Chapter Fourteen
It was quiet in the van, and getting light earlier and earlier as the spring days lengthened. It was nearly full summer now, warm and humid. The bushes were full of the humming of bees, and there was a smell of honeysuckle around the door of the hospital. It would be pleasant to walk down the long straight hallways now, with a little scented breeze in the windows with no glass. I didn't have to write in the dark anymore, going down to Enigma. It was quiet in the van, even Nellie was having silent thoughts about our last two days.
No more trips in the dark wet mornings, no more drafty hallways chasing Leo, no more listening to Elam's little songs. Auntie Bea and Blind George were gone. The Dayroom had changed, it was quieter, different, the light had changed as the time passed.
The hospital looked the same as it always did, except for the softness in the air and the smell of flowers competing with the smell of disinfectant. The cafeteria was lighter now early in the morning, when we went for coffee before our conference. Even the canteen looked more inviting. There was lightness and freshness in the air, but it didn’t seem to penetrate into the Dayroom. There it was still dim, like twilight, or a darkened stage. Lights were on even in the middle of the day, to keep some of the shadows out. The population of residents was thinner, many people left in the good weather, those who could. Some made their way north, some lived outside and only came back when the cold wind blew. Like migrating birds, the residents knew when to come back. The ones who stayed had a sort of languid summer air, and life moved even slower. The activities ladies still did exercises, and the crafts shop was open, but it was all slower, and quieter.
The piano was still gone; now and then Elam practiced on George's harmonica. The administration didn't mind the harmonica, for some reason.
When we came in that day, Elam was sitting cross legged across the room, with the old bent harmonica in his hand. His eyes were closed, and he rocked slowly to some silent inner music. I watched him for a moment, and then went over and sat beside him. He put the harmonica to his lips and blew a soft mournful sound.
“The King says I need to learn to play this, now that George is gone. George gave it to him, but he doesn’t want it.”
“Why?”
“The King wants to make sense, not music.” Elam looked comical and winked. “Let us sit down and sing glad songs about the birth of kings. He will see the sense in nonsense, the logic of chaos, someday. I will teach him.”
He wrapped a cloth around his head and took his penny whistle out, and stood up. He played a military tune on the little whistle and marched, limping, all around the Dayroom. I clapped and Elam bowed.
“I’m going to miss you, Elam. Tomorrow is our last day.” I took his hand and he put his head on my shoulder. He took out the schedule that he had written down that first day, and crossed off today. It didn’t have dates on it, just random words and pictures of the sun shining.
“I’ve been counting the days, and I hoped you would forget to leave. Will they let you forget to leave?”
I shook my head. “No, we have to leave tomorrow afternoon and go back home and finish the year. Then we graduate and we’re out in the world, to get jobs.”
Elam shook his head, and there was sadness in his dark eyes. “To go Out There, with Them....” he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “There no one cares. No one is redeemed.”
“Maybe not, but that’s where the work is. We’ll be OK. You be OK, too.”
He whispered like a conspirator, “Now that the Night Walker has woken up to the sunshine; perhaps we, too, will have work to do. But soft, I forget.” He took a tiny white feather from the buttonhole in his coat and put it in the buttonhole in my shirt. “To remind you of your mission.”
He looked solemn and serious. “Find the King and say farewell, for he begins his mission in the plaster shop. It is not yet the bone shop, but there is a ladder there...,” Elam took the harmonica and began to play and his music followed us as I waved and walked toward the crafts hallway to find Leo.
I walked down the hall and saw that a new shop had been set up near the plaster room. It was a painting workshop, run by Dr. Fried. Dr. Fried? Here, at work in the morning? I remembered what Elam had said about the Night Walker, and nodded to myself. Elam knew. Elam always knew. I looked at Lucas and he smiled.
"Looks like nights weren't interesting enough. Let's go check it out."
We walked down the long hallway, warmer now in May, and found the little room with the new shop. Several easels stood around, lots of pots of paint and rags, and brushes. Some of the residents had made things in the plaster room and were painting them carefully. Dr. Fried walked around checking everyone, wearing his lab coat that had some paint smudges on it, and he held his hands behind his back as he leaned over and murmured encouragement. He looked better, not as pasty and pale, and he had put on a few pounds.
