MADMAN - John R. Suler, Ph.D. - copyright 1995
Chapter 14 - Jaws
I stood motionless in the middle of the inpatient unit, thinking, talking to myself. The soundtrack from the movie spilled forth from the group room and reverberated around me - primal music, those ominous bass notes that throbbed rhythmically, slowly, up from the depths and then back down, gradually building in speed and power.The shark is coming.
"I do not understand why they allow them to watch this movie." It was Sheikh. He looked nervous.
"Wha... What do you mean?" I mumbled as I tried to focus on him.
"Yes. This movie upset me. Sharks hunting and eating people. People hunting and killing sharks. Such horrible things!"
"We Americans love that kind of stuff," I muttered. "We've always lived close to our killer instinct, on the edge of fear."
"But this does not seem appropriate for psychiatric patients. I am afraid this movie might cause some of them to decompensate."
"Yeah, you're right. For the paranoid patients it's their worst nightmare projected into living Technicolor. Who picked out this movie to show them?"
"I believe it is the responsibility of the recreation therapist - Paul."
"Paul picked that movie? He should know better than that. Is he in there watching it? I haven't seen him around."
"I do not see him. Perhaps we should turn it off."
"Be my guest. You're the resident." At times like this I willingly deferred to his superior status.
His eyes opened wide, sending his bushy black eyebrows to the top of his forehead. "Not I! Perhaps we should speak to Fred."
When in doubt, send for the Chief. Let him make the wrong decision. "That's fine by me. Where is he?"
"I believe he is in his office seeing a patient."
We crossed the unit and entered the small secretarial area adjoining the offices for the head nurse, chief resident, and director. Fred's door was closed, but we could hear muffled voices inside.
"We must not knock," Sheikh said. "He is very strict about not being interrupted. It is almost six o'clock. He will be done in a few minutes."
I sat on the secretary's desk while Sheikh paced. I respected him. He truly liked and cared about his patients. He loved to talk to them about their lives. His warmth was genuine - unlike those phony therapists who want you to think that they are Compassion Incarnated, but who really despise their patients for being weak, dependent, and resistant to change.
Fred, on the other hand, probably didn't love or hate his patients. Emotions like that were largely irrelevant, at least consciously. As a loyal obsessive-compulsive, he thought of them as something to work on - like a car or computer. You had to tune them up, adjust their software until they functioned properly. Not that he dehumanized them in a cruel or disparaging way. Not at all. He was an electrical engineer before his switch-over to psychiatry, and he carried over his respect and fascination for electronics to the human mind. In a way, he was admirable for his devotion to the "right way" of conducting psychotherapy. Psychiatrists like Fred love rules and regulations, which is why they love orthodox psychoanalytic treatment. There is a specific, correct method to conduct therapy and you do not deviate from it. You start the session on time; you end it on time. Patients always pay for missed sessions. You only speak when you have a precise interpretation based on specific unconscious derivatives provided by the patient. It's all a very comforting philosophy for people who need everything to be precise, controllable, tidy. Without the rules and regulations, they would have to fly by the seat of their pants when making therapeutic interventions. That's too messy, too anxiety-provoking. They squirm at the thought that "anything goes as long as it works" or that what you do in therapy "depends on the patient" - or, worst of all, that you might have to rely on "intuition." They want to think that all patients can be treated exactly alike, that the same logical, objective method will work for all. Otherwise, therapeutic technique becomes relative and subjective. Either there is only one right way to do it, or we open the door to confusion and chaos - the obsessive's worst nightmare.
I opened the top drawer of the secretary's desk. A pair of dice were buried in the compartment containing paper clips. I picked them up and slowly shook them in a loose fist as I stared at the digital clock. 5:59. The red diode blinked on and off with each passing second, absorbing me into a seemingly endless string of moments. Without thinking, I blew into my hand and tossed the dice across the desktop. They collided with the clock, rolled into Snake-eyes - and the digital readout snapped into place: 6:00.
The door to Fred's office opened dutifully, and out stepped a middle-aged woman wearing a black overcoat. Her eyes were glassy. She walked by without looking at us. Behind her came Fred, wearing a self-satisfied smile.
