by Chris Knopf
“We’ll be talking to Arthur,” said Jackie.
“See him tonight. Just got in from LA,” I added, trying to get in on the act.
As Maryanne escorted us to Lillian’s room, I wondered if Jackie had worked up a plan for the unlikely event we’d get this far. Based on a sidelong glance, I guessed she hadn’t.
I knew it was Lillian Eldridge before we were halfway across the patio, the resemblance to Butch was so strong. Slender, but a little paunchy, long narrow face and weak jaw, curly dyed-brown hair recklessly shaped by hairpins into the type of hairdo makeup people on movie sets conceived to represent the mentally ill. Everything but the harelip and manic eyes. Instead her eyes were a bland milky gray, distant and tired. Dissociated.
She wore matching pale lavender sweatpants and sweatshirt and clean white Nikes, cleaving to the fashion standards at the Sisters of Mercy home.
Maryanne strode up to her and put her arm over the old lady’s shoulders.
“Hey Lillian,” she said, looking back at Jackie as she approached. “Do you remember Lillian?”
Mrs. Eldridge looked up at Maryanne, annoyed.
“Why of course I remember Lillian. What kind of a question is that?”
Maryanne was obviously pleased.
“Well, she’s here to see you. Isn’t that nice?”
Lillian was still frowning as we walked up to her. Jackie leaned down and kissed her check.
“Hi, Aunt Lillian. It’s Lillian.”
“Of course it is,” said the old woman. “Lillian’s right here. Ridiculous.”
“Lillian and her husband are going to visit for a while, okay?” asked Maryanne, the way parents do with their children.
Lillian looked at me as if to say, “What the hell is that woman talking about?”
Maryanne plowed ahead.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” she said, still in the same sing-song voice. “You have a nice visit.”
Lillian had her eyes on us intently until we pulled up a pair of chairs, at which point her gaze shifted to the rhododendron bush beside her park bench. She was shaking her head.
“Sorry to bother you,” said Jackie. “I really am.”
She looked up at us, surprised.
“You’re not bothering me. It’s that idiot nurse who thinks I don’t remember myself. What is wrong with these people?” she asked, more as a genuine question than an accusation. She looked more closely at Jackie. “Do I know you?”
“No,” said Jackie, moving her chair a little closer and resting her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We pretended to be your family so we could talk to you. I hope that’s okay.”
Lillian’s attention had drifted off again by then, but Jackie moved closer to the bench to stay in her line of sight.
“Okay?” Jackie repeated.
“I’ve got nothing else to do,” said Lillian, then laughed a self-conscious little laugh. “I’ve got nothing to do all day. Not bad work if you can get it.”
“Can I call you Lillian?” asked Jackie.
“I don’t think she’ll mind.”
“Who?”
“Lillian. You’re sitting on her, you should know.”
Jackie, who was now sitting on the park bench stroking the old lady’s shoulder, involuntarily sat up part of the way.
“I am?”
“It’s okay. I just keep her over there. Sometimes I keep her in the room. She’s not a lot of bother.” She leaned closer to Jackie. “Not terribly bright,” she said, confidentially.
“You seem awfully bright.”
“I do? Really. Interesting. Who’s Prince Charming?” she asked, looking at me.
“A. friend of mine.”
“Doesn’t say much.”
“He would if he could think of something to say. Not terribly bright.”
Lillian seemed satisfied with that.
“Not much to look at, either,” she said.
“So,” said Jackie. “How’re you doing? Everything okay? Food okay?”
Lillian picked at her sweatpants as she thought about the question.
“I don’t know. I think it’s okay. I think so.”
“You getting visitors? Arthur, Jonathan?”
“Jonathan’s with his father,” she said quickly, her attention drawn again to the fat white rhododendron petals. Jackie rubbed her arm some more, pulling her back.
“He’s there now?”
“He’s always with his father.” She held her hands up defensively, and shook her head. “I don’t argue, it’s up to them.”
