"I love a man who's punctual," she said. "You're the only one in the family who does what he says he'll do when he says he'll do it."
"I would have shown up even earlier if I'd known I was going to get a kiss like that."
"You're sweet, Walter," she said. "You're sweet, and I haven't been perfectly straight with you. Of course, I haven't been perfectly straight with anybody about anything for as long as I can remember."
"Maybe that's part of your charm."
"Maybe. But it's also a burden. Soon, Sunshine. Soon you'll know everything."
"When is soon?" I asked.
"When you finish the book."
"So it was you last night. At my window. You left the rose."
"It could've been me," she said. "But for now let's just say it fell off a rose truck and took a lucky roll. But I'm so glad you're one of us, Walter. We need you. I need you. You're practical. You're reliable. You're responsible."
"Yes," I said. "But I'm learning."
Clyde was starting to say something when a vision in blue popped out of the subway and came striding rapidly toward us. Fox, with his flowing robes and hair and a more than usually wild-eyed expression on his face, looked more like a mental patient than he did a shrink. He was carrying, I noticed, a small briefcase.
"Are we green-lighted for wig city?" he asked Clyde.
"I called the hospital early this morning," said Clyde. "Dr. Fingerhut is definitely not coming in today."
"Ain't that the truth," said Fox. "Did you tell Walter that we might need him on the inside?"
"Tell him yourself," said Clyde.
"We might need you on the inside," said Fox. I looked to Clyde but she appeared to be studying a nearby pigeon on the sidewalk.
"What'll I do?" I asked, a bit warily.
"If you can't handle it, just tell me," said Fox.
"He can handle it," said Clyde, taking my hand and giving it a quick little squeeze.
"I can handle it better if I know what it is," I said.
"Simple diversionary tactic," said Fox. "It's easy enough to get into a mental hospital. Believe me, I should know. But getting out is a different matter entirely. So once I'm in, I'll need at least some of the security in the place to be focused elsewhere. In other words, we'll need a diversion to siphon some of them to another wing."
"How do I do that?"
"I'd say the more basic the better," said Fox, handing me a small paper bag. "Smoke bomb in the linen hamper will probably do the trick. Give me about a ten-minute lead, though. It'll take me that long to get into my shrink outfit and locate Teddy. Meanwhile, Clyde will be in charge of the getaway car. That'll be a taxi. The plan should be workable as long as Teddy cooperates. By the way, can I bum a smoke?"
I gave Fox a cigarette and this time handed him the lighter. Then Clyde wanted a smoke. Then watching the two of them smoke made me want to smoke. So we smoked on the corner just across the street from the hospital, coolly eyeing the fortress we were about to assault. Standing there with Fox and Clyde, strangely enough, I did not feel nervous at all about the little operation that would soon occur within those walls. Maybe in a certain way, I was already more a part of that small Gypsy band than I realized, because what we were plotting was at least as crazy as what most of the patients inside the hospital were probably thinking and planning at that very moment. At the time, however, I didn't really see it that way. It sounded fairly easy. It even sounded like it might be fun. It did not seem like dangerous or addictive behavior at all. Such was the peculiar nature of the almost magical influence each member of our little trinity appeared to exert upon the others. Maybe it wasn't merely cigarettes we were smoking together on that sidewalk. Perhaps it was the smoke of life.
Before we'd split up at the corner, Fox had given me a bit of a pep talk about how what we were doing was all for the greater good. It was only to lower the odds of springing Teddy, which, he conceded, were not that great. We had to have a diversion and I was the one who'd been chosen to create it. Perhaps he'd seen it as a test of some kind. Maybe I had, too.
Clyde, for her part, was unwaveringly committed to the endeavor. The only advice she'd given me was of a practical nature. If I happened to be questioned by anyone, ask an immediate question of my own in return: "Where's the toilet?" She also suggested that I get out of there quickly after setting off the smoke bomb. I told her I hadn't just fallen off a rose truck.
