Dear Digby (16 page)

“Hello!” called Iris, poking her head into the Reception Area, where I sat reading
Psychology Quarterly.
I was shocked again by her physical appearance. Her rolling eye seemed more anchored today, but her stitched-up face and skull looked as raw as recent suturing. A surviving victim of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

She wore a bright green shiny taffeta dress; her rigid prosthetic fingers plucked at it nervously.

“Hi there,” I said, shaking the plastic hand. “Iris. You’re famous, kid.”

“So are you!” she shouted. “You and me, Digby! You and me!!” The eye rolled back in her head.

She snapped her fingers. “It’s gone,” she whispered, “gone! All rampant seminal fluid on the premises! It’s
evaporated!
” Her strange speech impediment grew more pronounced. She said “e-val-porated.”

She sat in one of the ugly naugahyde chairs and bounced up and down. “Reporters have been coming and going, going and coming. They indicted the Spiders, the guys who pull the strings at the top! They found Basil Schrantz, trying to run to
California.
…”

“You,” I said, “you did it all. You wrote the letter that brought the empire down.”

“Yeah,” she said, glancing around furtively, “but
now
somebody, I’m not sure
who
yet, is smearing Tiger Balm on each and every sanitary napkin in the washrooms!”

“Let’s talk about it later, okay? Can we go see the Crafts Fair now?”

The crafts filled a few long steel tables in the Day Room, a big windowless space with dull overhead lights. The unindicted nurses and attendants kept a discreet distance from the patients manning the tables, coming forward occasionally to pull a fist gently from a drooling mouth or to help make change or take someone to the bathroom.

There were painted ceramics and hand-thrown pottery bowls and clay ashtrays and bowlegged clay horses and many-legged clay octupi. There were bead earrings and bangles and colored fish mobiles and woven baskets. Then there were the products of altered visual imaginations: a plaster-of-Paris gnome with a huge erection, a Tina Turner scrub brush, a clay tarantula with a Groucho Marx face and cigar, a hardened Playdough Jesus on a trapeze, swinging by one leg, an arm raised in casual blessing. There was a sampler that read: STICK A VITAMIN IN YOUR EYE in shaky script, and blue knit infant booties, size 9, and a tea cozy that said “Butt Out.” Iris showed me the pairs of underpants she’d personally tie-dyed.

“The investigators wanted to keep only a
few
of these for evidence,” she confided. “The rest I made Art of.” She paused and looked levelly at me. “I washed them first.”

I bought the “Butt Out” tea cozy and an ashtray that said “Camomile Smile.” “Those are Dolly Winkey’s,” said Iris. “She gets thing reversed.” I bought a pair of Iris’s pants, as a memento. I really wanted the trapeze Jesus, but the mother of the young man who had made it picked it up and held it to her heart, protectively.

At the last minute I picked up an Empire State Building made of bits of wire soldered together. I wondered where the artist got
wire
(the Electric Shock Room?), but I didn’t ask Iris. The spire was sharp as a hypodermic. Iris saw it in my hand. “They only allowed one of those to be made,” she whispered as I bought it. “Dalbert kept trying to clean his ears with it.”

We moved along the tables, looking at the wares. “We expected a real crowd,” said Iris sadly. “We thought all the recent publicity would be good for business. But people rushed up here for two or three days—then
poof!”

A group of patients, mostly women, mostly shapeless and ageless, dressed in civvies (carefully buttoned shirts and dresses and out-of-date pants, bell-bottoms and floral prints), stood by, pointing and smiling, whispering among themselves. A dwarfish girl with a huge brow she’d tried to cover ineffectually with bangs had a very loud case of hiccups. Another, a camel-faced woman with long red stringy hair and a Hawaiian shirt, stared at everyone and repeated, “Short form! Use the short form!” in a commanding tone.

Yet another, young and mongoloid-looking, very fat, stepped away from the crowd of patients, hurried over to me, and kissed me very softly on the cheek.

“Thank you,” I murmured, touched. She kissed me again. And again. Her eyes were huge and brown.

“That’s enough now, Nina,” said Iris. She gently disengaged the girl and pushed her toward a refreshment table. Nina began walking away but turned back.

“Hey,” she called after us.
“Hey,
you!”

