Disturbing the Peace (Vintage Classics) (6 page)

One of the new patients brought in on Monday – or was it Tuesday? – was a grey-haired Negro so badly injured around the head and face that bloodstained bandages covered his eyes. They couldn’t make a blind man walk, so his bunk stayed down and he lay on it all day as the column on that side of the corridor detoured around him. Wilder passed him twice before noticing that his wrists and ankles were secured to the bunk by heavy restraining bands. He writhed constantly, groaning and muttering; several times he struggled up to a half-sitting position and screamed.

“D.T.s,” Spivack explained.

“How can you tell?”

“Obvious. Anyone with medical training can spot ’em. Lot of the drunks in here have ’em all the time. Hear what he was yelling just now? When Charlie went over to him?”

“No.”

“‘Ah! Ah! Ah got lucidations! Ah got lucidations!’ Didn’t you hear that? He means hallucinations. Bastard’s been soaking up a quart a day for twenty-five years and now his brains have turned to shit. You drink, Wilder?”

“Some.”

“How much? Four, five, six drinks a day?”

“I don’t know.”

“Eight? Ten? Fifteen? More’n that? Huh?”

“Look, Spivack: in the first place I don’t think it’s any of your fucking—”

“Wow! Boy! Talk about hitting a
sore
spot – So that’s your trouble. Well, it figures: you do look like a lush; funny I didn’t notice before.”

“Yeah, funny,” Wilder said. “Fuck you.”

And Spivack’s reply was to thrust a triumphant middle finger high in the air and say “Fuck
you
” as he turned and disappeared into the column of walkers.

For the rest of that day – Tuesday? – they avoided each other. Wilder tried to renew his acquaintance with Ralph and Francis, but Ralph didn’t seem to recognize him and Francis didn’t want to play pictures even when Wilder fed him a good one – “Hey, what picture is this: ‘Play it again, Sam’?”

He helped the newspaper man lay out a spread that didn’t work at all, and after that he kept to himself, walking the corridor, peering at his double image in the cop’s sunglasses, smoking cigarettes and saving people, wondering in a quiet panic if he really might be out of his mind.

But sometime during the next afternoon he heard the blind man saying “Oh! Oh! Oh!” and found Spivack crouching low over his bunk.

“What’s the matter, Sambo?” Spivack inquired softly. “You got them old lucidations again? You want a drink? Well, I’m
afraid that’s tough, Sambo, because we don’t got no drinks in here.”

“… Oh! Oh! Oh! …”

“No, we don’t got nothin’ here but Peraldehyde and straitjackets and shots in the ass and …”

“Why don’t you cut that shit out?” Wilder said.

Spivack straightened his spine and turned around in a great display of surprise. “Well, I’ll be God damned.” His gaze ran from Wilder’s eyes to his bare feet and back again. “Look who’s preaching at me now. I thought I’d taken just about every kind of holy-Joe shit there is, from every kind of fool; and now some pipsqueak, some drunken little salesman starts telling me ‘kindness,’ starts telling me ‘compassion,’ starts telling me—”

“You’re an arrogant, insolent, overbearing son of a bitch, Spivack. You’re a prick …” Wilder walked backwards, letting Spivack advance on him, but it wasn’t a retreat; he was withdrawing to a wider part of the corridor where the crowd was thin and he could take a stand.

“And whaddya think
you
are? Some Boy Scout? Some faggot social worker? Some saint? Christ himself ? Huh?”

They both stopped, three feet apart, glaring fiercely and ready for anything. Neither of them took up a fighting stance – their hands hung loose – but Wilder squared his shoulders and said “How’d you like a punch in the mouth, Spivack?”

“From you? Funny little alcoholic creep? Shit; I’d wipe up the floor with you in five seconds and you know it.”

“Don’t be too fucking sure of that, Spivack.”

“Wanna try it? See what happens?”

Then the
KEEP OUT
door swung open and Charlie was smiling there, happy with welcome. “Gentlemen?” he said. “Would you care to join me for a cup of coffee?”

Going about the cordial business of arranging chairs for them
and measuring out instant coffee while the pan of water bubbled on the hotplate, he seemed unaware of their red, hard-breathing faces and trembling limbs. “I generally enjoy a little coffee at this time of the day,” he said, “and once in a while it’s nice to have company. If you don’t mind I think I’ll just shut that door. Makes the air a little close in here, but I don’t want to give the impression I’m holding open house. Sugar and cream, Mr. Wilder?”

