“Be careful, Freddy,” said an intelligent and superior and noble snake out of its coiling passion and great center of compassion. This was as Freddy came into the anteroom at the doctor's. “Think, Freddy, who directs your steps there. Should you not turn and leave as rapidly as possible? This kind of doctor you do not need.”
“This kind of doctor I may well need,” Freddy told the projection of Hondo Silverio. “With you things romping in my head, I have to have a guarantee of my sanity before I go on.”
“Go right in, Mr. Foley,” the appointments girl said to Freddy's outer ears, and Fred Foley went in.
“I'll state my reason for coming as quickly as possible,” Fred said to the doctor of solid reputation. He couldn't see the doctor's eyes, only the glint of light on his glasses. But there had to be eyes of solid reputation behind them. “I want to be certified as sane. Is that ever done, Doctor? I want you to go over me very carefully and then give me a written opinion that will stand up legally.”
“Well, no, it really isn't ever done, Mr. Foley, not quite like that. A man doesn't ask for such a legal certificate without a legal threat. Has your sanity ever been questioned?”
“Oh, a little bit, here and there, you know how it is, Doctor. It's usually in a kidding mood that people tell me that I'm crazy. Ah … some of them are serious, though. But I have reason to believe that my sanity will be questioned, and that quite soon. I believe I may be railroaded, and without recourse. I'd like to have the opinion of a competent doctor on record before that event.”
“Most committed persons believe they're railroaded, Mr. Foley, but most don't suspect it before it happens. Are you given any alternative to being put on the rails?”
“I was once given the alternative: to shut up. I didn't do it. It's probably too late for that now. Well, go over me and tell me how sane I am.”
“You must be prepared for the possibility that you are a little off, Mr. Foley, and that if you are sent up it will be for a reason. You seem to have delusions of persecution.”
“They aren't delusions, Doctor. Two sets of threats have been given to me, one on my life, one on my freedom. I was awake and not suffering from hallucination both times. My hearing is better than normal, it's acute. My knowledge of people is sound. I've been threatened to make me lay off a peculiar line of questioning.”
“Then lay off. That's what a sane man would do. A sane man solves his problems in the most direct manner. Laying off would seem the most direct manner for you.”
“But I don't want to lay off.”
“Then you probably are insane, to an extent, on this one subject. Why don't you want to lay off the thing that threatens your life?”
“I have a certain amount of stubbornness. And I have my principles.”
“Neither is a sign of sanity, Mr. Foley. More often they're the opposite. An insane man will always have a considerable amount of stubbornness, intractability. And he'll have very strong principles, though usually for very weak reasons. A sane man bends to reality, and his principles die a little as he gets older. Yours should at least have begun to weaken. You aren't a child. Children, you may not realize it, are never sane. But sanity should have begun to develop by your age.”
“We may not mean the same thing by sanity. I was sane when I was a boy, Doctor. This is one thing I do know. And other boys were mostly sane. Some of them have lost it, a little, when they come to be men. I don't believe I've lost very much of mine.”
“No, we certainly don't mean the same thing by sanity, Mr. Foley. You have a backward idea, an insane idea of it. Sanity is adaptability to the world as it is, even though that world may be a little insane by ideal standards. You seem to be in fine health, and I'm sure that your senses are acute. Your attitude isn't truculent, so far. If committed, you probably wouldn't make a difficult patient; that's one thing to be thankful for. The difficulty of adaptation is always harder on the patient than on the overseers. Now then, Mr. Foley, let's examine your attitude toward reality, taking into consideration that your profession is based largely on fiction. When you fictionize in your reporting — do you realize it?”
“Certainly I realize it.”
“And you're never carried away by it, never to the point where you can't see the difference?”
“Certainly I'm carried away by it, or I wouldn't be any good at it. But I believe it's the same way an actor is carried away. And I do see the difference between the fiction and reality, where it's necessary to draw a difference; most of the time it isn't necessary, it doesn't matter.”
