The Great Forgetting (5 page)

Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to collect his thoughts. “What set Tony off?” he asked after a moment.

“He was working out at Haven,” she said. “Up on Fisher? He got this new patient he was all excited about. Then he got sick real quick. Paranoid. He started boiling water before he would drink it. He said the fluoride in the water was making us crazy. The day he went out to Claytor Lake, Tony told me there were jet planes outside spraying chemicals into the air.”

Sam walked to a squat hundred-year-old cherrywood drafting table. She reached into a drawer and withdrew a plastic Target shopping bag stuffed with papers and handed it to Jack.

“This is everything I found in his desk,” she said. “It's all crazy talk. Read it. You get a pretty good sense of where his mind was in the end. Maybe he was just sane enough to realize he might hurt me if he got any worse. I think he was worried he might be like his father.”

Jack sighed.

“I know you're the last person I should be asking for help,” she said. “But I don't have anybody else.”

I should have listened to my mother
, he almost said. Virginia had warned him that Sam was damaged goods.
A barracuda
, she'd called her, like that Heart song.

Instead, he nodded. “Let me see what I can do,” he said. “No promises.”

11
    Jack returned home just before noon. There was a sick feeling in his stomach, a tug of unease paired with a sense of urgency. What he finally decided was that he felt manipulated, pushed in a direction toward some unseen end. Manipulated by whom? By what? By the unnamed disease that stole his father's memories, corrupting a bond he'd taken for granted? By Sam, who could still pull his strings?

The question was as old as history itself:
Why are these things happening to me?

At least Jean had always been true. Always with him, honest.

If anyone had reason to complain, it was her. She'd gotten tangled up with a member of Sam's family, too. And had barely survived. She had the Captain to deal with now. And yet she seemed to enjoy the defeating work of keeping their father alive. Jack felt guilty for being so selfish.

“You okay?” asked Jean as he walked to where she waited for him on the porch.

Jack reached out and pulled his sister to him, tightly. “I love you,” he said, his energy draining out of his body, from his mouth to her shoulder, in a long, aching sigh. “I don't know how you stay. You're so much stronger than me.”

 

TWO

PERCHANCE TO DREAM

1
    The dead man's notes were meticulous. While the Captain listened to Sean Hannity and Jean napped on the sofa, Jack spread the files over the driftwood table in the dining room and read the thin, familiar script of his old friend's hand. The papers held a hint of his cologne, a leathery smell that transferred by touch onto Jack's skin, ghostlike.

Patient is 13 y o. In isolation since being committed 3 wks ago. Exhibits symptoms supportive of diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Believes he is being held at Haven against his will by agents of the government. Refuses medication. Refuses water that is not boiled. Violent tendencies. See attached.

Jack found the report, typed in block letters under Haven letterhead, signed by one Dr. Samir Patel.

Incident Report

June 5, 2012

On intake, I did witness juvenile patient C. attack Jill Greathouse, on-duty nurse. Juvenile boy was admitted by mother at 10 p.m. this evening. C. was in state of dissociative fugue. Could not provide simple answers such as current date. Said it was July 2123. Claimed his father was part of a conspiracy against the American public. Note: C's father died in an automobile accident earlier this year; may have been trigger for patient's break from reality. As Nurse Greathouse called orderlies to sedate the boy, C. did attack her. The incident was severe. Juvenile stabbed at Nurse Greathouse with a pencil. He fell on top of her and pushed the pencil into her ear, causing rupture of her eardrum. All the while, juvenile was shouting: “Can't you hear it? Can't you people hear it?” Juvenile sedated and secured in isolation unit.

Jack formed a mental picture of Tony in a white jacket over a blue shirt and tie, sitting at a desk across from this teenage boy. Jack knew that Tony had always been playacting. He'd figured out the tricks to psychology the same way he'd discovered the tricks behind carny games or, let's be truthful, the tricks to pretending to be a friend: by reading books and practicing in front of a mirror. He had worn the white jacket, Jack was sure of this. He wore it because his patients expected to see their doctor in a white jacket. It was part of the role. As he read on, he recognized the allure this young patient must have held for Tony. There was so much they had in common.

