“You see, at the start it was just a pretense,” Fell continued. “But somewhere on the way back from Nam it developed into something more; much more. His hatred of the Kane who killed became denial; and in time the denial became so overwhelming that it totally obliterated Kane’s self-identity: he suppressed the Kane who killed and became his better self-completely. Except when he dreamed. In the conscious state he was Kane the psychiatrist; and whatever contradicted that belief he denied and incorporated into his delusionary system.”
Fell looked down at his cigarette ash; it was long. He cupped a hand beneath it and tapped it off. “Ah, my God, he had it all,” he said. He shook his head. “Fugue states, redeemer complex, the migraines. You all must have seen some of that-the pain. That’s what got him into drugs.”
Krebs looked down at the floor as though abashed.
“Krebs knew,” said Fell.
Krebs nodded, still downcast, as the others turned and looked at him. “Anyway, I talked them into letting him go through with it,” Fell resumed. “It was an experiment. Partly. That was part of it. So they let him go ahead. Kane was inside the problem, looking out-an inmate functioning as a psychiatrist and coming to bear on the problem like nothing we’d ever seen. We hoped he might come up with some new insight. Oddly enough, I think he did. I think the other inmates have been responding to him. But he’s suffered a setback today. A pretty bad one. Really. Bad. You see, his one big hope of a cure for himself is to wipe out his guilt by a saving act; to cure the other men, or at least see improvement. But that takes time-time and your help.”
Fell gestured toward Groper. “You’ve seen my orders. I’m in command. But I want Colonel Kane to play out the string.” Fell turned to Gilman. “Gilman, I want you to try to convince the other inmates that you were mistaken. That shouldn’t be too difficult to sell around here. Can you do that, please, Gilman? Would you do that?” A note of pleading had crept into Fell’s voice.
“Oh, well, sure,” said Gilman quickly. “Sure. Absolutely.”
“Thank you.” Fell turned to the adjutant. “Groper, you and the rest of the staff will back up Gilman. So will I.”
Groper looked up from the orders, befuddled. “Colonel, let me get this straight,” he said. “You’ve really been in charge here all the time?”
Fell nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “He’s Vincent Kane. I’m Hudson Kane. I’m the psychiatrist. Vincent is my patient.” Fell’s eyes were flooding and his voice began to crack. “When we were kids I used to always make him laugh. I was a clown. And I’ve been trying to help him … remember me. But he won’t.”
He could not hold back the tears any longer. He said, “He’s my brother.”
Kane awakened in his room. He was lying on his bed, fully dressed. He sat up with an awareness of something being wrong. He saw his brother leaning forward in a chair by the bed, an odd expression of concern on his face.
“How are you feeling?”
Vincent stared without comprehension. “What? What’s going on?” he asked.
“What happened?”
“You fainted. Don’t you remember?”
Vincent looked disturbed. He shook his head.
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing. I was walking to my room and now I’m here.” He looked puzzled.
“I fainted?”
Hudson looked at him intently. “You remember the new inmate?”
“New inmate?”
“You don’t.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s going on?” He sounded angry.
Window glass shattered and a rock flew into the room. It hit a wall, fell on a nightstand and bounced to the floor. Enraged and hysterical, Cutshaw called up from the mansion courtyard: “Tell me all about God, you butchering bastard! Tell me again about goodness in the world! Come on down here with your wire, you bastard! Come on down!”
The psychiatrist looked at his brother anxiously; he saw the consternation on his face. “Dumb bastard Krebs,” he muttered. “He let a package from Cutshaw’s mother go through without bothering to open it. I knew it was booze.”
“Come down here!” Cutshaw shouted. “Come on down here with your wire!”
Then there was sobbing and the wrenching cry: “I needed you!”
Vincent Kane stared numbly. The blood was beginning to drain from his face. His brother got up and moved quickly to the window. He saw Cutshaw running off. He cupped his hands and shouted after him, “Tell your mother to send you some mix!” He went back to the bed and sat by Vincent. As he took his wrist to check the pulse, he said, “That California panther piss will kill you. I heard it grew hair on a clam once. Honest.”
