“Pretty neat, Pop, but I don’t think he likes me much.”
I talked to Nick about some of the stuff I knew about Morphy. But Nick’s face, per usual, wasn’t giving anything away.
How could I tell the others what was going down? This guy Paul wasn’t on the level. This cat was bad news, like the worst, like awful, awful, awful, like please, please, please. Bustle, bustle, smoke dope and giggle while the fate of the world is going down on a chess board in your own kitchen. And you don’t even see. Helppppppppppppp!
This was to teach me a lesson. “I do warn you well, it is no child’s play.” Was I supposed to learn to hate chess because it was a competitive, violent, no-goodnik, ugly thing? Virginia was looking at me oddly from time to time. This might be her idea of just what the doctor ordered for Mark. Teach me to think I’m so fucking smart.
Mostly I just tried to play as if he weren’t a ringer, as if it were just a friendly game. Like offering to let him take moves back, playing like there was nothing at stake. He wouldn’t take any moves back and his look let me know that if I blew it, there would be no mercy. Mostly I just wanted out, but I have to admit I wanted to show Virginia and Nick and whatever angels happened to be watching that I was no small-time chess player myself. I could almost hear the anti-Mark team gnashing their teeth, amazed again at how they had underestimated little old Mark again.
“Fun, isn’t it?” Nick said again. His face twisted. Red bones showing. All he needed was horns.
I could barely see where the pieces were. I kept slipping away and coming back to a game that looked completely different from before. He never stopped looking at me, even when he was moving. Inexorable, inexorable.
“Your game is hopeless. Concede.”
“What?” I had been off in a fog. He repeated what he had said.
I looked at the board. It kept blurring and twisting.
“It’s a draw,” the voices said. “You can keep him in perpetual check.”
I summoned all my strength to make my words behave better than the chess pieces.
“It’s a draw,” I echoed. “I can keep you in perpetual check.”
“What?” he said, as if this were a new rule I had just made up. I couldn’t argue the point, I just wasn’t up to it.
“Check,” I said. He moved. “Check.” He moved again. “Check.” He moved again, bringing about the same position. “Check.” I started the interminable round again, hoping he’d get the point.
“You can’t do that,” he almost whined. “As soon as you stop checking me you’re mated, the game is over.”
“I have no intention of not checking you,” I stammered thickly. His rage was rising. He was going to expose me. He was going to tell about how the voices from the fire and wind had told me my moves.
“So we can both live to play another day,” I said incoherently. “A draw. Nice game, Nick. Hope we do it again.” I fled upstairs to bed.
Among amateurs, most “touch-move” games are lost on stupid blunders. The game becomes pointless very early: neither player learns anything. I’m capable of playing a good game of touch-move, but I have a hard time enjoying it. I beat players I should lose to and lose to players I should beat. Either way, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Touch-move fans argue with equal fervor that being able to take moves back ruins the game. It’s bad preparation for tournament play, encourages sloppiness. Maybe they’re right. Maybe we should be made to face the consequences of our blunders. Cold hard world and all.
Life is a lot more like touch-move than friendly chess, but maybe that’s because there are so many goddamned touch-move players around.
What I hope is true is that if we go about it the right way, we can take back a lot more than we think we can. If we could all make an effort to let anyone take back anything, if it’s in our power to let them take back instead of jumping so greedily at mistakes, we might be able to make life much more pleasant. We might even be able to find a way to go backward in time and patch up what now look like irrevocable blunders. Letting friends take back chess moves would be as good a way to start as any.
Sex had never been very carefree or playful between Virginia and me. The events of the past two and half months were hardly calculated to improve matters. Getting back together was tentative and gingerly. We were two very scared china dolls. Sex had less than ever to do with biological desire and was more than ever a garble of symbolic proofs and deeper needs. It was a desperately important hurdle.
There was so much to say that neither of us said anything. The first couple of nights we just rubbed and clumsily hugged each other, pulling back every five minutes or so and looking into each other’s scared, pleading eyes trying to figure out what if anything was understood between us.
We finally made love. Considering what we had been through, having any kind of sex was plenty ambitious, but at the same time having been through all that shit somehow raised the ante. For it to have been good it had to be much better than it had been, and it wasn’t. In fact it seemed that nothing had changed at all.
Somehow ten days went by and it was time for me to go into town and take my immigration physical. Everyone else had gotten theirs out of the way while I was in the hospital. I had set up an appointment at the Powell River clinic by phone just before we came up. Kathy, having set a record of two months straight on the farm, decided to come with me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Simon asked. “No, I’ll be fine.” Was he worried that I’d crack up again? Did he think he could do something about it if I did? Virginia asked me the same thing. I responded the same way and had the same reflections. Had Dr. Dale told them something he hadn’t told me? Did they have special instructions on how to handle me?
