Going Too Far (43 page)

For if paranoia is the dread of seeing the undying horror behind each face, all the while being driven endlessly to expose face after face after face—then grace is the ecstacy of seeing the immortal joy behind
each face, while possessing the exhaustionless energy required to uncover face after face after face.

This would be the revolumination that passeth nonunderstanding.

II: THE PARABLE

T
HE PARABLE
, while an actual dream, clearly borrowed and transformed one of its central images from a first-class “horror film” entitled
The Island of Lost Souls
. The movie was made in 1932 and it starred the incomparable Charles Laughton. It made an indelible impression on both K. and me when we first happened across it, and we still seek out the film every time it returns or is rerun on television. I don't know if the religious metaphor of the movie staggers everyone as it does us, but I do know that this influence made itself felt not only in my dream-parable but in a poem of K.'s which so closely speaks to the paradigm and the parable both that I reprint it here, with his permission.

T
O THE
M
AD
D
OCTOR

by Kenneth Pitchford

(In the film
The Island of Lost Souls
, a doctor tries to recapitulate evolution by performing gruelling operations on living animals to raise them step by step to the human level.)

“
You made us in the House of Pain,
”

shouts one of your wretched parodies
,

now that these unbeasted creatures verge on riot
,

no longer servile to their master

—
an accusation salted by our almost human tears
,

and then one last rising up

to tear apart our island, exploding

into the solar sea your slaves and you
.

Made deaf to all of our complaints
,

you made us in the House of Pain
.

Yet you yourself, to all but the naive
,

are only the boiling of matter and energy

endlessly up, hurled outward

into galaxy, sun, and planet
.

One cinder more or less cannot put out your eyes

in the billions of embers you have made
.

Us? Compassion for such creatures?

No, for unlike that mad scientist, Charles Laughton
,

you made us in the House of Pain

without even blinking back through such misguided

good intentions at your handiwork
,

gone subtly awry in ways you hadn't planned
.

But plan itself is the last naivete

to credit to the forces that summoned us
.

In the instant between this galaxy's decision

to fling the largesse of its stars away

and its inevitable extinction
,

you made us in the House of Pain

for what? To mythologize you on the walls

of caves, temples, and cathedrals?

To slaughter each other in momentous disagreements

about what garments to portray you in?

The tools for drawing you have changed
.

Theology, logic, intuition, all give way

to microscope and telescope. Indifferent destroyer
,

I call your boiling zeal the accident by which

you made us in the House of Pain
,

that accident the great cause of our punishment

—
unless other forces we cannot see compel you
.

If so, forgive my “the
.”

House, city, world have never held

anyone in whom those forces

written on the sky churned more at peace

here than there. We've mostly simpered and killed

and blanched the faces from other people's children
.

You made us in the House of Pain

to give and take that harm, to want and hunger
,

to shudder servile in that house
.

Of other ways to live, women

speak every century or so
.

And, yes, your configurations have a beauty

if seen abstractly. Yet how many civilizations

wiser than ours wink out in the sudden nova

quaking outward through Orion's belt?

You made us in the House of Pain;

what beyond that is still worth speaking of?

Pain has its patterns, its complexities

worth studying for the perfection of their form
.

But to be born almost as stupid as your beasts
,

less wise than perishing systems in some cinder

embittering our view?
—
unless any total knowing

or unknowing as we bubbled up through cell and tissue

is the one mercy you denied us when

you made us in the House of Pain
.

Copyright © 1977 by Kenneth Pitchford

It would do one well to keep in mind this poem, its subtle form, and its speaker, as if they constituted the threads of a guide-line, while entering the labyrinth of the parable.

K. and I are honored visitors being given a tour through the grounds of a famous “model” asylum. There are beautiful buildings, spacious lawns. The inmates live in the cottage system—no wards, dormitories, fences, straitjackets. The tour is conducted by the Director, an attractive if slightly pretentious man, silver-haired, kindly, his Claude Rains manner a bit disquieting. He is accompanied by the Assistant Director, a middle-aged woman of nondescript appearance (naturally) in a dark dress. His manner is leisurely, hers efficient, yet both are pleasant enough. We four pass by a stone building somewhat out of character with the other structures on the grounds; it is all on one level, but stretches out squatly for a good city-block's worth. I linger to squint at the barely decipherable legend carved above the main lintel. The words, cut deep into the stone, have been worn away by the elements or by some hand deliberately trying to rub them down, but to no avail, although they are much fainter than their carver intended them to be. The Director, the Assistant Director, and K., a bit ahead of me on the geranium-bordered path, drift back to stand near me while I slowly read aloud the words:

“The House The People Fear.”

There is a short silence before the woman attempts to bustle us on to the next display. But I have grown curious to tour the stone building, and despite the dissuasive attempts of our hosts and the reluctance of K., I become adamant. I am the one who insists. We four enter the building together and proceed through various rooms, all of them appearing to be outer offices of some sort, equipped with desks, chairs, filing cabinets, bulletin boards, and other gray standard office furniture, brightened here and there by a rhododendron on someone's desk, a saved birthday card pinned to someone's bulletin board, a framed print on a regulation wall. There is clearly nothing to see here, in these unpeopled offices. The Assistant Director explains that no one, of course, works on a holiday such as this one. K. and I nod in understanding.

