We Can Build You

18

The following day at ten o'clock in the morning I met Doctor Albert Shedd in the steam bath at Kasanin Clinic. The patients lolled in the billowing steam nude, while the members of the staff padded about wearing blue trunks--evidently a status symbol or badge of office; certainly an indication of their difference from us.

Doctor Shedd approached me, looming up from the white clouds of steam, smiling friendlily at me; he was elderly, at least seventy, with wisps of hair sticking up like bent wires from his round, wrinkled head. His skin, at least in the steam bath, was a glistening pink.

"Morning, Rosen," he said, ducking his head and eyeing me slyly, like a little gnome. "How was your trip?"

"Fine, Doctor."

"No other planes followed you here, I take it," he said, chuckling.

I had to admire his joke, because it implied that he recognized somewhere in me a basically sane element which he was reaching through the medium of humor. He was spoofing my paranoia, and, in doing so, he slightly but subtly defanged it.

"Do you feel free to talk in this rather informal atmosphere?" Doctor Shedd asked.

"Oh sure. I used to go to a Finnish steam bath all the time when I was in the Los Angeles area."

"Let's see." He consulted his clipboard. "You're a piano salesman. Electronic organs, too."

"Right, the Rosen Electronic Organ--the finest in the world."

"You were in Seattle on business at the onset of your schizophrenic interlude, seeing a Mr. Barrows. According to this deposition by your family."

"Exactly so."

"We have your school psych-test records and you seem to have had no difficulty... they go up to nineteen years and then there's the military service records; no trouble there either. Nor in subsequent applications for employment. It would appear to be a situational schizophrenia, then, rather than a life-history process. You were under unique stress, there in Seattle, I take it?"

"Yes," I said, nodding vigorously.

"It might never occur again in your lifetime; however, it constitutes a warning--it is a danger sign and must be dealt with." He scrutinized me for a long time, through the billowing steam. "Now, it might be that in your case we could equip you to cope successfully with your environment by what is called _controlled fugue_ therapy. Have you heard of this?"

"No, Doctor." But I liked the sound of it.

"You would be given hallucinogenic drugs--drugs which would induce your psychotic break, bring on your hallucinations. For a very limited period each day. This would give your libido fulfillment of its regressive cravings which at present are too strong to be borne. Then very gradually we would diminish the fugal period, hoping eventually to eliminate it. Some of this period would be spent here; we would hope that later on you could return to Boise, to your job, and obtain out-patient therapy there. We are far too overcrowded here at Kasanin, you know."

"I know that."

"Would you care to try that?"

"Yes!"

"It would mean further schizophrenic episodes, occurring of course under supervised, controlled conditions."

"I don't care, I want to try it."

"It wouldn't bother you that I and other staff members were present to witness your behavior during these episodes? In other words, the invasion of your privacy--"

"No," I broke in, "it wouldn't bother me; I don't care who watches."

"Your paranoiac tendency," Doctor Shedd said thoughtfully, "cannot be too severe, if watching eyes daunt you no more than this."

"They don't daunt me a damn bit."

"Fine." He looked pleased. "That's an a-okay prognostic sign." And with that he strolled off into the white steam clouds, wearing his blue trunks and holding his clipboard under his arm. My first interview with my psychiatrist at Kasanin Clinic was over with.

At one that afternoon I was taken to a large clean room in which several nurses and two doctors waited for me. They strapped me down to a leather-covered table and I was given an intravenous injection of the hallucinogenic drug. The doctors and nurses, all overworked but friendly, stood back and waited. I waited, too, strapped to my table and wearing a hospital type frock, my bare feet sticking up, arms at my sides.

Several minutes later the drug took effect. I found myself in downtown Oakland, California, sitting on a park bench in Jack London Square. Beside me, feeding bread crumbs to a flock of blue-gray pigeons, sat Pris. She wore capri pants and a green turtle-neck sweater; her hair was tied back with a red checkered bandana and she was totally absorbed in what she was doing, apparently oblivious to me.

"Hey," I said.

Turning her head she said calmly, "Damn you; I said be quiet. If you talk you'll scare them away and then that old man down there'll be feeding them instead of me."

On a bench a short distance down the path sat Doctor Shedd smiling at us, holding his own packet of bread crumbs. In that manner my psyche had dealt with his presence, had incorporated him into the scene in this fashion.

