Fear Strikes Out

by Jim Piersall

  That water tower was my friend while I was struggling back from oblivion and it is still my friend, the symbol of prayer and hope and all the things that helped me in my successful battle to recover my wits and banish the fears that had sent me so closely within its sight. When I see it from the highway, it reminds me not of Westborough and the violent room and the old trouble, but of prayers that were answered to a degree far beyond my happiest dreams. When I pass it today, I feel spiritually refreshed and mentally relaxed.

  My first memory of Westborough was a flood of sunshine, streaming in from the window facing the water tower and so bright that I tried to shade my eyes with my hand. But I couldn’t reach up, so I turned my head away. I tried again to cover my eyes with my hands, but I could only move from the neck up. I was securely strapped to a bed, and a man I never remembered seeing before was peering thoughtfully at me. When I focused my eyes on him, he said, kindly, “Time to eat.”

  I tried to struggle up to one elbow, but the straps were tight.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “In a hospital.”

  “What kind of a hospital?”

  “You’ve been a very sick boy.”

  “What am I doing here? How long have I been here? How long will I have to stay?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said. “I’ll get the doctor.”

  “Who are you?”

  “An attendant. I can’t tell you anything.”

  He moved off, and I twisted my head so that I could see part of the room. I was in a sort of alcove, off what appeared to be a fairly good-sized ward. There were about fifteen or twenty men there, some walking rather aimlessly back and forth and others, like me, in similar alcoves strapped down—or at least I presumed that was the case, because I could only see the alcove opposite mine. A few were eating from trays set on a table in the middle of the room. No one spoke.

  Suddenly, I was startled to hear a weird, blood-curdling shriek—a piercing, raucous, spine-shuddering animal sound so frightening that my body stiffened in sheer horror. One of the men who had been walking about the room began alternately waving his arms around and tearing at his hair and his clothes, while he broke into a dead run. He crashed into one wall, staggered back, then, like an ant, turned instinctively in another direction. His shrieking, punctuated by an occasional, plainly discernible, “Let me out of here!” continued for what seemed like hours.

  Actually, he was overpowered before he could smash himself against another side of the wall. Four or five attendants, including the one who had been standing by my bed, rushed him and, after a brief struggle, took him off to one side, beyond my own sphere of vision. I heard him whimpering for a while and then, finally, evidently strapped down on a bed in one of the other alcoves, he quieted down.

  Oh, God, was I that way? Did I run in circles and wave my arms and tear my hair and scream and smash into walls? Did I have these other guys looking at me with dead eyes—or recoiling as I just recoiled when I saw what this man was doing? Why, I must have! Otherwise, I wouldn’t be strapped down like this. That attendant was right. I’ve been a sick boy.

  I turned my head away from the room and back towards the window, and for the first time I noticed the water tower. There it stood, high and solid, almost majestic, and, more than anything else, normal. What can be more normal, more commonplace, than a water tower? That’s what I want to be—normal and commonplace—an average guy. I don’t ever again want to be different.

  I closed my eyes and clenched my fists and prayed—hard. “Please, God,” I murmured, “make me well and normal so I can get out of here soon, and let me play ball so I can take care of my family. I don’t know how I got here or how long I’ve stayed, but make the rest of the time short.” I prayed for five minutes or so, to God, to Jesus, to St. Joseph, to St. Anthony, and then I opened my eyes. I felt someone loosening my straps and, turning my head back, saw that another stranger was standing by my bed.

  He smiled when our eyes met, and I managed a weak smile. Who is this man? I know him—I’m sure I do. Where have I seen him before?

  Then he spoke, in a soft Latin-American accent, and I was sure I knew him. He was of medium height, with jet-black curly hair. His eyes were deep brown and his features were handsomely regular. He had a short, straight nose, his mouth was wide, his chin firm and he had the whitest teeth I ever saw.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, his voice pitched low.

  “I’m all right. How long have I been here?”

  “Two weeks, give or take a day.”

  “How much longer will I have to stay?”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s up to you.”

  I stared at him. Then, sitting up, I snapped my fingers and exclaimed, “Say, you’re not—you can’t be—that television guy—Desi Arnaz. That’s who you are. What are you doing here, of all places?”

  “Well, to begin with, I’m not Desi Arnaz.”

  “Then you must be his twin brother.”

  “No,” he said, “I’m not even related to him. But I guess I look like him. I’ve been approached in railroad stations and airports and hotel lobbies and streetcar stops and parties and everywhere else you can think of by people asking for my autograph. You must know how it feels to be hounded by autograph hunters.”

  “It’s wonderful. I wish—I hope—how soon will it be before people will be after me again?”

  “Not long—if you do what we want you to.”

  “I will—and who are you?”

  “I’m Dr. Brown—Guillermo Brown. My home is in Mexico. I’m a resident physician here.”

  I held out my hand, and he shook it.

  “My name’s Jimmy Piersall.”

  “I know.”

  “Now tell me—please. Where am I and what kind of a hospital is this and what kind of a room am I in and what kind of a doctor are you?”

