David Wallace - The Pale King - An Unfinished Novel

‘So you didn’t know that he had cardiomyopathy.’

‘All he’d say was that his health was a mess but that the advantage of being a physical mess was that he looked like exactly as much of a mess as he really was, there was no way to hide it or pretend he was less of a mess than he felt like. Which was very different than people like me; he said the only way for most people to show the mess was to fall apart and get put someplace like this, like Zeller, where it was undeniably obvious to you and your family and everybody else that you were a mess, so there was at least a certain relief to being put in the nut ward, but he said given the realities here, meaning insurance and money and the way institutions like Zeller worked, given the realities it was almost sure that I wouldn’t be in here that long, and what was I going to do when I got back out there in the real world where there were all these razor blades and X-Acto knives and long-slaved shirts. Long-sleeved shirts.’

‘Can I ask a question?’

‘You bet.’

‘Did you react? When he brought up the idea that his helping you and intense conversations with you were connected to your attractiveness?’

Rand snaps and unsnaps her white cigarette case. ‘I said something like, so you’re saying you’d be in here with me all concerned and interested if I was fat with zits and a, like, big old jaw? And he said he couldn’t say one way or the other, he’d worked with all kinds of people that came through, and some were plain girls and some were pretty, he said it had more to do with how defended people were. If they were too defended in terms of their real problems — or if they were just outright psycho, and when they looked at him they saw some shiny terrifying four-faced statue or something — then he couldn’t do anything. It was only if he felt a kind of vibe off the person where he felt like he could maybe understand them and maybe offer real interpersonal talking and help with them instead of just the inevitable doctor-and-institution thing.’

‘Did you accept that as an answer to your question?’ Drinion says, without any kind of incredulous or judging expression that Meredith Rand can see.

‘No, I said something sarcastic like blah blah blah whatever, but he said that wasn’t his real answer, he wanted to answer the question because he knew how important it was, he could totally understand the anxiety and suspicion of would he really even care and pay attention if I wasn’t pretty, because he said in actuality this was my whole core problem, the one that would follow me when I got out of Zeller, and that I had to find out how to deal with or I’d be back in here or worse. Then he said it was close to lights-out and we had to quit for today, and I was, like, you’re telling me there’s this major core problem I have to deal with or else and then that’s it, time for noddy blinkums? I was so ticked off. And then the next two or three nights he wasn’t even there, and I was totally spasming out, and there was only this other guy there from the weekends, and the day staff won’t ever tell you anything, all they see is that you’re agitated and they report that you’re agitated but nobody actually cares about what you’re agitated about, no one wants to even know what your question is, if you’re an in-patient you’re not a human being and they don’t have to tell you anything.’ Rand makes her face assume a look of frustrated distance. ‘It turned out he’d been in the hospital — the real hospital; when the inflammation gets bad then the heart doesn’t pump the blood out all the way, and it’s a little like what they call congestive heart failure; they have to put you on oxygen and heavy-duty anti-inflammatories.’

‘So you were concerned,’ Drinion says.

‘But at the time I didn’t even know that, all I knew was he wasn’t there, and then it was the weekend, so it was a long time before he got back, and at first when he did I was totally ticked and wouldn’t even talk to him in the hall.’

‘You’d been left hanging.’

‘Well,’ Rand says, ‘I took it personally that he’d gotten me all involved and said all these heavy therapeutic things and then disappeared, like it was all just a sadistic game, and when he got back the next week and asked me in the TV room, I just pretended I was into the TV show and pretended he wasn’t even there.’

‘You didn’t know that he’d been in the hospital,’ Drinion says.

‘After I found out how sick he was, I felt pretty bad about it; I felt like I acted like a spoiled child or some girl that was jilted for the prom. But I also realized I cared about him, I felt like I almost sort of needed him, and except for my dad and a couple friends when I was little I couldn’t even remember how long it had been since I felt like I really cared and needed somebody. Because of the prettiness thing.’

Meredith Rand says: ‘Have you ever only found out you cared about somebody when they’re not around and you’re like Oh my God, they’re not around, now what am I going to do?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well anyway, but it made an impression. What came out when I finally said oh all right whatever and started talking to him in the conference room again is that maybe I’d felt like I’d ticked him off and sort of drove him away when I asked him if he’d be in here doing the intense tête-à-tête thing with me if I was fat and cross-eyed. Like that it ticked him off, or that he’d finally decided I was so cynical and suspicious of men only being interested in me because of the prettiness thing that he’d finally figured out that he wasn’t going to be able to con me into thinking he actually cared enough that he’d get to boff me or even just feed his ego that here was this so-called beautiful girl that got into him and cared and wrote his name over and over in big loopy cursive in her diary or whatever his trip was. I think all this ugly stuff came out because I was mad because he’d disappeared like that, I thought, and just ditched me and left me here. But he was pretty good about it; he said he could see how I’d feel that way, considering what my real problem was, which then for a while after that I think he let me think he hadn’t come in for work for those days just so I could start to see the problem for myself, to figure out what it was and start to see it for what it was.’

‘Did you demand any sort of explanation?’ Drinion asks.

‘A bunch of times. The weird thing is that now, so much later on, I can’t remember for sure if he eventually spat it out or if he got me to figure it out for myself,’ Meredith Rand says, now looking ever so slightly up in order to meet Drinion’s eyes, which if she’d think about it is rather strange, given their respective heights and places at the table, ‘the so-called core problem.’ Drinion’s forehead crinkles slightly as he looks at her. She rotates the fingers of one hand in a procedural or summarizing way: ‘Subject, who is seen as very pretty, wants to be liked for more than her prettiness, and is angry that she isn’t liked or cared about for reasons that don’t have anything to do with her prettiness. But in fact, everything about her is filtered through her prettiness for her— she is so angry and suspicious that she couldn’t even accept real, true, no-agenda caring even if it’s offered to her, because deep down inside she, the subject herself, can’t believe that anything except prettiness or sex appeal is the motive for anybody’s caring. Except her parents,’ she inserts, ‘who are nice but not too bright, and anyway they’re her parents — we’re talking about people out in the world.’ She makes a summing-up gesture that may or may not be ironic. ‘Subject is really her own core problem, and only she can solve it, and only if she quits wanting to be lonely and feeling sorry for myself and going “Poor me, I’m so lonely, nobody understands how bad I hurt, boo hoo.”’