We picked up some Cokes and piled chocolate chip cookies on paper plates and went outside to sit under a tree. I threw my bag carelessly on the ground. I’d remembered at the last minute to remove the .38 on a pit stop at my apartment. I’d been right about the metal detector and the security guard. Besides, carrying a gun was making me too nervous.

The “grounds” stretched around us, about half an acre of what I call Bronx grass: hybrid of yellow-green bald spots, bottle caps, gum wrappers, and some stunted vegetation.

Iris wolfed her cookies, then looked at mine. I pushed them toward her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re not hungry.” (She said hung-ly.)

“Iris, there’s somebody who wants to kill me. He’s following me.”

Her jaws stopped working; she stared at me.

“At first he was just trying to scare me, I think. Then I published one of his letters to me and he got really angry. Now he’s after me.”

I told her about the note on my door and the note at SIS—how he seemed to be able to get in anywhere.

“I got a gun.
And
I’ve been staying with friends at night. But I can’t do that forever. I’m going home tonight and I’m going to stay there, no matter
what
happens.”

Iris started chewing again.

“Where is the gun now?”

“I left it in my apartment—in the drawer of the night table next to the bed. I’m not going to carry it around anymore. I don’t like it.”

Iris polished off the last cookie. She drank some Coke and burped an enormous burp.

“Kill ’em.” She belched.

“Huh?”

“Kill the rat-head, the bag of seminal fluid. Blow him into New Jersey.”

“Iris. There’s something else I have to tell you. I did that once to someone. When I was a kid. It was an accident, but nonetheless I did it. It’s made me crazy. But”—I leaned closer to her—“what I can’t understand about myself is
as soon
as this guy started bugging me, I wanted a gun. I went out and got a gun. Why? Now I can’t sleep at all. I keep seeing the face of … Matthew, the kid I shot. Then I keep dreaming of this gun I’m carrying. I dreamed I was carrying it wrapped up like a baby. Then I talk to a baby that I lost some months ago, as if she were still in my
womb.
Her name is Lily, Iris.”

Iris nodded and belched again, a long, low, grieving expulsion of air. She had eaten all the cookies and had drunk both Cokes. Her face was so chopped up it was hard to read; it did not organize readily into identifiable expressions. Now was no exception, but then I saw a tear slowly form at the edge of her jumping eye.

“Babies and guns”—she burped again—“that’s America. You were having a patriotic dream.” She sat up a little, reached over and touched my hand. “If anybody hurts you, I’ll kill them,” she said. “If anyone touches you when I’m not there,
you
kill them for me. What happened to you before, shooting the kid, that was an accident.
I
had an accident too. I had an accident and I was
exploded.”

She brought her face close to mine, brushed the tear away. “I was exploded, and my heart stopped three times. They wanted to pronounce me dead three times, the doctor told me afterward. There were
pieces
of me, an arm and most of my face, on the sidewalk and in a litter basket. I mean, they couldn’t find enough of me, of unburned skin, for grafts.” She laughed and touched her scalp. “I think they used the surgeon’s rubber gloves on my head. I hurt a lot, and I have … seizures when I black out and can’t remember anything. I have phlebitis because I have to lie flat on my back in bed for days at a time. And on top of that I had people spraying seminal fluid up me every five minutes. But, Willis, I survive, don’t I? You had an accident when you were a kid. So did I. So what? Every day I write in my
journal,
just to document this great life! It’s
now
now. And if people spray seminal fluid at you, you spray ’em back in spades—get ’em like we did Basil Schrantz! If somebody kills you, kill ’em back
in spades!
You know what I mean. Just enough to scare ’em.”

I nodded, trying to follow her reasoning.

“I’m not saying an eye for an eye here. I’m saying a leg, an arm, an internal organ,
and
an eye for an eye. But be
fair
about it. Have a little mercy.”

She burped again.

“Whatever you say, Iris.”

“Willis, God’s telling me something … hold on. Hold
on.
She’s sayin’ to me that the guy’s gonna show up
tonight.
Face him. Fight him.
Wake up,
Willis! I’m getting angry, I’m talkin’ to
you!”

“Who
is God saying will walk out of my apartment alive?”

She patted my arm, suppressing another blast, puffing out her cheeks.

“Coke gives me gas,” she said.

