Free The Madman's Tale by John Katzenbach Page B

days.”
    Francis took a quick look around, then he whispered, “Are all the people in here crazy?”
    The Fireman shook his head. “It’s a hospital for crazy folks, C-Bird, but not everyone is. Some are just old, and senile, which makes them seem a little odd. Some are retarded, so they’re slow on the uptake, but precisely what got them landed here is a mystery to me. Some folks seem merely depressed. Others are hearing voices. Do you hear voices, C-Bird?”
    Francis was unsure how to answer. It seemed as if deep within him there was a debate going on; he could hear arguments suddenly swinging back and forth, like so many electric currents between poles.
    “I don’t want to say,” Francis replied hesitantly.
    The Fireman nodded. “Some things it’s best to keep to oneself.”
    He put his arm around Francis for a moment, steering him toward the exit door.
    “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you what there is of our home.”
    “Do you hear voices, Peter?” Francis asked.
    The Fireman shook his head. “Nope.”
    “You don’t?”
    “No. But it might be a good thing if I did,” he replied. He was smiling as he spoke, just the slightest touch at the corners of his mouth, in a way that Francis would come to recognize soon enough, that seemed to mirror much about the Fireman, for he was the sort of person who seemed to see both sadness and humor in things that others would see as merely moments.
    “Are you crazy?” Francis asked.
    Again the Fireman smiled, this time letting out a little laugh. “Are you crazy, C-Bird?”
    Francis took a deep breath. “I might be,” he said. “I don’t know.”
    The Fireman shook his head. “I don’t think so, C-Bird. Didn’t think so when I first saw you, either. At least, not too crazy. Maybe a little crazy, but what’s wrong with that?”
    Francis nodded. This reassured him. “But what about you?” he continued.
    The Fireman hesitated, before replying.
    “I’m something far worse,” he said slowly. “That’s why I’m here. They’re supposed to find out what’s wrong with me.”
    “What’s worse than being crazy?” Francis asked.
    The Fireman coughed once. “Well,” he said, “I guess there’s no harm. You’ll find out sooner or later. I kill people.”
    And with those words, he led Francis out into the corridor of the hospital.

chapter
4
    A
nd that was it, I suppose.
    Big Black told me not to make friends, to be cautious, to keep to myself, and obey the rules, and I did my very best to follow everything he advised except that first admonition, and, when I look back, I wonder if he wasn’t right about that, as well. But madness is also truly about the worst sorts of loneliness, and I was both mad and alone, and so when Peter the Fireman took me aside, I welcomed his friendship along the descending road into the world of the Western State Hospital, and I did not ask him what he meant when he said those words, although I guessed that I would find out soon enough because the hospital was a place where everyone had secrets but few of them were kept close
.
    My younger sister questioned me once, long after I was released, what was the worst aspect of the hospital, and after much consideration, I told her: the routine. The hospital existed as a system of small disjointed moments that amounted to nothing, that were established merely to get Monday to Tuesday, and Tuesday to Wednesday and so on, week after week, month after month. Everyone at the hospital had been committed by allegedly well-meaning relatives, or the cold and inefficient social services system, after a perfunctory judicial hearing where we often weren’t present, under thirty- or sixty-day orders. But we learned quick enough that these phony deadlines were as much delusions as were the voices we heard, for the hospital could renew the court orders as long as a determination was made that you continued to be a threat to yourself or to others, which, in our mad states
,
seemingly was