“And where’s Arthur?”
“I don’t know. With his wife. He’s married. You could tell him to come see me more often. I don’t like to prod, but I’m not going to be around forever.”
A nun in a pure white outfit rolled a cart out of the building and across the patio’s brick pavers. The noise and the sight of a tall chrome coffee percolator killed my interest in the conversation. I almost broke an ankle getting out of my chair to queue up with the visitors and residents nimble and caffeine-addicted enough to make the effort. Jackie and Lillian continued their conversation while I was gone.
When I got back Lillian was saying, “I wish there were more trees. I can hardly see any from my room. I like to lie in bed in the morning and look at trees, but that’s not possible if there are none.”
“You had a lot of trees in Shirley?” Jackie asked.
“Arthur’s father loved trees. Wept when he had to cut one down.”
“Jonathan, too?”
“I don’t know,” she looked disturbed by the thought. “I suppose he would, being with his father.”
“So, the boy’s father and you were separated,” said Jackie. “I’m sorry.”
“They go,” said Lillian. “You know that. Everything’s fine, then they go. Just as you please.”
“I do know,” said Jackie, glowering at me, the closest representative of the offending group.
“So, Arthur stayed with you and Jonathan went with his father. That must have been hard.”
Lillian let out another one of her nervous, humorless laughs.
“What’re you going to do? If that’s what the boy wants to do? He can be anybody, anywhere he wants, I can’t help that. I think I could drink some of that coffee,” she said, pointing at my cup. I got her some.
“Arthur was your husband’s name, too, wasn’t it?” asked Jackie.
“I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him in a while. Arthur should tell him to come see me.”
She showed the first signs of agitation, so Jackie slid back and let out a contented little breath, looking out at the gathering on the patio.
“You must like to sit here. It’s very pleasant,” she told Lillian.
“Lillian likes it here. I don’t care. I can sit in the room just as easily.”
“How does Lillian feel about Arthur? Your husband,” I asked her.
“Another country heard from.”
“She want to see him?” Jackie asked.
“Doesn’t much care for him, truth be told. He should still come and see me.”
“Could bring along Jonathan,” I suggested. I could sense Jackie tensing up, thinking I was about to blow her play.
“That’s up to Arthur.”
“Your husband.”
“No, of course not. I’m talking about Arthur.”
“Your son.”
Lillian looked at Jackie.
“You should introduce him to the rest of the family,” she whispered. “I think he’s a little confused.”
“Happens easily.”
Maryanne came back out on to the patio. She carried a clipboard and a blood pressure gauge stuffed under her arm.
“Hello, Sweetheart. Are you having a nice visit?” she asked Lillian.
“I think so. I have some coffee.”
Maryanne looked impressed.
“Well, that’s a new thing. I didn’t know you liked coffee.” She took me by the sleeve and pulled me ou
t of earshot. “Five years I’ve been here, never saw her drink coffee.”
“Maybe we should stay for cocktail hour. Could start a whole new trend.”
“Why not. Just have to check for adverse reactions.”
“What sort of meds is she on?”
“You want to talk cocktails. Quite the mix. Mostly tranqs, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor—between the two they flatten things out a little. Not that she’s bipolar, technically, but you get a lot of the same symptoms. Anhedonia, dysphoria, depression, agitation. They’ve been prescribing antipsychotics, but I don’t know what for. She isn’t delusional.”
“I notice she’s got another Lillian hanging around with her.”
Maryanne smiled.
“Not another. The Lillian.”
“So who’re we talking to?”
“She doesn’t know.” She leaned into me, as best she could given her girth, and whispered, “That’s why she’s here.”
Maryanne gave me a clinical briefing on Lillian’s condition, which promptly took me out of my depth.
“She said I’m the one that’s confused. She’s right.”
“Welcome to my wonderful world.”