"Pris," I said in a low voice, "I've got to talk to you."

"Why?" She faced me with her cold, remote expression. "It's important to you, but is it to me? Or do you care?"

"I care," I said, feeling hopeless.

"Show it instead of saying it--be quiet. I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing." She returned to feeding the birds.

"Do you love me?" I asked.

"Christ no!"

And yet I felt that she did.

We sat together on the bench for some time and then the park, the bench and Pris herself faded out and I once more found myself on the flat table, strapped down and observed by Doctor Shedd and the overworked nurses of Kasanin Clinic.

"That went much better," Doctor Shedd said, as they released me.

"Better than what?"

"Than the two previous times."

I had no memory of previous times and I told him so.

"Of course you don't; they were not successful. No fantasy life was activated; you simply went to sleep. But now we can expect results each time."

They returned me to my room. The next morning I once more appeared in the therapy chamber to receive my allotment of fugal fantasy life, my hour with Pris.

As I was being strapped down Doctor Shedd entered and greeted me. "Rosen, I'm going to have you entered in group therapy; that will augment this that we're doing here. Do you understand what group therapy is? You'll bring your problems before a group of your fellow patients, for their comments... you'll sit with them while they discuss you and where you seem to have gone astray in your thinking. You'll find that it all takes place in an atmosphere of friendliness and informality. And generally it's quite helpful."

"Fine." I had become lonely, here at the clinic. "You have no objection to the material from your fugues being made available to your group?"

"Gosh no. Why should I?"

"It will be oxide-tape printed and distributed to them in advance of each group therapy session... you're aware that we're recording each of these fugues of yours for analytical purposes, and, with your permission, use with the group."

"You certainly have my permission," I said. "I don't object to a group of my fellow patients knowing the contents of my fantasies, especially if they can help explain to me where I've gone wrong."

"You'll find there's no body of people in the world more anxious to help you than your fellow patients," Doctor Shedd said.

The injection of hallucinogenic drugs was given me and once more I lapsed into my controlled fugue.

I was behind the wheel of my Magic Fire Chevrolet, in heavy freeway traffic, returning home at the end of the day. On the radio a commuter club announcer was telling me of a traffic jam somewhere ahead.

"Confusion, construction or chaos," he was saying. "I'll guide you through, dear friend."

"Thanks," I said aloud.

Beside me on the seat Pris stirred and said irritably, "Have you always talked back to the radio? It's not a good sign; I always knew your mental health wasn't the best."

"Pris," I said, "in spite of what you say I know you love me. Don't you remember us together at Collie Nild's apartment in Seattle?"

"No."

"Don't you remember how we made love?"

"Awk," she said, with revulsion.

"I know you love me, no matter what you say."

"Let me off right here in this traffic, if you're going to talk like that; you make me sick to my stomach."

"Pris," I said, "why are we driving along like this together? Are we going home? Are we married?"

"Ohgod," she moaned.

"Answer me," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the truck ahead.

She did not; she squirmed away and sat against the door, as far from me as possible.

"We are," I said. "I know we are."

When I came out of my fugue, Doctor Shedd seemed pleased. "You are showing a progressive tendency. I think it's safe to say you're getting an effective external catharsis for your regressive libido drives, and that's what we're counting on." He slapped me on the back encouragingly, much as my partner Maury Rock had done, not so long ago.

On my next controlled fugue Pris looked older. The two of us walked slowly through the great train station at Cheyenne, Wyoming, late at night, through the subway under the tracks and up onto the far side, where we stood silently together. Her face, I thought, had a fuller quality, as if she were maturing. Definitely, she had changed. Her figure was fuller. And she seemed more calm.

"How long," I asked her, "have we been married?"

"Don't you know?"

"Then we are," I said, my heart full of joy.

"Of course we are; do you think we're living in sin? What's the matter with you anyhow, do you have amnesia or something?"

"Let's go over to that bar we saw, opposite the train station; it looked lively."

"Okay," she said. As we started back down into the subway once more she said, "I'm glad you got me away from those empty tracks... they depressed me. Do you know what I was starting to think about? I was wondering how it would feel to watch the engine coming, and then to sort of fall forward ahead of it, fall onto the tracks, and have it pass over you, cut you in half... . I wondered how it would feel to end it all like that, just by falling forward, as if you were going to sleep."