It was only after we'd separated and I had crossed the street on my own and was standing in front of the building itself that I began to experience a few qualms about joining in on this little hobby. The uneasiness didn't last long, but it was there all right. For one thing, I hadn't even seen a smoke bomb since I was about eleven years old, and the idea of setting one off in a mental hospital, if you stopped to think about it, was just about the height of insanity. It was important, I told myself, not to think about it.
And so I entered the building and headed for the right wing as Fox had directed. Teddy, apparently, was incarcerated somewhere on the fifth floor of the left side of the building. "That's where they keep the monstro-wigs," Fox had said as I departed. "Just kidding," he added. "We're all monstro-wigs." I hadn't found this notion terribly comforting at the time, but thinking about it now, I believe Fox may have been right on the money. Nothing people do will ever again surprise me.
But on that day, as I took a right, then took an elevator, then took the liberty of tossing a smoke bomb into, sure enough, a linen hamper, I was still a novice when it came to being savvy in the ways of the world. I thought that springing Teddy was worth the risk. Later, as I spent more time with Fox and Clyde and even Teddy, I began to believe that almost any prank was worth the risk. It was a dangerous way to live life at times, but it rewarded you with a deeper understanding, whether you wanted one or not.
Feeling somewhat like a demented teenager, I glanced cautiously around a bit to assure that the hallway was empty, then took the paper bag out of my pocket and extracted that most puerile yet effective of all weapons, the smoke bomb. Actually, it was not the most puerile weapon in Fox Harris's little arsenal. He would soon unveil several others that would give the Bellevue smoke bomb a good run for its money. The more juvenile and rudimentary the device, the more proud and pleased Fox appeared to be with its successful deployment. Indeed, in many ways, Fox often seemed to me to be a child living rather precariously in the adult world. I went so far as to mention this to him once and his response was the following: "I wasn't born in a manger for nothing."
The operation seemed to go off without a hitch. I found the linen closet, lit the smoke bomb, lobbed it into the hamper, and headed back down the hallway in the direction from which I had come. I was halfway to the elevator when I ran into a guy in hospital scrubs who looked like a cast member of E.R. He stood in the middle of the hallway, effectively cutting off my escape route. I thought of Fox's warning that it was a lot easier to get into one of these places than it was to get out of it.
"Can I help you?" said the man, in that New York tone that makes it clear that helping you is the last thing he wishes to do.
"Where's the toilet?" I asked. An acrid smell was beginning to fill the hallway behind me. I didn't dare turn around to look. But I didn't have to. The guy looked over my shoulder for me.
"Jesus Christ!" he shouted. "The building's on fire!"
I saw the genuine panic in his eyes and I thought about the unimaginable panic that might soon be going through the minds of the mental patients who believed they were trapped in the building. He pushed me aside and ran down the hallway toward what he thought was the fire. I knew we weren't on fire, so I calmly walked to the elevator and took it down to the first floor. Something in the guy's eyes had made me sad, but I didn't dwell on it. There's no time to dwell on anything when you're trying to get out of a mental hospital.
I was about halfway down in the elevator when the fire alarm began sounding in the building. I felt a moment of cold fear as I realized that, fire or not
, the alarm system might automatically shut down the elevators, leaving me as a sacrificial lamb once Fox had sprung Teddy. That was one nightmare that, thankfully, did not occur. Unfortunately, another one did.
The elevator doors opened and I walked through the lobby as casually as possible considering I was in a nuthouse that people thought was on fire. I could hear some shouting and screaming by now but I continued my calm exodus of the premises and soon I was outside, where Clyde was halfway down the block leaning against a Checker cab like a cowboy against a fence post. With a stunning smile and a Miss America wave, she motioned me over. It was a best-supporting-actor performance if I ever saw one.
"Don't worry," she said when I got to the cab. "This is one time when it's a real advantage that the driver doesn't speak English. How'd it go?"
"Pretty smoothly," I said. "Considering."
"Considering what?" said Clyde, crossing her arms and smiling blithely into my eyes.
"Considering that just a few weeks ago I wouldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that I'd ever be setting off a smoke bomb in a mental hospital."
"Are we feeling a twinge of guilt?"
"Possibly."
