Tampa Burn

by Randy Wayne White

  I said, “Before you got struck by lightning? That was only a few years back.”

  “No. The memory loss, the personality change, were both caused by the electroshock treatments. I’ve told you about it. The ones I got a year or so after writing One Fathom. It was just after the bomb that killed the sailor at the San Diego naval base.

  “The guilt, man, seeing those smoking bodies on TV. I went insane. No other way to put it. They gave me shock treatments when my father had me institutionalized. Strapped me down on the table every day for weeks. I think they way overdid it. I was so screwed up, I’d write letters and sign them ‘Sincerely as a fucking loon.’ And I meant it.”

  He continued, “It took me a while, but I tracked down the physician who’d administered the shock treatments to me. The zapper. The guy went on to become a brilliant psychiatrist, a great healer. I have something I want to show you. To explain what happened to me. He wrote me this letter.”

  Tomlinson handed me two pages typed on the personal stationery of a California physician. We were standing on a section of dune near the Sanibel Beach Club. This early, people were already up there playing tennis, hanging out by the pool. I adjusted my glasses and read the letter quickly, skipping some of the more detailed portions:

  Dear Mr. Tomlinson:

  I must have administered electroshock to at least a thousand patients as a resident. I detested doing it. I apologize to you now. I wish I could apologize to them all individually. . . .

  The nurses would bring the patient in on a rolling cot, get an I.V. going, and I would put in sodium amytal. I remember that many of the patients had severe halitosis and I had to hover over them, close as a lover, and I felt guilty and obscene. . . .

  Then I would place the electrodes on their heads, two shiny steel plates, about 1.5 inches in diameter, fastened tightly above the ears, and add a gel sticky with saline for good contact. . . .

  When all was ready, I took a rubber doorstop, usually red, sometimes brown, shaped like a wedge and wrapped with sterile gauze. I placed that thing in their mouth so when they bit down they would not break their teeth. . . .

  On the electroconvulsive therapy machine, there were two dials. One was the strength of the current and the other was a timer for the duration of the shock. I set the parameters according to the age, sex, weight, and medical condition of the patient.

  I would then give a couple of whiffs of oxygen to the patient, inject Anectine, and watch until the patient stopped breathing. That meant all the muscles were paralyzed.

  I would then reach back behind me, hit the contact switch, and watch a small muscular tremor in the patient that indicated electric current passing through his brain.

  The usual course of “treatment” was two weeks, every other day. Judging from the severity of your memory loss, however, Mr. Tomlinson, I suspect you are one of the few who received a far more aggressive course. Some doctors insisted on administering ECT twice a day for as long as it took to get the patient to be incontinent. Those people became zombies.

  Again, Mr. Tomlinson, I apologize. It was my duty as a resident to carry out the orders of those above me. If I objected, my residency would have been over.

  It was the accepted treatment of the day.

  I have many stories of things that happened. Some horrid, some funny, always poignant.

  I enclose an article from a medical journal concerning memory loss caused by ECT. You may find it enlightening.

  I folded the letter, handed it to Tomlinson, saying, “He sounds like a good man. Like he genuinely regrets what he did.”

  Tomlinson handed me the copy of the magazine article, saying, “Me, too. Regret it, I mean. Except that it changed me from Asshole of the Decade to who I am now, apparently. Wait until you read this.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  I skimmed the article on electroconvulsive treatment, skipping much of it due to my own impatience. The interesting parts included:

  During World War I, physicians noticed that mentally ill patients who suffered convulsions during bouts of malaria sometimes seemed cured of their depression or other emotional problems. This led to the use of the drug Metrazol to induce seizures.

  In 1938, Ugo Cerletti, an Italian psychiatrist, while observing slaughterhouse pigs being shocked unconscious, came up with the idea of using electroshock to create seizures in his patients.

  For the next forty years, many hundreds of thousands of patients of all ages, and around the world, received electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for all kinds of mental “disorders” from depression, to mania and schizophrenia, to even homosexuality and truancy. . . .

  I skipped down a page to read a segment that Tomlinson had highlighted with a blue marker:

  It has now been documented that memory impairment, and sometimes total memory loss, is the most serious side effect of electroconvulsive therapy, and is the one most frequently troubling to patients.

  Sometimes the memory loss is temporary, and includes only the days or weeks around the time of the treatment. In other patients, entire blocks of memory have been erased. Some patients have reported near complete amnesia regarding their lives prior to the therapy. Many patients lose specific or general memory for many months, and sometimes of a year or more that preceded receiving ECT.

  As one patient said, “More than a year prior to entering the hospital, my wife and I had bought a new house. When I left the hospital, I had absolutely no recollection of that house. Entering every room was a new experience.”

  I skipped a little further because Tomlinson had highlighted and bracketed the following:

  It has also been documented that a substantial number of ECT patients have been able to recover sizeable blocks of lost memory by the careful reconstruction, or registration, of key life experiences and places. . . .

  I handed the article back to Tomlinson as he told me, “That’s what I decided to do—revisit and re-experience key elements and experiences in my life. I was still trying to remember writing One Fathom Above Sea Level. That became my focus.”

