Suzy Zeus Gets Organized (6 page)

CHAPTER 8
Suzy Committed

SUZY COMES TO

Rolling on a padded stretcher.

Someone says the taxi veered.

So, has she been hearing voices?

No, she thinks, just thinking weird.

Suzy's doctor wears a sweater,

brogues, a bookcase, and a beard.

SUZY CONFUSED

Suzy's roommates stare and mumble

on their creepy plastic cots.

Suzy's locked on Ten West A, a

safety zone ("no sharps, no hots").

Pencils at the nursing station,

no real vases, flowerpots.

Trying pills in sunset colors.

Some look like a smiley face.

Suzy's doctor shows her pictures

(modern artwork: messy ink).

Asks her first to count by sevens.

Panthers, bison, bats, a moth.

Suzy's thoughts are slow and sluggish,

Suzy's brain waves long and tall.

Asks her what the pictures look like.

Backward, down from eighty-one.

Suzy doesn't feel like moving.

There's no outlets in the wall.

SUZY CONFINED

Group is where they welcome Charlie.

Hair like wire, eyes like plates.

Calls himself a whirling dervish.

Says he's full of altered states.

Into Suzy's room at midnight

Charlie sneaks to read her Yeats.

Charlie's hushed and too excited.

Charlie's voice is moist and deep.

Charlie has a pair of glasses

like the headlights of a jeep.

Suzy wants to say good night now.

Suzy wants to go to sleep.

Love has built a castle somewhere.

Words come faster, lower, more.

Charlie speaks of Jove and Jesus,

heaven as "the farther shore."

Charlie brings up tears of joy and,

sobbing, rolls around the floor.

SUZY CONNECTS

Suzy Zeus got off the unit.

Said she needed space to pray.

In the chapel, Suzy read where

Jesus said "I'm in the way."

Then the priest arrived and blessed them.

Had them all sing "Day by Day."

Suzy feels a little better.

Suzy feels a little worse.

Suzy picks a favorite doctor.

Jim is Suzy's favorite nurse.

Jim thought church was really boring.

"Day by Day" has just one verse.

SUZY CONVALESCES

Every day she gets a menu—

dried-up pork, or dried-up steak?

Usually she asks for chicken.

Usually it's Shake 'n Bake.

Jim starts saving Suzy Jell-O,

squares of crumble, squares of cake.

Suzy's told to draw a picture:

"My Imagination Land."

Suzy has to sway in rhythm,

dance a color on demand.

Suzy bumps and grinds as purple.

Suzy draws a sun, and sand.

Jim says can he have the picture.

When she's discharged. Don't forget.

Jim says why's the beach towel empty.

Suzy hasn't got there yet.

Jim is into gene pools. Jim is

into genealogy.

Says that he's half Irish, which is

good to know, and good to be.

Says that Zeus is Greek, and that's the

reason Suzy loves the sea.

Suzy gets a pen from Jim. Draws

in a tiny ballpoint jet.

CHAPTER 9
Astroland

There's a loose in your walk

and a long in your bones

There's a scratch in your laugh

I'
d like to
own
—
own
—
own
—
own
—
own
—

Donnez-moi your secretest secret

Donnez-moi your privatest part

Donnez-moi a new way of wishing

and I'll donnez-vous a place in my heart

There's a look in your smile

And the crook of your knee

There's a book on your bed

I'
d like to
be
—
be
—
be
—
be
—
be
—

Donnez-moi a lick and a promise

Donnez-moi an umbrella you stole

Donnez-moi a new way of wishing

and I'll donnez-vous a place in my soul

Donnez-moi your silliest story

Donnez-moi your sharpest knife

Donnez-moi a new way of wishing

and I'll donnez-vous a place in my life

SUZY GETS OUT

Suzy's told to keep appointments.

Suzy's told, "Depression kills."

Suzy's told to keep good records.

Suzy's told to take her pills.

