Sanity by Judy Colella (beginner reading books for adults .TXT) 📕

The windows caught his attention first. Curtained with lacy panels pulled aside to display clean, unobstructed glass through which late-afternoon gold poured freely, they were not the windows of an institution as far as he could tell. He sat up and looked around at dark grey-blue walls bordered with thick, cream-colored moldings. A dresser of some light wood faced the foot of the bed next to a door, night stands flanked either side of the bed, and a large desk sat in front of the windows that took up most of the wall beside him. A set of sliding doors was set in the wall opposite the windows, which he guessed was a closet. He was still dressed in his shabby clothes and sneakers; they’d placed him on the bed and left, doing nothing further to him, it seemed. None of this added up to what he knew about being in an asylum.

The door next to the dresser opened. He scrambled back, huddling against the headboard, suddenly terrified. A man wearing a lab coat over his dark blue suit entered, but upon seeing Max’s reaction, stopped.

“Hello, Max,” he said pleasantly but not coming closer. “I’m Dr. Will Garner. Sorry you had to be brought here this way, but they tell me you were being a bit difficult.”

“Yes. I was. Where am I?”

“This is part of City Hospital, actually. The Dorothea Dix Pavilion. It’s an in-patient facility for individuals suffering from various mental disorders.”
Max knew the name Dorothea Dix. “Dr. Weatheridge’s idea was to model his asylum after her hospital in New Jersey.”

Dr. Garner put his head to one side. “Your description of the place when you were talking to Dr. Franco didn’t sound like that of a humane institution at all – quite the opposite, actually.”

“Not at first. That didn’t start happening until Dr. Weatheridge’s health began to fail and he was unable to spend as much time running things. After he died, it turned into what I described.” Although he’d been speaking calmly enough, Max still hadn’t uncoiled himself.

“Well, come on. Let me give you a tour.”

“No. I’m fine right here.”

“You are not. You won’t be, either, until you face this unknown quantity,” Garner said, gesturing at the space beyond the open door. “I also wonder how long it’s been since you ate anything.”

How did that matter? “Last night.”

“Come on, Max. Besides, it’s almost time for dinner. We’ll end the tour with the dining room so you can get something to eat, okay?”

Had the man been talking down to him even a little, Max would have continued to refuse. But he hadn’t, which was impressive, so he took a deep breath, unclenched his body, and got off the bed.

Dr. Garner turned and went out first, telling Max over his shoulder to follow.

Mere minutes later, Max was asking himself how this place could possibly be a mental hospital. It was beautiful, exactly as Dr. Franco had said. Clean, pale blue walls lined with lovely still-life and landscape paintings, gentle lighting, light grey carpeting through all the halls, open areas filled with plants and comfortable-looking seating arrangements, and rooms very much like the one in which he’d woken. A huge room equipped with tables, cabinets containing board-games and other things he couldn’t explain, including what at first seemed to be huge, framed photographs, but which startled the daylights out of him when those “photographs” moved and made sound. Televisions? Really?

And the offices – not very large, but nice, each with the same machines that he’d seen at the police station: televisions and keyboards of some kind. Perhaps he should ask if these were the new version of computers. Perhaps now it was safe enough to ask questions.

The last place was, as promised, the dining room. This, too, was a massive space, and filled with round tables that seated only four, each covered with a pristine white cloth set at juxtaposition over a sea-green one. The plates were odd, though. Not china, but not exactly plastic, and covered with a lovely floral design. Dr. Garner watched him pick one up and examine it.

“What is this made of?”

“You never saw this before?” The doctor might have been surprised, or might have assumed Max was simply continuing his charade of belonging in a different century that hadn’t known melamine.

“We had thin paper or plastic plates and flatware, and the cups were paper. China was too dangerous, I was told. Some inmates felt the need to throw them, so I suppose they were right to use plastic.”

Garner chuckled. “We have some of that here, too, from time to time. So they – whoever ‘they’ are – were right not to use China.” He pulled out a chair and sat. “Please – join me for dinner.”

Max sat opposite, still having a hard time understanding how this could be a place for mad people to be fed. A few minutes later, some of them wandered in, one or two others ran and scooted into their seats as if afraid someone else would try and take them first. Some were muttering to themselves, others talking loudly to no one. And Max experienced a disconcerting onset of deja-vu-like familiarity blended seamlessly with an alien environment. Unlike most people who would find being in the company of these inmates highly unnerving, he began unconsciously to relax. He knew them all by type if in no other way. He’d lived among such, not one of them but as much a part of their horrid existence as if he had been.

A young lady wearing a pretty pink apron over pale green slacks and a floral shirt came to their table holding a clipboard. “Good evening, Dr. Garner!” She gave him a smile that was the most honest thing Max had seen in more than a century.

“Evening, Claire. This is Max Colson. He’ll be staying with us for a while.”

If he expected her expression to change into something less pleasant, he was happily disappointed. She gave him a big grin and put out one hand. “Hi! I’m Claire Allen. Welcome to The Pavilion!”

