The Endless Concord, Chapter 5

V. Idle Men

The next few days were spent sleeping under the desk in the office. Terry would come in the mornings to wake me up. We had a silent arrangement worked out. He knew I needed the sleep but gave me looks that suggested anything could happen, but the door was open, the florescent lights were beaming all night long in the office, and I could still hear the clients approaching. I could get up, straighten out, sit down in a rolling chair and pretend to be working. No problem. The thing is sleeping under that desk really dragged it out of me. This is my life. Crouched under a desk in something called a ‘facility,’ my only friend out here being Willis, who, OK, all said, is totally useless. But I was invested. Square one at this point didn’t really seem like an option. Willis was right. I would only be subbing one madhouse for another.
When the mornings came I counted off meds and went home to my one bedroom apartment to realize I couldn’t sleep and was out of coffee and went to one of the two million coffee shops in the city to sit there and try not to let anyone get on to me. We were told the best therapy is a public place where you’re too embarrassed to lose it. Sit there in a coffee shop and read, don’t panic, just try not to panic. You’re saving money. You’ve got some things working. Nobody has you figured out. Light speed is 186,282.397 miles per second, it’s important to know things like that. Lance didn’t know that, that makes you different from him. Pointless knowledge and the ability to know how and when to lay it on cleverly is a facet of social stability. The daunting temptation to have a mental breakdown in a crowded room of stable looking people is totally acceptable in various circles. The idea is to talk about it. How nice it is to experiment with altered states of mind. How nice it is to accept depression, to deal with it. Normal people get depressed. Normal people accidentally admit psychopaths into med rooms. Team Teamwork told me all of this. The man with the tuxedo shirt called the office the other night, during graveyard, three days after Lance’s death. He said mistakes are what make us human. 
 “So then why is my employment at jeopardy?”
“…Well, in this line of work a simple mistake can be dangerous, you saw that yourself.”
“So it’s dangerous to be human?”
“Don’t push it.”

What I needed, Willis said, was to get out of town for a couple of days, out in the countryside, get my head together, reflect on how it felt to kill a man.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“He’s dead isn’t he?”
So he let me borrow my car on Saturday morning and I drove, aiming North, to whatever was out there. I hadn’t slept yet; Dorothy rolled into the office the night before. The chilling sound of what was left of a 44 ounce soda evading the hysterical probing of a very long straw echoed throughout the hallway. I got out from the desk, only down there for ten minutes, and shuffled whatever papers I could find in the office. I was extremely annoyed. She hadn’t taken a moment to register the fact that the light was off, she just lumbered in and began talking about Justin's case file, his irregular eating habits, Randall’s sleepwalking, Mason’s habitual masturbation. She kept me company in the dark like that for four hours.
So at around noon, incapable of keeping my eyes on the road, cross-eyed with drowsiness and delirium, I decided to pull over and turn around to a motel I saw near an onramp. I was heading towards the beach, or Thom, I didn't really know what but I figured it was either Thom or the ocean that would set things straight. The ocean through that bigger-than-you kind of awe that happens before a roaring tide and Thom a sentiment just the opposite. I settled for a motel with a pool.
There was a large empty parking lot and a neon sign with an arrow on it and box letters announcing vacancy. This is the place where Estate victims go after they cross the line; thousands of them in thousands of parking lots just like this one spread out across the country, huddled around and talking fast to one another. This is America, the real America, left over from the anti-communism crusades of the 1950’s. Insanity is an entire generation left to themselves. The rest of us have moved on to better looking parking lots, cleaner looking cups of coffee. This is a place where people dwell on dangerous things. I’ve been here before. I’ve grown up around them but what I wanted to know was how, how did they get here? Where and how was the line crossed? I wanted to know where it was so I could stay clear of it.
The lobby was aligned with brass looking plastic-work and red drapery. An old man sat in a burgundy chair looking over a guns and ammunition catalog.
The .22 is an excellent choice for the rifleman that prefers to remain at a distance from his target. Available in mangrove and grassland camouflages.
“That’s a fine one,” I said, trying out the drawl I remember my father having, bouncing up to the large desk and looking at the magazine.
“Well…I’m not really a gun man,” he said, looking up and putting the magazine down.
“I see.”
“I’m more of a stabber,” he said, leaning in and whispering.
He smelled like cheap aftershave. Something he might have purchased in a catalog. There’s an entire culture of catalog people. Willis had informed me of their whereabouts one afternoon while watching me flip through one of the shoes sections. He said they own Betty Crocker books and keep a good house, a clean smelling lawn: trimmed, precise.
The man watched me fumble with my keys and make my way towards the door until I looked up and noticed his amusement.
“Did you want a room?”
“Yeah, with a lock please.”
“You into guns much?” the man asked, putting the catalog under the desk and eyeing the key rack over. “I just figured you were into guns, looking over my magazine and all.”
“My brother and I went hunting once with my uncle growing up. I was young but apparently I was a pretty good shot,” I said, taking the keys from him and embarking on a walk down the red carpet lined hallway with him beside me.
Thom and I spent that entire trip arguing about whether or not the yellow cooler is too bright, that it might perhaps scare the prey away. Our mother thought we’d all bond with her brother, Uncle Lenny, an experienced hunter. We packed up early on the second day and went out for Thai food and a movie.
“I like to get out there Tuesdays and Sundays,” the man said.
“Shooting?”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds nice.”
“You ever wonder why they don’t make urban camouflages? Like city buildings and stuff?” he asked coolly.

