The Ninth Configuration (6 page)

“It doesn’t convince you?”

“Intellectually, yes; but emotionally-no. And that,” he concluded, “is the problem.”

He marched to the door and turned. “Incidentally,” he demanded, “what were you doing in the clinic in the middle of the night?” He stood there, waiting for some reaction; but there was none; no change of expression.

“What are you looking for, Cutshaw?” Kane asked him.

“Joe DiMaggio,” Cutshaw said, and walked out slowly.

Kane stayed in the office for several more hours, deliberately leaving the office door open. A number of the inmates wandered in, each on some outrageous pretext. Kane would watch and listen and soothe. Fell poked his head in once, but waved and went away when he saw that Reno was there: the inmate had asked for Kane’s opinion on whether two Pekingese “would look ridiculous” as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

After dinner, Kane roamed the mansion’s main hall for a time, seemingly encouraging the inmates to approach him. He checked some new paintings on the easels. He waited. But Cutshaw did not appear. At ten, Kane went up to his bedroom and began to prepare himself for sleep. But there were constant visitors barging through his door, inmates with problems and with grievances. The last of them were Fromme and an inmate named Price.

“May I speak to you for a moment?” Fromme asked him, standing at the door.

“Of course.”

“I want schooling, sir. May I have it? I want to fulfill my life’s ambition. When I get out of here, of course. But I just can’t live without my dream, sir. It’s been my dream since I was a boy. I’m thirty-five, but it isn’t too late if I go to school. Could I go right away? Maybe ‘Operation Bootstrap,’ Colonel?”

Kane asked him what level of schooling he had completed and whether his credits would be sufficient to admit him to medical school.

“Medical school?” Fromme blinked. “No. I want to play the violin. I want to play like John Garfield in Humoresque. I want to play that scene. I want people to think I’m just a kid from the slums, and then, zappo! I whip out the violin and I stun Joan Crawford and her snotty rich friends. I want to play that scene all the time.”

Kane was kind.

Price was more difficult. A wiry, blond-haired man with deep-set eyes that probed like death rays out of a gaunt and cadaverous face, he bulled his way into the bedroom.

“I want my flying belt,” he demanded.

“I beg your pardon?”

Price looked away in disgust. “Yeah, yeah, same act, same old routine. Christ!” He turned back to Kane and began to speak in the manner of a man repressing frustration and terrible anger, his voice growing louder and more belligerent as he spoke. “Yeah, I want my flying belt, okay? Yeah, sure, you’ve never heard of it. Right? Bullshit! Now kindly have the goodness to admit that you’re able to read my thoughts! that my spaceship has crashed on the planet Venus! that this is Venus and you’re a Venusian and that you’ve illegally invaded my mind to try to make me believe that I’m still on earth! I’m not on earth and you’re not an earthman! I’m standing here up to my asshole in fungus,” Price shouted, “and you’re a giant brain!” He abruptly assumed a conciliatory tone: “Come on, now, give me back my flying belt; I won’t use it to escape, I swear it!”

Kane asked him why he wanted the belt and Price reverted to acid hostility. “I want to play Tinker Bell in drag in a fungoid production of Peter Pan. All right? Are you happy? Now, where the hell is it?”

“It’s coming,” Kane said softly.

“But why is it gone?” Price asked. Then he leaned his head conspiratorially, whispering, “Listen! The brain named Cutshaw says you’re not a brain at all. He said that your name is Sibylline Books. Is that the truth?”

“No.”

“Dammit, who can I believe!” bawled Price. He lowered his voice. “Listen, he offered me a deal. He said if I gave him the map coordinates of the factory on my planet that manufactures all those CB radios, he’d get me back the belt. He wants to bomb the fucking factory. But I was loyal. Understand? I told him no, that you’d feel hurt. Now let’s reciprocate, you bastard!” Again Price’s voice was loud and shrill. “Help me out or I might find a way to kill you, to give you ultimate migraine headache! Where’s the belt!”

“We’ll have one soon.”

“What the hell do you take me for, a stupe? Why the Christ do you think my government picked me? Because I see real good in space? I’ve had all the crap and hocus-pocus I can take! Understand? Produce the belt in twenty-four hours or you’re in trouble! Now go and wrap yourself in fronds or whatever you do when you have to sleep! I am sealing off my mind!”

