into an odd, slow motion. Francis could see a uniformed officer in the doorway, and both detectives leaning toward him, in muffled conversation. After a moment, it seemed to gain in animation, though the tones stayed low and impossible for Francis to make out. After a moment or two, the first detective shook his head and sighed, making a small sound of disgust, then turned back toward Francis. "Hey, Franny-boy, tell me this: The guy you said woke you up, the guy you told us about at the start of our little conversation, before you said you headed out into the corridor, that the same guy that attacked the nurse earlier tonight, during dinner? Went after her in front of just about every damn person in this building?"

Francis nodded.

The detective seemed to roll his eyes, and toss his head back in resignation. "Shit," he said. "We're wasting our time here." He turned toward Doctor Gulptilil, still lurking in the shadows, and angrily asked, "Why the hell didn't you tell us about that earlier? Is everybody in here flat-out nuts?"

Gulp-a-pill didn't answer.

"Anything else that's fucking of critical importance that you left out, Doc?"

Gulp-a-pill shook his head negatively.

"Sure," said the detective sarcastically. He gestured at Francis. "Bring him along."

Francis was pushed out into the corridor by a uniformed officer. He glanced to his right and saw that another set of policemen had emerged from an adjacent office with Peter the Fireman, who sported a vibrant red and raw contusion near his right eye, but a defiant, angry look that seemed to hold all the policemen in a similar state of contempt. Francis wished he could appear as confident. The first detective suddenly grasped Francis by the arm and spun him slightly, positioning him so that he could see Lanky, handcuffed, flanked by two other policemen. Behind him, far down the hallway, a half-dozen hospital security guards had cornered all the first-floor Amherst Building male patients into a tight knot, away from the spot where some crime scene technicians were photographing and measuring the storage closet. Two paramedics emerged from the pack of policemen with a black body bag placed on top of a white-sheeted gurney, much like the type that Francis had ridden when he'd arrived at the Western State Hospital.

There was a collective groan from the gathering of inmates when they saw the body bag. A few men started crying, and others turned away, as if by averting their gaze they could avoid understanding what happened. Others went rigid at the sight, and a few simply continued doing whatever they were doing, which was mostly weaving and waving, dancing about or staring at the walls.

Francis could hear some muttering sounds as they spoke to one another. The women's wing had been quieted, but when the body came out, although they were locked away, they must have sensed something, because the deep pounding on the door resumed momentarily, like a drumroll at a military funeral. Francis looked back at Lanky, whose eyes seemed frozen on the apparition of the nurse's body as it creaked past him on the gurney. In the bright corridor lights, Francis could see deep swaths of maroon blood on the tall man's billowing nightshirt. "That the guy that woke you up, Franny?" the first detective demanded, his question carrying with it all the authority of a man accustomed to being in charge of things.

Francis nodded.

"… And after he woke you up, you went out to the corridor where you found the nurse already dead, right? Then you called Security, right?"

Again Francis nodded. The detective looked over at the policemen standing next to Peter the Fireman, who also bent their heads in agreement. One replied, as if to an unspoken question, "That's what this guy said, too."

Lanky seemed to be quivering. His face was pale, and his lower lip shook with fear. He looked down at the handcuffs restraining him, then put his hands together, as if in prayer. He stared across the hallway to Francis and Peter. "C-Bird," he said, his voice quavering with every word, his hands pushed forward like a supplicant at a church service, "Tell them about the Angel. Tell them about the Angel who came in the middle of the night and told me that the evil had been taken care of. We're safe now, tell them, please C-Bird." His voice gathered a plaintive, lost tone, as if each word he spoke seemed to plummet him further into despair.

The detective instead, suddenly half shouted at Lanky, who shrank back at the force of the questions shot at him like so many sharpened spears or arrows. "How'd you get that blood on your shirt, old man? How'd you get that nurse's blood on your hands?"

Lanky looked down at his fingers and shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "Maybe the Angel brought it to me?"

As he was replying, a uniformed officer came walking down the corridor, holding a small plastic bag. At first Francis could not see what it contained, but as the policeman approached, he recognized it as the small, white, three-peaked cap that hospital nurses often wore. Only this one seemed crumpled and the rim was stained in the same color as the streaks on Lanky's nightshirt. The uniformed officer said, "Looks like he tried to keep a souvenir. Found this underneath his mattress."

"Did you find the knife?" the detective asked the officer.

The policeman shook his head.

"What about the fingertips?"

Again a negative from the uniformed officer.

The detective seemed to think for a moment, assessing things, then he spun abruptly to face Lanky, who continued to cower against the wall, encircled by officers, all of whom were shorter than he was, but all of whom seemed, in that second, to be larger.

"How'd you get that hat?" the detective demanded of Lanky.

The tall man shook his head. "I don't know, I don't know," he cried. "I didn't get it."

"It was underneath your mattress. Why did you put it there?"

"I didn't. I didn't."

"Doesn't make much difference," the detective replied with a shrug. "We've got a lot more than we need. Someone read him his rights. We're out of this loony bin right now."

The policemen started to push and prod Lanky down the hallway. Francis could see panic striking like lightning bolts right throughout the tall man's body. He twitched as if electric current was flooding him, as if each step he was forced to take was on hot coals. "No, please, I didn't do anything. Please. Oh, evil, evil, it's all around us, please don't take me away, this is my home, please!" As Lanky cried pitifully, despair echoing throughout the corridor, Francis felt his own handcuffs being removed. He looked up, and Lanky caught his eye. "C-Bird, Peter, please help me," he called out. Francis could not imagine ever hearing so much pain in so few words. "Tell them it was an Angel. An Angel came to me in the middle of the night. Tell them. Help me, please."

And then, with a final shove and push from the collected police officers, Lanky was rushed out the front door of the Amherst Building and swallowed up by what remained of the night.

Chapter 7

I suppose I slept some that night, but I cannot recall actually closing my eyes.

I can't even remember breathing.

My swollen lip stung, and even after washing up a little, I could still taste blood where the policeman had struck me. My legs were sore from the blow from the security guard's nightstick and my head spun from all that I'd seen. It makes no difference how many years have passed since that night, the number of days that stretch into decades, I can still feel the pain of my encounter with the authorities who thought even if briefly that I was the killer. When I lay stiffly on my bunk, it was hard for me to connect Short Blond, who had been alive earlier that day, with the gory figure that was taken away zipped up in a body bag, then probably dumped on some cold steel table, to await a pathologist's scalpel. It remains just as difficult to reconcile today. It was almost as if they were two separate entities, worlds apart, having little, if any, relationship to each other.

My memory is clear: I remained motionless in the darkness, feeling the restless pressure of each passing second, aware that the entire dormitory was unsettled; the usual night noises of unquiet sleep were exaggerated, underscored by a busy nervousness and nasty tension that seemed to layer the tight air in the room like a new coat of paint. Around me, people shifted and twitched, despite the extra course of medications that had been handed out before we were all shuffled back into the room. Chemical quiet. At least, that was what Gulp-a-pill and Mr. Evil and the rest of the staff wanted, but all the fears and anxieties created that night were far beyond even the medications' capabilities. We twisted and turned uneasily, groaning and grunting, crying and sobbing, our feelings taut and raw. We were all afraid of the night that remained, and just as afraid of whatever the morning would bring.

