Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes

  My question stunned him. "What do you mean?"

  "I'm sure that from the beginning you planned for all exigencies. So what happens to me?"

  When he was silent I insisted: "I have a right to know everything that pertains to the experiment, and that includes my future."

  "No reason why you shouldn't know." He paused and lit an already lit cigarette. "You understand, of course, that from the beginning we had the highest hopes of permanence, and we still do ... we definitely do—"

  "I'm sure of that," I said.

  "Of course, taking you on in this experiment was a serious responsibility. I don't know how much you remember or how much you've pieced together about things in the beginning of the project, but we tried to make it clear to you that there was a strong chance it might be only temporary."

  "I had that written down in my progress reports, at the time," I agreed, "though I didn't understand at the time what you meant by it. But that's beside the point because I'm aware of it now."

  "Well, we decided to risk it with you," he went on, "because we felt there was very little chance of doing you any serious harm, and we were sure there was a great chance of doing you some good."

  "You don't have to justify that."

  "But you realize we had to get permission from someone in your immediate family. You were incompetent to agree to this yourself."

  "I know all about that. You're talking about my sister, Norma. I read about it in the papers. From what I remember of her, I imagine she'd have given you approval for my execution."

  He raised his eyebrows, but let it pass. "Well, as we told her, in the event that the experiment failed, we couldn't send you back to the bakery or to that room where you came from."

  "Why not?"

  "For one thing, you might not be the same. Surgery and injections of hormones might have had effects not immediately evident. Experiences since the operation might have left their mark on you. I mean, possibly emotional disturbances to complicate the retardation; you couldn't possibly be the same kind of person—"

  "That's great. As if one cross weren't enough to bear."

  "And for another thing there's no way of knowing if you would go back to the same mental level. There might be regression to an even more primitive level of functioning."

  He was letting me have the worst of it—getting the weight off his mind. "I might as well know everything," I said, "while I'm still in a position to have some say about it. What plans have you made for me?"

  He shrugged. "The Foundation has arranged to send you to the Warren State Home and Training School."

  "What the hell!"

  "Part of the agreement with your sister was that all the home's fees would be assumed by the Foundation, and you would receive a regular monthly income to be used for your personal needs for the rest of your life."

  "But why there? I was always able to manage on my own on the outside, even when they committed me there, after Uncle Herman died. Donner was able to get me out right away, to work and live on the outside. Why do I have to go back?"

  "If you can take care of yourself on the outside, you won't have to stay in Warren. The less severe cases are permitted to live off the grounds. But we had to make provision for you—just in case."

  He was right. There was nothing for me to complain about. They had thought of everything. Warren was the logical place—the deep freeze where I could be put away for the rest of my days.

  "At least it's not the incinerator," I said.

  "What?"

  "Never mind. A private joke." Then I thought of something. "Tell me, is it possible to visit Warren, I mean go through the place and look it over as a visitor?"

  "Yes, I think they have people coming down all the time—regular tours through the home as a kind of public relations thing. But why?"

  "Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it. See if you can arrange it—as soon as possible."

  I could see he was upset about the idea of my visiting Warren. As if I were ordering my coffin, to sit in before I died. But then, I can't blame him because he doesn't realize that finding out who I really am—the meaning of my total existence involves knowing the possibilities of my future as well as my past, where I'm going as well as where I've been. Although we know the end of the maze holds death (and it is something I have not always known—not long ago the adolescent in me thought death could happen only to other people), I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being—one of many ways—and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.

  That evening and for the next few days I immersed myself in psychology texts: clinical, personality, psycho-metrics, learning, experimental psychology, animal psychology, physiological psychology, behaviorist, gestalt, analytical, functional, dynamic, organismic, and all the rest of the ancient and modern factions, schools, and systems of thought. The depressing thing is that so many of the ideas on which our psychologists base their beliefs about human intelligence, memory, and learning are all wishful thinking.

  Fay wants to come down and visit the lab, but I've told her not to. All I need now is for Alice and Fay to run into each other. I've enough to worry about without that.

  PROGRESS REPORT 16

  July 14—It was a bad day to go out to Warren—gray and drizzly—and that may account for the depression that grips me when I think about it. Or perhaps I'm kidding myself and it was the idea of possibly being sent there that bothered me. I borrowed Burt's car. Alice wanted to come along, but I had to see it alone. I didn't tell Fay I was going.

  It was an hour-and-a-half drive out to the farmland community of Warren, Long Island, and I had no trouble finding the place: a sprawling gray estate revealed to the world only by an entrance of two concrete pillars flanking a narrow side-road and a well-polished brass plate with the name Warren State Home and Training School.

  The roadside sign said 15 MPH, so I drove slowly past the blocks of buildings looking for the administrative offices.

  A tractor came across the meadow in my direction, and in addition to the man at the wheel there were two others hanging on the rear. I stuck out my head and called: "Can you tell me where Mr. Winslow's office is?"

  The driver stopped the tractor and pointed to the left and ahead. "Main Hospital. Turn left and bear to your right."

