Conditional Voluntary

Dr. Kearney had written an all-day pass for Patrick. According to the order, Patrick was supposed to return to the hospital by lights out at eleven o’clock. It was technically a twelve-hour pass but the psychiatrist told Patrick he could leave before eleven a.m. if he wanted to.

  Patrick bided his time by having a cigarette in the smoking room. He thought about how he’d gone from watching Justine smoke to doing it all by himself. While Patrick didn’t miss Justine, he was feeling left behind in the wake of all these discharges and transfers, starting with Charley’s. Albert was gone and Linda would be leaving the next morning. Patrick sure didn’t feel like a virgin anymore. If anything, he felt superfluous.

  He smiled as he tapped off ashes into the sand-filled bucket on the floor. Scott disliked the new nicotine habit probably at least as much as he feared Patrick’s romance with Justine. Well, at least there would be good news to share on that second point. Patrick hadn’t told his brother the story yet, choosing to save it for a face-to-face conversation. That had been easy enough to postpone; Scott hadn’t even bothered to ask about Justine when Patrick called him to say his release was to be on Friday.

  The pass was another thing Scott hadn’t been told about.

  “Could we trade beds?” Peter asked when Patrick made it back to their room.

  “Why?” Patrick asked almost as if he really cared.

  “I want to be able to look out the window.”

  “Can’t you do it from your own bed?” Patrick asked, starting to pack his better clothes in a paper bag.

  “Yeah, but I can’t see over the hedge when I’m lying down,” Peter replied, getting up from his bed and stepping towards the window.

  Patrick shut the dresser drawer and stared at his roommate,

  “And how d’you know I can see over that hedge when I’m lying down?” Patrick demanded. “Have you been lying on my bed?”

  “No, no,” Peter said, waving his hands anxiously. “It… it just makes sense! You know, perspective…”

  Patrick grinned, unable to keep up his tough-guy act. Perspective! It was a funny word coming from that wimpy dork.

  “Okay, who cares, anyway?” Patrick said, putting his bag on the dresser.

  “You mean I can – ”

  “Yeah, yeah! Just shut up about it. How ’bout you change the sheets on both beds for us? Deal?”

  “Deal!” Peter beamed, hurrying out of the room.

  “Well, that got rid of him,” Patrick mumbled to himself.

  He decided against using the toilet and nervously made his way out and down towards the day room, bag under his arm. The first thing he had to do was find whichever counselor was carrying the clipboard and locker keys.

  That turned out to be Brenda. Patrick found her in the day room. She obliged Patrick’s request to open his locker without much comment. Patrick simply pocketed his apartment keys and asked Brenda to let him off the ward.

  “You’ll have to check in with the person you’re assigned to,” Brenda told him.

  Patrick sighed impatiently. That was typical Brenda: by the book. He walked up to the bulletin board across from the sign-in desk. This was Simon’s day off and Patrick had neglected to check and see which counselor would be writing the progress notes on him for this shift.

  “Kris,” he read aloud.

  She was a tough one, all right. But there was no turning back now. He wondered where Kris was. After swallowing a bit of saliva, Patrick took the diagonal path the staff office door. It was open and, sure enough, there was Kris sitting at the table.

  “Ready to use your pass?” Kris asked brightly.

  “Yeah,” Patrick said, chuckling nervously.

  Kris got up from the table and led Patrick to sign out.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “J-just some clothes,” Patrick replied as he wrote down his name and time he was leaving on the sheet.

  “Clothes?” Kris reacted skeptically as he looked at her. “But aren’t you going to be moving everything out on Friday?”

  “Well, I…”

  He struggled to come up with an explanation, not having anticipated a need for one. But then Kris wasn’t staring at him in an accusatory fashion. Her expression was, if anything, knowing and possibly sympathetic.

  “Okay, you got me,” Patrick finally said. “I… I’ve got some weed in this bag. It’s for my brother.”

  “As long as you’re taking it out of here,” Kris responded dryly, “there’s no problem.”

  Patrick laughed more to relieve stress than in amusement. With a loud click, Kris unlocked the entry door.

  “Have a good pass,” she said, standing aside.

  “Thank you,” Patrick said with a nod.

  I’ll make the most of it, he thought after the elevator doors closed.

  Patrick couldn’t help looking up at the windows of the secure ward. Was Justine still up there? Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if she happened to squint through the lattice screen over her window and see him leaving?

  I’d rather she saw me like this, marching freely down the sidewalk, Patrick decided. It’s her last chance to see me!

  Realizing that the commuter rail station was within walking distance, Patrick figured he could ride one of the trains out to Waltham. He had taken that line to and from North Station in downtown Boston many times before; it was a soothing mode of travel.