I drove out to the Good Country Inn and booked a room for two nights. I wanted rest in a place made of clean carpet and tile; something big and totally indifferent. The man at the motel had too much personality. I didn’t want personality. The Plaza has personality. Lance had personality. The idea is to evade personality completely, to vacation. This would be why, on weekends, Willis and I often found ourselves walking around department stores and not buying anything. The department store is a necessary outlet for healthcare workers. Normalization, integration; these are necessary things after spending eight hours bathing and cleaning grown men, giving them meds, playing cribbage, thwarting Mason’s sudden masturbation assaults.
“The department store is a wonderful assumption; it’s societies great lamplighter for sanity. It says, ‘here I am, consume me.’ And so we shuffle up to it, people from all sorts of bizarre little environments; the department store allows us to conquer ourselves.” Willis said one afternoon. He stopped at a kiosk and inquired about the price of extended cellular minutes. “There’s something to be said for the smell of mint blasting from air conditions,” he continued, “the neighborly passivity of the escalators. Men make wishes in water fountains. People have felt the gravity of choice in the food court. The virtual outsourced to the real…” he paused in deep thought, “real-time hyper-living. The episodes have been planned and the seasons all prewritten: auto-life, auto-thought. This is the nature of comfort.” We bought a pizza sized chocolate chip cookie and a vanilla soda, splitting the cookie up into edible portions inside the paper pocket and continued walking.
This is why it was necessary for me to leave for the weekend, Willis imagined. I would hang out in the lobby and visit the weight room. I would pick up a grocery store novel and read it by the pool. He told me that when the World begins to shake to get under a doorframe and assume a fetal position.
Willis paused by the information booth, looked the woman over, continued walking and then doubled back. “What goes through first, anytime minutes or evening minutes? Like is it all just kind of bundled in the package or is it possible to just use the anytime minutes? I mean, how does this really work?”

On Sunday I bit the bullet and went out to the parking lot looking for the car. I was never given a ticket, it was just kind of driven away. There’s a quiet pride in handing a man your car keys and walking off. There’s a trust in the system. The idea that the man could just drive off into the horizon seems utterly ridiculous. There’s this serenity in having your car parked for you. After walking around for a while in a daze I found it and opened up the trunk. Lance’s case file sat glaring back at me. Weighty, completely alone; everything there is to know about Lance Bennett. It had a gravity to it. I tried handling it with indifference. This is my job. Keep telling yourself that.
I took it out by the pool. The swimmers were restless. Here they were just telling their kids that they see what they’re doing and, “That’s okay sweetie,” when in walks this man: tall, pale, a medical goatee, wavy brown hair; I looked like a man that shouldn't be there. The brown cabana swim trunks only supported this. And here, folded under my arm and rocking with long strides, was the entire life of a man I accidentally murdered.
“Sir, would you care for a coffee?”
“Scotch, no ice.”
“Very good sir!”
“Thanks.”
I stretched out on one of the folding chairs and opened up the case file and turned to “History and Assessments.” We’re not supposed to read these in public or take them out of the office but Willis made an exception. In fact, it was his idea, part of my T.V.T.E.A.

