The body of the lamp is made from a brown plastic bottle that is shaped like a cartoon cow. I think it used to hold chocolate syrup. The cord enters where the tail should be, and the bulb is at the mouth of the bottle, protruding from the cow's head. The shade is made of little shiny pearl-like beads strung on wires to form a shimmering globe. That lamp in Doctor Ted's office is the only thing that I remember from my first day at the hospital.
Doctor Ted is a tiny man. Some days he is too small to even sit in the chair behind his desk. He has to stand on his desk to look people in the eye. Those days the nurses and attendants have to walk around on their knees so Doctor Ted won't feel sad about being so small. Today he's pretty big. He's sitting in his chair, but he's resting his chin on the desk and moving his head up and down to talk. I think he's trying to be a lizard. He's no good at animals.
I can't understand what he's saying today. His sentences don't make any sense. I think Doctor Ted may be a dyslexic prophet, speaking in tongues but getting the words all mixed up. I keep hearing the word maneuver, but the context is wrong.
"You have to believe that we maneuver the waterfall. Smart boys chewing downtown maneuver not absent!" Doctor Ted slumps back in his chair like saying that exhausted him. Biff the Wizard and Mel the Human, two of the attendants, come in and carry Doctor Ted away, chair and all.
I can hear Power Nerd through the wall laughing at something. He spends his days taking toaster ovens apart and welding the pieces to the bars on his windows to keep the aliens from reading his mind. "Articulated Motivations," he squeals with pride.
Biff the Wizard comes back and takes me by the arm. I stand and walk with him out of the office. In the hall Mel the Human throws a hood over my head. They each grab an arm and we start running. They must think I hurt Doctor Ted. We run down long hallways I've never been in before. In one I smell food cooking. In another I smell bleach. We finally stop running in a big room with lots of air. Biff and Mel let go and move away. The hood is yanked off my head and I am standing alone outside the hospital. I'm facing the street in front of the front door. In the doorway are Biff and Mel.
"You have to go now," says Biff. "Don't make us call the guard."
I turn and run away. If the guard finds me outside he will get the police to beat me and take me to jail. I run across the street and down a hill to some train tracks. The tracks bend around corners in opposite directions. The sun is low to my right, but I don't know if it's morning or evening. I can't wait around to find out which way is which. The guard will find me missing soon. Maybe I can circle around to the parking lot and sneak back in through the door where the janitor sets cars on fire. I hear a train coming. Maybe I should go away for a day or so. Maybe by then Biff and Mel will forget about whatever they think I did to Doctor Ted.
The dog walker taught me how to hop trains when I was young. You hide in the woods till the engine goes by, then run up and stand arms length from the train cars. You stare real hard at the train like you are trying to see right through it. When the time is right the train will freeze in place and you can just pull yourself up the little ladder. You have to hold on tight because as soon as your feet leave the ground the train will be moving a hundred miles an hour again. This time a grain car stops for me. I like grain cars because there is a place to sit on the outside under cover. You can watch things go away behind you. You should never look ahead because the trainmen will see you coming and throw rocks at you.
Around the corner and away from the hospital we go. We come to a forest on fire. We ride through it for a long time. Sweet-smelling bright white smoke fills my lungs. The trees are all brown and ashen. Soon we drive right off a cliff. I look down and we are a thousand feet in the air. I throw up. As we fall I watch my vomit rise in the air above me, fluttering in the wind. The vomit and I slowly separate till the train lands on the tracks below. Then the vomit comes down and splashes all over me. I take off my shirt and wipe up as much as I can. I don't want the trainmen to be angry that I made a mess. I wait for them so I can show what I good job I did cleaning up, but they never come. I fall asleep waiting for them.
I wake up at the bottom of the cliff. The train is gone. My shirt is gone too. The sun is shining, but it's cold. I look up the cliff. It's too steep to climb. At the top I can see the smoke from the still-burning fire. Suddenly there is loud music behind me. I spin around and there is a policeman playing a French horn. I look around for a place to run, but I'm trapped against the edge of the cliff. The policeman stops playing, but does not come at me. I figure this is my chance. If I cooperate, maybe they won't beat me.