Price’s departure left Kane exhausted. He lay down on his bed and covered his eyes with the crook of his arm. And he was suddenly deeply asleep and dreaming: Rain. The jungle. The man with the Z-shaped scar on his brow. Kane was kneeling by a body again, the Franciscan. And someone was hunting him, coming closer and closer each second. The man with the scar was looking down at him. He looked at his hands: they were holding the ends of a bloodstained wire. “Colonel, let’s get out of here, let’s get out of here, let’s get—”

Abruptly the dream was penetrated by someone’s scream of agony, and Kane found himself jerking bolt upright, awake. He felt a confusion. Someone needed him. He realized with a start that it was morning. He closed his eyes again. There was a light rapping at the door. He stood up wearily and went to answer it, expecting to find an inmate. It was Fell.

“Come on in,” said Kane.

Fell entered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kane.

“Wrong?”

“Yes, what is it? Can I help?”

Fell scrutinized him intently, then shook his head and sat down in an overstuffed chair near the bed. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just thought I’d check in with you, see how you were doing.”

Kane sat on the edge of the bed near Fell. Fell was wearing a khaki shirt and pants. He lit a cigarette. Fanning out the match, he peered across at Kane. “Jesus, you look beat. Didn’t you sleep?”

“Not till late. There was always an inmate at the door with some problem.”

“Then keep the door locked,” said Fell.

“No,” said Kane vehemently. “They’ve got to be able to see me whenever they need to.”

“Hey, look, can I tell you something?” said Fell. “I’ve got a suspicion these constant hangings on your door are just part of a plan to convince you that they’re sick and that it’s all for real. And I want you to notice something: these guys did the same thing to me my first day here; and then it slackened off-until you got here.

Then it started all over again with you.”

“I see the point,” murmured Kane. “Yes, I see.”

“Cutshaw’s their leader, the goddam mastermind; in a word, the biggest pain in the ass. Anyway, that’s how I see it; you can take it for what it’s worth. You want breakfast?”

“What?” Kane looked dazed.

“Do you want any breakfast?”

Kane seemed far away. He was staring out the window. It was raining very heavily again. The sky was dark and distant thunder rumbled and crackled. He shut his eyes and put his head down, pinching the corners of his eyes with thumb and finger.

“Something wrong?” asked Fell.

Kane shook his head.

“Something right?”

“That dream,” Kane murmured.

“What was that?”

“I just flashed on a dream I keep having. A nightmare.”

Fell raised his feet and plopped them onto a hassock. “As Calpurnia said to Sigmund Freud, you tell me your dream and I’ll tell you mine.”

“It isn’t my dream,” said Kane.

“Beg pardon?”

“I said it isn’t my dream.” Kane spoke softly. “A patient of mine-a former patient: a colonel just back from Vietnam-he had a grotesque recurring nightmare. It was something that happened to him in combat; or at least the central idea of it was. And ever since he told me about it …” Kane paused; and then he turned haunted eyes on Fell. “Ever since he told me about it,” he repeated, “I keep dreaming it.”

“Jesus,” breathed Fell.

“Yes. Exactly.” Kane looked away. “It’s very strange.”

“ ‘Strange’ isn’t the word. I mean, isn’t that carrying transference just a little bit far?”

Kane looked at him a moment before he answered. “I suppose it’s all right to tell you this now.” He looked down at the rug on the floor. “Yes. At this point, why not? It was my brother.”

“The patient?”

“Yes.”

“Aha. Twin brother?”

“No.”

“Well, that still would tend to explain it, though,” said Fell. “You’re psychically attuned. You’re brothers. You’re very close.”

“No, we’re not.”

“But you must be.”

“Fell, have you ever heard of ‘Killer’ Kane?” Kane was now looking straight into Fell’s eyes.

“Buck Rogers,” grunted Fell.

“No, not that ‘Killer’ Kane: ‘Killer’ Kane the Marine.”

“Oh, well, sure. Who hasn’t? The guerrilla-warfare guy. Killed forty, fifty men with his hands. Or was it eighty? Hey, hold it! Are you saying …?”

“That’s my brother,” said Kane.

“You’re kidding!”

Kane shook his head.

“You’re kidding!” Fell was sitting up straight, his expression at once amazed and pleased.

Kane looked away. “I wish I were.”

“Uh-oh; do I detect that you don’t get along?”

“You do.”

“When you were kids he put frogs in your bed at night. Is that it? Here, lie down and free-associate,” Fell said wryly. “Talk about your brother.”

