Detour from Normal (25 page)

"Hi," I said. "I'm Ken. What's your name?" Her face remained buried in her hands, and she continued to sob. "Everything's going to be OK," I said, trying to relieve her pain. She raised her head and turned toward me. Her face was the epitome of sorrow. It was wet with tears, and her nose was running. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen nearly shut. Her lips quivered, and she could barely catch her breath as she peered at me. She swept her long hair away from her face with her hand and it fell heavily behind her shoulder.

"Are you Caspian?" she inquired.

It was the oddest question anyone had ever asked me. It took a moment to formulate an appropriate response. "No, but you will meet him some day. When you do, your life will be perfect." That must have struck a chord. She slowly straightened and wiped her tears away. She studied me curiously for a moment, and then she smiled—not much of a smile but enough to notice. My heart soared as I returned the smile. I'd
made a difference in a stranger's life. Afterward she turned away, and her hair slid back over her shoulder. It swept across her face, hiding it once more. It reminded me of a stage curtain closing, and I wondered if she had somehow left the stage. She remained quiet for a time, and then unexpectedly, from behind the hair, she said, "Jessie. My name is Jessie."

I comforted her awhile longer and then returned to my recliner to continue my pursuit of sleep. Less than thirty minutes later, there was a ruckus at the opposite end of my row. Two PAs were escorting an older man toward the last recliner. The man staggered and cursed, apparently heavily inebriated. They hefted him into the recliner and left him.

"Where's my fucking phone? I want my fucking phone. Don't I get to make a phone call?" bellowed the drunk. He tried to leave his recliner but thankfully was unable to. He continued his ranting, so I reluctantly left my recliner and took a seat in an empty one next to him to try to calm him.

"Hi, I'm Ken. How are you doing?" I asked. He squinted at me, his blue eyes jittering slightly behind heavily fingerprinted glasses. He pushed his disheveled white hair away so he could better see me.

"Whaddya want?" he asked.

"Hey, I'm locked up in here just like you. I just came over to see if I could help you." "Yeah, you can help. Get the fuck outta my face."

I didn't have a good response for that, so I just sat back for a moment in the recliner.

"God damn it, where's my fucking phone?"

I turned to him and said, "Look, everything will seem a lot better in the morning. Why don't you just lay back in your nice, comfortable recliner and get some rest, OK?"

"Fuck you," he cursed, but part of his mind must have registered what I'd recommended. He glared at me for a few moments and then relaxed. I showed him how to recline his recliner, then left him. He didn't sleep immediately, but he was quiet after that and eventually was snoring like a buzz saw. Back in my own recliner once again, I felt pride for helping yet another troubled inmate.

Before long the relative peace and quiet was broken again by a tall, lanky, black man with lengthy dreadlocks. He wore colorful clothes as if he was from Africa, but instead of an African dialect, what spouted from his mouth were the loud ramblings of a homeless American schizophrenic. It wasn't unbearable compared to other disturbances, but I wondered if I could change his course by being near him. I wondered if I could make a difference in his life like I'd made with Carlos. I rose and walked slowly toward the back row of recliners where he sat. As I approached him, I could smell him from several feet away; he reeked of the street. I stayed near him for a while and then continued down the walkway separating the second row of recliners from those in back. I'll never know if I made a long-term difference, but he did settle after that.

I walked around the rows of recliners for a bit longer and crawled back into my own. I closed my eyes and, before I knew it, I was thinking of Utopia. It was a part of me, a part of my heart and soul, and it comforted me to have that place to go to.
Now, where did I leave off? Ah yes.

Chapter 22

UTOPIA: MY PROBLEM SOLVER

One thing I had wondered about Utopia was if it should be designed in secret. Should we encode our communications and hide our activities, or was it OK to go about our business without a care? I thought through every possible scenario and couldn't arrive at a solution. The concern eventually slipped from conscious thought as I moved on to other dilemmas.

I pondered for a time the optimal size of the community of Utopia, but that didn't lead anywhere either. My next worry was how I would manage people who were all passionate, got along with each other, and perhaps even noticed that all their good ideas were succeeding. Once things were underway, it wouldn't take much effort or management, possibly none at all. It seemed prudent, however, to have someone with vision lead the project and to have some kind of structure. I envisioned a wagon wheel with me at its hub, coordinating communication among the spokes, each representing a department such as water, sewer, power, etc. To get the wheel rolling, I'd simply have to plant a seed concept in each spoke, then let people brainstorm solutions from there, consulting with me as necessary to synchronize with the activities of the other spokes. Eventually, my head ached from thinking. I couldn't sleep but
needed to put my spinning mind on pause. I cleared it of thought and tried to relax.

