States of the Mind: A Fictional Journey Through Conditions of Mind

By Frederick E. Von Burg

A former mental patient helps an addicted homeless man recover a life he thought lost. In the process he develops a relationship with a novice psych nurse (the antithesis of Nurse Ratchet) but first he must cross the borders of the states, nay, the countries of the mind and their parched deserts, flooded deltas, and threatening crags.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 14, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462075799

Frederick E. Von Burg

Frederick Von Burg grew up on Long Island, and worked as a teacher to support his wife and three sons. His interest in the mountain men of the West came when he picked up, in a school library, a copy of Jim Bridger's biography. He researched the Blackfeet Indians and wrote his third book, "Keep My White Sneakers, Kit Carson," while visiting his oldest son in Princeton, New Jersey. Years later, while visiting the same son in Denver, Colorado, he came to appreciate the beauty of the West.

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STATES OF THE MlND

103309_text.pdf

A Fictional Journey Through Conditions

of Mind

Frederick E. Von Burg

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Lincoln Shanghai

States of the Mind

A Fictional Journey Through Conditions of Mind

All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Frederick E. Von Burg

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

All characters in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is

purely coincidental.

ISBN: 0-595-28811-1

ISBN: 978-1-4620-7579-9 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgements

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 3

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 4

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 5

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 6

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 7

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 8

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 9

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 0

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 11

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 2

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 13

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 4

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 5

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 6

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 7

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 8

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1 9

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 0

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 1

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 2

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 23

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 4

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 5

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 6

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 7

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 8

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2 9

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 3 0

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 31

About the Author

This book is dedicated to my three sons and my wife.

The character ofHelen, while notatall biographical, is

modeled on my wife.

Acknowledgements

I pay tribute to the doctors, represented here by Catherine Roth, M.D., whose contributions make such fiction possible.

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 1

Three patients lay like cadavers in a sunlit room that had one additional hospital bed, empty. A closer look would have revealed a peculiar beige canvas cover that was strapped tightly over each motionless body—tied to the side frame of the bed. Some kind of overkill?

It was all standard procedure. On orders from Dr. Pereira, an attractive student nurse was filling what looked like three aluminum teapots with a mixture of sugar water and pineapple juice so rich it was sticky to the touch.

The young doctor wheeled a small cart toward one patient. On it was a dark brown box connected by a wire to an outlet and by two other wires to what looked like padded earphones. The older nurse, after inserting a breathing tube that stuck out of the patient’s mouth like a whistle, took the earphones and leaning over the headboard of the bed, held them to the temples of Bill Wull- man. He looked like a teenager sleeping with earmuffs on his head, but he was twenty-eight, an age when latent mental illness often shows itself. The older nurse looked bored. The student nurse looked apprehensive.

Ready, Mrs. Foster? asked Dr. Pereira.

Ready, replied the nurse with the earphones in her hands.

He pressed a button and the relaxed face and body of Bill Wullman convulsed in a spasm. It lasted only for the moment that the voltage coursed through his head—he with knees drawn up as far as the restraining sheet allowed, arms at strange angles under the sheet, eyes shut tight, mouth contorted into a grimace as of pain. Then it was over, and the machine that had caused it all, just a little bigger than a cigar box, was wheeled over to the next patient. The process was repeated, with a convulsion of the whole body.

A few minutes later, the third patient began to moan. Neither Dr. Pereira nor Mrs. Foster seemed alarmed by this. The student nurse, however, looked questioningly from Dr. Pereira to Mrs. Foster. As his moaning evolved into shrieking, and his head, the only free part ofhis body, began to toss, Mrs. Foster picked up one of the three teapots, and walking over to the patient, inserted the spout at the corner of his mouth and gave him a taste of the water. Within seconds he was drinking it greedily, sucking it from the spout of the teapot. Sugar water was the great alleviator of the insulin-induced coma.

He continued to flail, but being restrained by the sheet, he only caused a little of the sticky sugar water to spill. By now the other two began the same moans and shrieks and tossing, and the small hospital room began to resemble a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Dr. Pereira, thirty-five, dark and slim, seemed undisturbed and unconscious of this similarity, and his two nurses, the student nurse and brunette Mrs. Foster, went about their tasks with briskness. Only the occasional hesitation of the student nurse showed her novice standing.

The screaming and struggling against the restraints seemed to build gradually to a crescendo. The two nurses and Dr. Pereira hurried about, filling the teapots with more sugar water and then giving it to the patients, until the paroxysm seemed to subside as the patients, who at first had an unfocused look, began to focus, calm down and even look rational. They now asked for more sugar water, and the nurses undid some of the ties of the restraints, enabling the patients to prop themselves up on one elbow.

