Free The Storm at the Door by Stefan Merrill Block Page B

But then Schultz has immediately turned back to his work, his focus neither manic nor fitful, just simple, pure concentration.
    And the work itself? Frederick has yet to decipher its purpose.Some days, Schultz has piled on his desk a selection of books from the hospital’s library. Books with no obvious similarities:
Wuthering Heights
, a guide to cribbage,
The Yearling
. Schultz opens these books seemingly at random, leans down close to them as if he were investigating the ink rather than the words, mutters to himself, and hurriedly scribbles a note in his journal. Other days, Schultz sits in his chair, closes his eyes, tilts his face to the ceiling, as if transfixed by a private, internal concert, and then—struck by some notion—immediately jots it down.
    His curiosity an irresistible force, Frederick is not above peeking at Schultz’s notebooks. However, other than for mandatory reasons—meals, group therapy, requisite bathroom breaks—Schultz either sits with his notebooks or else carries them under his arm. The few glimpses Frederick has just barely managed have only deepened the mystery. The words he has seen look familiar, but are not quite English. Or at least not recognizably English. Is it a shorthand? Is it Yiddish? Schultz was a linguistics scholar; is this some obscure language he simply prefers? Or is Schultz’s work simple nonsense? True madness?
    Madness: Frederick has never, in fact, seen his roommate asleep or in any advanced state of undress. There have been times at night when the scratching of the professor’s pen on journal ceases and he crawls into bed, but Frederick can then still hear Schultz mumbling, the static of his garble not quite tuned to human frequencies. When the moonlight slips between the gaps in the cage over their high single window and illuminates Schultz’s face dimly, Frederick tries not to startle to find Schultz’s eyes open and alert.
    Before Canon, lunch was optional. Before Canon, evacuating bowels and bladder was a private matter, undocumented, unless for a specific medical reason. But now this intake and output isclosely scrutinized. Any deviation from clean, healthy transference at either end can earn one stricter oversight, force-feeding, a world of misery, delivered by one of the interchangeable boys with crew haircuts. The boys with crew cuts have been objects of the patients’ antipathy, rage, and compensating humor since they arrived and immediately began berating patients for failing to meet their demands with militant avidity. Two weeks after their appearance, Lowell offhandedly referred to these new boys as the Crew Crew. All laughed; the name has stuck.
    A Crew Crew boy enters the room, and tells Frederick and Schultz it is time for lunch. Frederick stands to make his apathetic, compliant march to the cafeteria. Schultz, focused as ever upon his work, fails to hear the orderly’s announcement, and so the kid goes to Schultz, nudges him, and repeats himself. Schultz turns, smiles warmly.
    So kind of you
, Schultz says,
but I’m not hungry
.
    Lunch isn’t optional
.
    No, lunch is sandwiches, nu? Haha!
    Come on, Professor
.
    Schultz nods, as if the Crew Crew boy were a loved one reminding him that a disciplined mind requires nourishment; Schultz nods as if to say,
yes, well, of course you are right
.
    The change of air, from room to hall, irritates Frederick. The way the Crew Crew boy cleans his ear with his pinkie finger irritates Frederick. The other patients lining up in the hall irritate Frederick, especially the new fat old one, Bobbie, who forever scratches his genitals when faced with others, as if he has invented a new crotch-oriented salute. At least today he has come from his room with gray slacks covering what he scratches—just two days ago, Bobbie darted from his room, like a toddler escapeefrom Mother’s bath, bleating
yee-ha
s as he mounted a common room chair like a horse, his mass Jell-Oing as he bucked up and down. Some moments, like the