Conditional Voluntary

by Geoffrey A. Feller

  When Patrick headed back to the day room, he saw that three long tables had been carried out into the hallway. Patients were walking here and there, gradually filtering in for the assembly. Evidently, no one wanted to lose their privileges.

  Inside the room, Patrick saw that the various plastic chairs had been arranged into a haphazard circle. Several patients were already seated, some of them holding cups of instant coffee. He saw the man with the dyed-red hair standing near the bookcase. He was holding the clipboard that had the ward keys. So he was another counselor.

  The counselor turned and saw Patrick. He smiled and walked over.

  “You must be Patrick.” The voice had a nasal intonation.

  “Yes,” Patrick nodded as they shook hands.

  “I’m Frank, one of the counselors here. Are you starting to feel settled in?”

  “Uh… not yet.”

  Frank broke into a grin.

  “An honest answer is certainly appreciated. Well, take a seat anywhere. We’re about to get started.”

  Patrick eyed a folding chair near one of the sofas. But then he recognized his angry neighbor from the toilet chamber altercation that morning. She was sitting on the sofa but didn’t appear to notice him. Patrick diverted himself to a chair with its back up against the counter.

  He wondered if Frank was gay. Why would a straight guy dye his hair to such an obviously phony shade of red? Maybe Frank was just weird, not necessarily queer. Of course he could be both. It was a free country.

  “Hey, man!” The voice was loud and excited.

  Patrick looked in the direction the shout had come from, seeing a short, blond man who seemed to be Patrick’s age striding up. This was obviously a patient; he stared at Patrick as if they knew each other.

  “My name’s Charley,” he exclaimed, holding out his hand. “Charley Doolan!”

  “I’m Patrick Coyne.”

  “Coin?” Charley grinned. “You a penny or a silver dollar?”

  Before Patrick could explain the spelling of his name or even try to join in on the joke, the other patient was giving him a crushing handshake. Charley’s head was squarish, mounted on a short neck above similarly squarish shoulders. The overall impression Patrick got was of somebody blunt, compact, and powerful. Above all, Charley was bursting with energy.

  Patrick’s new friend bounded into the seat next to him.

  “It’s cool seein’ someone my own age around here,” Charley declared.

  “I guess so.”

  “Saw you when they brought you in last night,” Charley continued. “Man, you were out of it! Glad to see you’re wide awake now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So who’s your doctor?”

  “Kearney, they tell me.”

  “Hey, great!” Charley reacted, slapping Patrick’s shoulder. “Me, too! What about your primary? Who’d you get?”

  “Simon.”

  Another slap on the shoulder.

  “See! We just met and we already got two things in common!”

  “Right.”

  Patrick wasn’t annoyed by Charley, despite his stinging shoulder. He was grateful for the distraction coming from Charley’s aggressive friendliness.

  “So,” Patrick asked, “do you like having Dr. Kearney and Simon?”

  “Oh, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah!” Each “yeah” was punctuated by a nod. “They’re both nice, nicest guys on the staff.”

  Patrick glanced around the room. The seats were almost full and the wall clock was reading 8:28.

  “Ever been in a state hospit-hole?” Charley asked.

  “No,” Patrick replied, taking a moment to understand what Charley had meant. “This is my first… hospitalization.”

  “A fucking virgin!” Charley laughed.

  Patrick felt himself blush. He kept looking at Charley so that he wouldn’t see any other patients’ reactions.

  “Virgin!” Charley repeated. “I’ll show you the ropes, man. Simon’s okay. He’s cool but he’s staff. Only so much he can tell you or else they take his keys away, right? You want the straight shit? Let me be your guide.”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Ask me anything about this place; this is my second time here. Last time, I was here for three fucking weeks!”

  “Charley, please!”

  Patrick looked over to see Brenda, who had spoken up. Frank was handing her the clipboard.

  “What?” Charley asked.

  “You know what,” Brenda said, Frank standing calmly beside her. “Watch that mouth of yours. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  “Okay, okay,” Charley sighed.

  Frank and Brenda separated, Brenda disappearing out into the hall.

  “That one’s Brenda,” Charley said in as close to a whisper as he could manage.

  “I know. I met her already.”

  “She’s not so bad, really, but I think she’s a dyke.”

  Patrick resisted the temptation to share his suspicions about Frank, especially since he was still in the room with them. So Patrick changed the subject.

  “Are we the only ones here under twenty-five?”

