We Can Build You (27 page)

Leaning back in his chair Doctor Nisea studied me reflectively. “And this you want to change.”

“I want to achieve satisfaction, the real kind.”

“Have you nothing at all in common with other people?”

“Nothing. My reality lies entirely outside the world that others experience. You, for instance; to you it would be a fantasy, if I told you about it. About her, I mean.”

“Who is she?”

“Pris,” I said.

He waited, but I did not go on.

“Doctor Horstowski talked to me briefly on the phone about you,” he said presently. “You apparently have the dynamism of difficulty which we call the Magna Mater type of schizophrenia. However, by law, I must administer first the James Benjamin Proverb Test to you and then the Soviet Vigotsky-Luria Block Test.” He nodded and from behind me a nurse appeared with note pad and pencil. “Now, I will give you several proverbs and you are to tell me what they mean. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I said.

“’When the cat’s away the mice will play.’”

I pondered and then said, “In the absence of authority there will be wrong-doing.”

In this manner we continued, and I did all right until Doctor Nisea got to what turned out for me to be the fatal number six.

“’A rolling stone gathers no moss.’”

Try as I might I could not remember the meaning. At last I hazarded, “Well, it means a person who’s always active and
never pauses to reflect—” No, that didn’t sound right. I tried again. “That means a man who is always active and keeps growing in mental and moral stature won’t grow stale.” He was looking at me more intently, so I added by way of clarification, “I mean, a man who’s active and doesn’t let grass grow under his feet, he’ll get ahead in life.”

Doctor Nisea said, “I see.” And I knew that I had revealed, for the purposes of legal diagnosis, a schizophrenic thinking disorder.

“What does it mean?” I asked. “Did I get it backward?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. The generally-accepted meaning of the proverb is the opposite of what you’ve given; it is generally taken to mean that a person who—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I broke in. “I remember—I really knew it. A person who’s unstable will never acquire anything of value.”

Doctor Nisea nodded and went on to the next proverb. But the stipulation of the statute had been met; I showed a formal thinking impairment.

After the proverbs I made a stab at classifying the blocks, but without success. Both Doctor Nisea and I were relieved when I gave up and pushed the blocks away.

“That’s about it, then,” Nisea said. He nodded to the nurse to leave. “We can go ahead and fill out the forms. Do you have a preference clinic-wise? In my opinion, the best of the lot is the Los Angeles one; although perhaps it’s because I know that better than the others. The Kasanin Clinic at Kansas City—”

“Send me there,” I said eagerly.

“Any special reason?”

“I’ve had a number of close friends come out of there,” I said evasively.

He looked at me as if he suspected there was a deeper reason.

“And it has a good reputation. Almost everyone I know who’s been genuinely helped in their mental illness has been at Kasanin. Not that the other clinics aren’t good, but that’s
the best. My aunt Gretchen, who’s at the Harry Stack Sullivan Clinic at San Diego; she was the first mentally ill person I knew, and there’ve been a lot since, naturally, because such a large part of the public has it, as we’re told every day on TV. There was my cousin Leo Roggis. He’s still in one of the clinics somewhere. My English teacher in high school, Mr. Haskins; he died in a clinic. There was an old Italian down the street from me who was on a pension, George Oliveri; he had catatonic excitements and they carted him off. I remember a buddy of mine in the Service, Art Boles; he had ‘phrenia and went to the Fromm-Reichmann Clinic at Rochester, New York. There was Alys Johnson, a girl I went with in college; she’s at Samuel Anderson Clinic in Area Three; that’s at Baton Rouge, La. And a man I worked for, Ed Yeats; he contracted ‘phrenia and that turned into acute paranoia. Waldo Danger field, another buddy of mine. Gloria Milstein, a girl I knew; she’s god knows where, but she was spotted by means of a psych test when she was applying for a typing job. The Federal people picked her up … she was short, dark-haired, very attractive, and no one ever guessed until that test showed up. And John Franklin Mann, a used car salesman I knew; he tested out as a dilapidated ‘phrenic and was carted off, I think to Kasanin, because he’s got relatives in Missouri. And Marge Morrison, another girl I knew. She’s out again; I’m sure she was cured at Kasanin. All of them who went to Kasanin seemed as good as new, to me, if not better; Kasanin didn’t merely meet the requirements of the McHeston Act; it genuinely healed. Or so it seemed to me.”

