The Madman's Tale

Chapter 36

Hello, Francis."

I squinted at the sound of a familiar voice. "Hello, Peter," I replied. "Where am I?"

"Back in the hospital," he responded, grinning, his old devil-may-care flash in his eyes. I must have looked alarmed, because he held up his hand. "Not our hospital, of course. That one is gone forever. A new one. Quite a bit nicer than the old Western State. Take a look around, C-Bird. I think you'll see that the accommodations this time around are significantly improved."

I slowly pivoted my head first to the right, then the left. I was lying on a firm bed, and I could feel crisp, clean sheets beneath my skin. An intravenous tube dripped some concoction into a needle stuck into the flesh of my arm, and I was dressed in a pale green hospital Johnny. On the wall opposite my bed there was a large and colorful painting of a white sailboat being driven by a stiff breeze across some sparkling bay waters on a fine summer's day. A silent television set was hung by a bracket from the wall. And my momentary survey discovered that my room had a window, which gave me a small, but welcome view of an eggshell blue sky with a few wispy high clouds, which seemed to me to be curiously like the afternoon in the painting, repeated.

"See?" Peter said with a small wave. "Not bad at all."

"No," I admitted. "Not bad."

I looked over at the Fireman. He was perched on the edge of the bed, near my feet. I looked him up and down. He was different from the last time

I'd seen him in my apartment, when flesh had hung from his bones, blood had streaked his face, and dirt had marred his smile. Now he was wearing the blue jumpsuit that I recalled from the very first day we'd met, outside of Gulptilil's office, and he had the same Boston Red Sox cap pushed back on his head.

"Am I dead?" I asked him.

He shook his head, a small smile flitting across his face.

"No," he said. "You're not. I am."

I could feel a wave of grief rising up within my chest, stifling the words I wanted to speak in my throat. "I know," I said. "I remember."

Peter grinned again. "Wasn't the Angel, you know. Did I ever get a chance to thank you, C-Bird? He would have killed me for certain down there if not for you. And I would have died if you hadn't pulled me across that basement floor and got the Moses brothers to get help. You did real well by me, Francis, and I was grateful, even if I never got a chance to tell you."

Peter sighed, and a little sadness crept into his words. "We should have been listening to you all along, but we didn't, and it cost us a great deal. You were the one who knew where to search, and what to look for. But we didn't pay attention, did we?" He shrugged as he spoke.

"Did it hurt?" I asked.

"What? Not listening to you?"

"No." I waved my hand in the air. "You know what I mean."

Peter laughed briefly. "Dying? I thought it would, but if truth be told, not at all. Or, at least, not all that much."

"I saw your picture in the paper a couple of years back when it happened. It was your picture, but the name underneath it was different. It said you were out in Montana. But it was you, wasn't it?"

"Of course. New name. New life. But all the same old problems."

"What happened?"

"It was stupid, really. It wasn't a big fire, and we only had a few crews working it, almost haphazardly; we all thought it was just about under wraps. We'd been digging firebreaks all morning, and I guess we were really only minutes away from declaring it contained and pulling everyone out, when the wind shifted. Shifted hard, and blew up something fierce. I told the crew to run for the ridge, and we could hear the fire right behind us, being blown along. It makes a roaring sound, almost like you're being chased by a huge runaway train. Everybody made it, except me, and I would have made it, too, if one of the guys hadn't fallen, and I went back for him. So, there we were, with only one fire cover between the two of us, so I let him crawl underneath where he had a chance to survive, and I tried to outrun it, even though I knew I couldn't and it caught me a few feet from the ridge. Bad luck, I guess, but it all seemed strangely appropriate, C-Bird. At least the papers called me a hero, but it didn't feel all that heroic. Just pretty much what I'd been expecting, and, I'm guessing, probably what I deserved. Like it was all in balance, finally."

"You could have saved yourself," I said.

He shrugged. "I'd saved myself other times. And been saved, as well, especially by you. And if you hadn't saved me, then I wouldn't have been there to save him, so it all worked out, more or less."

"But I miss you," I said.

Peter the Fireman smiled. "Of course. But you no longer need me. Actually, Francis, you never did. Not even the first day we met, but you couldn't see it, then. Now maybe you can."

I didn't know about that, but I didn't say anything right away, until I recalled why I was in the hospital.

"But what about the Angel? He'll come back."

Peter shook his head, and lowered his voice, as if to give weight to his words. "No, C-Bird. He had his shot back then twenty years ago, and you beat him and then you beat him again after all that time had passed. He's gone for good now. He won't bother you or anyone else again, except in some folks' bad memories, which is where he belongs and where he'll have to stay. It's not perfect, of course, or exactly clean and nice. But that's the way things are. They leave a mark, but we go on. But you'll be free. I promise."

I didn't know if I believed this. "I'll be all alone again," I complained.

Peter laughed out loud. It was a wide, unadorned, unfettered laugh.

"C-Bird, C-Bird, C-Bird," he said, shaking his head back and forth with each word. "You've never been alone."

