Leo's Inside

A Story by Bobby Garfield

Leo's Inside

And the rain sets in
It's the angel-man
I'm deranged

David Bowie �" I'm Deranged

He was walking up the hill, engaged in such old-fashioned activities as watching the sunlight filter through the spring leaves, listening to birds singing and the sound of the wind rustling through the hedges beside him.

On top of the hill, he turned back and enjoyed the view over the city; church towers gleaming in the

sun, trees beginning to bloom and the cars being only a faint, distant drone. He walked through an alley with the facilities' older buildings, pre-war, brick houses. A pond with ducks complaining about what ducks tend to complain about. He left the beautiful buildings behind, it was down-hill now, both metaphorically and literally, he thought with a grim smile.

His destination was a prefabricated building, gray, mostly, which made you think of schools and prisons. A police car and an ambulance in front of the main entrance; he didn't even pay attention. Smokers with shaky hands and yellowish fingers clutching cups of coffee with the other hand. Through the main entrance and up the stairs.

He had to ring a doorbell in front of a large double door with stained glass and to wait for the orderly. A young woman, probably straight from school, frail and very good posture, riding lessons and maybe piano lessons come to mind, and she most definitely used to be class representative. She smiled at him.

“Leo's inside.”

“Thanks”, he said returning the smile, feeling rather old in contrast to the young woman, whose name, according to the sign on her breast, was Mrs. Jensen.

Slowly he walked through the station. It was rectangular, a corridor leading you around. There was a reception were one of the orderlies was supposed to be but the station was chronically shorthanded. A strange repertory of pictures on the wall, without any apparent theme or topic; Miro hanging next Kandinsky hanging next to Van Gogh; a smell that makes you think of a hospital mingled with something slightly different: the psychotic touch, as Leo liked to say. An old man came shuffling along the corridor, looked like he had been doing that for some time. He tried a smile to greet the man, without much hope of getting a response. There was none.

He passed the kitchen where Rosie the chef was preparing coffee and tea. He entered the kitchen.

Rosie was of indefinite age; she looked as if she had been looking exactly like this for ages and will simply continue looking like this for decades.

“You here to get some gratis coffee, aren't ya?”, she asked by way of greeting.

“Of course. Gratis coffee and one of those chocolate cakes.”

She prepared two coffees and put them on the kitchen counter.

“How's he doing?” he asked.

“Well, I'm not a doctor, but…”, that was her usual introduction to her diagnoses that most of the time were more accurate and to the point than any doctor's could have been.

“It's been worse lately. He's getting that new fancy stuff…”

“ABILIFY?”

“Yeah, sounds like a new party drug to me and amounts to the same effects, as far as I can see. He's edgy and jumpy.”

“Oh, well.”

“But I make sure that he gets his daily ration of rice pudding.”

Not for the first time, he wondered what Rosie was like in her private life. But whatever she was like, it had to be a disappointment, for in his mind she was a larger-than-life character; both wise and down to earth.

He promised to say goodbye after his visit, took the cups and slowly headed for his room.

He passed the recreation room where someone was playing the piano, a slow, moody jazz improvisation, integrating many weird-sounding semitone steps, the left hand playing kind of contrapuntal to the right, he didn't get it.

He reached his door and knocked, heard shuffling noises from inside and Leo opened the door.

Leo was in his mid-twenties now, beard and long curly hair, thin, he could have passed as handsome were there not the clear evidence of precocious aging and the nervous eyes that tried to look in each direction at the same time. Maybe he passed as what these days is called ruggedly handsome.

The room was white, pretty much as in each hospital, the only personal touch was a book on the table (Murakami) and crumbs of tobacco on the floor. He was eternally rolling his own cigarettes.

“How you doing?”, he asked Leo.

With a glance along the corridor, Leo closed the door.

“Well.”

He wasn't sure if he meant well as in I'm doing well or as in an introduction to a more detailed account of how he was doing.

He produced a cigarette from somewhere and asked: “You mind if we take a walk outside?”

After the good, strong coffee and the awkward procedure of giving notice of departure and promising that he would be back by lunch they were in the fresh air again, Leo smoking one cigarette after the other, walking up the hill leading to the nicer part of the facility. Leo's hands were shaking as he smoked.

“They're giving me that new stuff, ABILIFY.”

“Well, fancy.”