  He told me that the only remaining memory he had about writing his now-famous work was connected to a popular song. It was a song by a classic rock band named America.

  He said, “You know their stuff: ‘Sister Golden Hair,’ ‘Ventura Highway,’ ‘You Can Do Magic.’ The band’s got two genius writers, so they’ve had a ton of hits.

  “Back when I wrote One Fathom, though, the song that haunted me was ‘Horse with No Name.’ Everyone knows the lyrics. ‘I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name . . .’”

  He sang a portion of it softly, then whistled for a while before explaining, “The line that just rocked me, though, was, ‘The ocean is a desert with its life underground, and a perfect disguise above.’ Are you familiar with the line, Doc?”

  I know very little about rock music. Tend to listen to Latin music, Caribbean basin stuff, and Buffett, of course, and lately have taken an unexpected liking to an extraordinary folk singer and composer, Wendy Webb. But even I knew the song he was discussing, though little else about the band.

  He repeated the lyric: “‘ The ocean is a desert with its life underground, and a perfect disguise above, ’” before adding, “For someone like me, a sailor, that line was like a three-pronged probe. It hit me in the marrow, the brain, and the heart. All the far-out implications, all the very heavy vibes and duality it communicated. That song, it just sent me off on a whole new spiritual trip.”

  Tomlinson combed long, bony fingers through his hair and said, “The line was the seed that started One Fathom. That song. ‘A Horse with No Name.’ That’s all I remembered. The rest of my memory from that time period was a blank sheet. So when I disappeared from the marina? I got a piece of pure karmic luck. I called around, found out where the band America was playing. I met their road manager, Erin, and finagled a job as a roadie. So that’s where I went when I disappeared. I was working for the band America. Can you believe it? A really cool experience, man.”
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  I watched him smile, enjoying the memory of it for a few seconds before he continued, “They had no idea who I was, why I was there. A great bunch of people. They do more than a hundred gigs a year, all first-class, and it was pure good karma that put me in the right place at the right time. So I helped them set up in L.A., Phoenix, Chicago, little towns in Iowa and Wisconsin. Yeah, and San Diego, too.”

  San Diego, he said, that’s where his memory started coming back to him.

  WHAT Tomlinson remembered, and now confessed to me, was that he hadn’t just been a member of the radical group that had sent the bomb to the San Diego naval station. He’d been the group’s founder. He’d also helped design the bomb. And build it. And send it.

  “We got the directions from The Anarchist Cookbook,” he added. His voice sounded weary. I couldn’t remember ever hearing him so sad. “In other words, I am directly responsible for the death of your friend. I guess the electroshock wiped out my recall; every single detail. Or maybe I wanted it wiped out. I’ve come to the conclusion that, in me, a clear conscience is the first symptom of damaged brain function.”

  I’d stopped walking. Stood looking out over the Gulf of Mexico: green water, pearl horizon, copper morning sky. I said, “He had a wife and children.”

  “I know. I’ve been helping them secretly for years. Financially, I mean.”

  I knew that was true.

  I said, “I gave you documents from another friend of mine that legally exonerates you from any responsibility. I did that for you.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “There are no statutes of limitation on murder. If you turn yourself in—or if someone turns you in—you’re going to jail for a very long time.”

  Tomlinson had been looking at me. But now he turned so that we stood side by side, both of us looking out to sea. “I plan to turn myself in and confess. I’m responsible. It’s the moral thing to do. Spiritually, it’s what I’m obligated to do.

  “But Doc”—his voice choked slightly—“I don’t think I could take it. Jail, I mean. Being penned up. Not being able to get out on the water aboard No Mas. What I’d rather have happen—my spiritual preference—is I’d rather just . . . disappear. Like the other members of my organization did years ago. Back when someone was hunting them down. I’d prefer that. Rather than go to jail, I wish the man assigned to make me disappear would just . . . do it. Get it over with and make it happen.”

  I hated the inference, and the implicit obligation. How could he ask such a thing of me?

  I said, “Stop it.” Then changed the subject immediately by becoming aggressive, wanting him on the defensive, asking, “What else do you remember? What other nasty little secrets were in there hiding? How about this: Were you ever a member of a second radical group? One called Fight-4-Right? And did you spend time working for them in Central America?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. But it’s possible. I lost about two entire years of my memory. I have no idea what I did during most of that time period. Only part of it’s come back.”

  “Did you ever know an Australian oceanographer named Thackery? He was a big environmentalist and a surfer.”

  I was thinking about the e-mails I’d found, written by Pilar.

  Tomlinson had to think about that. “Maybe I did know someone named Thackery. It . . . it sounds familiar. But I can’t be sure. I’m sorry.”

  “What about Pilar? Did you know her before I met her? Or has she said anything to you, sent you any e-mails, or asked you anything that suggests that you did know each other?”

