by Nick Patey

The boys shook pool cues and smashed balls aimlessly. An unwatched television set wasted electricity. A shaky hand recovered the sunken balls and placed them back on the table nervously. The boys had lost the plot.

Elsewhere, rain kept people in, accelerating the thoughts of outsiders.

He approached the entrance cold and damp. A hand led him through a corridor and into the male dormitory. His bags, clothes and "person" were examined for "obvious reasons. It's the rules." His wallet was emptied and its contents documented.

The paper work was exhaustive but "essential. You must be patient."

"I'll be back presently", said the nurse absently.

Over the intercom a voice warned that "Relaxation commences in five minutes. Anyone not wanting to participate, would you please vacate the dormitories!"

The trip in had been long and unsettling. Passing cars screeched to grinding halts in the rain, while streetwalkers hustled back and forth at traffic lights and slippery pedestrian crossings.

"Are you here on an Inebriate Order or are you an Informal?", the nurse asked upon returning.

"I'm here mainly for heroin", he replied.

"No, what I mean is, are you here under a court order, or are you voluntary?", she explained patiently.

"Voluntary."

"Oh."

The door opened and a group of sleepwalkers fell on beds in the dormitory. Having carelessly flung his belongings on the bed, he was ushered out into a confusing series of corridors.

"I'll show you around the place, then Doctor wants to see you", said the nurse vanishing.

The sound of balls being cracked was accompanied by the abrupt changing of television channels. The natives were restless.

Every pair of eyes he passed seemed to x-ray his paranoia. The patients in the courtyard outside smoked absently and exchanged bemused glances of inattention. A wounded guitar was strummed lethargically, as if the player's hands and heart were not really in it. The words of the song were mumbled in a mournful monotone. Laughter at once hysterical and nervous, was punctuated with deathly silences.

He spent the first nights dreaming of sleep. The snoring, belching and farting in the dormitory was accompanied by the sound of coughing fits and repeatedly flushed toilets. A nurse armed with a torch did late night raids on the 'sleeping' inmates. She woke a patient from another nightmare. He was grateful.

5.30 am. Early openers. Cigarettes and lighters handed in overnight could be returned to the patients. The jug cord was also available. Black-ring-eyed insomniacs paid homage to caffeine and nicotine in the absence of more favoured masters.

"Rise and shine . . ."

Footsteps. Shadows. Echoes.

"All those wanting to participate in the morning walk . . ."

The ward was surrounded by wildlife. The grounds resembled an animal sanctuary.

"All those requiring medication . . ."

Blood pressure, temperature, pulse and short term memory tests were "necessary. You have to be patient." STD, HIV, and Hep tests were also "compulsory". Panic attacks imitated drug and alcohol withdrawals as Valium and hot lavender baths came to the rescue.

"Will those going to the Double Trouble meeting please gather at the front gate

. . ."

A cool change was expected in the late afternoon. The two nearby wards housed schizophrenics and wet brains. Even the weather was schizo here. Always changing. Never making its mind up. Cloudy, sunny, windy, still, calm, stormy, hot and cold. You put a jacket on only to take it off.

"Do you hear voices? . . . Do you know where you are? . . .What's the date today?

. . . Are you at all anxious? . . ."

The courtyard crack-ups caught the eyes of the curious patients. Psychiatric assessments necessitated the neurotic taking of scribbled notes. Outside, patients under court orders and the influence of assorted medications kissed cigarette butts, ashing, eating air.

After two weeks you could leave the grounds for banking and shopping excursions. "Anyone not back on the bus by 2.30 pm can make their own way back to the hospital!" Escape, run, hitch, hide, crawl.

Back at the hospital the elite bankers and shoppers were mobbed by their ward-bound peers. A packet of cigarettes or a pouch of tobacco and a jar of coffee had a short life expectancy. Thieves were 'jokingly' threatened with the punishment of severed fingers. A nervous hand felt for the guitar strings as if it were strumming barbed wire.

Admitting and accepting. Use and abuse. Relapse prevention. Denial. The Steps. The falling leaves.

The boys played poker and patience and promised not to gamble anymore, or bet on pool games. A shaky hand dealt the Joker laughingly, and placed the cards nervously back on the table. Stalemates.

Outside, the city slept while the suburbs sobbed. Inside, the patients killed time in the living room, and played clever tricks n insanity with carefully mastered avoidance strategies.

The boys slept with Walkmans that were later confiscated. "No reading with the bed light on after twelve!" Life with the lights out.

Ward meeting. Assembly. The patients were excused. They had done nothing.

"Relaxation commences in five minutes . . ."

Clutching lidless eyes, he bored holes in the ceiling for an hour.

