poetry-doggeral-et-al's name

NOTE: A deviation from the norm--this is partially written and I am asking my readers if it catches you enough for me to continue? 

SECOND NOTE: The short saga continues...

She was playing the right notes, the right chords, but her timing was ragged, as ragged as her chewed fingernails. Though some notes were jammed too closely together and others were too far apart; though the chords sometimes had an extra note or may be missing a note; though every now-and-then her twitching fingers caught an adjacent key, Miranda--or, as was her preference—Randi could still tell she was playing Vivaldi, but couldn’t remember which piece.

            She tried to concentrate, hoping she would recognize it by ear, if not by memory. Her fingers kept on playing, by rote, what her state-of-mind had seemingly exorcized from her consciousness. Randi had chosen Vivaldi, though his work was tied more to string instruments, because of its gaiety and life-affirming qualities, hoping it would offset the barely muted sobbing and muffled curses coming from behind her parent’s bedroom door. The more she focused, the more she strained, the further away move Vivaldi’s music and the closer, yet still indistinct, her father’s words penetrated into her head, much as the sunlight upon a lake’s surface diffuses as it passes down, to the murky depths below.

            “Miranda! Miranda”! She vaguely heard her name over the music, over her father’s voice, over her mother’s moans, even over the gunshot. The gunshot! Randi violently twisted away from the hand on her shoulder, started keening softly, then more loudly, as she moved from the piano bench and slumped to the white tiled floor, in tears.

            “Help me get her to the couch”, Dr. Fuller said to the nurse, now at the side of Miranda’s prone form. Each taking the nearly comatose woman under the arms, they gently got her to her feet and guided her across the dayroom to a drab, institutional-green couch. As they eased her down, the doctor directed the nurse to the dispensary for a sedative that would help calm her down.

            Within minutes of receiving the injection, Randi was docile, no longer crying, with a serene, almost blank countenance upon her face.

            “Shall we talk about it, Miranda”, asked Dr. Fuller? Both the compassion in his voice and eyes reached into Randi’s mind, nearly bringing on another bout of tears, but the medication was doing it’s job and her tears were held in abeyance—at least for the moment. She looked up, her face subtly changing much as a child’s when caught with her hand in the cookie jar: happy with getting a cookie, guilty from getting caught, angry and indignant that she had to steal cookies at all, and fear of the soon to be administered punishment. Her mouth worked at forming words, but none were forthcoming. As she strived to speak, her face now looked more like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car; eyes riveted upon the coming tragedy, but unable to move, or in her case, speak.

            The doctor, having played this exact scene out nearly every day of the five weeks Miranda had been under his care, quietly gazed into her frightened eyes, and tried to convey his concern without using words. He had learned that to continue on with words would just drive Miranda deeper inside herself, and that if he left all the words he wanted to say unsaid, the quiet would elicit her words, which were the signal that dialogue could safely commence. He looked on without wavering for three or four minutes before she spoke, in the tremulous, soprano of a small child.

            “Was I bad again, Dr, Fuller”? Randi asked.

            “No Miranda, You certainly weren’t bad, you were playing the Vivaldi, and it once again triggered memories that caused you to have another, shall we say, episode. This is the third time this week you chose the Vivaldi and had this occur. Are you up to talking about it? What you remember? How you felt during the Rites of Spring interlude”?  He paused to allow her to gather the words he could see struggling to come out of her mouth. This poor child has shoved Atlas aside and taken the weight of the world upon her shoulders, he thought to himself. He caught himself, again, thinking of Miranda as a child even though she was in her mid-thirties. It’s her projection of child-like innocence; something he best beware. His thoughts continued, do I truly think she is dangerous? This train of thought is not very professional of me, and quite premature, one way or another….

He pulled his pipe and tobacco from his pocket, began stuffing the pipe’s bowl, and more as an after-thought said, “Do you mind”? Holding his Dunhill pipe towards Miranda he awaited her response, knowing full well it would be in the affirmative.

            “No, go right ahead. I think you need that pipe as much as I do my meds”, she said, then added almost as though to her self “We’re both kind of on a more even keel when you smoke”. She sadly smiled, then went on “Father smoked a Meerschaum pipe, you know. I can still smell the vanilla in his tobacco when I think of him. When I’m not thinking of the “Other Him”, the one who…the one who did the bad thing”, her voice becoming fainter as the words petered off into silence. Dr. Fuller let the silence extend.

            Following an extended period of silence, Dr. Fuller asked “What is it you are so deep in thought about, Miranda? Can you, or will you talk with me about it”?

            “Mostly thinking how badly I miss my father. Your pipe really got me thinking about him. I loved my daddy”..., she said softly, trailing off into a muffled sob. She bent her head down, covered the back of it with her hands and continued to quietly cry, saying through the tears, “I hate Him”!