Doctor Nisea wrote down
Kasanin Clinic at K. C
. on the Government forms and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes,” he murmured, “Kansas City is said to be good. The President spent two months there, you know.”

“I did hear that,” I admitted. Everyone knew the heroic story of the President’s bout with mental illness in his mid-teens, with his subsequent triumph during his twenties.

“And now, before we separate,” Doctor Nisea said, “I’d like to tell you a little about the Magna Mater type of schizophrenia.”

“Good,” I said. “I’d be anxious to hear.”

“As a matter of fact it has been my special interest,” Doctor Nisea said. “I did several monographs on it. You know the Anderson theory which identifies each subform of schizophrenia with a subform of religion.”

I nodded. The Anderson view of ‘phrenia had been popularized in almost every slick magazine in America; it was the current fashion.

“The primary form which ‘phrenia takes is the heliocentric form, the sun-worship form where the sun is deified, is seen in fact as the patient’s father. You have not experienced that. The heliocentric form is the most primitive and fits with the earliest known religion, solar worship, including the great heliocentric cult of the Roman period, Mithraism. Also the earlier Persian solar cult, the worship of Mazda.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding.

“Now, the Magma Mater, the form you have, was the great female deity cult of the Mediterranean at the time of the Mycenaean Civilization. Ishtar, Cybele, Attis, then later Athene herself … finally the Virgin Mary. What has happened to you is that your anima, that is, the embodiment of your unconsciousness, its archetype, has been projected outward, onto the cosmos, and there it is perceived and worshiped.”

“I see,” I said.

“There, it is experienced as a dangerous, hostile, and incredibly powerful yet attractive being. The embodiment of all the pairs of opposites: it possesses the totality of life, yet is dead; all love, yet is cold; all intelligence, yet is given to a destructive analytical trend which is not creative; yet it is seen as the source of creativity itself. These are the opposites which slumber in the unconscious, which are transcended by gestalts in consciousness. When the opposites are experienced directly, as you are experiencing them, they cannot be
fathomed or dealt with; they will eventually disrupt your ego and annihilate it, for as you know, in their original form they are archetypes and cannot be assimilated by the ego.”

“I see,” I said.

“So this battle is the great struggle of the conscious mind to come to an understanding with its own collective aspects, its unconsciousness, and is doomed to fail. The archetypes of the unconscious must be experienced indirectly, through the anima, and in a benign form free of their bipolar qualities. For this to come about, you must hold an utterly different relationship to your unconscious; as it stands, you are passive and it possesses all the powers of decision.”

“Right,” I said.

“Your consciousness has been impoverished so that it no longer can act. It has no authority except that which it derives from unconsciousness, and right now it is split off from unconsciousness. So no rapport can be established by way of the anima.” Doctor Nisea concluded, “You have a relatively mild form of ‘phrenia. But it is still a psychosis and still requires treatment at a Federal clinic. I’d like to see you again, when you get back from Kansas City; I know the improvement in your condition will be phenomenal.” He smiled at me with genuine warmth, and I smiled back at him. Standing, he held out his hand and we shook.

I was on my way to the Kasanin Clinic at Kansas City.

In a formal hearing before witnesses Doctor Nisea presented me with a summons, asking if there was any reason why I should not be taken at once to Kansas City. These legal formalities had a chilly quality that made me more anxious to be on my way than ever. Nisea offered me a twenty-four-hour period in which to conclude my business affairs, but I declined it; I wanted to leave at once. In the end, we settled on eight hours. Plane reservations were made for me by Nisea’s staff and I left the Bureau in a taxi, to return to Ontario until it was time for me to take my big trip east.

I had the taxi take me to Maury’s house, where I had left
a good part of my possessions. Soon I was at the door knocking.

No one was home. I tried the knob; it was unlocked. So I let myself in to the silent, deserted house.

There in the bathroom was the tile mural which Pris had been working on that first night. It was done, now. For a time I stood staring up at it, marveling at the colors and the design itself, the mermaid and fish, the octopus with shoe-button bright eyes: she had finished him at last.