His brother’s gaze was upon him, unblinking. “He was angry,” Vincent said. “That’s so strange.”
Outside they heard a motorcycle engine revving up. Someone shouted, “Cutshaw!” Groper. The motorcycle roared away.
Vincent Kane got up from the bed and went to the window in time to see the motorcycle break through the wooden barrier at the sentry gate. His brother came up behind him.
“He crashed through the sentry gate,” said Vincent, alarmed and confused.
“Just another part of life’s rich pageant.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It’s Saturday night.”
Vincent Kane looked deeply troubled. He touched the pad of a finger to the edge of a jagged spear of glass in the window. His brother watched with tragic eyes and murmured softly, “No. No memories. No laughs.”
Vincent turned with a questioning stare. He said, “What?”
“Get some rest.” The psychiatrist moved toward the door. “I’ll send a couple of the orderlies to pick him up.”
“But they won’t know where to find him.”
“He can’t go far.” He opened the door and said, “Don’t worry.”
The psychiatrist stepped out into the hall. He decided he had better go and find Cutshaw himself. He would bring Gilman along and see if the astronaut accepted the change in Gilman’s story. If he did not, the psychiatrist decided, he would have to risk taking Cutshaw into his confidence. He hurried down the stairs.
Vincent Kane sat down on the bed and stared at the broken glass in the window. His head was throbbing. Something was awry. Something wrong. What was wrong? He’d experienced somnambulistic lapses before. That wasn’t it. What was it? Cutshaw. Cutshaw. His breathing came shallower and faster. He felt a weight in his stomach, an unfocused feeling of guilt. He stood up.
He must look for Cutshaw himself.
15
Cutshaw had roared through the town of Bly and come upon a seedy roadside tavern six miles beyond. There he stopped. Soaking wet, he went inside and sat at a cramped little booth at the rear. Within half an hour he was drunk. Around him, boisterous laughter drowned in the hard-rock music from a jukebox. A motorcycle gang held control of the tavern, filling it with shouts and murmured obscenities, with worn black leather jackets, the words “The Chain Gang” emblazoned on their backs. Some slouched at the bar. Some danced, matted hair and dirty fingernails jerking through the cigarette haze in the dimness of the wood-paneled room. Cutshaw did not notice. He lifted a shot glass to his lips and gulped its contents, a finger of Scotch; he grimaced and chased it with a gulp of beer, and then stared blearily at the five full shot glasses aligned on the rough wooden table in front of him. He looked up as the waitress walked by. She was young. “Hey, hold it!” Cutshaw reached out and took her hand; he could feel a simple wedding band. “How about another Scotch?” he asked slurrily.
The girl’s smile brought a wholesome brightness into her face.
“Sir, there’s five right there in front of you,” she said with good humor. Disengaging her hand, she moved on toward the bar. Cutshaw looked down at the table, disconsolate. “I wanted six, “ he murmured thickly.
Two cyclists leaning at the bar were darting glances at the astronaut. One slurped his beer and stared. His face was thick wi
th a stubble of beard and he wore large-lensed yellow glasses. “It’s him, Rob,” he said. “I know it’s him.”
“You’re nuts,” drawled the other cyclist. He wore an open leather vest over a short-sleeved T-shirt that showed off his enormous muscular arms. He had degenerate good looks and thick blond hair pomaded into waves. Arrogance smirked out of his eyes. Stenciled on the front of his T-shirt were the words “I Love To Fuck.” He was the leader of the gang. “You’re seein’ things, Jerry.”
“Up yours. I’ve seen his picture in the papers.”
“Since when have you ever read a paper?”
“Okay! TV!”
The waitress came up to the service bar. “Two beers, two bourbon rocks,” she ordered. She glanced at the cyclists nervously. The gang was not local, and she felt a disquiet at their presence.
“Look at him!” said Jerry. “Look at his face! That’s him! The astronaut!