"You two look like someone just died," he said.
"Or just became human hamburger," I replied.
"What?"
"We wanted to speak to you about the movie that the patients are seeing tonight," Sheikh said. "It's The Jaw."
"Jaws," I translated.
"Jaws? You're kidding. Whose idea was that?"
"We assume that Paul selected the movie," Sheikh replied.
"Paul's on vacation this week - unless he ordered it before he left. But he knows better than that."
"That's what I said."
"Then who ordered this horrible movie?" Sheikh asked.
"I don't know," Fred said impatiently, "but we can't let them watch it."
"Do you really intend to turn it off?" I asked. "Listen to them over there - they're clapping and laughing - they love it."
"They love it now, but wait until later, in the middle of the night, when they see Jaws in the corners of the room, or under their bed, or in the toilet. They won't sleep for a week. My God, we'll have to cart thorazine in here by the wheelbarrow!"
"But if we turn it off," I said, "WE smell like bad fish. Not only do we take away something they like, but we also demonstrate our incompetence by admitting that we shouldn't have shown the movie in the first place."
"Maybe we should speak to Dr. Stein," Sheikh said.
"The director leaves at 5:30," Fred replied, "and I sure don't want to bother him at home. No, I have to make this decision myself."
We all looked out across the unit towards the group room, but no one moved. Fred pulled at his eyebrow. Sweat formed on his upper lip - signs of his momentary indecision, and anxiety. I was glad it was him and not me.
As if summoned by our collective magical thinking, Carol, the head nurse, appeared in the doorway, her red hair shining like a rescue beacon. "Are they watching what I think they're watching?" she asked with a grimace.
"Yeah - Jaws," Fred answered. He looked relieved, like a lost child whose mother suddenly returned. "Do you think we should turn it off?"
"I should think so. Where did it come from anyway? There was no movie scheduled this week. Paul is on vacation."
"We don't know."
"I don't understand this at all," she said. "I'll have to give Paul a call."
"I agree that they shouldn't be watching it," Fred said, "but if we turn it off, we're admitting to making a mistake by having it here in the first place."
"It's better to admit to that mistake," Carol said, "than later having to admit to the mistake of causing someone to decompensate because we allowed them to see it."
"Is it possible we're overreacting," he replied.
"I don't know about that. You weren't here several years ago when we played 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. One schizoid patient became convinced that he was an ambassador from Pluto. And another schizophrenic became more and more mechanical in how he talked and moved, until he regressed into a rigid catatonia. He believed he was turning into a robot. We almost had to use shock treatment as a last resort."
"Klaatu barada nikto," I mumbled.
"What's that?" Fred asked.
"Uh, nothing. I was just thinking - wouldn't any movie then be a potential hazard? Patients could develop delusions of being Pinnocio, Lassie, or Jafar. They might become convinced that the Wicked Witch of the West is after them."
"That's always a possibility," Fred said, "but I think that there's more danger in movies that take themselves seriously in how they violate reality - or in portraying blatant sexual and aggressive situations."
"What about the patients who will be angry that you're taking something away from them," I answered.
"Consciously, they will be disappointed and angry," Fred said, "but underneath that they will feel safe knowing that we are taking all precautions to protect their well-being."
"In the meantime," Sheikh interjected, "our patients get further into this movie."
"Right. I'm going to turn it off." Fred marched out of the room.
"I have to see this," I said following him. Sheikh was not far behind.
Slumped into their seats, sipping sodas and coffee, the patients were so totally engrossed in the film that they did not notice us enter. There were no staff members in the room. Unattended, sitting next to a conspicuously empty chair, the video player turned its reels around and around, feeding itself images - people on a beach, sunbathing, playing catch, swimming ... with hidden evil growing closer.
Confidently, Fred maneuvered along the side of the room, crossed over to the video player, and after briefly scanning the control panel, hit the "stop" button. The room fell dark and silent. Everyone groaned angrily.
"I'm sorry that I have to turn this off," Fred announced loudly, "but there's been a mistake in the movie that was selected for tonight. As many of you probably know, this is a frightening movie - there's a lot of violence in it. For some patients it may be too frightening. Therefore, we've decided that we shouldn't show it."