Absent one, of course. Having Lanky so abruptly severed from our little madhouse community seemed to leave a shadow behind. In the days since I'd arrived in the Amherst Building, one or two of the truly old and infirm had died of what were called natural causes, but which could be better summed up in the word neglect or the word abandonment. Occasionally and miraculously someone with a little bit of life left would actually be released. More often, Security had moved someone frantic and unruly or out of control screaming into one of the upstairs isolation cells. But they were likely to return in a couple of days, their medications increased, their shuffling movements a little more pronounced and the twitching in the corners of their faces exaggerated. So disappearances weren't uncommon. But the manner that Lanky had been taken from our side was, and that was what caused our ricocheting emotions as we watched for the first streaks of daylight to slide through the bars on the windows.

I made two grilled cheese sandwiches, filled an only slightly dirty glass with cold tap water, and leaned back against the kitchen counter, munching away. A forgotten cigarette burned in a jammed ashtray a few feet away, and I watched as its slender plume of smoke rose through the stale air of my home.

Peter the Fireman smoked.

I took another bite of the sandwich, then a gulp from the glass of water. When I looked back across the room, he was standing there. He reached down for the stub of my cigarette and lifted it to his lips. "Ah, back in the hospital one could smoke without guilt," he said, a little slyly. "I mean, which was worse: risking cancer or being crazy?"

"Peter," I said, smiling. "I haven't seen you in years."

"Have you missed me, C-Bird?"

I nodded my reply. He shrugged, as if to apologize.

"You're looking good, C-Bird. A little thin, maybe, but you've hardly aged at all." Then he blew a pair of insouciant smoke rings as he began to look around the room. "So, this is your place? It's not bad. Things working out, I see."

"I don't know I'd say they were working out exactly. As best as could be expected, maybe."

"That's right. That was the unusual thing about being mad, wasn't it, C-Bird? Our expectations got all skewed and changed about. Ordinary things, like holding a job and having a family and getting to go to Little League games on nice summer afternoons, those things got real hard to accomplish. So we revamped, right? Revised and retrenched and reconsidered."

I grinned. "Yes, that's right. Like just owning a sofa, that's a big achievement."

Peter tossed his head back, laughing. "Sofa ownership and the road to mental health. Sounds like one of the papers that Mister Evil was always working on for his doctorate that never got published."

Peter continued to look around. "Got any friends?"

I shook my head. "Not really."

"Still hearing voices?"

"A little bit, sometimes. Just echoes, really. Echoes or whispers. The meds they have me on all the damn time pretty much squelch the racket they used to make."

"The medication can't be all that bad," Peter said, winking, "because I'm here."

This was true.

Peter moved to the kitchen entranceway and looked over at the wall of writing. He moved with the same athletic grace, a kind of highly defined control over his motions that I recalled from hours spent walking through the ward corridors of the Amherst Building. No shuffling or staggering for Peter the Fireman. He looked exactly as he had twenty years earlier, except that the Red Sox baseball cap that he often jauntily wore back then was stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans. But his hair was still full and long, and his smile was just as I remembered it, worn on his face in the same way it would be, if someone had told a joke a few moments earlier, and the humor had lingered. "How's the story going?" he asked.

"It's coming back."

He started to say something, then stopped, and stared at the columns of words scribbled on the wall. "What have you told them about me?" he asked.

"Not enough," I said. "But they've probably already figured out that you were never crazy. No voices. No delusions. No bizarre beliefs and lurid thoughts. At least, not crazy like Lanky or Napoleon or Cleo or any of the others. Or even me, for that matter."

Peter made a little, wry smile.

"Good Catholic lad, big Irish Dorchester second-generation family. A dad who drank too much on Saturday night and a mother who believed in Democrats and the power of prayer. Civil servants, elementary school teachers, cops and soldiers. Regular attendance at Mass on Sunday, followed by Catechism class. A bunch of altar boys. The girls learned step dancing and sang in the choir. The boys went to Latin High and played football. When it came time for the draft, we signed right up. No student deferments for us. And we didn't get to be mentally ill. At least not exactly. Not in that diagnosable, defined way that Gulp-a-pill liked, where he could look up your disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and read precisely what sort of treatment plan to come up with. No, in my family, we got to be peculiar. Or eccentric. Or perhaps a little weird, or slightly off base, out of whack or off-kilter."

"You weren't even all that peculiar, Peter," I said.

He laughed, a short, amused burst. "A fireman who deliberately sets afire? In the church where he was baptized? What would you call that? At least a little strange, huh? A little more than just odd, don't you think?"

I didn't answer. Instead I watched him move through my small apartment. Even if he wasn't really there, it was still good to have company.

"You know what bothered me, sometimes, C-Bird?"

"What?"

"There were so many moments in my life that should have driven me insane. I mean, clear-cut, no-holds-barred, genuinely terrible moments that should have added up to a nice, fine frothing at the mouth madness. Growing up moments. War moments. Death moments. Anger moments. And yet the one that seemed to make the most sense, that had the most clarity to it, was what put me in the hospital."

He paused, continuing to survey my wall. Then he added, in a low voice, "When I was barely nine my brother died. He was the one closest to me in age, just a year older, Irish twins was the family joke. But his hair was much lighter than mine, and his skin seemed always pale, like it had been stretched thinner than my own. And I could run, jump, play sports, stay out all day, but he could barely breathe. Asthma and heart troubles and kidneys that barely worked. God wanted him to be special that way, or so I was told. Why God decided that was considered beyond me. So there we were, nine and ten, and we both knew he was dying, and it didn't make any difference to us, we still laughed and joked, and made all the little secrets brothers do. On the day they took him for the last time to the hospital, he told me that I would have to be the boy for the both of us. I wanted so badly to help him. I told my mother that Billy could have my right lung and my heart, that the doctors could give me his, and we'd just trade off for a while. But of course, they didn't do that."

I listened, and didn't interrupt Peter, because as he spoke, he walked closer to the wall where I'd begun to write our story, but he wasn't reading the words scrawled there, he was telling his own. He took a drag from the cigarette and then continued speaking slowly.

"In Vietnam, C-Bird, did I tell you about the point man who got shot?"

"Yes, Peter. You did."

"You should put that in what you write. About the point man and my brother who died young. I think they're part of the same story."

"I'll have to tell them about your nephew and the fire, as well."

He nodded. "I knew you would. But not yet. Just tell them about the point man. You know what I remember the most about that day? That it was so damn hot. Not hot like you or I or anyone growing up in New England knew hot. We knew hot like in August, when it was a scorcher, and we went down and swam in the harbor. This was an awful, sickly hot that felt poisonous. We were snaking through the bush single file and the sun was high overhead. The pack on my back felt like it had every item I needed and every care I had in the world packed inside. The bad guys had a simple policy for their snipers, you know. Shoot the guy in front on the point and drop him. Wound him, if you could. Aim for the legs, not the head. At the sound of the shot, everyone else would take cover, except for the medic you see, and that was me. The medic would go for the wounded man. Every time. You know, in training, they told us not to foolishly risk our own lives, but we always went. And then the sniper would try to drop the medic, because he was the one guy in the platoon that everyone owed, and this would bring everyone else out into the open, trying to get to the medic. A remarkably elemental process. How a single shot gives you an opportunity to kill many. So, that was what happened this day, they shot the point man, and I could hear him calling for me. But the platoon leader and two other guys were holding me back. I was short. Less than two weeks in my tour left. So instead, we listened while he bled to death. And that's the way it was reported back at headquarters later, making it seem inevitable. Except it wasn't true. They held me back, and I struggled and complained and pleaded, but all the time I knew that if I wanted, I could break free. That I could go for him, all it would take was a little more effort. And that was what I wouldn't spend. That little extra push. So, instead, we had this little charade in the jungle while a man died. It was the type of situation where what is right is what will be fatal. I didn't go, and no one blamed me, and I lived and went home to Dorchester and the point man died. I didn't even know him all that well. He'd been in the platoon for less than a month. I mean, it wasn't like I was listening to my friend die, C-Bird. He was just someone who was there, and then he cried for help, and kept crying until he couldn't cry any longer because he was dead."

