“What is this, a trial?” I yelled.
“And did you then run to the police and tell them that your mother had deliberately, even perhaps maliciously, set Mr. Croats on fire?”
I started laughing.
“It doesn’t strike me as funny stuff, Sunny.”
“Sorry, but you know the basis for humor, Doc. I got a mental picture of old man Croats on fire, running around that blazing Christmas tree trying to put himself out with a bottle of seltzer.”
“You weren’t laughing when you ran to the police,” Dr. Lawrence said wryly. “Anyway, they considered your story to be unrealistic. And they therefore didn’t believe you.”
“Of course not,” I said. “Because at the time I was not in my right mind.”
“And it’s a good thing they didn’t believe you, isn’t it, Sunny?” Dr. Lawrence stood up suddenly and leaned across his desk. “Imagine people thinking, even erroneously, that a charming woman like your mother would go around setting old men on fire!”
“Especially,” I said with a calm grin, “on Christmas Eve.”
Dr. Lawrence sat down with a sigh. “A convenient time for a fatal accident, wasn’t it? Your mother explained all of that afterward, of course, how it was a terrible accident. Croats was trying to put out the Christmas tree blaze and in so doing contracted a fatal dose of the flames.”
“That’s what happened,” I said. “A fatal accident.”
“And the original story to the police was only the result of hallucinations, right, Sunny?”
“That’s all in the report,” I said. “Stamped by Dr. Zitner. You see, emotionally, I had never really understood being kept away from home all those years. I resented it. I was jealous of the men who replaced me in my mother’s affections and I wanted revenge. When I sneaked back home for Christmas and saw Mr. Croats on fire I imagined that he had been deliberately set afire, because that was what I wanted to do to him. Later, probably because of moral cowardice or because I wanted my mother to show how she hated those men as much as I and that she loved me after all, I imagined that mother had set him on fire.”
“Very neat,” Dr. Lawrence said. “But granting all that was true why must you remain crazy and incarcerated here, Sunny? Any other mother, or most mothers, would have forgiven you and sought your release. You’re cured. You could be released any time.”
“Not according to Dr. Zitner,” I said. “According to Dr. Zitner, I’m a hotbed of repressed hostility, capable of anything. It would be dangerous for me to roam around loose out there.”
Dr. Lawrence, smiling warmly, stood up. He walked around the desk and looked down at me. “Thank you, Sunny, for an extremely interesting discussion. I’ll tell Eddie to transfer your stuff over to the Hall.”
I stood up. “Thank you, sir.”
“But no funny stuff, Sunny. Don’t try running away.”
“Why should I do that?”
“A better question would be, why shouldn’t you? But I know the answer. Your mother would send you back. Strictly for your own good, of course, even though her heart would be breaking.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that.”
“But you’ve never taken the chance and put the proposition to the test, have you?”
“No, because that would be stupid.”
“Not only stupid, but it would upset your mother, right? The devotion you two have for one another is really a touching thing. If you were released, you might start spreading unpleasant gossip about your mother again. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“No,” I said. “Her life is difficult enough as it is.”
Soon as Eddie transferred my personal belongings to a locker in the open ward at Heathstone Hall, I packed a few items, including my Leica camera, into a padded bundle and tossed it through the window bars into some brush in the rear of the institution’s north wing. After that, I entertained a few of my fellow inmates with Mozart and Brahms. I wasn’t in the mood for it. I kept thinking of the bloody rendezvous waiting at the Retreat, and the result was hardly a polished performance. But my audience wasn’t the discriminating sort and it did have a properly therapeutic atmosphere.
Later, about sundown, I mixed with the patients in the recreation rooms and later edged outside for more strenous play — that included tennis, swimming and a few rounds of croquet.
Only the mildest and most malleable patients were allowed to roam about in that relatively free manner. Most of them found Heathstone a pleasant place compared with the complex world outside and wouldn’t have escaped if urged to do so. Most of the others were literally scared into submission. This is by way of pointing out that the attendant of the open wards had been lured into complacency. My particular attendant lolled in a sunchair, half-dozing as I casually stroked a croquet ball into the brush, walked in to retrieve it and never reappeared at Heathstone.
I continued on along the wall of the North wing, picked up my bundle and hiked away into the woods and over the wall.
I glanced back with a touch of nostalgia at Heathstone Rest. My companions there had much to recommend them. They had merely, for the most part, sought refuge from a frightening world. There is a justifiable logic in regarding what is whimsically known as “sane society” with alarm. Like the poor, God must be on the side of the disturbed people, for there are getting to be so many of them.
As for me, I saw only a quantitative difference between the inside and outside of Bedlam. I was ready to start living fast and on a scale that would allow for no imposed limitations. I was ready to live dangerously and meeting Mr. “Y” and my mother would give me a good sendoff.
I proceeded to make my way exuberantly and directly, without wasting time, toward the Retreat upstate. I hitchhiked into the nearest town, picked up suitable clothes in a hockshop. I had saved a neat little nestegg from the liberal allowance sent me regularly by Mother. At a war-surplus store I bought a canteen, a blanket, and an army knapsack. I expected to spend at least one night sleeping under the stars. I went to a gunshop and bought a high-powered BB target pistol. These weapons are perfectly lethal when fired accurately at close range, and they require no gun permit or a certificate of legal age. I bought film for my Leica, then boarded a Greyhound bus that was headed upstate.
With my knapsack and appropriate attire, I suggested a rather sophisticated nature boy heading out to the boondocks to replenish my spirit with open sky and earthiness.
A lovely young girl challenged me with hot dark eyes, and my unleashed senses stirred me toward aggressive action, but I kept myself under control. I would no more make a move to exploit my freedom until it was assured, than I would go to the races with only a dime in my pocket.
Meanwhile, I sat back and watched the night lights of my world — my oyster — rolling past. I would appropriate whatever I demanded of it which would be considerable. My Mother would furnish the financial means, and murder itself would, of course, be no obstacle. It never has been, as you know, for really ambitious people.
First, I would acquire a wardrobe and a sportscar, custom-built. By then my novel would be published and fame added to financial status. That is important because, after all, any rigidly grooved idiot can be wealthy.
As the bus rocked through the night, I lay back on a cushion of anticipation. There would be interviews, television appearances, tours. There would be a European jaunt, visiting a few individuals important in the world of international art. I could even hear a broadcast tape-interview with Françoise Sagan in Paris.
“But, Sunny,” she said in her sulky French. “You’re so young!”
“My dear, I was never young,” I said. “Early in life I decided not to waste my life on youth.”