I Can Hear the Mourning Dove (10 page)

But it takes a lot of saliva to eat a cookie. The cookie is large in circumference, but extremely thin. It is chocolate chip, but it also has M&Ms baked in it. Since it doesn't break, it must be that my head doesn't weigh very much. Of course it could also be that my head is actually quite heavy, but the pillow is an effective cushion.

Some days I talk to Dr. Rowe, but I can't remember what we say to each other.

I don't like to go to sleep at night. I like to sit in the lounge by the open window and listen to the mourning dove and hear the cattle lowing at the university farm at milking time.

“Grace, it's time for your medicine, and you need to get dressed.”

Mrs. Grant means well, and she has my best interests at heart, but she is often in the mist. I say to her, “Mrs. Grant, floating in the mist must be disorienting for you.”

“There's no mist here, Grace. Did you hear what I said to you?”

There is a farm report on television. Miss Ivey is sitting in her usual chair in front of the set. I wonder if anything she watches penetrates her brain.

Mrs. Grant takes a seat beside me.

“Mrs. Grant, if you'll be very, very still, there's a good chance you will hear the mourning dove.”

“At least you know who I am today. I like mourning doves too, but you're not listening to what I'm telling you.”

“No bird could ever be more precious to humanity than a dove, Mrs. Grant. Throughout the ages, the dove has stood for peace and harmony and healing. Even at the baptism of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.”

She just says something more about getting cleaned up. Her voice is beginning to pop with static. She is making a pest of herself. I suddenly feel cold, and start to quiver. I say to her, “If I'm clean enough, Mrs. Grant, will I get well?”

“That's not the point, Grace. Why are you shaking?”

“It's the static and the mist. It gives me the chills.”

“There's no mist and no static either.”

“Maybe if I scrubbed and scrubbed, I would be cleansed and purified. With thick, shiny hair, and lots of deodorant and baby powder and manicured, oval fingernails, and a transformation would take place. I would be in control.” I am shivering and my teeth are chattering; I am giggling, or it might be sobbing, I'm not sure. I'm so glad Mrs. Grant is here.

Dr. Phyllis Rowe asks me about my metal sculpture.

“My father made it. It is made of old metal scraps, welded together. Beauty is painted with bronze-colored spray paint, but not the Beast. I wonder if he had it to do over again, if he would paint the Beast too.”

“Maybe he thought it was appropriate for Beauty to be shiny and the Beast to be rusty.”

It seems like a keen observation. I like it when she talks to me like this. I say, “I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think that's it exactly.”

She says, “It's a lovely skill to take discarded materials and turn them into something beautiful.”

Dr. Rowe is in her fifties, but quite attractive. Her long hair is grayish blond; when she was younger she was probably chic, like Miss Braverman. I say to her suddenly, “Dr. Rowe, I think I'd like to stay here.” There are tears stinging my eyes; I don't know from whence they came or how fast.

“This is a hospital, Grace. People don't come to hospitals to stay, they come to get better.”

“I'd like to stay here forever.”

“Nobody stays here forever. If they don't get better, they go to a long-term facility.” Her voice is starting to crackle with static; she is shorting out.

“I would like to stay here, it's so far from the world that hurts and scares.”

“Not as far as it seems. A hospital is not as safe as it seems and the real world is not as scary as it seems.”

“I love to sit at the open window in the lounge, in the early morning when it's so peaceful and quiet. I listen to the mourning dove and the cattle lowing at the farm at milking time. The dove is the sky and the farm is the earth. When you have the earth and the sky, you have the mother and the father; you have the ultimate meaning of life.”

“If all your experience came through the window of an institution, I don't think you'd have much of life at all.”

Her voice is full of static. If she insists on quarreling with everything I say, I'm going to get scrambled. I don't want to get scrambled, I have to change the subject. “Do you think if I loved my statue enough, it would come to life?”

“I don't understand what you mean.” She pauses and lights a cigarette. Her lighter is pale gold and her fingernail polish is beige.