  “No,” Charley answered with a leer. “There’s this one chick who’s nineteen.”

  “Good-looking?”

  “Oh, yeah! Real tall, legs like you never saw! Looks like a… an effin’ model, man. Name’s Justine. Hardly notices me at all.”

  “Too bad.”

  “You’ll see her in a second. Always gets in right before they shut the door.”

  Simon strode into the room at a brisk pace. He was carrying a notebook and three sheets of paper. Simon cracked a wry smile when he noticed Patrick sitting next to Charley.

  Right behind Simon came four more staff members, three of them women. One was Gloria, Dr. Kearney’s team nurse. Patrick also recognized Rachel, the head nurse, from introductions Simon had made just after Patrick signed the conditional voluntary. Gloria was older than Rachel and had dark hair with strands of gray. Rachel was blond, chubby, and voluptuously built. When he’d first seen her, Patrick had a passing desire to sit in Rachel’s lap and rest his head on the nurse’s bust.

  Simon gave the notebook to a lean, middle-aged man and the papers to none other than Linda. Then he went to close the day room doors.

  “Wait, wait!” The demand came from a shrill voice in the hall.

  Simon stepped aside and in walked a patient who had to be Justine. She was wearing a green pullover shirt and tight designer jeans. Her legs seemed endless; Patrick noticed a gold anklet above her right foot.

  He watched her sit on a metal folding chair off to his right. Her face wasn’t terribly gorgeous but it was pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way. Her complexion was almost as bad as his own. Justine crossed her legs and looked bored.

  “Thursday, June 11th, 1987,” Linda recited loudly.

  Patrick looked away from Justine before she could catch him ogling her. He tried to pay attention to the assembly proceedings.

  “Discharges today, none,” Linda continued. “Admissions, one. Patrick Coyne.”

  She looked up from the paper and sought him out in the crowd. Linda smiled at him when he raised his hand.

  “There you are,” she said.

  “What brings you here, Patrick?” The question came from the male staff member Patrick hadn’t been introduced to yet.

  “I… I wish I knew,” Patrick muttered. “I lost some time… You know, like amnesia.”

  “That happened to me once,” a massive patient commented; he had a walrus mustache and a figure to match.

  Patrick fidgeted in his seat, feeling as though everyone was staring at him.

  “Is there any way we can help you while you’re here?” Rachel asked.

  Patrick shrugged, then shook his head. He tried to will the assembly on to some other topic.

  “I’m sure everyone here will do what they can to help,” Simon spoke u
p. “Don’t be afraid to ask.”

  Patrick smiled weakly. Somebody said “welcome”. This was followed by several other voices repeating the same word. Patrick stole another glance at Justine, finding her eyes focused right back into his – a thrilling shock. Was she interested in him? Patrick wished his experience with women hadn’t been so absurdly limited.

  The meeting dragged on through the reading of the minutes, then a couple of announcements that didn’t apply to Patrick, then a few petty complaints from some of the patients, and finally a reading of the group therapy sessions schedule and which patients were assigned to attend.

  When the meeting broke up, Patrick lost sight of Justine in the highly animated crowd. Charley had started talking loudly to him again but he was too distracted to respond; it was more like hearing the whine of mosquito wings behind his ear than any actual words. Charley finally got Patrick’s attention by pulling at his forearm.

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s carry the tables back in! That’s my chore this week.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Simon noticed that Patrick was taking hold of one end of the table closest to the medication room.

  “Charley,” he said with mock-gravity, “that’s no way to treat a new arrival.”

  “Oh, I don’t care,” Patrick said with an embarrassed grin. “Keeps my mind occupied.”

  Simon smiled and gave Patrick’s shoulder a brief squeeze. Then he headed down the hall towards the staff office. Patrick lifted the table with Charley at the other end. He shuffled backward to the day room doorway.

  “I remember the first assembly I was in,” Charley was saying. “You know what I told ’em when they asked how they could help me while I was in here?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I said, ‘Somebody get me a cheap lawyer!’”

  Patrick laughed along with Charley as they put the table down at the bookcase end of the day room. Patrick’s laughter was spontaneous and genuine.

  “Moe Howard!” Patrick exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “You were quoting Moe Howard,” Patrick explained. “You know, from The Three Stooges.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Charley beamed, turning back to the hallway. “Yeah. Must be where I heard it. Get me a cheap lawyer!”

  “Hey, Charley.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You see where that Justine went?”

  Charley’s face was full of delight.