"Don't talk like that," I said, putting my arm around her and hugging her. She was stiff and unyielding, as always.

When Doctor Shedd brought me out of my fugue he looked grave. "I am not too happy to see morbid elements arising in your anima-projection. However, it's to be expected; it shows what a long haul we still have ahead of us. In the next try, the fifteenth fugue--"

"Fifteenth!" I exclaimed. "You mean that was number fourteen?"

"You've been here over a month, now. I am aware that your episodes are blending together; that is to be expected, since sometimes there is no progress at all and sometimes the same material is repeated. Don't worry about that, Rosen."

"Okay, Doctor," I said, feeling glum.

On the next try--or what appeared to my confused mind to be the next try--I once more sat with Pris on a bench in Jack London Park in downtown Oakland, California. This time she was quiet and sad; she did not feed any of the pigeons who wandered about but merely sat with her hands clasped together, staring down.

"What's the matter?" I asked her, trying to draw her close to me.

A tear ran down her cheek. "Nothing, Louis." From her purse she brought a handkerchief; she wiped her eyes and then blew her nose. "I just feel sort of dead and empty, that's all. Maybe I'm pregnant. I'm a whole week late, now."

I felt wild elation; I gripped her in my arms and kissed her on her cold, unresponsive mouth. "That's the best news I've heard yet!"

She raised her gray, sadness-filled eyes. "I'm glad it pleases you, Louis." Smiling a little she patted my hand.

Definitely now I could see that she had changed. There were distinct lines about her eyes, giving her a somber, weary cast. How much time had passed? How many times had we been together, now? A dozen? A hundred? I couldn't tell; time was gone for me, a thing that did not flow but moved in fitfu' jolts and starts, bogging down completely and then hesitantly resuming. I, too, felt older and much more weary. And yet--what good news this was.

As soon as I was back in the therapy room I told Doctor Shedd about Pris's pregnancy. He, too, was pleased. "You see, Rosen, how your fugues are showing more maturity, more elements of responsible reality-seeking on your part? Eventually their maturity will match your actual chronological age and at that point most of the fugal quality will have been discharged."

I went downstairs in a joyful frame of mind to meet with my group of fellow patients to listen to their explanations and questions regarding this new and important development. I knew that when they had read the transcript of today's session they would have a good deal to say.

In my fifty-second fugue I caught sight of Pris and my son, a healthy, handsome baby with eyes as gray as Pris's and hair much like mine. Pris sat in the living room in a deep easy chair, feeding him from a bottle, an absorbed expression on her face. Across from them I sat, in a state of almost total bliss, as if all my tensions, all my anxieties and woes, had at last deserted me.

"Goddam these plastic nipples," Pris said, shaking the bottle angrily. "They collapse when he sucks; it must be the way I'm sterilizing them."

I trotted into the kitchen to get a fresh bottle from the sterilizer steaming on the range.

"What's his name, dear?" I asked when I returned.

"What's his name." Pris gazed at me with resignation. "Are you all there, Louis? Asking what your baby's name is, for chrissakes? His name's Rosen, the same as yours."

Sheepishly, I had to smile and say, "Forgive me."

"I forgive you; I'm used to you." She sighed. "Sorry to say."

But what is his name? I wondered. Perhaps I will know the next time or if not, then perhaps the one hundredth time. I must know or it will mean nothing to me, all this; it will be in vain.

"Charles," Pris murmured to the baby, "are you wetting?"

His name was Charles, and I felt glad; it was a good name. Maybe I had picked it out; it sounded like what I would have arrived at.

That day, after my fugue, as I was hurrying downstairs to the group therapy auditorium, I caught sight of a number of women entering a door on the women's side of the building. One woman had short-cut black hair and stood slender and lithe, much smaller than the other women around her; they looked like inflated balloons in comparison to her. _Is that Pris?_ I asked myself, halting. _Please turn around_, I begged, fixing my eyes on her back.

Just as she entered the doorway she turned for an instant. I saw the pert, bobbed nose, the dispassionate, appraising gray eyes... it was Pris. "Pris!" I yelled, waving my arms.

