Quiet-Crazy

by Joyce Durham Barrett

  The only way I ever lived through all things like that before was to say, “Poor Angela. Look what they’re doing to Angela.” And I was saving Elizabeth from the pity. But now I can’t do that anymore. It’s got to be Elizabeth that the bad things happen to, as well as the good. And like Dr. Adams was the good that happened to Elizabeth, so Dr. Shaver, the bad, has happened to Elizabeth, too.

  Dr. Shaver, the new practicing intern on the eighth floor looks like a weasel. Even worse, he talks and acts like one; like he’s trying to weasel things out of me. And why he’s called Dr. Shaver I couldn’t guess in a million years, because he always has this stubble of fuzz around his face, which looks like he’s forgotten to shave, or never cared to one.

  Anyway, Dr. Shaver, I soon discover in my first visit with him, is repeating the same things Dr. Adams said, like they have a question-and-reply list somewhere that someone’s drawn up, maybe Dr. Johnstone, that they’re supposed to go by. (Could I tell Dr. Shaver what Dr. Johnstone tried to get me to do? Since I don’t care one mite for Dr. Shaver, since I’m not in love with him, like I was in love with Dr. Adams, what would I have to lose? But, then, Dr. Johnstone is his own problem, not mine. Shoot, I’ve got enough to deal with, just handling me.)

  “And who is Elizabeth?” says Dr. Shaver, breaking my musing, talking as if he’s the only one who’s ever asked that question. It is a little aggravating having to answer the same old questions again about who is Angela, and what she’s like, and how do I feel about my mother and father and men again, “Who is Elizabeth?”

  This time around, at least I can tell a little more about Elizabeth. I can at least say “I” am Elizabeth. And I can say that Elizabeth is a young woman who used to work at the pants factory, but who is now thinking real hard and serious about going back to school, if there’s any possible way. I say that to hear myself saying it, to see how it feels coming from Elizabeth. And I’ll have to say it feels pretty good, to think that going off to college is what I am really going to do once I leave Nathan.

  “And why are you going to college?” Stubble-Face asks.

  Stupid question. From stupid man. Deserves stupid answer. “Oh,” I say, just stalling and playing with my pink fingernails, colored with Miss Hansom’s hot pink fingernail polish, “I’m going to learn how to ask questions, like, ’Why?’”

  “So,” he says, rather smartly, “you’re going to be a shrink?”

  My head snaps up as suddenly as if he’d tied a string around my neck and jerked on it. Shrink? What’s that? What could I say? What is a ’shrink’? I could ask Dr. Adams easy as pie, “What is a ’shrink’?” but why can’t I ask this man? Why am I so embarrassed that I don’t know what a shrink is? Is it something good, something bad? How do I answer without knowing what it is? How do I answer without making myself appear foolish? Why am I so afraid, now, of appearing foolish with this weasel of a man? Where is that Elizabeth who can say anything to anyone now, at least at Nathan? What would the real, grown-up Elizabeth woman say right now, the Elizabeth mat Dr. Adams worked so hard to bring out?

  “I’ve been thinking I’d like to help get people to talking,” I say, “get them to saying what they really and truly think, to help them see it’s all right to just be who they are and not put on any shows, not try to be someone they’re not, and mainly get them to talking to their own families so they don’t have to come talk to stark strangers.”

  “Can you talk with your family?” Dr. Shaver asks, his deep brown milky eyes piercing me, looking like Mama eyes.

  I squirm. I fidget, probably like a kid. But. . . so, I am uncomfortable. What the heck. “I can talk better,” I finally say. “It’s going to take some time to talk completely in the way I want to talk, but I know now I can do it.”

  “Can your family talk with you?” he asks, his eyes not straying one inch from me. Just staring at me. Exposing every bit of me. Leaving nothing, no part of me, covered up.

  “Look here, Elizabeth, here, take it. Um-m-m, feels so good, baby. Ain’t it, baby? Ain’t that good?”

