Free All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald

doing: pacing, rocking, jerking, and chain-smoking. It was almost as if they were disappointed when they realized it was only us, and that things would be just the same as they ever were, with or without me and Ma.
    It was always a relief to see Amen. He was a baldheaded black boy who jumped up and down, clapping like a Hare Krishna, overjoyed by Davey’s excitement to see Ma. He’d memorized all my family’s names, and after doing his happy dance, he always greeted us with, “And how is John MacDonald?” We’d say, “John MacDonald’s fine, Amen.” “And how is Joseph MacDonald?” “He’s good, Amen.” “And Mary MacDonald, how’s she?” He’d ask about every one of us, all the way down the line to Michael MacDonald, even though I was right there in front of him. When he was finished, off he’d go, back to his daily business of clapping. I looked forward to seeing Amen every time we entered Mass Mental. Even if only for a moment, he took my mind off the heavy doors slamming behind us.
    We soon became family to many of the inmates. Ma, her social self even in Mass Mental, was intrigued by the minds of the mentally ill. She would point to her own head and tell me that she liked to see what made people tick. So I always thought that was what patients were doing when they rocked, paced, jerked, and smoked: they were ticking. We brought Davey a carton of cigarettes every other day. He didn’t smoke that many in two days, but when all the patients saw his smokes, of course they all wanted one. We got to know Anna, who didn’t tick much. She just looked at me helplessly with tears running down her face, crouched forward with arms folded. I knew she wanted something from me, and there was nothing I could do to heal her or to save her from this place. I felt like telling her I wasn’t really the seventh son, that I would’ve had to have been the seventh son in a row from the same father, and I didn’t even have a father. I started stealing a few cigarettes from Davey’s carton so that at least I had something to offer when the patients’ pleading eyes overcame me with guilt. I would give them a smoke and they’d be delighted with me.
    One morning we got to visit with Davey in our own private room, away from the TV and the ticking. An attendant who was so nice I thought he was a patient invited us in, telling us the room would be more “homey.” It had bare walls, painted a glaring institutional green. That combined with the smell of piss and ammonia made for anything but homey. There was no kidding ourselves—we were all exactly where none of us wanted to be, no homey about it. This was the haunted house, with the fluorescent lights and radiators on full blast, and the sun shining outside on a beautiful spring day. But it was nice of him anyway.
    Davey and Ma talked. I stared out of the room’s doorway at an elderly woman lying in what looked like a crib, with iron bars going up the side of her bed. She rattled the bars and lifted her head, gasping in terror, as if it might be her last breath and she didn’t want it to be. There was something she still had to do before leaving us all. Like the rest of them, she looked at me like she was begging something of me. I reached in my pocket for a smoke to give to her, but was too scared to go near her. I felt helpless and wanted to cry, but I couldn’t because who knows what that would set off in this place.
    I turned away from the old woman, looked outside beyond the barred windows, and saw birds gathered in a tree, chirping away. But I couldn’t hear a thing they were chirping. Just then “Joan the Hooker” ran into our room. She was wearing her blonde curly wig that day, and was decked out in a red miniskirt and white platform shoes. She screamed “rape” and started to barricade herself—and us—into the homey room. She blocked