Suzy leaves the patient kitchen

with its plastic daffodils.

Jim has done some extra reading.

Zeus, he tells her, might be Dutch.

Zeus says thanks for care and feeding.

Jim says meds are not a crutch.

Jim tells Suzy keep on truckin'.

Jim tells Suzy keep in touch.

Suzy's tired in the taxi.

Suzy thinks about her bed.

Lithium's a heavy metal.

Suzy's arms and legs are lead.

SUZY GETS HOME

Sitting on the bathtub's edge. She's

here. She's her. She's back. She's out.

Fingering the splitting caulk, the

bathtub ring, the dirty grout.

Suzy's broken like a teapot—

cracked and glued but lost its spout.

Suzy wipes the messed-up mirror.

There she is: a second Eve.

Maybe just a little smarter.

Wonders what she might achieve.

Wonders if she has more bath salts.

Wonders, what does she believe?

Blessed is she if she's crying?

Blessed is she if she's poor?

Blessed if she's hungry? Like her

floating soap, she's not quite pure.

Healing doesn't sound so finished.

God should grant an all-out cure.

Thank the Lord there's more hot water.

And her toes. She has all ten.

Suzy uses purple polish.

Has since grade school. Way back then.

Thinks about the Crucifixion

and the cruelty of men.

SUZY GETS SURPRISED

Suzy starts to read the paper.

Spends a lot of time in bed.

Rises slowly in the shadows,

kind of like a loaf of bread.

Suzy does some finger painting—

lots of blue with bits of red.

Suzy lies upon her sofa,

Suzy lies beside the phone.

Sometimes Suzy Zeus lies supine,

sometimes Suzy Zeus lies prone.

When it rings, it isn't William.

More like from the Twilight Zone.

Having saved the "Father Wanted"

from an ancient
New York Press,

Bitterino, on a pay phone—

sounded like a total mess.

Suzy said to come and see her.

Said it was the same address.

SUZY GETS A RINSE

Suzy Zeus poured Bit some coffee.

Bit was looking awful low.

Like she had no pal to turn to,

like she had no place to go.

Needed food and needed friendship,

needed sleep and needed dough.

Bit wants change and wants it pronto.

Understanding's not enough.

What good's seeing what's repeating,

knowing it's the same old stuff?

Bit was tired, sad, and angry,

looking inward, looking tough.

Suzy has a long, long hallway.

Suzy has a rocking chair.

Still hears Harry where he isn't

(like, his footstep on the stair).

Bitterino brought her brushes.

Spent three days on Suzy's hair.

SUZY GETS GOING

Suzy's sleeping. Suzy's cooking.

Olive oil and lemon zest.

In the mirror Suzy's looking

at a friend from back out West.

Suzy's better.

Time to put her

higher powers to the test.

Suzy wants her line to God back.

Suzy wants to feel awake.

Suzy wants to feel a world that

isn't brave and new and fake.

Suzy ponders in her heart—can't

she control a manic break?

Suzy took her meds on Tuesday,

half on Wednesday, none today.

Suzy's mind is quicker now. To

take your pills and then to pray?

Stuffing earplugs in your ears. She

wants to hear what God will say.

SUZY GETS THE PICTURE

Father Robert preaches welcome,

action, risk, and ruthless love.

As she wanders, Suzy wonders

if it's this he's thinking of.

Suzy's lashed her soul to Him: the

talons on the Holy Dove.

Suzy nears the midnight Hudson,

where her pills will meet their fate.

Look—St. Jude's is full of candles.

Boy, St. Jude's is open late.

No one's shut the wooden doors, and

no one's closed the iron gate.

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,

Of the mighty conflict sing
.
..

Voices waft from all the windows.

In the yard the smell of spring.

Tell the
triumph
— Suzy enters.

Not much light . . .
thy tribute bring.

Rank on rank the congregation's

squeezed in tight beneath the dome.