“Yeah, fancy. As fancy as it sounds. Makes you go up the walls. Imagine drinking two liters of coffee interrupted by a few Red Bull breaks.”

“Why are they giving you this?”

“Dunno. Maybe economic reasons.”

Leo suffered from paranoia; officially, scientifically confirmed. Every passing car was a potential danger, people were following him, every glance by passers by might be a threat, every utterance could be twisted until it turned into a a fiendish, malevolent offense; there was always the one or the other conspiracy close at hand but when he said that there might be economic reasons for his forced consume of ABILIFY, unfortunately, he had a point. The system of psychiatry was a deeply complex and murky one. Just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they are not after you.

Of course, he didn't say that; maybe the worst thing you could tell a paranoid person, so he just waited for more. They were entering a park with children playing at a climbing frame.

Leo proceeded: “Yesterday, I was talking to that nurse. The hot one, you seen her? Well, never mind. I don't wanna talk to the insane in there, makes me even more crazy, so I kinda stick to the nurses and staff, and Rosie of course, Rosie's the best. Well, we talked about the situation in Palestine and that's quite a situation there, I guess. After that, I got the impression that she kinda got me all wrong. Maybe she thinks I hate Jews, or something. And then, maybe, she reported it to someone, dunno. What do you think?”

Here we go, down that same old road again, was what he was thinking. Talking to a paranoid basically meant talking against that sickness, assuring that everything's alright, giving confirmation that no one's after you. He had a morbid moment of feeling his power of how easy it would be to plant seeds of fear in such a person.

“Well, it strikes me as a topic where it's almost impossible to talk to each other without some misunderstanding. This is basically why I, like any other sane person, avoid the topic.”

That evoked a crooked smile.

“But even if she did misunderstand you, so what? I think you were able to express yourself quit clearly, and like I said, even if not, worst thing that might've happened is that she disagrees with you.”

There was a delicate balance here: On the one hand, he wanted to dispel Leo's fears and doubts, on the other hand he didn't want to pamper him too much; besides that, he was loosing patience. He left it at that.

Leo seemed to be coming to a conclusion: “So, everything's fine, I guess.”

“Yeah, everything's fine.”

They went through a park with the Latin names of the trees and plants on neat signs in front of them.

“You know. Sometimes I'm able to see it from a distance. And then again, I'm right in the middle of it. When I see it from a distance I see, perfectly clear, that it's a sickness. And I say to myself, well, don't fall for it again. Never ever again. But then, when it's there, I fall for it again, there's nothing I can do. I kinda lose touch. And the paranoia becomes the truth and the rest of the time becomes a lie. Isn't that what insanity is about? You think that you're right. Then, I think there is a choice. Either I have to admit that I'm crazy, f*****g crazy, or that I'm right, that my paranoia is right, that people are following me, that that guy over there has been watching us, making notes of what we do, that people get me wrong all the time, that they are after me. Either that, or I'm simply crazy.”

They were watching over a pond now; the ducks seemed to look at their future in a somewhat tentatively optimistic fashion.

He offered Leo a few salted peanuts.

“Wanna have my opinion? I think you're real f*****g crazy. And I'm glad to tell you.”

They shared the peanuts and it was a good moment.

Rosie was in the recreation room, taking care of the dishes. No one else was there, the radio was playing Phil Collins' In the air tonight, a song way too dramatic for taking care of the dishes. He helped her.

After a while he said: “Do you think he'll ever come out of here?”

For a long time she seemed to consider the matter. “There're people here who never gonna leave. Seen that man eternally walking through the corridor? He'll stay. Leo, I dunno. Sometimes I think I only have to shake him a good deal and then he'll be perfectly sane. He can be perfectly sane at times.”

“Yeah, he can.”

Rosie thanked him for the help and they said good-bye.

He left the station, not without trying to catch a glimpse on the nurse (the pretty hot one) and then it was up-hill again. On top of the hill he looked back at the pre-fabricated ugly building and thought of the people in there running in circles and depending on medication and trying to get out.

Then he turned towards the city.

© 2016 Bobby Garfield

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Featured Review

angel

Great description of Rosie, she of indeterminate age. I loved that. Ditto the tentatively optimistic ducks!
Overall, I am impressed and looking forward to reading more.
I have to ask this. Is your name for real, or do you just love Hearts In Atlantis?