"I am from the hospital. I fell down this cliff. Could you take me back?"
He blows a few loud, but pleasant notes on his horn. From inside the police car I hear a flute playing. The policeman stares at me for a while then goes to the trunk of his police car. He puts his horn away, and pulls something out. As he walks toward me I see that he is holding my shirt. He hands it to me and I put it on. They cleaned it for me. Then the policeman gets in his car and drives away. I'm glad he didn't beat me, and gave me my shirt back, but why wouldn't he take me back to the hospital? Maybe people in this valley don't know about the hospital. Maybe there is no way up the cliff.
There is a train station a hundred yards ahead, but it looks old and unused. Across the tracks from the station is a water tower with a big funnel for filling up the steam trains when they had steam trains. They should have torn it down decades ago. I hope I haven't gone back in time.
Dr. Ted has a time machine that he uses to punish people at the hospital when they won't be sad. It is a bundle of wires with long needles that push into your skull. There is a little prick on the skin at first, but then it doesn't hurt. There are no pain receptors in the brain. When he switches it on, sparks swirl around and the light gets brighter and brighter until it gets so bright that it becomes dark. Then you wake up in the past with this string of wires coming out the back of your head running up into the sky and out of sight. Everyone else has wires going up into the sky as well. Usually I stand there as my younger self, swearing at Dr. Ted that I'm not going to play along. He waits a while then brings in the people from the past like electronic puppets. Sometimes I find a knife or broken bottle and try to kill someone that I didn't kill before. Dr. Ted has to jerk me back to now to keep me from changing the future.
There are no wires this time though. Maybe this town has a better time machine than Dr. Ted. No, there are cars; new cars parked near the train station. I'm not in the past.
On the street side of the train station there is a young boy kicking a basketball against the cement wall. As people walk by he lets the ball roll past himself so that the people on the sidewalk have to kick the ball back to him. Then the boy kicks the ball back towards the person on the sidewalk, but they are already walking quickly away. Then he runs into the street to get the ball back. I notice that he only kicks it to the men. I start walking along the sidewalk and he lets the ball come to me. Instead of kicking it back I pick it up and shout, "This is a basketball." To prove my point I bounce the ball, but the ball does not bounce back up. I try again throwing the ball very hard at the ground. This time it bounces but not very high and spins away from me back to the boy like it had some kind of lop-sided gyroscope guiding it. The boy looks at me for a minute, then goes back to kicking the ball against the wall.
Across the street, in front of a boarded-up barbershop is a man sitting on a bench, looking up and down the street like he's waiting for a bus. A traveler I think. He should know how to get back to the hospital. I cross the street. It takes a while. It is much wider than it first appeared. I cross eight or nine lanes where I thought I only saw two. It's lucky there are no cars coming.
I sit on the bench next to the man. "Is this the bus to the hospital?" I ask. He smiles and reaches out to shake my hand, only he bends his hand at ninety degrees at the wrist, so the back of his hand is facing me. I follow his lead and do the same and grab his hand, but he doesn't squeeze back. He holds his hand there till I release it, and then pulls it away.
He smiles and yells, "Borta!" When he speaks it is if his tongue is swollen and in pain. I imagine he put salt on his ham sandwich once and his mouth was burnt and scarred. My mother always warned me that would happen. He points down the road and repeats, "Borta!" I assume that is the word for bus in his language, but then he points up in the sky and says again, "Borta!" Then points at the bottom of one of his shoes. "Borta!" He says. I now think that borta must be a word for travel in general. He leans over and breathes in my face. He reeks of whiskey. He grabs my arm and squeezes hard and laughs, "Mairte."
"Mairte?" I repeat.
He releases my arm and makes a whistling sound with his mouth and flutters his hands up and up, like a butterfly in a stiff wind, saying again, "Mairte." I guess this is his word for drunk.
I make a motion like I am drinking from a silver hip flask, then hold it up to toast him. This makes him content. He looks up and down for the bus once more then leans back on the bench and closes his eyes. I figure I will wait with him for the bus. Bus drivers know how to get anywhere, or at least know someone who will know.