She saw me. She peered, frowning; her lips tightened. Then, very slightly, she smiled.

Was it a phantom? The girl--Pris Frauenzimmer--had now gone on into the room, had disappeared from sight. You are back here at Kasanin Clinic, I said to myself. I knew it would happen sooner or later. And this is not a fantasy, not a fugue, controlled or otherwise; I've found you in actuality, in the real world, the outside world that is not a product of regressive libido or drugs. I have not seen you since that night at the club in Seattle when you hit the Johnny Booth simulacrum over the head with your shoe; how long ago that was! How much, how awfully much, I have seen and done since then--done in a vacuum, done without you, without the authentic, actual you. Satisfied with a mere phantom instead of the real thing... . Pris, I said to myself. Thank god; I have found you; I knew I would, someday.

I did not go to my group therapy; instead I remained there in the hall, waiting and watching.

At last, hours later, she reemerged. She came across the open patio directly toward me, her face clear and calm, a slight glow kindled in her eyes, more of wry amusement than anything else.

"Hi," I said.

"So they netted you, Louis Rosen," she said. "You finally went schizophrenic, too. I'm not surprised."

I said, "Pris, I've been here months."

"Well, are you getting healed?"

"Yes," I said, "I think so. I'm having controlled fugue therapy every day; I always go to you, Pris, every time. We're married and we have a child named Charles. I think we're living in Oakland, California."

"Oakland," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Parts of Oakland are nice; parts are dreadful." She started away from me up the hall. "It was nice seeing you, Louis. Maybe I'll run into you again, here."

"Pris!" I called in grief. "Come back!"

But she continued on and was lost beyond the closing doors at the end of the hail.

The next time in my controlled fugue when I saw her she had definitely aged; her figure was more matronly and she had deep, permanent shadows under her eyes. We stood together in the kitchen doing the dinner dishes; Pris washed while I dried. Under the glare of the overhead light her skin looked dry, with fine, tiny wrinkles radiating through it. She had on no make-up. Her hair, in particular, had changed; it was dry, too, like her skin, and no longer black. It was a reddish brown, and very nice; I touched it and found it stiff yet clean and pleasant to the touch.

"Pris," I said, "I saw you yesterday in the hall. Here, where I am, at Kasanin."

"Good for you," she said briefly.

"Was it real? More real than this?" In the living room I saw Charles seated before the three-D color TV set, his eyes fixed raptly on the image. "Do you remember that meeting after so long? Was it as real to you as it was to me? Is this now real to you? Please tell me; I don't understand anymore."

"Louis," she said, as she scrubbed a frying pan, "can't you take life as it comes? Do you have to be a philosopher? You act like a college sophomore; you make me wonder if you're going to grow up."

"I just don't know which way to go anymore," I said, feeling desolate but automatically continuing in my task of dish-drying.

"Take me where you find me," Pris said. "As you find me. Be content with that, don't ask questions."

"Yes," I agreed, "I'll do that; I'll try to do it, anyhow."

When I came out of my fugue, Doctor Shedd once more was present. "You're mistaken, Rosen; you couldn't have run into Miss Frauenzimmer here at Kasanin. I checked the records carefully and found no one by that name. I'm afraid that so-called meeting with her in the hall was an involuntary lapse into psychosis; we must not be getting as complete a catharsis of your libido cravings as we thought. Perhaps we should increase the number of minutes of controlled regression per day."

I nodded mutely. But I did not believe him; I knew that it had really been Pris there in the hall; it was not a schizophrenic fantasy.

The following week I saw her again at Kasanin. This time I looked down and saw her through the window of the solarium; she was outdoors playing volleyball with a team of girls, all of them wearing light blue gym shorts and blouses.

She did not see me; she was intent on the game. For a long time I stood there, drinking in the sight of her, knowing it was real... and then the ball bounced from the court toward the building and Pris came scampering after it. As she bent to snatch it up I saw her name, stitched in colored block letters on her gym blouse.

ROCK, PRIS

That explained it. She was entered in Kasanin Clinic under her father's name, not her own. Therefore Doctor Shedd hadn't found her listed in the files; he had looked under Frauenzimmer, which was the way I always thought of her, no matter what she called herself.