“Yes, please.”

“It’s only a powdered cream substitute, of course, but it’s very tasty. You, Doctor?”

“No, thanks. Black.”

At first Charlie did all the talking as they sat and sipped and smoked in this unaccustomed luxury. Wilder kept waiting for his monologue to turn into a lecture (“… Now, I don’t want to see any more trouble between you two …”) but it didn’t, and soon they were able to relax. They could even exchange bashful, halfsmiling glances of complicity, like bad little boys who’d managed to raise hell without getting caught.

“… Well, I’m certainly glad the holiday’s over,” Charlie was saying. “These long weekends are always difficult. We get badly overcrowded; we don’t have an adequate staff; it’s good to have the psychiatrists back. Oh, now, never mind, Doctor, I know your opinion of psychiatrists; we needn’t go into that. All I mean is, from my point of view, it’s good to have them back because they make decisions. Some of the men here have to go home to their families, right? Some have to be sent to alcoholic or narcotic facilities, some have to be sent up to Wingdale or Rockland or wherever, and some – well, it’s no secret – some have to go to criminal court. And I mean, those decisions have to be made, right?”

Spivack frowned over the careful stubbing out of his cigarette. “Charlie,” he said, “will you tell me the truth?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Who was it – which of these big decision-makers of yours – exactly which one of them told you I was a paranoid schizophrenic?”

And Charlie leaned back for a delighted peal of laughter, placing one great white shoe on the edge of the table. “Ah, Doctor, you tickle me. It wasn’t
any
of ’em. It was you yourself ! You came out of an interview – what was it, two, three weeks ago? – and you said ‘Better watch out for me, Charlie, I’m a paranoid schizophrenic’ It was you yourself told me!”

But Spivack was not amused.

When Charlie’s laughter dwindled he put both feet on the floor and leaned earnestly forward. “I do know one thing, though, Doctor. Mind you, this isn’t criticism, but I imagine every time you see those psychiatrists you go in with a negative attitude. I imagine you tell them about filing your malpractice suit and so on, and of course that’s understandable. You’re a physician too and you’ve been placed in a difficult situation here. All I mean to suggest is this: why don’t you surprise them next time? Walk in there and answer their questions, make a good appearance, show a little sense of humor, let them see the kind of rational, agreeable man you are most of the time, the kind of man you are with me, or with Mr. Wilder here.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Spivack said. “I’ll turn on the old charm. Hey, here, I forgot to give your pen back.” He unclipped it from his pajama pocket and slid it across the table. “Don’t suppose you’ve got an envelope, do you, Charlie?”

“An envelope? No.”

“Doesn’t matter. Even if I had an envelope I’d still need a stamp. Thing is, I wrote a letter to my sister. Want to read it?”

“Oh, I’d rather not, Doctor, if you don’t mind; I don’t really enjoy reading other people’s personal—”

The door shuddered with pounding and a voice called “Charlie! There’s a turd on the floor! Some son of a bitch dropped a
turd
on the floor …”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said as he escorted them quickly back into the corridor. “I’ll have to lock up here. It’s been a pleasure.”

Would there now be a resumption of their fight? Evidently not. Spivack walked moodily but not angrily, and soon he made shy, tentative efforts at conversation. “
There
goes a Wingdale man,” he said as they passed a muscular, dull-eyed Puerto Rican wearing work clothes: high-top shoes, denim shirt, green twill pants with wide, old-fashioned suspenders. “When they dress ’em up that way it’s Wingdale every time. And oh Jesus, look at that.”

A very old white man stood crying like an infant – “Wah! Wah! Wah!” – as an orderly approached him with a straitjacket. He twisted away and tried feebly to escape; in the tussle his pajama pants fell and revealed genitals so shriveled and small that they might have been an infant’s too, and he clutched them either in shame or anxiety.

“Hey there, sexpot,” Spivack said in passing.

“Save me, buddy,” the shuffling men were saying of their cigarettes, “save me …”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll save you. Hey, look, Wilder: there isn’t a soul in Jerk-off City. Want to sit down?” And they sank onto the stained mattresses. “Want to read my letter? I mean I worked like a bastard on it; seems like somebody ought to read the damn thing.”