“You think it doesn't matter what you reject and what you accept, and how you handle it all? Mr. Foley, suppose you interviewed a very magnetic man who said that he had ridden to other planets in alien spacecraft? Would you be immune to his evidence?”
“I sure hope I wouldn't be immune to anyone's evidence about anything, Doctor. I wouldn't reject any evidence for anything without examining it, not as reporter. And your question isn't merely a supposition. I have interviewed three such men who said that they had ridden to other planets in odd craft. And all three of those were magnetic. They projected the stuff, they talked the stuff, and they said that the crafts were driven by the same magnetic stuff. Two of the men certainly didn't convince me, though they did make good copy. But that third man had my mind wide open for quite a while.”
“Oh. What closed your mind to his insane ideas then, Foley?”
“He told me he'd arrange for me to take one of those quick trips to another planet. But he never showed up for the appointment.”
“I see. And if you had taken such a trip, would you have believed it?”
“Certainly I'd believe it. If I had actually done it, then of course I'd believe I had.”
“Even knowing that it was impossible? That's bad, Mr. Foley, bad.”
“If I had done it, Doctor, then I'd know that it was possible. He shouldn't have stood me up. That shook my trust in him. He did send me a postcard, though, from Ganymede. He explained, not too implausibly, that their takeoff was hurried and that they'd been forced to leave without me.”
“A postcard from Ganymede, Mr. Foley? Do you realize what you're saying? Ganymede is one of the moons of Jupiter, or at least one of the large planets. How could you believe — ”
“Actually the card was postmarked from Pueblo, Colorado, Doctor. It was one of the disappointments of my life.”
“You wanted such things to be true?”
“Oh yes.”
“Bad, Mr. Foley, very bad.”
“Bad that I should want the marvelous to be true? I would think that normal.”
“Only for children, Mr. Foley. You have a decidedly immature attitude toward the world. That isn't completely damning in itself, but let's go on a little further. If you were told that a new race of giant snails was going to take over the earth and abolish mankind, how would you react?”
“I'd react by considering my informant and questioning where he got his information. If he had even the slightest snail-horn of information, I'd follow it out. I'd try my mightiest to find out whether there really was a new race of giant snails trying to take over. I'd examine all the evidence my informant could give me, and all that I could invent myself, always with an eye as to how I could turn it to account. I'd consider the treatment — quizzical, facetious, sensational, or who-knows-after-all? — even before I had anything to treat. If there were real evidence, Doctor, I'd really follow it out. I can see the banner on my feature piece, On the Track of the Giant Snail, in my mind's-eye now. Believe me, I'd try to be the first to interview the snail leader.”
“You would actually spend time on such a report, Mr. Foley?”
“Yes. I may spend time on that very thing whenever I'm through with what I'm on now. There's bound to be an interesting story in it: if not of the giant snails themselves, then perhaps a story of a man who believed in giant snails.”
“Worse and worse, Mr. Foley. Now then, what would you do if you had the report that there wa
s a race of superhumans secretly ruling the world to the detriment of normal mankind? Would you credit the report, Mr. Foley? Would you examine it? In a way, this is the test. There is a pattern of such belief in a certain form of insanity.”
“Oh, is there now, Doctor?”
How many strands would it take to bind a man, and each of them so much thinner than a hair? Would you believe a report about secret spiders? Or would you refuse to believe it even after they had tangled you in their webs?
There was an abnormality about this doctor. It bothered Foley while they talked. What it was slipped away from him, but he hovered over it. He would have it in a minute.
“You don't answer me, Mr. Foley. Do you believe in a race of superhumans? Now then, what if it was reported, or it came into your mind somehow, that this race of superhumans had one slight peculiarity which distinguished them? Would you see this peculiarity wherever you looked and would you imagine a conspiracy? Would you imagine you saw this peculiarity on people in the streets? That you saw it on someone following you? That you saw it on someone you came to for advice? That you saw it on a doctor whom you came to visit?”