"He might not have lived, even if you'd reached him." Peter nodded, smiling. "Sure. Right. I told myself that, too." He sighed. "All my life, I had nightmares about people calling for help. And I didn't go."

"But you became a fireman…"

"Easiest way to do penance, C-Bird. Everyone loves the fireman." Peter slowly faded from my side. It was midmorning, I remembered, before we got a chance to speak. The Amherst Building was filled with sunlight that sent creases through the thick leftover smell of violent death. The white walls seemed to glow with intensity. The patients were walking around, doing their regular shuffle and lurch, but a little more gingerly. Moving cautiously, because all of us, even in our mad states, knew that something had happened and sensed that something was still to happen. I looked around and found my pencil.

It was midmorning before Francis had a chance to speak with Peter the Fireman. A deceptive, glaring spring sunshine burst past the windows and steel bars, sending explosions of light through the corridors, reflecting off the floor that had been cleaned of all the outward signs of murder. But a residue of death lurked in the stale air of the hospital; patients moved singly or in small groups, silently avoiding the places where murder had left its signs. No one stepped in the spots where the nurse's blood had pooled up. Everyone gave the storage closet a wide berth, as -if getting too close to the scene of the crime might somehow rub some of its evil off on them. Voices were muted, conversation was dulled. Patients shuffled a little more slowly, as if the hospital ward had been transformed into a church. Even the delusions that afflicted so many of the inmates seemed quieted, as if for once taking a backseat to a much more real and frightening madness.

Peter, however, had taken up a position in the corridor where he was leaning against the wall, staring directly at the storage room. Every so often his eyes would measure the distance between the spot where the nurse's body was discovered and where she had been first assaulted, in the wire mesh enclosed station in the center of the hallway.

Francis moved toward him slowly. "What is it?" he asked quietly.

Peter the Fireman pursed his lips together, as if concentrating hard. "Tell me, C-Bird, does any of this make any sense to you?"

Francis started to respond, then hesitated. He leaned up against the wall next to the Fireman and began to look in the same direction. After a moment, he said, "It's like reading the last chapter of a book first."

Peter smiled and nodded. "How so?"

"Well," Francis said slowly, "it's all in reverse. Not reverse, like a mirror, but as if we are told the conclusion but not how we got there."

"Go on, C-Bird."

Francis felt a kind of energy as his imagination churned with what he'd seen the night before. Within him, he could hear a chorus of assent and encouragement. "Some things really bother me," he said. "Some things I just don't understand."

"Tell me some of the things," Peter asked.

"Well, Lanky, for starters. Why would he want to kill Short Blond?"

"He thought she was evil. He tried to assault her in the dining hall earlier."

"Yes, and then they gave him a shot, which should have calmed him down."

"But it didn't."

Francis shook his head. "I think it did. Not completely, but it did. When I got a shot like that it was like having all the muscles in my body sliced, so that I barely had the energy to lift my eyelids and look out at the world around me.

Even if they didn't give Lanky enough, some would have done the job, I think. Because killing Short Blond would take strength. And energy. And more, too, I suppose."

"More?"

"It would take purpose," Francis said.

"Go on," Peter said, nodding his head.

"Well, how does Lanky get out of the dormitory? It was always locked. And if he did manage to unlock the door to the dormitory, where are the keys? And why, if he did get out, why would he take Short Blond to the storage room. I mean, how does he do that? And then why would he" Francis hesitated, before selecting the word "assault her? And leave her like he did?"

"He had her blood on his clothes. Her hat was underneath his mattress," Peter said with a policeman's stolid conclusiveness.

Francis shook his head. "I don't understand that. That hat. But not the knife that he used to kill her?"

Peter lowered his voice. "What did Lanky tell us about, when he awakened us?"

"He said an angel came to his side and embraced him."

Both men were silent. Francis tried to imagine the sensation of the angel stirring Lanky from his nervous sleep. "I thought he made it up. I thought it was something he just imagined."

"So did I," Peter said. "Now, I don't know."

He began to stare at the storage closet again. Francis joined in. The longer he stared, the closer he got to the moment. It was, he thought, as if he could almost see Short Blond's last seconds. Peter must have noticed, for he, too, seemed to pale. "I don't want to think Lanky could do that," he said. "It doesn't seem like him at all. Even at his worst, and he certainly was at his scariest yesterday, it still doesn't seem like him. Lanky was about pointing and shouting and being loud. I don't think he was about killing. Certainly not killing in a sneaky, quiet, assassin's type of way."

"He said evil had to be destroyed. He said it real loud, in front of everyone."

Peter nodded, but his voice carried disbelief. "Do you think he could kill someone, C-Bird?"

"I don't know. In a way, I think, under the right circumstances, anyone could be a killer. But I'm just guessing. I've never known a killer before."

This reply made Peter smile. "Well, you know me," he said. "But I think we should get to know another."

"Another killer?"

"An Angel," Peter said.

Shortly before the afternoon group session the following day, Francis was approached by Napoleon. The small man had a hesitancy about him, that seemed to speak of indecision, and doubt. He stuttered slightly, words seeming to hang up on the tip of his tongue, reluctant to burst forth for fear of how they would be received. He had the most curious sort of speech impediment, for when he launched himself into history, as it connected to his namesake, then he would be far more clear and precise. The problem was, for anyone listening, to separate the two disparate elements, the thoughts of that day from the speculations about events that had taken place more than 150 years earlier.

"C-Bird?" Napoleon asked, with his customary nervousness.

"What is it, Nappy?" Francis replied. They were hanging on the edge of the dayroom, not actually doing anything but patiently assessing their thoughts, as the folks of the Amherst Building often did.

"Something has really been bothering me," Napoleon said.

"There's been a lot that's bothered everyone," Francis responded. Napoleon ran his hands over his chubby cheeks.

"Did you know that no general is considered more brilliant than Bonaparte?" Napoleon said. "Like Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or George Washington. I mean, he was someone who shaped the world with his brilliance."

"Yes. I know that," Francis said.

"But what I don't understand is why, when he was so roundly considered such a man of genius, does everyone only remembers his defeats?"

"I'm sorry," Francis said.

"The defeats. Moscow. Trafalgar. Waterloo."

"I don't know if I can answer that question, Nappy…," Francis started.

"It's truly bothering me," he said quickly, "I mean, why are we remembered for our failures? Why do defeats and retreats mean more than victories? Do you think Gulp-a-pill and Mister Evil ever talk about the progress we make, in group, or with medications? I don't think so. I think they only talk about setbacks and mistakes and all the little signs that we still belong here, instead of the indications that we're getting better and just maybe we ought to be going home."

Francis nodded. This made some sense.

But the short man continued, his stuttering hesitancy dropping aside. "I mean, Napoleon remade the map of Europe with his victories. They should be remembered. It really makes me so angry…"

"I don't know that there's much you can do about it," Francis started, only to be cut off as the small man leaned forward and lowered his voice.

"It makes me so angry the way Gulp-a-pill and Mister Evil treat me and treat all these historical things that are so important, that I could hardly sleep last night…"

This statement got Francis's attention.

"You were awake?"

"I was awake when I heard someone working a key through the door lock."

"Did you see…"

Napoleon shook his head. "I heard the door swing open, you know, my bunk isn't far away, and I closed my eyes tight, because we are supposed to be asleep, and I didn't want someone to think that I wasn't sleeping when I was supposed to and get my meds increased. So I pretended."

