The Tin Box (22 page)

“Yep. French vanilla bean, with a fat content so high your arteries will sob.”

For the first time in three weeks, Colby treated him to his full-fledged brilliant smile, the one that made deep divots of his dimples and caused his eyes to sparkle. “You got me. Noon at Dos Hermanos, pie à la mode for dessert.”

William bowed deeply and exited.

“
H
EY
! Amigo! You’ve finally returned.”

William nodded politely at Luis, but his real attention was drawn to the table by the window, where Colby sat, waiting for him. Nearly ten minutes early. That was a good sign. William crossed the room and sat across from him.

“Nice shirt,” Colby commented. William was wearing the green tee Colby had given him.

“It is. I’ve been told it brings out the color of my eyes.”

That made Colby snort a laugh. Also a good sign, William hoped.

Luis came over for their order. William asked for water and, following Colby’s lead, ordered
chiles rellenos
. “It’s almost as good as the tamales,” Colby said.

Luis nodded. “And we’re out of tamales. Rafa’s been in a mood this week and doesn’t want to make them.”

“Artistic temperament,” added Colby.

A large family entered the restaurant, all of them talking at once, and Luis bustled away to rearrange tables and chairs.

“So what’s your super-duper secret important project, Will? I hope it involves sequins. I love sequins.” He winked.

“No sparkling, I’m afraid. It’s sort of a hunt, I guess. A manhunt.”

Colby’s smile faltered and then he restored it. “Oh. You want me to help find you a date?”

“No. This man—well, if he’s still alive, he’s probably close to a hundred years old.”

“Wow.” Colby sat back in his chair. “I’ve heard of having a thing for older men—been there myself—but wow.” He looked away and then back. “Okay, Will. Who’s the old guy and why are you looking for him? Long-lost great-grandparent?”

“Not long after I moved into the hospital I discovered this little metal box. An old lunchbox. It was hidden in a wall in one of the cells.”

That piqued Colby’s interest. He leaned forward, eyes wide. “And? And?”

“And it had letters in it. They were written by a patient back around the time of World War Two. He addressed them to his lover.”

“Ooh!” Colby waved a hand impatiently, nearly knocking over his plastic cup of Coke. “Tell me more.”

Before William could answer, Luis arrived with his water, and with chips and salsa. “Chiles coming right up, amigos.”

Colby barely glanced at Luis. William had the impression that if Luis didn’t move away soon and let William spit out the rest of the story, Colby was going to strangle one of them. William had a mental image of a very young Colby at Christmastime, wearing footed pajamas and bouncing off the walls in his impatience to open presents.

Luis walked away, and William sobered as he continued his tale. “His name was Bill. And he was committed because he was gay. His lover’s name was Johnny.”

“Oh God. Jesus, Will. I knew they used to do that, but…. Man. What happened to him?”

“A lot of really horrible stuff. He wrote about some of it. But I don’t know what happened to him in the end, and I really need to know. Will you help me find out?”

Colby nodded decisively. “Hell yes.”

William felt a small thrill of preliminary triumph.

“I’
VE
ridden by here, you know,” Colby said as they approached the gate.

William stopped the car but didn’t get out yet. “What do you mean?”

“On my bike. Sometimes I like to go for a ride after work, especially now that it stays light so long. And on my days off. I’ve ridden by here almost every day for the last few weeks. But I didn’t come in because it was locked.” Colby said all of this very matter-of-factly, as if he hadn’t been avoiding William for those same few weeks.

“You could have called me,” William replied mildly. “I would have let you in.”

“I know.”

Shaking his head at Colby’s continuing ability to confuse him, William got out of the car and unlocked the gate. By the time he got back in, Colby had switched the stereo from a Beethoven CD to a radio station with obnoxiously bouncy electronic music. He gave William a cherubic grin.

The first thing William did when they got to his apartment was hand Colby the tin box. Cradling it in his arms like something precious, Colby took it to the couch. “I’m going to work on my dissertation while you read,” William said. “It might take you a while. I’m too full for pie right now, so maybe we can have it a little later. Want something to drink?”

