Geoff Ryman - Was

"I bet," said Gwenny. Her glasses seemed to smile for her.

And finally, Bill felt able to say, "Gwen, there's a patient here and I feel real sorry for her. Any chance that there'd be a file on her or something? I'd really like to know a bit more about her."

Gwenny was only too pleased to help. The files were supposed to be confidential but there wasn't an untrustworthy bone in Bill Davison's body. The file was big and fat. Bill could sit there in the office since the boss was late. Gwenny unfolded the wax paper around the white bread sandwiches that she took to work in place of breakfast. Breakfast made her feel sick. She ate daintily as Bill read.

Old Dynamite's name really was Dorothy Gale, or rather Gael. The spelling was different. That's what the latest reports said, but maybe they were wrong. Bill went all the way back through limp brown folders to the oldest layer of papers. There was a stiff shiny folder, with printed scrolls and lettering with leaves intertwined. Waposage Home for the Mentally Incapacitated, it said. There was a paper dated 1899:

Subject is well known to local people in the Abilene area under a variety of names and is a known vagrant thought to sleep in rough places including outbuildings or railway sheds. It is thought that she survives through petty theft from orchards and gardens, though it is thought she spent some years in and around Wichita. Records there do show a registration of a Dorothy Gael as a "singer" and common prostitute. She has shown belligerence and violence to officers of the law and is regarded by some people as a public menace. Apprehended in the course of a theft, she attacked a woman in Abilene and has been convicted of causing an affray in the same town. It was the recommendation of the judge that the woman be taken into state care for her own sake and for the sake of the community.

Subject shows some signs of religious mania. She frequently quotes Scriptures and sings hymns in a garbled and sometimes sacrilegious fashion. Her own hard experiences and corrupt nature make a bitter mockery of the sacred words, denying all comfort and salvation. Her oaths are such to blast the ear of the most hardened habitue of lowlife, entwining the Savior and lustful remarks in one evil net.

When not excited by theft or song, the subject is frequently to be found in a kind of trance that suggests alcohol poisoning or the more extreme forms of withdrawal noted in patients of this kind. In care she can sit without movement of any kind for hours. But do not be fooled, for she is capable of flaring up suddenly in a mighty rage, during which the stoutest men in the establishment have difficulty restraining her. Care will need to be taken to make sure the patient, whose hard life seems only to have served to make her physically strong, is kept under a degree of restraint.

She is a woman lost to the world, to sense, and to God.

Bill folded the file shut and sat and stared. Maybe, he thought there are some things you can't go into too deeply. There's no help for them and no solace. Common prostitute. Blast the ear of the most hardened habitue. It was like staring into the pit. So where did the beautiful smile come from?

"Thanks, Gwen," he murmured darkly, and passed the file back to her.

"These people, Bill," she said, "they're like the rocks. You can dash yourself to pieces against them, and it won't help."

That's what everyone says, Bill thought as he smiled to Gwenny and thanked her. Everybody says don't get too wrapped up in them. But God, God commands us to love everyone. God says to find the lamb that is lost. And all these good people are telling me to forget, just close the file and put it away.

He went back to Dotty and pulled up a chair and sat next to her.

"You used to be a singer," he said.

There was a pause. "Yup," she answered him, abruptly.

A silence. Where to go from here?

"Where did you sing?" he asked, after having to think.

"Church," she said, and drew herself up and sniffed. Another long silence. "Nobody ever told me I could sing. Nobody ever asked me to sing. I just found out. So I'd sleep in one town and go to church in another. Sing in the choir. Till they found out who I was. Drove me out."

"Drove you out?" He was appalled.

Dotty didn't answer. Her jaw jutted out, and she jerked it in decrepit defiance. She pretended to brush something off her knee. "Couldn't have the likes of me singing in church."

Let those of you who are without sin…

"That wasn't very Christian of them," he said.

"Totally and completely Christian," she answered him. "Look what they did to the Indians."

He had a sudden strange feeling that Dotty had seen what had happened to the Indians.

"How old are you, Dotty?" he asked.

"Five," she replied. "Took a look around and decided to stay five. I just grew up five, and lived five."

The smile came flitting back across her face like a swallow over a cornfield. "I was a fairy," she whispered. "I lived in the fields, under the leaves. I had a laugh like broken glass." She nodded her head. Then she leaned forward.

"All of us here," she whispered, "are either Indians or fairies." She nodded again.

"Did you ever see any Indians?"

"Only good, Kansas ones. The ones that sleep all day drunk. Those are good Indians. The bad ones are invisible."

"What kind of house did you live in?"

"Underground. Wilbur lived underground, and he went first, and I followed him. We lived underground with the gophers. And Uncle Henry and Aunty Em, they lived in a cottonwood house that let all the wind in. It was better to live underground."

"What year was that? Do you remember what year?"

"No, I didn't know the year. That was why I felt so stupid. After that, I didn't need to know the year. Each year is the same year. All you got. Right now."

Crazy people talked crazy. It was like trying to grasp a handful of fog. You knew there was something there, but you couldn't feel it or touch it.

"And where was this?" he asked.

The stare had come back too. Old Dotty was looking somewhere else.

"In Was," she said. "It's a place too. You can step in and out of it. Never goes away. Always there." She smiled a moment longer and then suddenly said, "My mama died."

"How did she die?"

"I killed her," said Dotty. "I gave her the Dip."

The great stretch of the years.

"My daddy died," said Bill. "He got killed in the war."

"There you go," said Dotty, as if something had been proved.

"It can leave you pretty lonely." He was trying to understand.

"No it can't. People are the only thing that can make you feel lonely." He felt corrected. Loneliness had never been his problem.

"There's the China people," she added. "You got to watch out or they'll break. Crrasssshhhh." She made a spreading, breaking sound.

"Are… are you a China person?" he asked.

Her mouth twisted around in exasperation. "Now do I look like it? I ask you!"

"No," he admitted cautiously. But he found he was smiling.

"I told you," she said. "I am a fairy."

Tom Heritage with the crooked smile happened to be passing. He grabbed Bill by the shoulders. "Well, he may not look like it, but he's a fairy, too, Ma'am."

Joke. Hah hah. "Thanks for butting in, Heritage," murmured Bill

"He is not a fairy!" insisted Dotty, suddenly fierce. She looked like a wrinkled old snapping turtle. "He's a healer." She looked back at Bill. "Just like Frank was," she told him.

"Well, when you get through healing, Bill, we got us some beds to strip." Heritage's eyebrows were raised with meaning. But he walked on.

"I got to go, Dot," said Bill.

"I don't see what's stopping you," said Old Dynamite.

Bill stood up. "Who's Frank?" he asked.