The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

16

IT BECAME NECESSARY to rehospitalize Bill sooner than I had expected. He entered voluntarily, accepting this as a fact of life-a perpetual fact of his life, anyhow.

After they had signed Bill in, I met with his psychiatrist, a heavyset middle-aged man with a mustache and rimless glasses, a sort of portly but good-natured authority-figure who at once read me my mistakes, in order of descending importance.

"You shouldn't be encouraging him to use drugs," Dr. Greeby said, the file on Bill open before him across the surface of his desk.

"You call grass 'drugs'?" I said.

"For someone with Bill's precarious mental balance, any intoxicant is dangerous, however mild. He goes into the trip but he never really comes out. We have him on Haldol now; he seems able to tolerate the side effects."

"Had I known the harm I was doing," I said, "I would have done otherwise."

He glanced at me.

"We learn by erring," I said.

"Miss Archer-"

"Mrs. Archer," I said.

"The prognosis on Bill is not good, Mrs. Archer. I think you should be aware of that, since you seem to be the one closest to him." Dr. Greeby frowned. "'Archer.' Are you related to the late Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer?"

"My father-in-law," I said.

"That's who Bill thinks he is."

"Sufferin' succotash," I said.

"Bill has the delusion that he has become your late father-in-law due to a mystical experience. He does not merely see and hear Bishop Archer; he is Bishop Archer. Then Bill actually knew Bishop Archer, I take it."

"They rotated tires together," I said.

"You are a very smart-assed woman," Dr. Greeby said.

I said nothing to that.

"You have helped put Bill back in the hospital," the doctor said.

I said, "And we had a couple of good times together. We also had some very unhappy times together, having to do with the death of friends. I think those deaths contributed more to Bill's decline than did the smoking of grass in Tilden Park."

"Please don't see him any more," Dr. Greeby said.

"What?" I said, startled and dismayed; a rush of fear overcame me and I felt myself flush in pain. "Wait a minute," I said. "He's my friend."

"You have a generally supercilious attitude toward me and ,toward the world in all aspects. You obviously are a highly educated person, a product of the state university system; I'd guess that you graduated from U.C. Berkeley, probably in the English Department; you feel you know everything; you're doing great harm to Bill, who is not a worldly-wise, sophisticated person. You're also doing great harm to yourself, but that is not my concern. You are a brittle, harsh person, who-"

"But they were my friends," I said.

"Find somebody in the Berkeley community," the doctor said. "And stay away from Bill. As Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law, you reinforce his delusion; in fact, his delusion is probably an introjection of you, a displaced sexual attachment acting outside his conscious control."

I said, "And you are full of recondite bullshit."

"I've seen dozens like you in my professional career," Dr. Greeby said. "You don't faze me and you don't interest me. Berkeley is full of women like you."

"I will change," I said, my heart full of panic.

"That I doubt," the doctor said, and closed up Bill's file.

After I left his office-ejected, virtually-I roamed about the hospital, at a loss, stunned and afraid and also angry-angry mostly at myself for lipping off. I had lipped off because I was nervous, but the harm was done. Shit, I said to myself. Now I've lost the last of them.

I go back now to the record store, I said to myself, and check the back orders to see what did and didn't arrive. There will be a dozen customers lined up at the register and the phones will be ringing. Fleetwood Mac albums will be selling; Helen Reddy albums will not be. Nothing will have changed.

I can change, I said to myself. Lard-butt is wrong; it isn't too late.

Tim, I thought; why didn't I go to Israel with you?

As I left the hospital building and walked toward the parking lot-I could see my little red Honda Civic from afar-I spotted a group of patients trailing along behind a psych tech; they had gotten off a yellow bus and were now returning to the hospital. Hands in the pockets of my coat, I walked toward them, wondering if Bill was among them.

I did not see Bill in the group, and I continued on, past some benches, past a fountain. A grove of cedar trees grew on the far side of the hospital, and several people sat here and there on the grass, undoubtedly patients, those with passes; those well enough to exist for a time outside of stern control.

Among them Bill Lundborg, wearing his usual ill-fitting pants and shirt, sat at the base of a tree, intent on something he held.

I approached him, slowly and quietly. He did not look up until I had almost reached him; suddenly, aware of me now, he raised his head.

"Hi, Bill," I said.