"Good to see you, Doctor. Are you here full time on days now?"
He turned and looked startled for a minute, and then relaxed. He shook Lucas' hand, and mine.
"Two days every week, and then back to the night owls the rest of the time. This gives me a chance to see people doing what they do, and I can sit in on some of the group activities, too." He nodded to himself. "I like it. Takes some getting used to, but I’ll manage.”
He did it. It couldn’t have been easy, but he did it. I shook his hand and said so.
“You do see more during the day, even in the shadows. You were right,” he said.
“Maybe, but I picked a dumb way to tell you.”
“You’re just another Yankee, being direct. You haven’t learned yet how to go sideways to get somewhere.”
“Never will. Sorry. I haven’t yet learned to think like a Sicilian.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just pick your fights carefully; when you get older you don’t want to die on every damn mountain.”
I laughed. Maybe I would learn that, someday. We watched for a minute and I left Lucas with Dr. Fried and went to find Leo. He and Jesse were in the plaster room, working on a project. Leo had his back to me, he was wearing his baseball cap turned around as usual, and he was sanding a round plaque with slow deliberate movements. He turned it this way and that, and looked at Jesse to see what he thought.
Jesse sat on the floor, watching Leo. He never took his eyes off Leo, but they shifted a bit when I walked in. He nodded to Leo and Leo turned around and saw me.
"Hey, Missy. Come and look at this." He turned the plaque around and I saw an American Eagle with some lightening bolts in his claws, looking fierce and regal.
"I made this for Jesse, and we're going to paint it and hang it in the dorm near his bed. I made a couple of mistakes here," he rubbed a crack down at the bottom of the piece "but Jesse doesn't mind."
Jesse shook his head violently, agreeing. It was fine with him. He stood up and came over to us, and touched the plaster with one finger very carefully, tracing the eagle's beak. He looked up at Leo, and smiled.
Leo smiled back. "Jesse's going to have a time with me. I'm blinder than Blind George ever was, but we'll manage together, won't we?" Jesse nodded solemnly, his light blue eyes calm and serene, his fine thin hair covering his forehead. He patted Leo's arm, and went back and sat down on the floor to watch the finishing of his gift.
Leo laughed out loud and I realized I had never heard that sound. It was a good laugh, it came from deep inside, and removed the frown and tightness in Leo's face. It wasn't as deep as Blind George's laugh, no one could match that, but it would do. It would do fine.
"Tomorrow is our last day, Leo. We'll be here only until after lunch, and then we go back to Mystic. Then we get jobs, and I have to decide whether to go to work in ICU in Mystic or go back to Chicago. Hard decision.”
Leo nodded, half hearing me. “This has to dry for a while and then I'll start painting it tomorrow," he looked over at Jesse, who clapped his hands, "and I'll be real busy doing that...." He rubbed the plaster with some rough paper and looked at me, suddenly aware of what I had said.
"You mean you're not coming back? Not ever?"
Jesse looked startled, and put his head in his hands. I went over and sat on the floor next to him and gave him a hug.
"That's right, we're all done with our work here and now we can get jobs in the hospital and have patients to take care of." Jesse leaned on my shoulder, and played with the student badge on my shirt.
"We won't wear those anymore. We'll have different ones, hospital ones. I'll miss you guys."
I looked up at Leo and he nodded, and went back to work on his eagle. "Yes, missy. We'll miss you. But you were here, that's what's good. You were here. You won't forget us."
We sat there for a few minutes, Jesse leaning on me and Leo working carefully, and it was quiet and calm in the room. No, I would never forget them. Leo spoke so softly I couldn’t hear him at first.
"You can leave Missy, but I can't." There was no anger in his voice; he sounded amazed that life had picked him up and left him on this beach, in this place.
"No, you can't, Leo. But compared to some places, this isn't bad."
Leo looked around, at the bare wooden floor and the streaked window with the soft spring light in the room. He looked at the plaster molds and the tools and took a deep breath. He looked into middle distance and nodded.
Almost to himself, he whispered, "I was in worse places, lots worse. Out there people kill other people because their eyes slant funny or their name for God is different. Purely stupid, out there. Here, we know better."
He looked at Jesse, who nodded carefully, following Leo's lead. "In here, we surely know better. We figure that God has a lot of names and most people look pretty funny anyway."