Later, after I’d met her yoga instructor and the crafts teacher and some other patients, I shook hands good-bye. Iris stood by my side as I waited for my taxi. She leaned very close, her ripped mouth panting, her loose eye rolling kindly in my direction.

To my horror, she began to cry. “You haven’t really heard anything I’ve said,” she whimpered. Nina appeared out of nowhere and began weeping too, standing on one foot and then the other. She reached out her arms to Iris, then tentatively embraced her. I put my arms around them both and joined in the tears.

“Iris,” I sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

We all cried, holding on, weaving back and forth.

“Here, Iris.” I fished in my bag and gave her the extra key to my apartment, the one I’d forgotten to deliver to Terence at a high point in our romantic evening the night before. “Come anytime you need to talk,” I said. I kissed her and pulled softly away from Nina. Nina stopped me, looked into my eyes, and gave my face a long, wet lick.

“Breathe deeply. Count backward from ten,” she said.

“Good-bye,” I said.

Just then a man in a white tunic came up. He had cultivated my least-favorite male hairstyle. He was balding slightly, but had grown his hair long—in a flowing Beatles “do.” He looked like an aging George Harrison, but
mean,
with a caymanlike jaw that sprang open and shut with force.

“Iris. Nina,” he crooned. “Time for Group.”

They shrugged. Iris dried her eyes, winked, and showed me the key already hidden in her sleeve. She smiled at The Cayman. “Group sucks,” she said sweetly. Nina was still crying. Iris waved and walked off with her, helping her along the path.

The Beatle-Cayman-Doctor looked at me from under his bangs. “I understand you’re the SISTERHOOD reporter whom Iris contacted. It’s
phenomenal.
I can’t tell you, really, what this has done to the
rest
of us, who are
also
victims—in the sense that we were completely ignorant about what was going down here. This has been a
shock
to everybody. But we’re grateful that it came to light, I can share
that
with you!”

I looked away. The guy was probably perfectly okay, but I was in no mood for shrinks. I searched the long drive in vain for a sign of my taxi. Then I checked out his name plate.

“Dr. Bush, I’m not a reporter. I’m an editor.”

“And
I’m
not
just
Dr. Bush, I’m director of this institution. Hey, I don’t mean to overwhelm you—this is no
power
trip—but my position
does
give me a particular perspective on your
gamble.”

I felt myself getting angry.
“What
gamble?”

“Well. The
obvious.
I mean, what kind of person trusts a completely disturbed voice out of
nowhere?”
He laughed, an unpleasant sound. “Let’s face it: I
adore
our Iris, but she’s at risk. I’ll share with you that she is clearly not our most integrated personality. But you knew
that!”
He laughed his horrid laugh again.

“The letter made sense to
me.
And it proved to be true. So what’s your
point?”
I glared at him.

“Yeees,” he crooned. He pushed his bangs back and touched his wispy mane self-consciously. “You were very
lucky.
This could have all backfired in your face, sweetheart—
what
is your name?”

“Digby. Willis Digby.”

“Miss Digby. Iris is so delusional—oh, God, how does one make it real to the uninitiated? And something tells me
you’ve
never been in therapy! Well, let’s start here—Iris is so
delusional
that it’s almost impossible for her to separate her invented realities from what is actually happening to her. I’ll share with you that it’s a limited-progress case. I’m sure she’s told you about her life. The mother was psychotic, suicidal, killed herself and tried to kill her little girl, Iris. She opened a gas valve, then took a cigarette lighter to it. Forced little Iris to stand next to her, hold the flame.”

“Bull
shit
!” I yelled. A few people looked over. “Iris’s mother was beautiful, a beautiful, kind woman with auburn hair in a goddamn French twist—an ice-cream truck had a generator explosion and it blew her up.”

“Oh,
sure!”
He laughed his ghastly snort-laugh. “You liked that story?” He pushed his big bangs out of his eyes again, to give me his sincerest look. “It’s one of many she tells herself, Miss Digby, to help herself cope with the incomprehensible and unending horror of her life. She had a
murderess
for a mother! And can you imagine living inside that
body?”
He clucked like a hen. “She tells stories; she invents love. Hasn’t she told you that she thinks she’s beautiful?” He smirked a little.

The cab finally poked into the drive. I waved it down. I was shaking. I picked up my bag and stared into his nasty little shrink’s eyes.