  “Can your family talk with you?” he asks again, drawing out every ounce of anger, disgust, and hate I could have from any corner of my insides. On one hand I don’t want this weasel seeing all this in me, but on the other hand, since I don’t care for him, nor him for me, there wouldn’t be any love lost, even if I did rail out at him. But I don’t rail, because I know I’d start in to crying and couldn’t stop, and I sure don’t want to do that in front of this man. So I just choose to tell him matter of fact and shock him to pieces.

  “Sure,” I say, “my family can talk. Mama can say, ’Here, Elizabeth, honey, take my breast.’”

  Since those words had been churning in my head for all my life, I thought that I would be used to it, but that Dr. Shaver wouldn’t and that it would somehow put him in his place by shocking him speechless. But all he does is look at me more, this time in a different way, like he is awfully curious. Since he doesn’t act shocked, I go on.

  “And Mama can say, ’Hm-m-m, feels so good, you sucking on it. Don’t it feel good, baby?’”

  Still the weasel keeps on staring at me. He crosses his leg, then he uncrosses it. “And what does your daddy say?” he asks.

  “You leave my daddy out of this!” I tell him right quick. “My daddy wouldn’t never do nothing like that. Never!”

  The weasel just nods his head, slips out his pen from his shirt pocket and starts to write in the silver-backed chart. Like some kind of pouncing cat, I jump at him, snatch the pen, and I hold it right in his face.

  “You write a single word of this down in that damn chart and I’ll cram this down your throat!”

  I am trembling so, I feel for a minute I’m getting out of control, until I notice that at least the weasel is shocked, but it isn’t exactly the kind of shock I had intended to inflict upon him. Frankly, I’m shocked, too. I haven’t never done anything like that, and it scares me so bad that just as quickly as I pounce, I as quickly sit back down. Just to get my bearings, you know. And, of course, I’m worried he might put me in the lock-up ward for being out of control, and that would be terrible anytime, but especially right here when I am thinking about and talking about going home and getting on with my life, whatever my life is going to be.

  “Look,” I say, offering the pen back to him. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I . . . I can’t imagine what came on me.” Then realizing that this man knows nothing about how I act in person, only what he has read in my chart, I decide to explain more. “I haven’t ever done or said anything like that to anyone at any time ever in my life. I am so sorry.” And I am. I am truly sorry.

  “No problem,” he says, and he says it sounding pretty cool for someone who has just been pounced on by a wild woman.

  We both are very quiet for a while, until he slips his pen back into his shirt pocket and he says, “Why don’t you want me to write in your chart, Elizabeth? You understand, don’t you, that everything you say is confidential?”

  “I know that. I understand that. But I just plain don’t want that in my chart. Would you? If your mama did something like that to you, would you want it written down anywhere?”

  “Does she do it now?”

  “Of course not. I realize you don’t know me, but I’ve got better sense than that. Besides, I don’t want to talk about it. Would you want to talk about something like that?”

  “When did she do it?”

  “When I was little. But I don’t want to talk about it, I said.”

  “How little?”

  “I don’t know how little. Anyway, I told you I don’t want to talk about it. All I know is after I started school, she stopped.”

  “Is that all she did, ask you to suck at her breast?”

  “My God, isn’t that enough? With me six years old? And her enjoying it?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t say what I meant. What I mean is, did she ask you to do anything else?”

  I shake my head. “That was enough, wasn’t it?”<
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  “I’m sorry. I know this is painful for you, Elizabeth. But how did you feel?”

  How did I feel. A million-dollar question. What the heck. He’ll write it all down when I leave anyway. And I’ll be going soon, anyway. And I’ll never see Dr. Adams nor nobody down here ever again, anyway. What the heck. “Frankly, I felt all kinds of ways,” I tell him. “First, I felt scared, then mad, then guilty, then . . . a little bit excited, but scared excited, a little bit fun, but scared fun. All kinds of ways. And Dr. Weas . . . uh, Dr. Shaver, you’re right in a way. All this has been painful in the past, for all my years on this earth. But right now, you know I just don’t give a shit about it anymore.”

  “Why, Elizabeth, why don’t you give a shit?”