In midafternoon we all tromped down to the lake, list in hand, a couple of bags of laundry, letters to be sent, library books to be returned. We’d be back the next day, the day after at the most. From the big deal and all the ceremony at the lake, you wouldn’t have thought it was such a routine trip. It made me a little nervous, as if there was something I wasn’t being let in on. Simon, Virginia, Zeke, Nick, Nootka, Tanga, everyone came down to the lake. Much hugging and excited chatter. Nick had carried the laundry bags down and threw them to me and I caught that look in his eyes again, like there was some special understanding between us. I had a job to do? I wasn’t supposed to come back? He would take care of the farm and I would take care of the rest of the world? Nice try, old man, good game, or something? I looked back knowingly. I didn’t have the faintest idea of what his look meant, but I could fake it.
Good-by, good-by. You’ve all been swell. I swallowed the lump in my throat and the tears in my eyes. I’ll be back, don’t worry. Sleep tight. What bad can happen?
Mark at the helm again. The loader of the boat, the starter of the engine, the regulator of the engine, the navigator, captain in charge of comfort, safety, and peace of mind of my passengers.
Thank God for chores. Something with a beginning and an end. Get the boat and Kathy safely to town. The lake was fairly rough, but she seemed to believe in me completely.
I was into the boat and the waves. Riding them very carefully. Adjusting speed and angles constantly, getting the most out of every crest. It really felt like magic. At the marina, Kathy said that it had been the most enjoyable, worry-free trip she had ever had down the lake.
I started breathing much easier. I was a good captain. I had something to give. I felt a slight giddiness about the whole thing.
Most people who end up in a nut house stay there. People as crazy as I was aren’t supposed to get well. Mostly if they do they’re cripples one way or another forever. Mostly they never regain joy or competence or the trust of those around them. Here I am. Free. Beautiful and energetic. Returned from the dead and on my way to my long and good life. On my way to my old age, in which I will be a great source of embarrassment and pride to my children and grandchildren. Tough old goat.
The
water, the sky, the trees. Life. How nice not to be locked away from it.
We went into the marina for coffee. I was feeling great. Bea was there and said how much better I looked than when she had seen me only ten days ago. “Yes, yes, yes, Bea. It’s all on the up now. No more being sick for me. I’m going to get so strong and healthy it’ll make you sick.” Bea laughed and gave me some free pie. “You still could use a little more weight.” What a wonderful mother.
What a wonderful feeling. What a wonderful place to end my generational collage. Going crazy and getting well was just what I needed. I was missing something before. This was just the right twist. A real thing that happened that everyone could agree happened. All that other stuff, all the stuff before the farm and then the farm, was all much more elusive. Head changes and all. It could be argued whether or not they were really happening. But now a real nut house, got my ass shot full of real Thorazine and all that other stuff.
Before maybe I was exaggerating all the bad things, all the villains, all my trials and tribulations. People might not think it was really that bad. Maybe they wouldn’t have wanted out of Boston the way I wanted out of Boston. But they’d certainly have wanted out of the nut house the way I wanted out of the nut house.
3
ROUNDS TWO, THREE, AND GOING HOME
It’s got to be over before you can say, “That’s the best time I ever had.”
—S. Adams and H. Smith
TOWN AGAIN. “Did you come down for the fight?” One of Bea’s kids talking.
“The fight?”
“The heavyweight championship, Ali vs. Frazier.”
“No. I didn’t even know there was going to be one.” Well, one more thing along with the mill, automobiles, the war, that my craziness didn’t put a dent in. Haven’t people had enough of that shit? How can people get so excited about two men trying to kill each other in a ring?
On to the post office. And for transportation, what else but faithful Car Car, the old Volks that had no right to keep running, great friend of its keeper who had no right to be out of the nut house and so cheerful and spunky to boot. I was cheerful, Kathy was cheerful, Car Car was cheerful.
There were three important pieces of mail—a very nice get-well letter from Genie, one of the few people I had felt close to at Swarthmore, a poster from my father, and a letter from Vincent addressed to “Virginia and the Folks.”
The letter from Genie had been forwarded from the hospital. She was sorry I had gone nuts, wondered what it was like, hoped I’d be feeling better soon, plus a few paragraphs of chitchat about various friends. It wasn’t a heavy letter but it started me thinking about a heavy question. Why had I put so much distance between myself and the people, places, and things I really loved? How did I end up in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of Swarthmore people I had barely known at all? In a love relationship with so little warmth?
The poster from my father was a spaced-out, apocalyptic, mystic, back-to-the-earth quote. I don’t remember that much of it or who said it. “What we are doing is real… If we have to go to the headwaters of the Amazon to establish enclaves of civilization…return to Caesar’s grave… Not everyone should go…artisans…” How did Pa feel about that quote? How did he feel about the farm? How did he feel about my going nuts? But there was no enclosed letter or explanation of any sort, just the goddamned poster.
I hesitated a bit before opening the letter from Vincent, but he’d buggered around in my life enough. I was one of the “folks,” wasn’t I? Damn the torpedoes.
“Dear People.” My mind focused, picking out poor wording, punctuation mistakes, affectations, clumsy constructions. I just barely resisted the impulse to correct it with red pencil and send it back for rewriting.