“He’s a killer,” said Kane.

“He’s a Marine. He gets dropped behind enemy lines and does his duty. Jesus, you’re serious about this.” Fell frowned. “Come on, man, he’s a hero.” Then, “Aha!” he pounced. “Sibling rivalry!”

Kane said, “Let’s forget it.”

“Are you sure you know what business you’re in? These recruiting-office sergeants can be sneaky.”

Kane closed his eyes and held his hand out to Fell, palm outward, in a gesture suggesting that Fell desist.

“You a friend of Jane Fonda?” pressed Fell.

“We’re close.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m kidding.”

Fell nodded and stood up. “I’m for coffee. You coming?”

Kane stayed seated. “In a minute or two. I need to change.”

“Yeah, sure. How’s your brother, by the way? You know, I met him when I was stationed in Korea. That was quite a little while ago, but I remember him. A hell of a guy. We palled around. I really liked him. I liked him very much, in fact.”

“He’s dead,” said Kane.

“Oh, Jesus. Hey, I’m sorry. I really am sorry.”

“That’s all right. That’s why I told you about the dream.”

Fell looked despondent. “Listen, how did it—” He stopped. “Never mind.”

He opened the door and pointed down. “See you downstairs,” he said.

Kane nodded.

Fell closed the door behind him and fumbled for a cigarette with trembling fingers. Tears coursed down his face.

Stripped to the waist, Kane sat on the edge of the examination table in the clinic. Fell continued with the physical checkup Kane had submitted to at his nagging insistence.

“Any blurring of the vision? Any feeling of just generally seeming unglued?”

“No.”

Fell grunted and shone a penlight into Kane’s eyes. Then he clicked it off and slipped it into a pocket of his white jacket. Folding his arms, he leaned back against a wall and looked up at Kane. “If you don’t take to locking your bedroom door at night and scheduling regular office hours for consultation with the inmates, I’m recommending Rest and Reassignment, Doctor, and it won’t take long to process, believe me. I’ve got all kinds of juice where it counts.”

Over the past ten days the inmates, especially Cutshaw, had subjected Kane to barrages and sallies by day and by night.

“I’m serious,” said Fell. “You’re just plain driving yourself too hard.

On the level. I can do that. You want that done? Reassignment?”

Kane’s eyebrows knitted together. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Chronic fatigue, for one thing. Rapid pulse rate. Your blood pressure’s fine for an attacking rhino. What the hell are you trying to prove?”

Kane lowered his head and was silent. Then he murmured, “Maybe so.”

“Maybe what?”

“We might do with a few restrictions. A couple. I’ll think about it.”

“Hooray. Now you’re getting some sense.”

Neither man could see Cutshaw eavesdropping out in the hall, a little to the side of the open clinic door. Hearing footsteps coming down the stairs, Cutshaw hurried away, pale and troubled.

“Picking up any insights?” asked Fell. “Any answers?”

Kane slipped his shirt off a hanger on a tree pole. “Maybe Cutshaw,” he said, looking thoughtful.

“What about him?”

“He keeps after me on God, on metaphysical questions.” He slipped on the shirt and began to button it. “There are some of us who feel that the root of all neuroses lies in the failure of an individual to perceive any meaning in his life, or in the universe. A religious experience is the answer to that.”

“That’s what Cutshaw wants? Religion?”

“He wants his father to be Albert Einstein and Albert Einstein to believe in God.”

“Then the men aren’t faking it. Is that what you believe? I mean, is that your instinct?”

Kane said simply, “I don’t know.”

They left it at that.

The following day, Kane was standing in the hall alone, examining a painting by one of the inmates, when Fell came up beside him. “How’s the boy?”

“I’m fine,” said Kane, his eyes still fixed on the painting. It was the one with the needle through the finger.

Fell gestured at it with a move of his head. “Does that mean something?”

“All of them do. They’re clues to a man’s unconscious. Like dreams.”

Fell lit a cigarette. “And what about your dream?” he asked. “Still having it?”

Kane did not respond. Instead he said, “Cutshaw doesn’t paint. That’s too bad.” He looked thoughtfully at Fell. He studied him intently. A troubled look had furrowed the skin around his eyes. “I dreamed about you last night,” he said.

“Really? What did you dream?”

“I don’t remember,” said Kane, still troubled. “It was something odd.”

The men looked up at the sound of barking.

“Colonel!”