“Such as archaic ears, Doctor?”
“Such as anything, Mr. Foley. Is archaic ears one of the forms that your delusion takes? Do you imagine that a race of men with funny ears is out to dominate the world?”
“Either I'm imagining it or it's happening. Yes, I believe that certain old people with funny ears are out to dominate the world. It does make me sound as if I were a little off, especially since nobody else seems to see such things.”
Foley was tempted now to doubt his own sanity, the doctor had put it all so smoothly. He was tempted, but he didn't really doubt. He had evidence before his eyes now, if his eyes were still good. The doctor had the funny ears, no doubt about that.
“Bad, Mr. Foley, very bad,” the doctor was saying again.
“Doctor, how did I come to seek you out?” Freddy Foley asked suddenly.
“How would I know, Mr. Foley? I suppose you came to me because I'm a doctor of solid reputation.”
“Well, who told me that you were a doctor of solid reputation?”
“It could have been almost anybody, Mr. Foley, for I am,”
“How did I even learn your name and address?”
“I don't know, Mr. Foley. It was probably given to you by someone who thought you really needed a doctor. Or you could have had it from the phone book.”
“I could have, but I didn't. Doctor, I don't know your name and address. What brought me here?”
“Your feet, perhaps. A vehicle? I don't know.”
“I never heard of you. I never heard of your solid reputation. But I never even thought of going to any other doctor. I didn't ask any of my acquaintances the name of a good doctor. I came directly to you without asking directions or anything else. I came directly to a man I had never heard of, already convinced that he was a man of solid reputation. How was this put into my mind?”
“Ah, now you believe that the super-people can control your mind? Bad, Mr. Foley, very bad.”
“How did you know my name was Foley? How did your appointments girl know it? How did you know I was a reporter?”
“Have you suffered these gaps of memory and information before, Mr. Foley? Is it that you become a little excited now? If you will allow me, I'll give you a sedative, and then we'll delve a little deeper into this.”
“You come out of that chair and I'll knock you back into it, Doctor! You're not giving me any sedative!”
“My, aren't we violent! The symptoms continue to unfold.”
“You can stow that, Doctor. I know when I'm being taken. You're one of them.”
“I am one of them? Soon, Mr. Foley, as your mind weakens, everybody will be one of them. You'll see them everywhere you look. It will be the whole world in conspiracy against you.”
“I considered that once before, Doctor, but it didn't hold up. It isn't the whole world in conspiracy against me, it's a small bunch of you in conspiracy against the whole world. How was it done to me, Doctor? By subliminal or subvocal suggestion? How?”
“Your suggestions follow a pattern of a familiar dementia, Mr. Foley. You can believe any or all of them. I'm not sure that it will be well for you to be walking the streets. You have shown signs of violence.”
“I'll show more signs if you try to stop me.”
“I can have a pickup order out for you within seconds, Mr. Foley.”
“Why bother? I still have an appointment in the parlor of a bigger spider. He's at least a little curious about me or he wouldn't be willing to see me. He's at least a little nervous about me or he wouldn't have detoured me here. And I have the feeling that I'll be watched by archaic and many-faceted eyes when I go to his parlor.”
“In the parlor of a spider, you say. Sheer infantilism. Yes, Mr. Foley, I would be willing to give a certificate concerning your sanity, but it would be the opposite of the one you came for. But you're right, you will be closely watched wherever you go. There's really nothing you can do in the little time you have left.”
Foley left that doctor of solid reputation. He came angrily and alertly out into the street again, careful of ambush, careful of everything. But there is a danger in being too careful, and he knew it; it makes you too tight.
And now Foley was tempted again to doubt his own sanity. He did see the distinguishing mark, those damned odd ears, on people in the street: newsboys, shoppers, loitering messengers, hurrying tourists. Either he was going crazy, or another galloping suggestion had been implanted into his mind. Those ears were on the shop-girls, on the policemen, on little colored kids no bigger than toys, on kind old ladies. He thought about post-hypnotic suggestion and such rubbish; he thought how an ordinary thing will sometimes appear extraordinary as though seen for the first time; he thought This is it, Freddy, this is it. But for all that, he decided that if he had gotten into the state he could get out of it.
