Chapter Thirty-Five
The orange and white pussycat that lived in the same stately house on the hospital grounds as did I, was mysterious to me, a secret incapable of being understood. How many people has that furry puzzle seen come and go, I wondered, how many have thrown stones at him or cursed him. I watched him chase something that only he could see and then, later, watched him rolling on the road, getting oily, dusty and dirty. Later, when the hot sun had set and darkness coated everything, he carefully groomed himself. With one eye on his task and one looking out for stray humans, he stayed busy until, clean and ready for another day, he entered slumber.
He reminded me that each of us wants to keep busy. Human, avian, animal or insect; is there any creature endowed with life that doesn’t want something to do, some way to put in their days? Alas, none of us are cats. If we chase things that aren’t there and get too dirty it’s because we’re crazy. We will be locked up then, because we can’t look after ourselves. We will have to take drugs that can make the simplest chores so hard that we want to lie in our beds and be left alone. We won’t want to be busy anymore and will start the process of forgetting what busy was.
I won’t get dirty I promised in my mind, you can count on it. If you let me out and somehow take away the harsh drugs, I’ll try my hardest to stay busy and clean. I’ll avoid chasing anything that can’t be seen. In some ways I’ll take my cue from the orange and white cat and in others, I promise that I certainly won’t.
The cat doesn’t seem to like me anymore. I’m starting to believe that he never did. I saw the girl feeding him scraps from our meals and knew that she had stolen his affections by applying leftovers. I should have thought of feeding him myself; praise and affection weren’t enough. Sitting on the porch I thought; if only I could entice a girl with table scraps, and then I winced and thought if they ever knew what I had been thinking they’d never let me go. I went upstairs and lying on my bed I thought foolish thoughts over and over, trying to prove to myself that what the workers had always maintained was true, that no one, not even the nurses, could possibly know what went on in my mind.
It’s funny really, that girl stole the cat and just when he was over me, I stole the girl from him. Though I had been watching her I hadn’t noticed until it was too late, that I was falling for her. One day I found myself walking the way she walked. It was so noticeable that someone asked me about it
“Why are you walking like that, she doesn’t even know that you’re alive.”
I looked at my feet and said, “I don’t know why I walk like her, I just do. Of course, you’re probably right; it’s not likely that she knows if I’m dead or alive or cares one way or the other. Well, she‘s caught my eye anyways, unless, of course, it’s just that I admire the way she walks.”
And that’s how it went. As though we were in grade school, someone told her how much I thought of her and she, in spite of possessing no more than a faint interest in me, agreed to a date. When we were together I walked like myself, when we were apart I walked like her. I laughed at the cat that I figured was missing his snacks and, as though he had a good hunch I was responsible, he kept a safe distance from me, staring and wagging his tail. I found out later, after I realized that it was just the way she walked that I admired and we had stopped seeing each other, that she had still been feeding the cat when she could get away with it. I had told her that it was bad for him to eat human food so she had fed him when I wasn’t around. The whole hospital-dating thing had really been about nothing more than one person’s lovely and enticing gait and temporary ownership of a cat.
So there were temperamental cats and shrewish women. What else was happening at the health care facility that specialized in treating the chronically different? I suppose one of the best days for me was when I was given the previously alluded to level 4 parole.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“What,” the social worker asked, “have you done?”
“That’s what I asked you,” I replied.
“Well,” she answered then hesitated, seemingly lost. I resisted believing she hadn’t been asked that question before “You were sick,” she said, finishing her sentence.
“Yes,” I answered, “I was. But, I don’t see what that has to do with being given parole. What I’m trying to say is this: when I first came here I was put under lock and key and my clothes were taken away. Shortly after I was put in the halfway house, clothed of course, and now I’m given parole. What I don’t understand, unless I’m actually a criminal and someone forgot to tell me, is why I was locked up and why you use the term parole when letting me off the hospital grounds?”
“All I know sir, is that it was called parole when I started working here. Other than that I have no explanation. You do want to be free to come and go, don’t you, because, you know, if you don’t it can be arranged that the hospital looks after you, we…”
“Never mind, I’m on parole, fine, fine, when can I be on my way?”
“You can go right now,” she replied. I stood up and started walking out of her office.
“Wait,” she demanded, another person reining me in.
“Yes?” My question was one syllable, sharply spoken. I didn’t care if I lost my privileges because I answered a command with the wrong inflection.
“There are certain restrictions…” Her voice droned on. I heard the buzzwords – drugs, alcohol and curfew. “Is that all clear?”
“Crystal,” I replied and walked away, leaving her no doubt believing I was just another uncouth and ungrateful person, one she had no recourse but to deal with, simply a frustrating part of her job.
