The Treatment and the Cure

by Peter Kocan

  Con Pappas is at the fence. This must be exciting for him. It’s a bit exciting for you too. You sometimes think about going free and being in the ordinary world again, but you never imagined the ordinary world suddenly appearing here like this. You would like to be at the fence with Con Pappas where you could see the people close up and hear the talk and laughter, but not if it means giving them the other thing. Harris is at the fence.

  A couple with a small girl stop and stare into the yard. Harris calls hello and asks for a cigarette. They nudge each other and giggle. Harris is pressing his purple epileptic face against the wire. “Garn, gis a fag!” he’s saying. “Garn, gis a friggin’ smoke, will ya!” The couple walk on but the small girl lags behind and comes skipping to the fence where Con Pappas is. Maybe she wants to show her green balloon. Con Pappas bends to speak to her through the wire. Greeks like children. You see Harris moving across.

  “Rebecca!” screams the mother. “Come away quick!”

  The father runs and yanks the girl away by the arm. Even from here you see the look he gives Con Pappas, a look that says animals like this ought to be put down or at least horsewhipped. “Gis a fuckin’ smoke!” yells Harris. “Ya fuckin’ tight-arsed cunt! Won’t give a man a lousy fag!” Con Pappas comes up and sits near you. You’re sorry it happened like that for him. Harris doesn’t matter. All he knows is that he didn’t get a fag.

  But you are glad the couple had a fright about their little girl. Maybe they won’t enjoy the rest of the freak show so much.

  After lunch you stay in the cell and look at your patch of sky where some very high white clouds are floating. You watch the movement of them past the chimneypot on Ward 7. Already you are tired of speedboat noises and crowds from the ordinary world. If the screws take us around you’ll go, but you don’t care particularly.

  Four people appear outside your window. Two spotty youths with their girlfriends. They are taking a short cut between the wards, and seeing what they can see.

  “G’day,” says the taller of the spotty youths.

  “Hello,” you say.

  “You one of the loonies?”

  “I’m a psychiatrist, actually.”

  “Yeah?” He half-believes you. You aren’t screeching or tearing your hair.

  “Listen, what’re the maddies like?” he asks.

  “You’ve not been an inmate yourself?”

  “Course I bloody haven’t!”

  You are staring intently at his face.

  “How long have you had that twitch?”

  “What twitch?”

  “Have you spoken to your own psychiatrist about it?”

  “Haven’t got a bloody psychiatrist!”

  “Stay where you are. I’ll come out. It’s important I have a talk with you.”

  You go out of the cell and wait a moment. When you return to the window they have gone.

  Harris’s voice is loudly asking the screws when we’ll be taken round. He’s pestering them, making it sound as though they owe it to us because the Charge promised. He’s forcing them to show they don’t owe us anything, ever. All afternoon Harris keeps on until he’s yelling that he’ll make an Official Complaint. There’s no such thing, but it’s a mistake to threaten the screws with it. You hear them ordering Harris to shut his fucking snout before they shut it for him. Then you hear thuds and groans outside your cell. The thuds and groans happen there because it’s shielded from the road. Noises like that always give you an awful churning in your stomach but this time it’s almost worth it to have Harris’s mouth shut.

  Late in the afternoon Silas Throgmorton staggers out in his tall hat and blanket to argue with Dunn in the yard. Spectators gather on the dirt road, but Throgmorton is too sick and has to be helped inside before the quarrel warms up. The spectators drift away, unaware of what they’ve missed. They have also missed Lloyd. He’s scared of crowds and has happily stayed watching TV all day. And Hogben’s invisible bloke has kept him occupied in the shower room mostly. The Wanker has been locked in the dormitory. He’s a bit much even for the freak show.

  Harris is on his feet in time to farewell the last of the crowds as they diminish through the litter and half-light of evening.

  “Garn, gis a fag ya dirty friggin’ hoons!”

  6

  Men are going to walk on the moon this afternoon. The OT staff are urging everyone back to their wards to see the telecast. An old woman in the basket section doesn’t want to.

  “You have to,” Cheryl tells her.

  “Why?”

  “People are going to walk on the moon.”

  “People can’t do that.”

  “They can.”

  “They can’t,” insists the old woman. She’s been here for forty-four years.

  “I’m telling you they can,” says Cheryl. As a nurse it’s her job to put this poor creature into contact with reality.

  “How would they get there?”

  “In a spaceship.”

  “There’s no such things as spaceships.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The doctor.”

  “When did he tell you?”

  “Years and years ago.”

  “Well, there are spaceships.”

  “Why did the doctor say there weren’t?”

  “He didn’t know about them.”

  “But I told him, and he said it wasn’t true.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You said he didn’t know about them.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Was I right then?”

  “No, because they didn’t exist.”

  “Was the doctor right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said he didn’t know about them.”

  “He didn’t then, but he does now.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Well he’d know about them if he was alive.”

  “He was alive when he told me there weren’t any.”

  “But he didn’t know about them then.”

  “You said if he was alive he’d know.”

  “Look, nobody knew about them then.”

  “I did.”

  “You didn’t. It wasn’t true then. It’s only true now.”