  “I knew you’d like her, man! She’s down in the smoking room for sure!”

  Simon Herbst was into his third year as a mental health counselor at Hillside Hospital. He had started out working as a security guard, posted at the front desk on the ground floor, covering the overnight shift. When the opportunity had come to shed his blue polyester tunic in favor of casual clothes and doing something more stimulating than sitting around bored all night, Simon took the plunge.

  After eight months as a night shift counselor, he had been promoted to the day/evening rotation. Not long after that, Simon had his next promotion, to team counselor, all with the most rudimentary educational background in psychology: one introductory course before he’d flunked out of college at age twenty. But Rachel, who had been Dr. Kearney’s team nurse at the time, had pushed for Simon’s addition, telling the previous head nurse Simon was a “natural” in his compassionate interactions with the patients.

  Simon looked up when Frank pulled the staff office door shut with a loud click. It could not be opened from the outside without a key. He went back to pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  He and Frank took their seats at the table with Rachel, Gloria, and Tom the social worker. Brenda was out on the floor with the keys and clipboard, helping Hilda in getting patients their supplies. The board Brenda was holding also had the tracking form to document patients’ whereabouts at least once per hour. As a new admission, Patrick was being accounted for every fifteen minutes on a separate form that would eventually be added to his medical records. Vera, the medication nurse, was preparing the nine o’clock dosages down in the dispensary.

  The staff members sequestered in the office proceeded to dissect the events at the assembly. Sometimes Dr. Adams or Dr. Kearney would sit in on the assemblies and later offer their observations as well. But today, Dr. Kearney in particular was running a bit late. Simon felt sorry for Patrick, knowing how anxious his new primary patient was for a session. Patrick’s medical chart was open in front of him on the table.

  “Well, did you see that?” Gloria asked, looking at Simon.

  “See what?”

  “Better keep an eye on that new patient,” she explained. “Justine Edwards was doing just that during the assembly.”

  “Great,” Simon muttered, nervously re-reading Patrick’s intake form.

  “Doesn’t she have a boyfriend already?” Frank asked.

  “Frank, you were nineteen once,” Gloria said, rolling her eyes, “remember that far back?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Frank grinned. “When I was nineteen, yes, about the same time you were pushing thirty.”

  But for Simon, memories of being that age were fresh: it was a mere five years back while he was still stumbling through college. Already having a boyfriend wouldn’t always keep young girls chaste; at school, Simon had been “the other man” so many times, he could have earned a bachelor’s degree in dysfunctional relationships.

  Patrick had gone back to his room, having abandoned his notion to follow Justine; shyness had muffled his libido. Patrick went right back to sitting on his bed and staring at his wristwatch.

  He still hoped that this was some big mistake. Just a case of drug-induced amnesia. He was okay now.

  Patrick wanted badly to get released at least before the weekend. He lived out in Waltham in an apartment shared with his brother Scott. Scott was out of town, on a vacation from work until Monday. The shame of being shipped off to Hillside Hospital would have to be dealt with, of course. But so much the better if it was only after the fact.

  Patrick had kept his fears hidden from Scott in order to protect him. Scott was probably safe from the secret agents of the DEA if he didn’t know that they were following Patrick. Sooner or later, they might catch him but his brother had to be kept safe.

  Then Patrick realized something. On the outside, he had been obsessed with the DEA. Barely a waking minute went by without his thinking about the spies. It didn’t matter what he was doing, whether he was at work in the liquor store, at the movies, or in the middle of a conversation. He was always looking over his shoulder, figuratively if not literally.

  Yet he had spent the whole ward assembly without worrying about the DEA. He had laughed about The Three Stooges with Charley and not considered his drug file. He had hoped Justine was flirting with him and not imagined a concentration camp bed with his name on it.

  Was this really a safe place like Simon had claimed? In more ways than one – more than the counselor knew?

  Around 9:30, Patrick finally met Dr. Robert Kearney. Simon led the doctor into Patrick’s room, made a brief introduction for them, and went on his way. Dr. Kearney was about as big as Simon but was much older. His hair was snow-white and he had a friendly demeanor. He was also dressed more like a doctor than Simon, wearing a pale blue dress shirt, a navy blue tie with yellow stripes, and black slacks that barely concealed his girth.

  “Let’s talk in my office,” Dr. Kearney suggested.

  The office was small and narrow with barely enough room for the desk and a metal cabinet containing old patient files in manila folders. Patrick’s own chart, in its three-ring binder, was sitting open on the desk. Dr. Kearney swiveled his high-back desk chair to face Patrick, who was sitting in a plastic modular chair that was almost touching the door.