One blue tile had become loose. I plucked it entirely off, rubbed the sticky stuff from its back, and put it in my coat pocket.

In case I should forget you, I thought to myself. You and your bathroom mural, your mermaid with pink-tiled tits, your many lovely and monstrous creations bobbing and alive beneath the surface of the water. The placid, eternal water … she had done the line above my head, almost eight feet high. Above that, sky. Very little of it; the sky played no role in the scheme of creation, here.

As I stood there I heard from the front of the house a thumping and banging. Someone was after me, but I remained where I was. What did it matter? I waited, and presently Maury Rock came rushing in, panting; seeing me he stopped short.

“Louis Rosen,” he said. “And in the bathroom.”

“I’m just leaving.”

“A neighbor phoned me at the office; she saw you pull up in a cab and enter and she knew I wasn’t home.”

“Spying on me.” I was not surprised. “They all are, everywhere I go.” I continued to stand, hands in my pockets, gazing up at the wall of color.

“She just thought I ought to know. I figured it was you.” He saw, then, my suitcase and the articles I had collected. “You’re really nuts. You barely get back here from Seattle—when did you get in? Couldn’t be before this morning. And now you’re off again somewhere else.”

I said, “I have to go, Maury. It’s the law.”

He stared at me, his jaw dropping gradually; then he flushed. “I’m sorry, Louis. I mean, saying you were a nut.”

“Yes, but I am. I took the Benjamin Proverb Test and the block thing today and couldn’t pass either one. The commitment’s already been served on me.”

Rubbing his jaw he murmured, “Who turned you in?”

“My father and Chester.”

“Hell’s bells. Your own blood.”

“They saved me from paranoia. Listen, Maury.” I turned to face him. “Do you know where she is?”

“If I did, honest to god, Louis, I’d tell you. Even if you have been certified.”

“You know where they’re sending me for therapy?”

“Kansas City?”

I nodded.

“Maybe you’ll find her there. Maybe the mental health people caught up with her and sent her back and forgot to let me know about it.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” I said.

“Coming up to me he whacked me on the back. “Good luck, you son of a bitch. I know you’ll pull out of it. You got ‘phrenia, I presume; that’s all there is, anymore.”

“I’ve got Magna Mater ‘phrenia.” Reaching into my coat I got out the tile and showed it to him, saying, “To remember her. I hope you don’t mind; it’s your house and mural, after all.”

“Take it. Take a whole fish. Take a tit.” He started toward the mermaid. “No kidding, Louis; we’ll pry a pink tit loose and you can carry that around with you, okay?”

“This is fine.”

We both stood awkwardly facing each other for a time.

“How’s it feel to be ‘phrenic?” Maury said at last.

“Bad, Maury. Very, very bad.”

“That’s what I thought; that’s what Pris always said. She was glad to get over it.”

“That going to Seattle, that was it coming on. What they
call catatonic excitement, a sense of urgency, that you have to do something. It always turns out to be the wrong thing; it accomplishes nothing. And you realize that and then you have panic and then you get it, the real psychosis. I heard voices and saw—” I broke off.

“What did you see?”

“Pris.”

“Keerist,” Maury said.

“Will you drive me to the airport?”

“Oh sure, buddy. Sure.” He nodded vigorously.

“I don’t have to go until late tonight. So maybe we could have dinner together. I don’t feel like seeing my family again, after what happened; I’m sort of ashamed.”

Maury said, “How come you speak so rationally if you’re a ‘phrenic?”

“I’m not under tension right now, so I’ve been able to focus my attention. That’s what an attack of schizophrenia is, a weakening of attention so that unconscious processes gain mastery and take over the field. They capture awareness, very archaic processes, archetypal, such as nonschizophrenics haven’t had since they were five.”

“You think crazy things, like everyone’s against you and you’re the center of the universe?”

“No,” I said. “Doctor Nisea explained to me that it’s the heliocentric schizophrenics who—”

“Nisea? Ragland Nisea? Of course; by law you’d have to see him. He’s the one who sent Pris up back in the beginning; he gave her the Vigotsky-Luria Block Test in his own office, personally. I always wanted to meet him.”

“Brilliant man. And very humane.”

“Are you dangerous?”

“Only if I’m riled.”