  “Is the Wires true now?” The Wires are something like electric powerlines across the universe. The old woman gets messages from the Wires.

  “No, the Wires aren’t true.”

  “Will they be true one day?”

  “No, they’re impossible.”

  “Like spaceships?”

  “Spaceships are possible! You can see one on television this after bloody noon!”

  “Was the doctor wrong?”

  “Do you want a kick in the arse?”

  “No.”

  “Then get back to your ward and watch bloody television!”

  The old woman shuffles off, forty-four years of psychiatric treatment crumbling from her.

  You and Cheryl and Janice go to Ward 7 to see the telecast.

  “Gosh,” says Cheryl. “How do they send pictures all that distance?”

  “Along the Wires, of course,” you say.

  She punches you hard.

  You’re beginning to like Cheryl again.

  The parole thing has been bothering you. Nobody’s mentioned it. Con Pappas has got company parole already. You don’t grudge him, but it seems a bit unfair. All you’ve got is the right to walk to OT and back, and the Monday night films. You can’t even change a book at the library without a screw along and it’s often hard to find a screw who’ll take you. They call little escort jobs like that “extra work” and they say it’ll break down their conditions if they do it too much.

  You are fairly rich now. Mr Trowbridge has raised your pay to three dollars a week because the vinyl bags went so well at the fete. If you had parole you could hang about at the canteen and drink milkshakes and stuff. You suppose you must be getting soft. What would David Allison think of you? Milkshakes!

  You wait till a d
ay when the Charge seems in a good mood. You approach him outside the office.

  “I wanted to ask about parole,” you say.

  “What about it?”

  “Um, whether it’d be worthwhile applying for it.” You don’t just ask for it straight out. You aren’t asking for it, but just broaching the subject, so if the answer is no it won’t be a blunt refusal. It’s always better to avoid blunt refusals.

  The Charge looks at you sourly. You must have mistaken his mood.

  “I think the doctor has other plans for you.”

  Your blood goes cold. Christ, what does “other plans” mean? In MAX the doctor’s plans for people were mainly electrical. You try to think what you’ve done wrong. That’s silly. There’s no need for you to know what you’ve done wrong. You’re just the patient.

  “What does he have in mind?” you ask. Your voice is faint.

  “He’ll tell you,” says the Charge as he turns his back and goes into the office.

  For a week you hug yourself with worry. You haven’t spoken to Electric Ned for ages. You thought he was satisfied with you. It must be something the screws reported. Maybe you’ve been keeping too much to yourself. “Withdrawn”. they call it. You almost ask Mr Trowbridge if he’s heard anything, but that might make him think you’re worried. Being worried is a bad sign. Besides, the report, whatever it was, might have come from the OT staff. The fact that you seemed to be doing well at OT means nothing. Trouble like this can come when you feel most secure, usually does, in fact. You’ve let yourself feel stupidly secure lately—thinking about milkshakes.

  If it’s shock treatment you won’t be able to stand it. Other men get through it. Con Pappas had it in MAX. Women have it.

  You should be able to face it like they do but you know you can’t. You get wild ideas of pissing off. You spend more time with Con Pappas, to show them you aren’t as withdrawn as they thought, and because that makes the loneliness of the worry a little less. Also, being around someone who’s had shock is a sort of reassurance that you’ll be able to handle it yourself. Your stomach is a tight knot.

  Then you do what you should have done at first. You read passages of The Survivor, like the part where David Allison has to go into action the first time. He is hugging a big old tree at the edge of a forest where the Prussian Guards are. In a moment he must take his rifle and join the line of his platoon and walk into the forest. He is hugging the tree and begging it to draw him inside itself and save him. He’s remembering the time he stole another boy scout’s compass and let someone else get the blame and now God is going to punish him and he’s crying against the bark of the tree as though it’s his mother’s apron. Then a great kindness and calmness seem to come from the tree and unwrap his arms and push him gently forward. He walks into the forest with the others and the Prussian Guards charge at them and there is blood and screaming and he holds his bayonet up the way he was taught and suddenly it’s over and he is a soldier who has fought the Prussian Guards and come out alive.

  David Allison is with you. He’s always with you, it’s just that you forget sometimes. You feel ashamed. You aren’t facing the Prussian Guards, just a fucking half-arsed quack with a two-dollar machine. Scared of shock? That’ll be the day!

  Electric Ned is coming along the verandah to your cell. You stay sitting on the bed, watching a grass stem bend in the breeze outside your window. Being in your cell like this is of course proof that you are withdrawn. Electric Ned is at the door.

  “Mr Tarbutt.”

  “Yes,” you say quietly.

  Electric Ned enters. You don’t bother rising.

  “How are things?” He’s staring through his thick lenses.

  “About average.”

  “Feeling fine within yourself?”

  “More or less.”

  “As you know, I’ve been following your progress in this ward and at OT. How do you think you’ve managed?”

  “Reasonably,” you say.

  “Well, I think we need to do a bit more for you.”

  Yes, that’d be shock treatment. Shock is something they do “for you”.