After a few minutes the man opens his eyes and taps me on the shoulder. "Bumpen" He says very clearly.
"Was?" I reply, for I know some German.
He straightens up. "Fleegen!" he yells.
"Ya fleegen. Ich ferstehen." Which means I understand. Though I don't.
He stands up, stamps both feet, throws one arm in the air and screams, "Heil Hitler."
I look around, no one is watching. I look at him but don't know what to say.
"Heil Hitler!" he screams again, this time throwing both arms into the air. Looks a little like Nixon.
"Nein Nein." I yell pulling him back down on to the bench.
He looks at me mad and serious for a minute. He starts laughing, but still looks at me all serious. "Gloria." He says, and saying it turns him from laughter to tears. Back and forth between laughing and crying, each as loud as the other, but never changing the expression on his face. The bus arrives and he runs away.
The bus is tall, like a double-decker bus from London, but it has only one row of windows up high. Instead of stairs there is a ladder that is very slippery. I nearly fall three times trying to get up. As soon as I get to the top the driver closes the door and starts driving. "I need to go to the hospital" I tell her. She asks for my ticket. I tell her I don't have one. She looks at me with one eye and reaches for me. I try to jump back, but I'm against the door. She pulls something out of my shirt pocket. It is a piece of cardboard with circles and squares and triangles on it. She feeds the cardboard into a machine and it plays a song I've heard before but can't remember. "I'll tell you when to get off," she says. I nearly cry with relief. I knew the bus driver could help me. She reaches behind her and opens the curtain to the passenger compartment and motions me back,
Most of the passengers are Amish men all laughing and telling jokes. I like to ride at the very back of the bus because the seat is wide and you can lie down, but there is already somebody sitting there taking up all the seats and he's not even lying down. He must be eight feet tall. I find an empty row of seats not far from the back. I sit by the window, but it is like a mirror so all I see is the back of my own head. The seats are uncomfortable plastic but I'm so tired that I fall asleep.
I wake up as the bus pulls into an underground station. I've never seen anything like it. It looks just like a regular bus station but up above is a ceiling like we are a toy bus in some kid's basement. All the Amish are getting off so I stand up to follow but the driver stops me and tells me to sit down. I go back to my seat. Then all these old Chinese women get on the bus, each carrying pink plastic shopping bags.
The bus pulls out of the station and we go down a long tunnel, then up a steep ramp out into the starry night. It's been so long since I've seen stars. I remember once in the mountains of Vermont we went outside and there were hundreds of thousands of stars that we never saw before back home. It was the first time that I felt I was part of the universe. There aren't that many stars tonight. The lights of the city we were just under keep you from seeing all the stars. I look back at the city. It is big, but the buildings aren't very tall. I notice that the back seat is empty. I go back and kneel on the seat facing backwards watching the big city disappear over the horizon. There are no hills here. I don't think the bus is taking me to the hospital. I go to ask the driver where we are going, but the curtain is locked. The big guy is on the back seat again, so I sit back down in my empty row. Maybe I'm going to a new hospital. It's happened before. I hate new hospitals. The food is never as good as the last one. It takes weeks to make them understand that I don't like pudding. I stare at the ceiling of the bus and watch the lights from the cars on the highway bounce around.
Morning pulls up behind the bus and we stop at a station in the middle of a prairie. All the Chinese women get off the bus, and all the Amish men get back on. The driver comes back to tell me that I get off at the next stop.
"Is there a new hospital there?" I ask her.
"I'm sure there will be a hospital, but I don't know if it's a new one," she says.
She's making fun of me. I should punch her in the mouth. Teach her a filthy lesson. She can tell I want to hit her so she goes back to her seat and locks the curtain. The Amish men are looking and laughing at me. You can't hit Amish people though. They are strong and don't fall down. They never hit back and then your hands are all bloody and you feel bad for pounding on these peaceful people.