"Angel," Bill said, "look what I found."

I knelt down to see. He had found a stand of mushrooms growing at the base of the tree: white mushrooms with-I discovered when I broke one off-pink gills. Harmless; the pink gilled and brown-gilled mushrooms are, by and large, not toxic. It is the white-gilled mushrooms that you must avoid, for often they are the amanitas, such as the Destroying Angel.

"What have you got?" I said.

"It is growing here," Bill said, in wonder. "What I searched for in Israel. What I went so far to find. This is the vita verna mushroom that Pliny the Elder mentions in his Historia Naturalis. I forget which book." He chuckled in that familiar good-humored way that I knew so well. "Probably Book Eight. This exactly fits his description."

"To me," I said, "it looks like an ordinary edible mushroom that you see growing this time of year everywhere."

"This is the anokhi," Bill said.

"Bill-" I began.

"Tim," he said, reflexively.

"Bill, I'm taking off. Dr. Greeby says I wrecked your mind. I'm sorry." I stood up.

"You never did that," Bill said. "But I wish you had come to Israel with me. You made a major mistake, Angel, and I did tell you that night at the Chinese restaurant. Now you're locked into your customary mind-set forever."

"And there's no way I can change?" I said.

Smiling up at me in his guileless way, Bill said, "I don't care. I have what I want; I have this." He carefully handed me the mushroom that he had picked, the ordinary harmless mushroom. "This is my body," he said, "and this is my blood. Eat, drink, and you will have eternal life."

I bent down and said, speaking with my lips close to his ear so that only he could hear me, "I am going to fight to make you okay again, Bill Lundborg. Repairing automobile bodies and spray-painting and other real things; I will see you as you were; I will not give up. You will remember the ground again. You hear me? You understand?"

Bill, not looking at me, murmured, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every-"

"No," I said, "you're a man who spray-paints automobiles and fixes transmissions and I will cause you to remember. A time will come when you leave this hospital; I will wait for you, Bill Lundborg." I kissed him, then, on the temple; he reached to wipe it away, as a child wipes a kiss away, absently, without intent or comprehension.

"I am the Resurrection and the life," Bill said.

"I will see you again, Bill," I said, and walked away.

The next time I attended Edgar Barefoot's seminar, Barefoot noted Bill's absence and, after he had finished talking, he asked me about Bill.

"Back inside looking out," I said.

"Come with me." Barefoot led me from the lecture room to his living room; I had never seen it before and discovered with surprise that his tastes ran to distressed oak rather than to the Oriental. He put on a koto record which I recognized-that is my job-as a rare Kimio Eto pressing on World-Pacific. The record, made in the late-Fifties, is worth something to collectors. Barefoot played "Midori No Asa, " which Eto wrote himself. It is quite beautiful but sounds not at all Japanese.

"I'll give you fifteen bucks for that record," I said. Barefoot said, "I'll tape it for you."

"I want the record," I said. "The record itself. I get requests for it every now and then." I thought to myself: And don't tell me the beauty is in the music. The value to collectors lies in the record itself; this is not a matter that need be opened to debate. I know records: it is my business.

"Coffee?" Barefoot said.

I accepted a cup of coffee and together Barefoot and I listened to the greatest living koto player twang away.

"He's always going to be in and out of the hospital, you realize," I said, when Barefoot turned the record over.

"Is this something else you feel responsible for?"

"I've been told that I am," I said. "But I'm not."

"It's good that you realize that."

I said, "If somebody thinks Tim Archer came back to him, that somebody goes into the hospital."

"And gets Thorazine," Barefoot said.

"It's Haldol now," I said. "A refinement. The new antipsychotic drugs are more precise."

Barefoot said, "One of the early church fathers believed in the Resurrection `because it was impossible.' Not `despite the fact that it was impossible' but 'because it was impossible.' Tertullian, I think it was. Tim talked to me about it one time."

"But how smart is that?" I said.

"Not very smart. I don't think Tertullian meant it to be."

"I can't see anybody going through life that way," I said.

"To me that epitomizes this whole stupid business: believing something because it's impossible. What I see is people becoming mad and then dying; first the madness, then the death."

"So you see death for Bill," Barefoot said.

"No," I said, "because I am going to be waiting for him when he gets out of the hospital. Instead of death, he is going to get me. How does that strike you?"