  “Well, Patrick, how are you feeling today?”

  “Scared,” he answered with no hesitation. “And, uh, confused. I still don’t know how I got here. Eh-everyone’s be
en telling me that you have to explain that.”

  “Did they?”

  Patrick nodded emphatically.

  The doctor told him that he had been found by the police wandering through Central Square in Cambridge, babbling incoherently. Assuming he was on some sort of narcotic, they put him in a holding cell. Once his blood tests had came back negative for such substances, it was assumed that Patrick was having a psychotic break and was taken to a psychiatric emergency unit. Since that was only a temporary custodial facility, the staff made calls to find him a more permanent bed.

  “That’s how you ended up with us,” Dr. Kearney concluded.

  “It all seems so hard to believe,” Patrick muttered, feeling an icy sort of fear. “I mean that I could’ve been though all that and not remember any of it.”

  “It’s like hearing stories your parents tell you about things you did when you were one or two years old,” Dr. Kearney suggested.

  “Well, not exactly,” Patrick said, hesitating before contradicting this authority figure. “I mean at least then you know that it happened a long time ago. It’s not as scary as finding out you were doing something so… so strange just yesterday.”

  “Quite right.”

  “I guess I was hoping that this was all some kind of mix-up. Like I had amnesia or something. But – ”

  “But when you suffer from amnesia, your behavior is relatively normal. After a psychotic episode, the mind cannot readily adapt memory to relate to such behavior, perhaps for the best.”

  The word psychotic resonated ominously.

  “Couldn’t it have been something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Why not a drug?”

  “Patrick…”

  “No, I mean it! I’m thinking maybe LSD. I’ve heard stories about people taking acid and going crazy from it sometimes. Maybe somebody slipped me acid as joke… or to fuck me up on purpose.”

  Dr. Kearney took a short moment before responding. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his belly.

  “There is some controversy about this of course,” he said, “but LSD has been claimed as a factor in certain cases of schizophrenia, much as you may have heard anecdotally. But there probably has to be a genetic predisposition to the illness in the first place before any narcotic could possibly trigger it.”

  “Is that what I have? Schizophrenia?”

  “I haven’t been able to make a formal diagnosis yet.”

  “But could that be the answer? Did my personality split so I did things I can’t remember because I was someone else at the time? Could it have happened before?”

  “Hold on, Patrick. First of all, schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiple personality disorder or ‘split personality’ as you put it. Schizophrenia is a detachment from reality coupled with paranoia. What’s more, paranoia by itself doesn’t necessarily imply a diagnosis of schizophrenia.”

  Vaguely reassured, Patrick relaxed his posture.

  “Now, if I may, I’d like to get filled in on some gaps in your admission work,” Dr. Kearney said, reaching for a legal-size notepad.

  “Sure.”

  “As to your family…” The doctor paused to pull a pen from his shirt pocket.

  “There’s not many of us left.”

  “Not many?” Dr. Kearney asked, raising his white eyebrows.

  “I mean I’m an orphan – sort of.”

  “Sort of? Could you explain that, please?”

  “My mother’s dead, died three years ago while I was in college.”

  “And your father?”

  “As good as dead. He skipped out on us when I was two.”

  “There’s been no contact with him?”

  Patrick shook his head.

  “Siblings?”

  “Just my brother Scott. He’s a couple years older than me. I live with him in Waltham.”

  “At the Granby Street address?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Have you spoken with your brother since you were admitted?”

  “No, he’s out of town until Monday – or Sunday night, maybe.”

  Dr. Kearney nodded.

  “When did you first notice a problem?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “The feelings of paranoia. When did you start experiencing them?”

  “But I’m not paranoid, doctor. I was obviously… unstable the other day but I’m better now.”

  Dr. Kearney gazed into Patrick’s eyes, making Patrick self-conscious.

  “You asked whether you were under arrest this morning. Why would you assume such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did your room look like a jail cell to you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you committed any crimes?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “If you’re worried about what you did during your episode, you can relax,” Dr. Kearney said. “There have been no charges filed against you and no cause for any to be filed. There is no rational reason to think you’ve been arrested. Committed, yes, but that was largely a formality.”

  “Yeah, Simon told me that much, anyway.”

  “So you say you aren’t paranoid yet you thought you might have been locked up in here without cause.”