The one who lost his marbles!”
The waitress turned her head to look at Cutshaw.
“What’s he doin’ in a dump like this?” Rob demanded.
“Oh, who the fuck knows,” Jerry answered. “But it’s him. I swear it! I’m positive!”
“Yeah? For how much?”
“For a beer.”
“And a blow job from either your old lady or mine.” Rob was grinning.
Jerry rubbed at his chin as he glanced toward Cutshaw again. Then he downed his drink and said, “Okay.”
The two cyclists wove through the crowd to Cutshaw and stood by the table looking him over. The astronaut was lifting a shot glass when he saw them. He paused, eying one and then the other.
“Yes?” he said.
“What’s your name, mac?” asked Rob.
“Rumpelstiltskin.”
Rob snatched the shot glass away from Cutshaw and looked sideways at Jerry. “Wise ass,” he said.
As if oblivious, Cutshaw picked up another shot glass. Again the cyclist snatched it away from him, this time roughly. “I said, what’s your name?” An ugly menace had crept into his voice.
“My maiden name or married?” Cutshaw looked past the two cyclists and called out, “Waitress!”
Jerry made a sudden move, pulling back a fold of Cutshaw’s cardigan to disclose the initials “U.S.M.C.” stitched above the chest pocket of his fatigues. He pointed in triumph. “See? U.S.M.C-that’s Marines!”
“No, no, no, my dear boy,” drawled Cutshaw. “That’s Unbridled Sex for the Masses Club.”
Rob tossed the contents of a shot glass into Cutshaw’s face.
“It is something I’ve said?” asked the astronaut mildly, licking out his tongue for a taste of the Scotch.
The waitress appeared. “Yes?” she asked Cutshaw. She was frowning, puzzling over his identity. She noticed the wetness on his face and darted an apprehensive look at the cyclists.
“One Scotch and two spittoons, love,” Cutshaw ordered. “Fill the
spittoons with caterpillar blood. It’s for our friends here. Maybe they’ll—”
Jerry grabbed Cutshaw’s fatigue shirt, jerked him up and forward and savagely cuffed his face.
The waitress looked alarmed. “Hey, cut that out!” she cried.
“You mean this?” Rob said to her, smirking. He quickly reached a hand beneath her dress and squeezed her buttocks. She whirled around with a cry and knocked his arm away. The cyclist grabbed her wrist and pressed his body against hers. Moaning with exaggerated, mocking eroticism, he backed her into the end of the booth divider. “Much better.” He grinned. “Better position.”
The waitress grimaced in pain and loathing. She pushed at his chest.
“Oh, my God, get away!”
Cutshaw lurched to his feet. “Cut that out!” he said, moving to help her. Jerry shoved him back down in the booth so that Cutshaw’s head struck against the wall. “Jesus Christ,” he moaned. He was dazed.
“Move it, baby,” said Rob, leering. Light gleamed from a silver cap on his tooth and he undulated forcefully back and forth.
“I’m pregnant! Get away from me!” cried out the waitress. “Stop pressing! Stop it! Please! You’re hurting me!”
Jerry ripped Cutshaw’s dog tag from his neck. He examined it quickly, then called to Rob: “Hey, it’s him! It’s really him! I got his dog tag, Rob! It’s him!”
Rob looked over at Jerry, amazed. He reached for the dog tag. The waitress wriggled away.
“You’re kidding!” Rob grunted, examining the dog tag. He looked down at Cutshaw. The astronaut was holding his head. “I can’t believe it!” Rob moved a few steps to the jukebox. He pulled out the plug. In the sudden silence there were groans and complaints.
“Hey, quiet! Quiet!” Rob stood up on a chair. “Hey, guess what we got here! A goddam celebrity, folks! A chicken, wigged-out astronaut!” There was a mixed reaction from the crowd. Rob pointed to the booth where Cutshaw was pinned in his seat by Jerry. “That there is Captain Billy Cutshaw, gang!”