Day 5: Teleconference with Cole's mother. She says Cole's father killed in car accident in Manhattan in 2011. Cole was with him and survived. Signs of schizophrenia surfaced shortly thereafter. Family moved in with relatives in Oberlin to get Cole out of city, provide healing atmosphere.

Later in session Cole posed this question: Where are all the people from the 1920s? Showed me pictures of people packed into Times Square after the end of World War I. Wants to know where all those people went. I explained they are old or already dead. I asked where he thinks the people are. Responds: “They were all killed.” By who? Nazis.

I asked: “Are you afraid of Nazis?” Answer: “No.” Asked what he is afraid of. Cole: “The Hounds of the Catskills.” Would not elaborate. Dogs? Hounds of Baskervilles? Will check.

Cole believes father collected Nazi artifacts for disposal in NATIONAL PARKS.

Jack stopped. Tony had capitalized “NATIONAL PARKS.” It called back a memory of the day they'd first talked at the Boy Scout meeting. What had he said about the state park down the road?

Berlin Reservoir. Doesn't it look ancient?

Jack shuddered.

Day 6: Cole refuses to explain his delusions until I also boil my own water. I cannot feed into his psychosis. To do so would give his paranoia a stronger hold. We sit in silence for forty-five minutes.

Day 7: Not a word today.

Day 8: No progress.

Day 9: I promise Cole I will boil water. I am bored of the silent treatment. What did he mean about national parks?

Day 10: Begin session, Cole says I am lying about boiling water. Refuses to talk. How did he know?

Day 11: I have begun boiling water in an attempt to move this therapy along. Maybe I can meet him halfway. No further progress today.

Day 12: Cole says I have begun to remember. Can see it in my face. Says watch out for the hounds. What hounds?

Day 13: Cole wants to play a game. It's called the “7 Impossibilities.” There are 7 strange truths he wants me to accept. 1st: I must believe that Cole has a photographic memory. He claims he can no longer forget anything.

Day 14: I show Cole a series of numbers. Pi. He recites pi to 250 characters. Mother made no mention of photographic memory on intake. Is this a symptom?

Day 15: Impossibility 2: Water is contaminated by government with brainwashing chemicals. Will research.

Jack looked across the table at the remaining folders. Each was labeled with an orange tab. “1: Photographic Memory” contained a photocopy of the pi sequence along with articles on photographic memory and links to autism. What Jack found inside “2: Fluoride” was unsettling.

These reports were not clipped articles from peer-reviewed magazines, no
Psychology Today
or
Gestalt Critique
. These were posts from a fringe website forum printed on a home computer. One was titled “Don't Drink the Kool-Aid: How the Government Keeps the Peace by Brainwashing Americans.” It was full of grammatical errors. Tony had corrected the text in red pen and written excited notes in the margins. Things like:
Of course!
and
Motherfucker
and
Boil Sam's water
.

By day 21, Tony's handwriting was stretched and messy, his grammar and spelling muddled and erratic.

Emergency broadcast test on radio today. It came on in the car, on my way to werk. I can hear them in my brain, taking out mine memories. Cole says he can help and I do rememember better now. But we forgot an entire day this time. Cole says entrance is in state parks. Will begim looking.

Then, one final entry:
Day 26: Claytor Lake. I will leave Sam behind. Safer that way. I dont want to hear the voices anymore.

Cole had brought back the very worst of Tony. Their madness was recursive. How terrible that must have been for Tony, feeling his mental defenses crumble, feeling his mind come undone, a building energy, an amp pointed at a microphone, primed to explode.

Escaping into the cool waters of Claytor Lake must have been a kind embrace. Jack felt sorry for his old friend. Even though, on some level, he still hated him and always would.

2
    “Hey, Johnny?” The Captain stared at his son curiously from the hospital bed in the living room.

“What's up, Pop? Need something to drink?”

The Captain shook his head and motioned for him to come. Jack walked over and took a seat next to his sister, who was napping on the sofa. She stirred lightly.