We come to a door which, when opened, reveals a vast laboratory, all chrome and white enamel and glass, scrupulously clean and, like the offices, completely empty. A peculiar odor, like ether mixed with gasoline and honey, seems to emanate from the laboratory. It sickens me, and I announce that I have seen enough of this building; the hosts were right, after all, there is really nothing to see here today. We begin to retrace our steps when K. suddenly stops, and declares that
he
now would like to tour the lab, having come this far. After all, what a
pity to miss seeing the latest in lab techniques and instrumentation. Apprehensive, I waver at leaving without him, but then am convinced by the courteousness of the Director and his Assistant. They invite me to walk freely around the grounds while I wait for the three of them to complete their inspection of the stone building. There are no planned tours here, they smile, no censored sights, so I am at liberty to wander as I wish. They will join me shortly out on the wide lawn which looks like a college campus quad, grassy expanses marked out by gravel paths which cross and counter-cross from all points of the grounds. I am tempted to wander about by myself so I agree, and leave them to continue their tour.

Out on the path, in the sunshine, any anxieties I felt earlier seem absurd. I saunter toward the middle of the quad, passing people walking in groups of twos and threes. They reply to my smile with smiles, to my nod with a gracious bend of their heads, but they don't answer any of my verbal greetings. This seems odd, although under the influence of the hot sun and the fragrance of fresh-cut grass, I lazily dismiss such behavior as their shyness toward strangers. I find a pleasant spot in the center of the lawn, take off my jacket so as to enjoy the air's warmth, and sit down to wait for K. and our hosts, my gaze sweeping across the serenity of the grounds, the distant cottages picturesquely built from logs, with thatched roofs and geraniums in the window boxes, the thick circle of trees and hedges far out at the edge of the grounds, protecting all within from the curiosity or censure of any without. My eye comes to rest on a huge woodpile off to my left a ways, almost at the limit of the tree circle. Someone has been chopping firewood valiantly in great quantities for the coming chill—a cozy task, since every cottage has its own wood-burning fireplace in the common living room which the “residents” share, each having her or his own private room upstairs, six to a cottage. Whoever had cut all that wood so energetically had flung down the axe at last, in exhaustion no doubt, where it remained, handle at right angles to the chopping-block root in which its blade was thrust. A bit careless, I think uneasily, leaving an axe around all these lunatics, and immediately chide myself for having less progressive attitudes than the Director himself, who always referred to the inmates as residents and who was renowned for his radical solutions to modern madness. Preoccupied with my own bigotry, I am surprised to notice a young woman—a girl, really—standing to one side of the woodpile. Has she been there all along, or has she only just come up?

Certainly her appearance is sufficiently nymph-like to make credible her manifestation from thin air. She seems between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Her slender body is whimsically dressed in some kind of ankle-length puff-petticoated organdy gown. The light skirt, which gives itself to every invitation of the breeze, billows prettily as
she stoops low by the woodpile for a second, then bounces upright and runs with unconscious grace toward where I sit. As she draws nearer, I can make out the delicate face, the onyx eyes, the long blond braids which swing in rhythm to her step. She is smiling at me. She really is a charming sight.

I smile back, and she plumps down in a whoosh of petticoats beside me, her descent to the grass one motion consistent with her fleetness of a moment earlier. We laugh together. I seem to recognize her but cannot tell from where. Surely she looks too intelligent to be a resident, yet her costume
is
rather precious. Perhaps the child of a resident, here visiting? But my doubts about her sanity are quickly dispelled when, after looking intensely into my eyes for a moment, she ceases smiling, nods once, decisively, as if to herself, and places a frail hand on my arm.

“Be alert,” she says. “It will be as you suspect, not as they reassure you. Remember that. And you will need this.”

From the folds of her dress she produces the axe which, to my horror, she swiftly places in my hand. I can do little else but stare stupidly at the axe, then at her, then at the axe again, my mouth opening and closing on questions it cannot frame. Nor do I have the time to let anything sink in, because the girl, looking past me, winces in alarm and says in a rapid, hoarse whisper, “Quick! They're coming! Hide it, quickly, so, under your jacket. Speak casually of me. My poor friend, when you have need, I can be found in the third cottage from the left, there, with the white shutters. Take care. Trust no one. Goodbye.”

Then she is on her feet, light as a butterfly. She spins around once as if in a mad little dance, curtsies, smiles a big smile, and darts off in her flying gait toward the cottage she has pointed out.

Before I can recover, the Director, his Assistant, and K. come up. I feel the need to give them some explanation of the child I know they've seen.

“The most charming little girl was just here, Director. She sang a nursery rhyme for me, danced a bit, and fluttered off. But what about you?” I throw out, in my haste to change the subject, “Did you finish touring the building?”

The Director and his associate stare after the girl, but K. sinks down on the grass with me. He seems strangely exhausted. He explains that they had gone on, yes, and seen all the laboratories which were, after all, just laboratories, and he is now very tired and wants merely to rest for a while on the grass. He has a terrific headache, he says, and lays his head in my lap. I carefully move my jacket with its frightful contents to one side to make room for him.

The Director apologizes for having tired us out in his desire to be thorough, to give his visitors “the complete picture.” He has other
pressing duties now, and has to leave us, but the Assistant Director is highly capable of guiding us through the remainder of our visit. We say goodbye to him, and give him our thanks for his candor and hospitality. He leaves us. The Assistant Director remains, however, and seeing that K. still seems to be pained with his headache, she offers him two aspirin. I grow suddenly stiff with suspicion, although of what I cannot tell. But the anxiety is so strong that I find the excuse of asking her to get some water to go with the pills, although K. seems perfectly willing to swallow them dry. She, too, leaves us, and I try to speak of my suspicions to K., who hears little, woozy as he is. I taste the pills—they are indeed plain aspirin, and I feel like a fool. The atmosphere of the loony bin must be contagious, I think, and when the woman returns with the paper cup of water, I permit K. to swallow the aspirin and lie down again.