Gr Interupted

by Susanna Kaysen.
Back cover.
SOMETIMES THE ONLY WAY TO STAY SANE IS TO GO A LITTLE CRAZY.
'Not snce Syva Path's "The Be |ar" has a persona account of fe n a
menta hospta acheved as much popuarty and accam'. Tme
Magazne.
In 1967, after a sesson wth a psychatrst she'd never seen before,
eghteen-year-od Susanna Kaysen was put n a tax and sent to McLean
Hospta to be treated for depresson. She spent most of the next two
years on the ward for teenage grs n the psychatrc hospta renowned
for ts famous centee - Syva Path, Robert Lowe, |ames Tayor, Anne
Sexton and Ray Chares. Now a Ma|or Moton Pcture. Coumba pctures
Starrng Wnona Rder and Angena |oe. Moton Pcture Artwork and
Photography Copyrght (can) 1999 Coumba Pctures Industres, Inc. A
Rghts Reserved. '
AUTOBIOGRAPHY ISBN 1-86049-792-6
Gr, Interrupted has been hugey accamed n Amerca and Brtan:
'Searng ... an exquste range of sef-awareness between madness and
nsght' - Boston Gobe
'Pognant, honest and trumphanty funny ... a compeng and
heartbreakng story'
-- New York Tmes Book Revew 'Integent and panfu'
-- Guardan
'Gr, Interrupted s superb, pognant and more powerfu for ts ack of
romantc nfaton, whnng, or sef congratuaton' - Scotand on Sunday
"Fascnatng and oddy optmstc" -- Day Mrror
"An extraordnary memor' -- Ee
"In percng vgnettes shadowed wth humour, Kaysen brngs to fe the
routne of the ward and ts patents"
- The New Yorker
"Tough-mnded... darky comc... wrtten wth ndebe carty" --
Newsweek
"ngenous ... an account of a dsturbed gr's unwng passage nto
womanhood... and here s the gr, ookng nto our faces wth urgent
eyes"
-- Washngton Post Book Word
"An eoquent and unexpectedy funny memor"
- Vanty Far

Susanna Kaysen was born n 1948 and brought up n Cambrdge,
Massachusetts where she ves st. She has wrtten three noves, Asa, As
I Knew Hm and Far Afed. Whe workng on the atter, memores of her
two year stay at McLean's psychatrc hospta began to emerge. Wth the
hep of a awyer she obtaned her 350 page fe from the hospta. Gr,
Interrupted foowed. A Vrago Book Frst pubshed by Vrago Press 1995
Reprnted 1996, 1999 Ths edton pubshed by Vrago Press 2000
Reprnted 2000 (four tmes), 2001 (twce), 2002 Frst pubshed by Turte
Books, a dvson of Random House Inc. USA, 1993 Copyrght (can)
Susanna Kaysen 1993
Portons of ths book appeared n sghty dfferent form n Agn, The
Boston Revew and Poughs hares. Gratefu acknowedgement s made to
Amercan Psychatrc Press for permsson to reprnt the entry for
Borderne Personaty Dsorder from the Amercan Psychatrc
Assocaton's Dagnostc and Statstca Manua of Menta Dsorders, Thrd
Edton Revsed, Washngton, D.Can., Amercan Psychatrc Assocaton,
1987. Reprnted by permsson.
The author s gratefu to the Artsts Foundaton of Massachusetts and
the Corporaton of Yaddo for ther generosty. Though ths book s
nonfcton, some of the names and dstngushng trats of patents, doctors
and staff have been changed. Author photograph (can) Maron Ettnger
The mora rght of the author has been asserted. A rghts reserved. No
part of ths pubcaton may be reproduced, stored n a retreva system, or
transmtted n any form or by any means, wthout the pror permsson n
wrtng of the pubsher, nor be otherwse crcuated n any form of bndng
or cover other than that n whch t s pubshed and wthout a smar
condton ncudng ths condton beng mposed on the subsequent
purchaser.
A CIP cataogue record for ths book s avaabe from the Brtsh
Lbrary. ISBN 1 86049 792 6 Prnted and bound n Great Brtan by Cays
Ltd, St Ives pc
UK companes, nsttutons and other organsatons wshng to make
buk purchases of ths or any other book pubshed by Ltte, Brown shoud
contact ther oca bookshop or the speca saes department at the
address beow. Te 020 7911 8000. Fax 020 7911 8100. Vrago An
mprnt of Tme Warner Books UK v Brettenham House Lancaster Pace
London WCBLEBEvery 7EN www.vrago.co.uk Gr, Interrupted
For Ingrd and Sanford Acknowedgments
My thanks to | Ker Conway, Maxne Kumn, and Susan Ware for ther
eary encouragement
to Gerad Bern for hs ega hep,- and to |ue Crau for her enthusasm
and her good care of both book and author.
I am most gratefu to Robn Becker, Robn Desser, Mchae Downng,
Lyda Kuth, and |onathan Matson for ther nsghts, humor, and true-bue
frendshp.
Toward a Topography of the Parae Unverse.
Peope ask, How dd you get n there? What they reay want to know s f
they are key to end up n there as we. I can't answer the rea queston.
A I can te them s, It's easy.
And t s easy to sp nto a parae unverse. There are so many of
them: words of the nsane, the crmna, the crpped, the dyng, perhaps
of the dead as we. These words exst aongsde ths word and resembe
t, but are not n t.
My roommate Georgna came n swfty and totay, durng her |unor
year at Vassar. She was n a theater watchng a move when a tda wave
of backness broke over her head. The entre word was obterated--for a
few mnutes. She knew she had gone crazy. She ooked around the
Narrative voice & interesting concept
Way of thinking introduced
Description
theater to see f t had happened to everyone, but a the other peope
were engrossed n the move. She rushed out, because the darkness n the
theater was too much when combned wth the darkness n her head.
And after that? I asked her.
A ot of darkness, she sad.
But most peope pass over ncrementay, makng a seres of
perforatons n the membrane between here and there unt an openng
exsts. And who can resst an openng? Gr, Inttrrupted In the parae
unverse the aws of physcs are suspended. What goes up does not
necessary come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest and
not every acton can be counted on to provoke an equa and opposte
reacton. Tme, 'too, s dfferent. It may run n crces, fow backward, skp
about from now to then. The very arrangement of moecues s fud:
Tabes can be cocks, faces, fowers.
These are facts you fnd out ater, though.
Another odd feature of the parae unverse s that athough t s
nvsbe from ths sde, once you are n t you can easy see the word you
came from. Sometmes the word you came from ooks huge and
menacng, quverng ke a vast pe of |ey, at other tmes t s
mnaturzed and aurng, a-spn and shnng n ts orbt. Ether way, t
can't be dscounted.
Every wndow on Acatraz has a vew of San Francsco. "w The Tax
"You have a pmpe," sad the doctor.
I'd hoped nobody woud notce.
"You've been pckng t," he went on.
When I'd woken that mornng--eary, so as to get to ths appontment--
the pmpe had reached the stage of hard expectancy n whch t begs to
be pcked. It was yearnng for reease. Freeng t from ts tte whte
dome, pressng unt the bood ran, I fet a sense of accompshment: I'd
done a that coud be done for ths pmpe.
"You've been pckng at yoursef," the doctor sad.
I nodded. He was gong to keep takng about t unt I agreed wth hm,
so I nodded.
"Have a boyfrend?" he asked.
I nodded to ths too.
'Troube wth the boyfrend?" It wasn't a queston, actuay, he was
aready noddng for me. "Pckng at yoursef," he repeated. He popped
out from behnd hs desk and unged toward me. He was a taut fat man,
tght-beed and dark.
"You need a rest," he announced.
I dd need a rest, partcuary snce I'd gotten up so eary that mornng
n order to see ths doctor, who ved out n the suburbs. I'd changed
trans twce. And I woud have to retrace my steps to get to my |ob. |ust
thnkng of t made me tred.
"Don't you thnk?" He was st standng n front of me. "Don't you thnk
you need a rest?" "Yes," I sad.
He strode off to the ad|acent room, where I coud hear hm takng on
the phone.
I have thought often of the next ten mnutes--my ast ten mnutes. I
had the mpuse, once, to get up and eave through the door I'd entered, to
A choice
Contradiction - challenging beliefs
Imagery reflects state of mind
Don't ask - they tell (don't allow you to refute)
movement/choice of verb is reflective
Not really a choice
wak the severa bocks to the troey stop and wat for the tran that woud
take me back to my troubesome boyfrend, my |ob at the ktchen store.
But I was too tred.
He strutted back nto the room, busy, peased wth hmsef.
"I've got a bed for you," he sad. "It' be a rest. |ust for a coupe of
weeks, okay?" He sounded concatory, or peadng, and I was afrad.
"I' go Frday," I sad. It was Tuesday,-maybe by Frday I woudn't want
to go.
He bore down on me wth hs bey. "No. You go now." I thought ths
was unreasonabe. "I have a unch date," I sad.
"Forget t," he sad. "You aren't gong to unch. You're gong to the
hospta." He ooked trumphant. It was very quet out n the suburbs
before eght n the mornng. And nether of us had anythng more to say.
I heard the tax pung up n the doctor's drveway.
He took me by the ebow--pnched me between hs arge stout fngers--
and steered me outsde. Keepng hod of my arm, he opened the back
door of the tax and pushed me n. Hs bg head was n the backseat wth
me for a moment. Then he sammed the door shut.
The drver roed hs wndow down hafway.
"Where to?"
Coatess n the chy mornng, panted on hs sturdy egs n hs
drveway, the doctor fted one arm to pont at me.
"Take her to McLean," he sad, "and don't et her out t you get there."
I et my head fa back aganst the seat and shut my eyes. I was gad to
be rdng n a tax nstead of havng to wat for the tran.
McLean Hospta INTER OFFICE MEMORANDUM TO
Record Boom Date |an 8. 1967
FROM Dr. SUB|ECT Susanna Kaysen
Susanna Kaysen was seen by me on Apr 27, 196?; foowng my
evauaton whch extended over three hours, I referred her to McLean
Hospta for admsson. My decson was based on:
1. The chaotc unpanned fe of the patent at present wth progressve
decompensaton and reversa of seep cyce.
2. Severe depresson and hopeessness and sucda deas.
3. Hstory of sucda attempts.
4. No therapy and no pan at present, emerson n fantasy, progressve
wthdrawa and soaton. The patent had been seen n psychotherapy by
Dr. (sensored). At no tme dd I have her n therapy, and the patent knew
that I was not a potenta therapst. sk
Etoogy
Ths person s (pck one):
1. on a perous |ourney from whch we can earn much when he or she
returns,
2. possessed by (pck one):.
a) the gods,
b) God (that s, a prophet),
c) some bad sprts, demons, or devs,
d) the Dev,
No autonomy
Three hours
determines her
life?!
Just thoughts, dude
Maybe she's just stressed
why is this bad?
SOCIETY
DEFINES
3. a wtch,-
4. bewtched (varant of 2);
5. bad, and must be soated and punshed,
6. , and must be soated and treated by (pck one):
a) purgng and eeches,
b) removng the uterus f the person has one,
c) eectrc shock to the bran,
d) cod sheets wrapped tght around the body,
e) Thorazne or Steazne,
7. , and must spend the next seven years takng about t,
8. a vctm of socety's ow toerance for devant behavor,
9. sane n an nsane word,
10. on a perous |ourney from whch he or she may never return.
Fre.
One gr among us had set hersef on fre. She used gasone. She was
too young to drve at the tme. I wondered how she'd gotten hod of t.
Had she waked to her neghborhood garage and tod them her father's car
had run out of gas? I coudn't ook at her wthout thnkng about t.
I thnk the gasone had setted n her coarbones, formng poos there
besde her shouders, because her neck and cheeks were scarred the
most. The scars were thck rdges, aternatng brght pnk and whte, n
strpes up from her neck. They were so tough and wde that she coudn't
turn her head, but had to swve her entre upper torso f she wanted to
see a person standng next to her.
Scar tssue has no character. It's not ke skn. It doesn't show age or
ness or paor or tan. It has no pores, no har, no wrnkes. It's ke a
spcover. It sheds and dsguses what's beneath. That's why we grow t,-
we have somethng to hde.
Her name was Poy. Ths name must have seemed rdcuous to her n
the days--or months--when she was pannng to set hersef on fre, but t
suted her we n her spcovered, survvor fe. She was never unhappy.
She was knd and comfortng to those who were unhappy. She never
companed. She aways had tme to sten to other peope's compants.
She was fautess, n her mpermeabe tght pnk-and-whte casng.
Whatever had drven her, whspered "De!" n her once-perfect, now-
scarred ear, she had mmoated t.
Why dd she do t? Nobody knew. Nobody dared to ask. Because--what
courage! Who had the courage to burn hersef? Twenty asprn, a tte st
aongsde the vens of the arm, maybe even a bad haf hour standng on a
roof: We've a had those. And somewhat more dangerous thngs, ke
puttng a gun n your mouth. But you put t there, you taste t, t's cod
and greasy, your fnger s on the trgger, and you fnd that a whoe word
es between ths moment and the moment you've been pannng, when
you' pu the trgger. That word defeats you. You put the gun back n
the drawer. You' have to fnd another way.
What was that moment ke for her? The moment she t the match.
Had she aready tred roofs and guns and asprn? Or was t |ust an
nspraton?
Not worried 'bout
the deed but
the logistics
Aware of state slightly
The person is not directly responsible
Descriptions
reflect nature
I had an nspraton once. I woke up one mornng and I knew that today
I had to swaow ffty asprn. It was my task: my |ob for the day. I ned
them up on my desk and took them one by one, countng. But t's not the
same as what she dd. I coud have stopped, at ten, or at thrty. And I
coud have done what I dd do, whch was go onto the street and fant.
Ffty asprn s a ot of asprn, but gong onto the street and fantng s ke
puttng the gun back n the drawer.
She t the match.
Where? In the garage at home, where she woudn't set anythng ese
on fre? Out n a fed? In the hgh schoo gym? In an empty swmmng
poo?
Somebody found her, but not for a whe. Who woud kss a person ke
that, a person wth no skn?
She was eghteen before ths thought occurred to her. She'd spent a
year wth us. Other peope stormed and screamed and crnged and cred
Poy watched and smed. She sat by peope who were frghtened, and
her presence camed them. Her sme wasn't mean, t was understandng.
Lfe was hesh, she knew that. But, her sme hnted, she'd burned a
that out of her. Her sme was a tte bt superor. We woudn't have the
courage to burn t out of ourseves--but she understood that too.
Everyone was dfferent. Peope |ust dd what they coud.
One mornng somebody was cryng, but mornngs were often nosy:
fghts about gettng up on tme and compants about nghtmares. Poy
was so quet, so unobtrusve a presence, that we ddn't notce she wasn't
at breakfast. After breakfast, we coud st hear cryng.
"Who's cryng?"
Nobody knew.
And at unch, there was st cryng.
"It's Poy," sad Lsa, who knew everythng.
"Why?"
But even Lsa ddn't know why.
At dusk the cryng changed to screamng. Dusk s a dangerous tme.
At frst she screamed, "Aaaaaah" and "Eeeeeh" Then she started to
scream words.
"My face! My face! My facte"
We coud hear other voces shushng her, murmurng comfort, but she
contnued to scream her two words ong nto the nght.
Lsa sad, "We, I've been expectng ths for a whe."
And then I thnk we a reazed what foos we'd been.
We mght get out sometme, but she was ocked up forever n that
body.
Freedom
Lsa had run away agan. We were sad, because she kept our sprts
up. She was funny. Lsa! I can't thnk of her wthout smng, even now.
The worst was that she was aways caught and dragged back, drty,
wth wd eyes that had seen freedom. She woud curse her captors, and
even the tough od-tmers had to augh at the names she made up.
"Cheese-pussy!" And another favorte, "You schzophrenc bat!"
The logic makes no sense but she thinks so - makes audience aware of the situation
The questions seem silly, impractical, unimportant - but to her they are important (curious)
Stark, raw and truthful way of stating the situation. Almost hopeless.
Usuay, they found her wthn a day. She coudn't get far on foot, wth
no money. But ths tme she seemed to have ucked out. On the thrd day
I heard someone n the nursng staton sayng "APB" nto the phone: a
ponts buetn.
Lsa woudn't be hard to dentfy. She rarey ate and she never sept, so
she was thn and yeow, the way peope get when they don't eat, and she
had huge bags under her eyes. She had ong dark du har that she
fastened wth a sver cp. She had the ongest fngers I've ever seen.
Ths tme, when they brought her back, they were amost as angry as
she was. Two bg men had her arms, and a thrd guy had her by the har,
pung so that Lsa's eyes bugged out. Everybody was quet, ncudng
Lsa. They took her down to the end of the ha, to secuson, whe we
watched.
We watched a ot of thngs.
We watched Cyntha come back cryng from eectroshock once a week.
We watched Poy shver after beng wrapped n ce-cod sheets. One of
the worst thngs we watched, though, was Lsa comng out of secuson
two days ater.
To begn wth, they'd cut her nas down to the quck. She'd had
beautfu nas, whch she worked on, poshng, shapng, buffng. They
sad her nas were "sharps."
And they'd taken away her bet. Lsa aways wore a cheap beaded
bet--the knd made by Indans on reservatons. It was green, wth red
tranges on t, and t had beonged to her brother |onas, the ony one n
her famy st n touch wth her. Her mother and father woudn't vst her
because she was a socopath, or so sad Lsa. They took away the bet so
she coudn't hang hersef.
They ddn't understand that Lsa woud never hang hersef.
They et her out of secuson, they gave her back her bet, and her nas
started to grow n agan, but Lsa ddn't come back. She |ust sat and
watched TV wth the worst of us.
Lsa had never watched TV. She'd had nothng but scorn for those who
dd. "It's sht!" she'd ye, stckng her head nto the TV room. "You're
aready ke robots. It's makng you worse." Sometmes she turned off the
TV and stood n front of t, darng somebody to turn t on. But the TV
audence was mosty catatoncs and depressves, who were dsncned to
move. After fve mnutes, whch was about as ong as she coud stand st,
Lsa woud be off on another pro|ect, and when the person on checks came
around, she woud turn the TV on agan.
Snce Lsa hadn't sept for the two years she'd been wth us, the nurses
had gven up teng her to go to bed. Instead, she had a char of her own
n the haway, |ust ke the nght staff, where she'd st and work on her
nas. She made wonderfu cocoa, and at three o'cock n the mornng she
made cocoa for the nght staff and anybody ese who was up. She was
camer at nght.
Once I asked her, "Lsa, how come you don't rush around and ye at
nght?"
"I need rest too," she sad. "|ust because I don't seep doesn't mean I
don't rest."
Lsa aways knew what she needed. She'd say, "I need a vacaton from
ths pace," and then she'd run away. When she got back, we'd ask her
how t was out there.
"It's a mean word," she'd say. She was usuay gad enough to be
back. "There's nobody to take care of you out there."
Now she sad nothng. She spent a her tme n the TV room. She
watched prayers and test patterns and hours of ate-nght tak shows and
eary-mornng news. Her char n the ha was unoccuped, and nobody got
cocoa.
"Are you gvng Lsa somethng?" I asked the person on checks.
"You know we can't dscuss medcaton wth patents." I asked the head
nurse. I'd known her awhe, snce before she was the head nurse.
But she acted as though she'd aways been the head nurse. "We can't
dscuss medcaton--you know that." 22
Freedom "Why bother askng," sad Georgna. "She's competey botto.
Of course they're gvng her somethng."
Cyntha ddn't thnk so. "She st waks okay," she sad.
"I don't," sad Poy. She ddn't. She waked wth her arms stuck out n
front of her, her red-and-whte hands droopng from her wrsts and her feet
shuffng aong the foor. The cod packs hadn't worked, she st screamed
a nght unt they put her on somethng. "It took a whe," I sad. "You
waked okay when they started t."
"Now I don't," sad Poy. She ooked at her hands
I asked Lsa f they were gvng her somethng, but she woudn't ook at
me.
And ths way we a passed through a month or two, Lsa and the
catatoncs n the TV room, Poy wakng ke a motorzed corpse, Cyntha
cryng after eectroshock ("I'm not sad," she expaned to me, "but I can't
hep cryng"), and me and Georgna n our doube sute. We were
consdered the heathest.
When sprng came Lsa began spendng a tte more tme outsde the
TV room. She spent t n the bathroom, to be exact, but at east t was a
change.
I asked the person on checks, "What's she dong n the bathroom?"
Ths was a new person. "Am I supposed to open bathroom doors too?"
I dd what we often dd to new peope. "Somebody coud hang hersef
n there n a mnute! Where do you thnk you are, anyhow? A boardng
schoo?" Then I put my face cose to hers. They ddn't ke that, touchng
us.
notced Lsa went to a dfferent bathroom every tme. There were four,
and she made the crcut day. She ddn't ook good. Her bet was
hangng off her and she ooked yeower than usua.
"Maybe she's got dysentery," I sad to Georgna. But Georgna thought
she was |ust botto.
One mornng n May we were eatng breakfast when we heard a door
sam. Then Lsa appeared n the ktchen.
"Later for that TV," she sad. She poured hersef a bg cup of coffee,
|ust as she used to do n the mornngs, and sat down at the tabe. She
smed at us, and we smed back. "Wat," she sad.
We heard feet runnng and voces sayng thngs ke "What n the
word..." and "How n the word ..." Then the head nurse came nto the
ktchen.
"You dd ths," she sad to Lsa.
We went to see what t was.
She had wrapped a the furnture, some of t hodng catatoncs, and
the TV and the sprnker system on the ceng n toet paper. Yards and
yards of t foated and danged, bunched and draped on everythng,
everywhere. It was magnfcent.
"She wasn't botto," I sad to Georgna. "She was pottng."
We had a good summer, and Lsa tod us ots of stores about what
she'd done those three days she was free.
The Secret of Lfe
One day I had a vstor. I was n the TV room watchng Lsa watch TV,
when a nurse came n to te me.