Jackie was still talking to her when we rejoined the two of them, sitting sideways Buddha-style on the bench. It didn’t seem to matter much to Lillian that we were back. She hadn’t moved and was back to picking at her clothing, though she seemed reasonably calm. I guess I would be too if I was drugged to the gills.
Jackie stood up when she saw me and Maryanne approach. She pulled me back over to where I’d just come from.
“How’s the chat?” I asked her.
“Getting a little circular. And I’m getting short on things to talk about. Kind of like my blind dates. I do all the yapping while the guy answers in monosyllables and stares out into space. Not sure what else we can learn.”
“Where did her husband live after he left? Arthur the first.”
“Riverhead. I think. Makes sense if he raised Jonathan.” She looked around the patio. “Sam, I’m getting a little paranoid.”
“Must be the ambience.”
“We’re sort of here on false pretenses. The longer we stay, the bigger the risk.”
“Is that what your research told you?”
“Not exactly research. I just tried to remember some case law before I fell asleep last night.”
While we talked we walked back over to the bench to say goodbye. Maryanne caressed the top of Lillian’s head and then escorted us back to the entrance. We were all quiet until we got to the security desk, where Jackie and I signed out and relinquished our passes. Maryanne took both our hands, joined them together, and then held them enclosed within her own two hands.
“I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it was wonderful that you spent a little time with Lillian. I honestly think it’s been over a year since I saw anybody from the family. I’m not supposed to be judgmental about the relatives, but I think it’s disgraceful. The therapeutic value of your visit might be debatable, but I like to think it makes a difference. So, if only for my own sake, thank you very much.”
“So, last year. Who came to visit?” I asked.
“The two of them, I think. The son Arthur and the lawyer. Funny name.”
“Gabriel Szwit.”
“Something like that. Funny little man. Not very pleasant.”
“They were here together?”
“Usually are. Mr. Szwit handles all the paperwork for the family. He makes a pest out of himself with the administrative people while the son sits with his mother. They don’t talk much, but I still think it’s important to spend the time.”
Even though the parking lot had the same weather as the patio within the complex of brick buildings, it seemed sunnier and the atmosphere was filled with oxygen. I took in a few hearty gulps before lighting a cigarette. Jackie was quiet, and stayed that way for about a half-hour after we got underway. That was okay with me. I didn’t want to talk much myself. The whole experience might have been easier if it hadn’t been the same place I’d stored my mother the last few years of her life. Where I’d neglected to see her as often as I should have, even though in the end she really didn’t know who I was. Like Maryanne was trying to say, it almost doesn’t matter if they know you or not, or if they seem to get anything out of seeing you sitting there in their rooms. It’s just what you’re supposed to do. It’s how you honor all those years in the past when the same scooped-out mummies fed your face and wiped your ass and put up with your wailing selfishness.
Though this was about more than just growing old. This was a brief visit with madness, a condition that had no age preference, no discrimination between the innocent and the damned. In those rare, quiet moments of pure lucidity that come fleeting past your consciousness, you can sometimes capture insights into your true nature, and in so doing, glimpse the darker potentials of your mind. For me I’d always known, and feared, what I sensed was close proximity to genuine insanity. That my father’s abiding fury was more than simple rage, that it was an indicator, a symptom of incipient pathology, that died stillborn with him on the floor of a filthy restroom at the back of a ratty bar in the Bronx, and that the same embryonic madness festers within me, darkly watchful, waiting to be born.
TWENTY-FOUR
I FELT LIKE Appolonia Eldridge when Jackie and I first rolled into Nassau County. It was only the second time in five years I’d been out of the East End and I was unprepared for the crush of traffic, chaotic zoning and neon sprawl. It was getting hot, so I also had to endure Jackie’s comments on the air-conditioning inside the Grand Prix, centering on the fact that there was none. It did have some pretty big windows, which let in a lot of hot, wet and noisy Nassau County air, forcing her to pull her thickets of insubordinate hair into a ponytail again. The only compensation was our destination—the Long Island headquarters of the FBI, Web Ig’s home base.