  “I’m afraid the Medical Superintendent can’t see his way to endorsing my proposal, so I’ve written to the Director-General seeking the go-ahead.”

  This is odd. Very odd.

  “I propose to transfer you to an open ward.”

  A lot of screws don’t like it. There is talk of a stop-work meeting. Letting criminal patients out of MAX into REFRACT is bad enough, but at least in REFRACT a criminal patient has some wire around him and still looks like a prisoner. It isn’t personal, it’s the principle. If you go to an open ward the flood-gates will burst and in six months there won’t be a criminal patient left under lock and key.

  The screws don’t say much to you, just the odd remark, like when the Charge comes to your cell about some matter and looks around as if he’s seeing the cell for the first time and says: “I’m sorry the accommodation is so humble, but I s’pose the doctor’s out booking a hotel suite for you.” Others refer to you as the Star Boarder.

  You don’t say anything. The transfer probably won’t happen. It might be better if it doesn’t. Being on the wrong side of the screws isn’t worth it and if they want to make things hard for you it won’t matter whether it’s personal or for a principle. You can’t understand why Electric Ned is doing this. Maybe he’s gone crackers. That’d be a joke.

  The transfer is approved after three weeks. Electric Ned is with you in the yard.

  “Ward 24 has agreed to take you,” he says.

  “That’s good,” you say. You’ve no idea.

  “Ward 24 has just been renovated, so you’ll have pleasant surroundings at least.”

  “Sounds fine,” you say, wondering about that “at least”.

  “Well,” he says. “This marks the end of my responsibility for you. Ward 24 is under another doctor.”

  “I see,” you reply. You hadn’t thought of this. Electric Ned is the devil you know.

  “Good luck.” He offers his hand.

  “Thanks for all you’ve done,” you say.

  “Oh, it’s been a pleasure,” he says and walks away.

  He’s your benefactor. You only wish he’d made that plain about five years ago. It would have saved you an awful lot of worry and anguish.

  You sit for a while looking at the men and the fence and the dirt road and everything. Already they are beginning to seem different, the way things seem different when you know you’ll never be at this exact relation to them again. The relation is of time, not space. Even if you make a cock-up of the transfer and land back here in a week it won’t be the same.

  After lunch you collect your gear and put it in the screw’s car for the two-minute drive.

  “What’s 24 like?” you ask the screw.

  “Not like anythin’ yet,” he says. “They’re just reopening it today.”

  “What kind of patients will it have?”

  “Low types.”

  “Why d’you say that?”

  “Well, you’ll be there, won’t ya!”

  7

  It’s high up, with a view of the lake and vast bushland. The view is better even than the one from MAX and you don’t have to look at it through fences or across walls: there aren’t any. You follow the screw across a wide courtyard and the Charge Sister meets us at the door. She’s tall and bustling and wears a high starched veil. She’s checking a clipboard with a list of names.

  “Who’s this?” she asks your screw.

  “Lennie the Larrikin!” he says.

  She gives him a look which says she’s too busy to be mucked about, especially by a male.

  “Tarbutt,” the screw says.

  She gives you a brisk glance and ticks the clipboard.

  “Alright,” she tells the screw. “You can go.”

  The screw turns away, giving you a thump on the arm and whispering, “Watch yourself, mate.” He rolls his eyes back towards the Charge Sister and mut
ters, “Petticoat government!”

  “You can put your things in the storeroom,” the Charge Sister tells you. She sees another screw herding four or five other new arrivals and bustles off to them. They are retards, shuffling and squealing and dribbling.

  You find the storeroom and leave your gear, then wander along a corridor to a huge dayroom. The whole building stinks of newness—paint, lino, vinyl, fabric. The dayroom is like a palace, or maybe an airport lounge, and spotless except for a long fresh smear of shit across the floor. The smear leads to a savage-looking bloke with wild hair sprawled in one of the new armchairs and stubbing a fag on it. There are a few others there. One of them’s the retard girl that Dennis Lane went stupid for. She is sitting quietly staring with eyes very blue and wide open. Her hair is combed and she has a clean dress on. She looks rather sweet.

  A young female nurse comes behind you and takes your sleeve between thumb and finger and asks—with deliberate clearness, so you’ll understand—whether you’ve been allocated a bed yet. She seems surprised when you answer in a normal sort of way. She lets go your sleeve and leads you upstairs to a dormitory. It too is a blaze of newness. Bright orange bedspreads and curtains.

  The nurse asks your name and you tell her and she points to a bed in the middle of a row.

  “Is that end bed taken?” you ask.

  She consults the bed plan she’s holding. “No.”

  “Could I have it?”

  “I’ve already marked you on the bed plan.”

  “Any chance of changing it?”

  “I haven’t got a rubber.”

  “Could you perhaps just cross it out?”

  She’s thinking about it. She’s quite nice, really, but probably hasn’t met a patient who cares which bed he has. She decides she can cross the name out.

  “It’ll look a bit messy, that’s all.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Maybe I can find a rubber downstairs and fix it.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  She goes away and you sit on your new bed. It’s right by the window and outside is a leafy branch and the wonderful view of the lake. You have the end bed, the window, the branch and the view. Men have killed for less.