"You've got a vstor," she sad. "A man."
It wasn't my troubesome boyfrend. Frst of a, he wasn't my boyfrend
anymore. How coud a person who was ocked up have a boyfrend?
Anyhow, he coudn't bear comng here. Hs mother had been n a oony
bn too, t turned out, and he coudn't bear beng remnded of t.
It wasn't my father,- he was busy.
It wasn't my hgh schoo Engsh teacher he'd been fred and moved to
North Carona.
I went to see who t was.
He was standng at a wndow n the vng room, ookng out: graffe-ta,
wth stumpy academc shouders, wrsts stckng out of hs |acket, and pae
har that shot out from hs head n a corona. He turned around when he
heard me come n.
It was |m Watson. I was happy to see hm, because, n the fftes, he
had dscovered the secret of fe, and now, perhaps, he woud te t to me.
"|m!" I sad.
He drfted toward me. He drfted and wobbed and faded out whe he
was supposed to be takng to peope, and I'd aways ked hm for that.
"You ook fne," he tod me.
"What dd you expect?" I asked.
He shook hs head.
"What do they do to you n here?" He was whsperng.
"Nothng," I sad. "They don't do anythng."
"It's terrbe here," he sad.
The vng room was a partcuary terrbe pan of our ward. It was huge
and |ammed wth huge vny-covered armchars that farted when anyone
sat down.
"It's not reay that bad," I sad, but I was used to t and he wasn't.
He drfted toward the wndow agan and ooked out. After a whe he
beckoned me over wth one of hs ong arms.
"Look." He ponted at somethng.
"At what?"
"That." He was pontng at a car. It was a red sports car, maybe an MG.
"That's mne," he sad. He'd won the Nobe Prze, so probaby he'd bought
ths car wth the money.
"Nce," I sad. "Very nce."
Now he was whsperng agan. "We coud eave," he whspered.
"Hunh?"
"You and me, we coud eave."
"In the car, you mean?" I fet confused. Was ths the secret of fe?
Runnng away was the secret of fe? "They'd come after me," I sad. "It's
fast," he sad. "I coud get you out of here."
Suddeny I fet protectve of hm. "Thanks," I sad. "Thanks for offerng.
It's sweet of you."
"Don't you want to go?" He eaned toward me. "We coud go to
Engand."
"Engand?" What dd Engand have to do wth anythng? "I can't go to
Engand," I sad.
"You coud be a governess," he sad.
For ten seconds I magned ths other fe, whch began when I stepped
nto |m Watson's red car and we sped out of the hospta and on to the
arport. The governess part was hazy. The whoe thng, n fact, was hazy.
The vny chars, the securty screens, the buzzng of the nursng-staton
door: Those thngs were cear.
"I'm here now, |m," I sad. "I thnk I've got to stay here."
"Okay." He ddn't seem mffed. He ooked around the room one ast
tme and shook hs head.
I stayed at the wndow. After a few mnutes I saw hm get nto hs red
car and drve off, eavng tte puffs of sporty exhaust behnd hm. Then I
went back to the TV room.
"H, Lsa," I sad. I was gad to see she was st there.
"Rnnn," sad Lsa.
Then we setted n for some more TV.
Potcs
In our parae word, thngs happened that had not yet happened n the
word we'd come from. When they fnay happened outsde, we found
them famar because versons of them had been performed n front of us.
It was as f we were a provnca audence, New Haven to the rea word's
New York, where hstory coud try out ts next spectace.
For nstance, the story of Georgna's boyfrend, Wade, and the sugar.
They'd met n the cafetera. Wade was dark and good ookng n a fat,
a-Amercan way. What made hm rresstbe was hs rage. He was
enraged about amost everythng and gowed wth anger. Georgna
expaned that hs father was the probem.
"Hs father's a spy, and Wade's mad that he can never be as tough as
hs father."
I was more nterested n Wade's father than n Wade's probem.
"A spy for us?" I asked.
"Of course," sad Georgna, but she woudn't say more.
Wade and Georgna woud st on the foor of our room and whsper. I
was supposed to eave them aone, and usuay I dd. One day, though, I
decded to stck around and fnd out about Wade's father.
Wade oved takng about hm. "He ves n Mam, so he can get over
to Cuba He nvaded Cuba. He's ked dozens of peope, wth hs bare
hands. He knows who ked the presdent."
"Dd he k the presdent?" I asked.
"I don't thnk so," sad Wade.
Wade's ast name was Barker.
I have to admt I ddn't beeve a word of what Wade sad. After a, he
was a crazy seventeen-year-od who got so voent that t took two bg
ades to hod hm down. Sometmes he'd be ocked on hs ward for a week
and Georgna coudn't get n to see hm. Then he'd smmer down and
resume hs vsts on the foor of our room.
Wade's father had two frends who partcuary mpressed Wade:Lddy
and Hunt. "Those guys w do anythng!" Wade sad. He sad ths often,
and he seemed worred about t.
Georgna ddn't ke my pesterng Wade about hs father,-she gnored
me as I sat on the foor wth them. But I coudn't resst.
"Lke what?" I asked hm. "What knds of thngs w they do?"
"I can't revea," sad Wade.
Shorty after ths he apsed nto a voent phase that went on for severa
weeks.
Georgna was at a oose end wthout Wade's vsts. Because I fet party
responsbe for hs absence, I offered varous dstractons. "Let's
redecorate the room," I sad. "Let's pay Scrabbe." Or "Let's cook thngs."
Cookng thngs was what appeaed to Georgna. "Let's make
carames," she sad.
I was surprsed that two peope n a ktchen coud make carames. I
thought of them as a mass-producton tem, ke automobes, for whch
compcated machnery was needed.
But, accordng to Georgna, a we needed was a fryng pan and sugar.
"When t's caramezed," she sad, "we pour t nto tte bas on waxed
paper."
The nurses thought t was cute that we were cookng "Practcng for
when you and Wade get marred?" one asked.
"I don't thnk Wade s the marryng knd," sad Georgna.
Even someone who's never made carames knows how hot sugar has to
be before t caramezes, That's how hot t was when the pan spped and I
poured haf the sugar onto Georgna's hand, whch was hodng the waxed
paper straght.
I screamed and screamed, but Georgna ddn't make a sound. The
nurses ran n and produced ce and unguents and wrappngs, and I kept
screamng, and Georgna dd nothng. She stood st wth her canded
hand stretched out n front of her.
I can't remember f t was E. Howard Hunt or G Gordon Lddy who sad,
durng the Watergate hearngs, that he'd nghty hed hs hand n a cande
fame t hs pam burned to assure hmsef he coud stand up to torture.
Whoever t was, we knew about t aready: the Bay of Pgs, the seared
skn, the bare-handed kers who'd do anythng. We'd seen the prevews,
Wade, Georgna, and I, aong wth an audence of nurses whose revews
ran somethng ke ths: "Patent acked affect after accdent", "Patent
contnues fantasy that father s CIA operatve wth dangerous frends."
II If You Lved Here, You'd Be Home Now
Dasy was a seasona event. She came before Thanksgvng and stayed
through Chrstmas every year. Some years she came for her brthday n
May as we.
She aways got a snge. "Woud anybody ke to share?" the head
nurse asked at our weeky Ha Meetng one November mornng. It was a
tense moment. Georgna and I, who aready shared, were free to en|oy
the confuson.
"Me! Me!" Somebody who was a Martan's grfr and aso had a tte
pens of her own, whch she was eager to show off, rased a hand, nobody
wanted to share wth her.
"I woud f somebody woud want to but of course nobody woud want
to so I woudn't want to force somebody to want to." Ths was Cyntha,
who'd started takng ke that after sx months of shock.
Poy to the rescue: "I' share wth you, Cyntha."
But that ddn't sove the probem, because Poy was n a doube
hersef. Her roommate was a new anorexc named |anet who was
schedued for force feedngs the moment she dropped beow seventy-fve.
Lsa eaned toward me. "I watched her on the scae
yesterdayccseventy-eght," she sad oudy. "She' be on the tube by the
weekend."
"Seventy-eght s the perfect weght," sad |anet. She'd sad the same
about eghty-three and seventy-nne, though, so nobody wanted to share
wth her, ether.
In the end a coupe of catatoncs were teamed up and Dasy's room
was ready for her arrva on November ffteenth.
Dasy had two passons: axatves and chcken. Every mornng she
presented hersef at the nursng staton and drummed her fngers, pae
and staned wth ncotne, on the counter, mpatent for axatves.
"I want my Coace," she woud hss. "I want my Ex-Lax." If someone
was standng near her, she woud |ab her ebow nto that person's sde or
step on her foot. Dasy hated anyone to be near her.
Twce a week her squat potato-face father brought a whoe chcken
roasted by her mother and wrapped n aumnum fo. Dasy woud hod
the chcken n her ap and fonde t through the fo, dartng her eyes
around the room, eager for her father to eave so she coud get gong on
the chcken. But Dasy's father wanted to stay as ong as possbe,
because he was n ove wth Dasy.
Lsa expaned t. "He can't beeve he produced her. He wants to fuck
her to make sure she's rea."
"But she smes," Poy ob|ected She smeed, of course, ke chcken
and sht. "She ddn't aways sme," sad Lsa.
I thought Lsa was rght, because I'd notced that Dasy was sexy. Even
though she smeed and gowered and hssed and poked, she had a spark
the rest of us acked. She wore shorts and tank tops to dspay her pae
wry mbs, and when she ambed down the ha n the mornng to get her
axatves, she swung her ass n nsoucant haf-crces.
The Martan's grfr was n ove wth her too. She foowed her down the
ha croonng, "Want to see my pens?" To whch Dasy woud hss, "I sht
on your pens."
Nobody had ever been n Dasy's room. Lsa was determned to get n.
She had a pan.
"Man, am I constpated," she sad for three days. "Wow." On the fourth
day she got some Ex-Lax out of the head nurse. "Ddn't work," she
reported the next mornng. "Got anythng stronger?"
"How about castor o?" sad the head nurse. She was overworked.
"Ths pace s a fascst snake pt," sad Lsa. "Gve me a doube dose of
Ex-Lax."
Now she had sx Ex-Lax and she was ready to bargan. She stood n
front of Dasy's door.
"Hey, Dasy," she caed. "Hey, Dasy." She kcked the door.
"Fuck off," sad Dasy.
"Hey, Dasy."
Dasy hssed.
Lsa eaned cose to the door. "I got somethng you want," she sad.
"Busht," sad Dasy. Then she opened the door.
Georgna and I had been watchng from down the ha. When Dasy
opened the door we craned our necks, but t was too dark n Dasy's room
to see anythng. When the door shut behnd Lsa, a strange sweet sme
wafted brefy nto the ha.
Lsa ddn't come out for a ong tme. We gave up watng and went
over to the cafetera for unch.
Lsa gave her report durng the evenng news. She stood n front of the
TV and spoke oud enough to drown out Water Cronkte.
"Dasy's room s fu of chcken," she sad. "She eats chcken n there.
She has a speca method she showed me. She pees a the meat off
because she kes to keep the carcasses whoe. Even the wngs--she pees
the meat off them. Then she puts the carcass on the foor next to the ast
carcass. She has about nne now. She says when she's got fourteen t's
tme to eave."
"Dd she gve you any chcken?" I asked.
"I ddn't want any of her dsgustng chcken."
"Why does she do t?" Georgna asked.
"Hey, man," sad Lsa, "I don't know everythng."
"What about the axatves?" Poy wanted to know.
"Needs `em. Needs `em because of a the chcken."
"There's more to ths than meets the eye," sad Georgna.
"Lsten! I got access," sad Lsa. The dscusson degenerated qucky
after that.
Wthn the week there was more news about Dasy. Her father had
bought her an apartment for Chrstmas. "A ove nest," Lsa caed t.
Dasy was peased wth hersef and spent more tme out of her room,
hopng that someone woud ask her about the apartment. Georgna
obged.
"How bg s the apartment, Dasy?"
"One bedroom, L-shaped vng room, eat-n chcken."
"You mean eat-n ktchen?"
"That's what I sad, asshoe."
"Where's the apartment, Dasy?"
"Near the Mass. Genera."
"On the way to the arport, ke?"
"Near the Mass. Genera." Dasy ddn't want to admt t was on the way
to the arport.
"What do you ke best about t?"
Dasy shut her eyes and paused, reshng her favorte part. "The sgn."
"What does the sgn say?"
hs `If you ved here, you'd be home now.'" She cenched her hands
wth exctement. "See, every day peope w drve past and read that sgn
and thnk, `Yeah, f I ved here I'd be home now,' and I w be home.
Motherfuckers."
Dasy eft eary that year, to spend Chrstmas n her apartment.
"She' be back," sad Lsa. But Lsa for once was wrong.
One afternoon n May we were caed to a speca Ha Meetng.
"Grs," sad the head nurse, "I have some sad news." We a eaned
forward. "Dasy commtted sucde yesterday."
"Was she n her apartment?" asked Georgna.
"Dd she shoot hersef?" asked Poy.
"Who's Dasy? Do I know Dasy?" asked the Martan's grfr.
"Dd she eave a note?" I asked.
"The detas aren't mportant," sad the head nurse.
"It was her brthday, wasn't t?" asked Lsa. The head nurse nodded.
We a observed a moment of sence for Dasy.
My Sucde
Sucde s a form of murder--premedtated murder. It sn't somethng
you do the frst tme you thnk of dong t. It takes gettng used to. And
you need the means, the opportunty, the motve. A successfu sucde
demands good organzaton and a coo head, both of whch are usuay
ncompatbe wth the sucda state of mnd.
It's mportant to cutvate detachment. One way to do ths s to
practce magnng yoursef dead, or n the process of dyng. If there's a
wndow, you must magne your body fang out the wndow. If there's a
knfe, you must magne the knfe percng your skn. If there's a tran
comng, you must magne your torso fattened under ts whees. These
exercses are necessary to achevng the proper dstance. y?
The motve s paramount. Wthout a strong motve, you're sunk.
My motves were weak: an Amercan-hstory paper I ddn't want to wrte
and the queston I'd asked months earer, Why not k mysef? Dead, I
woudn't have to wrte the paper. Nor woud I have to keep debatng the
queston.
The debate was wearng me out. Once you've posed that queston, t
won't go away. I thnk many peope k themseves smpy to stop the
debate about whether they w or they won't.
Anythng I thought or dd was mmedatey drawn nto the debate.
Made a stupd remark--why not k mysef? Mssed the bus--better put an
end to t a. Even the good got n there. I ked that move--maybe I
shoudn't k mysef.
Actuay, t was ony part of mysef I wanted to k: the part that wanted
to k hersef, that dragged me nto the sucde debate and made every
wndow, ktchen mpement, and subway staton a rehearsa for tragedy.
I ddn't fgure ths out, though, unt after I'd swaowed the ffty asprn.
I had a boyfrend named |ohnny who wrote me ove poems--good ones.
I caed hm up, sad I was gong to k mysef, eft the phone off the hook,
took my ffty asprn, and reazed t was a mstake. Then I went out to get
some mk, whch my mother had asked me to do before I took the asprn.
|ohnny caed the poce. They went to my house and tod my mother
what I'd done. She turned up n the AP on Mass. Ave. |ust as I was about
to pass out over the meat counter.
As I waked the fve bocks to the AP I was grpped by humaton and
regret. I'd made a mstake and I was gong to de because of t. Perhaps I
even deserved to de because of t. I began to cry about my death. For a
moment, I fet compasson for mysef and a the unhappness I contaned.
Then thngs started to bur and whz. By the tme I reached the store, the
word had been reduced to a narrow, throbbng tunne. I'd ost my
perphera vson, my ears were rngng, my puse was poundng. The
boody chops and steaks stranng aganst ther pastc wrappngs were the
ast thngs I saw ceary.
Havng my stomach pumped brought me around. They took a ong
tube and put t sowy up my nose and down the back of my throat. That
was ke beng choked to death. Then they began to pump. That was ke
havng bood drawn on a massve scae--the sucton, the sense of tssue
coapsng and touchng tsef n a way t shoudn't, the nausea as a that
was nsde was pued out. It was a good deterrent. Next tme, I decded, I
certany woudn't take asprn.
But when they were done, I wondered f there woud be a next tme. I
fet good. I wasn't dead, yet somethng was dead. Perhaps I'd managed
my pecuar ob|ectve of parta sucde. I was ghter, arer than I'd been
n years.
My arness asted for months. I dd some of my homework. I stopped
seeng |ohnny and took up wth my Engsh teacher, who wrote even better
poems, though not to me. I went to New York wth hm, he took me to the
Frck to see the Vermeers.
The ony odd thng was that suddeny I was a vegetaran.
I assocated meat wth sucde, because of passng out at the meat
counter. But I knew there was more to t.
The meat was brused, beedng, and mprsoned n a tght wrappng.
And, though I had a sx-month respte from thnkng about t, so was I. I
Eementary Topography Perhaps t's st uncear how I ended up n there.
It must have been somethng more than a pmpe. I ddn't menton that I'd
never seen that doctor before, that he decded to put me away after ony
ffteen mnutes. Twenty, maybe. What about me was so deranged that n
ess than haf an hour a doctor woud pack me off to the nuthouse? He
trcked me, though: a coupe of weeks. It was coser to two years. I was
eghteen.
I sgned mysef n. I had to, because I was of age. It was that or a court
order, though they coud never have gotten a court order aganst me. I
ddn't know that, so I sgned mysef n.
I wasn't a danger to socety. Was I a danger to mysef? The ffty
asprn--but I've expaned them. They were metaphorca. I wanted to get
rd of a certan aspect of my character. I was performng a knd of sef-
aborton wth those asprn. It worked for a whe. Then t stopped,-but I
had no heart to try agan.
Take t from hs pont of vew. It was 1967. Even n ves ke hs,
professona ves ved out n the suburbs behnd shrubbery, there was a
strange undertow, a tug from the other word--the drftng, drugged-out,
no-ast-name youth unverse--that knocked peope off baance. One coud
ca t "threatenng," to use hs anguage. What are these kds dong? And
then one of them waks nto hs offce wearng a skrt the sze of a napkn,
wth a motted chn and speakng n monosyabes. Doped up, he fgures.
He ooks agan at the name |otted on the notepad n front of hm. Ddn't
he meet her parents at a party two years ago? Harvard facuty--or was t
MIT? Her boots are worn down but her coat's a good one. It's a mean
word out there, as Lsa woud say. He can't n good conscence send her
back nto t, to become fotsam on the subsoceta tde that washes up now
and then n hs offce, depostng others ke her. A form of preventve
medcne.
Am I beng too knd to hm? A few years ago I read he'd been accused
of sexua harassment by a former patent. But that's been happenng a ot
these days,-t's become fashonabe to accuse doctors. Maybe t was |ust
too eary n the mornng for hm as we as for me, and he coudn't thnk of
what ese to do. Maybe, most key, he was |ust coverng hs ass.
My pont of vew s harder to expan. I went. Frst I went to hs offce,
then I got nto the tax, then I waked up the stone steps to the
Admnstraton Budng of McLn Hospta, and, f I remember correcty, sat
n a char for ffteen mnutes watng to sgn my freedom away.
Severa precondtons are necessary f you are gong to do such a thng.
I was havng a probem wth patterns. Orenta rugs, te foors, prnted
curtans, thngs ke that. Supermarkets were especay bad, because of
the ong, hypnotc checkerboard ases. When I ooked at these thngs, I
saw other thngs wthn them. That sounds as though I was haucnatng,
and I wasn't. I knew I was ookng at a foor or a curtan. But a patterns
seemed to contan potenta representatons, whch n a dzzyng array
woud fcker brefy to fe. That coud be ... a forest, a fock of brds, my
second-grade cass pcture. We, t wasn't--t was a rug, or whatever t
was, but my gmpses of the other thngs t mght be were exhaustng.
Reaty was gettng too dense. Somethng aso was happenng to my
perceptons of peope. When I ooked at someone's face, I often dd not
mantan an unbroken connecton to the concept of a face. Once you start
parsng a face, t's a pecuar tem: squshy, ponty, wth ots of ar vents
and wet spots. Ths was the reverse of my probem wth patterns. Instead
of seeng too much meanng, I ddn't see any meanng.
But I wasn't smpy gong nuts, tumbng down a shaft nto Wonderand.
It was my msfortune--or savaton--to be at a tmes perfecty conscous of
my msperceptons of reaty. I never "beeved" anythng I saw or thought I
saw. Not ony that, I correcty understood each new werd actvty.
Now, I woud say to mysef, you are feeng aenated from peope and
unke other peope, therefore you are pro|ectng your dscomfort onto
them. When you ook at a face, you see a bob of rubber because you are
worred that your face s a bob of rubber.
Ths carty made me abe to behave normay, whch posed some
nterestng questons. Was everybody seeng ths stuff and actng as
though they weren't? Was nsanty |ust a matter of droppng the act? If
some peope ddn't see these thngs, what was the matter wth them?
Were they bnd or somethng? These questons had me unsetted.
Somethng had been peeed back, a coverng or she that works to
protect us. I coudn't decde whether the coverng was somethng on me
or somethng attached to every thng n the word. It ddn't matter, reay,-
wherever t had been, t wasn't there anymore.
And ths was the man precondton, that anythng mght be somethng
ese. Once I'd accepted that, t foowed that I mght be mad, or that
someone mght thnk me mad. How coud I say for certan that I wasn't, f
I coudn't say for certan that a curtan wasn't a mountan range?
I have to admt, though, that I knew I wasn't mad.
It was a dfferent precondton that tpped the baance: the state of
contrarety. My ambton was to negate. The word, whether dense or
hoow, provoked ony my negatons. When I was supposed to be awake, I
was aseep,-when I was supposed to speak, I was sent,-when a peasure
offered tsef to me, I avoded t. My hunger, my thrst, my oneness and
boredom and fear were a weapons amed at my enemy, the word. They
ddn't matter a wht to the word, of course, and they tormented me, but I
got a gruesome satsfacton from my sufferngs. They proved my
exstence. A my ntegrty seemed to e n sayng No.