  When Dr. Shaver says that, suddenly, this feeling comes over me that I don’t hate him anymore. It’s like he is on my side, really, after all. That he can’t help it if he doesn’t look so hot, and he’s not as much fun as Dr. Adams, and even though he isn’t Dr. Adams, he seems to know, too, just what to say and how to act, even if I don’t care all that much for him.

  “I’m just tired of the whole mess. Tired of carrying it around all these years. I just want to forget about it. Well, as best I can, and not let it keep me from being a real live person and not some spooky version of Angela floating around, half-dead. That’s it, that’s all. I just want to put it away and bury it. As much as I can, anyway.”

  “Have you talked about this with anyone?”

  I shake my head. “Unless you count the Lord.”

  “Why don’t you want to talk about it, Elizabeth?”

  “Because it . . . it . . .” I turn my head and rest my closed-up mouth on my fist. Sitting and waiting for him to stop. Or for me to get up and just go, get on out of here and never once look back. But I can’t move. And I can’t talk.

  “I want to help you talk about it, Elizabeth,” Dr. Shaver says. “You need to talk about it. But you realize the importance of that.”

  “I know,” I say finally. “I know. But it makes me feel so . . . so dirty . . . so . . . ugly.” I astound myself something awful that I can say this and not even start into crying. Maybe that is because for the past month, since Aunt Lona told me about the abused child at her school, I’ve cried and cried probably until I cried it out. Plus, I’ve thought it over and over from every possible angle, until I couldn’t see any more ways to think about it. But I’ll have to admit, it felt good, telling just one person, even though he couldn’t change a thing about it.

  “But you’re not dirty, Elizabeth, you’re not ugly,” Dr. Shaver says, and I know he is just trying to keep me going on.

  “But I’ve felt that way forever, and isn’t that what counts, after all, how you, yourself, feel about yourself? Besides, in some crazy way I feel like it was my fault, too. But deep down I know it couldn’t have been. Could it?”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Elizabeth.”

  “And, somehow, I want to think that it isn’t even Mama’s fault. That she couldn’t help it. That she was just doing what she had to do.”

  Dr. Shaver looks at me, as if to say, “Yes, and go on.” But I don’t.

  “Why wouldn’t it be your mama’s fault?” he finally says, when he sees I’m not going on.

  “If she’s hanging on to Angela so much and making me out of Angela. . . oh, I don’t know. . . maybe that somehow brought some comfort in some way, I don’t know.”

  “Was it comforting to you, Elizabeth?”

  “Oh, why, why, did I ever start into this? I don’t know. No. Yes, maybe. No. Not comforting. Especially when I was so big. Maybe when I was smaller and thought it was right and okay. But, no, not when I was five and six. No, absolutely not. Scary.”

  “How was it scary, Elizabeth?”

  “Well, my God, wouldn’t something like that be scary to you?”

  “I’m sure it would.”

  “Then you should know how it was scary. Scary because you get to thinking that it’s getting to be more exciting, and you get to somehow liking it and hating it at the same time. And you get confused. Terrible confusion. Especially when . . .”

  I cannot believe I am sitting here telling all this out. What will this man think of me? But then, I really don’t care what he thinks. But what will he think?

  “When what, Elizabeth?”

  “When you think about other women, when you get older. It’s scary then. Very scary.”

  “Can you tell me more about that? Or had you rather wait until another time?”

  “Oh, what the hell. No. I want to get it all out now, and not talk about it ever again, okay?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Okay. Like when you see women with hardly no clothes on, and it makes you feel excited; and seeing Mary Jane Payne with her breasts pushing out of her halter top and her rear pushing out of her short shorts; and the way I admired Mavis, the Jewel. . . well, you don’t know Mavis, but she was something to behold. And, shoot, it even carries over to Miss Hansom. Nice, sweet Miss Hansom. Even though I like her so much, I still feel it’s somehow ugly and dirty to like her.”

  “Why, Elizabeth?”

  “I don’t know why. But somehow it all goes back to Mama in some way. Like it’s wrong of me to like any woman, or admire any woman for their beautiful way of looking. But there’s nothing, you know, really wrong with that, is there? I tell myself that, anyway, that there’s nothing wrong with that. Still it makes me wonder.”