“Okay; sure.” He accepted the smudged, much-folded sheet of paper and opened it.

Dear Sis; dear Miss Priss:

If you are languorously glancing through
The New Yorker
and sipping an ever-so-extra-dry martini when you receive this letter, or if you are changing from a terribly sweet little cocktail dress into something svelte and provocative for evening, or if you are dabbing a delightfully subtle Parisian scent at your throat in preparation for prolonged and exquisite dalliance with your husband tonight, then don’t bother to read it. Drop it among the crushed gardenias and the empty Liebfraumilch bottles and the Tiffany invitations to parties you’ve chosen not to attend.

If, however, this letter finds you on your knees in your dungarees scrubbing the kitchen floor, or scouring a pot so badly encrusted with last Saturday’s
Boeuf Bourguignonne
that your fingers bleed into the Brillo, or better still sitting and grunting and raising a stink on what I believe your husband calls the “John,” then read the hell out of it, baby. This is important. This is reality.

1. – Call Dad.

2. – Call Eric and Mark.

3. – Tell your husband he is a simpering, pretentious little fool.

4. –
GET ME OUT OF HERE
.

HENRY

“So whaddya think?” he asked.

“Well, it’s pretty funny, but the general tone does seem a little—”

“‘Hostile,’ right? That’s every psychiatrist’s favorite word.”

“I wasn’t going to say that; I just mean it seems a little on the self-defeating side. Doesn’t seem very likely to accomplish its purpose.”

Spivack sighed and stuffed it back into his pajamas. “Ah, I guess you’re right. Purely an academic question anyway. Haven’t got an envelope; haven’t got a stamp.”

Wilder’s name was called on Thursday morning. He stood by the cop at the door, combing and recombing his hair while Spivack gave him last-minute counsel.

“It’s an inquisition. They ask you questions – loaded questions, the kind that’d never stand up in a court of law – and when you answer they don’t listen to you: they listen at you. They let everything you say slide past and hang in the air while they study it. Because it’s not the substance they care about, it’s the style. You can almost see them thinking ‘Mm; interesting. Why did he make that slip? Why that particular choice of words?’ Oh, and they watch you like hawks too. Not just your face – it’s very important to keep a straight face and look ’em in the eyes – but everything. Squirm around in your chair, cross your legs, put your hand up to your head or anything like that and you’re dead.”

“Okay, Wilder,” an orderly said. “Let’s go.”

There may have been less than a dozen white-coated men in the interview room but there seemed to be twice that many. They sat row on row in chairs with writing-panel armrests, like students, and Wilder faced them alone in an ordinary chair with his sweating hands on his thighs, as if he were their teacher. Nobody smiled. A bald, heavy man in the front row cleared his throat and said “Well. What seems to be the trouble?”

It probably lasted a quarter of an hour. First he did his best to tell them about the business trip to Chicago, about the week of insomnia and heavy drinking, about Paul Borg and St. Vincent’s and the poorly remembered events that had brought him here.

Then came the questions. Had Wilder ever been in a mental hospital before? Had he ever been under psychiatric care? Had
he ever sought treatment for alcoholism? Had his drinking ever gotten him into trouble? With an employer? With his family? With the police?

No, he kept saying, no; no; no – and through it all he held his face straight, sat still and didn’t gesticulate. But after the questions they stared in silence; they seemed to expect him to make a summing-up in his own defense, and that was when everything went to hell. One hand leaped to his wet brow and clung there. “Look,” he said. “Listen: I know if I say ‘I’m not crazy’ it’ll probably just convince you I am; but even so, that’s my – that’s my position.” The hand fell back to his thigh, but he knew he was squirming because he heard his chair creak. “I
don’t
think I’m crazy, or mentally ill or emotionally disturbed or whatever the hell, I mean whatever you people call it.” His mouth was so dry he could feel every movement of tongue and teeth and lips in their laborious effort to form speech. “I know I was behaving erratically or whaddyacallit, irrationally last Friday, but that was last Friday. After the first couple of nights’ sleep and the first few doses of formaldehyde, I mean
you
know, Peraldehyde, I think I was all right again, and I’m all right now; so the point is – Christ’s
sake
, is anybody
listening?
” The spastic hand flew to his head again, messing up his hair, and his eyes closed to shut out their faces.