Leo looked down at his hands and at his project, and back at me. With a shake of his head he added, "And they call us crazy."
I went to look for Cracker and Duveen, but the canteen was empty and when I checked the charts I saw that they had been discharged. They were down in Needmore, on the farm, on the Antabuse. I told Elam’s Scriptwriter to leave them there for a while and see how they did. Maybe it would work, this time.
Elam sat with me on the couch just before noon, the next day. He cleared his throat and took out a piece of paper, crumpled and smudged. He gave me a look, like the one he used when he was thinking up mischief, and I wondered what was coming now. He bowed deeply, crossed his eyes, and said, “At your cervix, madame,” and cackled. Then he got serious, and read from his little paper.
He sat up straight, and said, "A Poem. For the Sunshine Lady." "A little madness in the Spring, Is wholesome, even for the King."
Elam put his finger against his nose and crossed his eyes, and then spotted Mr. Wallace at the door of the Dayroom. He looked intently at me and said, "Pray, innocent, beware the foul fiend."
I laughed, because Wallace just stood at the door and didn't come in. He looked at everyone with that superior air he had, and turned around and went back towards the administrative offices where I'm sure he felt more comfortable.
I whispered to Elam, “So what? He doesn’t matter anymore, we’re done.”
Elam wagged his finger at me, and chuckled.
"You should not be old until you are wise, Portia. You are wise, and not old." He cocked his head at me. "Do you leave us, then?"
I straightened his ascot scarf and smoothed his hair. "Yes, Elam, after lunch today. I have to go and finish school and go to work. No more student."
Elam shook his head, contradicting me. “Forever student.” He took his little whistle out of his pocket and played a few bars of the graduation song, ‘Pomp and Circumstance” and I marched solemnly around the room with a magazine on my head for a mortarboard. Elam was still playing when I went out the door to lunch.
We had lunch in the cafeteria and met for the last time in the conference room. There was a quiet sort of finality in the air, as we looked around the room, down the halls, the long drafty halls.
“I’ll miss this place,” Elaine whispered to me, with tears in her blue eyes. “I really will. I wonder why?” She sat back, and wiped her eyes and swallowed hard. Eunice saw it and gave her a hug. “Did I tell you that my resident, Miz Sally, buttoned all of her buttons now, and she does it right, real straight down her sweater. And she shined her shoes today. With polish, not spit like last time.” Elaine smiled and the tears fell faster. Laughter and tears, always, for everyone, in this place.
Wallace walked in, and gave us a little speech about the future so he could avoid the present.
“You’ll be out soon, on your own.” He looked around at us as if he weren’t sure we could manage that. “Remember, patients need structure and order, that’s one of the most important lessons you are taking away with you from this place....” he rambled on and on with this nonsense and I sat back and closed my eyes and pictured the dayroom, and Blind George and Auntie Bea and Leo and Jesse, even Guard Dog.
“Are you thinking again, Miss de Sando?”
I opened my eyes and grinned at him. “No, sir. It would never do to think in conference, would it?”
Lucas coughed, and someone’s chair scraped and I heard Eunice snort. Wallace didn’t laugh. We got up and walked out, into the sun. We drove in Mrs. Wallace’s van back through the bright piney woods to Mystic, and left Enigma and the mental hospital.
No, I never did forget them.
It's been many years now, a lot of time, lots of miles down the road. I left Georgia, but I remember what I was like then, to be a new nurse with a new job, some new challenges and some old problems. I remember Eunice, and Lucas, and all the others, Leo, and Elam and Jesse and Blind George.
Sometimes, working in the cancer wards I would see one patient become a natural leader and give comfort to the others despite her own pain, and I would think of Blind George. Sometimes I heard a child laugh, and thought of Auntie Bea. Sometimes I would be confused or scared, and I thought about Lucas and Eunice and it calmed me. Whenever I had enough of rules and regulations or nonsense I would go for a long walk, and think of Leo. And when I heard a snatch of poetry or the music of a flute, I saw Elam smile.
I walk the road, the long road, and do the work and I hurt and I laugh and I wish I were rich or beautiful like I never was or skinny like I was then, and then I think about Leo and Elam and I feel good and I feel the tears come and I laugh. No matter where I am, I laugh.