The prairie gives way to rolling hills. The trees are bare and twisted. The sun reflects off them like they're coated with ice. I know this place. Around a large hill and past the reservoir is the city where I grew up. The diesel fumes from the bus are giving me a headache. I don't know why they can't fix that. Off the highway and a sharp left into the bus station. The same big bump over the curb. I'm holding the armrest so tight I can feel the metal core bending. Maybe if I hold on tight enough they will let me stay on the bus. I can go somewhere else. Anywhere else. The bus driver comes back to tell me that this is my stop. I try to look as sad as possible. "Please. Just one more stop. I don't want to be here. You can leave me anywhere else and I won't cause any trouble. I promise." She walks away. My muscles relax. I think it worked. My left hand feels warm. I look down and there is blood running from the soft spot between the thumb and finger.
Two policemen walk up the aisle. Before I can react, one walks past me and they have me surrounded. There is no way to take on two policemen from a bus seat. I stand up and move into the aisle. They have me where they want me. I think about fighting them, but I don't swing yet. They would be too much for me. Not enough room to throw my weight around. I'll wait till we get off the bus. I'll surprise them and I'll get away. I know where I can get some money, and I'll leave this place.
The bus driver is in her seat, but doesn't look up. She's ashamed of what she has done to me. She should feel ashamed. All she had to do was let me get off at another stop and all this would never happen. I punch her right in the temple. The cops never saw it coming. I cut her wide open. I can smell her blood flowing. The cops each take one arm and pull in opposite directions. I pick up my legs and kick her with both feet right in the face. Her nose explodes. The cartilage shatters and blood sprays everywhere. I scream my laughing pain. The cop holding my left arm lets go and grabs my legs. They drag me off the bus. I go limp. There is no need to fight any more. I won. They beat on me with their nightsticks. It feels so good as they beat the pain out of me. I can feel all the anger flowing right out of my body and I fall asleep.
When I wake up I'm in a hospital prison room. They have them at all big city hospitals. Usually tucked away in a basement with a sign on the door like "Electric Closet." The walls are dripping gray paint. The television is on. Bugs Bunny is kissing Joseph Stalin on the cheek. My mouth is dry. I can't figure out if I'm hot or cold. I try to throw the blanket off me, but I can't move. I hate being strapped down. It's a burning pain, like ants walking all around on you just out of reach.
They've given me drugs, but not too strong. Probably lithium or t-zine. They're so arrogant about their feeble little drugs. A day or two and my tolerance will be back. I'll show them. No I think. I'll be gone by then probably. A couple little snips at the base of the brain. They've threatened to do this for years. No more fits they say. I hope it takes my memory away. Please God let me not know what a zombie they make me. Maybe they'll chicken out again. Put me in a new hospital with a new pill. They never put you back in the same hospital. You've sinned and they know it. They don't want you back. The prodigal son thing is a lie. Ask my brother. I'm sure he is lurking somewhere out in the halls.
I wish I could move my legs. My thighs are sweating together. I can't breathe. Please untie my legs. I try to scream, but my mouth is full of tubes. I know I deserve this. I know I'm broken. Pull the plugs. Let me die. That's what my brother wants. I'm sure he is out there in the hall telling them my sins. My brother, my confessor. Make me die. Please just untie my legs. My skin is moving. Cascading down my body and up the other side. Electricity is pumping through me, short-circuiting on my joints twitching. Bugs Bunny is laughing at me. Soon I'll be a cartoon. Two-dimensional. Taking up space. Nothing inside.
A nurse runs in and over to the drug pump. She turns a dial and watches me. I squirm at her. I plead with my eyes, but she turns away. I feel it come into my arm like ice. My body freezes and Bugs Bunny fades away.
The dog is about a foot high. It has a hard plastic body like a human in a space suit from 50's TV with one arm is raised in a salute, but it has a big fluffy dog head with a smiling plastic face. The top of the head has a ring of glue like it used to have a hat that some kid pulled off years ago. I try to ask Doctor Paul about the dog, but he just keeps playing a series of kazoos that he has laid out on his desk. He plays a little tune on each then asks me how that makes me feel. I answer "Warm" to each inquiry. He seems pleased.