The crowd was incredulous, gleeful. A few of the cyclists applauded. One drawled, “Big fuckin’ deal.”
Rob stepped down and went back to the booth, where he and Jerry jerked the astronaut to his feet. “Yeah, I know,” muttered Cutshaw, his eyes half closed. “Resistance is useless. My friends have confessed.”
“Wanna join our club?” Rob grinned.
“Fuck you.”
Rob’s grin curled away to a sneer. He could not identify what he hated about the astronaut; he felt it as a pain when he breathed. He cuffed him viciously with the back of his hand and Cutshaw’s head snapped back. “Okay,” Cutshaw muttered. “Don’t fuck you.” Rob grabbed him by the front of his fatigues and then dragged him to the center of the room, where most of the cyclists gathered around them. One of the couples continued dancing even though there was no music.
Rob snapped his fingers at Jerry. “Beer!”
“One beer comin’ up,” retorted Jerry. He went to the bar to fetch it.
“Beer,” he told the barkeep, a man in his sixties who owned the tavern. He filled up a stein and as he set it on the bar he flicked a glance toward a telephone on a wall outside the rest rooms. Jerry followed his gaze and shook his head at the bartender. “Uh-uh,” he warned him. “Don’t fuck with the party.” He picked up the stein and took it to Rob.
The cyclists were gathered around in a circle, murmuring, chuckling, throwing questions at Cutshaw: “Wha’dja do, lose your nerve?” “Hey, whadda they feed you in the nut house?” “Where’s your keeper?” “You got any grass?” Cutshaw stood meekly, with his head bowed down. He did not answer.
Rob took the beer from Jerry. He flourished it around, and then loudly announced, “First we baptize the chicken mother!” An ugly tension, an unmotivated spite masquerading as playfulness, moved through the crowd like a malevolent sheepdog, touching them, nuzzling, herding them together. “Now I wanna hear a countdown!” shouted Rob. “Let me hear it!
Ten!” he began. The cyclists joined in with him, shouting, their eyes bright as they counted down to “One!” And then Rob added “Zero!” and slowly poured the contents of the stein over Cutshaw’s head. Rob grinned. He said, “Everything A-O.K. there, fuckup?”
16
Kane leaned his head forward, squinting to see through the rain-flooded windshield of the staff car. He had been through Bly. At each public place where he’d seen a motorcycle parked, he stopped, went inside and looked for Cutshaw. Once he thought he passed another staff car, but he could not be sure. Now he followed the road that spurted northward past the town. He had made no conscious decision to do so; the action was intuitive, automatic. A neon light was blinking ahead of him. He pulled off the road and lowered his window. It was a tavern. He saw the motorcycles parked. They were all of the chopper type, high-handled. All but one. Kane got out of the car and went into the tavern.
The cyclists were in a circle. They were singing “Fly Me to the Moon” in a slow waltz rhythm, and in time to their singing they were passing Cutshaw
back and forth along the circle, shoving him, laughing, Cutshaw a limp rag doll, unresisting, unheeding, uncaring.
Kane paused at the entrance to the tavern. He stared at the cyclists. Then he caught a flashing glimpse of Cutshaw before he tripped and fell to the floor, disappearing from view.
“Get your ass up, moon boy!”
“You lookin’ for rocks?”
Amid laughter, Kane slipped sidewise through the circle and quickly knelt beside the prostrate Cutshaw. Kane slipped a hand behind his back and propped him up.
“Hey, look at this shit,” said a cyclist.
“I think we just got us another beach ball,” said another one, a girl with a nasal voice.
Cutshaw stared at Kane. A purplish bruise commanded his cheekbone and blood smeared his lips from a cracked front tooth. “Been meeting your family,” he said sardonically. The remark made no sense to Kane. He pulled the astronaut to his feet and began to move him toward the door, but Rob intercepted them, grabbing the astronaut’s arm and squeezing. “Hey, that’s my beach ball, man,” he told Kane. “Put him down.”
“Let him go, please,” Kane said softly.
The Ninth Configuration Page 9