He took her hand, utterly astounded. “Thank you, Miss Allen.”

“Well! Let’s see.” She looked down at the paper on her clipboard. “Tonight we have New York Strip, flame-grilled to order, with your choice of a baked potato, sweet potato casserole, or fries, and either honey-glazed carrots or fresh corn-off-the-cobb with butter and thyme. If you prefer fish, we also have broiled salmon topped with chopped tomato, chives and lemon-butter, your choice of German potato salad, rice pilaf or macaroni and parmesan salad, and cheesy breadsticks, fresh baby peas and pearl onions, or a spinach salad.”

Max nearly wept. The descriptions alone were beyond anything he’d ever imagined eating before his unjust incarceration, and certainly in a different universe than what he’d been forced to eat afterward. Was there a reason this institution fed its inmates like royalty? Or was such fare only for the benefit of the doctors and whomever might be dining with them? He glanced at the four people sitting at the table next to his. Three of them, he could tell, were patients, the fourth not a doctor but…a male nurse, perhaps?

“What do they usually order?” One answer required for two questions.

She gave him a surprised look, but then said, “Well, Margie – “She pointed toward the only woman with them. “She usually gets the fish, but mostly when the meat choice is pork chops or meatloaf. So she’ll probably get the New York strip. And…let’s see…Mikey only likes vegetables, so we give him enough of each veggie option so he gets plenty to eat. James will probably go for the salmon; he’s been on a health-kick lately.” She giggled. “I’m not sure what their orderly will get. Last time he had the steak, but he’s fairly new, so I can’t really say.” She turned back to Max. “What about you?”

Max swallowed, his mouth already watering with the mere thought of what was being offered. “Steak?”

“Cool. How would you like that cooked?”

He looked at Dr. Garner, shocked. “I get to choose?”

“Yes, Max. As Dr. Franco told you, this is nothing like whatever it was you may have experienced elsewhere.”

He nodded and told Claire that medium would be fine, then opted for the baked potato and glazed carrots. Not that he could let himself believe any of it would be given to him until it was.

“Salmon for me,” Dr. Garner told her. “But you knew that. Uh, spinach salad and rice, and I’m good to go.”

She checked off their preferences and left to take a few more orders before heading back to the kitchen to place them.

Beneath his feet, Max could feel how deeply plush the carpet was through soles that had been worn to the thinness of surgical gloves. Around him, the occasional shrieks were handled with smiles, the shouts quieted with hugs and glasses of water, one inmate’s uncontrollable rocking in her chair halted by the presentation of a stuffed animal into her flailing arms. And dinner was served as promised.

He savored every bite, the first bursting with flavors bringing his tongue to near-orgasmic pleasure, the last continuing to stroke his taste buds with equal sensuality. It took him a long time to finish despite animalistic urges to tear into the food and devour it without breathing. Discipline. That was one of the things that had kept him ironically sane over the years, and what kept him eating at a slow but very human pace now.

Then came dessert. And coffee. Real coffee. With real cream, and sugar in which no bugs had taken up residence. In the end, Max almost felt as if he’d committed a sin or a crime by allowing himself to feel such enjoyment. Almost. Not really. He smiled and sat back, closing his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was to find Dr. Garner smiling back at him. No meanness, no sarcasm, no secret smugness. He was smiling the way Max remembered his father smiling. No hurt behind it.

“I can honestly say I’ve never seen anyone enjoy a meal as much as you just did, Max.” He grinned more widely and stood. “How about a walk? I can show you the grounds, where we bring the patients for exercise, and then we’ll see about getting you some decent clothing and shoes. How ‘bout it?”

As he followed Dr. Garner out of the dining room, he began to suspect that at some point he’d fallen and gotten knocked out, and that this was no more than a dream. Were that the case, he told himself, he hoped he never regained consciousness.

Two weeks passed in this way, and he finally accepted his new reality. During the first week, he was allowed a great deal of unstructured time. Dr. Franco visited him often, and told him his behavior was what was making all this freedom possible. So far, she said, he had exhibited no indications of serious dementia, the only thing keeping him here being his insistence on having been born in 1900.

“You’ll be working with one of our top psychologists on that,” she informed him on her third visit. “We think hypnotherapy might be the answer.”

“You mean ‘therapeutic hypnosis’?”

“I – well, that’s an older term…” She regarded him through a veil of exasperation. “Very smart, Max. And yes, I do. Has anyone ever tried it with you before?”

“No.” He looked away. Dr. Weatheridge had used hypnosis to ease pain. His colleagues hadn’t bothered because pain fueled their sense of power, augmented their ability to control. “I wasn’t being smart, you know. I told you my age. There must be a number of other terms with which I am unfamiliar.”

She sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Max?”“I couldn’t say. But there is something you can do for

me. You can do what I asked you to do the first time we spoke. Research. Look for proof that what I’ve told you is true, or prove it isn’t. Either way, one or