“Kathy, read this and tell me if I’m out of line thinking it’s an unforgivably whiny maudlin pile of shit.”
She read it and wasn’t as hard on it as I was, but she didn’t think I was out of line.
All sorts of memories about Vincent came flooding back. From Swarthmore, the trip to North Carolina, Boston, the farm. I got madder and madder. It felt good. I could get mad without going mad. I wasn’t going to say that Vincent wasn’t full of shit out of fear that people might put it down to jealousy. Fuck that shit. That’s how people end up in nut houses.
My immigration physical was the next day. “They’ve never seen such health.” I was worried some about the questions about ever having been in a mental hospital. I hadn’t really figured out how to handle that one. I’d probably tell the truth, what the hell. If they were going to give me shit about it, that was their problem. It was a side issue not really worth thinking about. If I could get myself out of a nut house as quick as I had, I could certainly deal with the Immigration Department.
On to the laundromat. Load up the machines, feed the machines quarters. Make it all clean. A fresh start. By-by old dirt and good riddance. While the machines did their thing, Kathy and I went over to the Marine Inn. The waitress who had given me the Mu tea wasn’t there. How nice it was to eat a meal and not have it be the last supper over and over again. I had a steak sandwich just to be tough, on whole-wheat bread just to be healthy. Kathy had one too. We laughed about our sinfulness and agreed the steak sandwich tasted pretty good. We went back and put the clothes in the dryers and went and had a beer. That felt good, too. We had another.
While we were folding clothes, Joe and Mary came in. They had had it with the Powell River area and were about to head for the interior. Land was too expensive here. The De Soto had demised and they’d bought a Microbus. Debts were building up and Joe couldn’t get enough work. They were moving on.
They asked us to come to dinner. We were delighted. We hadn’t figured out where we were going to stay and they showed up at just the right time and solved everything.
“There’s this guy with us who’s a big fan of your father’s and is dying to meet you. I hope that won’t be too big a pain in the ass.”
“No,” I said, “I should be used to that by now.” They gave us a map to their house, the third house they had had in the same number of months.
See how well God takes care of everything? Just one foot in front of the other and everything goes fine. Food, a place to stay, a warm, nice evening with Joe and Mary. What could be better?
We diddled around some more, returning the books, picking out a few to take back up with us, getting a few things we needed at the hardware store. The groceries we figured we’d do the next day, after my physical.
After we had done all the chores we were going to do and since we had all those nice clean clothes, I decided I’d spend seventy-five cents on a shower. It was a sideline of the people who ran the laundromat. They lived above it, and considering the unlimited hot water they had, and all the tourists who camped or came in boats, it made a lot of sense.
So, one foot in front of the other, I walked up the stairs to their front door and rang the bell. It always felt a little strange coming into a strange family’s living room and asking to take a shower. This time they seemed flustered. Maybe they had been in the middle of a family argument or something, maybe they were having an early dinner. Anyway, they seemed to be looking at me funny. Maybe they had heard about the hippie who went nuts. Maybe I looked really dirty. Maybe it was the beer on my breath.
“Wait right here. I’ll get some new soap.” He—their son, I figured—was talking very fast. “We’ve been having some trouble with the shower. The water doesn’t shut off completely. There might be some change in the temperature. My mother’s running the washing machine.” A mile a minute this guy was going. “I hope everything will be all right.”
“Relax, relax, everything’s just fine.”
FILTHY HIPPIE. “What a perfect place to grow a plague.” I was thinking in the shower about my own little body. At the farm we didn’t have running cold water, let alone running hot water. That and our inadequate insulation and heating made bathing rare. Occasionally we’d get the stoves roaring, heat u
p a lot of hot water, and do sponge baths, but it was a lot of hassle and didn’t really do the trick anyway. Usually we did without and got pretty filthy. I didn’t mind it much. It seemed like a healthy alternative to the spick-and-span neurosis of a shower every day, if not twice, plus underarm deodorant, etc.
I had always figured that if there were a plague that was going to sweep over the world, it would come out of some citadel of modern medicine, a place where the selective evolutionary pressure was so tough on germs that a superstrain would evolve that sulfuric acid couldn’t touch.
But then there was this thing in my crotch. I called it my pet. I had had it off and on for years. I guess it was a fungus of sorts. It didn’t do much except itch occasionally. When it got out of hand I’d sock it with a little iodine or Desenex until it straightened out. But for some reason I never killed it off completely. Virginia never picked it up, so I figured it wasn’t very contagious. Perhaps I was the only place where this thing could live and I didn’t want to add to the long list of things made extinct by man. You could say I was sentimental about it.
Another place I might have bred a nice enough plague was in the mouthpiece of my saxophone. Sometimes it was years between washings. All sorts of cute little things grew there.
I turned on the water as hot as I could stand it and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. No filthy hippie me. Good-by old dirt, good riddance. A fresh start, a new me. Clean, superclean. How nice to be in the shower and not worry about Auschwitz.
I used up what I figured was my seventy-five cents and got out, dried myself, looked in the mirror, and noted that a little weight was coming back.