Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

city of Heidelberg. They had been built on Mount Misery at the start of the century by the mother of a male patient, who had been conceived when Mother had "left her heart in Heidelberg," as well as her virginity, on a grand tour of Europe. The Heidelbergs were linked, across the ravine, by an exquisitely arched wrought-iron footbridge, the delicate ironwork faux-crenellations spoiled somewhat by the high steel fencing recently built to discourage suicides from this bridge, nicknamed "Loopy Lovers Leap." Heidelberg West was Psy-chopharmacology, or drug therapy; Heidelberg East was Alcohol and Drug Recovery.

Panting, I followed Errol and Win into the foyer of the West. Rather than going in the main door, they turned right through a door marked STAFF ONLY, into the nursing station. I found myself staring through the open top half of a Dutch door, out at the ward. It was packed with patients and was filled with that tomblike quiet you feel under significant water.

Dozens of patients were either lying down asleep or trudging around the thickly carpeted floor or twitching horribly from Tardive dyskinesia, the incurable disease caused by the drugs each had been given to cure them of their curable disease. All wore long white nighties with the Misery logo- pine tree, moon, and duck rampant-as if they were players on a team. The nursing station was a space-age bubble where a nurse in a white uniform stood framed by the open upper Dutch door, a tray of drugs beside her. She would call a name, a patient would rouse him- or herself, come up, get drugs, and go away. No other staff were to be seen. The nurse smiled at me. Her whites were starched. Her teeth glistened amidst lipstick as red as Jill's. Ruffles fluffed down the front of her nursing costume. She seemed immaculately cheerful.

"Welcome to the West, Doctor. I'm Deedee. There's fresh coffee inside."

Inside, instead of the usual steel table and those uncomfortable plastic airport chairs, was a gleaming mahogany table and stressless leather chairs.

"Hello, Doctor," said another nurse, also in a white uniform, one that seemed to be covering her body only with reluctance, unbuttoned a touch too much at the top and stretched a touch too tight in the bust and raised a touch too high on the thigh and all in all reminding me of my medical

internship where such uniforms were a statement of life and sex in the midst of disease and death. "Welcome to the West." Her voice was calm and soothing, as if she were taking the same drugs Win and Errol were on, to bring them down closer to human. "I'm Gloria, the head nurse."

"Roy Basch. Call me Roy."

"Roy. Call me Glo. Shall I brew you a fresh cappuccino?"

"Cappuccino?"

"Courtesy of Pfizer Chemical. And a fresh-baked croissant, courtesy of DuPont?" I nodded. "Chocolat or amandeT

"Chocolat." I noticed that her uniform was Courtesy of Dista.

"Good choice. Now. In your cappuccino-cinnamon or cocoa?" I chose cocoa. "Chocolate addict, eh?" she said, and played a big copper espresso machine, making steam hiss. I sank down into a stressless chair (Upjohn) and stared into an inner chamber (Glaxo) where Win and Errol were ripping quickly through charts, Win signing notes, passing them to Errol, who signed and tossed them down onto a table. In another room other nurses and mental health workers sat around, chatting softly or reading magazines. Stressless.

PROZAC, declared the cup Glo handed me. She raised hers in salute: RITALIN. I took a sip. Excellent, bringing back a memory of long mornings sitting with Berry in the Piazza Navone in Rome, now in another lifetime. The DuPont croissant was delicious-fresh, crisp, and with a slippery ooze of butter and fine dark chocolate.

"— tricyclics!" Win cried, crashing out of the back room with Errol.

"Dialing for Dow dollars!" Errol answered. "Let's fucking move!"

"Are we doing rounds?" I asked Errol.

"I don't do any goddamn rounds."

"Not even insurance rounds?" He said no. "Well, what shall I do?"

"Just stay outta my way. We just got burned by that quitter-what was her name, Win, that women's libber who ran away to Wyoming? What was it, 'Francine'?"

"Hannah."

"Yeah. Once burned, twice shy."

That whole first day I stuck close to Errol. His pace was

frantic, the myriad aspects of his empire making my head spin. He first ripped through the charts on the West 2 and 3, above. These two wards were also packed full of patients. Most showed ritualistic behaviors-hand-rubbing, hair-pulling, one lawyerly-looking man scratching his rump incessantly. Finished with the charts, Win and Errol blasted past me, out. Cornering tightly on the stairs, Errol elbowed Win to his knees. Helping him up, I asked about the ritualistic behavior.

"OCD," Win said. "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. A psychosis."

"But obsession has always been a neurosis, not a psychosis."

"Now it is. As of last Monday it's official: they're nuts. Insurance pays for thirteen days. Since last Friday eighty percent of our admissions have OCD. We're getting in on the ground floor. Obsession is biological. With drugs it gets better."

"Which drug?"

"Drugs, the plural. Six drugs. Read our paper."

"You've published already?"

"Got to." Win raced outside, into the harsh dazzle of the April day, but instead of trailing Errol down the ravine toward the Farben, he peeled off into the dark and muscular Misery woods, motioning me not to follow. I watched him crash through brush where there didn't even seem to be one of those nature trails a grateful Misery alumna had donated for birding.

I tailed Errol down into the basement of the Farben, to "Computer Lab," and then to "ECT Suite." Errol ran the Electro-Convulsive Shock Therapy concession at Misery. Donning a space suit outside something called PET Lab, he asked me, "Do you have a dog?"

"No. Why?"

'This is a PET scanner."

"You scan your pets?"

"Positron Emission Tomography." He vanished into a room with a huge tubelike chamber, the size of a coffin for a dolphin. Dry ice vapors misted up. Errol and a lab tech in a space suit banged on it, tapped it, shouted at each other across it. In response it emitted a purple glow like you see in movies when the aliens arrive. Nearby I heard pitiful barking and whining,

and peeked around a corner at row upon row of dogs in small cages.

Suddenly we were moving through the lunch line. Errol took enormous portions of all the worst foods-hamburgers and french fries and fried onion rings and Schlomo's favorite, "Misery Mystery Meat," and Swiss cheese and cheesecake and refined sugar. He seemed to be on a high-fat, high-cholesterol, high-sugar diet. I started to follow him to his table but he said he wanted to eat alone. As he ate, he made call after call on his cellular phone. Gloria sat down with me.

"Who's he calling?"

"His private patients. Drug consults. A hundred bucks a shot."

"But he's eating lunch!"

"Awesome, isn't it? You make good money, in drugs."

As we talked I was amazed at Gloria's healthy outlook on life in Misery. Despite having worked with the most violent and psychotic people in the harsh world of the hospital for many years, she seemed peaceful, appreciative of life. After barely nine months here I was cynical and worn. I asked her how she managed it.

Her eyes flickered away. Malik had said that this was a sign of a person about to tell you a He. "To tell you the truth, Roy," she said-another sign of lying- "I guess I'm just a pretty happy camper."

After lunch, Errol let me sit in on his private practice. His office was on the top floor of the Farben, with a fantastic view of the panorama unrolling to the north, where the line of white smudges on the horizon was maybe snow on the mountaintops, maybe clouds. The office too was a kind of museum of the drug trade, everything "Courtesy of somebody, from the Brazilian-leather couch and chairs courtesy of Ciba-Geigy/Brazil, through the immense rosewood desk courtesy of Smith-Kline/Thailand, to a tiny working model of the blood supply to the human brain, bubbling and gurgling bright red cartoon blood in through the arteries and draining sludgy blue venous blood out through the veins, the lips contorting, seemingly at random, into kisses or smiles, with a flashing sign that said, "Zoloft Keeps You Aloft."