Сэмуэль Шэм - Mount Misery

My attempts to talk with other patients were pretty much as unsuccessful. People hallucinated every imaginable thing-Christ, Hitler, the Pope, Elvis, cockroaches, dildoes, apple pie-and had tried to kill themselves in every imaginable way. Some patients were known to me. The Woman Who Ate Metal Objects was back after her last abdominal surgery, and quickly asserted her omnivorous self by eating the prosthetic pinkie of a gay psychotic plumber admitted for "phantom limb pain" who had the delusion that his real pinkie was poking up the rectum of Richard Milhous Nixon.

The patients, drugged at arm's length by their doctors, seemed less people than objects. Drugs had thinned out the essence of being human and had left them both heavier and lighter than human beings ought to be, as if a human on drugs

blocked the light and yet was way too insubstantial to hold any light, to be at all luminescent, even to cast a clear shadow. It was as if you could pass your hand through them, only your hand making the shadow. But you couldn't pass your hand through them, they were so powerfully opaque. The vitality of the human had been diluted out all the way to the poverty of the translucent, leaving the steel shell of the opaque, all in the name of "better." It was appalling.

Even more appalling to me was that it was pretty much how I felt too.

What could I do? I felt so vulnerable and lost, so guilty about Cherokee and Lily, so isolated and alone, I felt myself sinking rapidly, trying my hardest merely to get out of bed in the morning and function, slipping into "full-catastrophe" mode, that is, trying to keep myself alive, and not psychotic.

ONE BEDAZZLING MID-APRIL morning I was sitting in the doorway of Lily Putnam's room with a Pfizer cappuccino and a DuPont brioche. Lily was asleep. I was waiting until her next dose of drugs, which would be the lowest concentration of the six drugs in her system. It was at these times that she was slightly more alert. I felt I had to make contact with her. Cherokee's delusion that she was being fucked by Schlomo was gnawing at me.

From time to time I would tune in to the Behavior Modification therapist, a short solid woman with a body like a van, a face like a hubcap, and a mind like a gearshift. Her name was Cynthia Krabkin, and she was pacing back and forth beside the psychotic chicken farmer, making him repeat over and over:

"I am not a kernel of corn, I am not a kernel of corn, I am not…"

Cynthia Krabkin's philosophy was that his repetition of this phrase a million times combined with the reward of her company might condition the chicken farmer to think he was not a kernel of corn. Sitting there on the quiet ward, I found this strangely comforting, a hymnal to the farmlands where men were men and women were women and animals were slaughtered and people ate red meat.

"Lily Putnam?" the nurse called out. I signaled I would bring her over.

"Lily," I said, shaking her gently. "Wake up." Startled, she stared at me. "It's me, Dr. Basch? Do you ever think of killing yourself?" She stared at me dully, and shook her head slowly, no. "Have you ever?" Another shake of the head no. "Have you ever heard voices telling you to kill yourself?" A shake of the head yes. She got up. Puzzling. Disturbing.

"Hey, Dr. Dickhead!"

I turned. Thorny? He was strapped to a stretcher being wheeled in. His clothes were in rags, his body was covered with fresh cuts and bruises, and he looked emaciated. His eyes were wild and his mouth was blaring, nonstop, a stream of consciousness sometimes making sense, mostly not:

"This dickhead's still clean Doc Zoe's in deep shit my old man is turning the Gulf to shit my mind is solid toxic waste haste makes-"

He was in the throes of a manic episode, totally psychotic. Deedee the nurse was moving toward him with a syringe, and I jumped up and got my body between her and Thorny. "Hold it," I said. "What are you doing?"

"Using the SPERT."

"What's a spurt?"

"Sub-Protocol Explaining Rapid Tranquilization."

"Which drugs?"

"I… I'm not sure. The SPERT drugs."

"All right. I know him. I'll take care of him myself. No SPERT."

"Yes and I'm using the SPERT-"

I grabbed his stretcher and wheeled him into the Quiet Room to talk.

It was impossible. Thorny's mind was racing, driven by a big motor, without much regard for whoever it was running at:

'Toxic Henry Solini's gone Zoe's gone to Ecce Schl-homo\ Basch's in it for cash when I was up on my daddy's refinery tank down in Paradis Loosiana I heard God say 'the Dick-heads Shalt Inherit the Earth.' "

Staring into his eyes, I saw myself unseen by him. As he continued to blast along, thrashing against the restraints, I sat on the floor, my back strangely comfortable against the harsh

smooth white wall, and read his chart. He'd been arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana, after a fight in a music joint in the poor section called Ledbetter. His family had been after him ever since he'd been seen splashing fake blood on his father's refineries near Paradis, Louisiana, on the Mississippi south of New Orleans, and then had shown up at his trust-fund executor's house in the Garden District, badgering him for cash, having spent forty grand in ten days on a car and clothes and, they guessed, though Thorny denied it, on drugs. He'd broken into the Strand Theatre in Shreveport, a national historic opera house on whose facade was carved the motto "Progressive Amusement for Progressive People," and had recited from the stage the storm scene from King Lear. His father had been called, and had gotten a court order to commit him back into Misery.

While it wasn't clear what had flipped Thorny out-Zoe's abandonment of him, maybe-it was clear that he needed meds. If, as he swore on the Bible, he had not used drugs or booze on his manic trip, I knew from Malik that I had to be careful not to give him any drug that would rev up his addiction. At the minimum he needed Thorazine to cool down the manic engine, Cogentin to counter the side effects of Thorazine, and lithium. Of all the drugs I'd used in psychiatry, I had the most faith in lithium. It was a safe, natural salt that had been used for almost fifty years, and worked miracles with monies.

"I'm going to give you lithium carbonate," I said to Thorny.

"Toxic sweetheart I'm still clean and sober so don't fuck me ober!"

"Lithium's not toxic. You need it"

"No Department of Defense babies volare that killed that sweet lady Mary Megan Scorato?"

"No, none of them. Will you take the pills by mouth?"

"Only from a fellow dickhead check out them shoe-zers?"

I followed his glance to his feet. His Reeboks were tied tight, the rabbit ears lying peacefully across their double knot.

"You taught me that so I'm your patient you red-hot dickhead red on the head like a dick on a dog-deal?"

"Deal." He took the pills by mouth, and I left.

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This sign greeted Jill and me at the entrance to Errol Cabot's seaside estate. The long winding driveway through the lumpy red-streaked rocks was lined with cars, and we squeezed my old Mustang in between two tattered, seasick bushes. Loud drumming got louder as we walked toward the house, which, appearing suddenly against the empty sky, seemed as huge as an ocean liner, all wings and porches and decks and dormers and gables, shingled perfectly even over the tough angles, in classic New England fashion. The huge old mansion had been newly renovated, and the inside was less classic New England than postmodern Los Angeles. There was already a crush of people there, and Jill and I were greeted in the vast foyer by Errol and Win and two women, one a teenager of heart-wrenching beauty-Errol's newest girlfriend-the other a plainly dressed fortyish woman whose face spoke of many battles with kids and the laundry-Win's wife. Errol wore a baseball cap that read: MY WIFE RAN OFF