‘Are you intolerant, Eric?’ I asked.
‘I’m intolerant of evil and stupidity,’ he said.
‘But who gives you the right,’ his father said, turning partly around to confront his son, ‘to tell everyone what’s good and evil?’
‘It’s the divine right of kings,’ Eric replied, smiling.
His father turned back to me and shrugged. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘And let me give you another example. Eric, when he was thirteen years old, mind you, stands up in the middle of my church during a crowded midmorning Communion and says aloud above the kneeling figures: “That it should come to this,” and walks out.’
We all remained as we were without speaking, as if I were the concentrating photographer and they about to have their family portrait taken.
‘You don’t like modern Christianity?’ I finally said to Eric.
He ran his fingers through his long black hair, looked up briefly at the ceiling and screamed.
His father and mother came out of their chairs like rats off an electric grid and both stood trembling, watching their son, hands at his side, a slight smile on his face, screaming.
A white-suited Negro attendant entered the office and then another. They looked at me for instructions. I waited for Eric’s second lungful scream to end to see if he would begin another. He didn’t. When he had finished, he stood quietly for a moment and then said to no one in particular: ‘Time to go.’
‘Take him to the admissions ward, to Dr Vener for his physical. Give this prescription to Dr Vener.’ I scribbled out a note for a mild sedative and watched the two attendants look warily at the boy.
‘Will he come quietly?’ the smaller of the two asked.
Eric stood still a moment longer and then did a rapid two-step followed by an irregular jig toward the door. He sang: ‘We’re OFF to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We’re OFF …’
Exit dancing. Attendants follow, last seen each reaching to grasp one of his arms. Pastor Cannon had a comforting arm around his wife’s shoulder. I had rung for a student nurse.
‘I’m very sorry, Dr Rhinehart,’ Pastor Cannon said. ‘I was afraid something like this would happen but I felt that you ought to see for yourself how he acts.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ I said.
‘There’s one other thing,’ said Pastor Cannon. ‘My wife and I were wondering whether it might be possible if … I understand it is sometimes possible for a patient to have a single room.’
I came around my desk and walked up quite close to Pastor Cannon, who still had an arm around his wife.
‘This is a Christian institution, Pastor,’ I said. ‘We believe firmly in the brotherhood of all men. Your son will share a bedroom with fifteen other healthy, normal American mental patients. Gives them a feeling of belonging and togetherness. If your son feels the need for a single, have him slug an attendant or two, and they’ll give him his own room: the state even provides a jacket for the occasion.’
His wife flinched and averted her eyes, but Pastor Cannon hesitated only a second and then nodded his head.
‘Absolutely right. Teach the boy the realities of life. Now, about his clothing –’
‘Pastor Cannon,’ I said sharply. ‘This is no Sunday school. This is a mental hospital. Men are sent here when they refuse to play our normal games of reality. Your son has been sucked up by the wards: you’ll never see him the same again, for better or worse. Don’t talk so blithely about rooms and clothes; your son is gone.’
His eyes changed from momentary fright into a cold glare, and his arm fell from around his wife.
‘I never had a son,’ he said.
And they left.
Chapter Six
When I got home, Lillian and Arlene Ecstein were collapsed side by side on the couch in their slacks and both were laughing as if they’d just finished splitting a bottle of gin. Arlene, by the way, always seems permanently eclipsed by the brilliant pinwheeling light of her husband. A little short from my six-foot-four point of view, she usually looked prim and prudish with thick horn-rimmed glasses like Jake’s and undistinguished black hair tied back in a bun. Although there were unconfirmed rumours that on her otherwise slender body she owned two marvelously full breasts, the baggy sweaters, men’s shirts, loose blouses and over-sized smocks she always wore resulted in no one’s noticing her breasts until they’d known her for several months – by which time they’d forgotten all about her.
In her own sweet, simpleminded way I think she may once have given me a housewifely come-on, but being married, a dignified professional man, a loyal friend and having already forgotten all about her, I had resisted. (As I recall she spent one whole evening asking me to take pieces of lint off her smock: I spent the evening taking pieces of lint off her smock.) On the other hand, vaguely, late at night, after a hard day at the mental hospital, or when Lil and the children all had the flu or diarrhea or measles, I would feel regret at being married, a dignified professional man and a loyal friend. Twice I had daydreamed of somehow engulfing one entire Arlene breast in my mouth. It was clear that were fate ever to give me a reasonable opportunity – e.g. she were to climb naked into bed with me – I would yield; we would have one fine quick fire of first fornication and then settle into some dull routine of copulation on the q.t. But as long as the initiative were left to me I would never do anything about it. The two-thirds married professional man friend would always dominate the bored animal. And, as you, my friend, know, the combination would be miserable.
Although Lil’s laugh was loud, even raucous, Arlene’s was like a steady muffled machine-gun; she slumped lower on the couch as she laughed, while Lil stiffened her back and chortled at the ceiling.
‘Well, what have you two been doing lately?’ I asked, sliding my briefcase under the desk and hanging my raincoat neatly in a puddle on the floor just inside the kitchen.
‘We’ve just been splitting a bottle of gin,’ Lil said happily.
‘It was that or dope and we couldn’t find any dope,’ Arlene added. ‘Jake doesn’t believe in LSD and Lil couldn’t find yours.’
‘That’s strange. Lil knows I always keep it in the boy’s toy cabinet.’
‘I was wondering why Larry went off to school without a fuss this morning,’ Lil said, and, having said something amusing, she stopped laughing.
‘Well, what’s the occasion? Is one of you getting divorced or having an abortion?’ I asked, fixing myself a martini from the still two-thirds full bottle of gin.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Lil said. ‘We’d never dream of such high points. Our lives ooze. Not ooze excitement or sex appeal, just ooze.’
‘Like vaginal jelly from a tube,’ Arlene added.
They sat slumped on the couch looking grief-stricken for half a minute and then Lil perked up.
‘We might form a Psychiatrists’ Wives Invitational Club, Arlene,’ she said. ‘And not invite Luke and Jake.’
‘I would hope not,’ I said and pulled a desk chair around and, straddling it theatrically, drink in hand, faced the females with fatigue.
‘We could be charter members of PWIC,’ Lil went on, scowling. ‘I can’t quite figure out what good it will do us.’ Then she giggled. ‘Perhaps, though, our PWIC will grow bigger than yours,’ and both women, after staring at me pleasantly for a few seconds, began giggling stupidly.
‘We could have our