John Gardner - Nickel Mountain

Doc said, staring fiercely down into the clutter of his medical bag, “My advice to you is, see a psychiatrist.” He’d said it twenty times before, after Callie’s mother had nagged him into believing that was the only hope, and once he’d shoved a pamphlet at Henry about mental illness; but mostly Doc kept off the subject for fear of starting an attack.

“I know what’s wrong with me,” Henry said. “I just need to work it out.”

Callie said another time, unnaturally sweet, putting her hand on Henry’s forehead, “Doc says it might be something chemical, Henry. He says there might be some pill you could take.”

“No,” Henry said. He sat forward to say it, as if trying to drive it through Callie’s skull by physical force, and she looked at the curtains and drew her hand away.

It wasn’t that he wanted to be contrary or that his sickness had made him a different man — irascible and spiteful — and certainly, despite their settled opinion, it wasn’t that he was afraid of hospitals, doctors, pills — or afraid, even, of whatever more severe treatments the pills might give way to. He didn’t like hospitals, true enough, but he would do more for the sake of his wife and son than any of them guessed. It was one of the few things he knew about himself for certain. He’d be willing to shoot himself for them if he had to. But this was something else. Neither was it that he didn’t believe what Doc Cathey said. It was probably true that something went wrong with your chemistry and if you took some pill you’d be able to work the thing out calmly, the problem still there but not white-hot in your mind: manageable. But true or not, he had to do it his own way. He couldn’t explain it because there was no explanation. About this, though, he was wrong. George Loomis could explain it.

Henry was sitting in the chair he had out by the gas pumps islands for hot summer nights, and George was sitting down on the curb of the island, smoking cigarettes, as always, one after another. There were rainclouds in the sky and the leaves had their backs turned and the wind was coming from the south gently, but the thermometer stood at ninety-four and they knew there would be no rain. Callie was leaning on the ethyl pump watching the drab, quiet sunset, not seeming to listen to their talk. The dog lay across the doorway to the diner, asleep.

Henry said:

“I keep seeing it over and over, George. I see it clearer even than it was, slowed down, like a movie. I see that look on his face, and me moving toward him, shouting at him, and it seems to me I have a choice, whether to keep on shouting or not, and I choose, I keep shouting, and then all at once he falls.” The muscles in Henry’s face were all out of control, and again, as before, his arm was rising uncontrollably to hide his eyes and he was twisting away a little in his chair to block the vision that stood before him closing out the hard reality of highway, trees, blue mountains in the distance. But George Loomis was looking at the asphalt, not noticing his face.

Henry said:

“I hear his head crack, George. And then I see him lying there jerking like a chicken. Jimmy didn’t see it, I don’t think, but I saw it. I sit up in bed and try to think of something else, but right away it comes back, the whole thing over again. You double up against it and go through all the movements as if your whole body was thinking it, and you see that choice coming and you can’t change it, and then there’s that movement of his feet toward the stairs, no way to stop it under heaven, like the movement of a train.” He felt tense all over, as if for a long time now he’d been holding his breath. “It’s like drowning,” he said. “I feel as if anybody comes into the room it will be just too much, I feel like I need to be somewhere out in the middle of a field, in the dark.” He was quiet a moment, sweating big drops. Suddenly he said: “We’re riding in the car on a narrow road and it comes to me in a sort of daydream I could reach out and slam my head against the truck we’re meeting, or I could reach out my hand, and then all at once there it is again, Simon Bale and me at the top of the stairs, and I’m shouting at him, and my hands tighten up on the steering wheel — it’s like a wound in your soul.” Again the memory was upon him, and he clamped his eyes shut, concentrating on thinking nothing, but it was useless and he waited for the memory to be over. When he opened his eyes again George was looking at him, distant. Henry fumbled for the cheese crackers he’d brought with him, somewhere down under his chair.

George Loomis said, “You need some kind of a pill.”

“Hell!” It came out like the bellow of a bull. “I know I need a pill.”

Still Callie pretended to be paying no attention, vaguely watching the sparrows on the highway, but she stiffened, making the others be still. Jimmy came around the corner of the diner on his tricycle, red-faced, vrooming the motor quietly. He glanced at them shyly, as if conscious of the dividing line between himself and them, then looked back at his handlebars. He came over toward the gas island and at the last moment veered away and headed back where he’d come from. Where the asphalt ended the dirt was cracked in small squares and as hard as cement.

“But pills are beneath your dignity,” George said.

“No,” Henry said, quietly this time, not expecting them to believe it, not asking even George Loomis to understand how he felt. Callie looked at the birds.

But George said, “Yes, they are.” He was nodding to himself as if he not only saw how it was but partly agreed. “The trouble with taking a pill is, you might feel better. That would be the worst thing could happen. You wouldn’t be human any more.”

“Crap!” Callie said fiercely.

It was the first time Henry had ever heard her say it, and when he looked up, he saw that her lips were shaking.

George reached over, not even looking up, and put his hand on her shoe. “No, wait,” he said. “It’s true. He says he made a choice, the choice to go on yelling, which makes him to blame for Simon Bale’s dying. But he knows that’s only word games. He didn’t know Simon would fall downstairs, and even if he did, it’s one time in a thousand you kill yourself that way. It was an accident, Henry was the accidental instrument, a pawn, a robot labeled Property of Chance. That’s intolerable, a man should be more than that; and that’s what Henry’s suffering from — not guilt. However painful it may be, in fact even if it kills him, horror’s the only dignity he’s got.”

“That’s stupid,” Callie said vehemently. But Henry saw she’d understood.

“Right,” George said. He looked at her, expressionless, and for a long moment they watched each other. Callie looked away first. She scowled at the woods across the road (the starlings were settling in the trees now) and she fiddled with her belt buckle, tightening it. She said:

“Why do men think they have to have dignity?”

“A word, an empty word,” George agreed.

Henry said: “Why can’t we just be like the Goat Lady?” He laughed.

He wasn’t prepared for the way it shocked George. Callie looked disgusted, but George Loomis blushed dark red. Henry looked down, away from George, at once. After a minute he said, “I didn’t know you even saw her, George.”

“I didn’t,” George said. “I only heard about her.”

Callie too saw that something was wrong. She said, “I’d better get Jimmy inside. It’ll be dark soon.” She left them quickly.

Henry and George sat there by the island for another ten minutes, but neither of them said a word. After-chores customers began to arrive. In the gray of dusk the figures of Henry and George grew less substantial, it seemed to Callie, watching from the diner. At last Henry pushed up out of his chair slowly and came in.