"That's not a bad thing," she said softly, cradling my head in her hands. "It's just God's way of letting you know that you still have a conscience."
"What if I don't believe in God?"
"Listen, Walter. There is a God. He's just in a state of deep depression. He has a bad case of narcolepsy. In other words, God is sometimes on the nod. Teddy is a sweet, harmless man who should never have been locked up in this place. What you did was a necessary diversionary tactic that will help him gain his rightful freedom. If God's awake at the moment, Fox and Teddy should be coming out of those doors any minute."
"What if he's on the nod?"
"We're fucked," she said.
She looked around at the taxi driver, who appeared to be sleeping under his turban. Then she glanced again in the direction of the entrance to the building. Then she smiled a sudden crazy smile and her eyes sparkled with some odd brand of cosmic, momentary mischief.
"So you don't believe in God?" she asked. "I doubt if that's true. Maybe you just need a bit of waking up yourself. How about a little vacation Bible class, Sunshine?"
She stepped very close to me then. Our lips and our bodies came together right there on the street in a manner more passionate than I had ever known. I forgot about smoke bombs in mental-hospital wards, taxi drivers in turbans, and everything else in this wretched world as the two of us held each other as closely and as seamlessly as moonlight on a lamppost. As that kiss continued beyond all time, I became quite aroused and began sporting a monstro-erection. This very natural physical reaction, of course, did not go unnoticed.
"You are happy to see me!" said Clyde. "Now do you believe in God?"
"I've become an agnostic at the very least," I said.
"Hallelujah!" shouted Clyde. "I've finally found a man who's punctual, practical, and he blushes. And he's still blushing."
There are times in your life, I suppose, when it's best just to say nothing and savor the moment. Clyde's brown eyes now seemed to fill with galaxies of light, galaxies my dark soul could fly right into and never be found. There was passion, madness, and wisdom in those eyes, qualities distilled from a life lived on the edge of the moment, qualities, I was keenly aware, that were sorely lacking in my drab existence. I needed this woman in a way I could not articulate and, very possibly, did not fully understand myself.
Sirens could now be heard coming up a side street. Moments later, a fire truck had pulled up at the nearby curb. The firemen began running into the building.
"Fox is taking too long," said Clyde. "Something's gone wrong."
Together we ran toward the front of the hospital where, indeed, confusion seemed to reign. Through the glass doors, the lobby area looked like a madhouse within a madhouse. People were scurrying about all over the place and I noticed, as well as the firemen, a police presence beginning to manifest itself. As we gazed up from the front steps of the place, the scene looked like bedlam. There was still no sign, however, of Fox or Teddy.
Clyde took my hand and gave it a quick little squeeze. Her eyes seemed to scan the hospital lobby in vain.
"I'm going in," she said.
"I'm going with you," I heard myself say.
It's always easier to get into a mental hospital than it is to get out of one, and that particular theorem held true on the second time around as well. In a matter of moments, we were standing in the middle of the lobby with mass confusion prevailing all around us. Then two things seemed to happen at once. The fire alarm suddenly stopped sounding and Fox and Teddy emerged into the lobby from a side doorway.
Teddy was one of the largest, most roly-poly black men I'd ever seen in my life. If I hadn't been looking for him, I never would've picked out Fox Harris. With his hair slicked back, wearing some kind of white butcher's apron, and a stethoscope around his neck, he carried a clipboard and some papers and looked every bit the part of a harried, rather supercilious shrink.
"See how handsome Fox looks when he combs his hair," said Clyde.
"I wouldn't have recognized him," I said.
For his part, Fox pretended not to recognize Clyde and myself. He appeared to be quite absorbed in talking to Teddy and marking down little things on his clipboard chart. He gave a few instructions to an orderly and then began slowly moving Teddy toward the front doors. As he passed us, he stopped for a moment to study his chart.
"I'm going to try to walk him out of here," said Fox quietly, still perusing his clipboard. "If you two will help facilitate Teddy's departure, I'll attempt to stall the powers that be."
It looked for a moment like it might work. Then Teddy, who'd been standing placidly by, on Fox's left side, suddenly sprang to life.