"Go on," Francis urged.

Napoleon put his head back, trying to reconstruct what he remembered. "I was aware that someone went by my bunk. And then, a few minutes later, passed by again, only this time to exit. And I listened for the lock turning, but it never happened. Then, after a little bit, I peeked just a tiny little peek, and I saw you and the Fireman heading out. We're not supposed to go out at night. We're supposed to be in our bunks and fast asleep, so it scared me when you went past, and I tried to go to sleep, but now, I could hear Lanky talking to himself, and that kept me up until the police came and the lights came on and we could see all the terrible things that had happened."

"So, you didn't see the other person?"

"No. I don't think so. It was dark. I might have looked a little, though."

"And what did you see?"

"A man in white. That's all."

"Could you tell how big? Did you see his face?"

Napoleon shook his head again. "Everyone looks big to me, C-Bird. Even you. And I didn't see his face. When he walked past my bunk, I squeezed my eyes shut and hid my head. I do remember one thing, though. He seemed to be floating. All white and floating."

The small man took a deep breath. "Some of the bodies, during the retreat from Moscow, froze so solid that the skin took on the color of ice on a pond. Like gray and white and translucent, all at the same time. Like fog. That was what I remember."

Francis absorbed what he'd heard, and saw that Mister Evil was walking through the dayroom, signaling the start of their afternoon group session. He also saw Big Black and Little Black maneuvering through the throng of patients. Francis started suddenly, when he noticed that both men wore their white pants and white orderly jackets.

Angels, he thought.

Francis had one other, brief conversation, while heading into the group session. Cleo stepped in front of him, blocking his passage down that corridor to one of the smaller treatment rooms. She swayed back and forth before speaking, a little like a ferryboat nestling into its berth at a dock.

"C-Bird," she said. "Do you think Lanky did that to Short Blond?"

Francis shook his head slightly, as if in doubt. "It doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that Lanky would do," he said. "It seems so much worse than he could ever manage."

Cleo breathed out deeply. Her entire bulk shuddered. "I thought he was a good man. A little wacky, like the rest of us, confused about things, sometimes, but a good man. I cannot believe that he would do such a bad thing."

"He had blood on his shirt. And he seemed to have picked out Short Blond and for some reason, he thought she was evil, and this scared him, Cleo. When we get scared, we do things that are unexpected. All of us do. In fact, I'd bet that just about everyone here did something when they got scared, and that's why they're here."

Cleo nodded in agreement. "But Lanky seemed different." Then she shook her head. "No. That's not right. He seemed the same. And we're all different, and that's what I mean. He was different outside, but in here, he was the same, and what happened, that seemed like an outside thing that seemed to happen inside."

"Outside?"

"You know, stupid. Outside. Like beyond." Cleo made a wide, sweeping gesture with her arm, as if to indicate the world beyond the hospital walls.

This made some sense to Francis and he managed a small smile. "I think I see what you're getting at," he said.

Cleo leaned forward. "Something happened last night, in the girls' dormitory. I didn't tell anyone."

"What?"

"I was awake. Couldn't sleep. Tried going over all the lines of the play, but it didn't work, although usually it does. I mean, go figure. Usually, when I get to Anthony's speech in act two, well, my eyes roll back and I'm snoring like a little baby, except, I don't know if little babies snore, because nobody's ever let me get anywhere near theirs, the nasty bitches but that's another story."

"So you couldn't sleep, either."

"Everyone else was."

"And?"

"I saw the door open, and a figure come in. I hadn't heard the door key in the lock, my bunk, it's way on the far side, right by the windows, and there was moonlight last night that was hitting my head. Did you know that in the old days, people thought if you went to sleep with the moonlight on your forehead you would wake up crazy? That's where the word lunatic comes from. Maybe it's true, C-Bird. I sleep in the moonlight all the time, and I keep getting crazier and crazier, and no one wants me anymore. I haven't got anybody anywhere to talk to me, and so they put me in here. All by myself. No one to come visit. That doesn't seem fair, does it? I mean some people somewhere should come visit me. I mean, how hard would that be? The bastards. The goddamn bastards."

"But someone came in to the bunk room?"

"Strange. Yes." Cleo shook a little bit, quivering. "No one ever comes in at night. But this night, someone did. And they stayed a few seconds, and then the door went shut again, and this time, because I was listening hard, I heard the key in the lock."

"Do you think anybody asleep by the door saw the person?" Francis asked.

Cleo made a face and shook her head. "I already asked around. Discreetly, you know. No. Lots of people sleeping. It's the meds, you know. Everyone gets knocked right out."

Then her face flushed and Francis saw the sudden arrival of some tears. "I liked Short Blond," she said. "She was always so kind to me. Sometimes she would share lines with me, speak Marc Anthony's part, or maybe the chorus. And I liked Lanky, too. He was a gentleman. Opened the door and let the ladies pass through first at dinnertime. Said grace for the whole table. Always called me Miss Cleo, so polite and nice. And he really had all of our interests at heart. Keep evil away. Makes sense."

She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and then blew her nose. "Poor Lanky. He was right all along, and no one listened and now look. We need to find some way to help him, because, after all, he was just trying to help all of us. The bastards. The goddamn bastards."

Then she grabbed Francis by the arm, and made him escort her into the group session.

Mister Evil was arranging steel folding chairs in a circle inside the treatment room. He gestured at Francis to take a couple from where they were stacked beneath a window, and Francis dropped Cleo's arm and crossed the room, as she gingerly lowered herself into one of the seats. He reached down and seized a pair, and was about to turn and bring these back to the center where the group was gathering, when some movement outdoors grabbed his attention. From where he was standing, he could see the main entranceway, the great iron gate that was open, and the drive that went up to the administration building. A large black car was pulling to the front. This, in itself, wasn't all that unusual; cars and ambulances arrived off and on throughout the day. But there was something about this particular one that he could not precisely say, but which grabbed his attention. It was as if it carried urgency.

Francis watched as the car shuddered to a halt. After a second, a tall, dark-skinned woman emerged wearing a long tan raincoat and carrying a black briefcase that matched the long hair that fell about her shoulders. The woman stood, and seemed to survey the entirety of the hospital complex, before burrowing forward, and striding -up the stairs with a singleness of purpose that seemed to him to be like an arrow, shot at a target.

Chapter 8

Organization came slowly and unnaturally to them all. It wasn't, as Francis noted inwardly, as if they were suddenly rowdy or even disruptive, like schoolchildren being called to pay attention to some boring classwork. It was more that the members were restless and nervous simultaneously. They'd all had too little sleep, too many drugs, and far too much excitement, mixed with a significant amount of uncertainty. One older woman who wore her long, stringy gray hair in a tangled cascading explosion on her head kept bursting into tears, which she would rapidly dab away with her sleeve, shake her head, smile, say she was okay, only to burst forth in sobs again after a few seconds. One of the middle-aged men, a hard-eyed former commercial fishing boat sailor with a tattoo of a naked woman on his forearm, wore a furtive, uneasy look, and kept twisting in his seat, checking the door behind him, as if he expected someone to silently slip into the room. People who stuttered, stuttered more. People likely to snap angrily perched on their chairs. Those likely to cry seemed quicker to their teary-eyed destination. Those who were mute descended deeper into silence.

Even Peter the Fireman, whose calmness usually dominated the sessions, had difficulty sitting still, and more than once lit a cigarette and paced the perimeter of the group. He reminded Francis of a boxer in the moments before the bout was scheduled to begin, loosening up in the ring, throwing rights and lefts at imaginary jaws, while his real opponent waited in a distant corner.