I walked to the core of Kingston and was captivated, as others had been before me, by the remarkable waterfront. The sun dipped its rays in the blue water of the lakefront, bringing, when regarded, a sudden clarity to the mind that came and went so fast it was hallucinatory. Beautiful boats were moored in an ample harbor and flowers in green parks were abundant and looked every bit as fussed over as they were, fortunate flora living in a town that could afford to see that they remained beautiful. There were other sights to command a young man’s attention on that summer afternoon, namely a myriad of attractive, self-assured women who languished in parks, in restaurants and on the main street, as though they had nothing but time on their hands. Lending themselves to the whole scene were ambitious street vendors, outdoor cafes doing a brisk yet relaxed business and architecture that was soothing to the eye. It was all very impressive. The boats and cars, well tended parks, the shops and well dressed women, it all screamed at me without apology – money lives here. Suddenly it seemed to me, a guy with next to nothing, that this might not be a bad place to find a bed under which to put my boots. I could certainly do much worse.
I didn’t linger long in the city’s core on that warm day. The change in my pocket wouldn’t even buy me a cup of coffee. I walked around enough though to see others like me, the local have-nots; sitting on benches, rolling cigarettes, looking hard, regarding the world quizzically, almost confusedly as it passed them by. Though we didn’t know each other then, I figured that in time we would become acquainted, those men and I, and we did.
I made the long walk home, for home was what the hospital had become. My head swam with images of affluence, poverty and pleasant looking women sunning themselves by the water.
That night I felt transformed by my off grounds experience. I happily explained my plans of settling down to one of the night staff. He surprised me by speaking to me on a personal level.
“You know,” he said conspiratorially, even though we were alone, “you really don’t want to spend your days floating around these grounds, trying to get something out of the latest drugs they put in you. Honestly, all bullshit aside, I think you can do better than that.”
We fell silent. This was different. Anywhere I had been the staff had pushed compliance and soundness of hospital policy. I was temporarily off balance. At length I broke the silence by blurting, “Thanks.”
He winked and said, “Don’t tell anyone I don’t buy into the program one hundred percent. You have potential, that’s all.”
”I think you’re right,” I answered, “I think I can do better, no, I know I can. I think I’m going to sleep well tonight. I’ll tell you, for the first time in a long time I’m starting to feel really, genuinely tired. I’ve settled something tonight and you’ve helped.” He put up his hand and shook his head.
“Oh yes,” I continued, “you’ve helped make up my mind. I’m going to live here, in this town. I can do whatever I set my mind to. Isn’t that what you said?” He nodded. I smiled and left the office, not quite sure if he’d meant a word of it.
The very next day I plunged headfirst into extricating myself from the machinery that powers a government institution filled with hundreds of inmates. I didn’t want to get caught in the cogs that made everything go, to gum it all up and come out feeling like something finely ground. I wanted the right forms to be filled out, the right people to be filled in, connections made and adios, this time goodbye really is forever.
To my surprise it all went smoothly. At some point during the process I realized that they never really had any authority to hold me, which made me scratch my head again, wondering what things like parole were all about. Nobody objected to my leaving or to doing the paperwork involved in processing my release. I got the impression that they would gladly manage the vacuum created when I left. When one leaves another is sucked in to fill his spot in short order. It’s a strong vacuum. I figured that within a few hours someone would be lying on my vacant bed in the halfway house. I’d been a model citizen in the little community, sober, nonviolent, and respectful towards others. I was out within two weeks of making it known that was where I wished to be.
I had made some friends in the hospital during the three months and change that I dwelt there. They were then friendships in their infancy, being taught and being the teacher, testing and being tested, what do they really think of me anyway?
Some that I met in the warehouse where we were labeled, filed away and forgotten, I would remain friends with for years. Others I’d only know in a vague way and for a short time. They would leave Kingston behind as soon as possible, determined to never return. There would be yet others who would be on the periphery of my life and I theirs. We might share the odd, unexpected coffee or just nod and say hello when we met downtown.
So, I didn’t have to be alone much by the time I was out of hospital and set up in a group home. I could pick up the phone or go out walking. I knew enough folk that I could usually find someone interested in coming to my place to share in some coffee and cigarettes, those most dependable and affordable of stimulants. Sometimes though, I still chose to be by myself.
Often I would seek out the afternoon nap, for, just before I drifted into slumber I would experience a rush of emotion that was identical to feelings I had before I became ill. I could connect to an event from years ago and somehow feel what was in my heart then – strange, that those old feelings, unbidden, would revisit me years later in the group home, on its well-worn, dusty couch. Sleep would always become overbearing and I would deal with it by giving in. I would sleep deeply and dream vividly. I would wake to non-feeling. Getting up slowly I would once again wander an emotional desert looking for a drink.