So the opportunty to be ncarcerated was |ust too good to resst. It
was a very bg No--the bggest No ths sde of sucde.
Perverse reasonng. But back of that perversty, I knew I wasn't mad
and that they woudn't keep me there, ocked up n a oony bn.
MCLean HOSPITAL
HP|BLEB|I hum KAYSEN, Susanna N.
1967 Apr 27
ABSTRACT APPLICATION: Patent wthdrew to her room, ate very tte,
dd not work or study and contempated |umpng nto the rver. She
sgned the vountary appcaton fuy reasng the nature of her act.
Drector (sensored)
Apped Topography
Two ocked doors wth a fve-foot space between them where you had
to stand whe the nurse reocked the frst door and unocked the second.
|ust nsde, three phone booths. Then a coupe of snge rooms and the
vng room and eat-n ktchen. Ths arrangement ensured a good frst
mpresson for vstors.
Once you turned the corner past the vng room, though, thngs
changed.
A ong, ong haway: too ong. Seven or eght doube rooms on one
sde, the nursng staton centered on the other, fanked by the conference
room and hydrotherapy tub room. Lunatcs to the eft, staff to the rght.
The toets and shower rooms were aso to the rght, as though the staff
camed oversght of our most prvate acts.
A backboard wth our twenty-odd names n green chak and spaces
after each where we, n whte chak, entered our destnaton, departure
tme, and tme of return whenever we eft the ward. The backboard hung
drecty across from the nursng staton. When someone was restrcted to
the ward, the head nurse wrote restrcted n green chak besde the name.
We got advance warnng of an admsson when a new name appeared on
the st--sometmes as much as a day before the person of that name
appeared on the ha. The dscharged and the dead stayed on the st for a
whe n sent memoram.
At the end of the terrbe ha, the terrbe TV room. We ked t: At
east, we preferred t to the vng room. It was messy, nosy, smoky, and,
most mportant, t was on the eft, unatc sde of thngs. As far as we were
concerned, the vng room beonged to the staff. We often agtated to
move our weeky Ha Meetng from the vng room to the TV room,-t
never happened.
After the TV room, another turn n the ha. Two more snges, one
doube, a toet, and secuson.
The secuson room was the sze of the average suburban bathroom.
Its ony wndow was the chcken-wre-enforced one n the door that
aowed peope to ook n and see what you were up to. You coudn't get
up to much n there. The ony thng n t was a bare mattress on the green
noeum foor. The was were chpped, as though somebody had been at
them wth fngernas or teeth. The secuson room was supposed to be
soundproof. It wasn't.
You coud pop nto the secuson room, shut the door, and ye for a
whe. When you were done you coud open the door and eave. Yeng n
the TV room or the ha was "actng out" and was not a good dea. But
yeng n the secuson room was fne.
You coud aso "request" to be ocked nto the secuson room. Not
many peope made that request. You had to "request" to get out too. A
nurse woud ook through the chcken wre and decde f you were ready to
come out. Somewhat ke ookng at a cake through the gass of the oven
door.
The secuson-room etquette was, If you weren't ocked n, anybody
coud |on you. A nurse coud nterrupt your yeng to try to fnd out why
you were yeng, or some other crazy person coud come n and start
yeng too. Hence the "request" busness. Freedom was the prce of
prvacy.
The rea purpose of the secuson room, though, was to quarantne
peope who'd gone bananas. As a group we mantaned a certan eve of
nosness and msery. Anyone who sustaned a hgher eve for more than
a few hours was put n secuson. Otherwse, the staff reasoned, we woud
a turn up the voume on our nuttness, and the staff woud ose contro.
There were no ob|ectve crtera for decdng to put someone nto
secuson. It was reatve, ke the gradng curve n hgh schoo.
Secuson worked. After a day or a nght n there wth nothng to do,
most peope camed down. If they ddn't, they went to maxmum securty.
Our doube-ocked doors, our stee-mesh wndow screens, our ktchen
stocked wth pastc knves and ocked uness a nurse was wth us, our
bathroom doors that ddn't ock: A ths was medum securty. Maxmum
securty was another word.
The Preude to Ice Cream
The hospta was on a h outsde of town, the way hosptas are n
moves about the nsane. Our hospta was famous and had housed many
great poets and sngers. Dd the hospta specaze n poets and sngers,
or was t that poets and sngers specazed n madness?
Ray Chares was the most famous ex-patent. We a hoped he'd return
and serenade us from the wndow of the drug-rehabtaton ward. He
never dd.
We had the Tayor famy, though. |ames graduated to a dfferent
hospta before I arrved, but Kate and Lvngston were there. In Ray
Chares's absence, ther North Carona twanged bues made us sad
enough. When you're sad you need to hear your sorrow structured nto
sound.
Robert Lowe aso ddn't come whe I was there. Syva Path had
come and gone.
What s t about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes ther
makers mad?
The grounds were arge and beautfuy panted. They were prstne as
we, snce we were amost never aowed to wak around. But now and
then, for a speca treat, we were taken through them on the way to get
ce cream.
The group had an atomc structure: a nuceus of nuts surrounded by
dartng, nervous nurse-eectrons charged wth our protecton. Or wth
protectng the resdents of Bemont from us.
The resdents were we heeed. Most worked as engneers or
technocrats aong the Technoogy Hghway, Route 128. The mportant
other type of Bemont resdent was the |ohn Brcher. The |ohn Brch
Socety ay as far to the east of Bemont as the hospta ay to the west.
We saw the two nsttutons as varatons on each other,-doubtess the
Brchers dd not see t ths way. But between us we had Bemont
surrounded. The engneers knew ths, and they took care not to stare
when we came nto the ce cream paror.
Sayng that we traveed wth a group of nurses does not fuy expan
the stuaton. A compex system of "prveges" determned how many
nurses accompaned each patent, and whether a patent coud eave the
grounds n the frst pace.
The prveges started at no prveges: restrcted to the ward. Ths was
often Lsa's condton. Sometmes she was bumped up to the next rung,
two-to-ones. That meant she coud eave the ward f she had two nurses
wth her, though ony to go to the cafetera or occupatona therapy. Even
wth our hgh staff-to-pattent rato, two-to-ones often meant restrcted to
the ward. Two nurses coud rarey be spared to take Lsa by the ebows
and huste her over to dnner. Then there were one-to-ones: a nurse and
patent bound together ke Samese twns. Some patents were on one-to-
ones even on the ward, whch was ke havng a page or vaet. Or ke
havng a bad conscence. It depended on the nurse. A ousy nurse on
one-to-ones coud be a probem,-t was usuay a ong-term assgnment, so
the nurse coud get to understand her patent.
The gradatons were Byzantne. One-to-twos (one nurse, two patents
were ed to group (three or four patents and one nurse). If you behaved
n group, you got somethng caed destnaton prveges: Ths meant
teephonng the head nurse the moment you arrved at wherever you were
gong to et her know you were there. You had to ca before comng back,
too, so she coud cacuate tme and dstance n case you ran away
nstead. Then there was mutua escort, whch was two reatvey not-crazy
patents gong paces together. And the top, grounds, whch meant you
coud go a over the hospta aone.
Once these statons of the cross were acheved wthn the hospta, the
whoe crcut began agan n the outsde word. Someone who had mutua
escort or grounds woud probaby st be on group outsde.
So when we went to Baey's n Waverey Square wth our retnue of
nurses, the arrangement of atoms n our moecue was more compex than
t appeared to the engneers' wves sppng coffee at the counter and
gracousy pretendng not to ook at us.
Lsa woudn't have been wth us. Lsa never made t past one-to-ones
after her thrd escape. Poy was on one-to-ones, but that was to make her
fee safe, not hemmed n, and she aways came aong. Georgna and I
were on group, but snce nobody ese was on group, we were effectvey
on one-to-twos. Cyntha and the Martan's grfr were on one-to-twos; ths
made t seem that Georgna and I were as crazy as Cyntha and the
Martan's grfr. We weren't, and there was a bt of resentment on our
part. Dasy was at the top of the chart: fu towns and grounds. Nobody
coud understand why.
Sx patents, three nurses.
It was a ten- or ffteen-mnute wak down the h, past the rosebushes
and statey trees of our beautfu hospta. The farther we got from our
ward, the |umper the nurses became. By the tme we ht the street they
were sent and cosed n on us, and they had assumed the Nonchaant
Look, an expresson that sad, I am not a nurse escortng sx unatcs to the
ce cream paror.
But they were, and we were ther sx unatcs, so we behaved ke
unatcs.
None of us dd anythng unusua. We |ust kept up dong whatever we
dd back on the ward. Mutterng, snarng, cryng. Dasy poked peope.
Georgna companed about not beng as crazy as those other two.
"Stop actng out," a nurse woud say.
They were not above pnchng us or gvng a Dasy-ke poke to try
shuttng us up: nurse nps. We ddn't bame them for tryng, and they
ddn't bame us for beng ourseves. It was a we had--the truth--and the
nurses knew t.
Ice Cream. It was a sprng day, the sort that gves peope hope: a soft
wnds and decate smes of warm earth. Sucde weather. Dasy had
ked hersef the week before. They probaby thought we needed
dstracton. Wthout Dasy, the staff-to patent rato was hgher than usua:
fve patents, three nurses.
Down the h, past the magnoa aready osng ts feshy bossoms, the
pnk turnng brown and rotten aong the edge, past the paper-dry
daffods,- past the stcky aure that coud crown you or poson you. The
nurses were ess nervous on the street that day, sprng fever makng them
careess--or perhaps the staff-to-patent rato was a more comfortabe one
for them.
The foor of the ce cream paror bothered me. It was back-and-whte
checkerboard te, bgger than supermarket checkerboard. If I ooked ony
at a whte square, I woud be a rght, but t was hard to gnore the back
squares that surrounded the whte ones. The contrast got under my skn.
I aways fet tchy n the ce cream paror. The foor meant Yes, No, Ths,
That, Up, Down, Day, Nght--a the ndecsons and oppostes that were
bad enough n fe wthout havng them speed out for you on the foor.
A new boy was dshng out cones. We approached hm n a phaanx.
"We want eght ce cream cones," sad one of the nurses.
"Okay," he sad. He had a frendy, pmpy face.
It took a ong tme to decde what favors we wanted. It aways dd.
"Peppermnt stck," sad the Martan's grfr.
"It's |ust caed `peppermnt,'" sad Georgna.
"Peppermnt dck."
"Honesty." Georgna was revvng up for a compant.
"Peppermnt ct."
The Martan's grfr got a nurse np for that.
There were no other takers for peppermnt chocoate was a bg
favorte. For sprng they had a new favor, peach meba. I ordered that.
"You gonna want nuts on these?" the new boy asked.
We ooked at one another: Shoud we say t? The nurses hed ther
breath. Outsde, the brds were sngng.
"I don't thnk we need them," sad Georgna.
Checks.
Fve-mnute checks. Ffteen-mnute checks. Haf-hour checks. Some
nurses sad, "Checks," when they opened the door. Cck, turn the knob,
swsh, open the door, "Checks," swsh, pu the door shut, cck turn the
knob. Fve-mnute checks. Not enough tme to drnk a cup of coffee, read
three pages of a book, take a shower.
When dgta watches were nvented years ater they remnded me of
fve-mnute checks. They murdered tme n the same way--sowy--
choppng off peces of t and obbng them nto the dustbn wth a tte
cck to et you know tme was gone. Cck, swsh, "Checks," swsh, cck:
another fve mnutes of fe down the dran. And spent n ths pace.
I got onto haf-hour checks eventuay, but Georgna remaned on
ffteen-mnute checks, so as ong as we were n the same room, t made no
dfference. Cck, swsh, "Checks," swsh, cck.
It was one reason we preferred sttng n front of the nursng staton.
The person on checks coud pop her head out and take her survey wthout
botherng us.
Sometmes they had the audacty to ask where someone was.
Cck swsh. "Checks"--the rhythm broke for a moment. "Have you
seen Poy?"
"I'm not dong your |ob for you," Georgna growed.
Swsh, cck
Before you knew t, she'd be back. Cck swsh, "Checks," swsh, cck
It never stopped, even at nght t was our uaby. It was our
metronome, our puse. It was our ves measured out n doses sghty
arger than those famous coffee spoons. Soup spoons, maybe? Dented tn
spoons brmmng wth what shoud have been sweet but was sour, gone
off, gone by wthout our savorng t: our ves.
Sharps
Na scssors. Na fe. Safety razor. Penknfe. (The one your father
gave you when you were eeven.) Pn. (That pn you got when you
graduated from hgh schoo, the one wth two sma pnk pears.)
Georgna's god stud earrngs. (You can't be serous! It's the backs, see--
the nurse showed her the stubby darts of the backs--they're sharp, see.)
That bet. (My bet? What's gong on here? The bucke was the cuprt. You
coud maybe put your eye out wth ths part of the bucke, the ponty part.)
Knves. We, you coud make a case for knves. But forks and spoons too?
Knves, forks, and spoons.
We ate wth pastc. It was a perpetua pcnc, our hospta.
Cuttng od tough beef wth a pastc knfe, then scoopng t onto a
pastc fork (the tnes woudn't stck nto the meat, so you had to use the
fork ke a spoon): Food tastes dfferent eaten wth pastc utenss. One
month the pastc-utens devery was ate and we ate wth cardboard
knves and forks and spoons. Have you ever eaten wth a cardboard fork?
Imagne the taste of t, metng cotted cardboard n and out of your
mouth, rubbng on your tongue.
How about shavng your egs?
Over to the nursng staton. "I want to shave my egs."
"|ust a mnute."
"I'm gong to take a bath now and I want to shave my egs."
"Let me check your orders."
"I've go orders to shave my egs. Supervsed."
"Let me check." Ruste, ratte. "Okay. |ust a mnute."
"I'm gong now."
In the tub, swmmng-poo-szed, Oympc-swmmngpoo-szed, deep
and ong and caw-footed: Cck, swsh, "Checks"--
"Hey! Where's my razor?"
"I'm |ust the person on checks."
"I'm supposed to shave my egs now."
Swsb, cck
More hot water. These hydrotherapy tubs are reay comfortabe.
Ocfe, stosb, my shavng supervsor.
"Dd you brng my razor?"
She hands t over. She sts on the char next to the bathtub. I'm
eghteen years od. She's twenty-two. She's watchng me shave my egs.
We had a ot of hary egs on our ward. Eary femnsts.
Another Lsa
One day a second Lsa arrved. We caed her by her fu name, Lsa
Cody, to dstngush her from the rea Lsa, who remaned smpy Lsa, ke
a queen.
The Lsas became frends. One of ther favorte actvtes was havng
phone conversatons.
The three phone booths near the doube-ocked doube doors were our
ony prvacy. We coud go n one and shut the door. Even the crazest
person coud st n a phone booth and have a prvate conversaton--though
ony wth hersef. The nurses had sts of permtted numbers for each of
us. When we pcked up the phone, a nurse woud answer.
"Heo," we'd say. Ths s Georgna"--or Cyntha, or Poy--?I want to ca
555-4270."
"That's not on your st," the nurse woud say.
Then the ne woud go dead.
But there was st the quet dusty phone booth and the od-fashoned
back recever wth ts sharp dorsa rdge.
The Lsas had phone conversatons. Each one got n a booth, foded
the door shut, and yeed nto her recever. When the nurse answered,
Lsa yeed, "Off the ne!" Then the Lsas got on wth ther conversaton.
Sometmes they yeed nsuts,-sometmes they yeed about ther pans for
the day.
"Wanna go over to the cafetera for dnner?" Lsa Cody woud ye.
But Lsa was restrcted to the ward, so she'd have to ye back
somethng ke: "Why do you want to eat that sop wth a those
psychotcs?"
To whch Lsa Cody woud ye, "What do you thnk you are?"
"Socopath!" Lsa woud ye proudy.
Lsa Cody ddn't have a dagnoss yet.
Cyntha was depressve, Poy and Georgna were schzophrenc, I had a
character dsorder. Sometmes they caed t a personaty dsorder. When
I got my dagnoss t ddn't sound serous, but after a whe t sounded
more omnous than other peope's. I magned my character as a pate or
shrt that had been manufactured ncorrecty and was therefore useess.
When she'd been wth us a month or so, Lsa Cody got a dagnoss. She
was a socopath too. She was happy, because she wanted to be ke Lsa
n a thngs. Lsa was not so happy, because she had been the ony
socopath among us.
"We are very rare," she tod me once, "and mosty we are men."
After Lsa Cody got her dagnoss, the Lsas started makng more
troube.
"Actng out" the nurses sad
We knew what t was. The rea Lsa was provng that Lsa Cody wasn't
a socopath.
Lsa tongued her seepng meds for a week, took them a at once, and
stayed zonked for a day and a nght. Lsa Cody managed to save ony four
of hers, and when she took them, she puked. Lsa put a cgarette out on
her arm at sx-Arty n the mornng whe the nurses were changng shfts.
That afternoon Lsa Cody burned a tny wet on her wrst and spent the
next twenty mnutes runnng cod water on t.
Then they had a fe-hstory batte. Lsa wormed out of Lsa Cody that
she'd grown up n Greenwch, Connectcut.
"Greenwch, Connectcut!" She sneered: No socopath coud emerge
from there. "Were you a debutante too?"
Speed, back beautes, coke, heron--Lsa had done t a. Lsa Cody sad
she'd been a |unke too. She roed her seeve back to show her tracks:
fant scratches aong the ven as f once, years before, she'd tanged wth a
rosebush.
"A suburban |unke," sad Lsa. "You were payng, that's what."
"Hey, man, |unk's |unk," Lsa Cody protested.
Lsa pushed her seeve up to her ebow and shoved her arm under Lsa
Cody's nose. Her arm was studded wth pae brown umps, gnared and
authentc.
"These," sad Lsa, "are tracks, man. Later for your tracks."
Lsa Cody was beaten, but she ddn't have the sense to gve up. She
st sat besde Lsa at breakfast and Ha Meetng. She st wated n the
phone booth for the ca that ddn't come.
"I gotta get rd of her," sad Lsa.
"You're mean," Poy sad.
"Fuckng btch," sad Lsa.
"Who?" asked Cyntha, Poy's protector.
But Lsa ddn't bother to carfy.
One evenng when the nurses waked the has at dusk to turn on the
ghts that made our ward as brght and |arrng as a penny arcade, they
found every ght bub gone. Not broken, vanshed.
We knew who'd done t. The queston was, Where had she put them? It
was hard to search n the darkness. Even the ght bubs n our rooms
were gone.
"Lsa has the true artstc temperament," sad Georgna.
"|ust hunt," sad the head nurse. "Everybody hunt."
Lsa sat out the hunt n the TV room.
It was Lsa Cody who found them, as she was meant to She was
probaby pannng to st out the hunt as we, n the pace that hed
memores of better days. She must have fet some resstance when she
tred to fod the door back--there were dozens of ght bubs nsde--but she
persevered, |ust as she'd persevered wth Lsa. The crunch and catter
brought us a scamperng down to the phone booths.
"Broken," sad Lsa Cody.
Everyone asked Lsa how she'd done t, but a she woud say was, "I've
got a ong, sknny arm."
Lsa Cody dsappeared two days ater. Somewhere between our ward
and the cafetera she spped away. Nobody ever found her, though the
search went on for more than a week. "She coudn't take ths pace," sad
Lsa.
And though we stened for a trace of |eaousy n her voce, we ddn't
hear one. Some months ater, Lsa ran off agan whe she was beng
taken to a gynecoogy consut at the Mass. Genera: two days she
managed ths tme. When she got back, she ooked especay peased
wth hersef.
"I saw Lsa Cody," she sad.
"Oooh," sad Georgna. Poy shook her head.
"She's a rea |unke now," sad Lsa, smng.
Checkmate.
We were sttng on the foor n front of the nursng staton havng a
smoke. We ked sttng there. We coud keep an eye on the nurses that
way.
"On fve-mnute checks t's mpossbe," sad Georgna.
"I dd t," sad Lsa Cody.
"Nah," sad the rea Lsa. "You ddn't." She had |ust started her
campagn aganst Lsa Cody.
"On ffteen, I dd t," Lsa Cody amended.
"Maybe on ffteen," sad Lsa.
"Oh, ffteen's easy," sad Georgna.
"Wade's young," sad Lsa. "Ffteen woud work."
I hadn't tred yet. Athough my boyfrend had camed down about my
beng n the hospta and come to vst me, the person on checks caught
me gvng hm a bow |ob, and we'd been put on supervsed vsts. He
wasn't vstng anymore.
"They caught me," I sad. Everybody knew they'd caught me, but I kept
mentonng t because t bothered me.
"Bg dea," sad Lsa. "Fuck them." She aughed. "Fuck them and fuck
them." "I don't thnk he coud do t n ffteen mnutes," I sad.
"No dstractons. Rght down to busness," sad Georgna.
"Who've you fuckng anyhow?" Lsa asked Lsa Cody. Lsa Cody ddn't
answer. "You're not fuckng anybody," sad Lsa.
"Fuck you," sad Dasy, who was passng by.
"Hey, Dasy," sad Lsa, "you ever fuck on fve-mnute checks?"
"I don't want to fuck these asshoes n here," sad Dasy.
"Excuses," Lsa whspered.
"You're not fuckng anybody ether," sad Lsa Cody.
Lsa grnned. "Georgna's gonna end me Wade for an afternoon."
"A t takes s ten mnutes," sad Georgna.
"They never caught you?" I asked her.
'They don't care. They ke Wade."
"You have to fuck patents," Lsa expaned. "Get rd of that stupd
boyfrend and get a patent boyfrend."
"Yeah, that boyfrend sucks," sad Georgna.
"I thnk he's cute," Lsa Cody sad.
"He's troube," sad Lsa.
I started to snffe.
Georgna patted me. "He doesn't even vst," she ponted out.
