Doctor Szandor is young, younger even than me, I realize. Maybe twenty-six. I can see some fancy tattoo-work poking out of the collar of his shirt, see some telltale remnant of a fashionable haircut in his grown-out shag. He's got to be the youngest staff member I've met here, and he's got a fundamentally different affect from the zombies in the lab coats who maintain the zombies in the felt slippers.
So I tell him my story, the highlights, anyway. The more I tell him about Linda and Fede, the dumber my own actions sound to me.
"Why the hell did you stick with this Linda anyway?" Szandor says, sucking on his pacifier.
"The usual reasons, I guess," I say, squirming.
"Lemme tell you something," he says. He's got his feet up on the table now, hands laced behind his neck. "It's the smartest thing my dad ever said to me, just as my high-school girl and me were breaking up before I went away to med school. She was nice enough, but, you know,
"So my dad took me aside, put his arm around me, and said, 'Szandor, you know I like that girlfriend of yours, but she is crazy. Not a little crazy, really crazy. Maybe she won't be crazy forever, but if she gets better, it won't be because of you. Trust me, I know this. You can't fuck a crazy girl sane, son.'"
I can't help smiling. "Truer words," I say. "But harsh."
"Harsh is relative," he says. "Contrast it with, say, getting someone committed on trumped-up evidence."
It dawns on me that Doc Szandor believes me. "It dawns on me that you believe me."
He gnaws fitfully at his pacifier. "Well, why not? You're not any crazier than I am, that much is clear to me. You have neat ideas. Your story's plausible enough."
I get excited. "Is this your
"Sorry, no. I am not a mental health professional, so I don't have professional opinions on your mental health. It is, however, my amateur opinion."
"Oh, well."
"So where are you at now, vis-a-vis the hospital?"
"Well, they don't tell me much, but as near as I can make out, I am stuck here semipermanently. The court found me incompetent and ordered me held until I was. I can't get anyone to explain what competency consists of, or how I achieve it-when I try, I get accused of being 'difficult.' Of course, escaping onto the roof is a little beyond difficult. I have a feeling I'm going to be in pretty deep shit. Do they know about the car?"
"The car?"
"In the parking lot. The one that blew up."
Doc Szandor laughs hard enough that his pacifier shoots across the room and lands in a hazmat bucket. "You son of a bitch-that was you?"
"Yeah," I say, and drum my feet against the tin cupboards under the examination table.
"That was
"Oh, Christ, I'm sorry," I say. "God."
"No no no," he says, fishing in his pocket and unwrapping a fresh pacifier. "It's OK. Insurance. I'm getting a bike. Vroom, vroom! What a coincidence, though," he says.
Coincidence. He's making disgusting hamster-cage noises, grinding away at his pacifier. "Szandor, do you sometimes sneak out onto the landing to have a cigarette? Use a bit of tinfoil for your ashtray? Prop the door open behind you?"
"Why do you ask?"
"'Cause that's how I got out onto the roof."
"Oh, shit," he says.
"It's our secret," I say. "I can tell them I don't know how I got out. I'm incompetent, remember?"
"You're a good egg, Art," he says. "How the hell are we going to get you out of here?"
"Hey what?"
"No, really. There's no good reason for you to be here, right? You're occupying valuable bed space."
"Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but I have a feeling that as soon as you turn me loose, I'm gonna be doped up to the tits for a good long while."
He grimaces. "Right, right. They like their meds. Are your parents alive?"
"What? No, they're both dead."
"Aha. Died suddenly?"
"Yeah. Dad drowned, Mom fell-"
"Ah ah ah! Shhh. Mom died suddenly. She was taking Haldol when it happened, a low antianxiety dose, right?"
"Huh?"
"Probably she was. Probably she had a terrible drug interaction. Sudden Death Syndrome. It's hereditary. And you say she fell? Seizure. We'll sign you up for a PET scan, that'll take at least a month to set up. You could be an epileptic and not even know it. Shaking the radioisotopes loose for the scan from the AEC, woah, that's a week's worth of paperwork right there! No Thorazine for you young man, not until we're absolutely sure it won't kill you dead where you stand. The hospital counsel gave us all a very stern lecture on this very subject not a month ago. I'll just make some notes in your medical history." He picked up his comm and scribbled.
"Never woulda thought of that," I say. "I'm impressed."
"It's something I've been playing with for a while now. I think that psychiatric care is a good thing, of course, but it could be better implemented. Taking away prescription pads would be a good start."