            This is new, thought the doctor, and to make sure he heard her correctly, he asked “Why do you say you hate your father? In past discussions you told me he was your hero and you loved him”?

            “You aren’t listening to me, at all! I said I love my father! I keep telling you it’s the “Other Him” I hate! I hate what he did to my daddy, my mother, and to me. I’m glad he’s dead! Glad”! Dr. Fuller could see her attempt to scream out the words, past the tranquilizing effect of the sedative, past her learned sense of decorum, past the tears again streaming down her cheeks. “I hate him! I hate him! I hate…” she continued the litany, barely taking time to breathe. The words finally trailed off and Randi appeared to slowly sink in upon herself; growing smaller and smaller as she began to curl herself into a fetal position.

            The doctor looked on with mixed feeling. He felt an almost admiration for the strength that allowed her to fight the sedative, both with her outburst, and now through her withdrawal. Conversely, he was more than a little concerned she might slip into catatonia; a catatonic state she might not able to rise from. He reached oven and gently shook her right shoulder, increasing the shaking until Miranda’s eyes opened and blearily tried to focus upon him.

            While this interaction between them transpired, the nurse had stationed herself just beyond Miranda’s line of sight, directly across from the doctor; giving them the privacy of their conversation, yet readily available to help, should the need have risen. She moved to them in response to Dr. Fuller’s beckoning hand, coming to a halt just behind Miranda, awaiting further instructions.

            “Please get Miranda to her room where she can rest. I think our time together has tired her out, and I want her strong enough to join the group-meeting after supper”, he looked to her name tag to remind himself of her name, and added “thank you for your help with her, earlier, Sharon”. With a pre-occupied look, he rose from his chair and headed towards the ward’s Attending Physician’s office. Entering the office, he did not turn on the light, rather he sat down at the desk, resting his chin in cupped hands and stared into the darkness, thinking about Miranda’s case.

            Though he had been brought into Miranda’s case barely five weeks ago, he had immersed himself into her files, becoming almost obsessed with her previous treatment, her past, and particularly with her actions during the ten days prior to his arrival to Mt Holly Long-Term Psychiatric Care Center. (This mouthful of a name had been shortened to Holly-Psy by some long-gone director, for all but legal paperwork and court appearances. Holly-Psy was a long-term forensic lock-up for the criminally insane and used for evaluating the mental state of those involved—or thought involved—in a criminal case). From a posh psychiatric practice to this bleak forensic facility was quite a step for Dr Fuller, but one he felt nearly coerced to take. The coercion came from within Dr Fuller, himself; in fact he fought for acceptance to this post, both to his own surprise, as to that of his partners in the Austin practice from which he had taken his sabbatical.

            Fuller had been a student taking his MCAPs prior to entering the medical school at Tucson’s University of Arizona campus when Miranda’s case hit the national media. A neighbor was walking by with their dog and heard what sounded like gunshots and hurried home to phone the police. Upon arrival, there was no response at the door and when an officer peered through a window, seeing a girl lying on the floor with blood pooled around her head, they broke down the door and entered the house. Inside they found the bodies of who were later identified as Miranda’s mother and father, and Miranda, unconscious with blood pooling from what appeared to be a gash on her head, but was later determined to be a groove extending from her upper temple area to the crown of her head, gouged out by a passing bullet. Miranda was rushed to a nearby medical center and the forensic detail went through the house.

             The police expected to find evidence of a burglary gone awry or rare at that time, a home invasion. Neither event proved out such to be the case. Evidence pointed towards murder-suicide, but there were loose ends that bothered the police, enough that they would not, or could not, say with any certainty just what transpired in the household that night. Three facts were established though: her father had committed suicide; someone had murdered her mother; and someone had shot Miranda. Any thing more was nothing more than conjecture and educated guesswork.

  (Sorry about all the typos--I probably ought to get in the habit of proofreading...whattaya think?)

            Without raising his head, he swigged the amber liquid, straight from the bottle. Setting the bottle down upon the ring-scarred end table, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye,

            Still going at it, I see, Willie”, his wife, Ruth, wearily noted. “Don’t you ever learn? Jesus! Hasn’t the past ten months taught you anything?” This last said as she crossed the room to slump down onto a once brightly-flowered, now graying, ragged sofa.

            Reading between the lines of her work-coarsened hands and her worry-etched face, one could still see the fragile beauty that was once hers. This elusive beauty was doubly hidden, now, by the bitter set of her mouth and the hardening in her eyes. Looking at her husband, she wondered if her words had penetrated his alcohol-induced stupor.

            The only thing that had penetrated William Arnold’s numbed brain was Ruth’s use of the name, Willie. “Willie was a fair-haired youth, long dead”, he blearily mused. In his intoxicated state he both waxed eloquent and waned incoherent, “Long dead”,  he repeated, sotto voc,e almost as if to himself. He raised his head, glaring at his wife balefully, adding. “I am William Arnold, Sr,, W.P. Arnold! Not Willie! No more…no more…no more…” he trailed off, muttering under his breath.