"It's true," sad Lsa. "He's cute, but he doesn't vst. And where does
he get off wth that accent?"
"He's Engsh. He grew up n Tunsa." These were very mportant
quafcatons for beng my boyfrend, I fet.
"Send hm back there," Lsa advsed.
"I' take hm," sad Lsa Cody.
"He can't fuck n ffteen mnutes," I warned her. "You'd have to gve
hm a bow |ob."
"Whatever," sad Lsa Cody.
"I ke a bow |ob now and then," sad Lsa.
Georgna shook her head. 'Too saty."
"I don't mnd that," I sad.
"Dd you ever get one that had a reay btter taste, puckery, ke
emons, ony worse?" Lsa asked.
"Some knd of dck nfecton," sad Georgna.
"Yuuuch," sad Lsa Cody.
"Nah, t's not an nfecton," sad Lsa. "It's |ust how some of them
taste."
"Oh, who needs them," I sad.
"We' fnd you a new one n the cafetera," sad Georgna.
"Brng a few extra back," sad Lsa. She was st restrcted to the ward.
"I'm sure Wade knows somebody nce," Georgna went on.
"Let's forget t," I sad. The truth was, I ddn't want a crazy boyfrend.
Lsa ooked at me. "I know what you're thnkng," she sad. "You don't
want some crazy boyfrend, rght?"
I was embarrassed and ddn't say anythng.
"You' get over t," she tod me. "What choce have you got?"
Everybody aughed. Even I had to augh.
The person on checks put her head out of the nursng staton and
bobbed t four tmes, once for each of us.
"Haf-hour checks," sad Georgna. "That woud be good."
"A mon doars woud be good, too," sad Lsa Cody.
"Ths pace," sad Lsa.
We a sghed.
McLean Hospta M3
NURSE'S REPORT OF PATIENT ON ADMISSION ........
Do You Beeve Hm or Me?
That doctor says he ntervewed me for three hours. I say t was twenty
mnutes. Twenty mnutes between my wakng n the door and hs
decdng to send me to McLean. I mght have spent another hour n hs
offce whe he caed the hospta, caed my parents, caed the tax. An
hour and a haf s the most I' grant hm.
We can't both be rght. Does t matter whch of us s rght?
It matters to me. But t turns out I'm wrong.
I have a pece of hard evdence, the Tme Admtted ne from the
Nurse's Report of Patent on Admsson. From that I can reconstruct
everythng. It reads: 1:30 p.m.
I sad I eft home eary. But my dea of eary mght have been as ate
as nne n the mornng. I'd swtched nght and day--that was one of the
thngs the doctor harped on.
I sad I was n hs offce before eght, but I seem to have been wrong
about that, too.
I' compromse by sayng that I eft home at eght and spent an hour
traveng to a nne o'cock appontment. Twenty mnutes ater s nne-
twenty.
Now et's |ump ahead to the tax rde. The trp from Bewton to Bemont
takes about haf an hour. And I remember watng ffteen mnutes n the
Admnstraton Budng to sgn mysef n. Add another ffteen mnutes of
bureaucracy before I reached the nurse who wrote that report. Ths totas
up to an hour, whch means I arrved at the hospta at haf past tweve.
And there we are, between nne-twenty and tweve thrty--a three-hour
ntervew!
I st thnk I'm rght. I'm rght about what counts.
But now you beeve hm.
Don't be so quck. I have more evdence.
The Admsson Note, wrtten by the doctor who supervsed my case,
and who evdenty took an extensve hstory before I reached that nurse.
At the top rght corner, at the ne Hour of Adm., t reads: 11:30 a.m.
Let's reconstruct t agan.
Subtractng the haf hour watng to be admtted and wadng through
bureaucracy takes us to eeven o'cock. Subtractng the haf-hour tax rde
takes us to ten-thrty. Subtractng the hour I wated whe the doctor made
phone cas takes us to nne-thrty. Assumng my departure from home at
eght o'cock for a nne o'cock appontment resuts n a haf-hour
ntervew.
There we are, between nne and nne-thrty. I won't qubbe over ten
mnutes.
Now you beeve me.
Veocty vs. Vscosty.
Insanty comes n two basc varetes: sow and fast.
I'm not takng about onset or duraton. I mean the quaty of the
nsanty, the day-to-day busness of beng nuts.
There are a ot of names: depresson, catatona, mana, anxety,
agtaton. They don't te you much.
The predomnant quaty of the sow form s vscosty.
Experence s thck. Perceptons are thckened and dued. Tme s
sow, drppng sowy through the cogged fter of thckened percepton.
The body temperature s ow. The puse s suggsh. The mmune system
s haf-aseep. The organsm s torpd and bracksh. Even the refexes are
dmnshed, as f the ower eg coudn't be bothered to |erk tsef out of ts
stupor when the knee s tapped.
Vscosty occurs on a ceuar eve. And so does veocty.
In contrast to vscosty's ceuar coma, veocty endows every pateet
and musce fber wth a mnd of ts own, a means of knowng and
commentng on ts own behavor. There s too much percepton, and
beyond the pethora of perceptons, a pethora of thoughts about the
perceptons and about the fact of havng perceptons. Dgeston coud k
you! What I mean s the unceasng awareness of the processes of
dgeston coud exhaust you to death. And dgeston s |ust an nvountary
sdene to thnkng, whch s where the rea troube begns.
Take a thought--anythng, t doesn't matter. I'm tred of sttng here n
front of the nursng staton: a perfecty reasonabe thought. Here's what
veocty does to t.
Frst, break down the sentence: I'm tred--we, are you reay tred,
exacty? Is that ke seepy? You have to check a your body parts for
seepness, and whe you're dong that, there's a bombardment of mages
of seepness, aong these nes: head fang onto pow, head httng
pow, Wynken, Bynken, and Nod, Ltte Nemo rubbng seep from hs
eyes, a sea monster. Uh-oh, a sea monster. If you're ucky, you can avod
the sea monster and stck wth seepness. Back to the pow, memores
of havng mumps at age fve, sensaton of swoen cheeks on pows and
pan on savaton--stop. Go back to seepness.
But the savaton noton s too aurng, and now there's an excurson
nto the mouth. You've been here before and t's bad. It's the tongue:
Once you thnk of the tongue t becomes an ntruson. Why s the tongue
so arge? Why s t scratchy on the sdes? Is that a vtamn defcency?
Coud you remove the tongue? Woudn't your mouth be ess bothersome
wthout t? There'd be more room n there. The tongue, now, every ce of
the tongue, s enormous. It's a vast foregn ob|ect n your mouth.
Tryng to dmnsh the sze of your tongue, you focus your attenton on
ts components: tp, smooth,-back, bumpy,-sdes, scratchy, as noted
earer (vtamn defcency), roots--troube. There are roots to the tongue.
You've seen them, and f you put your fnger n your mouth you can fee
them, but you can't fee them wth the tongue. It's a paradox.
Paradox. The tortose and the hare. Aches and the what? The
tortose? The tendon? The tongue?
Back to tongue. Whe you weren't thnkng of t, t got a tte smaer.
But thnkng of t makes t bg agan. Why s t scratchy on the sdes? Is
that a vtamn defcency? You've thought these thoughts aready, but now
these thoughts have been stuck onto your tongue. They adhere to the
exstence of your tongue.
A of that took ess than a mnute, and there's st the rest of the
sentence to fgure out. And a you wanted, reay, was to decde whether
or not to stand up.
Vscosty and veocty are oppostes, yet they can ook the same.
Vscosty causes the stness of dsncnaton, veocty causes the stness
of fascnaton. An observer can't te f a person s sent and st because
nner fe has staed or because nner fe s transfxngy busy.
Somethng common to both s repettve thought. Experences seem
prerecorded, styzed. Partcuar patterns of thought get attached to
partcuar movements or actvtes, and before you know t, t's mpossbe
to approach that movement or actvty wthout dsodgng an avaanche of
prethought thoughts.
A ethargc avaanche of synthetc thought can take days to fa. Part of
the mute parayss of vscosty comes from knowng every deta of what's
ahead and havng to wat for ts arrva. Here comes the I'm-no-good
thought. That takes care of today. A day the nsstent drppng of I'm no
good. The next thought, the next day, s I'm the Ange of Death.
Ths thought has a gtterng expanse of panc behnd t, whch s
unreachabe. Vscosty fattens the effervescence of panc.
These thoughts have no meanng. They are dot mantras that exst n
a prearranged cyce: I'm no good, I'm the Ange of Death, I'm stupd, I
can't do anythng. Thnkng the frst thought trggers the whoe crcut. It's
ke the fu: frst a sore throat, then, nevtaby, a stuffy nose and a cough.
Once, these thoughts must have had a meanng. They must have
meant what they sad. But repetton has bunted them. They have
become background musc, a Muzak medey of sef-hatred themes. Whch
s worse, overoad or underoad? Lucky, I never had to choose. One or
the other woud assert tsef, rush or drbbe through me, and pass on.
Pass on to where? Back nto my ces to urk ke a vrus watng for the
next opportunty? Out nto the ether of the word to wat for the
crcumstances that woud provoke ts reappearance? Endogenous or
exogenous, nature or nurture--t's the great mystery of menta ness.
Securty Screen
"I need some fresh ar," sad Lsa. We were sttng on the foor n front
of the nursng staton, as usua.
Dasy passed by.
"Gmme a cgarette," she sad.
"Get your own, btch," sad Lsa. Then she gave her one.
"Lousy cgarette," sad Dasy. Lsa smoked Koos.
"I need some fresh ar," Lsa repeated. She stubbed her cgarette out
on the brown-and-bege-specked rug and stood up. "Hey!" She put her
head nto the nursng staton, n through the open haf of the Dutch door.
"I need some fuckng fresh ar."
"|ust a mnute, Lsa," sad a voce from nsde.
"Now!" Lsa banged on the s that dvded the top and bottom haves
of the door. 'Ths s ega. You can't keep a person nsde a budng for
months. I'm gong to ca my awyer."
Lsa often threatened to ca her awyer. She had a court-apponted
awyer, about twenty-sx, handsome, wth amond eyes. He hadn't been
abe to stop her beng commtted. Hs name was Irwn. Lsa camed to
have fucked hm a few tmes n the awyer-cent conference room at the
courthouse.
Whenever Lsa threatened to ca her awyer, the head nurse got
nvoved.
Now she came out and eaned on the s. "What's up, Lsa," she sad,
soundng tred.
"I want some fuckng fresh ar."
"You don't have to ye," sad the head nurse.
"How the fuck ese am I gong to get any attenton n ths pace?" Lsa
aways caed the hospta "ths pace."
"I'm rght n front of you now," the head nurse sad. "I'm payng
attenton."
"Then you know what I want."
"I' get an ade to open your wndow," sad the head nurse.
"Wndow," sad Lsa. She turned brefy to ook at us. "I'm not
nterested n some fuckng wndow." She ht the s agan. The head nurse
moved back a bt.
"It's wndow or nothng, Lsa," she sad.
"Wndow or nothng," sad Lsa n a sngsong. She took a few steps
down the ha, so that a of us, ncudng the head nurse, coud see her.
"I'd |ust ke to see how you'd manage ths pace, never gong outsde,
never even breathng fresh ar, never beng abe to open your own fuckng
wndow, wth a bunch of sssy cunts teng you what to do. Vaere, tme
for unch, Vaere, you don't have to ye, Vaere, tme for your seepng
meds, Vaere, stop actng out. You know? I mean, how the fuck woud you
manage, hunh?"
The head nurse's name was Vaere.
"I mean, you woudn't ast ten mnutes n ths pace."
"Fuckng btch," sad Dasy.
"Who asked you?" Lsa ponted at Dasy.
"Gmme a cgarette," sad Dasy.
"Get your own," sad Lsa. She turned to the head nurse. "I'm gong to
ca my awyer."
"Okay," sad the head nurse. She was pretty smart.
"You thnk I've got no rghts? Is that what you thnk?"
"Shoud I put the ca through?"
Lsa waved her arm dsmssvey. "Nah," she sad. "Nah, open the
wndow."
"|udy," sad the head nurse. Ths was a young bond ade we en|oyed
tormentng.
"Vaere!" yeed Lsa. She caed the head nurse Vaere ony when she
was upset. "Vaere, I want you to open my wndow."
"I'm busy, Lsa."
"I' ca my awyer."
"|udy can do t."
"I don't want that fuckng sssy cunt n my room."
"Oh, you're such a bore," sad the head nurse. She pressed the
securty buzzer that unocked the bottom of the door and came out nto
the ha wth us.
Lsa smed.
To open a wndow, a staff person had to unock the securty screen,
whch was a thck mpregnabe mesh on a stee frame, then ft the heavy
unbreakabe-gass-paned wndow, then shut and reock the securty
screen. Ths took about three mnutes, and t was hard work. It was the
sort of thng ades dd. When the'wndow was open, ar mght make ts
way through the mesh of the securty screen, f t was a breezy day.
The head nurse returned from Lsa's room, a tte pnk from exerton.
"Okay," she sad. She rapped on the nursng staton door to be buzzed
back n.
Lsa t another cgarette.
"Your wndow's open," sad the head nurse.
"I'm aware of that," sad Lsa.
"You aren't even gong n there, are you?" The head nurse sghed.
"Hey, man," sad Lsa, "t passes the tme." She touched the hot end of
her cgarette to her arm for a second. "I mean, that took up twenty
mnutes, maybe haf an hour."
The buzzer sounded, the head nurse opened the door, went nsde, and
eaned on the s agan.
"Yes, t does pass the tme," she sad.
"Gmme a cgarette," sad Dasy.
"Get your own, btch," sad Lsa. Then she gave her one.
Keepers.
Vaere was about thrty. She was ta and had tapered egs and arms.
She ooked a ot ke Lsa, though she was far. They both had ean ong
haunches and fexbe |onts. Lsa was good at curng hersef nto chars
and corners, and so was Vaere. When someone was upset and had
tucked hersef between a radator and a wa or behnd a bathtub or nto
another sma secure spot, Vaere coud cur hersef nto a compact
package and st near that person.
Vaere's far har was beautfu, but she kept t hdden n a brad that
she twsted up on the back of her head. Ths brad-n-a-bun never came
undone or spped out of pace. Rarey, Vaere coud be coaxed nto
undong the bun and showng us the brad, whch reached to her wast.
Ony Lsa coud convnce her to do ths. She never reeased her har from
the brad, though we begged her to.
Vaere was strct and nfexbe and she was the ony staff person we
trusted. We trusted her because she wasn't afrad of us. She wasn't
afrad of doctors ether. She ddn't have much to say about anythng, and
we ked her for that, too.
We had to hear a ot of tak n that pace. Each of us saw three doctors
a day: the ward doctor, the resdent, and our own therapst. Mosty we
had to hear ourseves tak to these doctors, but they dd a far amount of
takng themseves.
They had a speca anguage: regresson, actng out, hostty,
wthdrawa, ndugng n behavor. Ths ast phrase coud be attached to
any actvty and make t sound suspcous: ndugng n eatng behavor,
takng behavor, wrtng behavor. In the outsde word peope ate and
taked and wrote, but nothng we dd was smpe.
Vaere was a reef from that. The ony phrase she used was actng
out, and she used t correcty, to mean "gettng n my har and drvng me
crazy." She sad thngs ke "Cut that out" and "You're a bore." She sad
what she meant, |ust as we dd.
The doctors were men,- the nurses and ades were women. There were
two exceptons: |erry the Ade and Dr. Wck. |erry was wowy and
worred. He had one good trck. Now and then, someone wth a ot of
prveges was aowed to eave the hospta n a tax. That person woud
say, "|erry, ca me a cab." |erry woud say, "You're a cab." We oved ths.
Dr. Wck was another story.
Dr. Wck was the head of our ward, South Beknap Two. The wards
had boardng-schoo names ke East House and South Beknap, and Dr.
Wck woud have been a good boardng-schoo matron. She came from
Rhodesa and she ooked ke the ghost of a horse. When she taked, she
sounded somewhat ke a horse as we. She had a ow, burby voce, and
her coona Engsh accent gave her sentences a neghng cadence.
Dr. Wck seemed uttery nnocent about Amercan cuture, whch made
her an odd choce to head an adoescent grs' ward. And she was easy
shocked about sexua matters. The word fuck made her pae horse face
fush,-t fushed a ot when she was around us.
A representatve conversaton wth Dr. Wck:
"Good mornng. It has been decded that you were compusvey
promscuous. Woud you ke to te me about that?"
"No." Ths s the best of severa bad responses, I've decded.
"For nstance, the attachment to your hgh schoo Engsh teacher." Dr.
Wck aways uses words ke attachment.
"Uh?"
"Woud you ke to te me about that?"
"Um. We. He drove me to New York." That was when I reazed he
was nterested. He brought aong a wonderfu vegetaran unch for me.
"But that wasn't when t was."
"What? When what was?"
"When we fucked."
(Fush.) "Go on."
"We went to the Frck. I'd never been there. There was ths Vermeer,
see, ths amazng pantng of a gr havng a musc esson--I |ust coudn't
beeve how amazng t was--"
"So when dd you--ah--when was t?"
Doesn't she want to hear about the Vermeer? That's what I remember.
"What?"
"The--ah--attachment. How dd t start?"
"Oh, ater, back home." Suddeny I know what she wants. "I was at hs
house. We had poetry meetngs at hs house. And everybody had eft, so
we were |ust sttng there on the sofa aone. And he sad, `Do you want to
fuck?'"
(Fush.) "He used that word?"
"Yup." He ddn't. He kssed me. And he'd kssed me n New York too.
But why shoud I dsappont her?
Ths was caed therapy.
Lucky, Dr. Wck had a ot of grs to take care of, so therapy wth her
was bref, maybe fve mnutes a day. But n her wake came the resdent.
There was a two- or three-mnute breather between Dr. Wck's
departure and the resdent's arrva. Durng ths tme we coud thnk of
new thngs to say or formuate compants. Resdents were n charge of
prveges, medcaton, phone cas--the day-to-day matters that were not
mportant enough for Dr. Wck to bother wth.
Resdents changed every sx months. We'd |ust begn to fgure out how
to manage one resdent when he'd be snatched out from under us and
repaced wth a new, ncomprehensbe resdent. They started out tough
and ended up exhausted and ready to eave. A few started out wth
compasson, they ended up btter, because we took advantage of them.
A representatve conversaton wth a resdent:
"Good mornng. How are your bowe movements?"
"I want to get off group. I want destnaton prveges."
"Do you have any headaches?"
"I've been on group for sx months!"
"The head nurse sad you were actng out after unch yesterday."
"She's makng that up."
"Hmmmm. Hostty" He scrbbes n a notebook.
"Can I have orders for Tyeno nstead of asprn?"
Ketpfrends "There's no dfference."
"Asprn gves me a stomach ache."
"Are you havng headaches?"
"Ths s n case I do."
"Hmmmm. Hypochondra." He scrbbes agan.
But these two doctors were hors d'oeuvres. The entree was the
therapst.
Most of us saw our therapsts every day. Cyntha ddn't, she had
therapy twce a week and shock therapy once a week. And Lsa ddn't go
to therapy. She had a therapst, but he used her hour to take a nap. If
she was extremey bored, she'd demand to be taken to hs offce, where
she'd fnd hm snoozng n hs char. "Gotcha!" she'd say. Then she'd
come back to the ward. The rest of us trapsed off day after day to
exhume the past.
Therapsts had nothng to do wth our everyday ves.
"Don't tak about the hospta," my therapst sad f I companed about
Dasy or a stupd nurse. "We're not here to tak about the hospta."
They coudn't grant or rescnd prveges, hep us get rd of smey
roommates, stop ades from pesterng us. The ony power they had was
the power to dope us up. Thorazne, Steazne, Mear, Lbrum, Vaunr
the therapsts' frends. The resdent coud put us on that stuff too, n an
"acute" stuaton. Once we were on t, t was hard to get off. A bt ke
heron, except t was the staff who got addcted to our takng t.
"You're dong so we," the resdent woud say. That was because those
thngs knocked the heart out of us.
Haf a dozen nurses, ncudng Vaere, and an ade or two were on duty
durng the day. The nght staff conssted of three comfy bg-bosomed Irsh
women who caed us "deare." Occasonay there was a comfy bg-
bosomed back woman who caed us "honey." The nght staff woud hug
us f we needed a hug. The day staff adhered to the No Physca Contact
rue.
Between day and nght was a dark unverse caed evenng, whch
began at three-ffteen, when the day staff retred to the vng room to
gossp about us wth the evenng staff. At three-thrty everyone emerged.
Power had been transferred. From then unt eeven, when the comfy
women took over, we were n Mrs. McWeeney's hands.
Perhaps t was Mrs. McWeeney who made dusk such a dangerous tme.
No matter the season, dusk began at three ffteen wth her arrva.
Mrs. McWeeney was dry, tght, sma, and pg-eyed. If Dr. Wck was a
dsgused boardng-schoo matron, Mrs. McWeeney was an undsgused
prson matron. She had hard gray har pressed nto waves that grasped
her scap ke a mgrane. The day nurses, foowng Vaere's ead, wore
unbuttoned nurse coats over street cothes. No such nformaty for Mrs.
McWeeney. She wore a creaky whte unform and spongy rppe-soed
nurse shoes that she panted whte every week,-we coud watch the pant
crackng and peeng off between Monday and Frday.
Mrs. McWeeney and Vaere dd not get aong. Ths was fascnatng,
ke overhearng your parents havng a fght. Mrs. McWeeney cast on
Vaere's cothes and har the same dsapprovng eye she gave us and
ccked her teeth wth mpatence as Vaere gathered her coat and
pocketbook and eft the nursng staton at three-thrty. Vaere gnored her.
Vaere was abe to gnore peope n an obvous way. As ong as Vaere
was on the ward, we fet safe hatng Mrs. McWeeney. But as soon as her
ong tapered back had receded down the ha and out the doube-ocked
doube doors, we were overcome by goom shot through wth anxety: Now
Mrs. McWeeney was n power.