Had Francis been a veteran of the mental hospital, he would have recognized a significant tick upwards in the paranoia levels of many of his fellow patients. It was still unarticulated, and like a kettle steadily heating toward a boil, had yet to truly start singing. But it was noticeable, nonetheless, like a bad smell on a hot afternoon. His own voices clamored for attention within him, and it took the usual significant force of will to quiet them. He could feel the muscles in his arms and stomach tightening, as if they could lend assistance to the mental tendons that he was employing to keep his imagination in check.

"I think we should address the events of the other night," Mr. Evans said slowly. He was wearing reading glasses, which he let slip down on his nose, so that he peered over them, his eyes darting back and forth from patient to patient. Evans was one of those people, Francis thought, who would make a statement that seemed straightforward like the need to address precisely what was dominating everyone's thoughts but look as if he meant something utterly different. "It seems to be on everyone's minds."

One of the men in the group instantly pulled his shirt up over his head and clamped his hands over his ears. There was some squirming in the seats from the others. No one spoke immediately, and the silence that crept over the group seemed to Francis to be tight, like the wind that filled a sailboat's sails invisible. After a second, he shattered the quiet by asking, "Where's Lanky? Where have they taken him? What have they done with him?"

Mr. Evans looked relieved that the first questions were so easily answered. He leaned back on his steel chair and replied, "Lanky was taken to the county lockup. He's being held in an isolation cell there under twenty-four-hour observation. Doctor Gulptilil went over to see him this morning and to make certain that he's receiving his proper medications in the proper dosages. He's okay. He's a little calmer than he was before the" he paused "incident."

This statement took the assembly a moment or two to absorb.

It was Cleo who burst forth with the next question. "Why don't they bring him back here? This is where he belongs. Not in some jail with bars and no sunshine and probably a bunch of criminals. Bastards. Rapists and thieves, I'll bet. And poor Lanky. In the hands of the police. The fascist bastards."

"Because he's being charged with a crime," the psychologist said quickly. Francis thought him oddly reluctant to use the word murder.

"But I don't understand something," Peter the Fireman said in a voice low enough to make everyone in the room turn toward him. "Lanky is clearly crazy. We all saw how he was struggling, what's the word you like to use…"

"Decompensating," Mister Evil said stiffly.

"A real dumb-ass word," Cleo said angrily. "Just a real stupid, dumb-ass, goddamn completely useless bastard of a word."

"Right," Peter continued, picking up some speed. "He was really in the midst of some big moment. I mean, we could all see it, all day, growing worse and nobody did anything to help him. And so he exploded. And he was already here in the hospital for all of his problems, why would they charge him? I mean isn't that pretty much the definition of someone who didn't really know what he was doing?"

Evans nodded, but also bit his lip slightly before answering. "That's a determination the county prosecutor will have to make. Until then, Lanky stays where he is…"

"Well, I think they should bring him back here where his friends are," Cleo said angrily. "We're all he knows now. He doesn't have any family except us."

There was a general murmur of assent.

"Isn't there something we can do?" the woman with the stringy hair asked.

This comment also inspired a round of mumbled agreement.

"Well," Mister Evil said in a less-than-convincing tone, "I think we should all continue to address the problems that put us here. By working at getting better, perhaps we can find a way of helping out Lanky."

Cleo snorted in obvious disgust. "Goddamn wishy-washy stupid," she said. "Idiotic, dumb bastards." It was a little unclear to Francis precisely whom Cleo was referring to, but he didn't find himself disagreeing with her choice of words. Cleo had an empress's ability to cut to the crux of the matter, in a most condescending and imperious manner. Obscenities began to sprout throughout the group. The room seemed to fill with an unruly noise.

Mister Evil held up his hand, clearly exasperated. "This sort of angry talk doesn't do Lanky or any of us any good," he said. "So let's shut it off now."

He made a dismissive, slicing gesture with his hand. It was the sort of motion that Francis had grown accustomed to seeing from the psychologist, one that underscored once again who was sane and thus, who was alleged to be in control. And, as usual, it had the properly intimidating effect; the group slowly settled back, grumbling, into the steel seats, the small moment heading toward rebelliousness dissipating in the stale air around them. Francis could see that Peter the Fireman was still deep within the moment, however, his forearms crossed in front of him and his brow knitted.

"I think there's not enough angry talk," he said, finally, not loudly, but with a sense of purpose behind each word. "And I fail to see how it doesn't do Lanky any good. Who knows what might or might not help him at this point? I think we should be even more vocal in protest."

Mister Evil spun in his seat. "You probably would," he said.

The two men glared at each other for a moment, and Francis saw they were both on the verge of something a little bigger and more physical. Then, almost as swiftly the moment disappeared, because Mister Evil turned away, saying, "You should keep your opinions to yourself. Where they best belong."

It was a dismissive statement, and it froze the group.

Francis saw Peter the Fireman considering a response, but in that second's delay, there was a sound at the therapy room door.

All the heads turned as the door swung open. Big Black languidly moved his immense bulk into the room. For a second, he filled the doorway, blocking everyone's vision. Then he was followed by the woman that Francis had seen through the window at the start of the session. She, in turn, was followed by Gulp-a-pill and finally, by Little Black. The two attendants took up sentry like positions by the door.

"Mister Evans," Dr. Gulptilil said swiftly, "I am so sorry to interrupt the session…"

"That's okay," Mister Evil responded. "We were close to finishing anyway."

Francis had the radical thought that they were more at the start of something than the finish. However, he didn't really listen to the exchange between the two therapists. His eyes were locked, instead, on the woman standing just between the Moses brothers.

Francis saw many things, it seemed to him, all at once: She was slender and exceptionally tall, perhaps only an inch or so beneath six feet, and he would have put her age at just around thirty. Her skin was a light, cocoa brown, close in shade, he thought, to the oak leaves that were the first to change in the fall and her eyes had a slightly oriental appearance. Her hair dropped in a vibrant black sheen past her shoulders. She wore a simple tan trench coat, open to reveal a blue business suit. A leather briefcase was clutched in long, delicate fingers, and she stared across the room with a singularity of purpose that would have quieted even the most distraught patient. It was, he thought, almost as if her presence silenced the delusions and fears that occupied each seat.

At first, Francis thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and then she turned just slightly, and he saw that the left side of her face was marred by a long, white scar, that creased her eyebrow, jumped over the eye, then raced in a zigzag fashion down her cheek, where it ended at her jaw. The scar had the same effect as a hypnotist's watch; he couldn't pull his eyes away from the jagged line that bisected her face. He wondered for a moment whether it wasn't like looking at some mad artist's work, where overwhelmed by an unexpected perfection, the deranged painter had seized a palette knife and decided to treat his own art with utter cruelty.

The woman stepped forward. "Which are the two men who found the nurse's body?" she asked. Her voice had a huskiness to it that Francis thought penetrated right through him.

"Peter. Francis," Doctor Gulptilil said briskly. "This young woman has driven all the way out here from Boston to ask some questions from you.

Would you please accompany us to the office, so that she might question you properly?"

Francis rose, and in that second became aware that Peter the Fireman was staring equally hard at the young woman. "I know you," he said, but beneath his voice. As he heard the words, Francis saw the young woman focus on Peter the Fireman's face, and for just an instant, her forehead creased in a sudden touch of recognition. Then, almost as swiftly, it returned to its impassive scarred beauty.

The two men stepped forward, out of the circle of chairs.