  I couldn't help noticing the staring young man riding at the rear of the tractor, hanging on to a handrail. He was unshaven, and there was the trace of an empty smile. He had on a sailor's hat with the brim pulled down childishly to shield his eyes, although there was no sun out. I caught his glance for a moment—his eyes wide, inquiring—but I had to look away. When the tractor started forward again, I could see in the rear view mirror that he was looking after me, curiously. It upset me ... because he reminded me of Charlie.

  I was startled to find the head psychologist so young, a tall, lean man with a tired look on his face. But his steady blue eyes suggested a strength behind the youthful expression.

  He drove me around the grounds in his own car, and pointed out the recreation hall, hospital, school, administrative offices, and the two-story brick buildings he called cottages where the patients lived.

  "I didn't notice a fence around Warren," I said.

  "No, only a gate at the entrance and hedges to keep out curiosity seekers."

  "But how do you keep ... them ... from wandering off ... from leaving the grounds?"

  He shrugged and smiled. "We can't, really. Some of them do wander off, but most of them return."

  "Don't you go after them?"

  He looked at me as if trying to guess what was behind my question. "No. If they get into trouble, we soon know about it from the people in town—or the police bring them back."

  "And if not?"

  "If we don't hear about them, or from them, we assume they'
ve made some satisfactory adjustment on the outside. You've got to understand, Mr. Gordon, this isn't a prison. We are required by the state to make all reasonable efforts to get our patients back, but we're not equipped to closely supervise four thousand people at all times. The ones who manage to leave are all high-moron types—not that we're getting many of those any more. Now we get more of the brain-damaged cases who require constant custodial care—but the high-morons can move around more freely, and after a week or so on the outside most of them come back when they find there's nothing for them out there. The world doesn't want them and they soon know it."

  We got out of the car and walked over to one of the cottages. Inside, the walls were white tile, and the building had a disinfectant smell to it. The first-floor lobby opened up to a recreation room filled with some seventy-five boys sitting around waiting for the lunch bell to be sounded. What caught my eye immediately was one of the bigger boys on a chair in the corner, cradling one of the other boys—fourteen or fifteen years old—cuddling him in his arms. They all turned to look as we entered, and some of the bolder ones came over and stared at me.

  "Don't mind them," he said, seeing my expression. "They won't hurt you."

  The woman in charge of the floor, a large-boned, handsome woman, with rolled up shirt sleeves and a denim apron over her starched white skirt, came up to us. At her belt was a ring of keys that jangled as she moved, and only when she turned did I see that the left side of her face was covered by a large, wine-colored birthmark.

  "Didn't expect any company today, Ray," she said. "You usually bring your visitors on Thursdays."

  "This is Mr. Gordon, Thelma, from Beekman University. He just wants to look around and get an idea of the work we're doing here. I knew it wouldn't make any difference with you, Thelma. Any day is all right with you."

  "Yeah," she laughed strongly, "but Wednesday we turn the mattresses. It smells a lot better here on Thursday."

  I noticed that she kept to my left so that the blotch on her face was hidden. She took me through the dormitory, the laundry, the supply rooms, and the dining hall—now set and waiting for the food to be delivered from the central commissary. She smiled as she talked, and her expression and the hair piled in a bun high on her head made her look like a Lautrec dancer but she never looked straight at me. I wondered what it would be like living here with her to watch over me.

  "They're pretty good here in this building," she said. "But you know what it is. Three hundred boys—seventy-five on a floor—and only five of us to look after them. It's not easy to keep them under control. But it's a lot better than the untidy cottages. The staff there doesn't last very long. With babies you don't mind so much, but when they get to be adults and still can't care for themselves, it can be a nasty mess."

  "You seem to be a very nice person," I said. "The boys are fortunate to have you as their house-supervisor."

  She laughed heartily still looking straight ahead, and showed her white teeth. "No better or worse than the rest. I'm very fond of my boys. It's not easy work, but it's rewarding when you think how much they need you." The smile left her for a moment. "Normal kids grow up too soon, stop needing you ... go off on their own ... forget who loved them and took care of them. But these children need all you can give—all of their lives." She laughed again, embarrassed at her seriousness. "It's hard work here, but worth it."

  Back downstairs, where Winslow was waiting for us, the dinner bell sounded, and the boys filed into the dining room. I noticed that the big boy who had held the smaller one in his lap was now leading him to the table by the hand.

  "Quite a thing," I said, nodding in that direction.

  Winslow nodded too. "Jerry's the big one, and that's Dusty. We see that sort of thing often here. When there's no one else who has time for them, sometimes they know enough to seek human contact and affection from each other."

  As we passed one of the other cottages on our way to the school, I heard a shriek followed by a wailing, picked up and echoed by two or three other voices. There were bars on the windows.

  Winslow looked uncomfortable for the first time that morning. "Special security cottage," he explained. "Emotionally disturbed retardates. When there's a chance they'll harm themselves or others, we put them in Cottage K. Locked up at all times."