“Like the Pygmalion story from the Greeks. He sculpted a statue of a woman and he loved the statue so dearly that a goddess intervened and the statue came to life. If I loved the statue enough, do you think it might come to life?”

“It makes a good story, but I've never seen a statue come to life. I've seen people dead inside come to life, though.”

“Dr. Rowe, please don't be offended, but why do you smoke cigarettes?”

“It's an old habit. I often think of quitting, but I never seem to get the job done. Maybe I don't have enough character. If the smoke bothers you, I'll put it out.”

“No, please, it doesn't bother me. Besides, if you smoke cigarettes, it shows you're not perfect. Everyone's life is so sound except mine.” People who are in control form a line in my brain. DeeDee. Miss Braverman. My mother. Dr. Rowe. Even the Surly People, because they live on such a primitive level, don't get scrambled or go flat out.

Dr. Rowe says, “Very few people are as much in control as they seem.”

The tears are forming in my eyes again, and once again I blink them back. I don't want to cry and I don't want to get scrambled. “Dr. Rowe, would you have tea with me sometime?”

“How do you mean?”

“I'd like to have tea, just the two of us. We could have it with milk, if you like it that way. We could have some little biscuits and scones, like the English do.”

“Do you mean here, when we're having one of our conferences?”

“Oh no, it would have to be a completely different environment, a tearoom or a parlor. And we couldn't talk about my psyche, or things that have to do with a pathological mind. We would talk about art and literature and current events.”

“I think that sounds nice, Grace. You're an interesting person to talk to. I think I would enjoy it.”

Her static is gone. I feel several moments of inner peace, even though the tears are rolling down my cheeks.

This is a different day, that much I'm sure of. If my dad comes today, we will probably read some Eliot. It's been so long since we read any of the cat poems.

Miss Ivey is in front of the set again, gripping her vibrating wrist. The television is so annoying. We got the cookies on Miss Ivey's birthday, and mine is still intact, beneath my pillow, with a tiny spot of wax in the center where the birthday candle burned down. Miss Ivey didn't know it was her birthday. She is a catatonic crone. Some day, many years from now, I will also be a catatonic crone.

I say this to Mrs. Grant and she says, “Nonsense. You will never be any such thing.”

“How long will Miss Ivey stay here? Won't they have to find a special place for her?”

“I don't know, Grace. It's a decision I don't have to make, thank the Good Lord.”

“Some day, I will be just like her. It's the only prognosis for my life which stands to reason. When I first knew it, it seemed like such a desperate thought, but not anymore. I think Miss Ivey is in a safe, peaceful zone where no pain or fear or desperation can ever reach her.”

“That's not living, though.”

“Even if you're right, what's so great about living?”

“I don't want to hear that kind of talk. Go get your shoes on; it's time for bowling.”

“I don't want to go bowling.”

“You don't have a choice. Your whole group is going.”

“Why should I have to go bowling if I hate it?”

“You know why. Because your group voted to go.”

“But I didn't vote to go.”

“It makes no difference. Your group voted to go, and you go with your group. Now up and at 'em.”

We go bowling.

We ride in the hospital van. The sky voice comes:
Bowling Alleys are places where Surly People congregate. The forces of darkness may be in your presence
.

Please don't bother me right now.

Don't shrink from your mission. You stand in the legion of light
.

Please go away from me; I never know what to do.

We arrive at the bowling alley, on the interstate. There are many people inside and they stare at us. Why shouldn't they? We don't belong here. Bowling and other sports are for people who are in control and whose lives are sound. It's absurd for us to come here and pretend. When you're crazy in the hospital, you pretend and pretend, as if you can be cured, the way a person with an infection can be cured with penicillin.

Mrs. Grant forces me to wear ugly bowling shoes. She enters our names on a computer screen suspended from the ceiling. Everywhere there are the staring eyes. I hate being this much in touch; just enough to feel disoriented and afraid and humiliated. It would be so much better to be in Miss Ivey's zone. Her world is safe; it can't be penetrated. It would be better to slide peacefully into the crimson water and sleep the sleep that never ends.