Several patients moaned in complaint.
"But the water!" I heard Rachel cry.
"Oh, come on, Doc, we're not sissies," one adolescent said. "Besides it's just a story."
"I've seen this movie," responded an older woman sitting across from him, "and I think it's very scary."
"Yeah, like the part when the guy gets bit in half," a man in the back said gleefully.
Fred ignored him. "Thank you Mrs. Watts. Again, I'm sorry that this happened. Next week we'll have another movie for you, and tonight we'll extend the T.V. time to 11 o'clock."
Sheikh darted over to the T.V. and switched it to a network channel. He smiled apologetically and bowed. Grumbling, some of the patients got up to leave. Others simply refocused themselves on the T.V. and a rerun of China Beach. They became absorbed in it immediately, as if the movie had never existed. Didn't matter much to them - any image would do. On his way out Fred nodded at me.
"That wasn't too bad," I said.
"All in a day's work. Which reminds me - you have an intake with that new patient Richard Mobin. His mother will be dropping him off at 7 o'clock."
"What do you know about him?"
Fred grinned, "He's crazy."
"Wonderful - just what I need."
"Just what the doctor ordered," Fred added jokingly, but something in him sensed I wasn't just kidding. "Go get dinner - you have enough time."
"Right." I followed him halfway across the unit where he veered off towards his office and I towards the exit. I slowed down as I approached the doors, stopped, carefully turned the knob until the bolt clicked, then cautiously opened the door and peeked outside. No Phil. I was safe. On my way to the elevator I again checked Marion's office. Her door was closed, but I could hear her talking with someone - a different person than before. No one could say Marion wasn't devoted and hardworking.
As I waited for the elevator I thought about this Richard Mobin. After dinner, normal people spend time with their family, watch T.V., read, or relax. I, on the other hand, was going to chit-chat with a paranoid schizophrenic. What am I doing to myself?
The elevator doors opened. My insides jumped. Standing inside, alone, was that woman - the one next to me in the crowd at lunch. She looked up only briefly as I stepped inside and moved to the corner opposite her. I felt uncomfortable, self-conscious, but could not resist stealing glances. With her eyes lowered and hands folded gently around a book, she appeared sensitive, reserved, almost shy if not for the confidence that flowed through her relaxed, graceful posture. Her wool sweater and cotton pants glided loosely over her body, providing subtle but provocative hints of the beautiful contours beneath - an enticing, mysterious mixture of disclosure and concealment. Yet her beauty was also internal - quiet, peaceful, centered. She brushed her soft brown hair back from her face, and in her eyes I could see she had me captured in her peripheral vision.
We stood there, absolutely still, quiet, as the elevator descended. Staring blankly ahead, I could almost feel her body as if I were holding her - and touch her mind as if it were a tangible thing. That sensation I experienced at lunch filled the elevator, that feeling of being drawn in, distance closing - a silent, intimate awareness wrapping around us.
The elevator came to a rest. The doors opened. Neither one of us moved. When I finally realized we were at the cafeteria level, the doors had already started to close. I darted my hand out to stop them - they slammed onto my finger and popped back open. I didn't even notice the pain as she stepped out, then stopped, and turned back to look at me.
Her eyes met mine - they were bright blue, crystalline, vibrant. They seemed to pull at me. "Thank you," she said softly, and walked away.
The doors closed again. I just stood there, my memory still glowing with the imprinted image of her face... her eyes.... But wait. Her eyes! They were blue! In the cafeteria they were brown! I hit the "open" button, jumped out, and looked up and down the hallway. No one. I walked quickly to the cafeteria. The room was nearly empty - two tired residents poking their forks at desert, a nurse sipping a cup of tea, someone mopping the floor. She was gone!
Disappointed, and somehow vaguely ill at ease, I walked to the serving counter. It was the same stuff they had for lunch, plus three new additions - withered strip steak, peas and carrots, mashed potatoes. Not really caring what I ate, I ordered all three. The attendant - a tall, pale man resembling Bella Lugosi - spooned out my meal with slow, mechanical movements of his arm while the rest of his body remained absolutely stiff. His glassy, vacant stare never moved from his hand. I was being served dinner by the Living Dead.