This is like those crowds of tourists

visiting the Pope in Rome.

Then the hymn dissolves in silence.

Few by few the folks head home.

Everybody's very quiet.

No one laughs, or breathes a word.

Maybe she can ask on Sunday

what it was, the hymn she heard.

Suzy knows the people leaving.

Yes, she knows at least a third.

Dana's there, with Sam and Michael.

Lee is walking out with Tim.

Rachel must have had the baby . . .

Hard to tell—the light's so dim.

William's boyfriend looks exhausted.

Steven's with the other Jim.

Toward the back, inside the chapel,

stands a special silver urn.

Burlap covers all the pictures.

Watchers watch the candles burn.

Could this be her mission starting?

Will her brain begin to churn?

People kneel, or sit, in silence.

Suzy wonders what they hear.

If they're hearing. Suzy wonders

if this happens every year.

God is there, but saying nothing.

Maybe not quite there, but near.

In the dripping of the candles

Suzy doesn't hear a call.

Suzy doesn't see a vision

in the wood grain on the wall.

Please don't let her task be small-time.

Please don't let her task be small.

Suzy prays to get directions.

Suzy prays to get a sign.

Suzy prays for more support: a

tougher shell, a stronger spine.

Suzy wants to battle evil—

things like war, and Columbine.

Then a wreck, a skinny neck, his

eyes a tangle, hair the same.

Suzy knows she knows those eyes, and

then she knows she knows his name.

Charlie, dressed to look dramatic.

Charlie looking pretty lame.

Trying hard to seem like lightning—

wanting silver, getting gray.

Jesus empty, not so frightening,

halfway through a Passion play.

Charlie's eyes are grasping fingers.

Suzy shrugs and looks away.

Suzy thinks of plastic stainless.

Who you are is where you've been.

Who you are is where you're going.

Maybe it's what shape you're in.

Maybe it's who's coming with you.

Are its edges at your skin?

Great. She's not just home but grounded.

Plus her homework may be dull.

Volunteering, at the church. Her

meds at work inside her skull.

It's no dove, the Holy Spirit.

Just a squawking common gull.

God may speak, but just to prophets.

Saints may, too, but just to Joan.

Suzy's not an island, but she

wanted so to work alone.

Suzy whacks the iron railings.

Suzy kicks the cornerstone.

SUZY GETS CURIOUS

Suzy reads the Dalai Lama.

Harry and the rest, go hang.

Suzy doesn't need more drama—

she's eschewing Sturm und Drang.

Robert says the world's not ending,

with a whimper
or
a bang.

March is Bitterino's birthday.

Suzy gets her ankle socks.

Tries to bake a flower cake the

shape of Bitter's favorite, phlox.

Devil's food with purple frosting—

pretty good for from a box.

John the Baptist baptized Jesus—

how can Jesus be a Jew?

Suzy can't fold down the kneeler.

Where's the goddamn pivot screw?

Should they sit? Will God be angry?

Move to someone else's pew?

Bitterino weighs the weight that

Suzy thinks is good to weigh.

Bit says Suzy's measurements are

absolutely quite okay.

Last night Suzy wondered if her

pubic hair would all go gray.

SUZY GETS READY

Signing up for singing classes.

Suzy's teacher's name is Nat.

Nat King Cole sang jazz like crazy.

Suzy wants to learn to scat

just like Ella (was it Billie?)—

first she's got to not be flat.

Suzy's going to train for choir

plus take lessons on her own.

Learn to breathe and count in quarters,

study Mozart, tune, and tone,

Gerald Near and all the Bach boys,

Calvin Hampton, chant, and drone.

SUZY GETS SOME FRIENDS

Suzy Zeus decides she'll try a

quiet pet, a pet that's calm.

Takes a single sleek, fat kitty

from the nearby yoga dham.

But her single, long-haired feline

soon becomes a single mom.

Suzy names the kittens Xanax,