  “You are in the Westborough State Hospital,” he said, “a mental institution. This is the violent room. I’m a psychiatrist.”

  “Then I’ve been—”

  “—sick. But you’re getting well. In a little while—later this afternoon, we’ll have a talk. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  In the next few weeks, Dr. Brown became friend, adviser and confidant, a willing repository for all my hopes and fears and ambitions and dreams, a spiritual sponge that sopped up the core of my conscious and subconscious mind. We talked every day, sometimes for hours at a time, or rather, I suppose I should say I talked and he listened. A key question here, a nod there, sometimes only a smile, was all I needed from him to get me going. He drew out everything—the good and the bad—and he grew to know me as no one except Mary has ever known me before or since.

  The first question he asked when he returned later the day I came to my senses was, “Do you know that you have been sick?”

  “I know now,” I replied.

  “Good. Very good. It is very important that you admit you were sick.”

  “I feel all right now.”

  “I’m sure that you are all right,” the doctor said. “You’ll be out of here soon. But you must co-operate. Do as you’re told and everything will work out.”

  “Doc,” I said suddenly, “what month is it?”

  “August.”

  “August?”

  “You may have lost a little time, Jimmy. Don’t think about it now.”

  I shook my head, slowly. Then I said, “All right. If you say so.”

  I woke up the next morning, feeling calm and refreshed and relaxed, and it wasn’t until later in the day that I realized I had no headache. I couldn’t wait to see the doctor and tell him about it.

  “I’ve had a headache since I was fifteen years old,” I said. “Now it’s gone. I’m not nervous any more either.”

  “Good, Very good.”

  “Will I stay this way?”

  “No reason why you shouldn’t.”

  “Doc—what did they do to cure me?”

  “You were given elect
roshock treatments.”

  “I was that bad?”

  “You were pretty bad, Jimmy. The shock treatments got you out of the acute stage. Now you have to do the rest yourself.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By learning to relax. You must take everything as it comes—in stride. Don’t let yourself get upset, no matter how bad things seem. If you feel yourself going off a deep end, stop whatever you’re doing, so that you can calm down. You’ll have to work at it at first. Later, it will come naturally, just like catching and throwing a baseball.”

  “That always came naturally to me.”

  “Only as far as you can remember,” the doctor said. “But when you were small, it had to be taught to you. Now you’re going to teach yourself how to relax. You can do that, too.”

  I looked around. We were sitting in one corner of the violent room.

  “How can I relax here?”

  “We’ll get you out tomorrow, and let you have a room to yourself for a little while.”

  “When can I see my wife?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Doc, how is she?”

  “Wonderful,” he said. “A fine girl. Until we told her to stop, she came out here every day—and it’s a three quarters of an hour drive for her.”

  “Why did you tell her not to come?”

  The doctor shrugged.

  “It was just a long trip for nothing. She couldn’t see you.”

  “You say it’s a three quarters of an hour drive. From where?”

  “From where you live, on Walnut Street in Newton. You rented a house there.”

  I frowned and rubbed my forehead, as if I were trying to bring some forgotten detail out of it. I didn’t remember renting a house in Newton or any other suburb of Boston. I must have stayed with the Red Sox. But how could that be? They were going to make me into a shortstop.

  “How long did I stay with the Red Sox?” I asked.

  “About half the season. They sent you to Birmingham late in June, but not because they weren’t satisfied with the way you played.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Well,” the doctor said, “you were pretty nervous. They thought that by sending you to a place where you had had such a wonderful season the year before, they could get you to calm down.”

  “How did I end up here then?”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning. You’ve talked enough today.”

  I was given a room of my own in the morning, and the doctor came in to see me at about eleven o’clock.

  “When’s Mary coming?” I asked.

  “Around two. How do you feel today?”

  “Swell. It’s great to get out of that—other room.”

  “I’ll bet it is, Jimmy.”

  “When do I get back into circulation?”

  “In a little while—a few weeks ought to do it. You’ll stay here for a couple of days, and then we’ll put you in with a group of fellows who are convalescing.”

  “I’m anxious to see Mary.”

  “And she’s anxious to see you,” the doctor said. “I just spoke to her a few minutes ago. She and the children send their love, and she can’t wait to see you.”

  The children? There was Eileen—and, yes, I remember—Doreen. That’s right—we have two little girls now. Let me see—when was Doreen born? I remember—on March 5—Eileen’s first birthday. Mary called me from Scranton to tell me.

  “I have two girls, haven’t I, Doc?” I said.

  “You remember the birth of the second one?”

  “Sure. Mary phoned. I was in Sarasota with the Red Sox, so I couldn’t get to Scranton.”

  “You were there just before Doreen was born.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes. You had a few days off between the end of the special training school and the beginning of regular spring training. Jimmy, you remember Doreen’s birth. What else do you remember?”

  I hesitated, then said, “Well, it’s hard to say because everything is so hazy.”

  “What’s the last clear recollection you have, outside of Doreen’s birth?”

  “Walking into the Terrace at Sarasota, when I reported for that special training school. I remember getting out of the limousine and taking my suitcase and going over the patio and stepping into the lobby and—”

  I stopped.