"Watch out," Cleo said abruptly. And then she quoted from her favorite play: "The bright day is done, and we are for the dark…" There was a momentary silence in the room, and she added, in a hoarse smoky voice, "Watch out for the bastards. They never mean you any good."

I stepped back from the living room wall and all the words gathered there and thought to myself: There. That's it. We were all in place. Death, I think, sometimes is like an algebraic equation, a long series of x factors and y values, multiplied and divided and added and subtracted until a simple, but awful, answer is arrived upon. Zero. And, at that moment, the formula was in position.

When I first went to the hospital, I was twenty-one, and had never been in love. I had never kissed a girl, not felt the softness of her skin beneath my fingertips. They were a mystery to me, mountaintops as unattainable and unreachable as sanity. Yet they filled my imagination. There were so many secrets: the curve of a breast, the lift of a smile, the small of the back as it arced in sensual motion. I knew nothing, envisioned everything.

So much in my mad life has been beyond my grasp. I suppose I should have somehow expected to fall for the most exotic woman I would ever know. And, I suppose, too, I should have understood that in the single moment, the flashing glance between Peter the Fireman and Lucy Kyoto Jones, that there was much more to be said, and a connection much deeper that would emerge. But I was young, and all I saw was the presence, suddenly, in my little life of the most extraordinary person I had ever set eyes upon. She seemed to glow a little like the lava lamps that were so popular with hippies and students, a constantly melding, twisting form that flowed from one shape to another.

Lucy Kyoto Jones was the product of a union between a black American serviceman and a Japanese-American mother. Her middle name was the city where her mother had been born. Hence the almond-shaped eyes and the cocoa skin. The undergraduate degree from Stanford and Harvard Law part I would come to learn later.

I would come to learn about the scar on her face, later, as well, for the person who put that scar there, and the other one that she wore less obviously deep within her, set her on the course that brought her to the Western State Hospital with questions that were soon to become very unpopular.

One of the things I learned in my maddest years was that one could be in a room, with walls and barred windows and locks on the doors, surrounded by other crazy people, or even stuffed into an isolation cell all alone, but that really wasn't the room one was in at all. The real room that one occupied was constructed by memory, by relationships, by events, by all sorts of unseen forces. Sometimes delusions. Sometimes hallucinations. Sometimes desires. Sometimes dreams and hopes, or ambition. Sometimes anger. That was what was important: to always recognize where the real walls were.

And that was the case then, as we sat in Gulp-a-pill's office.

I looked out the apartment window and saw that it was late. The daylight had fled, replaced by the thickness of the small-town night. I have several clocks in my apartment, all provided by my sisters, who, for some reason I have yet to be able to ascertain, seem to think that I have a near constant and deeply pressing need to always know what time it is. I thought to myself, the words are the only time I need now, so I took a break, smoking a cigarette, and collecting all the clocks from the apartment and unplugging them from the walls, or removing the batteries that ran them, so that they were all stopped. I noticed that they were all paused at more or less the same moment ten after ten, eleven after ten, thirteen after ten. I picked each clock up and changed both the hour and the minute hands on each, so that there was no longer even a semblance of consistency. Each was stopped at a different moment. This accomplished, I laughed out loud. It was as if I had seized time and freed myself from its constraints.

I remembered how Lucy had sat forward, fixing first Peter, then me, then Peter again with a withering, humorless gaze. I suppose, at first, she meant to impress us with her singleness of purpose. Perhaps she had thought that was how one dealt with crazy folks in a decisive manner, more or less like one would with a wayward puppy. She demanded, "I want to know everything about what you saw the other night."

Peter the Fireman hesitated before replying.

"Perhaps you might first tell us, Miss Jones, precisely why you are interested in our recollections? After all, we both made statements to the local police."

"Why am I interested in the case?" she said briskly. "There are some details that were brought to my attention shortly after the body was discovered, and after a phone call or two to the local authorities, I felt it of some importance to personally check them out."

"But that says nothing," Peter replied, with a small, dismissive gesture of his own. He sat forward on his seat, bending toward the young woman. "You want to know what we saw, but both C-Bird and I are already nursing bruises from our first encounter with hospital security and the local homicide cops. I suspect we are both fortunate not to be stuffed in some isolation cell at the county jail, having been erroneously accused of a serious crime. So before we agree to help you, why don't you tell us once again why you are so interested in a bit more detail, please."

Dr. Gulptilil had a slightly shocked look on his face, as if the notion that a patient might question someone sane was somehow against the rules. "Peter," he said stiffly, "Miss Jones is a prosecuting attorney in Suffolk County. And I think she should be the one asking the questions."

The Fireman nodded. "I knew I'd seen you before," he said quietly to the young woman. "In a courtroom, probably."

She looked at him for a moment or two before she answered. "Sitting across from you, once, for a couple of court sessions. I saw you testify, in the Anderson fire case, maybe two years ago. I was still an assistant handling misdemeanors and DUI's. They wanted some of us to see you get cross-examined."

Peter smiled. "I recall that I held up pretty well," he said. "I was the one who found where the torch had set the fire. It was pretty clever, you know. Fixing an electrical outlet next to where the flammable material was stored in the warehouse, so that their own product pushed the fire. It took some planning. But then, that's what a good arsonist is all about: planning. It's part of the thrill for them, the construction of the fire. It's how the good one's really get off."

"That's why they had us come watch," Lucy said. "Because they thought you were on your way to becoming the best arson investigator on the Boston force. But things didn't work out, did they?"

"Oh," Peter said, smiling a little more widely, as if there was some joke in what Lucy Jones had said, but Francis hadn't heard. "One could argue that they have, indeed. It really just depends on how you see things. Like justice and what's right and all that. But, really, now my story isn't why you're here, is it Miss Jones?"

"No. The nurse-trainee's murder is."

Peter stared at Lucy Jones. He glanced over toward Francis, then to Big Black and Little Black, who hung in the back of the room, then finally at Gulp-a-pill, who was sitting a bit uneasily in his seat behind his desk. "Now why," Peter said slowly, turning back to Francis, "why, C-Bird, would a prosecuting attorney from Boston drop everything she was doing and drive all the way out to the Western State Hospital, to ask questions of a couple of crazy folks about a death that happened well outside her jurisdiction, where a man has already been arrested and charged? Something about that death must have piqued her interest, C-Bird. But what? What could have caused Miss Jones to rush out here so urgently and ask to speak with a couple of Looney Tunes?

Francis looked over at Lucy Jones, whose eyes had centered on Peter the Fireman with a mingled look of intrigue and a recognition that Francis couldn't quite name. After a long moment, she turned to Francis and with a small grin that was skewed slightly in the direction of the scar on her face, asked, "Well, Mister Petrel… can you answer that question?"

Francis thought for a moment. In his imagination, he pictured Short Blond just as they found her. Then he said, "The body."

Lucy smiled. "Yes indeed. Mister Petrel… may I call you Francis?"

Francis nodded.

"Then what about the body?"

"Something about it was special."

"Something about it might have been special," Lucy Jones continued. She looked over at Peter the Fireman. "Do you want to jump in here, now?"

"No," Peter said, crossing his arms in front of him. "C-Bird is doing just fine. Let him continue."

She looked back over at Francis. "And so…?"

Leaning back for an instant, then, just as swiftly pushing himself back forward, Francis thought about what she might be driving at. Images flooded him, of Short Blond, over and over, the way her body was twisted in death, and the manner in which her clothes were arranged. He realized that it was all a puzzle, and a part of it was the beautiful woman sitting across from him. "The missing joints on her hand," Francis said abruptly.

Lucy nodded and leaned forward. "Tell me about that hand," she said. "What did it look like to you."