Her power wasn't absoute, but t was cose. She shared t wth a
mysterous Doctor on Ca. She never caed hm. "I can hande ths," she
sad.
She had more confdence n her abty to hande thngs than we dd.
Many evenngs were spent argung about whether the Doctor on Ca
shoud make an appearance. "We' |ust have to agree to dsagree," Mrs.
McWeeney sad about ten tmes per evenng. She had an endess store of
cches.
When Mrs. McWeeney sad, "We' |ust have to agree to dsagree" or
"Ltte ptchers have bg ears" or "Sme and the word smes wth you, cry
and you cry aone," a fant but deghted grn came onto her face.
Ceary, she was nuts. We were ocked up for eght hours a day wth a
crazy woman who hated us.
Mrs. McWeeney was unpredctabe. She'd gnar her face up for no
reason whe gvng out bedtme meds and sam back nto the nursng
staton wthout a word. We'd have to wat for her to cam down before
gettng our nghty Mckey Fnns,-sometmes we wated as ong as haf an
hour.
Every mornng we companed to Vaere about Mrs. McWeeney,
though we never sad anythng about watng for our meds. We knew Mrs.
McWeeney was a crazy person who had to earn a vng. We weren't tryng
to get her decertfed,-we |ust wanted her off our ward.
Vaere was unsympathetc to our compants.
"Mrs. McWeeney s a professona," she sad. "She's been n ths
busness a ot onger than I have."
"So what?" sad Georgna.
"She's fuckng nuts," Lsa yeed.
"You don't have to ye, Lsa--I'm rght here," sad Vaere.
We were a protectng Mrs. McWeeney, one way or another.
Mrs. McWeeney wasn't the ony person n need of protecton.
Now and then there was an nfux of student nurses. They were
mgratory, passng through our hospta on ther way to operatng rooms
and cardac-care unts. They foowed rea nurses around n a fock, askng
questons and gettng underfoot. "Oh, that Tffany! She stcks to me ke a
barnace," the nurses woud compan. Then we got the chance to say,
"Sucks, doesn't t? Beng foowed around a the tme." The nurses woud
have to grant us ths pont.
The student nurses were about nneteen or twenty: our age. They had
cean, eager faces and cean, roned unforms. Ther nnocence and
ncompetence aroused our pty, unke the ncompetence of ades, whch
aroused our scorn. Ths was party because student nurses stayed ony a
few weeks, whereas ades were ncompetent for years at a stretch.
Many, though, t was because when we ooked at the student nurses, we
saw aternate versons of ourseves. They were vng out ves we mght
have been vng, f we hadn't been occuped wth beng menta patents.
They shared apartments and had boyfrends and taked about cothes. We
wanted to protect them so that they coud go on vng these ves. They
were our proxes.
They oved takng to us. We asked them what moves they'd seen and
how they'd done on ther exams and when they were gettng marred
(most of them had sady sma engagement rngs). They'd te us
anythng--that the boyfrend was nsstng they "do t" before the weddng,
that the mother was a drnker, that the grades were bad and the
schoarshp wasn't gong to be renewed.
We gave them good advce "Use a condom", "Ca Acohocs
Anonymous",- "Work hard for the rest of the semester and brng your
grades up." Later they'd report back to us: "You were rght. Thanks a ot."
We dd our best to contro our snars and mutterngs and tears when
they were around. Consequenty, they earned nothng about psychatrc
nursng. When they fnshed ther rotaton, a they took wth them were
mproved versons of us, hafway between our mserabe seves and the
normaty we saw emboded n them.
For some of us, ths was the cosest we woud ever come to a cure.
As soon as they eft, thngs went qucky back to worse than usua, and
the rea nurses had ther hands fu.
Thus, our keepers. As for fnders--we, we had to be our own fnders.
Nneteen Sxty-Eght
The word ddn't stop because we weren't n t anymore,- far from t.
Nght after nght tny bodes fe to the ground on our TV screen: back
peope, young peope, Vetnamese peope, poor peope--some dead, some
ony bashed up for the moment. There were aways more of them to
repace the faen and |on them the next nght.
Then came the perod when peope we knew--not knew personay, but
knew of--started fang to the ground: Martn Luther Kng, Robert Kennedy.
Was that more aarmng? Lsa sad t was natura. "They gotta k them,"
she expaned. "Otherwse t' never sette down."
But t ddn't seem to be settng down. Peope were dong the knds of
thngs we had fantases of dong: takng over unverstes and aboshng
casses,-makng houses out of cardboard boxes and puttng them n
peope's way,-stckng ther tongues out at pocemen.
We'd cheer them on, those tte peope on our TV screen, who shrank
as ther numbers ncreased unt they were |ust a mass of dots takng over
unverstes and stckng ther tny tongues out. We thought eventuay
they'd get around to "beratng" us too. "Rght on!" we'd ye at them.
Fantases don't ncude repercussons. We were safe n our expensve,
we-apponted hospta, ocked up wth our rages and rebeons. Easy for
us to say "Rght on!" The worst we got was an afternoon n secuson.
Usuay a we got was a sme, a shake of the head, a note on our charts:
"Identfcaton wth protest movement." They got cracked skus, back
eyes, kcks to the kdneys--and then, they got ocked up wth ther rages
and rebeons.
So t went on, month after month of battes and rots and marches.
These were easy tmes for the staff. We ddn't "act out",- t was a acted
out for us.
We were not ony cam, we were expectant. The word was about to
fp, the meek were about to nhert the earth or, more precsey, wrest t
from the strong, and we, the meekest and weakest, woud be hers to the
vast estate of a that had been dened us.
But ths ddn't happen--not for us and not for any of those other
camants to the estate.
It was when we saw Bobby Seae bound and gagged n a Chcago
courtroom that we reazed the word wasn't gong to change. He was n
chans ke a save.
Cyntha was partcuary upset. "They do that to me!" she cred. It was
true that they dd te you down and put somethng n your mouth when
you had shock, to stop you from btng your tongue durng the convuson.
Lsa was angry too, but for another reason. "Don't you see the
dfference?" she snared at Cyntha. "They have to gag hm, because
they're afrad peope w beeve what he says."
We ooked at hm, a tny dark man n chans on our TV screen wth the
one thng we woud aways ack: credbty.
Bare Bones
For many of us, the hospta was as much a refuge as t was a prson.
Though we were cut off from the word and a the troube we en|oyed
strrng up out there, we were aso cut off from the demands and
expectatons that had drven us crazy. What coud be expected of us now
that we were stowed away n a oony bn?
The hospta sheded us from a sorts of thngs. We'd te the staff to
refuse phone cas or vsts from anyone we ddn't want to tak to, ncudng
our parents.
"I'm too upset!" we'd wa, and we woudn't have to tak to whoever t
was.
As ong as we were wng to be upset, we ddn't have to get |obs or go
to schoo. We coud wease out of anythng except eatng and takng our
medcaton.
In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the ne. We
had nothng more to ose. Our prvacy, our berty, our dgnty: A of ths
was gone and we were strpped down to the bare bones of our seves.
Naked, we needed protecton, and the hospta protected us. Of
course, the hospta had strpped us naked n the frst pace--but that |ust
underscored ts obgaton to sheter us.
And the hospta fufed ts obgaton. Somebody n our fames had
to pay a good dea of money for that: sxty doars (1967 doars) a day |ust
for the room,-therapy, drugs, and consutatons were extra. Nnety days
was the usua ength of menta-hospta nsurance coverage, but nnety
days was barey enough to get started on a vst to McLean. My workup
aone took nnety days. The prce of severa of those coege educatons I
ddn't want was spent on my hosptazaton.
If our fames stopped payng, we stopped stayng and were put naked
nto a word we ddn't know how to ve n anymore. Wrtng a check,
dang a teephone, openng a wndow, ockng a door--these were |ust a
few of the thngs we a forgot how to do.
Our fames. The prevang wsdom was that they were the reason we
were n there, yet they were uttery absent from our hospta ves. We
wondered: Were we as absent from ther ves outsde?
Lunatcs are smar to desgnated htters. Often an entre famy s
crazy, but snce an entre famy can't go nto the hospta, one person s
desgnated as crazy and goes nsde. Then, dependng on how the rest of
the famy s feeng, that person s kept nsde or snatched out, to prove
somethng about the famy's menta heath.
Most fames were provng the same proposton: Wt aren't crazy,- sbt
s the crazy one. Those fames kept payng.
But some fames had to prove that nobody was crazy, and they were
the ones who threatened to stop payng.
Torrey had that sort of a famy.
We a ked Torrey, because she had a nobe bearng. The ony thng
wrong wth her was amphetamnes. She'd spent two years shootng speed
n Mexco, where her famy ved. Amphetamnes had made her face pae
and her voce tred and drawng--or, rather, t was the ack of
amphetamnes that made her ths way.
Torrey was the ony person Lsa respected, probaby because they had
the neede n common.
Every few months Torrey's parents few from Mexco to Boston to
harangue her. She was crazy, she had drven them crazy, she was
mangerng, they coudn't afford t, and so forth. After they eft Torrey
woud gve a report n her tred draw.
"Then Mom sad, `You made me nto an acohoc,' and then Dad sad,
`I'm gong to see you never get out of ths pace,' and then they sort of
swtched and Mom sad, `You're nothng but a |unke,' and Dad sad, `I'm
not gong to pay for you to take t easy n here whe we suffer.'"
"Why do you see them?" Georgna asked.
"Oh," sad Torrey.
"It's how they show ther ove," sad Lsa. Her parents never made
contact wth her.
The nurses agreed wth Lsa. They tod Torrey she was mature for
agreeng to see her parents when she knew they were gong to confuse
her. Confuse was the nurses' word for abuse.
Torrey was not confused. "I don't mnd ths pace," she sad. "It's a
break from Mexco." In Torrey's mouth, Mexco sounded ke a curse.
"Mexco," she'd say, and shake her head.
In Mexco there was a bg house wth porches back and front, there
were servants, there was sun every day, and there were amphetamnes
for sae n the drugstore.
Lsa thought t sounded pretty good.
"It's death," sad Torrey. "Beng n Mexco means beng dead and
shootng speed to fee ke you're not qute dead. That's a."
Sometmes Vaere or another nurse tred expanng to Torrey that she
coud be n Mexco wthout gong to the drugstore and buyng
amphetamnes.
"You haven't been there," Torrey sad.
In August Torrey's parents caed to announce that they were comng
up to get her.
"Takng me home to de," she sad.
"We won't et you go," sad Georgna. "That's rght," I sad. "Rght,
Lsa?"
Lsa wasn't makng any promses. "What can we do about t?"
"Nothng," sad Torrey.
That afternoon I asked Vaere, "You woudn't et Torrey's parents take
her back to Mexco, woud you?"
"We're here to protect you," she sad.
"What does that mean?" I asked Lsa that evenng.
"Doesn't mean sht," sad Lsa.
For about a week there was no word from Torrey's parents. Then they
caed to say they'd meet her at the Boston arport. They ddn't want to
bother wth comng out to the hospta to pck her up.
"You coud hop out on the way to the arport," sad Lsa. "Somewhere
downtown. Get rght onto the subway." She was an od hand at escape
pannng.
"I don't have any money," sad Torrey.
We pooed our money. Georgna had twenty-two doars, Poy had
eghteen, Lsa had tweve, I had ffteen nnety-fve.
"You coud ve for weeks on ths," Lsa tod her.
"One, maybe," sad Torrey. But she ooked ess depressed. She took
the money and put t n her bra. It made qute a ump. "Thanks," she sad.
"You've got to have a pan," Lsa sad. "Are you gong to stay here or
eave town? I thnk you ought to eave town rght away."
"And go where?"
"Don't you have any frends n New York?" Georgna asked.
Torrey shook her head. "I know you peope, and I know some |unkes n
Mexco. That's t."
"Lsa Cody," sad Lsa. "She's a |unke. She'd put you up."
"She's not reabe," sad Georgna.
"She'd use a that money for |unk anyhow," I sad.
"I mght too," Torrey ponted out.
"That's dfferent," sad Lsa. "We gave t to you."
"Don't," sad Poy. "You mght as we go back to Mexco f you do that"
"Yeah," sad Torrey. Now she ooked depressed agan.
"What's up?" sad Lsa.
"I don't have the nerve," sad Torrey. "I can't do t."
"Yes, you can," sad Lsa. "You |ust open the door at a red ght and
tear off. You |ust get the fuck away. You can do t."
"You coud do t," sad Torrey. "I can't."
"You've got to do t," sad Georgna.
"I know you can do t," Poy sad. She put her pnk-and whte hand on
Torrey's thn shouder. I wondered f Torrey coud do t. In the mornng,
two nurses were watng to take Torrey to the arport.
"That's not gong to work," Lsa whspered to me. "She' never get
away from two."
She decded to create a dverson. The pont was to occupy enough
staff members so that ony one nurse woud be avaabe to take Torrey to
the arport.
"Ths fuckng pace!" Lsa yeed. She went down the ha sammng the
doors to the rooms. "Eat sht!"
It worked. Vaere shut the top of the Dutch door to the nursng staton
and had a powwow wth the rest of the staff whe Lsa yeed and
sammed. When they emerged, they fanned out n troube-shootng
formaton.
"Cam down, Lsa," sad Vaere. "Where's Torrey? It's tme to go. Let's
go."
Lsa paused on her crcut. "Are you takng her?"
We a knew nobody coud escape from Vaere.
Vaere shook her head. "No. Now cam down, Lsa."
Lsa sammed another door.
"It's not gong to hep," Vaere sad. "It's not gong to stop anythng."
"Vaere, you promsed--" I began.
"Where's Torrey?" Vaere nterrupted me. "Let's |ust get ths over
wth."
"I'm here," sad Torrey. She was hodng a sutcase, and her arm was
trembng, so the sutcase was bumpng aganst her eg. "Okay," sad
Vaere. She reached nto the nursng staton and pued out a fu
medcaton cup. 'Take ths," she sad.
"What the fuck s that?" yeed Lsa from hafway down the ha.
"It' |ust reax Torrey," Vaere sad. "Somethng to reax her."
"I'm reaxed," sad Torrey.
"Drnk up," sad Vaere.
"Don't take t!" Lsa yeed. "Don't do t, Torrey!"
Torrey tpped her head back and drank.
"Thank God," Vaere muttered. "Okay. A rght. Ths s t." She was
shakng too. "Okay. Good-bye, Torrey dear, good-bye now."
Torrey was actuay eavng. She was gong to get on the arpane and
go back to Mexco.
Lsa qut bangng and came up to stand wth the rest of us. We stood
around the nursng staton ookng at Torrey.
"Was that what I thnk t was?" Lsa asked Vaere. She put her face up
to Vaere's face. "Was that Thorazne? Is that what that was?"
Vaere ddn't answer. She ddn't need to. Torrey's eyes were aready
gstenng. She took a step away from us and ost her baance sghty.
Vaere caught her ebow.
"It's a rght," she tod Torrey.
"I know," sad Torrey. She ceared her throat. "Sure."
The nurse who was takng her to the arport pcked up the sutcase and
ed Torrey down the ha to the doube ocked doube doors.
Then there wasn't anythng to do. An ade went nto Torrey's room and
started strppng the sheets off the bed.
Lsa sammed a door. The rest of us stood where we were for a whe.
Then we watched TV unt the nurse came back from the arport. We fe
sent, stenng for agtaton n the nursng staton--the sort of agtaton an
escape provokes. But nothng happened.
The day got worse after that. It ddn't matter where we were,- every
pace was the wrong pace. The TV room was too hot,-the vng room was
too werd,-the foor n front of the nursng staton was no good ether.
Georgna and I tred sttng n our room, and that was terrbe as we.
Every room was echoey and bg and empty. And there was |ust nothng to
do.
Lunch came: tuna met. Who wanted t? We hated tuna met.
After unch Poy sad, "Let's |ust pan to spend one hour n the vng
room and then one hour n front of the nursng staton and so on. At east
t w be a schedue."
Lsa wasn't nterested. But Georgna and I agreed to gve t a whr. We
started n the vng room. Each of us popped nto a yeow vny char.
Two o'cock on a Saturday n August on a medum-securty ward n
Bemont. Od cgarette smoke, od magaznes, green spotted rug, fve
yeow vny chars, a roken-backed orange sofa: You coudn't mstake that
room for anythng but a oony-bn vng room. I sat n my yeow vny
char not thnkng about Torrey. I ooked at my hand. It occurred to me
that my Pam ooked ke a monkey's pam of the three Lnes across t and
the way my fngers cured n seemed sman to me. If I spread my fngers
out, my hand ooked more human, so I dd that. But t was trng hodng
my fngers apart. I et them reax, and then the monkey dea came back.
I turned my hand over qucky. The back of t wasn't much better. My
vens buged--maybe because t was such a hot day--and the skn around
my knuckes was wrnky and oose. If I moved my hand I coud see the
three ong bones that stretched out from the wrst to the frst |onts of my
fngers. Or perhaps those weren't bones but tendons? I poked one, t was
resent, so probaby t was a tendon. Underneath, though, were bones.
At east I hoped so.
I poked deeper, to fee the bones. They were hard to fnd.
Knuckebones were easy, but I wanted to fnd the hand bones, the ong
ones gong from my wrst to my fngers.
I started gettng worred. Where were my bones? I put my hand n my
mouth and bt t, to see f I crunched down on somethng hard. Everythng
sd away from me. There were nerves,-there were bood vesses,-there
were tendons: A these thngs were sppery and eusve.
"Damn," I sad.
Georgna and Poy weren't payng attenton.
I began scratchng at the back of my hand. My pan was to get hod of
a fap of skn and pee t away, |ust to have a ook. I wanted to see that
my hand was a norma human hand, wth bones. My hand got red and
whte--sort of ke Poy's hands--but I coudn't get my skn to open up and
et me n.
I put my hand n my mouth and chomped. Success! A bubbe of bood
came out near my ast knucke, where my ncsor had perced the skn.
"What the fuck are you dong?" Georgna asked. "I'm tryng to get to
the bottom of ths," I sad. "Bottom of what?" Georgna ooked angry. "My
hand," I sad, wavng t around. A drbbe of bood went down my wrst.
"We, stop t," she sad.
"It's my hand," I sad. I was angry too. And I was gettng reay
nervous. Oh God, I thought, there aren't any bones n there, there's
nothng n there.
"Do I have any bones?" I asked them. "Do I have any bones? Do you
thnk I have any bones?" I coudn't stop askng.
"Everybody has bones," sad Poy. "But do have any bones?"
"You've got them," sad Georgna. Then she ran out of the room. She
came back n haf a mnute wth Vaere. "Look at her," Georgna sad,
pontng at me. Vaere ooked at me and went away. "I |ust want to see
them," I sad. "I |ust have to be sure." "They're n there--I promse you,"
sad Georgna. "I'm not safe," I sad suddeny. Vaere was back, wth a
fu medcaton cup. "Vaere, I'm not safe," I sad. "You take ths." She
gave me the cup. I coud te t was Thorazne from the coor. I'd never
had t before. I tpped my head back and drank.
It was stcky and sour and t oozed nto my stomach. The taste of t
stayed n my throat. I swaowed a few tmes.
"Oh, Vaere," I sad, "you promsed--" Then the Thorazne ht me. It
was ke a wa of water, strong but soft.
"Wow," I sad. I coudn't hear my own voce very we. I decded to
stand up, but when I dd, I found mysef on the foor.
Vaere and Georgna pcked me up under the arms and steered me
down the ha to our room. My egs and feet fet ke mattresses, they
were so huge and dense. Vaere and Georgna fet ke mattresses too,
bg soft mattresses pressng on ether sde of me. It was comfortng.
"It' be okay, won't t?" I asked. My voce was far away from me and I
hadn't sad what I meant. What I meant was that now I was safe, now I
was reay crazy, and nobody coud take me out of there.
We went over to see the dentst.
Hs offce was n the Admnstraton Budng, where ong ago I'd sat
quety watng to be ocked up. The dentst was ta, suen, and drty, wth
speckes of bood on hs ab coat and a pubc mstache. When he put hs
fngers n my mouth they tasted of ear wax.
"Abscess," he sad. "I' take t rght out."
"No," I sad.
"No what?" He was shuffng through hs too tray.
"I won't." I ooked at Vaere. "I won't et you."
Vaere ooked out the wndow. "Coud contro t wth some antbotcs
for the moment," she sad.
"Coud," he sad. He ooked at me. I bared the rest of my teeth at hm.
"Okay," he sad.
On our way back Vaere sad, "That was sensbe of you."
It had been a ong tme snce I'd heard mysef caed anythng as
compmentary as sensbe. "That guy ooked ke a pmpe," I sad.
"Have to get the nfecton under contro frst," Vaere muttered to
hersef as she unocked the doube doors to our ward.
The frst day of pencn the Png-Pong ba turned nto a marbe. By
the second day the marbe had turned nto a pea, but there was a rash on
my face. Aso I was too hot.
"No postponng t now," sad Vaere. "And don't take pencn agan,
ever."
"I won't go," I sad.
"I'm takng you to my dentst n Boston tomorrow," she sad.
Everybody was excted. "Boston!" Poy wgged her strped hands.
"What are you gong to wear?" "You coud go to a matnee," sad Georgna,
"and eat popcorn." "You coud score somethng for me," sad Lsa. "Down
near |ordan Marsh there's ths guy wth a bue baseba cap--" "You coud
|ump out at a red ght and spt," sad Cyntha. "Hs name s Astro," Lsa
contnued. She was more reastc than Cyntha,- she knew I woudn't spt.
"He ses back beautes cheap."
"I ook ke a chpmunk," I sad. "I can't do anythng."
In the cab I was too nervous to ook at Boston.
"Lean back and count to ten," sad the dentst. Before I got to four I
was sttng up wth a hoe n my mouth.
"Where dd t go?" I asked hm.
He hed up my tooth, huge, boody, spked, and wrnked.