CLT. Youth HX. and Assessments, Compiled by, Dr. Morgan Rutherford, Clariton Hospital, Brooklyn.
(All information herein has either been verified by immediate relatives, interviews with doctors on-call, SSI State Assessment and Review Boards, or client’s case-doctor.)
-M.R.
Patient was born in October the eleventh, nineteen-sixty-six at Clariton hospital, Brooklyn, to middle-class family. Family moved to San Diego, California when patient was twelve. Little is known about Lance’s behavior before this move. Only child. Father, Lawrence Bennett (deceased 3/11/1985) worked in real-estate, company name unknown. Mother, Joyce Bennett (now under care in Fremont Nursing Home for the elderly, Portland, Oregon) was employed at the perfumes counter of a department store. The move was apparently a work related decision. This didn’t appear to have any real effect on Lance’s behavior.
Teachers gave him decent marks –average student. Macarthur San Diego public school records indicate only one major event. A student had apparently accused Lance of being a homosexual. When the effect was lost on Lance, other names were used, and finally the student had resorted to blows. The student had apparently singled Lance out because of his small size. Lance was hospitalized at San Diego Public Hospital for bruises on the face and ribs. Records from this hospital indicate parent’s fear that several ribs might have been broken, although he was released that same day (the injuries being reportedly minor).
Note: Patients father, according to an interview with mother at an early stage of his hospital admission, had an alcohol problem.
Over time, according to mother, Lance was coming home from school and spending more and more time in isolation, reportedly feeling alienated from his academic environment. Patient often complained of feeling separated from his teachers and his classmates, “Feeling like just another number,” Lance had said in a private conversation with Mrs. Bennett. Lance often turned to music and literature as devices in which to channel the frustrations he underwent in everyday life.
When Lance turned fifteen his father felt it was time for Lance to seek employment, “Something to keep his mind from drifting” -quoted directly from a recent conversation with mother- (now totally unresponsive, catatonic).
In 1981 patient was hired at McDonalds. He had apparently refused employment several times but finally conceded after father had threatened to destroy his music albums. Lance was employed at McDonalds from 1981-1984 part-time while he completed high school. Pay was minimum wage.
According to his Mother, Lance had used his earnings over the four year period to purchase several guitars.
Patient’s behavior at school grew increasingly bizarre; often skipping history class to sit in the school garden, or taking long walks in the community park close by. Records indicate lower grades, increased fights, and disobedience throughout his high school career (Although biology grades climbed steadily during this period).
Lance was again hospitalized in 1984 for a mental breakdown. He was reportedly caught in the school bathroom crying and refused to get up and recite the school anthem when ordered by school staff. Psychiatric evaluation was recommended by school nurse and parents conceded. Lance was prescribed methylphenidate to keep his concentration apt and up to par and to shut down increased irregular behavior (although little was known about ADHD and schizophrenia relationships at this time). The medication, according to Lance, made him feel empty and absent, “Less like a person” (quoted from an interview with Dr. Idleman, see below).
He was later caught by Mrs. Bennett cheeking the medication. An appointment was then made for regular visits with a psychiatrist, Dr. Idleman. A transcript written by the Doctor is attached in section 11 under “Assessments,” also included are two tapes of the few sessions with the Doctor…