Doctor Gulptilil stepped in suddenly. "The police took photographs, Miss Jones. Surely you can inspect those. I fail to see what it is…" But his complaint dissipated, as the woman made a gesture for Francis to continue.

"They looked like someone, the killer, ha i removed them," Francis said.

Lucy nodded. "Now, can you tell me why the man accused, what's his name…"

"Lanky," Peter the Fireman said. His own voice had gained a deeper, more solid tone.

"Yes… why this man Lanky, whom you both knew, might have done that?"

"No. No reason."

"You can think of no reason why he might have marked the young woman in that fashion? Nothing he might have said beforehand? Or the way he'd been behaving. I understand he'd been quite agitated…"

"No," Francis said. "Nothing about the way Short Blond died fits with what I know of Lanky."

"I see," Lucy said, nodding. "Would you concur with that statement, Doctor?" She turned to Doctor Gulptilil.

"Absolutely not!" he said forcefully. "The man's behavior leading up to the killing was exaggerated, very much on edge. And he'd tried to attack her earlier that day. He has had a distinct propensity to threaten violence on numerous occasions in the past, and in his agitated state, he slipped over the edge of restraint, just as the staff feared he might."

"So, you don't agree with the assessment of these men?"

"No. And the police subsequently found evidence in the area of his bed. And the bloodstains on his nightshirt positively matched those of the murdered nurse."

"I'm aware of those details," she said coldly. Lucy Jones turned back to Francis. "Could you return to the missing tips of the fingers, please, Francis?" she asked, significantly more gently. "Would you describe precisely what you saw, please?"

"Four joints probably sliced off. Her hand was in a pool of blood."

Francis lifted his own hand and held it up in front of his face, as if he could see what it would be like to have the tips of his fingers severed.

"If Lanky, your friend, had performed this "

Peter interrupted. "He might have done some things. But not that. And certainly not the sexual assault, either."

"You don't know that!" Doctor Gulptilil said angrily. "That's pure supposition. And I have seen the same types of mutilations, and I can assure you that they could have been caused by any number of methods. Accident, even. The notion that Lanky was somehow incapable of cutting her hand, or that it happened through some other suspicious means is pure conjecture! I can see where you are heading with this, Miss Jones, and I think the implication is both erroneous and potentially disruptive for the entire hospital!"

"Really?" Lucy said, turning once again toward the psychiatrist. The single word didn't demand an expansion. She paused, then looked over at the two patients. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Peter interrupted her before the next word came out.

"You know, C-Bird," he said, speaking to Francis, but staring at Lucy Jones, "right now I'm guessing that this young woman prosecutor has seen other bodies very much like Short Blond's. And that each one of those other bodies was missing one or more joints from the hand, much like Short Blond was. That would be my guess for the moment."

Lucy Jones smiled, but it wasn't a smile that contained even the slightest hint of humor. It was, Francis thought, one of those smiles one used to cover up all sorts of feelings. "That is a good guess, Peter," she said.

Peter's eyes narrowed further and he sat back, as if thinking hard, before he continued speaking slowly. He directed his words at Francis, but they were truly intended for the woman who sat across from him. "C-Bird, I'm also thinking that our visitor here is charged, somehow, with finding the man who removed those finger joints from those other women. And that is why she hurried out here and is so eager to speak with us. And you know what else, C-Bird?"

"What, Peter?" Francis asked, although he could sense the answer already.

"I'll wager that at night, deep after midnight, in the complete dark of her room back there in Boston, lying alone in her bed, the sheets all tangled and sweaty, Miss Jones has nightmares about each one of those mutilations and what they might mean."

Francis said nothing, but looked over at Lucy Jones, who slowly nodded her head.

Chapter 9

I stepped away from the wall, dropping my pencil to the floor.

My stomach churned with the stress of memory. My throat was dry and I could feel my heart racing. I turned away from the words floating on the dingy white paint in front of me and walked into the small apartment bathroom. I turned on the hot water tap, and then the shower as well, filling the room with a sticky, humid warmth. The heat slid over me, and the world around me began to turn to fog. It was how I remembered those moments in Gulp-a-pill's office, when the real nature of our situation began to take form. The room steamed up, and I could feel an asthmatic shortness of breath, just as I did that day. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The heat made everything foggy, as if indistinct, lacking edges. It was getting harder to tell whether I was as I was now, getting old, hair thinning, wrinkles forming, or how I was then, when I had my youth and my problems, all wrapped together, my skin and muscles as tight as my imagination. Behind that mirror image of myself were the shelves where all my medications were arrayed. I could feel a palsy in my hands, but worse, a rumbling, earth moving shaking within me, as if some great seismic shift was taking place on the terrain of my heart. I knew I should take some drugs. Calm myself down. Regain control over my emotions. Quiet all the forces that lurked underneath my skin. I could feel madness trying to grasp my thinking. Like fingernails clawing for purchase on a slope, a little like a climber, who suddenly feels his equilibrium slip, and who teeters for a moment, knowing that a slide will turn into a fall, and if he cannot grab hold of something, a plummet into oblivion.

I breathed out superheated air. My mind was scorched.

I could hear Lucy Jones's voice, as she had bent toward Peter and me.

"… A nightmare is something you awaken from, Peter," she had said. "But thoughts and ideas that remain after its terrors have disappeared are something considerably worse."

Peter nodded in agreement. "I am completely familiar with those sorts of waking moments," he said very quietly, with a stiff formality that curiously seemed to bridge something between them.

It was Doctor Gulptilil who broke into the thoughts that were gathering in that room. "Look, see here," he said, with a brisk officiousness, "I am not at all pleased with the direction that this conversation is heading, Miss Jones. You are suggesting something that is quite difficult to contemplate."

Lucy Jones turned to the doctor. "What is it that you believe I'm suggesting?" she asked.

Francis thought to himself: That's the prosecutor within her. Instead of denying or objecting or some other slithering response, she turned the question back on the doctor. Gulp-a-pill, who was no fool even though he often sounded like one, must have recognized the same, the technique not an unfamiliar one for psychiatrists; he squirmed uncomfortably before replying. He was cautious, a good deal of the high-pitched tension had been removed from his voice, so that the unctuous, slightly Anglicized tones of the hospital psychiatric director had returned in force. "What I believe, Miss Jones, is that you are unwilling to see circumstances that suggest something opposite to what you are wishing. An unfortunate death has taken place. Proper authorities were immediately summoned. The crime scene was professionally inspected. Witnesses interviewed in depth. Evidence was obtained. An arrest made. All this was done according to procedure and according to form. It would seem that it is time, now, to let the judicial process take over and see what is to be determined."

Lucy nodded, considering her response.

"Doctor, are you familiar with the names of Frederick Abberline and Sir Robert Anderson?"

Gulp-a-pill hesitated, as he mentally examined the two names. Francis could see him flipping through the index of his memory, only to draw a blank. This was the sort of failure that Doctor Gulptilil seemed to hate. He was a man who refused to display any disadvantage, no matter how slight or insignificant. He scowled briefly, pursed his lips, shifted about in his seat, cleared his throat once or twice, then replied by shaking his head. "No, I am sorry. These two names mean nothing to me. What, pray, is their relevance to this discussion?"

Lucy didn't directly answer this, instead she said, "Perhaps, Doctor, you would be more familiar with their contemporary. A gentleman known in history as Jack the Ripper?"

Gulptilil's eyes narrowed. "Of course. He occupies some footnotes in a number of medical and psychiatric texts, primarily due to the undeniable savagery and notoriety of his crimes. The other two names…"

"Abberline was the detective assigned to investigate the Whitechapel murders in 1888. Anderson was his supervisor. Are you at all familiar with the events of that time?"

