William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

Koesler had never encountered any phenomenon to match this. He found it unnerving. “What’s happened to you, Rid?”

Groendal frowned and tried to concentrate. “I’m not sure, Bob. I think it’s electroshock. They give it to me every three days or so. It seems to be wiping out my memory . . . at least my memory of recent events. I can remember distant things, but the more recent things I’m not too clear on. This is a good example. You say you’ve been here before. I don’t doubt you were, especially since you say you were. Since I’ve forgotten all kinds of things over the past few days, your visit is probably gone with the rest. Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. It’s not your fault. But what are they doing to you?”

“I don’t know. Curing me?”

“Of what?”

“Oh, didn’t they tell you? I had a nervous breakdown. The psychiatrist has a couple more technical names for it. But it comes down to a nervous breakdown.”

“Holy cow! I never knew anybody with a nervous breakdown.”

“Neither did I.” Groendal grinned weakly. “Yesterday I didn’t know what a nervous breakdown was; today I are one.” The grin didn’t last.

“What brought it on?”

“I . . . I don’t know. At least I’m not sure.”

“Was it that business at the seminary?”

Groendal looked at Koesler sharply. “What business?”

“Uh . . . between you and Charlie Hogan.”

“What do you know about that?”

“There was talk.”

“What was it? I want to know. Maybe I need to know.”

Koesler recited a synopsis of the various hypotheses that had been bandied about, especially among the philosophy students. Groendal listened with more attention than he’d been able to drum up in the recent past. The theories were substantially correct. That surprised Groendal. Scuttlebutt was rarely accurate. Those details that were incorrect were not worth arguing over. Especially not in his impaired condition.

Without identifying which items in the account were right or wrong, Groendal conceded that the rumors were basically true.

Ridley pondered what he might say next. Because Koesler was a classmate; because he was a fellow parishioner, a neighbor; and for some other indefinable reason, maybe because he had proven himself trustworthy, Koesler had been privy to nearly everything that had happened to Groendal. Ridley decided to share the final secret. He told Koesler of his meeting with Jane Condon and her announcement

“Wow!” was Koesler’s comment.

“Bob, you’re going to have to find some other kind of reaction to news. ‘Wow!’ is not going to get you all that far in the priesthood.”

“Uh . . . you’re right.”

“Do you mind if we go out and walk the grounds for a while? I’m permitted to do that . . . I just haven’t felt up to it till now.”

“I don’t know, Rid. I’m here under false colors. What if they challenge me?”

“They won’t. If you got this far, you won’t have any more trouble. Besides, if we stay in this room all the while, someone may accuse us of having a ‘particular friendship.’” There was bitterness in Groendal’s tone as he pronounced the last two words.

Koesler flushed. The thought that he and Ridley might have been suspected of having such a relationship had never crossed his mind. He agreed to the walk.

They started along the brick path within the grounds, slowly at first, then picking up speed. It was so like the walks they’d taken so often at the seminary. And so different. Now one was still a seminarian and one was not. One was still on his way to the priesthood. The other had no idea of what might become of him. So far, however, Groendal was correct: No one had challenged them.

“One thing puzzles me,” Koesler said. “You said that . . . whatever it is they’re doing to you . . .”

“Shock treatments.”

“. . . is affecting your memory of recent events. But you can remember what happened between you and Charlie Hogan and between you and Jane Condon.”

“I know, Bob, and I can’t explain it. Except that those things were so important to me. It’s like I couldn’t forget them even if I wanted to. Maybe these are the memories they’re trying to erase.”

“So Jane’s going to have a baby.”

“So she said.”

“And you’re going to be a father.”

“Again, so she says.”

“You don’t believe her?”

“What if she told me she was going to have a baby just to get me to marry her?”

“Okay, I suppose that’s possible. If you wait a little longer, you’ll know. Either she’ll have the baby or she won’t. What if she does have the baby?”

“What if I’m not the father?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Rid; I’m no expert in these things. But either you did or you didn’t.”

“Oh, I did all right. But what if someone else did it after me? What if he is the father?”

“Hmmm. I don’t know. What can you do about it?”

“Nothing that I can think of.”

“Mr. Groendal! Mr. Groendal!” An attendant was calling from the building. “Dr. Bartlett wants to see you now.”

“I guess that’s it, ‘Father’ Koesler.” Groendal led the way back.

“Are they going to give you the shock treatment now?”

“No, they save that for the morning. Tomorrow morning, I think.”

“What’s it like?”

“I don’t think you want to know. Oh, well, they put something in your mouth, then they put these electrodes on your head. I guess it’s something like being electrocuted. They just don’t give you enough juice to kill you.”

Koesler shuddered. “That’s awful!”

“You said it.”

They shook hands.

“You really put yourself out, Bob. I appreciate it. I won’t forget you.”

Koesler hesitated. “One last thing, Rid: Have you given any thought to what’s happened to you? I mean, all of it has happened to you. You don’t seem to have been in control of anything. Just a thought. I don’t know why I even mentioned it. Well, good luck, Rid. Oremus pro invicem. ”

“Yeah, we’ll pray for each other. Thanks.”

Groendal watched Koesler, straw hat in place, walk away from St. Joseph’s Retreat. Koesler was leaving. Groendal was confined. But what was it Bob had said? In effect, that Groendal was passive. Things happened to him. He was not in control.

These thoughts reverberated through his numbed mind as he approached Dr. Bartlett’s office.

There were those who would argue that Groendal was lucky to have Dr. Roland Bartlett as his psychiatrist. He was regarded in Catholic circles as God’s gift to emotionally ill priests and nuns. In addition to an extensive private practice, he made himself available almost every time a priest or a nun was committed to psychiatric care.

Bartlett himself was a devoutly religious Catholic who preferred a revisited or refreshed sacramental life to deep psychoanalysis. Everyone—priests, nuns, and laity—who came to him was queried about his or her religious condition. The next question: How active was his or her active participation in that religion? Backsliders of whatever denomination were ordered to return to their church before the esteemed doctor would treat them.

Thus, those whose problems were caused by their church got caught in psyche-religious Catch-22. It was only one of Dr. Bartlett’s flaws.

“Good afternoon, Ridley. Feeling down again?” The doctor’s expression suggested he was hoping for a bit of depression to work on.

It was as if the doctor’s greeting awakened Groendal. “I don’t think so. I was wondering when the next treatment—you know, the shock treatment—was due?”

“Tomorrow morning. Why do you ask?”

“What do I have to do . . . what has to happen for the treatments to be stopped? What would make you decide to cancel or postpone tomorrow’s treatment?”