I carried my tray to a window table and slumped down into the seat. The sun had already fallen below the hillside, leaving only a faint red glow that hovered over the cold landscape. Next to the parking lot, the silhouette of a large oak tree stretched upwards, its long branches pointing like eerie crippled fingers towards a patch of darkness in the corner of the sky. Below the tree sat my car, quiet and patient. It was waiting to take me home.
I sneezed, then again, and again. Three in a row - a very bad sign. My nose started dripping. I searched all my pockets and knapsack, but I didn't have any tissues - and I had forgotten to take napkins from the serving counter. Too tired to get up, I used the back of my hand to wipe my nose. Regressed to a sniveling, mannerless two year old.
Someone was watching. I could sense it. I looked up. Two tables down, nestled into the corner of a booth, was that woman! She quickly looked down at her book as soon as our eyes met. A restrained, bemused smile spread across her lips as she pretended to read. I felt a rush of embarrassment. Had she seen me wipe my nose with my sleeve? Oh God! What a gross out! I should have taken a napkin. I berated myself.... But wait. She had smiled. Maybe it didn't bother her. Maybe she thought it was cute. Hold on, there! Who cares what she thinks? Who is she anyway? And where did she come from? She wasn't sitting there a minute ago. I didn't see her come in. Did she follow me?
I poked my fork at the reservoir of gravy floating in the middle of my mashed potatoes. I cut a channel down one side and watched a rivulet dribble through, forming a pool that slowly seeped around my french-cut green beans.
I looked up. Her eyes were on her book - but I knew that she knew that I was looking at her. And I bet she knew that I knew. God, this gets so complex!... I waited.... She looked up at me. I looked down. She looked down. Without really tasting anything, I delicately stabbed two slices of string beans and placed them into my mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, I didn't taste a thing.
Again I felt her stare. I looked up. She looked down. I looked down. I felt anxious. Using the side of my fork I dammed up the channel in my mashed potatoes, locking the gravy lake inside.
Eye games. The look. A secret glance - the first step in the art of seduction. But who is seducing who? It's so hard to tell sometimes. Am I looking at her, or is she looking at me? Is she staring because she thinks I'm staring - or vice versa? The eye game takes on a life of its own. It draws you into a self-perpetuating dance of sexual curiosity, a pas de deux where both parties reciprocally tease, hide, reveal. They encourage each other, but not too much, and not too little.
The sight of the soggy green beans made me sick. I pushed away the tray and pulled the notebook out of my knapsack. A need to escape into words and thoughts won out over my other instincts. But what would I write? ... A memory came to me - and I let it flow into my pen.
When I was 14 years old, I was invited to a party at a friend of a friend's house. It was not like any party I had been to before. Most of the kids were a few years older than me, and more daring sexually. After the parents disappeared, leaving us adolescents to ourselves in the panelled-wall basement, someone suggested we play spin-the-bottle - but not the ordinary version of the game. You didn't just give someone an innocent kiss when your spin pointed their way. You were supposed to enter an adjacent dark room, close the door, and make out for three minutes. When your time was up, the others would barge into the room and with much laughter usher you out to rejoin the group for the next round. Of course, if your spin pointed at a member of the same sex you were not obligated to comply with the rules. Everyone, especially the boys, just laughed and made wise cracks as a way to dispel their homosexual anxieties.
One by one we went around the circle, each person trying their luck at the bottle. As my turn came closer, I grew more and more panic stricken. I wanted to leave, but I also wanted to stay. This amorous little game could open the door to some wonderful secret, something that stirs the imagination and instincts of every unexperienced adolescent - and it scared me half to death.
The bottle rolled to me. It was my turn. Do or die. Barely managing to control my shaking hand, I set Cupid's glass arrow into a frenzied spin. Around and around it twirled - my thoughts reeling with it - everyone staring, waiting - for what seemed like an eternity - until, gradually, its energy drained, and it moved slower... and slower... and slower...
When it finally came to a rest, it pointed to a girl, a rather quiet, unassuming girl whose name was Connie. Now I didn't know Connie well, in fact I didn't know her at all until this party, and even then I hadn't spoken more than a shy hello. But before I could gather my senses, Connie and I were whisked off to the other room and the door closed behind us.