Reno and his dog bounded up to them. Breathlessly, Reno said, “Colonel, I’m in trouble. You’ve got to help me.”

Fell said, “Take an enema and check with my service tomorrow morning.”

Reno cupped his hands around his mouth so that his voice took on a boomy resonance. “Dr. Fell, you’re wanted in surgery. Put some acupuncture needles where you need them most.” He glared at Fell and muttered, “Jerk!” Then he turned to Kane. “I meant motivational trouble, not medical. I speak of the problem of Hamlet’s madness. I’ve been having an argument, Colonel, a monster, and I’d like you to settle it once and for all.” Reno frowned. His dog sat on its haunches beside him. “Listen, here’s the puzzlement, the perplexity, the curious, mysterious fandango. Do you mind if I sit down, by the way?”

“Go ahead,” said Kane.

Reno sat on the floor. “Now, some—” He broke off and glared at Fell, who was laughing, a hand pressed over his mouth. Reno said blackly, “Why don’t you go inoculate a fucking armadillo, Fell. Get lost, pal. Take a hike.”

“Let’s go into my office,” said Kane.

“Yeah, sure.”

As they walked with him, Kane prodded him gently. “You were saying?”

“Lovely man. I was saying that some Shakespearean scholars say that when Hamlet’s pretending he’s crazy, he really is crazy. Correct?”

Kane turned to look at Reno. “That’s so,” he said.

“But other Shakespearean scholars say that when Hamlet’s pretending he’s nuts, he really isn’t nuts. They say it’s an act. Now, Colonel, I come to you as a shrinker and as a sympathetic pussycat. Please give me your opinion.”

“I’d like to hear yours first,” said Kane.

“Terrific psychiatrist! That’s class!”

They had arrived at the office. Kane stood and Fell sat down on the sofa. Reno stood near the door with his dog.

“Okay, now,” said Reno, “let’s look at what Hamlet does. First, he shtravanses around the place in his underwear. Correct? And that’s only for openers.” Reno started ticking off the points on his fingers. “Then he calls the king his mother; tells a nice old man, a hard worker, that he’s senile; he throws a tantrum at a theater party; and then he starts talking dirty to his girlfriend while she’s sitting there watching the play. She just came there to watch it; what did she come there for, to hear Hamlet’s dirty mouth?”

Kane began to speak, but Reno interrupted.

“Like a sewer, Hamlet’s mouth! Good God almighty, that’s his girlfriend there!”

“Ophelia,” grunted Fell, blowing smoke.

“Very nice,” grated Reno. “So much for your medical confidentiality.”

“The problem,” urged Kane.

“Yes, the problem. The problem is this. Pay attention! Considering how Hamlet is acting, is he really and truly nuts?”

Kane said, “Yes,” as Fell was saying, “No.”

Reno said, “Both of you are wrong!”

Kane and Fell looked at each other without expression: Reno ran to Kane’s desk and leaped up on it, sitting on its edge. He lectured Kane and Fell. “Take a look at what happens: his father dies; his girl leaves him flat; then comes an appearance by his father’s ghost. Bad enough, but then the ghost says he was murdered.

And by whom? By Hamlet’s uncle! Who recently married Hamlet’s mother! Listen, that by itself is a great big hang-up; Hamlet, he liked his mother-a lot! Listen, never mind that: I don’t want to talk filth. All I say is, what happens to this poor schmuck is very unsettling at the least. And when you see he’s a sensitive, high-strung kid, all these things are enough to drive him crazy. And that’s especially when you consider all of this happened in very cold weather.”

“Then Hamlet’s insane,” Kane concluded.

“No, he isn’t,” corrected Reno, his face glowing. “He is pretending.

But-but!-if he hadn’t pretended to be crazy, he would have gone crazy!”

Kane’s demeanor grew more intensely alert. He kept his gaze locked firmly on Reno.

“See, Hamlet isn’t psycho,” the inmate continued. “However, he’s hanging on the brink. A little push, you know, an eensy little teensy little shove, and the kid would be gone! Bananas! Whacked out! And Hamlet knows this! Not his conscious mind: unconsciously he knows it; so his unconscious makes him do what keeps him sane: namely, acting like he’s nuts! ‘Cause acting nutty is a safety valve, a way to let off steam; a way to get rid of your fucking aggressions and all of your guilts and your fears and your—”

Fell started to interrupt and Reno cut him off sharply, warning, “Watch, you! Don’t talk dirty!”