I won't tell him, I said to myself; I'll keep myself from mentioning it during my controlled fugues. That way he'll never know, and maybe, sometime, I'll get to talk to her again.

And then I thought, _Maybe this is all deliberate on Shedd's part_; maybe it's a technique for drawing me out of my fugues and back into the actual world. Because these tiny glimpses of the real Pris have become more valuable to me than all the fugues put together. _This is their therapy, and it is working_.

I did not know whether to feel good or bad.

It was after my two hundred and twentieth controlled fugue therapy session that I got to talk to Pris once more. She was strolling out of the clinic's cafeteria; I was entering. I saw her before she saw me; she was absorbed in conversation with another young woman, a buddy.

"Pris," I said, stopping her. "For god's sake, let me see you for a few minutes. They don't care; I know this is part of their therapy. Please."

The other girl moved off considerately and Pris and I were alone.

"You're looking older, Louis," Pris said, after a pause.

"You look swell, as always." I longed to put my arms around her; I yearned to hug her to me. But instead I stood a few inches from her doing nothing.

"You'll be glad to know they're going to let me sign out of here again, one of these days," Pris said matter-of-factly. "And get out-patient therapy like I did before. I'm making terrific progress according to Doctor Ditchley, who's the top psychiatrist here. I see him almost every day. I looked you up in the files; you're seeing Shedd. He's not much... he's an old fool, as far as I'm concerned."

"Pris," I said, "maybe we could leave here together. What would you say to that? I'm making progress, too."

"Why should we leave together?"

"I love you," I said, "and I know you love me."

She did not retort; instead she merely nodded.

"Could it be done?" I asked. "You know so much more about this place than I do; you've practically lived your life here."

"Some life."

"Could you work it out?"

"Work it out yourself; you're the man."

"If I do," I said, "will you marry me?"

She groaned. "Sure, Louis. Anything you want. Marriage, living in sin, incidental screwing--you name it."

"Marriage," I said.

"And kids? Like in your fantasy? A child named Charles?" Her lips twisted with amusement.

"Yes."

"Work it out, then," Pris said. "Talk to Shovel-head Shedd, the clinic idiot. He can release you; he has the authority. I'll give you a hint. When you go up for your next fugue, hang back. Tell them you're not sure you're getting anything out of it anymore. And then when you're in it, tell your fantasy sex-partner there, the Pris Frauenzimmer that you've cooked up in that warped, hot little brain of yours, that you don't find her convincing anymore." She grinned in her old familiar way. "See where that gets you. Maybe it'll get you out of here, maybe it won't--maybe it'll only get you in deeper."

I said haltingly, "You wouldn't--"

"Kid you? Mislead you? Try it, Louis, and find out." Her face, now, was deeply serious. "The only way you'll know is to have the courage to go ahead."

Turning, she walked rapidly away from me.

"I'll see you," she said over her shoulder. "Maybe." A last cool, cheerful, self-possessed grin and she was gone; other people moved in between us, people going in to eat at the cafeteria.

I trust you, I said to myself.

After dinner that day I ran into Doctor Shedd in the hall. He did not object when I told him I'd like a moment of his time.

"What's on your mind, Rosen?"

"Doctor, when I get up to take my fugues I sort of feel like hanging back. I'm not sure I'm getting anything out of them anymore."

"How's that again?" Doctor Shedd said, frowning.

I repeated what I had said. He listened with great attention. "And I don't find my fantasy sex-partner convincing anymore," I added this time. "I know she's just a projection of my subconscious; she's not the real Pris Frauenzimmer."

Doctor Shedd said, "This is interesting."

"What does it mean, what I've said just now... does it indicate I'm getting worse or better?"

"I honestly don't know. We'll see at the next fugue session; I'll know more when I can observe your behavior during it." Nodding goodbye to me he continued on down the corridor.

At my next controlled fugue I found myself meandering through a supermarket with Pris; we were doing our weekly grocery shopping.

She was much older now, but still Pris, still the same attractive, firm, clear-eyed woman I had always loved. Our boy ran ahead of us, finding items for his weekend camping trip which he was about to enjoy with his scout troop in Charles Tilden park in the Oakland hills.

"You're certainly quiet for a change," Pris said to me.

"Thinking."

"Worrying, you mean. I know you; I can tell."