I sat up in the chair and lit a cigarette and starred at the name. Coincidence. Parallels looking not so parallel anymore. I tried not feeling so astonished and flipped over to section 11 but the rings in the binder caught the pages like they always do and a good half of them got out of the loops. Locating all the holes is difficult as the pages are old and some of them are hand hole-punched rather than punched altogether, precisely, with one of the three-hole punchers one might find in the modern office. The problem with this inconsistency is that some holes are a bit further over on the page, meaning that when the pages get scrambled you have to go in there and attach each page to the hoops separately. Nothing is more annoying than this process.
After I put everything where it needed to be I decided to save the transcript for later. It was one of those endings you need to prolong. That really good thing out of the corner of your eye you don’t want to look at quite yet, you want to finish with everything else and then give it your full attention when you’re ready for it, and it’s ready for you.
The idea that the Doctor I had seen on TV played some role in Lance’s life is just too perfect. It made total sense. The worst Doctors write books with their faces on the jacket sleeve. The worst Doctors have worked with Lance Bennett. That’s why Lance Bennett was Lance Bennett. I suddenly felt like there was a precursor to Lance's death, something beyond my control; a series of events I had nothing to do with that led to this. I didn't kill Lance. This thought was reinvigorating but didn't last long.
“Looks intense.”
I looked up and found a girl there standing right above me starring at the case file. She was wet, tall, and pretty. She looked my age.
“Yeah, yeah I guess it is,” I said, looking down at the binder and feeling awkward.
Think of things to say. Light speed moves at 186,282.397 miles per second, tell her that.
“What is it?” she asked with her hands on her hips, looking down at her toes.
“It’s this thing I have for work. It’s kind of an evaluation chart. Pretty boring actually.”
“I’m Rainy,” she said, holding her hand out in the air.
“Oh, OK, I’m Clement Landers,” I fumbled, sitting up and nervously pushing the file away from me.
I shook her hand.
“So where do you go to school?”
“Well, I’ve finished already.”
That was a lie.
“Really? What was your major?”
“Life studies.”
“Really? Intense.”
“Yeah. Intense.”
There’s this thing I try not to think about.
“So Clement Landers, what are you doing here all alone?” she asked, looking around distractedly.
“I really have no idea…”
“Well, you want company? You mind if I sit down?”
“Sure, that sounds fine.”
She smiled and repeated what I said back to me. I thought about it, that sounds fine.
She sat down crossing her legs and clasping her hands above her knees.
“Has anyone told you that you mutter to yourself whenever you read?”
“Yes, I know this.”
“It’s like, kind of crazy in a charming way.”
“Is that good, I mean, is that a good thing?”
“To some, not to others.”
“And which one are you?”
“I don’t know, guess you’ll have to find that one out,” she said with an awkward smile.
“Well, okay. I mean, you seem cute and nice and I must look like a total wreck…”
She starred at me blankly.
“What I mean is, uh…”
Crazy in a charming way.
“What, were you going to invite me for continental breakfast or something? Because it’s just muffins and OJ.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to do,” I said laughing.
“No thanks,” she said dramatically, looking away and smiling with a roll of the eyes.
She was very pretty. She seemed plain before without this flirtatiousness, but here when she smiled she was very pretty.
“What? So what your saying is that you’re not a Portland Tribune and ice-water date? Your saying the ice-water is off?” I asked, still laughing.
“Throw in a coffee and it’s a deal.”
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, however there’s a barber college near my work where we can get a free experimental haircut. Free bowl cuts all around! ...It’s where we take our clients.”
“Hmm…bowl cuts?”
“Yep.”
 “What do you mean clients? You look out of place here. Are you one of those guys that takes rich guys’ sons and daughters out for a night on the town? Some kind of Mafia hit man or something?”
“I work with the mentally ill.”
“Like crazy people?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool!”
“Yeah...very cool,” I said, nodding and playing with the rubber strips on the pool chair.
“Anyway, our bowl cut adventure might have to wait...I’m going back up to Seattle today.”
“For some reason I was under the impression you lived here.”
“It’s a hotel.”
“I know this.”
“We’re at the hotel pool.”
“You’re all wet.”
“You’ve got ‘charts.’”
“Yeah...” I said, looking down at the mess of vanilla papers and multicolored tabs. 
 “So what are you doing in a hotel if you live here?”
“I killed a man.”
“I see,” she said smiling.
“Yep.”
“Anyway I’ve got to pack. I’m serious about that ice-water.”
“I am too, ice-water is the only thing left no one’s truly fucked with,” I began.
“Well put.”
“It comes in plastic cups or a glass. You can’t bottle it. It’s just ice-water and that’s it.”
“I get it. It’s genius. Here, I’ll get my phone,” she said smiling, getting up and making her way towards her chair.
There’s a way people walk when they know other people are looking at them. It’s as if you’re superimposing a body in a photograph but the face is still yours –this expression you can’t hide from anyone.
I exchanged numbers with Rainy and made fun of her name and she made fun of my goatee and we both decided it’s a good start. She seemed like she was making a leap downwards, as if everyone she knew were all set up with someone and she needed to secure something really fast, at least just to hold until something better comes along. I felt like a room.
We talked for a few more hours and ordered some cocktails and ate dinner in the hotel restaurant. She left shortly after dinner. Her last few moments in town were spent with me, bags packed and all. That made me both flattered and apprehensive. We said goodbye and I hugged her, impressed with how quickly things can move.
It’s all very simple. These are the way things are done, I imagined. ‘I’ll go get my phone,’ like she’s writing a check.