the steps, which were covered by an ornate iron canopy, and read the sign posted discreetly next to the entrance. Cascade Hall. It had a nice, northwestern ring about it.
I turned around and headed across the parking lot to the building on the other side, built, by the look of it, in the middle of the twentieth century when the only criterion for a public building was how much it was going to cost. This one, a brick rect-angle with square glass windows and linoleum floors, must have come in under budget. I checked to make sure I was in the right place. Siskiyou Hall. It was the administration building where I had my appointment.
As I started up the steps, I stumbled, a sharp pain in my leg.
I caught my balance and the pain vanished as quickly as it had come. It had been years since that leg had bothered me. It seemed a strange coincidence that it should happen now. I paused in front of the door and read the neatly painted letters. Even after all this time, it was still hard to believe that Elliott Winston was a patient in the Oregon State Hospital for the criminally insane.
Six
_______
Dr. Friedman was going to be a few minutes late. I sat down on a cushioned chair and thumbed through a computer magazine, glanced at the beginning of an article claiming that the printed page was about to become an anachronism, and tossed it aside, wondering if the editor had caught the irony. I heard a voice. “Mr. Antonelli?”
I turned around and found myself under the firm, clear-eyed gaze of a man in his early forties with thick brown hair and a round, perfectly symmetrical face. He was wearing a tweed sports jacket and had a clipboard tucked under his arm. After we shook hands, Dr. Friedman led me back to his office and gestured vaguely toward the two armless chairs in front of his government-issue metal desk. There were two steel bookcases, one on the wall next to where I sat and a smaller one that covered the wall below the window behind the desk.
“Dr. Friedman, I—”
He had begun to concentrate on the page on top of the clipboard. He looked up and, with a brisk smile, raised his hand. “I’ll be with you in just a minute,” he said as he went back to what he was reading.
I tried not to be angry and made a conscious effort to relax.
He flipped over one page and began reading the next. A moment later he went to the next one, and then, apparently satisfied with what he had seen, nodded twice and shoved the clipboard to the side. Leaning back in the swivel chair, he crossed his ankle over his knee and with his hands began to rotate a pencil he held in his lap.
“How can I help you, Mr. Antonelli? You’re here to see one of our patients, correct?”
“Elliott Winston.”
“Elliott. Yes, I know.” The pencil was going back and forth a quarter turn each way. His eyes, now that they were on me, never left.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, wondering why I had to see him before I could see Elliott.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Friedman’s voice was a warm monotone, and it was starting to make me feel uneasy. And it was not just his voice. He was a trained observer, always looking for symptoms of abnormality, and whether he was aware of it or not, he was studying me with the same clinical detachment with which I imagined he regularly diagnosed the various forms of psychosis.
“I’m not sure it’s really a problem,” I remarked. I looked out the window over his shoulder. “But when I was very young I used to have two dreams every night. In one of them I killed my father; in the other I slept with my mother.” My eyes came back to him.
“But that’s just a normal part of growing up, isn’t it?”
For half a second he believed me, and even when he knew I was kidding, he was not quite prepared to laugh. It was my turn to study him.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask.”
“Yes?” he replied carefully.
“You know that old line about if you speak to God, you’re okay, but if God
I turned around and headed across the parking lot to the building on the other side, built, by the look of it, in the middle of the twentieth century when the only criterion for a public building was how much it was going to cost. This one, a brick rect-angle with square glass windows and linoleum floors, must have come in under budget. I checked to make sure I was in the right place. Siskiyou Hall. It was the administration building where I had my appointment.
As I started up the steps, I stumbled, a sharp pain in my leg.
I caught my balance and the pain vanished as quickly as it had come. It had been years since that leg had bothered me. It seemed a strange coincidence that it should happen now. I paused in front of the door and read the neatly painted letters. Even after all this time, it was still hard to believe that Elliott Winston was a patient in the Oregon State Hospital for the criminally insane.
Six
_______
Dr. Friedman was going to be a few minutes late. I sat down on a cushioned chair and thumbed through a computer magazine, glanced at the beginning of an article claiming that the printed page was about to become an anachronism, and tossed it aside, wondering if the editor had caught the irony. I heard a voice. “Mr. Antonelli?”
I turned around and found myself under the firm, clear-eyed gaze of a man in his early forties with thick brown hair and a round, perfectly symmetrical face. He was wearing a tweed sports jacket and had a clipboard tucked under his arm. After we shook hands, Dr. Friedman led me back to his office and gestured vaguely toward the two armless chairs in front of his government-issue metal desk. There were two steel bookcases, one on the wall next to where I sat and a smaller one that covered the wall below the window behind the desk.
“Dr. Friedman, I—”
He had begun to concentrate on the page on top of the clipboard. He looked up and, with a brisk smile, raised his hand. “I’ll be with you in just a minute,” he said as he went back to what he was reading.
I tried not to be angry and made a conscious effort to relax.
He flipped over one page and began reading the next. A moment later he went to the next one, and then, apparently satisfied with what he had seen, nodded twice and shoved the clipboard to the side. Leaning back in the swivel chair, he crossed his ankle over his knee and with his hands began to rotate a pencil he held in his lap.
“How can I help you, Mr. Antonelli? You’re here to see one of our patients, correct?”
“Elliott Winston.”
“Elliott. Yes, I know.” The pencil was going back and forth a quarter turn each way. His eyes, now that they were on me, never left.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, wondering why I had to see him before I could see Elliott.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Friedman’s voice was a warm monotone, and it was starting to make me feel uneasy. And it was not just his voice. He was a trained observer, always looking for symptoms of abnormality, and whether he was aware of it or not, he was studying me with the same clinical detachment with which I imagined he regularly diagnosed the various forms of psychosis.
“I’m not sure it’s really a problem,” I remarked. I looked out the window over his shoulder. “But when I was very young I used to have two dreams every night. In one of them I killed my father; in the other I slept with my mother.” My eyes came back to him.
“But that’s just a normal part of growing up, isn’t it?”
For half a second he believed me, and even when he knew I was kidding, he was not quite prepared to laugh. It was my turn to study him.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask.”
“Yes?” he replied carefully.
“You know that old line about if you speak to God, you’re okay, but if God
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