  The outbound train rumbled into Porter Square Station right on schedule. Patrick boarded a car, paid the conductor for a ticket to Waltham, and settled down into one of the high-backed seats. He looked out the window as the train began to move forward, very slowly at first as if it were drifting on the tracks. Then the diesel engine in the locomotive kicked in and sped up Patrick’s ride home.

  It would not be a long trip but it still gave Patrick time to think. His decision did not waver. In fact, he felt ever more confident as the train rumbled along.

  I’ll never go back there, Patrick thought. Never. Ever.

  The walk from the train stop had left Patrick tired and he collapsed into his bed minutes after getting inside his apartment. The familiar ceiling cracks signified a refuge. He drifted off and slumbered until Scott came home a little before six.

  The older brother’s moving about in the kitchen woke Patrick up. He had fallen asleep in his clothes so he got right up and took several unsteady steps down the hall.

  “What are you doing home?” Scott asked, shutting the refrigerator door; he looked mildly startled.

  “They let me go early,” Patrick explained. “You know I was scheduled to be discharged on Friday. I just asked if I could go home a bit sooner. Kind of time off for good behavior. My doctor didn’t mind so here I am.”

  “Well, uh, great,” Scott said, smiling.

  “Anything good to eat in there?” Patrick asked, pointing at the refrigerator.

  “Didn’t you check that out when you got in?”

  “I went right to bed.”

  “Oh. Well, have a look. I think there’s some leftover lasagna in there.”

  Patrick opened the refrigerator.

  “You know, you should’ve called me. I would’ve picked you up.”

  “No need to take time off from work,” Patrick responded. “This was kind of sudden, anyway.”

  He removed a plastic container full of lasagna and a 16-ounce bottle of Pepsi.

  “Looks great,” Patrick said. “What are you going to have?”

  “Oh, Arlene and I are going out to dinner. Would you like to join us?”

  “No, thanks. Three’s a crowd.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I just want to get settled back in here tonight.”

  Patrick slid the container into the microwave.

  “Don’t worry,” he added. “Justine won’t be coming over here.”

  “She won’t?”

  Scott’s relief was obvious.

  “We kind of brok
e up. Badly.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. But that’s okay.”

  “If you say so… Hey, what happened to your face?”

  “Still shows, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Scott said impatiently. “Tell me what happened!”

  “I told you we had a bad break-up,” Patrick answered tersely. “Could we just drop it, please?”

  With a sigh, Scott went to look through the mail lying on the kitchen table. Patrick thought things over. He had no pills; a proper discharge would have sent him home with a month’s supply and a renewal prescription. The chemicals had probably built up enough in his system to keep him safe for a little while, though. And Dr. Kearney had said there would be a prescription available for him at the outpatient clinic’s pharmacy.

  Patrick wondered if somebody from the hospital would call in the morning. Well, so be it. With a little luck, Scott wouldn’t answer the phone first. Patrick could always tell the truth: he hadn’t wanted to go through a ridiculous goodbye ceremony at the Friday ward assembly. If they’d be so kind as to call and notify the clinic, he’d go right over for his pill bottle and maybe meet his new therapist while he was at it…

  The microwave beeped.

  Maybe Patrick would tell Scott everything if some phone call from the hospital didn’t spoil it first. Then he chuckled softly as he dumped the lasagna onto a plate.

  Patrick could imagine the headline: ESCAPED LUNATIC AT LARGE.

  He sat in the courtroom, wrists and ankles in chains, despite his harmless and placid nature. The chains weren’t painful but they were heavy. Patrick stared up at the bench, hoping he was right about the judge: he looked like Robert Kearney. To his right were the prosecutors, ice-cold blond men in blue suits. Government lawyers.

  Patrick looked to his left. Here was his court-appointed attorney, who looked like Simon Herbst. This lawyer was so busy leafing through law books that Patrick hesitated to ask him anything. The lawyer was behaving like a student cramming up to the instant before the final exam is handed out.

  The judge gaveled the court to order. The government attorneys started presenting their case in unison. Patrick didn’t pay much attention to the content of their remarks, choosing instead to scan his eyes over the courtroom. The jury box was empty; that meant that this was probably an indictment hearing. Unless the jury system itself had been done away with.

  There was a portrait of President Reagan up on the wall. Lately, he had grown a beard like the Ayatollah Khomeini’s. Patrick understood that was bad news for secular democracy in America.

  Then Patrick heard the prosecutors make a stereo allegation that Patrick had sold Justine Edwards some tainted LSD which had caused her mental illness. Outraged, Patrick prodded his lawyer to make an objection. The Simon like attorney grinned stupidly and said something about not wanting to make waves.

