A Question of Mercy (32 page)

Adam

When he steps into the river, his shoes fill up, and his pants suck at his legs. He likes being in the river more than being at Cadwell, but he goes deeper than he has ever been before. Jess said it would be all right. Jess loves him and makes his mind clear as sunrise. She can't come with him
.

The river grows cold, but no more burning wires will be placed on his head. Those wires made him dazy like a ragdoll, not able to remember who he was. They tried to make him somebody he was not, but he wouldn't go back there. So now he tries to float, his clothes like balloons on his arms. In the water he feels washed of desire, of need. I'm not scared, he thinks. He is floating, floating; but his pants grow wet and heavy. He calls to Jess and hears her say, I'm here
.

Now he can't remember. Maybe the river remembers everything. He becomes soft underwater, tumbling, not breathing. Jess said she would stay there. He is going far away. Don't cry, he told her; then she did. She will see him sometime in the ocean, but it won't be him. And he will never wear the helmet again, or be locked in the metal clamps. And Mama's eyes won't look down when she leads him out of Cadwell, and Papa B. won't drive sad home, and Jess won't cry. And Hap.Hap
.

Everything is moving too fast. He sinks down and pulls back up. Underneath, he sees fishes, and mud fills his eyes. Breathe. He can't breathe. He didn't know it would be this hard. He waits for the ocean, wishing it would come soon. He coughs out water, but more water bathes his head. His chest hurts, like knives stabbing. He tries to call out. Hap
.

Adam has always known about the word Love; he knows who has it and who does not have it. He is not smart, but he is smart about the word Love. He knows what it means. It means he can live in people's hearts, like they live in his
.

Now, he is no longer floating. Now, he is more river than man. The water fills up his clothes and eyes. His legs are water and he has touched the river-floor. If he is gone from the world, he is gone from the world—and nothing will ever be the same
.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

T
his novel truly began with my grandmother's younger sister, Pearl. She went to school for only a short time and never became independent or integrated into society, although no one ever mentioned that she might be “retarded” or “deficient.” She was beautiful as a young woman, and sought out the company of men, which caused much concern for her family. At nineteen she fell in love, married a young man, and ran away; but the police found her and brought her home. The marriage was annulled, and Pearl, heartbroken, lived most of her life with her sister (my grandmother), helping her to raise five children. She spent much of her time cooking and cleaning, then in the late afternoon she sat on the sofa to work her “arithmetic.”

I knew Pearl only as an older woman who always had brown syrup at the corners of her mouth, which I believed was chocolate, but later learned that it was snuff. I liked to work arithmetic with her. I don't remember if her calculations were correct. I didn't care. I loved being with her and I loved eating her fried chicken and her three-layer lemon cheesecake. I do remember her temper, how she would throw things in the kitchen, and yell.

During the 1950s Pearl, then in her seventies, was sent to the asylum in Milledgeville, Georgia. She died there. I was about ten. To this day, no one in the family has mentioned the word “retarded” in reference to Aunt Pearl.

In the 1960s I got a job teaching Special Education in the public schools. Special Ed. was a new experiment in Tennessee, and this class was the only one of its kind in our school. The class had twelve students: a few had Down's Syndrome, several were brain-damaged, one was a crippled, hydrocephalic teenager, two had severe cerebral palsy, and one boy who never spoke and might have been more emotionally disturbed than mentally deficient. These students ranged in age from eight to nineteen. Each needed individual attention and each one learned differently. If I changed the bulletin board to emphasize images particular to Thanksgiving or Christmas, the
brain-damaged children felt displaced and distraught. I learned quickly the importance of stability.

After a few months I noticed that no meanness lived in these students. They could be mischievous and they could misbehave or throw a tantrum, but they appeared not to have the capacity for cruel or deceptive behavior calculated to hurt someone's feelings. I was inspired by the children's determination to learn, reveled in their ability to laugh and joke, and felt calmed by their lack of competitive edge and by their generous ability to help one another. I loved being with them each day and I began to prefer their company to that of other people I knew.

By Christmas vacation I could not bear the thought of not seeing them for two weeks. After the Christmas party with cupcakes, Christmas tree cookies, and ice cream, and as they were leaving, I put my head on my desk and sobbed. They were, of course, excited about leaving the school, but came back to comfort me, gathering around, patting my back, and telling me in halting and unintelligible speech that “it would be all right.”

These kids worked harder at their simple tasks than I had ever worked at anything in my life. They possessed patience, persistence, and a kind of acceptance that I had seen nowhere else. Their lives were more emphatically sensory, with a remarkable ability to notice the world around them.

The death of Eunice Kennedy Shriver brought focus, once again, on the plight of the mentally handicapped. Eunice's sister, Rosemary Kennedy, was considered “retarded” or “mentally ill' and, in 1942, because of her tantrums and the fear that Rosemary would become sexually active, her father allowed her to undergo a lobotomy, a practice familiar in those days. The lobotomy was badly botched, and Rosemary remained in an institution for the rest of her life.

During the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, people loosely categorized as retarded, mentally challenged, or mentally ill were often institutionalized and treated experimentally. In many cases, life lived in those early institutions—often in the South called asylums—was hardly a life at all.

This book is an apology to those who lived in a world unwilling to make a loving place for them. Faulkner's Benji was “gelded,” Steinbeck's Lenny was shot by the one who loved him most. I give a nod to the literature that focuses on characters not understood by society, and therefore deemed not worthy of a full life. I hope Adam's heart will remain full in the minds of my readers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
want to gratfully thank those who have helped this book come to light: Marly Rusoff, my agent who was enthusiastic and believed in this novel; Jonathan Haupt, my editor, who read with such intelligence and care; Herb Barks, my brother, who made good suggestions each time he read it; Jill Mc-Corkle, my friend who read through several versions and whose keen eye for character and plot helped me to revise; and Kittsu Greenwood, my lontime friend who read every version of this novel and gave me help the whole way.

I wish to also thank Judy Sternlight, my former editor at Random House, who edited an early version of the novel; Mark Byrnes, history professor at Wofford College, who gave advice about the Korean War; and Dan Barks and Max Hyde, lawyers, who answered questions about court procedure.

For their constant support and encouragement I thank Elizabeth Morrow, Michael Cox, Coleman Barks, Ginger Smith, and Bill Arthur. Without their affirmations, writing would be too lonely.

Finally, thanks are owed to my husband, C. Michael Curtis, who is both my constant and fierce editor and my loving sweet companion.