  He grimaced and took a deep breath. “No-o-o-o. I don’t think I ever met her before you and I went to Masagua together. If I was ever in Central America before that, I have absolutely no recollection of it. But there is something I need to tell you about that woman. About Pilar. This isn’t easy, man. And there’s no way to sugar-coat it.”

  I thought: Uh-oh, here it comes.

  But it was not what I expected.

  I was still standing, looking at the water, but I had turned away from Tomlinson slightly. I waited through a long silence before he said, “The thing about you, Doc, is you tend to see the good in everybody. You’re analytical, sure. But you focus on what’s productive in people, what’s positive.”

  I said, “So? The exact same thing’s true of you.”

  “I know. I know. But the difference is, there’s no rational explanation for malice or impiety. Because of that, rational people like you are slow to recognize it. But someone like me, I know intuitively if a person’s basically good, or basically bad. You’ve always thought Pilar was one of the great women in the world. I knew the moment I met her she was just the opposite. She’s one of the bad ones. Not evil, just bad.”

  I was more than taken aback. It was a shocking thing to hear from a man whose judgment I valued, and who rarely said an unkind word about another human being. Tomlinson’s demons have made him reluctant to judge.

  Yet, he continued, “She’s self-obsessed. Huge mood swings. Delusions of grandeur. Think about it, Doc: She associated herself with a Mayan goddess. Ixku? Remember her taking that name? Trouble is, when your best friend is in love with a witch, you can’t risk the friendship by telling him.”

  As we resumed walking back to Dinkin’s Bay Marina, he continued to tell me things about the woman I thought I knew but, as I would discover, I didn’t know at all.

  Years ago, he said, in Central America, while I’d lain unconscious, they’d taken a break together, smoked a joint, and she’d tried to seduce him—unsuccessfully.

  “I didn’t even know you that well back then,” he said, “but I had this gut feeling you and I were going to be hermanos. It’s one of the few times Zamboni and the Hat Trick Twins didn’t win that particular sort of face-off. A buddy’s girlfriend is a line I’ve never crossed.”

  Two nights ago, in Miami, she’d tried to seduce him again—which is why he’d insisted that they return to Sanibel. It’s also why he’d stayed aboard his boat most of the day, fretting over whether he should tell me or not.

  Tomlinson’s a flake, but he’s a brilliant flake, with Ph.D.s in philosophy and sociology, and he keeps up on the professional literature. Judging from Pilar’s behavior, he said, she was driven by a disorder that he called “acute bipolar mania,” which is the severest form of what was once called manic depression.

  “They don’t love anyone,” he said. “They’re not capable of the emotion. They only play roles that advance their own delusions.”

  Pilar? Could it be true?

  I questioned him in detail. Most of the questions were clinical. What symptomatic behavior had he observed? Could he name specific things she’d said and done?

  Yes—he could. And did.

  I have no training—and little interest—in his field. Yet, listening to him, I realized that I’d observed many of the symptoms myself, but hadn’t recognized them for what they were.

  In hindsight, Pilar’s conduct had been disturbing at times. I remembered sudden rages quickly masked if strangers appeared. I remembered overhearing her cooing to herself as a baby might talk when she didn’t know I was listening. I remembered making a joke of the fact that, after four years, she still didn’t know my birthday. I remembered her telling me things that I knew were untrue, and that I thought were her intentional exaggerations.

  “That’s part of the sickness,” Tomlinson said. “They may lie intentionally if it suits their needs, or their delusion can bend the truth any way necessary to advance their own cause. Either way, the lie becomes real to them.”

  Odd references in Lake’s e-mails also now made sense to me. At least twice he’d mentioned that he was worried about his mother, and that he was trying to get her to “talk to someone.”

  When I’d inquired about what, he hadn’t responded.

  Ultimately, I was convinced that what Tomlinson was saying about Pilar was valid. It was a startling revelation that left me, for those few minutes at least,
emotionally numbed.

  He further surprised me by adding, “My personal opinion about you and Pilar has always been that you never really loved her, Doc. You maybe believed you loved her, but that’s because she was safe. There was no chance you would have to marry her, or that she’d show up one day at the lab with all her luggage asking to move in. She lived in a different country, had her own life. You rarely saw her or spoke with her, so you could use her as a sort of mirror to project your own female ideal.”

  When I said, “You’re describing a guy who’s not only selfish and shallow, but emotionally blocked,” Tomlinson replied, “Well, pal, for all our good qualities, we both live alone for a reason, don’t we?”

  Smiling, I told him I’d have to think about that. But, yeah, it was possibly true.

  As we neared Tarpon Bay Road and the mangrove lane that leads to my lab and to the marina, he insisted on returning to the subject of the San Diego bombing, to the guilt he felt, and to his moral obligation to turn himself in to authorities.

  I reminded him, “You said that you were a different person before you were institutionalized. When pathology is involved, a person’s behavior can’t be judged as either moral or immoral. Sickness is a form of disability. Like Pilar—you said she wasn’t an evil person, just bad. So stop blaming yourself. Leave it in the past where it belongs. My friend Johnny’s long dead, and his wife Cheryl’s happily remarried. So just leave it be.”