  Patrick called him a coward and shook his chains in irritation. The judge slammed down his gavel and told Patrick to be quiet or he’d be removed to a holding cell. Patrick sneered up at the treacherous Judge Kearney and asked to be granted that as a favor.

  In the blink of an eye, Patrick found himself behind bars. He was in the cell all by himself. If no one could save him from the government’s outrageous lies, at least he didn’t have to hear them uttered in person.

  Suddenly, his mother appeared at the cell door. Patrick wasn’t surprised to see her, just ashamed. Although Mrs. Coyne had never been harshly judgmental with Patrick in life, her ghost was plainly disappointed in him.

  Before she said a word, Patrick protested his innocence. His mother couldn’t possibly believe those smears, those lies about him, could she?

  Mrs. Coyne said that wasn’t what was bothering her. She had raised him better than to end up in jail, under any circumstances. Maybe the charges were trumped up but it was his own fault for smoking grass in the first place. Patrick should have lived a clean life. Nothing would have stuck had he behaved himself.

  Patrick sputtered out his ineffectual self-defense. He started badly by reminding his mother that she herself had smoked marijuana when she’d been his age. Mrs. Coyne scoffed at her son’s argument. Dope had been legal in her day, she said. Patrick scratched his head. Was that true? How much had things changed in one brief generation?

  Patrick got angry at her. If he hadn’t been ready to take care of himself, as she claimed, then why had she left before her with him had been done? This was as much her fault as it was his.

  Mrs. Coyne turned her back on him and walked off down the corridor. Patrick called after her and rattled the bars. If his mother was right, what was the point of him being alive?

  “And I wanted to join her,” Patrick said quietly, staring up through a skylight at gray clouds and falling snowflakes.

  The psychologist raised his eyebrows.

  “Do you feel that way now?”

  “Right this minute, no,” Patrick answered, meeting the older man’s probing gaze. “But sometimes…”

  “Sometimes what?”

  “Uh, sometimes death has a certain appeal.”

  “Have you contemplated suicide?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” Patrick snapped. “I knew this guy in the hospital. He was getting outpatient therapy like this and they kept telling him he was suicidal. He said he wasn’t, they said he was. He finally threw himself in front of a bus because he couldn’t stand hearing them say it over and over again!”

  The psychologist frowned.

  “Are you saying you could see yourself doing something along those lines?”

  “What I am getting at is this patient, he sued the clinic for malpractice. So watch what you say to me about being suicidal.”

  “Patrick…”

  “I am not suicidal,” Patrick insisted. “I just get damned tired of being stuck where I am. You don’t grow, you die. Everyone knows that. At least I’m not getting worse.”

  “But Patrick, you weren’t talking about these dreams until recently. They sound rather disturbing to you. Am I right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “The content of your dreams sounds a lot like your paranoia from last year.”

  “But they’re just dreams. I don’t think this room is bugged, or anything.”

  “They could possibly be an early manifestation of a relapse,” the psychologist suggested, “appearing in your subconscious mind first, like canaries in a coal mine. How long has this been going on?”

  “Since February,” Patrick replied, deeply annoyed. “I told you about them from the beginning. Did you think I was holding back on you?”

  “I’m glad you weren’t,” the psychologist said with a thin smile. “However, we may need to look into adjusting your medication.”

  “Oh, no, no, no!”

  “Patrick…”

  “Listen. I’ve been taking that shit like I’m supposed to. I mean it’d be one thing if I wasn’t cooperating. Then I’d be – what d’you call it? – decompensating. More like decomposing.”

  “Another death reference.”

  “I know that!”

  “Well, we won’t go back into it right now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I know you’ve been cooperating with treatment,” the psychologist went on in a calm voice. “I believe you. If there’s something wrong with the situation, it’s nothing you’ve done. It’s not your fault.”

  “Damn right!”

  “But I think we should consider a medication consult with one of the psychiatrists, Perhaps some better course of treatment ought to be explored.”

  Patrick crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the wall-to-wall carpeting. Institutional carpeting, wasn’t it?

  “Can’t we give it some more time?” Patrick asked, his defiance fading. “I… I know what a medication change could mean for me. See if I stop having
these dreams on my own. Please.”

  “You would tell me if the dreams persist, wouldn’t you?”

  Patrick nodded.

  “Ignoring the problem of the medication won’t make it go away.”

  Patrick shook his head.

  “If it gets any worse, we’ll arrange a consult right away,” the psychologist said. “If you don’t stop having these kinds of dreams spontaneously, we’ll look at getting you a consult in a month, okay?”

  “Okay…”

  Maybe I’ll take up prayer, Patrick thought sarcastically.