            His wife, still slumped, didn’t even raise her eyes to look at him. Sitting there, she tried to to remember the youth she had married; the world-by-the-tail provider; the vigorous lover who had fathered their three children. Closing the eyes is not enough—not nearly enough—she thought, as the acrid smell of alcohol and sweat reached her nostrils. The pungent odor seemed to force her head up, and against her will, she looked at her husband. Reflecting on her earlier reverie, she felt now she was looking upon a stranger, a balding, paunchy, drunken stranger. This apparition gave her the strength to say what she had been unable to the husband, she had once loved.

            No, you’re wrong, Willie. Once to your employees, you were William Arnold, Senior, once to to your friends, your were, as well; today, to one-and-all—and that includes me—you’re Willie. Willie, the drunkard; Willie, the has-been”, she said, raising her voice in order to over-ride his muttered denials.

            “I overlooked it the first time, Willy, because I loved you and believed in you”, she continued. “Even the police over-looked your drunkenness. After all, that tramp with you wasn’t hurt, You know, I even told myself that you had just reached a critical age and were looking for reassurance of your masculinity. I accepted it. Really, I did. I really thought that would be it, but I didm’t know our Willie-boy, did I? No. Two weeks later you go joy-riding with another whore, and have another wreck. Only that time your playmate was injured. She threatened to sue you, didn’t she? Was that the reason she was ‘beat-up’ by unknown assailants, just before her departure from town? Was it”? Ruth’s voice was now approaching hysteria.

            Willie shook his head, whether in denial, or in an attempt to clear it. Ruth wasn’t sure. At this point she wasn’t even sure she cared. She was a waterfall spewing torrents of words, drowning out  all around her. The force of her words would not be stemmed.

            “It wasn’t really love that kept me quiet, Willie, it was fear. I was scared to death of you right then. But last week has changed theat fear into hatred. The newspapers said she wa only a teenager. A teenager, for God’s sake! This time your luck didn’t hold, did it? She’s paralyzed, Willie, paralyzed for life. And our savings—gone! Gone, to keep you out of jail, To keep you free so you can go out drinking and have the opportunity to actually kill somebody!”

            Ruthie, I promise…” Willie began, but was interrupted by his wife’s sharp  laugh.

            “Not again! Never again! I don’t want to hear ant more of those empty promises. Go outside and shout them to the wind, it will know their worth, it will know what to do with them”. At this point. Ruth had regained control of herself, and was now carefully biting out each barb, aiming them with deadly accuracy, at at the wound she had opened with her earlier diatribe.

           "I’ve all ready sent the children over to Mother’s. She’s expecting me shortly, too”. Ruth rose from the sofa and angled towards the door, as if unsure of Willie’s reaction to this last announcement. Seeing Willie still slumped, swigging from his bottle, she continued, “It’s gone, Willie. It’s been gone for some time, only it took until recently for me to realize it and gather the courage to do something about it”. With her mouth set, and eyes devoid of any emotion, Ruth turned and walked out the door.

        Willie tried to rise and follow his wife, but his booze-laden body refused to respond. As he fell back onto his chair, he mumbled into the neck of the up-raised bottle: “t’hell with her”.

        Hours later Willie was wakened by an insistent wetness moving over his face. Opening his red-rimmed eyes he recognized Anna, his kid’s keeshond puppy. Whyn’t you go with’em, dog” Willie asked the puppy. “Musta been out chasin’ cars, huh”? Willie continued talking to the dog at great length, as though trying to drown out the pervasive quietness, so unnatural in a house accustomed to the cacophonous sounds of teenagers.

        Tiring of carrying on a one-sided conversation, unwilling to listen to a silent house, Willie grunted to his feet, looking down upon the puppy as if unable to decide on a course of action. He gazed through the dog for many moments, his eyes flickering, first from uncertainty, to understanding, finally to determination, bordering on desperation. Calling the dog, Willie said: “Let’s go for a ride, girl”.

         Miles later, Willie wasn’t sure just how many miles later, he reached the base of the awesome Sierra Madrre mountains separating California from Nevada. Climbing a treacherous winding road, he suddenly slammed on the brakes slowing to an abrupt stop. Opening the car door, he coaxed the puppy out of the car. Pointing towards a clean, white farm house, nestled in a small valley, her told her: “Go make friends, girl. From here on out it’s a one-man roller coaster ride to Hell”.\  

          With that done, he climbed back into the car, gulped down two big mouthfuls of booze and looked out at the puppy loping across the field, never once looking back at him, much in the same manner as his wife had, a lifetime ago.

           “One more for the road, Willie boy”! Willie said. And good as his word, emptied the bottle in two gulps, tossed the empty out upon the roadside, and with tires squalling, he headed off toward the cloud enshrouded mountain peaks, with their hairpin curves....