  “What do you wonder, Elizabeth?”

  “You know what I’m getting at.”

  “What, Elizabeth, what are you getting at?”

  “If I’m queer, damn it. If I’m a damn queer.”

  “Have you ever loved a woman? In the sexual sense, I mean.”

  “Heavens, no! I’ve never loved anyone in a sexual sense.”

  “Do you want to love a woman?”

  “In that sexual way?” Even though I have asked myself that question a million times, and answered it a million times, I still have to stop and think about it. “No, not in the sexual way. I just want to like women and it be okay. And me not have to worry about liking them. And not be afraid to like them.”

  “Why is it not okay for you to like them, Elizabeth?”

  “Because I just always wonder if they’re going to end up wanting me to suck on their breasts, I guess, hell, I don’t know.”

  A time of silence falls down upon us, and I decide that for once I, Elizabeth, will be the one to wait ’til Eternity passes before anyone speaks. So I do.

  “What about your Aunt Lona? Can you like her okay?”

  “Aunt Lona, my goodness. Aunt Lona is my saving grace, if there ever were any grace in my life. I can love Aunt Lona fine, just fine and normal, and it’s all right with her. And I do.”

  “Does that prove that you can like other women, too, and it’s all right?”

  “Sure it does,” I say with no hesitation at all. “Sure.” Now, why didn’t I think of that? Just once in all these years, why didn’t I think of loving Aunt Lona and it being all right?

  “Thank you, Dr. Shaver. Thank you. Why, why, hadn’t I thought of my normal way of loving Aunt Lona? God, it feels so . . . so . . . what am I trying to say . . . so . . . free! Yes! Free, free, free-e-e-, it’s feeling so free, like uh bird in uh tree. Oh, I’m just thinking about my freedom song. You know Elvis? That’s my song. You probably think I’m crazy. But I’m not. I’m just feeling free. That’s all. But except for one thing . . . those women at the fair with these scanty clothes on, and Mary Jane Payne . . . why do they make me feel excited?”

  “I’d say that’s a pretty normal feeling. Anyone dressed sexually provocative is trying to do just that—get you to feeling aroused. Aren’t they? Mary Jane Payne is your friend, right?”

  “Sort of. Well, yes. I always wouldn’t let myself admit it, too much, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Same old thing. Afraid to like a woman, I guess. But maybe it’ll be easier
now that she got saved. Maybe she’ll be dressing different. For a while anyway. Shoot, maybe I’ll be dressing different,” I said, laughing. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll wear short shorts and a halter top with my cleavage pushing out. Ha, what cleavage, you say? But that’s all right for you to be thinking that, because I think it, too, so that’s all right.”

  “Elizabeth, you’ve apparently managed to stay quite healthy, sexually, in spite of all you’ve been through,” and he sweeps his hand away from my chart, as if my whole life is an open book that he’s just read.

  “Me? Sexually healthy? I’ve never had healthy sex in my whole life, so how can you say something like that?”

  “It’s your attitude. You’ve managed to keep a healthy attitude and a sense of humor, somehow. You have every right to hold your head high. You’re a beautiful young woman, you know?”

  That, I can’t answer. Beautiful? I, Elizabeth, beautiful? I mean, where? How? But I don’t press the issue. I just want to relish the thought, I, Elizabeth, beautiful. It makes me almost love Dr. Shaver, even though I still don’t like him all that much. But loving him is a long shot. A far long shot. I just don’t think I can love anyone the way I love Dr. Adams, beautiful Dr. Adams.

  “I know this has been draining on you, Elizabeth, so we’ll close up shop today. But we still will need to talk about this thing with your mother, explore it a little more. Maybe try to get your mother down here, too.”

  “Dr. Shaver,” I say firm and true, “I can tell you right now, my mama won’t come down, and besides that, I’ve already done all the exploring on it I care to do. Actually, a little bit more than I care to do, since I went ahead and talked about it anyway. Like I say, I’m ready to put it away and move on. And I mean that. I thought I wasn’t to blame; I thought it was okay to like, even love, other women. I just needed to hear it from someone else. That’s all. I’m done. It is finished.”