But I'd been askng about the tme. I was ahead of mysef. He'd
dropped me nto the future, and I ddn't know what had happened to the
tme n between. "How ong dd that take?" I asked.
"Oh, nothng," he sad. "In and out."
That ddn't hep. "Lke fve seconds? Lke two mnutes?"
He moved away from the char "Vaere," he caed.
"I need to know," I sad.
"No hot quds for twenty-four hours," he sad.
"How ong?"
"Twenty-four hours."
Vaere came n, a busness. "Up you get, et's go."
"I need to know how ong that took," I sad, "and he won't te me."
She gave me one of her wtherng ooks. "Not ong, I can te you that."
"It's my tme!" I yeed. "It's my tme and I need to know how much t
was."
The dentst roed hs eyes. "I' et you hande ths," he sad, and eft
the room.
"Come on," sad Vaere. "Don't make troube for me."
"Okay." I got out of the dentst's char. "I'm not makng troube for you,
anyhow."
In the cab Vaere sad, "I've got somethng for you."
It was my tooth, ceaned up a bt but huge and foregn.
"I sntched t for you," she sad.
"Thanks, Vaere, that was nce of you." But the tooth wasn't what I
reay wanted. "I want to know how much tme that was," I sad. "See,
Vaere, I've ost some tme, and I need to know how much. I need to
know."
Then I started cryng. I ddn't want to, but I coudn't hep t.
Caas Is Engraved on My Heart
A new name had appeared on the backboard: Ace Caas.
"Let's guess about her," sad Ceorgna.
"Some new nut," sad Lsa.
"When s she comng?" I asked Vaere.
Vaere ponted down the ha toward the doors. And there she was,
Ace Caas.
She was young, ke us, and she ddn't ook too crazy. We got up off
the foor to say heo propery.
"I'm Ace Caas," she sad, but she sad caous.
"Ca-ay?" sad Georgna.
Ace Caas-Caous squnted. "Hunh?"
"You say t caous," I tod Georgna. I thought she was rude to mpy
that Ace ddn't know how to say her own name.
"Ca-ay?" Georgna sad agan.
Vaere came over at that pont to show Ace her room.
"It's ke Vermont," I sad to Georgna. "We don't say Vayr-mon ke the
French do."
"Phonetcs," sad Lsa.
Ace Caas-Caous was tmd, but she ked us. She often sat near us
and stened. Lsa thought she was a bore. Georgna tred to draw her out.
"You know, that's a French name," she tod Ace. "Caas."
"Caous," sad Ace. "It s?"
"Yes. It's a pace n France. A famous pace."
"Why?"
"It used to beong to Engand," sad Georgna. "A ot of France dd.
Then they ost t n the Hundred Years' War. Caas was the ast pace they
ost."
"A hundred years!" Ace wdened her eyes.
It was easy to mpress Ace. She knew amost nothng about anythng.
Lsa thought she was a retard.
One mornng we were sttng n the ktchen eatng toast wth honey.
"What's that?" asked Ace.
'Toast wth honey."
"I've never had honey," Ace sad.
Ths was stunnng. Who coud magne a fe so crcumscrbed that t
excuded honey?
"Never?" I asked.
Georgna passed her a pece. We watched whe she ate.
"It tastes ke bees," she announced.
"What do you mean?" Lsa asked.
"Sort of furry and tngy--ke bees."
I took another bte of my toast. The honey |ust tasted ke honey,
somethng I coudn't remember tastng for the frst tme.
Later that day, when Ace was off havng a Rorschach, I asked, "How
can a person who's never eaten honey have a famy that can afford to
send her here?"
"Probaby reay ncredby crazy and nterestng, so they et her n for
ess," sad Georgna.
"I doubt t," sad Lsa.
And for severa weeks Ace Caas-Caous gave no evdence of beng
ether reay crazy or nterestng. Even Georgna got tred of her.
"She doesn't know anythng," sad Georgna. "It's as f she spent her
fe n a coset."
"She probaby dd," sad Lsa. "Locked up n a coset eatng Cheeros."
"You mean kept there by her parents?" I asked.
"Why not," sad Lsa. "After a, they named her Ace Caous."
It was as good an expanaton as any for why, after about a month,
Ace expoded ke a vocano.
"Lot of energy n that gr," Georgna observed. Down at the end of the
ha, muffed boomng and yeng and crashng came out of the secuson
room.
The next day as we sat on the foor under the backboard Ace was
marched past us between two nurses on her way to maxmum securty.
Her face was puffy from cryng and bashng around. She ddn't ook at us.
She was occuped by her own compcated thoughts--you coud te from
the way she was squntng and movng her mouth.
Her name came off the backboard rather qucky.
"Guess she's setted n over there," sad Lsa.
"We ought to go see her," sad Georgna.
The nurses thought t was nce that we wanted to vst Ace. It was
even a rght for Lsa to go. They must have fgured she coudn't get nto
troube on maxmum securty.
It ddn't ook speca from the outsde. It ddn't even have extra doors.
But nsde t was dfferent. The wndows had screens ke our wndows, but
there were bars n front of the screens. Ltte bars, thn and severa nches
apart st, they were bars. The bathrooms had no doors, and the toets
had no seats.
"Why no seats?" I asked Lsa.
"Coud rp off a seat and whack somebody? I don't know."
The nursng staton wasn't open, ke ours, but encased n chcken-wre
gass. Nurses were ether n or out. No eanng over the Dutch door to
chat on maxmum securty.
And the rooms were not reay rooms. They were ces. They were
secuson rooms, n fact. There wasn't anythng n them except bare
mattresses wth peope on them. Unke our secuson room, they had
wndows, but the wndows were tny, hgh, chcken-wre-enforced, securty-
screened, barred wndows. Most of the doors to the rooms were open, so
as we waked down the ha to see Ace, we coud see other peope yng
on ther mattresses. Some were naked. Some were not on ther
mattresses but standng n a corner or cured up aganst a wa.
That was t. That was a there was. Ltte bare rooms wth one person
per room cured up somewhere.
Ace's room ddn't sme good. Her was were smeared wth
somethng. So was she. She was sttng on her mattress wth her arms
wrapped around her knees, and wth smears on her arms.
"H, Ace," sad Georgna.
"That's sht," Lsa whspered to me. "She's been rubbng her sht
around."
We stood around outsde the doorway. We ddn't want to go nto the
room because of the sme. Ace ooked ke somebody ese, as f she'd
gotten a new face. She ooked knd of good.
"How's t gong?" asked Georgna.
"It's okay," sad Ace. Her voce was hoarse. "I'm hoarse," she sad.
"I've been yeng."
"Rght," sad Georgna.
Nobody sad anythng for a mnute.
"I'm gettng better," sad Ace.
"Good," sad Georgna.
Lsa tapped her foot on the noeum. I was feeng fant from tryng to
breathe wthout breathng n the sme.
"So," sad Georgna. "We. See you soon, okay?"
"Thanks for comng," sad Ace. She uncasped her knees for a few
seconds to wave at us.
We went over to the nursng staton, where our escort had gone to vst
wth the staff. We coudn't see our nurse. Georgna rapped on the gass.
The person on duty ooked up and shook her head at us.
"I |ust want to get out of here," I sad.
Georgna rapped on the gass agan. "We want to go back to SB Two,"
she sad oudy.
The person on duty nodded, but our nurse dd not appear.
"Maybe they trcked us," sad Lsa. "Gonna eave us here."
"That's not funny," I sad.
Georgna gave another rat-a-tat to the gass.
"I' fx t," sad Lsa. She pued her ghter from her pocket and t up a
cgarette.
Immedatey two nurses sprang out of the nursng staton.
"Gve me that ghter," sad one, whe the other grabbed the cgarette.
Lsa smed. "We need our escort over to SB Two."
The nurses went back nto the nursng staton.
"No ghters on maxmum securty. Supervsed smokng. I knew that
woud rouse them." Lsa pued out another cgarette, then put t back n
the pack.
Our nurse came out. "That was a short vst," she sad. "How was
Ace?"
"She sad she was gettng better," sad Georgna.
"She had sht ..." I sad, but I coudn't descrbe t.
Our nurse nodded. "It's not that unusua."
The ugy vng room, the bedrooms stuffed wth bureaus and chars
and bankets and pows, an ade eanng out of the nursng staton takng
to Poy, the whte chak n ts dsh beow the backboard watng for us to
sgn ourseves n: home agan.
"Oh," I sad, sghng severa tmes. I coudn't get enough ar n, or get
the ar n me out.
"What do you thnk happened to her, anyhow?" sad Georgna.
"Somethng," sad Lsa.
"Sht on the wa," I sad. "Oh, God. Coud that happen to us?"
"She sad she was gettng better," Georgna sad.
"Everythng's reatve, I guess," sad Lsa.
"It coudn't, coud t?" I asked.
"Don't et t," sad Georgna. "Don't forget t."
The Shadow of the Rea.
My anayst s dead now. Before he was my anayst, he was my
therapst, and I was fond of hm. The vew from hs offce on the frst foor
of the maxmum-securty-ward budng was restfu: trees, wnd, sky. I was
often sent. There was so tte sence on our ward. I ooked at the trees
and sad nothng, and he ooked at me and sad nothng. It was
companonabe.
Now and then he sad somethng. Once I fe aseep brefy n the char
facng hm, after a nght fu of fghtng and yeng on our ward.
"You want to seep wth me," he crowed.
I opened my eyes and ooked at hm. Saow, bad eary, and wth pae
pouches under hs eyes, he wasn't anybody I wanted to seep wth.
Most of the tme, though, he was okay. It camed me to st n hs offce
wthout havng to expan mysef.
But he coudn't eave we enough aone. He started askng me, "What
are you thnkng?" I never knew what to say. My head was empty and I
ked t that way. Then he began to te me what I mght be thnkng. "You
seem sad today," he'd say, or "Today, you seem puzzed about
somethng."
Of course I was sad and puzzed. I was eghteen, t was sprng, and I
was behnd bars.
Eventuay he sad so many wrong thngs about me that I had to set
hm rght, whch was what he'd wanted n the frst pace. It rrtated me
that he'd gotten hs way. After a, I aready knew what I fet,-he was the
one who ddn't know.
Hs name was Mevn. I fet sorry for hm because of ths.
Often on the way from our ward to the maxmum-securty ward, I saw
hm drvng up to hs offce. Usuay he drove a staton wagon wth fake
wood panes, but occasonay he drove a seek back Buck wth ova
wndows and a vny roof. Then one day he shot past me n a ponty green
sports car, whch he sammed nto hs parkng pace wth a squea.
I started to augh, standng outsde hs offce, because I'd understood
somethng about hm, and t was funny. I coudn't wat to te hm.
When I got nto hs offce I sad, "You have three cars, rght?"
He nodded.
The staton wagon, the sedan, and the sports car."
He nodded agan.
"It's the psyche!" I sad. I was excted. "See, the staton wagon s the
ego, sturdy and reabe, and the sedan s the superego, because t's how
you want to present yoursef, powerfu and mpressve, and the sports car
s the d--t's the d because t's rrepressbe and fast and dangerous and
maybe a tte forbdden." I smed at hm. "It's new, sn't t? The sports
car?"
Ths tme he ddn't nod.
"Don't you thnk t's great?" I asked hm. "Don't you thnk t's great that
your cars are your psyche?" He ddn't say anythng.
It was shorty after ths that he began badgerng me to go nto anayss.
"We aren't gettng anywhere," he'd say. "I thnk anayss s n order."
"Why w t be dfferent?" I wanted to know.
"We aren't gettng anywhere," he'd say agan.
After a coupe of weeks he changed tactcs.
"You are the ony person n ths hospta who coud toerate an
anayss," he sad.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?" I ddn't beeve hm, but t was ntrgung.
"You need a fary we ntegrated personaty to be n anayss."
I went back to the ward fushed wth the dea of my fary we
ntegrated personaty. I ddn't te anyone,-that woud have been
braggng.
If I'd sad to Lsa, "I have a fary we ntegrated personaty and
therefore I'm gong nto anayss wth Mevn," she woud have made
retchng sounds and sad, "Asshoes! They' say anythng!" and I woudn't
have done t.
But I kept t to mysef. He'd fattered me--he understood me we
enough to know I craved fattery--and n grattude, I acquesced.
My vew, now, was of a wa, an off-whte, featureess wa. No trees, no
Mevn patenty ookng at me whe I ooked away. I coud fee hs
presence, though, and t was cod and hard. The ony thngs he sad were
"Yes?" and "Coud you say more about that?" If I sad, "I hate ookng at
ths fuckng wa," he'd say, "Coud you say more about that?" If I sad, "I
hate ths anayss stuff," he'd say, "Yes?"
Once I asked hm, "Why are you so dfferent? You used to be my
frend."
"Coud you say more about that?"
I started anayss n November, when I was st on group. Fve tmes a
week I |oned a herd of patents headed for doctors and ed by a nurse.
But most doctors' offces were n the Admnstraton Budng, whch was n
the opposte drecton from the maxmum-securty ward. So beng on
group was ke beng stuck on an nconvenent bus route. I companed.
And I got destnaton prveges.
Now my hour began wth a phone ca to the nursng staton to say I'd
arrved n Mevn's offce. It ended wth my cang to say I was eavng.
Mevn ddn't ke the phone busness. He squnted whe I taked on the
phone. He kept the phone cose to hm on hs desk. Every day I had to
ask hm to push t toward me so I coud use t.
Perhaps he companed, because soon I got grounds prveges--ony to
therapy, but t was somethng. For other actvtes, I was st on group.
So t was that n December, when I |oned Georgna and some other
peope gong to the cafetera for dnner, I dscovered the tunnes.
We say that Coumbus dscovered Amerca and Newton dscovered
gravty, as though Amerca and gravty weren't there unt Coumbus and
Newton got wnd of them. Ths was the way I fet about the tunnes. They
weren't news to anybody ese, but they made such an mpresson on me
that I fet I'd con|ured them nto beng.
It was a typca December day n the Boston area: tn coored couds
spttng bts of ran mxed wth fat watery snowfakes and |ust enough
wnd to make you wnce.
"Tunnes," sad the nurse.
Out the doube-ocked doube doors and down the stars as usua--our
ward was on the second foor for added securty. There were many doors
n the haway, one of whch went outsde. The nurse opened another one,
and we went down a second fght of stars. Then we were n the tunnes.
Frst ther wonderfu sme: They smeed of aundry, cean and hot and
sghty eectrfed, ke warmed wrng. Then ther temperature: eghty at
a mnmum, and ths when t was thrty-three outsde, probaby twenty-fve
wth wnd ch (though n the nnocent sxtes, wnd ch, ke dgta tme,
hadn't yet been dscovered). Ther quavery yeow ght, ther ong yeow-
ted was and barre-vauted cengs, ther forks and twsts and roads not
taken, whose yeow openngs beckoned ke shny open mouths. Here and
there, on whte tes embedded n the yeow, were sgnposts: CAFETERIA,
ADMINISTRATION, EAST HOUSE.
"Ths s great," I sad.
"Haven't you been down here before?" asked Georgna.
I asked the nurse, "Do these run under the whoe hospta?"
"Yes," she sad. "You can get anywhere. It's easy to get ost, though."
"How about the sgns?"
There aren't reay enough of them." She ggged,-she was an okay
nurse named Ruth. "Ths one says east house"--she ponted up--?but then
you come to a fork and there sn't another sgn."
"What do you do?"
"You |ust have to know the way," she sad.
"Can I come down here aone?" I asked. I wasn't surprsed when Ruth
sad I coudn't.
The tunnes became my obsesson.
"Anybody free to take me nto the tunnes?" I'd ask every day. About
once a week, somebody woud take me.
And then there they were, aways hot and cean and yeow and fu of
promse, aways throbbng wth heatng and water ppes that sang and
whsted as they dd ther work. And everythng nterconnected,
everythng gong on ts own prvate pathway to wherever t went.
"It's ke beng n a map--not readng a map but beng nsde a map," I
sad to Ruth one day when she'd taken me down there. "Lke the pan of
somethng rather than the thng tsef." She ddn't say anythng and I knew
I ought to stop takng about t, but I coudn't. "It's ke the essence of the
hospta down here--you know what I mean?"
Tme's up," sad Ruth. "I'm on checks n ten mnutes." In February I
asked Mevn, "You know those tunnes?"
"Coud you te me more about the tunnes?"
He ddn't know about them. If he'd known about them, he woud have
sad, "Yes?"
There are tunnes under ths entre hospta. Everythng s connected
by tunnes. You coud get n them and go anywhere. It's warm and cozy
and quet."
"A womb," sad Mevn.
Gr, Itttrrupted
"Yes."
When Mevn sad Yes wthout a questonng ntonaton, he meant No.
"It's the opposte of a womb," I sad. "A womb doesn't go anywhere." I
thought hard about how to expan the tunnes to Mevn. "The hospta s
the womb, see. You can't go anywhere, and t's nosy, and you're stuck.
The tunnes are ke a hospta wthout the bother."
He sad nothng and I sad nothng. Then I had another dea.
"Remember the shadows on the wa of the cave?" "Yes."
He ddn't remember them. "Pato sad everythng n the word s |ust
the shadow of some rea thng we can't see. And the rea thng sn't ke
the shadow, t's a knd of essence thng, ke a--" I coudn't thnk what, for
a mnute. "Lke a super-tabe."
"Coud you say more about that?" The super-tabe hadn't been a good
exampe. "It's ke a neuross," I sad. I was makng ths up. "Lke when
you're angry, and that's the rea thng, and what shows s you're afrad of
dogs btng you. Because reay what you want s to bte everybody. You
know?"
Now that I'd sad ths, I thought t was pretty convncng. "Why are you
angry?" Mevn asked. He ded young, of a stroke. I was hs frst anaytc
patent, I found that out after I qut anayss. A year after I got out of the
hospta, I qut. I'd had t, fnay, wth a that messng about n the
shadows.
Stgmatography.
The hospta had an address, 115 M Street. Ths was to provde some
cover f one of us were we enough to appy for a |ob whe st
ncarcerated. It gave about as much protecton as 1600 Pennsyvana
Avenue woud have.
"Let's see, nneteen years od, vng at 1600 Pennsyvana Avenue--
Hey! That's the Whte House!"
Ths was the sort of ook we got from prospectve empoyers, except
not peased.
In Massachusetts, 115 M Street s a famous address. Appyng for a
|ob, easng an apartment, gettng a drver's cense: a probematc. The
drvers-cense appcaton even asked, Have you ever been hosptazed
for menta ness? Oh, no, I |ust oved Bemont so much I decded to move
to 115 M Street.
"You're vng at One ffteen M Street?" asked a sma, basement-
coored person who ran a sewng-notons shop n Harvard Square, where I
was tryng to get a |ob.
"Uh-hunh."
"And how ong have you been vng there?"
"Oh, a whe." I gestured at the past wth one hand.
"And I guess you haven't been workng for a whe?" He eaned back,
en|oyng hmsef.
"No," I sad. "I've been thnkng thngs over."
I ddn't get the |ob.
As I eft the shop my gance met hs, and he gave me a ook of such
terrbe ntmacy that I crnged. I know what you are, sad hs ook.
What were we, that they coud know us so qucky and so we?
We were probaby better than we used to be, before we went nto the
hospta. At a mnmum we were oder and more sef-aware. Many of us
had spent our hospta years yeng and causng troube and were ready to
move on to somethng ese. A of us had earned by defaut to treasure
freedom and woud do anythng we coud to get t and keep t.
The queston was, What coud we do?
Coud we get up every mornng and take showers and put on cothes
and go to work? Coud we thnk straght? Coud we not say crazy thngs
when they occurred to us?
Some of us coud some of us coudn't. In the word's terms, though, a
of us were tanted.
There's aways a touch of fascnaton n revuson.- Coud that happen
to me? The ess key the terrbe thng s to happen, the ess frghtenng t
s to ook at or magne. A person who doesn't tak to hersef or stare off
nto nothngness s therefore more aarmng than a person who does.
Someone who acts "norma" rases the uncomfortabe queston, What's the
dfference between that person and me? whch eads to the queston,
What's keepng me out of the oony bn? Ths expans why a genera tant
s usefu.
Some peope are more frghtened than others.
"You spent neary two years n a oony bn! Why n the word were you
n there? I can't beeve t!" Transaton: If you're crazy, then I'm crazy, and
I'm not, so the whoe thng must have been a mstake.
"You spent neary two years n a oony bn? What was wrong wth you?"
Transaton: I need to know the partcuars of crazness so I can assure
mysef that I'm not crazy.
"You spent neary two years n a oony bn? Hmmm. When was that,
exacty?" Transaton Are you st contagous?
I stopped teng peope. There was no advantage n teng peope.
The onger I ddn't say anythng about t, the farther away t got, unt the
me who had been n the hospta was a tny bur and the me who ddn't
tak about t was bg and strong and busy.
I began to fee revuson too. Insane peope: I had a good nose for
them and I ddn't want to have anythng to do wth them. I st don't. I
can't come up wth reassurng answers to the terrbe questons they rase.
Don't ask me those questons! Don't ask me what fe means or how we
know reaty or why we have to suffer so much. Don't tak about how
nothng fees rea, how everythng s coated wth geatn and shnng ke
o n the sun. I don't want to hear about the tger n the corner or the
Ange of Death or the phone cas from |ohn the Baptst. He mght gve me
a ca too. But I'm not gong to pck up the phone.
If I who was prevousy revotng am now ths far from my crazy sef,
how much further are you who were never revotng, and how much
deeper your revuson?
September 4, 1968
New Engand Teephone Co.