There was little chance he’d give us any more information. I only wanted to give Jackie another glimpse of him before she went back into surgery. As we closed in she gave him a ring.
“He’s going to meet us for lunch,” she said, snapping her cell phone closed. “He said his boss doesn’t like civilians in the office unless they’re in the interrogation rooms.”
“I’ll pay. Haven’t filed a 1040 in a few years. Least I can do for my country.”
“Tax shelters?”
“Yeah, the ultimate. No income. Not enough to pay taxes, anyway.”
Now that we were back to civil discourse, she reopened our favorite subject.
“Are you going to give me an opinion?”
“On tax policy?”
“On Lillian Eldridge.”
“She’s nuts.”
“That’s the kind of sensitivity I was hoping for.”
“Depersonalization disorder. Marked by loss, distortion or fragmentation of the identity. Pretty rare, hard to diagnose, harder to treat, wreaks hell on people and their families. Probably, maybe, triggered in the susceptible by some traumatic event. Usually in childhood or adolescence, but not exclusively.”
“You knew that?”
“I just thought about Psych 101 before going to sleep last night.”
“Come on.”
“Maryanne told me. At least something that sounded like that.”
“How traumatic an event?”
“Usually natural disasters, war, sexual abuse—though trauma is in the mind of the traumatized. Kids kill themselves over being cut from the cheerleading squad.”
“The divorce. Lost her husband and one of her kids in one fell swoop.”
“Would all be in her medical records. Good luck with that. Make the FBI look like a bunch of blabbermouths. And I don’t think Maryanne would be into a game of hot and cold.”
I made a turn off a four-lane boulevard that ran through what I thought was an overdeveloped retail district, only to plunge into a six-lane version of the same thing that stretched before me in a straight line all the w
ay to the horizon. Maybe beyond. Maybe it was endless, and they’d managed to warp space-time into an infinite series of branded restaurants, home centers, bathroom fixture emporiums, dry cleaners, banks, hardware stores, self-storage units, gas stations and single-story asbestos-shingled houses with low-pitch roofs and bright red pickup trucks, decorated with scrub oak and cedars planted along chainlink fences by the random hand of the wind.
I reminded myself that inside the grids drawn by these monstrous Gomorrahs were large tracks of blessed Long Island landscape filled with serene homes settled within verdant gardens, in which kind and intelligent people raised joyful children and lived lives of thoughtfulness and reflection. Who barely noticed the vulgarity through which they traveled on the way to meaningful vocations, as doctors, engineers, professors of abnormal psychology.
“Don’t underestimate me,” said Jackie.
“Only an opinion. What’s yours?”
“She’s nuts. But not crazy. Or stupid. I think she’s happy being where she is. Getting cared for, fussed over even, finding safe haven from a world that didn’t work out the way she wanted. Three squares a day and all the drugs her liver can withstand. What the hell. Doesn’t sound that bad.”
“Maryanne thought she was lonely.”
“Lillian might be lonely. The woman we talked to is all set.”
“And what else?” I asked her, rhetorically. “The big news.”
“It looks like Butch is the only one who paid either of them any attention. I thought he was the family brat and Jonathan Mr. Responsible.”
“So did Sam,” I said. “Dashiell is not surprised.”
“Well, have him tell Sam to find a place where I can pee and fix up my face. I want to do it before we get there.”
Agent Ig’s invisible gray Ford was parked in a corner of a nearly empty parking lot surrounding a franchise restaurant called something like The Olde Mill Tavern, the name written out in eighteenth-century script in ten-foot-high neon letters, just like they did in the time of Alexander Hamilton. The facade was mostly made of fieldstone, marred only by the random placement of actual barrelheads, protruding from the walls as if they’d been shot there by a cannon.
Web met us in the foyer. He kissed Jackie and shook my hand with both of his, which I took to be an outpouring of nearly untamable emotion.