"As much better than death," Barefoot said.

"Then you approve of me," I said. "Unlike Bill's doctor, who thinks I helped put him in the hospital."

"Are you living with anyone right now?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm living alone," I said.

Barefoot said, "I'd like to see Bill move in with you when he gets out of the hospital. I don't think he has ever lived with a woman except with his mother, with Kirsten."

"I'd have to think a long time about that," I said.

"Why?"

"Because that's how I do things like that."

"I don't mean for his sake."

"What?" I said, taken by surprise.

"For your sake. That way, you would find out if it really is Tim. Your question would be answered."

I said, "I have no question; I know."

"Take Bill in; let him live with you. Take care of him. And maybe you'll find you're taking care of Tim, in a certain real sense. Which-I think-you always did or anyhow wanted to do. Or if you didn't, should have done. He is very helpless."

"Bill? Tim?"

"The man in the hospital. Who you care about. Your last tie to other people."

"I have friends. I have my little brother. I have the people at the store ... and my customers."

"And you have me," Barefoot said.

After a pause, I said, "You, too; yes." I nodded.

"Suppose I said I think it may be Tim. Actually Tim come back."

"Well, then," I said, "I'd stop coming to your seminars."

He eyed me intently.

"I mean it," I said.

"You are not readily pushed around," Barefoot said.

"Not really," I said. "I've made certain serious mistakes; I stood there doing nothing when Kirsten and Tim told me that Jeff had returned-I did nothing and as a result they are now dead. I wouldn't make that mistake again."

"You genuinely foresee death for Bill, then."

"Yes," I said.

"Take him in," Barefoot said, "and I tell you what; I'll give you the Kimio Eto record we're listening to." He smiled. "'Kibo No Hikari,' this song is called. `The Light of Hope.' I think it's appropriate."

"Did Tertullian actually say he believed in the Resurrection because it is impossible?" I said. "Then this stuff started a long time ago. It didn't begin with Kirsten and Tim."

Barefoot said, "You're going to have to stop coming to my seminars."

"You do think it's Tim?"

"Yes. Because Bill talks in languages he doesn't know. In the Italian of Dante, for instance. And in Latin and-"

"Xenoglossy," I said. The sign, I thought, of the presence of the Holy Spirit, as Tim pointed out that day we met at the Bad Luck Restaurant. The very thing Tim doubted existed any more; he doubted that it had ever existed, probably. According to what he, anyhow, could discern; to the best of his ability. And now we have it in Bill Lundborg claiming to be Tim.

"I'll take Bill in," Barefoot said. "He can live with me here on the houseboat."

"No," I said. "Not if you believe that stuff. I'll bring him to my house in Berkeley, rather than that." And then it came to me that I had been maneuvered and I gazed at Edgar Barefoot; he smiled and I thought: Just the way Tim could do it -control people. In a sense, Bishop Tim Archer is more alive in you than he is in Bill.

"Good," Barefoot said. He extended his hand. "Let's shake on it, to close the deal."

"Do I get the Kimio Eto record?" I asked. "After I've taped it."

"But I do get the record itself."

"Yes," Barefoot said, still holding onto my hand. His grip was vigorous; that, too, reminded me of Tim. So maybe we do have Tim with us, I thought. One way or another. It depends on how you define "Tim Archer": the ability to quote in Latin and Greek and Medieval Italian, or the ability to save human lives. Either way, Tim seems to be still here. Or here again.

"I'll keep coming to your seminars," I said.

"Not for my sake."

"No; for my own."

Barefoot said, "Someday perhaps you'll come for the sandwich. But I doubt that. I think you will always need the pretext of words."

Do not be that pessimistic, I said to myself; I might surprise you.

We listened to the end of the koto record. The last song on the second side is called "Haru No Sugata," which means, "The Mood of Early Spring." We listened to that last and then Edgar Barefoot returned the record to its cover and handed it to me.

"Thank you," I said.

I finished my coffee and then left. The weather struck me as good. I felt a lot better. And I could probably get almost thirty dollars for the record. I had not seen a copy in years; it has long been out of print.

You must keep these things in mind when you operate a record store. And acquiring it that day amounted to a sort of prize: for doing what I intended to do anyhow. I had outsmarted Edgar Barefoot and I felt happy. Tim would have enjoyed it. Were he alive.