165 Frankn Street Boston, Massachusetts
Mss Susanna N. Kaysen Caender Street Cambrdge. Massachusetts
Gentemen,
Ths s to nform you that Mss Susanna N. Kaysen has been a patent
under my care for psychatrc condton snce Apr 27, 1967. She s shorty
to eavs the hospta and resde at the above address. I fee t mportant
for Mss Kaysen's physca and menta we-beng for us to have easy
access to one another va teephone contact. I, therefore, urge you to gve
her whatever assstance you can n obtanng a teephone at the earest
possbe data. I rease that ths s and has been a dffcut tme for the
company because of the recent strke whch I am happy to see has been
setted. Agan I express my apprecaton for whatever you can do to hep
Mss Kaysen. Yours sncerey. (sensored)
Psychatrst In Charge
|uy 10, 1973 Offce of the Regstry 40 Sprng Street Watertown, Mass.
02172
Dear Sr:
Mrs. Susanna (Kaysen) Wye was at McLean Hospta from Apr 27,
1967, through October 4, 1968. She has subsequenty been marred and
has managed a responsbe |ob. At the tme of her outrght dscharge on
|anuary 3, 1969, there was no reason why she coud not operate a motor
vehce.
If you have any further questons, pease ca me. Sncerey, (sensored)
M.Do.
New Fronters n Denta Heath.
My one-and-a-haf-year sentence was runnng out and t was tme to
pan my future. I was nearng twenty.
I'd had two |obs n my fe: three months seng gourmet cookware,
much of whch I dropped and broke,-and one week typng n the Harvard
bng offce, terrfyng students by sendng them term bs for 10,900 that
were meant to read 1,900.
I made these mstakes because I was terrfed by the supervsor. The
supervsor was an eegant and attractve back man who roamed a day
among the ases of typsts, watchng us work. He smoked whe dong
ths. When I t a cgarette, he pounced on me.
"You can't smoke," he sad.
"But you're smokng."
"Typsts are not permtted to smoke."
I ooked around the room. A typsts were women a supervsors were
men. A supervsors were smokng,-a typsts were not.
When break tme came, at ten-ffteen, the bathroom was stuffed wth
smokng typsts.
"Can't we smoke n the ha?" I asked. There was an ashtray outsde
the bathroom.
But we coudn't. We had to smoke n the bathroom.
The other probem was cothes.
"No mnskrts," sad the supervsor.
Ths put me n a pcke, as I had ony mnskrts, and I had as yerno
paycheck. "Why?" I asked.
"No mnskrts," he repeated.
Smokng was Monday, mnskrts was Tuesday. Wednesday I wore a
back mnskrt wth back tghts and hoped for the best.
"No mnskrts," he sad.
I scooted to the bathroom for a quck cgarette. "No smokng except on
break," he muttered as he passed my desk on hs next round.
Ths was when I began makng my hgh-prced mstakes.
Thursday he beckoned me over to hs desk, where he sat, smokng.
"Makng some mstakes," he sad. "We can't have that."
"If I coud smoke," I sad, "I woudn't make so many."
He |ust shook hs head.
Frday I ddn't go n. I ddn't ca ether. I ay n bed smokng and
thnkng about the offce. The more I thought about t the more absurd t
became. I coudn't take a those rues serousy. I started to augh,
thnkng of the typsts |ammed nto the bathroom, smokng.
But t was my |ob. Not ony that--I was the one person who had troube
wth the rues. Everybody ese accepted them.
Was ths a mark of my madness?
A weekend I thought about t. Was I crazy or rght? In 1967, ths was a
hard queston to answer. Even twenty-fve years ater, t's a hard queston
to answer.
Sexsm!
It was pure sexsm--sn't that the answer?
It's true, t was sexsm. But I'm st havng troube wth rues about
smokng. Now we've got smoksm. It's one of the reasons I became a
wrter to be abe to smoke n peace.
"A wrter," I sad, when my soca worker asked me what I panned to do
when I got out of the hospta. "I'm gong to be a wrter."
That's a nce hobby, but how are you gong to earn a vng?"
My soca worker and I dd not ke each other. I ddn't ke her because
she ddn't understand that ths was me, and I was gong to be a wrter, I
was not gong to type term bs or se au gratn bows or do any other
stupd thngs. She ddn't ke me because I was arrogant and
uncooperatve and probaby st crazy for nsstng on beng a wrter.
"A denta techncan," she sad. "That's the tcket. The tranng s ony
one year. I'm sure you'd be abe to manage the responsbtes."
"You don't understand," I sad.
"No, you don't understand," she sad.
"I hate the dentst."
"It's nce cean work. You have to be reastc."
"Vaere," I sad, when I got back to the ward, "she wants me to be a
denta techncan. It's mpossbe."
"Oh?" Vaere ddn't seem to understand ether. "It's not bad. Nce
cean work."
Lucky, I got a marrage proposa and they et me out. In 1968,
everybody coud understand a marrage proposa.
Topography of the Future.
Chrstmas n Cambrdge. The Harvard students from New York and
Oregon had swtched paces wth the Coumba and Reed students from
Cambrdge: vacaton musca chars.
The brother of my frend who was gong to de a voent death--but we
ddn't know that yet,-hs death was neary two years n the future--took me
to the moves, where I met my husband-to-be. Our marrage as we was
two years n the future.
We met n front of the Bratte Theatre. Lo Enfants du Parads was
payng. And n the brght, dry December ar, Cambrdge seemed a sort of
paradse that evenng, busy wth ghts and Chrstmas shoppers and a fne
dry snow. The snow fe on my future husband's fne bond har. They'd
gone to hgh schoo together, my doomed frend's brother and he. Now he
was home from Reed for Chrstmas vacaton.
I sat between them n the bacony, where we coud smoke. Long
before Baptste ost Carance n the crowd, my future husband had taken
my hand n hs. He was st hodng t when we came out of the theater,
and my frend's brother tactfuy eft us there, n the twrng snowy
Cambrdge nght.
He woudn't et me go. We were nfected by the move, and Cambrdge
was beautfu that nght, fu of possbtes and fe. We spent the nght
together, n an apartment he borrowed from a frend.
He went back to Reed, I went back to seng garc presses and
madeene pans. Then the future started cosng n on me and I forgot
about hm.
He ddn't forget about me. When he graduated that sprng and
returned to Cambrdge, he tracked me down n the hospta. He was gong
to Pars for the summer, he sad, but he woud wrte to me. He woudn't
forget to wrte, he sad.
I pad no attenton. He ved n a word wth a future and I dd not.
When he came back from Pars, thngs were bad: Torrey's eavng, the
queston of my bones, the worry over how much tme I'd ost n the
dentst's char. I ddn't want to see hm. I tod the staff I was too upset.
"It's mpossbe! I'm too upset."
We taked on the phone nstead. He was movng to Ann Arbor. That
was fne wth me.
He ddn't ke Ann Arbor. Eght months ater, he was back, wantng to
vst agan.
Thngs were not as bad. I had a ot of prveges. We went to moves,
we cooked dnner together n hs apartment, we watched the body count
for the day on the seven o'cock news. At eeven-thrty I'd ca a tax and
go back to the hospta.
Late that summer my frend's body was found at the bottom of an
eevator shaft. It was a hot summer, and hs body was party
decomposed. That was where hs future ended, n a basement on a hot
day.
One September nght I got back to the hospta eary, before eeven.
Lsa was sttng wth Ceorgna n our room.
"I got a marrage proposa tonght," I sad.
"What dd you say?" Ceorgna asked.
"I got a marrage proposa," I sad. The second tme I sad t, I was
more surprsed by t.
"To hm," sad Georgna. "What dd you say to hm?"
"I sad Yes," I sad.
"You wanna marry hm?" Lsa asked.
"Sure," I sad. I wasn't competey sure, though.
"And then what?" sad Georgna.
"What do you mean?"
"What's gong to happen then, after you're marred?"
"I don't know," I sad. "I haven't thought about t."
"You better thnk about t," sad Lsa.
I tred. I cosed my eyes and thought of us n the ktchen, choppng and
strrng. I thought of my frend's funera. I thought of gong to moves.
"Nothng," I sad. "It's quet. It's ke--I don't know. It's ke fang off a
cff." I aughed. "I guess my fe w |ust stop when I get marred."
It ddn't. It wasn't quet ether. And n the end, I ost hm. I dd t on
purpose, the way Garance ost Baptste n the crowd. I needed to be
aone, I fet. I wanted to be gong on aone to my future.
Mnd vs. Bran.
Whatever we ca t--mnd, character, sou--we ke to thnk we possess
somethng that s greater than the sum of our neurons and that
"anmates" us. A ot of mnd, though, s turnng out to be bran. A
memory s a partcuar pattern of ceuar changes on partcuar spots n
our heads. A mood s a compound of neurotransmtters: Too much
acetychone, not enough serotonn, and you've got a depresson.
So, what's eft of mnd?
It's a ong way from not havng enough serotonn to thnkng the word
s "stae, fat and unproftabe",- even further to wrtng a pay about a man
drven by that thought. That eaves a ot of mnd room. Somethng s
nterpretng the catter of neuroogca actvty.
But s ths nterpreter necessary metaphysca and unemboded? Isn't
t probaby a number--an enormous number--of bran functons workng n
parae? If the entre network of smutaneous tny actons that consttute
a thought were dentfed and mapped, then "mnd" mght be vsbe.
The nterpreter s convnced t's unmappabe and nvsbe. "I'm your
mnd," t cams. "You can't parse me nto dendrtes and synapses."
It's fu of cams and reasons. "You're a tte depressed because of a
the stress at work," t says. (It never says, "You're a tte depressed
because your serotonn eve has dropped.")
Sometmes ts nterpretatons are not credbe, as when you cut your
fnger and t starts yeng, "You're gonna de!" Sometmes ts cams are
unkey, as when t says, 'Twenty fve chocoate chp cookes woud be the
perfect dnner."
Often, then, t doesn't know what t's takng about. And when you
decde t's wrong, who or what s makng that decson? A second, superor
nterpreter?
Why stop at two? That's the probem wth ths mode. It's endess.
Each nterpreter needs a boss to report to.
But somethng about ths mode descrbes the essence of our
experence of conscousness. There s thought, and then there s thnkng
about thoughts, and they don't fee the same. They must refect qute
dfferent aspects of bran functon.
The pont s, the bran taks to tsef, and by takng to tsef changes ts
perceptons. To make a new verson of the not-entrey-fase mode,
magne the frst nterpreter as a foregn correspondent, reportng from the
word. The word n ths case means everythng out-or nsde our bodes,
ncudng serotonn eves n the bran. The second nterpreter s a news
anayst, who wrtes op-ed peces. They read each other's work. One
needs data, the other needs an overvew, they nfuence each other. They
get daogues gong. nterpreter ONE: Pan n the eft foot, back of hee.
INTERPRETER TWO: I beeve that's because the shoe s too tght.
nterpreter one Checked that. Took off the shoe. Foot st hurts.
nterpreter two Dd you ook at t? nterpreter one Lookng. It's red.
INTERPRETER TWO: No bood? INTERPRETER ONE: Nope.
nterpreter two Forget about t. INTERPRETER ONE Okay. A mnute
ater, though, there's another report. nterpreter one Pan n the eft foot,
back of hee. INTERPRETER TWO I know that aready. nterpreter one St
hurts. Now t's puffed up. nterpreter two It's |ust a bster. Forget about
t. INTERPRETER ONE Okay. Two mnutes ater INTERPRETER TWO Don't
pck t!
nterpreter one It' fee better f I pop t.
nterpreter two That's what you thnk. Leave t aone.
nterpreter one Okay. St hurts, though. Menta ness seems to be a
communcaton probem between nterpreters one and two. An exempary
pece of confuson: INTERPRETER ONE There's a tger n the corner.
INTERPRETER TWO No, that's not a tger--that's a bureau. INTERPRETER
ONE It's a tger, t's a tger! INTERPRETER TWO Don't be rdcuous. Let's
go ook at t.
Then a the dendrtes and neurons and serotonn eves and
nterpreters coect themseves and trot over to the corner.
If you are not crazy, the second nterpreter's asserton, that `ths s a
bureau", w be acceptabe to the frst nterpreter. If you are crazy, the
frst nterpreter's vewpont, the tger theory, w preva.
The troube here s that the frst nterpreter actuay sees a tger. The
messages sent between neurons are ncorrect somehow. The chemcas
trggered are the wrong chemcas, or the mpuses are gong to the wrong
connectons. Apparenty, ths happens often, but the second nterpreter
|umps n to straghten thngs out.
Thnk of beng n a tran, next to another tran, n a staton. When the
other tran starts movng, you are convnced that your tran s movng.
The ratte of the other tran fees ke the ratte of your tran, and you see
your tran eavng that other tran behnd. It can take a whe--maybe even
haf a mnute--before the second nterpreter sorts through the frst
nterpreter's cam of movement and corrects t. That's because t's hard
to counteract the vadty of sensory mpressons. We are desgned to
beeve n them.
The tran stuaton s not the same as an optca uson. An optca
uson does contan two reates. It's not that the vase s wrong and the
faces are rght, both are rght, and the bran moves between two exstng
patterns that t recognzes as dfferent. Athough you can make yoursef
dzzy gong from vase to faces and back agan, you can't undermne your
sense of reaty n qute such a vscera way as you can wth the tran.
Sometmes, when you've reazed that your tran s not reay movng,
you can spend another haf a mnute suspended between two reams of
conscousness: the one that knows you aren't movng and the one that
fees you are. You can ft back and forth between these perceptons and
experence a sort of menta vertgo. And f you do ths, you are treadng
on the ground of crazness--a pace where fase mpressons have a the
hamarks of reaty.
Freud sad psychotcs were unanayzabe because they coudn't
dstngush between fantasy and reaty (tger vs. bureau), and anayss
works on precsey that dstncton. The patent must ay out the often
fantastc assertons of the frst nterpreter and scrutnze them wth the
second. The hope s that the second nterpreter has, or w earn to have,
the wt and nsght to dsprove some of the rdcuous cams the frst
nterpreter has made over the years.
You can see why doubtng one's own crazness s consdered a good
sgn: It's a sort of fang response by the second nterpreter. What's
happenng? the second nterpreter s sayng. He tes me t's a tger but
I'm not convnced,-maybe there's somethng wrong wth me. Enough
doubt s n there to gve "reaty" a toehod.
No doubt, no anayss. Somebody who comes n chattng about tgers
s gong to be offered Thorazne, not the couch.
At that moment, when the doctor suggests Thorazne, what's
happenng to that doctor's menta map of menta ness? Earer n the
day, the doctor had a map dvded nto superego, ego, and d, wth a
knds of squggy, perhaps broken, nes runnng among those three areas.
The doctor was treatng somethng he or she cas a psyche or mnd. A of
a sudden the doctor s preparng to treat a bran. Ths bran doesn't have
a psycheke arrangement, or f t does, that's not where ts probem s.
Ths bran has probems that are chemca and eectrca.
"It's the reaty-testng functon," says the doctor. "Ths bran s boxed
up about reaty and I can't anayze t. Those other brans--mnds--
weren't."
Somethng's wrong here. You can't ca a pece of frut an appe when
you want to eat t and a dandeon when you don't want to eat t. It's the
same sort of frut no matter what your ntentons toward t. And how
strong s the case for a categorca dstncton between brans that know
reaty and brans that don't? Is a non--reaty-recognzng bran truy as
dfferent from a reaty-recognzng bran as a foot, say, s from a bran?
Ths seems unkey. Recognzng the agreed upon verson of reaty s
ony one of bons of bran |obs.
If the bochemsts were abe to demonstrate the physca workngs of
neuroses (phobas, or dffcutes gettng peasure from fe), f they coud
pnpont the chemcas and mpuses and nterbran conversatons and
nformaton exchanges that consttute these feengs, woud the
psychoanaysts pack up ther ds and egos and retre from the fed?
They have partay retred from the fed. Depresson, manc-
depresson, schzophrena: A that stuff they aways had troube treatng
they now treat chemcay. Take two Lthum and don't ca me n the
mornng because there's nothng to say,-t's nnate.
Some cooperatve efforts--the sort the bran makes--woud be usefu
here.
For neary a century the psychoanaysts have been wrtng peces
about the workngs of a country they've never traveed to, a pace that,
ke Chna, has been off mts. Suddeny, the country has opened ts
borders and s crawng wth foregn correspondents, neuroboogsts are
fng ten stores a week, fed wth new data. These two groups of wrters,
however, don't seem to read each other's work.
That's because the anaysts are wrtng about a country they ca Mnd
and the neuroscentsts are reportng from a country they ca Bran.
Mcean Hospta Page.... e 90
KAYSEN, Susanna
DISCHARGE ON VISIT SUMMARY:
Forma Dagnoss: Schzophrenc reacton, paranod type (borderne) -
currenty n remsson.
Patent s functonng on a passve-aggressve personaty, passve-
dependent type.
Kaysen, Susanna N.
Hospta No. 22201
12
CASE REPORT CONTINUED
B.
Prognoss: The rosouton of the depressve affect and sucda drve shoud
be expected as a resut of the hosptasaton. The degree of personaty
ntegraton and ego functon whch may be acheved for the ong term s
hard to predct. We may say that wth a good ntensve workng
reatonshp n therapy and a successfu reatonshp to the hospta the
patent may be abe to acheve a more satsfactory means of adaptng.
Nevertheess because of the chroncty of the ness and the basc
defcences nvoved n personaty structurng, a more compete recovery
s not to be expected at ths tme. However, the patent may earn to
make more wse choces for hersef wthn the boundares of her
personaty so that she s abe to acheve a satsfactory dependent
reatonshp f necessary whch w sustan her for a ong perod of tme.
Borderne Personaty Dsorder.
An essenta feature of ths dsorder s a pervasve pattern of nstabty of
sef-mage, nterpersona reatonshps, and mood, begnnng n eary
aduthood and present n a varety of contexts.
A marked and persstent dentty dsturbance s amost nvaraby
present. Ths s often pervasve, and s manfested by uncertanty about
severa fe ssues, such as sef-mage, sexua orentaton, ong-term goas
or career choce, types of frends or overs to have, and whch vaues to
adopt. The person often experences ths nstabty of sef-mage as
chronc feengs of emptness and boredom.
Interpersona reatonshps are usuay unstabe and ntense, and may
be characterzed by aternaton of the extremes of overdeazaton and
devauaton. These peope have dffcuty toeratng beng aone, and w
make frantc efforts to avod rea or magned abandonment.
Affectve nstabty s common. Ths may be evdenced by marked
mood shfts from basene mood to depresson, rrtabty, or anxety,
usuay astng a few hours or, ony rarey, more than a few days. In
addton, these peope often have nappropratey ntense anger wth
frequent dspays of temper or recurrent physca fghts. They tend to be
mpusve, partcuary n actvtes that are potentay sef damagng, such
as shoppng sprees, psychoactve substance abuse, reckess drvng,
casua sex, shopftng, and bnge eatng.
Recurrent sucda threats, gestures, or behavor and other sef-
mutatng behavor (e.g., wrst-scratchng) are common n the more
severe forms of the dsorder. Ths behavor may serve to manpuate
others, may be a resut of ntense anger, or may counteract feengs of
"numbness" and depersonazaton that arse durng perods of extreme
stress....
Assocated Features.
Frequenty ths dsorder s accompaned by many features of other
Personaty Dsorders, such as Schzotypa, Hstronc, Narcssstc, and
Antsoca Personaty Dsorders. In many cases more than one dagnoss
s warranted. Oute often soca contrarness and a generay pessmstc
outook are observed. Aternaton between dependency and sef-asserton
s common. Durng perods of extreme stress, transent psychotc
symptoms may occur, but they are generay of nsuffcent severty or
duraton to warrant an addtona dagnoss.
Imparment. Often there s consderabe nterference wth soca or
occupatona functonng.
Compcatons. Possbe compcatons ncude Dys thyma depressve
neuross, Ma|or Depresson, Psychoactve Substance Abuse, and psychotc
dsorders such as Bref Reactve Psychoss. Premature death may resut
from sucde.
Sex Rato. The dsorder s more commony dagnosed n women.
Prevaence. Borderne Personaty Dsorder s apparenty common.
Predsposng and Fama Pattern. No nformaton.
Dfferenta Dagnoss. In Identty Dsorder there s a smar cnca
pcture, but Borderne Personaty Dsorder preempts the dagnoss of
Identty Dsorder f the crtera for Borderne Personaty Dsorder are met,
the dsturbance s suffcenty pervasve and persstent, and t s unkey
that t w be mted to a deveopmenta stage.... From the Dagnostc and
Statstca Manua of Menta Dsorders, 3d edton, revsed (1987), pp. 346-
47
My Dagnoss.
So these were the charges aganst me. I ddn't read them unt twenty-
fve years ater. "A character dsorder" s what they'd tod me then.
I had to fnd a awyer to hep me get my records from the hospta. I
had to read ne 32a of form A of the Case Record, and entry G on the
Dscharge on Vst Summary, and entry B of Part IV of the Case Report,-
then I had to ocate a copy of the Dagnostc and Statstca Manua of
Menta Dsorders and ook up Borderne Personaty to see what they
reay thought about me.
It's a fary accurate pcture of me at eghteen, mnus a few qurks ke
reckess drvng and eatng bnges. It's accurate but t sn't profound. Of
course, t doesn't am to be profound. It's not even a case study. It's a set
of gudenes, a generazaton.
I'm tempted to try refutng t, but then I woud be open to the further
charges of "defensveness" and "resstance."
A I can do s gve the partcuars: an annotated dagnoss.
"Uncertanty about severa fe ssues, such as sef-mage, sexua
orentaton, ong-term goas or career choce, types of frends or overs to
have ..." I resh that ast phrase. Its awkwardness (the "to have" seems
superfuous) gves t substance and heft. I st have that uncertanty. Is
ths the type of frend or over I want to have? I ask mysef every tme I
meet someone new. Charmng but shaow, gdhearted but a bt
conventona,-too handsome for hs own good, fascnatng but probaby
unreabe, and so forth. I guess I've had my share of unreabes. More
than my share? How many woud consttute more than my share?