"Pris, is this real?" I said. "Is this enough, what we have here?"

"No more," she said. "I can't stand your eternal philosophizing; either accept your life or kill yourself but stop babbling about it."

"Okay," I said. "And in exchange I want you to stop giving me your constant derogatory opinions about me. I'm tired of it."

"You're just afraid of hearing them--" she began.

Before I knew what I was doing I had reached back and slapped her in the face; she tumbled and half-fell, leaped away and stood with her hand pressed to her cheek, staring at me in bewilderment and pain.

"Goddam you," she said in a broken voice. "I'll never forgive you."

"I just can't stand your derogatory opinions anymore."

She stared at me, and then spun and hurried off down the aisle of the supermarket without looking back; she grabbed up Charles and went on.

All at once I realized that Doctor Shedd stood beside me. "I think we've had enough for today, Rosen." The aisle, with its shelves of cartons and packages, wavered and faded away.

"Did I do wrong?" I had done it without thinking, without any plan in mind. Had I upset everything? "That's the first time in my life I ever hit a woman," I said to Doctor Shedd.

"Don't worry about it," he said, preoccupied with his notebook. He nodded to the nurses. "Let him up. And we'll cancel the group therapy session for today, I think; have him go back to his room where he can be by himself." To me he said suddenly, "Rosen, there's something peculiar about your behavior that I don't understand. It's not like you at all."

I said nothing; I merely hung my head.

"I'd almost say," Dr. Shedd said slowly, "that you're malingering."

"No, not at all," I protested. "I'm really sick; I would have died if I hadn't come here."

"I think I'll have you come up to my office tomorrow; I'd like to give you the Benjamin Proverb Test and the VigotskyLuria Block Test myself. It's more who gives the test than the test itself."

"I agree with that," I said, feeling apprehensive and nervous.

The next day at one in the afternoon I successfully passed both the Benjamin Proverb Test and the Vigotsky-Luria Block Test. According to the McHeston Act I was legally free; I could go home.

"I wonder if you ever should have been here at Kasanin," Dr. Shedd said. "With people waiting all over the country and the staff overworked--" He signed my release and handed it to me. "I don't know what you were trying to get out of by coming here, but you'll have to go back and face your life once more, and without pleading the pretext of a mental illness which I doubt you have or ever have had."

On that brusque note I was formally expelled from the Federal Government's Kasanin Clinic at Kansas City, Missouri.

"There's a girl here I'd like to see before I leave." I asked Doctor Shedd, "Is it all right to talk to her for a moment? Her name is Miss Rock." Cautiously I added, "I don't know her first name."

Doctor Shedd touched a button on his desk. "Let Mr. Rosen see a Miss Rock for a period of no more than ten minutes. And then take him to the main gate and put him outside; his time here is over with."

The husky male attendant brought me to the room which Pris shared with six other girls in the women's dorm. I found her seated on her bed, using an orange stick on her nails. As I entered she barely glanced up.

"Hi, Louis," she murmured.

"Pris, I had the courage; I went and told him what you said to say." I bent to touch her. "I'm free. They discharged me. I can go home."

"Then go."

At first I did not understand. "What about you?"

Pris said calmly, "I changed my mind. I didn't apply for a release from here; I feel like staying a few months longer. I like it right now--I'm learning how to weave, I'm weaving a rug out of black sheep wool, virgin wool." And then all at once she whispered bleakly, "I lied to you, Louis. I'm not up for release; I'm much too sick. I have to stay here a long time more, maybe forever. I'm sorry I told you I was getting out. Forgive me." She took hold of my hand briefly, then let it go.

I could say nothing.

A moment later the attendant led me through the halls of the clinic to the gate and left me standing outside on the public sidewalk with fifty dollars in my pocket, courtesy of the Federal Government. Kasanin Clinic was behind me, no longer a part of my life; it had gone into the past and would, I hoped, never reappear again.

I'm well, I said to myself. Once more I test out perfectly, as I did when I was a child in school. I can go back to Boise, to my brother Chester and my father, Maury and my business; the Government healed me.

I have everything but Pris.

Somewhere inside the great buildings of Kasanin Clinic Pris Frauenzimmer sat carding and weaving virgin black sheep's wool, utterly involved, without a thought for me or for any other thing.