“What are you doing here, Johnny?” his father whispered. His eyes were fixed on Jack, focused. His father's eyes had become grayish lately. But they shone now with such a brilliant golden hue.

“I'm helping Jean with some things,” said Jack.

“Don't you have classes?”

“School year's over.”

“Okay. That's thing one. Now about thing two: How long have I been in this bed?”

Jean sat up and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. “Dad? You feeling all right?” she asked groggily.

“I feel great,” he said.

Jean sighed. She stood, walked to her father. She pushed his white bangs from his eyes and rubbed his neck. “You're having a good day, apparently. The first in a very long while.”

“Well,” he sighed. “It's good to be back, if only for a bit.”

“Can I get you anything?” asked Jean.

After a moment, the Captain held up two fingers. “The good stuff above the fridge.”

“Daddy! You can't drink on your meds.”

“Jean, the last thing I remember, it was fall 2014. The look of those trees outside makes me think it's, what? April?”

“It's June first, Dad,” said Jack.

“Christ. Make it a double. I think we're past worrying about my liver.”

Jean kissed him on the cheek and then went to the kitchen and poured him a tumbler of Red Label.

As soon as she was out of earshot, the Captain turned back to his son. “Why am I still in this house?” he said. “Why didn't you guys put me in St. Mary's? I don't want your sister changing my diapers.”

“She wants you here,” he said.

“Talk her out of it,” he said flatly. He grabbed Jack's wrist and tugged him closer. “Mark,” he said. “What happened to Mark?”

Jack's mind flashed to that day in the Walmart parking lot, three years ago, the day the Captain had called him down from Lakewood for Jean's intervention. He'd done his very best to forget Mark Brooks and what he'd done. But, remembering it now, Jack couldn't help but smile. It had felt so good to punch him in the face.

“Mark moved back to Warren,” said Jack. “Don't worry. Jean's fine. Still sober. And Mark's never even been back to see Paige. He doesn't even call.”

For a second, the Captain looked at Jack as if he was pulling his leg. Then he laughed lightly. “Good,” he said. “Good.”

Jean returned with the Scotch. The Captain gripped it tight. He closed his eyes and sniffed at the brim of the glass. “To the past,” he said. “Let us forget the bad parts first.” He tipped it to his lips and drank it like water. Then he winked at Jean and handed her the empty. “Thanks, kiddo,” he said. “You good?”

“I'm good, Daddy.”

“Paige good?”

“She's great.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, they were already a little more gray. “I think I'll have a hot bath,” he said. “And when I'm done, let's get Chinese. And some pizza.”

3
    While the Captain soaked, a dry Montecristo smoldering in a chipped ashtray the color of an avocado beside the tub, Jack went outside and walked the narrow path through the trees behind the house. The nippy wind held an incongruous coolness for early June.

His little feet had worn down this path. And Jean's. Their friends. A thousand trips to the lake and back, towels slung over shoulders. It had been years since he'd walked it, and still here it was, holding back the heather and ferns, the blackberry bushes. The last time he'd been to the lake was the night Tony's father was arrested.

Much of the trucked-in sand beach had eroded away. The northern edge was hard clay peppered with mulberry pods that crunched delightfully underfoot. Jack sat at the lip of the lake and thought about the problem at hand.

He was inclined to help Sam figure out a way to pull up Tony's body. This wasn't because he felt he owed it to his old friend, but he knew Sam well enough to know that if he couldn't help her, she would ask Jean. And Jean would find a way to do it, because Jean was a sucker for people in need. And if Jean couldn't find an easy solution, she would throw money at it. Money she didn't have.

How deep was the bottom? Nobody knew. You couldn't hold your breath and dive down to find it. He'd tried. They all had.

Shadows cast by tall oaks danced on the lake's surface like some shifting Rorschach test.

*   *   *

“So all they can see are the shadows, right?” Tony said as they hiked along the deer trail that led around Minnehaha Falls, frozen now because it was winter at Camp Manatoc. “They're prisoners or something. Somebody tied them to chairs so they can't move. So they can only look forward at this cave wall. And then someone turns on a light behind them and so all they see, all their life, is shadows on the wall of the cave.”