He squinted his eyes. He could make the strange ears appear. He could make them go away. He could see the snakes. He could cast out the snakes. He had once learned this from an old snake-watcher.
The snake-watcher had told him how to stop seeing snakes. This was when Freddy had been on the jail beat. One can stop seeing snakes: it takes great strength of mind, intense concentration, deep resources of courage, and a blind denial of the obvious. But the giant effort to make the snakes go away can be made. The difficulty, the snake-watcher had said, is that it takes so much out of a man that he is left weak and shaken and has to be restored. And the handiest restorative is just what made him see snakes in the first place. “Learn to live with them, learn to live with them,” the old snake-watcher had advised.
But if hallucinatory snakes can be made to disappear by giant effort, so should archaic ears be capable of being modernized. Foley made the giant effort, and then the people in the streets no longer had peculiar ears. Or rather, they no longer had the archaic ears of the reappearing folks. They still had peculiar ears; Fred hadn't noticed ears much before; he saw now the thing that many people never see, that ears themselves are forever peculiar.
Having seen this much, Freddy went further with sudden insight: he saw that people themselves are peculiar by nature, that there is no norm. But this didn't help much.
“What I need now is one rich and powerful friend who'll be faithful to me to the end,” Freddy told himself. “I need a foul-weather friend. There has to be somewhere at least one person who cares what happens to me, one who has a gracious way with money and no fear at all of embarrassment or danger. There has to be one person who'll stand by me whether I'm crazy or not, one who'd enjoy a battle. If I had such a friend I'd communicate at once and give a hint of what just might happen to me. But do I have such a friend?
“Yeah. I do. Besides, it might shake her loose from that demon she's stuck on. She likes to be needed and I need her now.”
Biddy Bencher, whatever else was wrong with her, was such a friend. S
he had a gracious way with money (her father's), she certainly had no fear of embarrassment or danger. She was more likely to stand by a crazy person than a sane one. And she did love a battle. She was a foul-weather friend all the way. So innocent and yet so foul. She was the one. Nobody was more loyal, to more things. She changed loyalties like coats. Well, it was time for her to put on her Freddy-coat again.
Freddy called her up, not by phone. Other forms of communication had come onto him lately almost without his noticing them. He got her but could not get her attention. She was lounging on subterranean beaches and wild dogs were tearing her apart. “You're missing pieces, you're missing the best pieces,” she kept calling at the tearing dogs. “All you're tearing off is the legs. Don't any of you like the white meat?”
Freddy couldn't get her attention that way. Finally he called her on the telephone and she answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, Freddy,” she answered at once. “I was playing the record-player and I couldn't answer until that movement was finished. Sure, I'll come there if you need me. Where will I come? Where is there? Is this Freddy or have I answered a dead phone?”
“I'm in Washington, Biddy. I'm fine, as fine as one can be in Washington, temporarily fine, but possibly I won't be free by the end of this day. If I am confined, in all likelihood it will be at the Asilo Santa Eliza, and they'll deny that I'm there. Come get me out if you don't hear from me again.”
“Freddy, little short end of the stick, phone me at home late tonight if it hasn't happened. If I don't hear from you, I'll fly there and be there in the morning. I understand, dear, I know what kind of people they put in Santa Eliza. I always knew you were a little, but I don't want other people thinking it, and I sure don't want it made official. Are you on the same jag, Freddy?”
“Yes, the same jag, Biddy.”
“There must be something to it, then. If it was just a crackpot idea they wouldn't lock you up. They don't lock up crackpots. I know they don't. Shall I bring Papa?”
“Yes. He said once to wait and he'd get me out. I wasn't in yet then, but I think he had a futuristic insight.”
Fourth Mansions Page 15