I reached out to touch him, as if to prove that what he said was true, but Peter the Fireman faded away, disappearing from the edge of the hospital bed, and I slowly slid back into a dreamless, solid sleep.

None of the nurses at this hospital had nicknames, I quickly learned. They were pleasant, efficient, but businesslike. They checked the drip in my arm, and when that was removed, they monitored the medications I was given carefully, charting each one on a clipboard that hung from a slot on the wall by the door. I didn't get the impression that anyone could cheek any medication in this hospital, so I dutifully swallowed whatever they gave me. Every so often, they would speak with me, about this or that, the weather just beyond my window, or perhaps how I had slept the night before. Every question they asked seemed a part of some greater scheme, which was restoring me to some familiar level. For example, they never asked me if I liked the green Jell-O, or the red, or whether I might want some graham crackers and juice before sleep, or if I preferred one television show over another. They wanted to know specifically whether my throat felt dry, I'd had any nausea or diarrhea, or whether I had a quiver in my hands, and most especially, had I heard or seen anything that just might not actually be there.

I didn't tell them about Peter's visit. It wasn't what they would have wanted to hear about, and he didn't return again.

Once each day the resident on the ward came by, and he and I would talk a little about ordinary things. But these weren't really conversations, like one friend might have with another, or even like two strangers meeting for the first time, with pleasantries and greetings. They belonged to a different realm, one where I was being measured, and assessed. The resident was like a tailor seeking to make me a new suit of clothes before I was to be set off in the great wide world, except that these were cuts of cloth that I wore within and not without.

Mister Klein, my social worker, came by one day. He told me I'd been very lucky.

My sisters came by on another day. They told me I'd been very lucky.

They also cried a little, and told me that my folks wanted to come visit, but were too old and unable, which I didn't believe, but I acted as if I did, and that really, I didn't mind, not in the slightest, which seemed to cheer them up.

One morning, after I had swallowed my daily dosage of pills, the nurse looked at me and smiled, told me that I should get a haircut, and then informed me that I was going home.

"Mister Petrel, big day today," she said. "Going to be discharged."

"That's good," I said.

"You have a couple of visitors, first," she said.

"My sisters?"

She leaned close enough so that I could smell the intoxicating freshness of her starched white outfit and shampooed hair. "No," she said, her voice just above a whisper. "Important visitors. You have no idea, Mister Petrel, how much people here on this floor have wondered about you. You're the biggest mystery in the hospital. Orders from up high to make sure you got the best room. Best treatment. All being taken care of by some mysterious folks whom nobody knows. And then, today, some VIPs in a long black limousine to take you home. You must be an important person, Mister Petrel. A celebrity. Or, at least, that's what people around here are wondering."

"No," I said. "I'm nobody special."

She laughed and shook her head. "You're too modest."

Behind her, the door opened, and the psychiatric resident poked his head in. "Ah, Mister Petrel," he said. "You have visitors."

I looked toward the door, and from behind him I heard a familiar voice. "C-Bird? What you doing in there?"

And then a second, "C-Bird, you giving anyone any trouble?"

The psychiatrist stepped aside, and Big Black and Little Black stepped into the room.

If anything, Big Black was even bigger. He sported an immense waistline that seemed to flow like some great ocean into a barrel chest, thick arms, and steel pillar legs. He wore a three-piece blue pin-striped suit that to my uneducated eye seemed very expensive. His brother was equally dressed up, with leather shoes that reflected a sheen from the overhead lights. Both men wore some gray in their hair, and Little Black had gold wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose, giving him a slightly academic appearance. It seemed to me that they had set aside their youth, replacing it with substance and authority.

"Hello, Mister Moses and Mister Moses," I said.

The two brothers pushed their way directly to the side of the bed. Big Black put out his massive hand and clapped me on the shoulder. "Feeling better, C-Bird?" he asked.

I shrugged. Then I realized this perhaps wasn't the most positive of impressions to be giving, so I added, "Well, I'm not wild about all the medications, but I certainly think I'm a lot better."

"You had us worried," Little Black said. "Damn scared, really."

"When we found you," Big Black was speaking quietly, "we weren't sure you were going to make it. You were pretty far out there, C-Bird. Talking to folks that weren't there, throwing things, fighting, shouting. Pretty shaky."

"I'd had some rough days."

Little Black nodded. "We've all seen some tough times. You scared us plenty."

"I didn't know it was you that came for me," I said.

Big Black laughed, and looked over at his brother. "Well, it's not the sort of thing we do a whole lot anymore. Not like the old days, when we were young guys working at the old hospital and doing what old Gulp-a-pill wanted. No more. But we got the call, and we hurried right over and we're just damn glad we got there before you, well…"

"Killed myself?"

Big Black smiled. "You want to put it that bluntly, C-Bird, well, that's exactly right."

I leaned back a little onto the pillows and looked over at the two men. "How did you know…" I started.

Little Black shook his head. "Well, we've been keeping an eye on you for some time, C-Bird. Getting regular reports from Mister Klein at the treatment center about your progress. Plenty of calls from the Santiago family, 'cross the hall. They've been helping us watch out for you. Local police, some of the local business men, they all pitched in, help keep tabs on C-Bird, year in, year out.