  "Emotionally disturbed patients here? Don't they belong in psychiatric hospitals?"

  "Oh, sure," he said, "but it's a difficult thing to control. Some, the borderline emotionally disturbed, don't break down until after they've been here for a while. Others were committed by the courts, and we had no choice but to admit them even though there's really no room for them. The real problem is that there's no room for anyone anywhere. Do you know how long our own waiting list is? Fourteen hundred. And we may have room for twenty-five or thirty of them by the end of the year."

  "Where are those fourteen hundred now?"

  "Home. On the outside, waiting for an opening here or in some other institution. You see, our space problem is not like the usual hospital overcrowding. Our patients usually come here to stay for the rest of their lives."

  As we arrived at the new school building, a one-story glass-and-concrete structure with large picture windows, I tried to imagine what it would be like walking through these corridors as a patient. I visualized myself in the middle of a line of men and boys waiting to enter a classroom. Perhaps I'd be one of those pushing another boy in a wheelchair, or guiding someone else by the hand, or cuddling a smaller boy in my arms.

  In one of the woodworking classrooms, where a group of older boys were making benches under a teacher's supervision, they clustered around us, eyeing me curiously. The teacher put down the saw and came towards us.

  "This is Mr. Gordon from Beekman University," said Winslow. "Wants to look over some of our patients. He's thinking of buying the place."

  The teacher laughed and waved at his pupils. "Well, if he b-buys it, he's g-got to t-take us with it. And he's g-got to get us some more w-wood to w-work with."

  As he showed me around the shop, I noticed how strangely quiet the boys were. They went on with their work of sanding or varnishing the newly finished benches, but they didn't talk.

  "These are my's-silent b-boys, you know," he said, as if he sensed my unspoken question. "D-deaf m-mutes."

  "We have a hundred and six of them here," explained Winslow, "as a special study sponsored by the federal government."

  What an incredible thing! How much less they had than other human beings. Mentally retarded, deaf, mute—and still eagerly sanding benches.

  One of the boys who had been tightening a block of wood in a vise, stopped what he was doing, tapped Winslow on the arm, and pointed to the corner where a number of finished objects were drying on display shelves. The boy pointed to a lamp base on the second shelf, and then to himself. It was a poor job, unsteady, the patches of wood-filler showing through, and the varnish heavy and uneven. Winslow and the teacher praised it enthusiastically, and the boy smiled proudly and looked at me, waiting for my praise too.

  "Yes," I nodded, mouthing the words exaggeratedly, "very good ... very nice." I said it because he needed it, but I felt hollow. The boy smiled at me, and when we turned to leave he came over and touched my arm as a way of saying good-bye. It choked me up, and I had a great deal of difficulty controlling my emotions until we were out in the corridor again.

  The principal of the school was a short, plump, motherly lady who sat me down in front of a neatly lettered chart, showing the various types of patients, the number of faculty assigned to each category, and the subjects they studied.

  "Of course," she explained, "we don't get many of the upper I.Q.'s any more. They're taken care of—the sixty and seventy I.Q.'s—more and more in the city schools in special classes, or else there are community facilities for caring for them. Most of the ones we get are able to live out, in foster homes, boarding houses, and do simple work on the farms or in a menial capacity in factories or laundries—"


  "Or bakeries," I suggested.

  She frowned. "Yes, I guess they might be able to do that. Now, we also classify our children (I call them all children, no matter what their ages are, they're all children here), we classify them as tidy or untidy. It makes the administration of their cottages a lot easier if they can be kept with their own levels. Some of the untidies are severely brain-damaged cases, kept in cribs, and they will be cared for that way for the rest of their lives..."

  "Or until science finds a way to help them."

  "Oh," she smiled, explaining to me carefully, "I'm afraid these are beyond help."

  "No one is beyond help."

  She peered at me, uncertainly now. "Yes, yes, of course, you're right. We must have hope."

  I made her nervous. I smiled to myself at the thought of how it would be if they brought me back here as one of her children. Would I be tidy or not?

  Back at Winslow's office, we had coffee as he talked about his work. "It's a good place," he said. "We have no psychiatrists on our staff—only an outside consulting man who comes in once every two weeks. But it's just as well. Every one of the psych staff is dedicated to his work. I could have hired a psychiatrist, but at the price I'd have to pay I'm able to hire two psychologists—men who aren't afraid to give away a part of themselves to these people."

  "What do you mean by 'a part of themselves'?"

  He studied me for a moment, and then through the tiredness flashed an anger. "There are a lot of people who will give money or materials, but very few who will give time and affection. That's what I mean." His voice grew harsh, and he pointed to an empty baby bottle on the bookshelf across the room.

  "You see that bottle?"

  I told him I had wondered about it when we came into his office.

  "Well, how many people do you know who are prepared to take a grown man into his arms and let him nurse with the bottle? And take the chance of having the patient urinate or defecate all over him? You look surprised. You can't understand it, can you, from way up there in your research ivory tower? What do you know about being shut out from every human experience as our patients have been?"