Fewer than for somebody ese--somebody who'd never been caed a
borderne personaty? That's the nub of my probem here. If my
dagnoss had been bpoar ness, for nstance, the reacton to me and to
ths story woud be sghty dfferent. That's a chemca probem, you'd say
to yoursef, manc depresson, Lthum, a that. I woud be bameess,
somehow. And what about schzophrena--that woud send a ch up your
spne. After a, that's rea nsanty. Peope don't "recover" from
schzophrena. You'd have to wonder how much of what I'm teng you s
true and how much magned.
I'm smpfyng, I know. But these words tant everythng. The fact that
I was ocked up tants everythng.
What does bordtrne ptrsonaty mean, anyhow?
It appears to be a way staton between neuross and psychoss: a
fractured but not dsassembed psyche. Though to quote my post-Mevn
psychatrst: "It's what they ca peope whose festyes bother them."
He can say t because he's a doctor. If I sad t, nobody woud beeve
me.
An anayst I've known for years sad, "Freud and hs crce thought most
peope were hystercs, then n the fftes t was psychoneurotcs, and
atey, everyone's a borderne personaty."
When I went to the corner bookstore to ook up my dagnoss n the
Manua, t occurred to me that I mght not fnd t n there anymore. They
do get rd of thngs--homosexuaty, for nstance. Unt recenty, qute a
few of my frends woud have found themseves documented n that book
aong wth me. We, they got out of the book and I ddn't. Maybe n
another twenty-fve years I won't be n there ether.
"nstabty of sef-mage, nterpersona reatonshps, and mood ...
uncertanty about... ong-term goas or career choce..." Isn't ths a good
descrpton of adoescence? Moody, fcke, faddsh, nsecure: n short,
mpossbe.
"Sef-mutatng behavor (e.g., wrst-scratchng)..." I've skpped forward
a bt. Ths s the one that caught me by surprse as I sat on the foor of the
bookstore readng my dagnoss. Wrst-scratchng! I thought I'd nvented t.
Wrst bangng, to be precse.
Ths s where peope stop beng abe to foow me. Ths s the sort of
stuff you get ocked up for. Nobody knew I was dong t, though. I never
tod anyone, unt now.
I had a butterfy char. In the sxtes, everyone n Cambrdge had a
butterfy char. The meta edge of ts upturned seat was perfecty paced
for wrst-bangng. I had tred breakng ashtrays and wakng on the
shards, but I ddn't have the nerve to tread frmy. Wrst-bangng--sow,
steady, mndess--was a better souton. It was cumuatve n|ury, so each
bang was toerabe.
A souton to what? I quote from the Manua "Ths behavor may ...
counteract feengs of `numbness' and depersonazaton that arse durng
perods of extreme stress."
I spent hours n my butterfy char bangng my wrst. I dd t n the
evenngs, ke homework. I'd do some homework, then I'd spend haf an
hour wrst-bangng, then fnsh my homework, then back n the char for
some more bangng before brushng my teeth and gong to bed. I banged
the nsde, where the vens converge. It sweed and turned a bt bue, but
consderng how hard and how much I banged t, the vsbe damage was
sght. That was yet one more recommendaton of t to me.
I'd had an earer perod of face-scratchng. If my fngernas hadn't
been qute short, I coudn't have gotten away wth t. As t was, I defntey
ooked puffy and pecuar the next day. I used to scratch my cheeks and
then rub soap on them. Maybe the soap prevented me from ookng
worse. But I ooked bad enough that peope asked, "Is somethng wrong
wth your face?" So I swtched to wrst-bangng.
I was ke an anchorte wth a har shrt. Part of the pont was that
nobody knew about my sufferng. If peope knew and admred--or
abomnated--me, somethng mportant woud be ost.
I was tryng to expan my stuaton to mysef. My stuaton was that I
was n pan and nobody knew t,-even I had troube knowng t. So I tod
mysef, over and over, You are n pan. It was the ony way I coud get
through to mysef ("counteract feengs of `numbness'?). I was
demonstratng, externay and rrefutaby, an nward condton.
"Oute often soca contrarness and a generay pessmstc outook are
observed." What do you suppose they mean by "soca contrarness"?
Puttng my ebows on the tabe? Refusng to get a |ob as a denta
techncan? Dsappontng my parents' hope that I woud go to a frst-rate
unversty?
They don't defne "soca contrarness," and I can't defne t, so I thnk t
ought to be excuded from the st. I' admt to the generay pessmstc
outook. Freud had one too.
I can honesty say that my msery has been transformed nto common
unhappness, so by Freud's defnton I have acheved menta heath. And
my dscharge sheet, at ne 41, Outcome wth Regard to Menta Dsorder,
reads "Recovered."
Recovered. Had my personaty crossed over that border, whatever
and wherever t was, to resume fe wthn the confnes of the norma? Had
I stopped argung wth my personaty and earned to stradde the ne
between sane and nsane? Perhaps I'd actuay had an dentty dsorder.
"In Identty Dsorder there s a smar cnca pcture, but Borderne
Personaty... preempts the dagnoss ... f the dsturbance s suffcenty
pervasve and ... t s unkey that t w be mted to a deveopmenta
stage." Maybe I was a vctm of mproper preempton?
I'm not fnshed wth ths dagnoss.
"The person often experences ths nstabty of sef mage as chronc
feengs of emptness or boredom." My chronc feengs of emptness and
boredom came from the fact that I was vng a fe based on my
ncapactes, whch were numerous. A parta st foows. I coud not and
dd not want to: sk, pay tenns, or go to gym cass,- attend to any sub|ect
n schoo other than Engsh and boogy, wrte papers on any assgned
topcs (I wrote poems nstead of papers for Engsh,- I got F's),- pan to go
or appy to coege,- gve any reasonabe expanaton for these refusas.
My sef-mage was not unstabe. I saw mysef, qute correcty, as unft
for the educatona and soca systems.
But my parents and teachers dd not share my sef-mage. Ther mage
of me was unstabe, snce t was out of kter wth reaty and based on
ther needs and wshes. They dd not put much vaue on my capactes,
whch were admttedy few, but genune. I read everythng, I wrote
constanty, and I had boyfrends by the barrefu
"Why don't you do the assgned readng?" they'd ask. "Why don't you
wrte your papers nstead of whatever you're wrtng--what s that, a short
story?" "Why don't you expend as much energy on your schoowork as you
do on your boyfrends?"
By my senor year I ddn't even bother wth excuses, et aone
expanatons.
"Where s your term paper?" asked my hstory teacher.
"I ddn't wrte t. I have nothng to say on that topc."
"You coud have pcked another topc."
"I have nothng to say on any hstorca topc."
One of my teachers tod me I was a nhst. He meant t as an nsut
but I took t as a compment.
Boyfrends and terature: How can you make a fe out of those two
thngs? As t turns out, I dd,- more terature than boyfrends atey, but I
guess you can't have everythng ("a generay pessmstc outook s
observed").
Back then I ddn't know that I--or anyone--coud make a fe out of
boyfrends and terature. As far as I coud see, fe demanded sks I
ddn't have. The resut was chronc emptness and boredom. There were
more perncous resuts as we: sef-oathng, aternatng wth
"nappropratey ntense anger wth frequent dspays of temper..."
What woud have been an approprate eve of ntensty for my anger at
feeng shut out of fe? My cassmates were spnnng ther fantases for the
future: awyer, ethnobotanst, Buddhst monk (t was a very progressve
hgh schoo). Even the dumb, unnterestng ones who were there to
provde "baance" ooked forward to ther marrages and ther chdren. I
knew I wasn't gong to have any of ths because I knew I ddn't want t.
But dd that mean I woud have nothng?
I was the frst person n the hstory of the schoo not to go to coege.
Of course, at east a thrd of my cassmates never fnshed coege. By
1968, peope were droppng out day.
Oute often now, peope say to me, when I te them I ddn't go to
coege, "Oh, how marveous!" They woudn't have thought t was so
marveous back then. They ddn't, my cassmates were |ust the sorts of
peope who now te me how marveous I am. In 1966, I was a parah.
What was I gong to do? a few of my cassmates asked.
"I'm gong to |on the WACs," I tod one guy.
"Oh, yeah? That w be an nterestng career."
"|ust kddng," I sad.
"Oh, uh, you mean you're not, reay?"
I was stunned. Who dd they thnk I was?
I'm sure they ddn't thnk about me much. I was that one who wore
back and--reay, I've heard t from severa peope--sept wth the Engsh
teacher. They were a seventeen and mserabe, |ust ke me. They ddn't
have tme to wonder why I was a tte more mserabe than most.
Emptness and boredom: what an understatement. What I fet was
compete desoaton. Desoaton, despar, and depresson.
Isn't there some other way to ook at ths? After a, angst of these
dmensons s a uxury tem. You need to be we fed, cothed, and housed
to have tme for ths much sef pty. And the coege busness: My parents
wanted me to go, I ddn't want to go, and I ddn't go. I got what I wanted.
Those who don't go to coege have to get |obs. I agreed wth a ths. I
tod mysef a ths over and over. I even got a |ob--my |ob breakng au
gratn dshes.
But the fact that I coudn't hod my |ob was worrsome. I was probaby
crazy. I'd been skrtng the dea of crazness for a year or two, now I was
cosng n on t.
Pu yoursef together! I tod mysef. Stop ndugng yoursef. There's
nothng wrong wth you. You're |ust wayward.
One of the great peasures of menta heath (whatever that s) s how
much ess tme I have to spend thnkng about mysef.
I have a few more annotatons to my dagnoss.
"The dsorder s more commony dagnosed n women."
Note the constructon of that sentence. They dd not wrte, The
dsorder s more common n women." It woud st be suspect, but they
ddn't even bother tryng to cover ther tracks.
Many dsorders, |udgng by the hospta popuaton, were more
commony dagnosed n women. Take, for exampe, "compusve
promscuty."
How many grs do you thnk a seventeen-year-od boy woud have to
screw to earn the abe "compusvey promscuous"? Three? No, not
enough. Sx? Doubtfu. Ten? That sounds more key. Probaby n the
ffteen-to-twenty range, woud be my guess--f they ever put that abe on
boys, whch I don't reca ther dong.
And for seventeen-year-od grs, how many boys?
In the st of sx "potentay sef-damagng" actvtes favored by the
borderne personaty, three are commony assocated wth women
(shoppng sprees, shopftng, and eatng bnges) and one wth men
(reckess drvng). One s not "gender-specfc," as they say these days
(psychoactve substance abuse). And the defnton of the other (casua
sex) s n the eye of the behoder.
Then there s the queston of "premature death" from sucde. Lucky, I
avoded t, but I thought about sucde a ot. I'd thnk about t and make
mysef sad over my premature death, and then I'd fee better. The dea of
sucde worked on me ke a purgatve or a cathartc. For some peope t's
dfferent--Dasy, for nstance: But was her death reay "premature"? Ought
she to have sat n her eat-n ktchen wth her chcken and her anger for
another ffty years? I'm assumng she wasn't gong to change, and I may
be wrong. She certany made that assumpton, and she may aso have
been wrong. And f she'd sat there for ony thrty years, and ked hersef
at forty-nne nstead of at nneteen, woud her death st be "premature"?
I got better and Dasy ddn't and I can't expan why. Maybe I was |ust
frtng wth madness the way I frted wth my teachers and my
cassmates. I wasn't convnced I was crazy, though I feared I was. Some
peope say that havng any conscous opnon on the matter s a mark of
santy, but I'm not sure that's true. I st thnk about t. I' aways have to
thnk about t.
I often ask mysef f I'm crazy. I ask other peope too.
"Is ths a crazy thng to say?" I' ask before sayng somethng that
probaby sn't crazy.
I start a ot of sentences wth "Maybe I'm totay nuts," or "Maybe I've
gone `round the bend."
If I do somethng out of the ordnary--take two baths n one day, for
exampe--I say to mysef: Are you crazy?
It's a common phrase, I know. But t means somethng partcuar to
me: the tunnes, the securty screens, the pastc forks, the shmmerng,
ever-shftng borderne that ke a boundares beckons and asks to be
crossed. I do not want to cross t agan.
Farther on, Down the Road, You W Accompany Me
Most of us got out eventuay. Georgna and I kept n touch.
For a whe she ved n a women's commune n north Cambrdge. She
came over to my apartment one day and terrorzed my upstars neghbor,
who was makng bread.
"You're dong that wrong!" Georgna sad. She and I were havng a cup
of tea upstars whe my neghbor kneaded the dough.
"Let me show you," sad Georgna. She pushed my neghbor out of the
way and started fngng the dough around on the counter.
My neghbor was a md-mannered woman who never dd anythng
graceess or rude. Consequenty, most peope were pote to her. "You
reay have to beat t up," sad Georgna, dong so.
"Oh," sad my neghbor. She was about ten years oder than Georgna
and I, and she'd been makng bread for a those years.
After she'd gven the bread a good beatng, Georgna sad she had to
eave.
"I have never been treated that way," sad my neghbor. She seemed
more astonshed than angry.
Then Georgna got nvoved n a conscousness-rasng group. She
pestered me to come. "You' ove t," she sad.
The women made me fee nadequate. They knew how to dsassembe
car engnes and cmb mountans. I was the ony marred one. I coud see
that Georgna had a certan cachet because of her crazness,-somehow,
ths cachet dd not appy to me. But I went often enough to become
suspcous of marrage, and of my husband n partcuar. I pcked stupd
fghts wth hm. It was hard to fnd somethng to fght about. He dd the
cookng and the shoppng, and he dd a far amount of ceanng too. I
spent most of my tme readng and pantng watercoors.
Lucky, Georgna got hersef a husband as we and dropped out of the
group before I coud pck a reay destructve fght.
Then we had to go vst ther farm n western Massachusetts.
Georgna's husband was pae and sght and unmemorabe. But she
had aso gotten a goat. Georgna, the husband, and the goat ved n a
barn on a few acres of scrub and at the foot of a sma mountan. The day
we vsted was cod, though t was May, and they were busy fttng gazng
nto ther wndows. They had sx-over-sx wndow frames, so ths was
qute a chore.
We watched whe they putted and ftted. The goat stood n her room
near the door and watched as we. Fnay, Georgna sad t was tme for
unch. She made a pressure cooker fu of sweet potatoes. That was
unch. There was some mape syrup for toppng. The goat had bananas.
After unch, Georgna sad, "Want to see the goat dance?"
The goat's name was Darng. She was the coor of gnger and had ong
hary ears.
Georgna hed a sweet potato up n the ar. "Dance, Darng," she sad.
The goat stood on her hnd egs and chased after the sweet potato,
whch Georgna kept movng away from her. Her ong ears swayed as she
hopped, and she pawed the ar wth her front egs. Her hooves were back
and sharp,-they ooked as though they coud do a ot of damage. Indeed,
when she ost her footng, whch she dd a few tmes, and a hoof grazed
the edge of the ktchen counter, t cut a groove n the wood.
"Gve t to her," I sad. Somethng about the goat dancng made me
want to cry.
They moved west, to Coorado, where the and was better. Georgna
caed once or twce from a pay phone. They had no teephone of ther
own. I don't know what happened to the goat. A few years after Georgna
went west, I ran nto Lsa n Harvard Square. She had a tte toast-coored
boy wth her, about three years od.
I hugged her. "Lsa," I sad, "I'm so happy to see you." Ths s my kd,"
she sad. "Isn't t crazy that I have a kd?"
She aughed. "Aaron, say heo." He ddn't he put hs face behnd her
eg.
She ooked exacty the same: sknny, yeow, cheerfu. "What have you
been dong?" I asked.
"The kd," she sad. That's a you can do."
"What about the father?"
"Later for hm. I got rd of hm." She put her hand on the boy's head.
"We don't need hm, do we?"
"Where are you vng?" I wanted to know everythng about her.
"You won't beeve ths." Lsa pued out a Koo and t up. "I'm vng n
Brookne. I'm a suburban matron n Brookne. I've got the kd, I take the
kd to nursery schoo, I've got an apartment, I've got furnture. Frdays we
go to tempe."
"Tempe!" Ths amazed me. "Why?"
"I want--" Lsa fatered. I'd never before seen her at a oss for words. "I
want us to be a rea famy, wth furnture, and a that. I want hm to have
a rea fe. And tempe heps. I don't know why, but t heps."
I stared at Lsa, tryng to magne her n tempe wth her dark-sknned
son. I notced she was wearng some |ewery -- a rng wth two sapphres,
a god chan around her neck.
"What's wth the |ewery?" I asked.
"Presents from Grandma, rght?" She addressed ths to the kd.
"Everythng changes when you have chdren," she tod me.
I ddn't know what to say to that. I'd decded not to have any. And t
ddn't ook ke my marrage was gong to ast, ether.
We were standng n the mdde of Harvard Square n front of the
subway entrance. Suddeny, Lsa eaned cose to me and sad, "Wanna
see somethng fantastc?" Her voce had the od quver of mschref n t. I
nodded.
She pued up her shrt, a T-shrt advertsng a bage shop n Brookne,
and grabbed hod of the fesh of her abdomen.
Then she pued. Her skn was ke an accordon t kept expandng,
more and more, unt she was hodng the fap of skn a foot away from her
body. She et go and t subsded, somewhat wrnked at frst but then
settng back on her bones, ookng perfecty norma.
"Wow!" I sad.
"Kds," sad Lsa. "That's what happens." She aughed. "Say good-bye,
Aaron."
"Bye," he sad, surprsng me.
They were gong back to Brookne on the subway. At the top of the
stars Lsa turned around toward me agan.
"You ever thnk of those days n there, n that pace?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered. "I do thnk of them."
"Me too." She shook her head. "Oh, we," she sad rather |aunty.
Then the two of them went down the stars, underground.
The Vermeer n the Frck s one of three, but I ddn't notce the other
two the frst tme I went there. I was seventeen and n New York wth my
Engsh teacher, who hadn't yet kssed me. I was thnkng of that future
kss, whch I knew was comng, as I eft the Fragonards behnd and waked
nto the ha eadng to the courtyard--that dm corrdor where the
Vermeers geam aganst the wa.
Besdes the kss, I was thnkng of whether I coud graduate from hgh
schoo f for the second year n a row I faed boogy. I was surprsed to be
fang t, because I oved t; I'd oved t the frst tme I faed t too. My
favorte part was gene-recesson charts. I ked workng out the sequence
of bue eyes n fames that had no characterstcs except bue eyes and
brown eyes. My famy had a ot of characterstcs--achevements,
ambtons, taents, expectatons--that a seemed to be recessve n me.
I waked past the ady n yeow robes and the mad brngng her a
etter, past the soder wth a magnfcent hat and the gr smng at hm,
thnkng of warm ps, brown eyes, bue eyes. Her brown eyes stopped me.
It's the pantng from whose frame a gr ooks out, gnorng her beefy
musc teacher, whose propretary hand rests on her char. The ght s
muted, wnter ght, but her face s brght.
I ooked nto her brown eyes and I recoed. She was warnng me of
somethng--she had ooked up from her work to warn me. Her mouth was
sghty open, as f she had |ust drawn a breath n order to say to me,
"Don't!"
I moved backward, tryng to get beyond the range of her urgency. But
her urgency fed the corrdor. "Wat," she was sayng, "wat! Don't go!"
I ddn't sten to her. I went out to dnner wth my Engsh teacher, and
he kssed me, and I went back to Cambrdge and faed boogy, though I
dd graduate, and, eventuay, I went crazy.
Sxteen years ater I was n New York wth my new, rch boyfrend. We
took many trps, whch he pad for, athough spendng money made hm
queasy. On our trps, he often attacked my character--that character once
dagnosed as dsordered. Sometmes I was too emotona, other tmes too
cod and |udgmenta. Whchever he sad, I'd comfort hm by teng hm t
was okay to spend money. Then he woud stop attackng me, whch
meant we coud stay together and begn the spendng-and-attack cyce on
some future trp.
It was a beautfu October day n New York. He had attacked and had
comforted and now we were ready to go out.
"Let's go to the Frck," he sad.
"I've never been there," I sad. Then I thought maybe I had been. I
ddn't say anythng,-I'd earned not to dscuss my doubts.
When we got there I recognzed t. "Oh," I sad. "There's a pantng I
ove here."
"Ony one?" he sad. "Look at these Fragonards."
I ddn't ke them. I eft the Fragonards behnd and waked nto the ha
eadng to the courtyard.
She had changed a ot n sxteen years. She was no onger urgent. In
fact, she was sad. She was young and dstracted, and her teacher was
bearng down on her, tryng to get her to pay attenton. But she was
ookng out, ookng for someone who woud see her.
Ths tme I read the tte of the pantng: Gr Interrupted at Her Musc.
Interrupted at her musc.- as my fe had been, nterrupted n the musc
of beng seventeen, as her fe had been, snatched and fxed on canvas:
one moment made to stand st and to stand for a the other moments,
whatever they woud be or mght have been. What fe can recover from
that?
I had somethng to te her now "I see you," I sad.
My boyfrend found me cryng n the haway.
"What's the matter wth you?" he asked.
"Don't you see, she's tryng to get out," I sad, pontng at her.
He ooked at the pantng, he ooked at me, and he sad, "A you ever
thnk about s yoursef. You don't understand anythng about art." He
went off to ook at a Rembrandt.
I've gone back to the Frck snce then to ook at her and at the two
other Vermeers. Vermeers, after a, are hard to come by, and the one n
Boston has been stoen.
The other two are sef-contaned pantngs. The peope n them are
ookng at each other--the ady and her mad, the soder and hs
sweetheart. Seeng them s peekng at them through a hoe n a wa. And
the wa s made of ght--that entrey credbe yet unrea Vermeer ght.
Lght ke ths does not exst, but we wsh t dd. We wsh the sun coud
make us young and beautfu, we wsh our cothes coud gsten and rppe
aganst our skns, most of a, we wsh that everyone we knew coud be
brghtened smpy by our ookng at them, as are the mad wth the etter
and the soder wth the hat.
The gr at her musc sts n another sort of ght, the ftfu, overcast
ght of fe, by whch we see ourseves and others ony mperfecty, and
sedom. ....