Panic merchants and moving targets drank copious amounts of smuggled tea and coffee, mindful of their hiding places.

The staff were in the firing line. The bottom line was that the ward was under pressure of being closed down and relocated. Social insecurity. Pensions. Sickness benefits.

The patients in the courtyard outside smoked nervously and exchanged bemused glares of vague intensity. The Veterans kept out of sight. Invisible. Underground. They'd been here before. Knew how to maintain an immaculate deception. Knew more about the pill box than the nurses.

"It gets better . . . Give it time . . . We really do want you do stay for at least six weeks . . ."

Arrivals and departures. The boys and girls shook hands and exchanged embraces. Those departing often left something behind in the rush.

"Round and round the garden goes the Teddy Bear . . . Here we go loopy loo . . . Little Jack Horner . . ."

Weekends. Visitors. "I'm going to the zoo, zoo, zoo / How about you, you, you?

. . ."

Breakdowns and breakthroughs.

The boys coughed convulsively and cadged another fag. Mourning tea.

Beam-It-Up-Scotty had another urine test and smirked at his strip searcher. His court case was coming up in the not to far distant future.

The casual staff swapped shifts and migraines. They had blacker rings around their eyes than the jug cord worshippers.

Shrouded in darkness, bloodshot eyes played peek-a-boo with the videos on loan. The boys and girls quarrelled over which one to watch, and hauled the comfy chairs into the television room.

If you busted on the program, you had to wear pyjamas for a week and you were confined to the ward. The embarrassment caused by the dress requirement was far outweighed by the boredom of curfew and restricted movement.

A speed-psychosis-schizophrenic-nymphomaniac had a room with a mattress in a cottage by the water. The boys compared notes and she compared boys. The boys fished anxiously and always shared bait.

The boys took trips down amnesia avenue, hitch-hiking invisible shadows. Transparent neurotics swapped masks and memories, waiting for someone to drop them a line.

The old prison attracted tourists out of bounds. Barbed wire and ancient brick work kept them out. The once electrified fence hummed dry, grey.

The geriatric units whispered 'they shoot horses don't they', while the retards greeted non-existent names and faces - "'moke, . . . hello Sister . . ., bye Bill, bye Bill, . . ., so long . . ."

If you misbehaved on a court order they could send you to Max. If you weren't bad enough to go there, they let you dry out with the wet brains. The sound of the C & W station accompanied the counting out of bricks and cigarettes. Philip wore a crash helmet and had a drinking problem. He kept missing his mouth.

The boys kept an eye and an ear out for anything odd. Anything at all out of the ordinary. The busiest person in the ward was the thief. He was admirably thorough. At least some people still take a pride in their work.

The schizophrenic ward was relocated. "More convenient." They were "leaving tomorrow" anyway.

The hand groped nervously at the door knob, then twisted and turned it until it was sure that it was locked. Obsessively compelled, the hand re-checked the lock before its owner left anxiously.

Outside, a cold wind rashed his face. Cramped and shaking fingers felt in his pocket for a cigarette. An inner queasiness oozed through cold veins, multiplying anxieties.

The skins of the other 'residents' were blotchy, white and pig-like. On a 'good day' you might even have a conversation. But even then you had to talk on egg shells. He had come to prefer mutual, paranoid silences.

His desire for anonymity was lethal.

Even though he was out of rehab and at a 'halfway house', "meetings were compulsory!"

Chairs were arranged evenly around the room and covered with red cushions. Ashtrays were placed in convenient positions while the water in the urn gradually came to boiling temperature.

Outside, Sunday drivers cruised aimlessly out of sight. The sun glared off windows reflectively.

A large sign with the word 'YET' ominously capitalised, sat on the table at the front of the room. Staring myopically at the writings on the wall, he squinted to make sense of them.

Slowly, the room began to fill. An 'observer' sat patiently in the non-smoking section.

A shaky hand felt and fumbled for a cigarette.

Playing venetian blind detective, the spy who came in from the kitchen wandered homeless in his bedroom. The town was in mourning for the wind and the rain and for the long weekend that the smart ones had turned into a long one. He had nothing to worry about. Nothing really worried him. He had a mind so fine that nothing could violate it.

On a 'good day' he might even creep out and investigate the contents of the letter box, but this was a panic-inducing activity best left until after dark.

From the time that he had head-butted his way into the world, he not only felt, but knew, that he was just visiting.

He had nothing to worry about. Nothing really worried him.

He watched the passing vehicles move monotonously by. The flyscreen door flapped in the breeze. His bare feet crept gingerly on the hot cement and he retreated inside.

The glare of the sun effected his vision. The interior of the flat appeared strangely familiar.

He lit a cigarette thoughtfully and stared ruefully at the overflowing ashtrays and unwashed dishes.