The doctor shrugged. "Even schoolchildren are familiar in a fashion with the Ripper. There are rhymes and songs, which have given way, I believe to novels and films."

Lucy continued. "The crimes dominated the news. Filled the populace with fear. Became something of the standard against which many similar crimes are vetted even today, although, in reality, they were confined to a well-defined area and a highly specific class of victims. The fear they caused was truly out of proportion to their actual impact, as was their impact on history. In London today, you know, you can take a guided bus tour of the murder sites. And there are discussion groups that continue to investigate the crimes. Ripperologists, they are called. Nearly a hundred years later, and people remain morbidly fascinated. Still want to know who Jack truly was…"

"This history lesson is designed to do what, Miss Jones? You are making a point, but I believe we are all uncertain what it is."

Lucy didn't seem concerned by the negative response.

"You know what has always intrigued criminologists about the Ripper crimes, Doctor?"

"No."

"As suddenly as they started, they stopped."

"Yes?"

"Like a spigot of terror turned on, then shut off. Click! Just like that."

"Interesting, but…"

"Tell me, Doctor, in your experience, do people who are dominated by sexual compulsion especially to commit crimes, horrific, ever-increasingly savage crimes of dramatic proportions do they find ample satisfaction in their acts, and then spontaneously stop?"

"I am not a forensic psychiatrist, Miss Jones," he said briskly.

"Doctor, in your experience…"

Gulptilil shook his head. "I suspect, Miss Jones," he said with an arch tone in his voice, "that you, as well as I, know the answer to that question to be no.

They are crimes without ends. A homicidal psychopath doesn't reach an eventual conclusion. At least not internally, although in the literature of such persons there are some who are driven by excessive guilt to take their own lives. These, unfortunately, seem to be in the minority. No, generally speaking, repetitive killers are stopped by some external means."

"Yes. True enough. Anderson, and we suspect, by proxy, Abberline, privately theorized that there were three possibilities for the cessation of the Ripper crimes in London. Perhaps the killer had emigrated to America unlikely, but possible although there are no subsequent records of Ripper-type murders in the States. A second theory: he had died, either at his own hand, or that of another's which was also not terribly likely. Even in the Victorian era, suicide was not particularly common, and we would have to speculate that the Ripper was tortured by his own fiendishness, and there is no evidence of that. Third, a far more realistic possibility."

"Which was?"

"That the man known as the Ripper had in fact been incarcerated in a mental hospital. And, unable to talk his way out of bedlam, he was swallowed up and lost forever inside thick walls."

Lucy paused, then asked, "How thick are the walls here, Doctor?"

Gulp-a-pill reacted swiftly, pushing himself to his feet. His face was contorted in anger. "What you are suggesting, Miss Jones, is horrific! Impossible! That some latter-day Ripper is here now, in this hospital!"

"Where better to hide?" she asked quietly.

Gulp-a-pill struggled for composure. "The notion that a murderer, even a clever one, would be able to conceal his true feelings from the entire staff of professionals here is ludicrous! Perhaps one could in the 1800s, when psychology was in its infancy. But not today! It would take a near constant force of will, and a sophistication and knowledge of human nature far more profound than any patient here is capable of. Your suggestion is simply impossible." He said these last words with a forcefulness that masked his own fears.

Lucy started to reply, then stopped. Instead, she reached down and grasped her leather briefcase. She rummaged around inside for a moment, then turned to Francis. "What was it you called the nurse-trainee who was murdered?" she asked quietly.

"Short Blond," Francis said. Lucy Jones nodded.

"Yes. That would seem right. Her hair was cropped short…"

As she spoke, almost musing to herself, she withdrew a manila envelope from her satchel. From this, she removed a series of what Francis instantly saw to be large, eight-by-ten color photographs. She glanced at these, flipping through them on her lap, then she picked one out and tossed it on the desk in front of Gulp-a-pill.

"Eighteen months ago," she said, as the picture skidded on the wood surface.

Another photograph emerged from the pile. "Fourteen months ago."

Then a third fluttered down. "Ten months ago."

Francis craned forward, and he saw that each picture was of a young woman. He could see glossy red streaks of blood gathered around the throat of each. He could see clothes stripped and rearranged. He could see eyes open to nothing except horror. They were all Short Blond, and Short Blond was each of them. They were different, yet the same. Francis looked closer, as three more photographs skidded across the desktop. These were close-up pictures of each victim's right hand. And then he saw: One finger joint missing on the hand of the first; two on the second; three on the third.

He tore his eyes away and glanced over at Lucy Jones. Her own eyes had narrowed and her face had set. For a second, Francis thought, she glowed with an intensity that was both red-hot and ice-cold all at once.

She breathed in slowly, and spoke in a quiet, hard voice: "I will find this man, Doctor."

Gulp-a-pill was staring down helplessly at the photographs. Francis could see that he was assessing the depth of the situation. After a moment, he reached out and took all the pictures and placed them together, like a card sharp gathering a deck together after it has been shuffled, but knowing full well where the ace of spades was located. He fit them into a single pile and tapped it on the desk to even each edge. Then he handed the photographs back to Lucy. "Yes," he said slowly, "I believe you will. Or, at the very least, make a rigorous attempt."

Francis did not think that Gulp-a-pill meant one word of what he said. And then he reconsidered; perhaps there were some words that Gulptilil spoke that he did mean, and others that he did not. Determining which was which was a very tricky process.

The doctor returned to his seat and to his composure. For a moment or two he drummed his fingers against the desktop. He looked over at the young prosecutor and raised his bushy black eyebrows, as if anticipating another question.

"I will need your assistance," Lucy finally said.

Doctor Gulptilil shrugged. "Of course. That is most obvious. My help, and the help of others, surely. But I think, despite the dramatic similarities between the death we have had here, and the ones you have so theatrically displayed, that you are, in truth, mistaken. I believe our nurse-trainee was unfortunately assaulted by the patient currently in custody and charged with the crime. However, in the interest of justice, of course, I will assist you in whatever method at my disposal, if only to put your mind at rest, Miss Jones."

Again, Francis thought each word spoken said one thing, but meant another.

"I'm going to stay here until I have some answers," Lucy said.

Doctor Gulptilil nodded slowly. He smiled humorlessly. "Answers are perhaps not something we are particularly good at providing here," he said slowly. "Questions, we have in abundance. But resolutions are much harder to come by. And certainly not with the sort of legal precision that I think you will be seeking, Miss Jones. Nevertheless," he continued, "we shall make ourselves available, to the best of our ability."

"To conduct a proper investigation," Lucy said briskly, "as you accurately pointed out, I'll need some assistance. And I need access."

"Let me remind you once again: This is a mental hospital, Miss Jones," the doctor said quickly. "Our tasks here are quite distinct from your own. And I imagine, might seem in conflict. Or at least, that potential exists, surely, as you can see. Your presence cannot disrupt the orderly process of the facility. Nor can you be so intrusive as to upset the fragile states of many of the people we treat."

The doctor paused, then continued with a singsong certainty. "We will make records available to you, as you wish. But as for the wards and questioning potential witnesses or suspects well, we are not equipped to help you in that fashion. After all, we are in the daily business of assisting folks stricken with serious and often crippling disease. Our approach is therapeutic, not investigative. We have no one here with the sorts of expertise that I believe you will require…"

"That's not true," Peter the Fireman said under his breath. His words stopped everyone in the room, filling the space around with a dangerous and unsettled quiet. Then he added in a steady, firm voice: "I do."