Time slipped by. It had been hours since I had thought about Utopia being designed in secret. Unexpectedly, there was a kind of "bing" in my mind.
What's that?
It seemed a sort of "you've got mail" notification. A thought entered my clear mind:
the smallest community possible for people without negative emotions is two.
That was odd. I remembered being concerned about Utopia being planned and designed in secret, but—
Oh yeah, I wondered about the size of the community as well.
It was a wonderful coincidence that my mind had been perfectly clear when the solution returned; the notification was impossible to ignore.

I suddenly realized that must be how the subconscious worked. It took ownership of problems that the conscious mind had abandoned and continued trying to solve them in the background. If there was an answer, the subconscious would eventually present it whether it was minutes, hours or days later. I glanced at the clock and it had been four hours since I had the last thought about the size of the community. I had just learned how "eureka" moments came about.

I reveled in that knowledge for a time, then realized that the big machine from days earlier had returned an answer as well about negative emotions being the source of dysfunction. So the big machine was no miracle—it was my subconscious, my problem solver. I wondered about other things I had experienced back then, and it occurred to me that my subconscious had also guided me through my loss of negative emotions in its own creative way, by slowing or speeding the big engine in reaction to my emotional responses. I needed only to persevere and follow its lead.

I considered my recent answer regarding the size of a community.
What use would a community of two be?
Perhaps people without
negative emotions don't fare well alone; perhaps they need other people, but in a pinch they'd be happy with only one other person, because the things that made it difficult for people to coexist no longer were a factor.

So what about keeping things secret? My problem solver never figured that out. Perhaps it was unsolvable given the few known facts.

Chapter 23

THE CRASH

My thoughts about Utopia and how my subconscious worked carried me through until breakfast. Not surprisingly, meals weren't fancy at the PDC. Zero prep time was the guiding rule: premade sandwiches, cardboard boxes of cereal, fruit, and anything that could be torn from a wrapper. Breakfast that morning was a banana, orange juice in a sealed plastic container, a small carton of milk, Frosted Flakes, and a muffin wrapped in plastic. I lined up with everyone else in the open space ahead of the back row of recliners and was handed a tray already filled. After returning to my recliner, I set the tray on the floor for a moment and yanked firmly on the lever and the back of the recliner at the same time to raise it. It creaked and groaned in protest but ultimately sprang upright sending the footrest back into storage as well. I sat, flipped the tray arm up and over from the side of the chair, rested the tray on it, and set about eating my meal. The milk was whole, not the fat free I was used to at home. I poured a little on the cereal and drank the rest. The rich, satisfying taste provided a small comfort. After I finished, I realized that Beth was probably awake by then. I felt I should call her and tell her as much as I could about where I was. I walked over to the nurse's desk.

"Could I use the phone, please?" I asked.

"Yes, but you'll have to wait your turn," the nurse replied crankily, motioning with a pencil toward a man a few yards away who was vigorously berating someone on the receiving end of the portable phone. I paced anxiously as I waited for him. A few minutes later, he swore one final time, disconnected, and slammed the phone down on the desk. I reached for it and dialed home, but nothing happened.

"You have to dial nine first," the nurse said without looking up.

"Oh yeah, I forgot," I replied.

I dialed again and put the phone to my ear. It was hot, so hot it seemed it would burn my skin. I wasn't sure if it was defective or if it was the heat of anger from the previous user. The line connected and the phone rang until the answering machine picked up.

"Beth? Beth? Are you there? If you are, can you pick up? I'm someplace called the PDC. It's a horrible place filled with street people, drunks, psychos, and addicts. It's really loud, and there are fights all the time. I haven't gotten a lick of sleep since I've been here. Please pick up if you're there..." I waited until the beep signaled the end of the recording. Then I called Beth's cell phone, but there was no answer there either.

Twelve hours after I arrived at the PDC, I sensed the monster stirring. After my most recent encounter, I remembered him instantly and bolted upright in my recliner. Fresh memories of him played out in my crystal clear, manic brain. I stood and tried to figure out what to do. I asked to use the phone again; this time there was no waiting. I called Beth at home, and the answering machine picked up once more. When I could record, I pleaded into the phone, "I'm going to have a seizure. It's coming. I can feel it. I don't know if anyone here can help me. Beth,
if you're there, pick up, please..." There was nothing, just a long silence and a familiar beep.

Beth's journal, May 26, 2011:

It was recommended that I turn the ringers off on the telephones. I did that to the one near our bed and my cell phone, but I forgot to turn it off on the phone downstairs. As I lay in bed upstairs, I heard it ring, then Ken's voice on the answering machine. He sounded so frightened and desperate. I wanted so much to answer his calls and come help him, but I couldn't do anything. Everything that I had tried to do to help get "my Ken" back had utterly failed. The entire medical system had let me down. Events were now out of my control.