“Diet Coke,” Colby replied jokingly. He knew William didn’t drink the stuff.

But now it was William’s turn to grin. “Okay,” he said, and went to fetch the bottle he’d bought in hope of Colby’s visit.

When William brought the drink, Colby shook his head. “You’re an interesting man, Will.”

“Thank you.”

It was actually very hard to concentrate on his work while Colby read the letters. William had his back to him, but every so often Colby made a small noise or mumbled an expletive, and William wondered which atrocity he’d come to. At last, Colby emitted a long sigh. “Oh God, Will.” His voice was small, lost-sounding, and when William turned to look at him, Colby’s eyes were puffy. “That’s the most fucking horrible thing I’ve ever…. Poor Bill.”

“Yeah.”

“Is it…. These things he says happened, are they true?”

“I imagine so. They’re completely plausible. Every one of those
treatments
”—he spat the word venomously—“was really used on human beings. Some of them fairly recently.” He could have added that even sixteen years ago, some people were being tortured in the name of treatment. But he pushed that out of his mind, as always.

“But… they castrated him, didn’t they? Holy fuck, Will, how could they do that?”

“It was considered an effective treatment for sexual deviance. And I suppose it achieved its goals. Plus they sterilized a lot of people who were considered undesirable. Eugenics.”

Colby frowned heavily. “Do you know what this last thing is that he talks about? This….” He shuffled the papers in his lap, looking for the term.

“Freeman-Watts,” William offered.

“Yeah, that. What is it?”

Colby looked so vulnerable that William didn’t want to answer. The knowledge had been haunting William ever since he read the last letter. Maybe he shouldn’t have dragged Colby into this too. Well, now he had to tell him, didn’t he? “The Freeman-Watts Standard Procedure is another name for a prefrontal lobotomy.”

All the blood drained from Colby’s face. He looked as if he were going to vomit. Belatedly, William remembered Colby’s sensitivity over things related to blood. God, he should have done better in thinking this stupid idea through. “Colby, I don’t—”

“They
did
that? Just for being queer?”

“Yes.” William had learned about lobotomies in one of his psychology classes. They had been popular for years, and tens of thousands were performed in the United States alone. Many of the patients were schizophrenics, but some had the surgery forced on them for other reasons, such as having bad tempers. One of JFK’s sisters was lobotomized as a young woman, apparently because she had violent mood swings.

Colby’s head was bowed deeply and he sat very still. William wished he could comfort him with an embrace, but Colby was all the way across the room, and William wasn’t sure his touch would be welcomed. After a few moments, Colby looked up at him. “Did they do it to Bill?”

“I don’t know. All I have is those letters. I have no idea what happened to him after August 18.”

“Maybe they changed their minds about the procedure. Or maybe he
did
escape, this time for good. Maybe Johnny heard about how Bill escaped and was caught, and he came after him.”

“Maybe.”

“If… if he did have a lobotomy, would he be like Jack Nicholson in
Cuckoo’s Nest
?”

“The effects varied. Some people were able to go on with their lives. They weren’t… weren’t the same, but they could function. Others didn’t do as well.” Kennedy’s sister had spent the rest of her life institutionalized.

For several moments, Colby’s face remained blank. William didn’t interrupt his thoughts, but instead looked down at his own fingers, which were twisting together in his lap. William had been able to take in Bill’s story over many weeks, and he’d had additional time to digest the final letter’s contents. Plus he had already known of the barbaric things done to patients in mental hospitals, and he hoped he had at least a little scientific objectivity about the entire issue. Colby had been afforded none of those things. The least William could do was shut up for a few minutes while the other man thought.

Colby chewed on his lip so viciously William was afraid it would bleed. He wanted to kiss it, to soothe the pain away. But he sat and picked at his cuticles instead.

“He’s the man you’re hunting for.” Colby’s voice was as flat as his expression.

“I need to find out what happened to him.”

“Okay.” Colby sighed and nodded twice. “I’ll help.”