"DEY FOUND ME IN THE CONGO!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "BEATIN' ON MY BONGO!"
"Relax, Teddy," said Fox. "Just take a few deep breaths."
Fox had placed the stethoscope somewhere along the circumference of Teddy's huge stomach and was listening intently when a hospital administrator walked up. "You can tell a hospital administrator," Fox had confided in me later, "because they always wear a suit and tie and a constipated expression." This one certainly fit the bill. He spoke directly to Fox, ignoring the rest of us.
"What's going on here, Dr.—uh-?"
"Feintush," said Fox brightly. "Dr. Irving Feintush."
"I AM THE KING OF THE ZULU NATION!" shouted Teddy so loudly that even a nearby exiting fireman jumped.
"I'm taking him," said Fox, "for an EKG, an ERG, and a PBP, and, of course, the rather ubiquitous Rorschach test."
"This man shouldn't even be in the lobby," said the administrator.
By this time, things were spinning rapidly out of control. Teddy was chanting a highly realistic-sounding Zulu war chant and Fox was positioning himself between the administrator and the front door. Suddenly, Fox flung away his charts and grabbed the stunned administrator in a powerful bear hug, lifting him off the ground, and thereby at least temporarily deactivating him.
"Run, children, run!" shouted Fox.
And run we did.
Out the front doors and down the steps and down the sidewalk with Teddy in the lead, running with the speed and intensity of a stampeding black rhino, also an endangered species, along the green veldt. In an odd way, it was a beautiful thing to see. A man that large, running with the determination and grace of an arrow aimed at the heart of freedom. I was winded by the time I caught up with him and got him safely in the backseat of the cab. I gave the driver forty bucks.
"Where I take him?" asked the driver.
"Anyplace," I said. "The Statue of Liberty."
As the cab pulled away, I saw a big, peaceful smile on Teddy's face. He stuck his big head out the window and looked back at me.
"Thank you, human being," he said.
I watched the taxi speed away. Then I looked around for
Clyde but she was nowhere in sight.
ten
Some women look even more beautiful when they cry. Clyde was one of those. After I'd gotten Teddy safely shoehorned into the backseat of the cab, I hadn't been able to find Clyde anywhere. Against my better judgment, I'd crept back to the now-crowded steps of the hospital and, as casually as possible, tried to peer inside the lobby. The cops were swarming by this time and the focus of their activity appeared to be one Dr. Feintush, who was standing in the center of the lobby apparently trying to bullshit his way out of a situation that had clearly become unbullshittable.
I was well aware that somewhere in that lobby might well be the guy in scrubs who'd seen me in the hallway after I'd planted the smoke bomb. If he spotted me now it would be an easy matter for him to use his powers of deduction and to implicate me as well in the whole mess. But the knowledge that I was at risk was somehow overtaken by my desire to find Clyde and get her safely away from there. It didn't take long for me to spot her forlorn figure leaning against the inside of the glass doors, arms crossed resignedly in front of her, observing the spectacle.
I ran up the steps two at a time and rapped on the glass near her head. She did not respond. She stood like a frozen, tragic statue watching the noose tighten around Fox's neck. Finally, I yanked the door open and she practically fell into my arms. Without a word, like a small child, I escorted her down the steps, where moments later, from a safer vantage point, we watched the cops take Fox away with his hands handcuffed behind his back. He was still wearing the stethoscope, I noticed. It was the kind of detail that a good, observant author would be unlikely to miss.
Now Clyde and I were in a cab together heading downtown in the vague direction of Chinatown and Little Italy. I tried not to stare at her as our taxi hurtled down Broadway, toward Canal Street. Neither of us had yet to speak a word to the other, but that's how it always was with Clyde and me and, to a somewhat lesser degree, with me and Fox. There was an inherent understanding between us that never had to be articulated, that although we were cut from a very different cloth, the very fact of our being together said it all. Some of the most intimate, soul-to-soul communication of my life occurred with Clyde and it always seemed to be at moments when not a word was spoken. That being as it may, I now felt I had to break the silence.
Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned Page 6