  “I didn’t say ‘without cause’, I –”

  Patrick stopped short. What if Dr. Kearney was a DEA agent himself? He could be a terrific actor. So open and unassuming, the kind of person you’d be eager to confide in. The office itself could be wired for sound. A panel truck out on the street could be picking up what they were saying.

  “Yes, Patrick?”

  But they already knew everything, anyway. And Dr. Kearney could be just as innocent as he looked. Having already compiled a full dossier on him, the DEA didn’t need any more information. They’d simply wait him out until he was discharged. Then when Patrick was put on trial, federal prosecutors could discount his testimony by citing his mental condition. Even if Dr. Kearney let him go right now, the DEA would still have that on him.

  “I think I’m being watched,” Patrick whispered.

  “Watched? Who’s watching you?”

  “The D… E… A.”

  “The what?”

  “Drug Enforcement Agency. You know.”

  Dr. Kearney nodded.

  “Are you a drug dealer, Patrick?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then why would the DEA be interested in you?”

  “Because I use drugs. I mean I have used them. They keep records on us.”

  “How long do you think you’ve been watched?”

  “I think they started getting preliminary information on me when I was in college.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Which college?”

  Dr. Kearney nodded.

  “University of Massachusetts.”

  “That’s a big campus, isn’t it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Must be a lot of drug users in the university; thousands of them.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It would have taken an enormous amount of manpower to keep surveillance on so many students, let alone millions of other drug users all over the country. Does that sound like a likely allocation of resources?”

  “I don’t mean they’re watching every drug user in America,” Patrick countered. “I mean they started out with some of us. You know, to make examples… like the Russians do.”

  “The Russians?”

  “Yeah, those show trials and purges and things.”

  “So you’re expecting to be put on trial like that?”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But there’s something in the air. Can’t you feel it? I mean they declared war on drugs last year; they’re serious about doing something. You’ll see something awful happen to the constitution. Reagan doesn’t really care about drugs. It’s all a pretext. But they have to put on a good show, don’t you see?
They’ll make drugs seem so evil that ordinary citizens will give up their civil rights just to stop it all. Then Reagan can do whatever he wants.”

  “And what might that be, Patrick?”

  “I… I don’t know. Nuclear war?”

  “So the president takes control of the country just so he can destroy it in a war? Does that make sense, Patrick?”

  “It’s just one possibility.”

  “One among many,” Dr. Kearney said with a nod. “Some possibilities are much more likely than others. What we need to do is help you sort out your worst fears from what really is going on outside the hospital. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, well, there’s something else I should tell you.”

  “Please.”

  “I… I used to think about the DEA all the time. And I’ve been afraid to talk about it. Dr. Kearney, you’re the first person I’ve told this to. I… I don’t know how I’ve managed…”

  Dr. Kearney put the note pad back on the desk and closed the chart. Patrick figured that the session was almost over so he hurried to make his point.

  “Why don’t I feel so obsessed by it now?’

  “It could be the Thorazine they gave you in the emergency room,” Dr. Kearney said. “It’s a major tranquilizer used to calm psychotic anxiety.”

  Patrick’s shoulders drooped some more. His nascent relief was all thanks to some drug, after all. This was a bitter irony and he hated it.

  “Have you prescribed Thorazine for me, then?” Patrick asked softly.

  “Thorazine is a very powerful medication. It has side effects that make me reluctant to prescribe it on a long-term basis. It’s also one of the older tranquilizers still in use. Nowadays, we have an array of medications that have milder and fewer side-effects.”

  “What kind of side-effects?”

  “There can be neurological damage over several years; we have antidotes now in use but, unfortunately, you can see the consequences in some of our older patients.”

  Patrick sat up and clutched his knees.

  “What are the… the symptoms?”

  “Stiffness in the limbs, some loss of motor control.”

  Patrick nodded gravely. He now understood the state of a few of the patients he’d seen on the ward.

  “And even with the newer medications, we have to be careful,” Dr. Kearney added. “We’ll have to monitor what we give you, watch for allergic reactions. Not to scare you, I hope you understand.”

  “Of course not,” Patrick murmured, scared anyway.

  “It’s a matter of letting you know what the risks are,” the psychiatrist said, “and to impress upon you that your treatment here will take time.”

  “How long?”

  “The average stay is two weeks. Do you have any more questions, Patrick?”

  Patrick shook his head. Dr. Kearney smiled and stood up.

  “You’ll be all right. I’ll make sure of that.”