There is a new member of our group. He is called Luke. I never saw him before yesterday, but he is clearly one of the Surly People. He is on lockup, so a guard is supervising him here. Sometimes I have seen him playing Frisbee in the courtyard with his lockup guard.

His every movement is reckless. He launches his bowling ball down the shiny blond lane with such velocity that it scatters the pins in a shattering collision. He would love to smash the pins to bits.

He leaves our lane and sits with other Surly People in the next lane. He drinks some of their beer and they all smoke cigarettes and laugh loudly. Does he know them, or is there just some brotherhood that connects Surly People wherever they meet? His security guard brings him back and tells him he will have to stay with the group.

“Whatever you say, Chief.”

He comes close to me to sit, but I mustn't look at him. I must never look in his eyes. My heart pounds with fear and I look away. Suddenly, the memory of being molested by the Surly People is so vivid it brings tears to my eyes. I want to go to the bathroom.

Semper fidelis; this is the time to be on guard
.

Please let me alone; I don't understand what you expect from me.

When my turn comes, I am still blinking back the tears; I feel so shaken I want to be skipped.

“Mrs. Grant, please go on to the next person. I just can't do it right now.”

“Sure you can, Grace. All you have to do is roll a bowling ball. And while you're at it, you might try and have a little fun.”

Her voice is crackling and I'm short of breath. “Mrs. Grant, I'll eat everything on my plate, I promise. Anything that's not flesh, I mean.”

“Don't be silly. Take your turn and try to relax.”

I am standing holding the ball. It is so very, very heavy my arms start to tremble. The bowling lane is pitched like the ridge of a roof or a mountain peak—if I don't throw the ball precisely down the sharp crease at the center, it will probably roll all the way down to the sea.

I know that people are staring at me. A thousand eyes, a thousand contemptuous eyes. My whole body is shaking and I can't hold back the tears. I move forward a step or two and drop the ball feebly to the floor with a thud. It rolls slowly into the gutter and then trickles forward about twenty feet. It comes to a dead stop. I am frozen in place, short of breath and quivering, staring at the motionless ball. The flashbulbs are popping in my brain.

There's no telling how much time passes, but it feels like forever. There are bursts of laughter from the nearby Surly People. A repeated beeping is coming from the computer screen above our lane; it is the eye. Even the darkest corner of my brain can't hide from the eye. It beeps again and again, carving in my brain.

No one dares to approach the ball; it is forbidden to walk down a bowling lane. There is only the repeated beeping. I am scrambled.

Then the one called Luke saunters down the lane and picks up the ball. He is total nonchalance and total contempt; a cigarette dangles from his lips. He launches the ball the rest of the way. It shatters the pins like a peal of thunder. On his way back he passes close to me; he smells of tobacco and a familiar after-shave. He is like all Surly People; there is nothing in life he respects and nothing can intimidate him.

I mustn't look in his eyes. His arm brushes my arm and I am chilled, covered with gooseflesh. I am shaking so that I can't turn to the right or the left. I will wet my pants and there will be a puddle beneath me, on the shiny blond floor.

He calls to Mrs. Grant, “What the hell, give her a strike.” His voice is a hailstorm of static as he disappears into the mist.

“Mrs. Grant, can you help me please?”

“What is it, Grace? Turn around please.”

“Can you help me down, Mrs. Grant? Can you help me down from the ridge? Please, I need to find the bathroom.”

Dr. Rowe wants to know how I'm feeling.

“I am very, very sick. In plain language, I'm a schizophrenic.”

“Schizophrenia is not plain language. I think you're more in touch.”

“In touch is hospital talk,” I say. “I'm in touch enough to be frightened and get scrambled. But I'm very sick. I'm not going to get better.”

She smiles at me. “A few days ago, you told me you didn't want to get better. You said you'd rather stay in the hospital.”

“I can't see where the humor lies. My future is over; I'm going to spend the rest of my life one foot in the looney bin and one foot out.”