Free Flying Crows by Jim Lehrer Page A

bushwhacker had a Somerset Slugger in his hands. He was a large, coarse, fairly old guy named Roger, who was known mostly for being mean and for being from Holden, up near Kansas City. Somebody told Josh he was hired because his mother was a second cousin of the superintendent, who was also from Holden. All the Somerset superintendents Josh had known or heard about had reputations not only for hiring their relatives and friends, but also for being political in most everything they did, including taking money for admitting particular patients.
    â€œI’m fine,” Sister Hilda told the bushwhacker. “Birdie here just had a bit of a poetry setback, that’s all.”
    The bushwhacker left and Sister Hilda, clearly new to the frustrations that went with being a Somerset Sister, gave Josh a look that said, All right, Josh, what now?
    â€œThere is something you might do that could be of help,” he said, his voice as peaceful and earnest as he could make it. “It’s perfectly understandable if you would not want to do what I’m about to suggest. In fact, I think I probably shouldn’t even suggest it, and I will understand perfectly if it annoys you that I have.”
    Josh did not even try to steal a glance at Birdie. He could hear and sense the kid from Kansas City panting after this woman.
    Sister Hilda seemed to take a breath and hold it tight. It was if she knew she was about to hear something awful yet felt she had no choice but to hear it.
    â€œOne possible way to help Birdie would be if you would allow him to put his hands on your bosoms for a few seconds,” Josh said.
    Braced for the worst, Josh watched a burning red flash come to Sister Hilda’s cheeks. Then, in a series of quick reactions, she jerked her head back and, her eyes popping, caught her breath.
    Realizing all he could do now was to keep talking, Josh said, “He needs to do it for his therapy, Sister Hilda. He told me last night that if he could touch a woman’s bosoms for a just a few seconds—to a count of ten or twelve, fifteen maybe—he might be able to go to sleep like a normal person. You know he hasn’t really slept since he saw something awful happen—an awful massacre.”
    â€œWhat massacre? Where?”
    â€œI’m not able to say what or where,” Birdie answered. “It turns me completely crazy even to think about it.”
    Sister Hilda, her face color returning to normal, shook her head as if to clear it and looked back down at Stephen Vincent Benét’s
John Brown’s
Body.
Josh, worried about having upset her so, turned his thoughts to poetry and to the poems of Longfellow and Vachel Lindsay. Josh hadn’t read anything by either man since he came to Somerset. He would now. He would ask Sister Hilda to read their poems next time, just like she had planned to today. He wondered if there were still people out there in the world writing new poems. Josh, an avid reader of many genres, spent as much time as he could in the library, particularly at this table, reading Civil War and Missouri history.
    â€œI know you’re a sick man, Josh,” said Sister Hilda, her composure and appearance both almost back to normal. “As a consequence, I will act as if I did not hear what you said and will not report you to one of the attendants or to the superintendent for discipline.”
    Josh figured there was no point in stopping now. “Sister Hilda, thank you. But if I may say one more thing. You know about culture therapy and hydrotherapy and the other things that are there to help us get well?”
    She looked at him but didn’t say anything.
    Josh hung in. “What I’m suggesting is another kind of therapy. We had a very sick man in here from Springfield who hadn’t spoken a word or walked a step since he killed a sheriff with a shotgun. One day the doctors worked it out for him to hug one of the dentist’s nurses tight for just a