Everyday was Sunday now.

He'd been written off, let go, asked to call back again later for so long now that time seemed a remote concept intimately associated with frustration and waste.

A neglected guitar poised silently against the makeshift furniture in the essentially empty room. It gave off an atmosphere of contrived carelessness and regret.

Each day yawned before him like a toothless geriatric. He went on aimless walks that were notable mainly for their digressive and indeterminate progress.

He arrived ten minutes early for his appointment. He was punctual to a fault. His very entry into the world had been premature, the child arriving three days earlier than the mother had expected.

Although he found his monthly check-ups tedious, repetitive, and debatably useful, he attended them religiously.

The woman sitting opposite him in the waiting room persisted in making direct eye contact with unnerving regularity. What was her problem, he queried inwardly. She also had the irritating habit of re-crossing her legs at thirty second intervals, swapping them around neurotically.

He had been treated for a curious nervous disorder for some time now. Prone to panic attacks, a self-confessed sufferer of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), he had come t think of the waiting room as his little clinic of calm. The waiting room was a sanctuary where time stood still.

He knew that they were waiting for him somewhere out there. This time he'd really done it. The actualising of the thought, the turning of theory into practice had been slow in coming. Countless sleepless nights and anxious worried silences had preceded it.

They had probably known all along. They were waiting for him somewhere out there.

Deciding that he would be safer as a moving target than as a sitting duck, he left the flat hurriedly, not even bothering to make sure that he had locked the door properly. It was a relief not to go back and check the lock, not to go back after himself, not to try to catch himself out.

He took an oddly curious pleasure in being followed, wanted, important, noticed, notorious . . .

Outside, the night hung suspended on a tension as tight as a tornicade.

He really hoped that he wouldn't run into anyone he knew.

The lights of the city glowed in the distance, hovering anxiously over the restless creatures of the night.

They were near now. The hurried footsteps grew louder. They were coming for him.

That wasn't lying there last time I was in here. He's been moving things around again. At least some people still take a pride in their work.

I'm taking that painting down (again?). He must have put it (back?) up there to get at me.

There's been great evil done here. The place feels miasmic.

He keeps opening windows and unlocking doors when I'm asleep so they can get in.

I don't have insight. I have outsight, because I'm an outsider you see. I can't escape but I can inscape.

My novel's going well. It started out as a diary but I saw how well was reading. Stranger than fiction.

The letters keep arriving. He won't stop ringing me. I'll have the phone disconnected. The silent number isn't enough.

His letters are unnerving. I re-read his correspondence, examining his handwriting closely, crying to uncover any discernible signs of mental deterioration.

The sleeping pills that I have been taking wouldn't deaden the nerves of the most gullible neurotic.

His letters are the only thing keeping me alive.

I've been reading some (pretty / awful?) queer stuff lately. Shrink digests about abnormal mental and nervous conditions. One article really captured my imagination. It discussed 'sleep-walking', 'sleep-talking', and would you believe it, 'sleep-writing' ('sleep-fucking')? It seems that we have insomnia, celibate insanity and pathological paranoia to thank for most of the world's literary masterpieces.

I keep to myself. Devouring books. Reading's a great sedative.

I haven't felt myself for some time. Existential headaches have a nasty habit of developing into metaphysical migraines.

Looking back at the letters, I can see that they have gradually become crazier.

Part Eight - The Silent Number - Nothing Doing - The Silent Treatment - The Marginal Man

He sealed the envelope carefully and placed it lightly on the desk in the living room. They'd be sure to find it there.

The note was brief but informative and written in/with? a steady hand.

Of late, 'friends' had been worrying about his mental health. He would become tired and listless in their presence. He would stare absentmindedly at nothing, forget to put cigarettes out, and converse in monosyllables.

He had always been a hard one to pick. A 'dark horse' - Uncomfortable in his own skin.

He had a habit of carefully avoiding eye contact during attempted conversations. He was always quick to contradict an idea or an opinion, before it had emerged from an opening sentence. He was always just as quick to avoid conflict by abrupt changes of tone, sudden strategic smiles, and/or? ironic expressions of concern.

He had been suffering from a persecution complex that had effectively undermined his interior. At the same time, his ideas were so unerringly accurate that they couldn't help but arrest his attention. His self-lacerating invectives literally sentenced him to internal interrogations that destroyed any personal convictions or potential peace of mind. His myopic paranoia saw all and crumbled in that vision. It became the shattered spectacle his face embraced. He firmly believed that those who want a happy ending finish up alone. He convicted his thoughts to prison when he sentenced them to speech. (He sought only to discover the hidden vestiges of confined thought.)

His heart was a hotel that held many dances. His love was a lodger with no fixed address.

