3
The Rockland Psychiatric Center complex covered hundreds of acres, and was virtually a city unto itself, with its own locksmith shop, fire and police departments; there was a summer camp in the woods beside a large reservoir, cornfields-now leased to local farmers-where patients had once been encouraged to tend crops, an outdoor swimming pool, small parks nestled among a myriad of tall, ivy-covered stone buildings which were, for the most part, designated by numbers. In many ways, RPC reminded me of an Ivy League college campus.
Many of the buildings were now unused; years before, with the best of intentions, the state had decided that many of its mentally ill but otherwise harmless patients would be better served by so-called community support services, and these patients had been released by the thousands from state hospitals. The problem was that there had been no adequate community support services, and the results of this decision could be seen in the surge of numbers of homeless, helpless men and women living on the streets of New York, and many other cities. In addition, many of the criminally insane at RPC had been transferred to various other institutions throughout the state. Consequently, a number of the buildings with bars on the windows were empty, although a few had been converted to staff residences and recreational facilities.
The Defense Intelligence Agency clinic was housed on the upper floors of Building 26, and that was where I headed at seven o'clock the next morning, walking the short distance from Building 18, where I had been assigned an apartment. An armed guard who had not been on duty the previous afternoon sat in a kiosk discreetly set back behind a row of trees, near the entrance to Building 26. The guard, who had a harelip only partially hidden beneath a bushy handlebar mustache, frowned when I handed him the plastic-shrouded, beige-colored identity card with my picture on it. He turned it over a few times in his fingers, as though he could not believe it wasn't counterfeit, then telephoned somebody. He recited my badge number, said something behind his hand which I couldn't hear, then listened for a few moments. Finally he hung up, handed me back the pass, and waved me on. I used the same pass card to open the magnetic lock on the entrance door, then clipped the card to my shirt pocket and took the key-operated elevator to the fourteenth floor. Two orderlies pushing a racked cart loaded with insulated food trays gave me a strange look as I stepped out of the elevator into a corridor, but they passed by and I was not challenged.
Garth's room was the fourth on the left in the corridor to the right of the elevator, and I went directly there. My brother was lying in the same position as when I had left him, on his back, with a pale blue sheet pulled up under his chin; his eyes were open, staring vacantly at the ceiling.
"Garth?" I said quietly as I stared down into his eyes and rubbed the back of my hand against his stubbled cheek. There was no response, and his flesh felt cold.
I started slightly at the sound of a cart rolling into the room, behind me. I turned to find myself looking at a tall, solidly built man dressed in a starched white hospital coat, pushing a cart on which were arrayed a variety of toilet articles-a stainless steel bowl filled with steaming soapy water, a second bowl of clear water, rubbing lotion, washcloths and towels, a cup with toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving equipment. The man had large, bright hazel eyes and long brown hair, which he wore in a ponytail secured by a tooled leather band. In his left earlobe he wore a tiny gold earring. Despite the fact that it was early spring, the man was deeply tanned-which probably meant he was an avid skier. He looked very fit.
"Dr. Frederickson," the man said easily, coming around from behind his cart and extending a large, heavily muscled hand. His voice was high-pitched and carried just the trace of a lisp. His grip was firm. "It's a real pleasure to make your acquaintance; I've heard a lot about you. I'm Tommy Carling-one of Garth's nurses."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Carling."
"Please; call me Tommy."
"My friends, and people who take care of my brother, call me Mongo."
Carling smiled, revealing even, white teeth that looked as if they might have been capped, then pushed the cart next to Garth's bed. "Then I'd better start taking care of your brother, hadn't I, Mongo?"
I watched as Carling checked Garth's pulse, then examined the levels of the fluids in the bottles attached to the tube city that had grown up around Garth's bed. Next, he carefully removed the tubes from Garth's nose and the needles from the implants in his veins. This done, he pulled the sheet down to Garth's waist. He lathered my brother's face with shaving cream, then proceeded to shave him expertly with an old-fashioned bone-handled straight razor, occasionally rinsing the blade in the bowl of soapy water, drying it on a towel he wore draped over his shoulder. Tommy Carling, I thought, had a light, gentle touch, and he seemed fastidious and sincerely caring as he went about the business of tending to Garth. Garth, of course, wasn't about to lodge any complaints, and it was possible that the male nurse was putting on a good show for a relative and visitor-but I didn't think so.
I asked, "Are you permanently assigned to Garth?"
"When I'm on duty," Carling replied, carefully lifting
Garth's nose with his left thumb and forefinger in order to shave his upper lip.
"Good. I like your style."
Carling laughed easily. "My style? I haven't even finished shaving him."
"Still, I like what I see."
"Thank you."
"I hope I'm not in your way."
"Certainly not."
"I wanted to be here early, just in case Garth was. . awake. I guess I was being silly and overoptimistic. I guess you could say Garth is always awake-or always asleep, depending on how you look at it."
"A little optimism never hurt anybody, patient or relative," Carling said as he finished shaving Garth, wiped his face clean with a towel, then splashed on some English Leather cologne. Next, he proceeded to brush Garth's teeth, carefully massaging the gums with the rubber tip of the toothbrush. As he did so, he nodded toward the pass I had clipped to my shirt pocket. "Incidentally," he continued matter-of-factly, "with that ID, it's irrelevant whether or not you get in anybody's way. That particular piece of plastic entitles you to go anywhere you like, any time you like, and do whatever you want, just as long as it doesn't interfere with any patient's treatment. It's heavy."
"This badge is different from the usual visitor's badge?"
Carling laughed as he finished brushing Garth's teeth, then rubbed some astringent on the gums with the tip of his finger. "A regular visitor's pass is green, with a broad yellow stripe across it. It will get you as far as the Day Room downstairs-or into a patient's room only if the patient is absolutely immobile. You'd have an escort from the time you entered the building until you left. That badge you're wearing is a Z-13; God knows why it's designated that, but it is. We call it a brown bomber. It gives you unlimited access to this facility, and also gives you the authority to ask questions of anyone, and get answers. Except for clinical matters, that badge gives you equal authority with the doctors here. That badge makes me, and the other nurses and attendants, your subordinates."
"I didn't know."
"I've only seen a brown bomber three other times in the five years I've been here, and those were worn by an official from D.I.A. headquarters in Washington and two congressmen from a select oversight committee. As far as I know, you're the first relative of a patient ever to be issued one of those. It means you have either a very high security clearance or very powerful friends in very high places. Don't be surprised if it raises a few eyebrows."
So Mr. Lippitt had really taken care of me; perhaps too much so, unwittingly creating enmity and suspicion toward me among the clinic's staff. It could explain Dr. Slycke's attitude.