There I was - a 14 year old kid, sitting in the dark with a girl I didn't know - and I was supposed to make out with her. What does it mean to "make out" anyway? No one had ever fully explained that to me. I was absolutely paralyzed with anxiety. What the hell should I do? I wanted to do something, say something - but my arms, mouth, and even my brain turned to stone. I strained to imagine what the others had done - and between the blanks in my stalled mind I caught flickering, ambiguous images of things I could not see myself doing. How could they have done those things anyway? Kids don't do that, and besides, they only had three minutes. Connie just sat there next to me, silent, patient... waiting - for what seemed like a lifetime. I had to do something, anything, even just to save face. But more was at stake than my pride - this was an opportunity I just could not let slip away, for I would never, ever forgive myself.
From some place deep inside me, I found courage I didn't know I had - a determination that overrode my paralysis, that drove an impulse down into my body and set it into motion. I leaned over, closing a gap ten thousand miles wide - and gently placed a kiss on her lips.
My anxiety evaporated.... The air was completely still... Neither one of us moved...
Suddenly, the door blew open, the gang of kids spilled in, and we were swept back to the game on waves of snickers, guffaws, and vaguely lewd comments. Dazed, I could hardly keep track of what was going on around me. I faintly remember everyone getting tired, the game dying out, and soon after that, the party as well. All that I remember clearly was what happened in that dark room - and Connie's face.
Now I only kissed Connie once that night - but from that moment on I carried a crush as massive as the Himalayas. I couldn't stop thinking about her, about that kiss. I barely slept, and when I did, I dreamt about her. At school I looked for her in the hallways and cafeteria. Constantly scanning the crowds of students around me, gripped by chronic heart palpitations, I awaited the moment she would reappear. As if by pure intuition, by some extra-sensory early warning system that made my hair bristle, I knew when she was near - and when I saw her, a bolt of anxiety shot through me. I was obsessed, possessed, haunted from within. I wanted desperately to say something to her, to ask her out on a date, to tell her I liked her - but I couldn't. Where was that courage I had found the night of the party?
... I never did speak to Connie, and to this day I still regret it - because as I look back, a dozen and a half years later, I realize that she liked me. The crush, as they always do, eventually faded. All that remains is a trace of affection, a remembrance of something special, something intimate having happened, even if it lasted only a second.
How many regrets do we leave behind as we move through life? How many missed opportunities - and loves? Not knowing what might have been is the sadness regret of all.
I snapped the cap back onto my pen. No more games, no more lost chances, not this time. With confidence I looked up and across the cafeteria - she was gone! Damn it! It figures.... but wait. Her open book was still lying face down on the table. I looked around the room but didn't see her anywhere. Should I wait or get up to find her? No more passivity, wasn't that the idea? I got up and walked towards her table. As I passed by I looked at the title of the book - The Magic Mountain. Lying next to it was a radiation exposure plate. So she liked Thomas Mann and worked in radiology. Now I was even more curious, and determined.
I walked around the perimeter of the cafeteria, passed the vending machines, the serving counters, the bathrooms. I looked down the hallway leading to the cafeteria. She wasn't anywhere. I felt anxious, desperate. Where did she go?
On my way back to my seat I stopped dead in my tracks as I approached her table. The radiation plate was still there, but the book was gone! I spun around. She was nowhere in sight. I again ran to the entrance to the cafeteria and looked down the hallway - nothing. She was gone. I could feel it. But how the hell did she get past me? Frustrated, despairing, I picked up my knapsack, dumped my dinner, and headed out. On my way I pocketed the radiation plate. At least I had something to show for my efforts.
I stepped into the elevator not realizing it was heading down. When it opened at the basement level there was no one there. On its way up it again stopped at the cafeteria level - but again no one was there to get on. What the hell is happening? Where the hell are these people calling the elevator? I can't shake this feeling that someone is playing games with me, like a fictional character falling prey to some fatalistic story line. Would even My Biographer betray me?
Thomas would face many difficulties in his life, but none more challenging than doubt - a doubt as unsurpassable as a mountain of iron.