Eric Cannon’s folder gave a rather detailed description of a latter-day sheep in wolf’s clothing. Since the age of five the boy had shown himself to be both remarkably precocious and a little simpleminded. Although the son of a Lutheran minister, he argued with his teachers, was truant from school, disobedient to teachers and parents, and a runaway from home on six separate occasions since the age of nine, the last episode occurring only six months before, when he disappeared for eight weeks before turning up in Cuba. At the age of twelve he began a career of priest baiting, which culminated in the boy’s refusal to enter a church again. He also refused to go to school. He was caught possessing marijuana. He was stopped in what appeared to be the act of trying to immolate himself in front of the Central Brooklyn Selective Services Induction Center.
Pastor Cannon, his father, seemed to be a good man – in the traditional sense of the word: a conservative, restrained defender of the way things are. But his son had kept rebelling, had refused to be treated by a private psychiatrist; refused to work, refused to live at home except when it suited him. His father had thus decided to send him to QSH, with the understanding that he would receive therapy with me.
‘Dr Rhinehart,’ the pretty little student nurse was saying suddenly at my elbow. ‘This is Pastor Cannon and Mrs Cannon.’
‘How do you do,’ I said automatically and found myself grasping the chubby hand of a sweet-faced man with thick graying hair. He smiled fully as he shook my hand.
‘Glad to meet you, Doctor. Dr Mann has told me a lot about you.’
‘How do you do, Doctor,’ a woman’s musical voice said, and I turned to Mrs Cannon. Small and trim, she was standing behind the left shoulder of her husband and smiling horribly: her eyes kept flickering off to a line of female hags who were oozing noisily through the hallway outside our door. The patients were dressed with such indescribable ugliness they looked like character actors who had been rejected for Marat-Sade for being overdone.
Behind her was the son, Eric. He was dressed in a suit and tie, but his long long hair, rimless glasses and sparkle in the eyes which was either idiotic or divine made him look anything but middle-class suburbanite.
‘That’s him,’ said Pastor Cannon with what honestly looked like a jovial smile.
I nodded politely and motioned them all toward the chairs. The pastor and his wife pushed past me to sit down, but Eric was staring out at the last of the women passing in the hall. One of them, an ugly, toothless woman with dish-mop hair, had stopped and was smiling coyly at him.
‘Hi ya, cutie,’ she said. ‘Come down and see me sometime.’
The boy stared a second, smiled and said, ‘I will.’ Laughing, he darted a bright-eyed look at me and went to take a chair. A juvenile idiot.
I plumped my big bulk informally on the desk opposite the Cannons and tried my ‘gee-it’s-wonderful-to-be-able-to-talk-to-you’ smile. The boy was sitting near the window to my right and slightly behind his parents, looking at me with friendly anticipation.
‘You understand, Pastor Cannon, I hope, in committing Eric to this hospital you are surrendering your authority over him.’
‘Of course, Dr Rhinehart. I have complete confidence in Dr Mann.’
‘Good. I assume also that both you and Eric know that this is no summer camp Eric is entering. This is a state mental hospital and –’
‘It’s a fine place, Dr Rhinehart,’ said Pastor Cannon. ‘We in New York State have every right to be proud.’
‘Hmmm, yes,’ I said, and turned to Eric. ‘What do you think of it all?’
‘There are groovy patterns in the soot on the windows.’
‘My son believes that the whole world is insane.’
Eric was still looking pleasantly out the window. ‘A plausible theory these days, one must admit,’ I said to him, ‘but it doesn’t get you out of this hospital.’
‘No, it gets me in,’ he replied. We stared at each other for the first time.
‘Do you want me to try to help you?’ I asked.
‘How can you help anyone?’
‘Somebody’s paying me well for trying.’
The boy’s smile didn’t seem to be sardonic, only friendly.
‘They pay my father for spreading the Truth.’
‘It may be ugly here, you know,’ I said.
‘I think I’ll feel right at home here.’
‘Not many people here will want to create a better world,’ his father said.
‘Everyone wants to create a better world,’ Eric replied, with a hint of sharpness in his voice.
I eased myself off the desk and walked around behind it to pick up Eric’s record. Peering over my glasses as if I could see without them I said to the father: ‘I’d like to talk with you about Eric before you leave. Would you prefer that we talk privately or would you like to have Eric here?’
‘No difference to me,’ he said. ‘He knows what I think. He’ll probably act up a bit, but I’m used to it. Let him stay.’
‘Eric, do you want to remain or would you like to go to the ward now?’
‘Full fathom five my father lies,’ he said, looking out the window. His mother winced, but his father simply shook his head slowly and adjusted his glasses. Since I was interested in getting the son’s live reaction to his parents, I let him stay.
‘Tell me about your son, Pastor Cannon,’ I said, seating myself in the wooden desk chair and leaning forward with my sincere professional look. Pastor Cannon cocked his head judiciously, crossed one leg over the other and cleared his throat.
‘My son is a mystery,’ he said. ‘It’s incredible to me that he should exist. He’s totally intolerant of others. You … if you’ve read what’s in that folder you know the details. Two weeks ago though – another example. Eric [he glanced nervously at the boy, who was apparently looking out or at the window] hasn’t been eating well for a month. Hasn’t been reading or writing. He burned everything he’d written over two months ago. An incredible amount. He doesn’t speak much to anyone anymore. I was surprised he answered you … Two weeks ago, at the dinner table, Eric playing saint with a glass of water, I remarked to our guest that night, a Mr Houston of Pace Industries, a vice-president, that I almost hoped sometimes that there would be a Third World War because I couldn’t see how else the world would ever be rid of Communism. It’s a thought we’ve all had at one time or another. Eric threw the water in my face. He smashed his glass on the floor.’
He was peering intently at me, waiting for a reaction. When I merely looked back he went on:
‘I wouldn’t mind for myself, but you can imagine how upset my wife is made by such scenes, and this is typical.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why do you think he did it?’
‘He’s an egomaniac. He doesn’t see things as you and I do. He doesn’t want to live as we do. He thinks that all Catholic priests, most teachers and myself are all wrong, but so do many others without always making trouble about it. And that’s the crux. He takes life too seriously. He never plays, or at least never when most people want him to. He’s always playing, but never what he’s supposed to. He’s always making war for his way of life. This is a great land of freedom but it isn’t made for people who insist on insisting on their own ideas. Tolerance is our byword and Eric is above all intolerant.’