W
ILLIAM
had spent most of the previous day cleaning the records room as much as possible. The stuffed file cabinets had to remain, of course, as did the many cardboard boxes full of papers. But he’d moved the extraneous furniture and assorted junk to the room next door. He’d scrubbed the room’s two windows, which had been nearly opaque with grime, and he’d dusted every surface he could. He’d mopped the floor too. The results weren’t exactly pristine, but at least now he didn’t feel an impulse to shower two seconds after entering the room. He stood just inside the doorway, waiting for Colby to come in.

“You don’t have a problem with spiders and silverfish, do you?” asked William.

Colby huffed. “I’m not a complete pansy, okay? I like bugs. I had a pet tarantula when I was a kid.”

“Ugh.”

“What pets did you have?”

“None. Mom’s allergic.”

Colby gestured at him as if to say,
See? That explains everything.
Which it didn’t, but William changed the subject. “I started looking for Bill’s file, but it’s a pretty big project.”

“We don’t know his last name.”

“Nope. And unfortunately, there are hundreds of Bills and Williams in here. It would have been a lot easier if his name had been Colby.”

“Yeah. Probably not a lot of Colbys back in the thirties. How do we find our Bill?”

“We have to look at the admission date. Should be early 1938, but let’s set aside any Williams or Bills who were admitted in ’37 or ’38. Then we can look at the doctors’ notes to find our man.”

“Makes sense. Where do we start?”

William shook his head. “Anywhere. They’re all out of order. I think we’re pretty safe in skipping the ones with the typed stickers on the tabs. Those all seem to be a lot more recent.”

“Good to know.”

William decided to begin with one of the cardboard boxes. He lugged it to a desk, sat in a creaky wooden chair, and started to examine the file tabs. Meanwhile, Colby pulled out the bottom drawer of one of the cabinets. He sat cross-legged to peer at the contents.

It was boring and uncomfortable work. William’s back started to hurt from sitting hunched over and from carrying heavy boxes, and his fingers accumulated paper cuts. After a couple of hours, he’d found only two likely files. He and Colby hadn’t exchanged more than a few cursory words.

William replaced the final folder into his current box, stood, and stretched. “Need to take a leak. Want something to drink?”

“More Coke?”

“Sure.”

Colby looked up at him from the floor. He had dirt smudges on his nose, which was adorable. “Could you bring us some music? I could plug my phone into your laptop if it has decent speakers.”

“I have a radio.”

“Low-tech. Even better.”

William walked to his apartment and used the bathroom. He unplugged the radio and pulled a bottle of pop from the fridge. Then, on a whim, he cut a couple slices of pie and put them on plates. He topped them each with a generous scoop of ice cream. He had to juggle pie, forks, bottle, and radio, but he made it back to the records room without mishap.

Colby came close to his usual smile when he saw what William had brought. “Pie delivery!” He leapt up to take plate, fork, and bottle from William’s hands. William put his own snack on the desk and, after searching for a few moments, found a place to plug in the radio. The room filled with the sound of Eric Clapton crooning to his guitar.

“This really is great pie.” Colby had reseated himself and was talking with his mouth full.

William sat down and took a big bite of his own. Colby was right. Delicious.

“I tried to talk Missy into giving me the recipe once, but she refused,” Colby said. “She said it’s top secret.”

“But you’re family.”

“I know, right? ’S not fair.” He scratched his neck with his free hand. “This could take us forever, you know. There’s a lot of files. And God, every one of them is some poor person who got locked up in this place.”

That thought had occurred to William too. It made his heart feel heavy. He knew that, unlike Bill, most of the patients had probably suffered from some kind of mental illness or disability. It was upsetting to know that this bleak prison had been the only option for them.

A folder lay near Colby’s knee. He pointed at it with his fork. “This William was admitted in 1932. But I peeked at the notes anyway. They said he got locked up for melancholia. What’s that?”

“Depression.”

“Oh. I thought so.” He added quietly, “Like my dad.”

“Yes.”

“This William died here at the asylum in 1973. He spent forty years here, Will.” Colby shook his head. “I think I’d rather blow my brains out.”

“There are… there are other options now. Medication and full spectrum light therapy and—”

“I know. And don’t worry. I’ve never felt depressed. I was just thinking…. I used to blame myself for my dad.”