We're all mad (crazy), but some people are better at it than others. Thorough-bred lunatics. (A Committed Artist. A Certified Genius.)

It was nothing for him to go through people like they were cigarettes. (Invasive) There was something impregnable and silent about him, an indefinable predatory suspiciousness that nothing, no one could penetrate.

When the sickness hit, nausea ate away at his stomach from the inside, and a crawling skin sensation sent shivers up and down his spine. Difficulty in breathing (hyperventilation?) was accompanied by painful and bitter memory associations, leaving the sleepwalker dazed and confused.

Dizziness and faint headedness combined to form a force-field withholding external contact. Attempts at speech were muffled and marred by a racing mind incapable of verbal formulation, let alone coherent articulation of inner thoughts.

An irrational sense of dread or impending doom was not uncommon as obsessive and compulsive behaviour patterns slowly, then quickly rendered him sick, suffering, nervous, anxious and irritable.

A racing pulse and a suffocating feeling of sand in the mouth gave witness to the rats nervously nibbling on/at? the extremities of the sufferer's psyche, chasing him in and out of unconsciousness (chasing him into unconsciousness and out again?) to sweat like a summer cold.

A word drunk mute, he would pace the streets late at night, assuming the role of an emotional detective.

He filled the paranoid silence and death on the walls atmosphere of cheap street bed sits reading, never daring to commit himself to print. Necessity is the great mother, words were at best token thoughts, untranslatable emotions.

Inherently uninteresting in himself, through the words of others he re-invented himself literally? His identification with a fictional character bordered on the pathological / neurotic / psychotic / insane?

From the moment he Liverpool kissed (head-butted?) his way into the world, he not only felt, but knew, that he was just visiting.

insert The Moving Target / The Punch Line! The punch line's a real knock out. People don't change, you just get to know them better!

Nothing worried him. There was nothing stopping him from being just like everybody else. He believed in nothing. Nothing really worried him.

There was nothing in his appearance that would have caused the casual observer to think twice about him. His dress was casual, his manner easy, and his face unremarkable. His company was passable but nothing to write home about.

There are no rehearsals for life, but even if there were, he wouldn't have passed the audition. He constantly felt like he had arrived at a party without an invitation. He wore his heart on his sleeve, right next to the snot.

Allergic to life, a self-imposed exile from consciousness, drugs and alcohol were oceans in which he could drown. There he could swim, oblivious to the sinking feeling, that his was an incurable case of addictive reasoning and chronic dependency. Drugs and alcohol frequently cured his critical moments of emotional anaemia.

He had nothing to worry about. Nothing really worried him.

He had a passion for symmetry and a flare for melodrama. He had a mind so fine that nothing could violate it.

Relieved of his anaesthetics, his/the? face in the mirror seemed strangely familiar. A cracked reflection glared back questioningly. Too stupid for words, he convicted thoughts to prison when he sentenced them to speech.

His heart was a hotel that held many dances. His love was a lodger with no fixed address.

The punch line's a real knock out. People don't change, you just get to know them better.

He was the best advertisement for abortion that he'd ever met. A walking contraceptive. A 'lesbian in a man's body', all of Freeman's 'girlfiends' were disfigured from childbirth and given to 'fat'.

He stared blankly at the letters lying before him. An unholy mass of aborted fragme(a)nts and still-born ideas glared back at their creator threateningly. His letters were the only thing keeping him alive.

Looking back at the letters, he could see that they contained hidden depths, a slight semblance of profound flippancy. They grew longer and more desperate. They gradually became crazier.

He kept a record of his correspondence. It was criminal. Indecipherable. The ink ran. He re-read his correspondence, crying to uncover any discernible signs of mental deterioration.

He was a cave man with caviar tastes. A fit (suitable?) contemporary subject for a student of cultural anthropology. He seldom stayed in the same 'job' or lodgings for more than a month. His 'relationships' were as short-lived as his 'occupations' and his places of residence. His christian name remained a mystery to all but a chosen few. These included his immediate family, certain selected members of the legal and psychiatric fraternities, and the police.

He didn't undress females with his eyes. He raped them.

His library consisted of nightmarish chronicles of contemporary gloom, doom and depravity. Existential angst, hangover specials,(drug hunger raves?) and 'psychological curiosities' were his main literary diet. Alienated voices competing vainly against the silence of their own self doubt. Invariably set in bar rooms, shooting galleries, and bed sits, these stories, along with the characters they contained, were trapped by the squalor that surrounded and defined them.

He had a face only a mother could love, and he buried it in every magazine and saw his photo. He would have died to be famous.

Nothing worried him. There was nothing stopping him from being just like everybody else. He believed in nothing. Nothing really worried him.