I'm surprised you didn't know."

I shook my head. "I had no idea. But how did you arrange…"

"Lots of folks owe my brother and me, big-time, C-Bird. And there's lots of folks who are always looking to do a favor or two for the county sheriff" he nodded toward Big Black "or a city councilman…"

He paused, and then added: "Or a federal judge who has a most genuine and mighty big interest in the man who helped to save her life one real bad night a number of years ago."

I had never ridden in a limousine before, especially one driven by a police officer in uniform. Big Black showed me how to make the windows roll up and down, and then he showed me where the telephone was and asked me if I wanted to make a call at taxpayer's expense, of course to anyone, which I might have liked, but I couldn't think of anyone that I wanted to speak with. Little Black gave the driver directions to my street, and he held onto a small blue duffel bag that contained two sets of clean clothes that my sisters had given me.

When we turned down the narrow block that led to my apartment, I saw another official-looking car parked outside. A driver in a black suit was standing by the door, waiting for us. He seemed to know the Moses brothers, because when we got out of the limousine, he merely pointed up toward the window to my apartment and said, "She's upstairs waiting."

I led the way up to the second floor.

The door that had been burst from its hinges by the Moses brothers and the ambulance crew had been repaired, but was wide open. I stepped just inside my apartment, and saw that it had been cleaned up, fixed up, and restored. I could smell new paint, and saw that the appliances in the kitchen were new. Then I looked up, and saw Lucy standing in the middle of the small living room.

She leaned a little to the right, using a silver aluminum cane for support. Her hair shone, glistening, black, but with a little gray around the edges, as if she was showing the same age that the Moses brothers had. The scar on her face had faded further with the passing of the years, but her green eyes and beauty were still as breathtaking as the day I'd first seen her. She smiled, when I approached her, and she held out her hand.

"Oh, Francis," she said, "you had us so worried. It has been so long, and now, it is good to see you again."

"Hello, Lucy," I said. "I've thought about you often."

"And I about you, as well, C-Bird."

For a moment, I remained rooted in position, frozen a little like I was the first time we'd met. It is always hard to speak, think, or breathe, at some moments, especially when so many memories are reverberating in the air, just behind every word, every look, and every touch.

It seemed to me that I had much to ask her, but what I said, instead was "Lucy, why didn't you save Peter?"

She smiled ruefully, and shook her head.

"I wished that I could," she said. "But the Fireman needed to save himself. I couldn't do it. Nor could anyone else. Only him."

She seemed to sigh and as she did so, I looked past her and saw that the wall where my words were collected remained intact. The rows of writings marched up and down, the drawings leapt out, the story was all there, just as it had been the night the Angel had finally come to me, but I'd slipped through his grasp. Lucy followed my eyes with her own, and half turned toward the wall.

"Quite an effort, C-Bird," she said.

"You've read it?"

"Yes. We all have."

I didn't say anything, because I didn't know what to say.

"You understand, some folks might be hurt by what you describe," she said.

"Hurt?"

"Reputations. Careers. That sort of thing."

"It's dangerous?"

"It might be. Always a little hard to tell."

"What should I do?" I asked.

Lucy smiled again. "I can't answer that for you C-Bird. But I have brought you several presents that might help you to make a decision."

"Presents?"

"I guess, for lack of a better word, that is what you might call them." She gestured with her hand at a simple brown cardboard box that was pushed up against the wall. I walked over to it and reached inside and took out some items collected inside.

The first was a package of large yellow legal notepads. Next to that was a box of Number 2 pencils with erasers. Then, below those, there were two cans of eggshell white, flat latex wall paint, a roller, a tray, and a large, stiff paintbrush.

"You see, C-Bird," Lucy said carefully, measuring her words with a judge's precision and pace. "Just about anyone could come in here and read the words you've put up on the wall. And they might interpret them in any number of ways, not the least of which is to wonder just how many bodies are buried in the old state hospital graveyard. And how those bodies happened to get there."

I nodded.

"But, on the other hand, Francis, this is your story, and you have the right to tell it. Hence the notepads, which have a slightly greater permanence, and significantly more privacy to them than the words scrawled on the wall. Already those are starting to fade, and pretty soon, they are likely to be illegible."

I could see that she was telling the truth.

Lucy smiled, and she opened her mouth as if to add something else, but then stopped. Instead, she simply leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

"It's good to see you again, C-Bird," she said. "Take better care of yourself from now on."

Then, leaning heavily on her cane, dragging her ruined right leg with every step like a memory of that night, Lucy slowly limped from the room. Big Black and Little Black watched her for a moment, and then they, too, wordlessly, reached out, shook my hand, and followed after her.

When the door closed shut, I turned back to the wall. My eyes raced over all the words there, and as I read, I carefully unwrapped the pencils and the pads of paper. Without hesitating for more than a few seconds, I quickly copied down from the very top:

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 painting, I thought, could wait for a day or so.