  “—and what?” the doctor asked, gently.

  “And—nothing. I guess that’s all.”

  I looked hard at the doctor.

  “Good Lord,” I said, slowly, “that was January 15. Have I been out of my head ever since?”

  “I told you, Jimmy—you were a very sick boy. Can you remember anything else?”

  “I’ve got some vague impressions. Seems to me I borrowed Paul Schreiber’s glove in Sarasota. He’s the Red Sox batting-practice pitcher. I asked him if I could use the glove when he wasn’t pitching and he said it was O.K. I think he gave the glove to me later.”

  “Where was your own glove?”

  “I left it home.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Red Sox were going to make me into a shortstop, and I figured they couldn’t do that if I didn’t have a glove.”

  “I see,” said the doctor, casually. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “Not really. It seems to me I had a terrible argument with an umpire somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you exactly where or what it was all about. It must have been after the baseball season began, though, because there was a big crowd.”

  “What else?”

  I thought awhile, then said, “I guess that’s all, Doc.”

  “I see.”

  “Doc—how come I remember all the details about Doreen’s birth, but I can’t recall anything else that happened since last January?” I asked.

  “Because Doreen’s birth was something good—something that you wanted to remember. You see, Jimmy, shock treatments often cause amnesia in some form or other. It can be partial or, as in your case, practically total. This is particularly true about unpleasant events. Almost everything that happened to you while you were sick was unpleasant, and you’ve forgotten it because you wanted to forget it. But the one pleasant thing that did happen—your little girl’s birth—is just as clear in your mind as it would have been if you had been perfectly normal at the time.”

  The doctor, a pile of newspapers under his arm, dropped in on me after lunch. We talked for a few minutes, then he said, “Here—these papers are for you. Take a look at the sports pages.”

  We talked for a few minutes, then, after he went out, I picked up one of the papers. I turned to the sports page, and became absorbed in the first story I had read about the Red Sox since I had been sick. As soon as I finished one paper, I turned to another. The doctor had given me not only eight Boston papers but both the Worcester papers as well.

  I was still reading when I heard a step, followed by a rich, soft, marvelously familiar, “Hello, Jimmy, honey—”

  I looked up, then jumped to my feet. Mary was standing there, her arms outstretched, her mouth half open, her blue eyes brimming. My own eyes misted and my throat constricted as I walked towards her, and the next thing we knew, we were laughing and crying together in each other’s arms.

  After a while, she said, “You’re all right now.”

  She was stating a fact, not asking a question.

  “I know, honey. I’m O.K. I’ll be out of here soon. Tell me about the babies.”

  She was there for three hours, telling me all the latest news about Eileen and Doreen and Mom and Dad and George and the house and our friends in Scranton and Waterbury, while I just sat and stared at her. When it was time for her to leave, she stood up and the lowering sun, coming in through the window, caught her hair, and it glistened like copper. I grinned and said, “Gee, honey, I guess you are a redhead, after all. Remember—that time in the Tiptoe?”

  “How can I ever forget the Tiptoe?” she exclaimed.

  “Well, the night before Tony int
roduced us, I asked him who the redhead was.”

  “I’ve told you and told you I’m not a redhead. My hair is brown. Don’t call me a redhead.”

  We both laughed. Then I kissed her and asked, “When are you coming back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. And you know what? Dr. Brown said that after that I can see you twice a day, in the afternoon and in the evening.”

  “That’ll be wonderful, honey. Only—well, he told me it’s three quarters of an hour each way. If you make two trips, you’ll be riding three hours a day.”

  “Don’t you think it is worth it?”

  “It’s worth it to me.”

  “Well, silly,” she said, “it’s worth it to me, too.”

  The doctor let me have a radio when I was moved to the convalescent ward. This was a pleasant, sunny room, big enough to accommodate eight men. All of us were in nonviolent stages of our sickness. The doctor assured me that I would be able to go outdoors soon, and it wouldn’t be long after that before I would be released from the hospital.

  Each day I listened to the broadcast of the Red Sox game. When Mary was with me, we would sit hand in hand, and after it was over she would say, “Next year, honey, you’ll be with them,” and I’d nod and breathe to myself, “Please, God, let her be right.”

  Neither she nor the doctor told me any details of what I had been doing on the ball field while I was with the Red Sox, but I knew that I had been acting queerly most of the time.

  “When you get back home,” the doctor said, “you can look at the newspaper clippings and see for yourself. Mary can tell you anything you want her to then. Right now I want you to concentrate on getting well.”

  “What’s the matter—are you afraid I’ll start worrying about myself?”

  He smiled.

  “No, I’m not afraid of that. But you’ve got to think about the future now. You can pick up the past later.”

  “You know, Doc,” I said, soberly, “that’s no joke—about my worrying, I mean. I’ve always been a worrier.”

  “Sure—and you’ve always had a headache, too. The headache’s gone. So has the worrying. It’s all over now. You’ve been cured. You’re starting from scratch. It’s as if you had just been born again.”