“I never talk—”

“Quiet, you! I know you: a dirty mind in a dirty clinic! Even your dental floss is dirty!”

Avidly, Reno turned back to Kane. “Little Booboo, Hamlet avoids going crazy by pretending that he’s crazy; by doing ridiculous, terrible things. And the crazier he acts, the healthier he gets!”

“Yes,” breathed Kane. There was dawning in his eyes.

“I mean terrible,” Reno continued. “But meantime, he’s safe; understand me? Look, if I did what Hamlet does in the play, they’d lock me up, you understand? They’d put me away in an institution. But him? Prince Royal Garbagemouth? He gets away with murder. And why? Because nuts are not responsible for their actions!”

“Yes!” Kane was agitated.

“Does Hamlet think he’s crazy?” asked Fell.

“Come on, nobody crazy thinks he’s crazy,” Reno answered disdainfully.

“Christ, what a putz.”

Neither Kane nor Fell spoke. Reno said, “Does silence mean consent?”

“A Man for All Seasons,” murmured Fell.

Reno shook his head in disbelief.

Kane’s eyes were fevered. “I think,” he told Reno, “I agree with your theory.”

Triumphantly, Reno whirled on his dog. “There! You see, dumb, stubborn idiot! From now on we do the scene my way!” He turned to Kane, said, “God bless your arteries, Colonel,” and walked out of the office. “Come on,” he snapped at the dog. “Rip Torn, you don’t know shit!”

Kane sat down at his desk and stared at his telephone. After a silence,

Fell spoke. “I want you to listen to me,” he said. “Groper laid on some rules today, like no more visitations with you after seven o’—” “Groper shouldn’t have done that!” Kane interrupted.

“I told him to do it.”

“You had no right!”

“I told you, you’re driving yourself too hard!” Fell’s voice was heated.

“I want the restrictions lifted,” said Kane.

“Terrific!” Fell shook his head. “I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that the Hamlet theory is a ploy dreamed up by Cutshaw to get you to lift the restrictions.”

Kane’s face was alive, excited.

“Any comment on that, Little Booboo?” asked Fell.

“I only wish,” Kane said fervently, “I were sure that it was so!”

“Oh, you can be sure, all right. Take a look in Cutshaw’s footlocker and you’ll find a book called Madness in Hamlet. You know what’s in it? The theory that Reno just gave us.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“So Cutshaw put Reno up to it!”

“What else?”

“Good! It fits!” said Kane.

“The hole in my head?”

“The Hamlet theory is correct: it’s precisely the condition of most of these men! And Cutshaw’s sending in Reno to explain it is just like those paintings out there in the hall: someone’s disguised and terrified shout for us to help him-and telling us how!”

“And that someone is Cutshaw?”

“His unconscious!”

Kane picked up the telephone receiver and pressed on the intercom buzzer. Then he gazed up at Fell. “Incidentally, how do you know what’s in Cutshaw’s footlocker?”

“Can’t tell you. ‘Medical confidentiality.
’ ”

“Get me Fort Lewis,” Kane ordered into the phone. He sounded exhilarated. “Quartermaster’s Office. Thank you.” Kane hung up and awaited the connection.

“What are you doing?” Fell asked.

“We’re going to need some supplies.”

“What for?”

“We are going to give the men their ‘safety valve’ to the greatest possible degree. We are going to indulge them monumentally.”

“Precisely how do you propose to do that?” Fell asked.

Kane explained it.

Fell looked troubled. “Do it in writing,” he advised. “Don’t you think?”

“Oh?”

“It’s a little far out for most people, not to speak of the military mind,” reasoned Fell. “If I were you, I’d lay the arguments out on paper.”

“You think so.”

“Give the imbeciles something to look at. Pieces of paper make them feel more secure.”

Kane thought. Then he buzzed and canceled the call, and Cutshaw burst in upon them, exclaiming, “We want to play Great Escape!” He pounded a fist on Kane’s desk. “We want shovels, picks and jackhammers!”

Fell decided that Cutshaw must have been eavesdropping in the hall outside the office while Kane was explaining his new approach. He excused himself, went to his bedroom, telephoned the Pentagon general again and had an argument. He lost. That evening he flew to Washington and early the next day he resumed the argument in person. This time he won.

On his return, Kane asked where he’d been.

“Got an uncle in trouble,” Fell explained.

“Can I help?”

“You’re helping. Every kind thought is the hope of the world.”