All three patients had undergone what was known as insulin shock, and two of them had also undergone electroshock while in the insulin-induced coma. The first to receive the electroshock, Bill, was a young man with honey colored hair, and his first coherent sentence was a question: Is this the last shock treatment, Doctor?

Dr. Pereira had answered the question before the treatment, but he showed no sign of impatience. Two more to go, Bill.

The woman patient, who had a slight stare, moved her arm toward the doctor. He turned his attention to her.

Maura, you’re on the same schedule as Bill. Then Dr. Pereira indicated the first patient to come out of his coma. Tom gets no electroshock.

Tom didn’t get electroshock? Maura turned her gaze on Tom.

Tom has a different diagnosis. He only got the insulin.

Tom was sitting up, the strait sheet thrown back, his thirst for sugar water apparently quenched. His brown hair was graying at the temples and he had the air of a man who’s been through some of life’s turmoils. He said not a word. He wondered if he was the reason the nurses and doctor wore latex gloves, or did they always wear them around patients, even to administer sugar water? But Tom was happy.

Bill, on the other hand, wore a mournful expression. I still don’t understand how this could happen to me, was what it said, and Dr. Pereira took note of it mentally.

Tom, you’re about ready to get dressed, Dr. Pereira observed. All three had on hospital pajamas.

Tom got up to go, leaving Bill and Maura to take one last sip from the teapots. Bill’s eyes followed Helen, the blonde nurse, as she carried out directions from the doctor. He was too dazed, however, for there to be anything sexual in his look. It was the look of the patient to the caregiver.

Dr. Pereira sat with his boss, Dr. Leo Kern, in the small office in the psychiatric ward that Dr. Kern called his base of operations. Dr. Pereira, sitting opposite the one window, faced Dr. Kern who was on the other side of a desk cluttered with folders and loose correspondence.

Now, look, Dr. Kern was saying in his rich, Austrian accent, I understand your obshections to using the insulin coma. There iss danger of accidental death, and besides, no one in the field uses it anymore. But I tell you, not too many of us use the electroshock either, and I maintain dat iff you haf to use electroshock, use the insulin coma too. I haf seen too many miraculous cures in conjunction wit insulin comas.

Pereira gave an almost invisible sigh. Well, I’m not so sure that the progress we’re seeing isn’t just from the electroshock. And even that is replaced in many cases by the medication. Medication is the trend.

Yes, but the patient must first reach a plateau. And the shock therapies accomplish this. Ven you haf insulin coma combined with electroshock, you haf a one-two punch.

I maintain that Bill and Maura have reached that plateau. As for Tom, he had a doubtful need for it in the first place. I’d like to discontinue insulin coma for all of them.

Kern swiveled his chair and looked out the window. Each was aware that he didn’t have all the answers, and together they formed a respected team with good results.

I’ll still continue the electroshock for Bill and Maura, if you want to play safe, Pereira coaxed.

Dr. Kern absently reached into a drawer and brought out a cigar box. He opened it, looked at Pereira, remembered Pereira didn’t smoke, and then bit a tiny piece off the end of one. He finally said, Let me interview them first.

It was at Wampum Publishers that Bill had begun to feel estranged from the world. As a new editor, he didn’t have an office of his own, but shared a room with Marsha Foley, an older editor. For a novice like him, this should have been fortunate, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Mrs. Foley (he had never gotten used to calling her Marsha, even though she had invited it), how is your sinusitis?

She gave him a look. What more is there to say? You know, when you have sinusitis, if you don’t want to take the antihistamines, you’re stuck with it. The antihistamines only give temporary relief.

Bill said nothing.

Does it bother you, Bill? I mean my clearing my throat and all?

No, Bill lied, I just see you suffering in this damp weather, and I sort of wonder…

There’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve been to several doctors and all they do is charge you for clearing the sinuses and the next day it comes back.

I guess that’s it, then. Sorry. I don’t know why itgrates on my nerves. Maybe I’m going…the way my granduncle Karl did. Retreating to the life of a hermit; caredfor by his spinster sister; always saying he wouldfinish that book on mathematics. He died and nothing ever was accomplished. Agoraphobia? Paranoia? What was it? Was it hereditary? Was Karl, in the end, blameless?

Wampum Publishers was located on Houston Street, and from there it was easy enough to take the subway out to Ridgewood where Bill had an apartment. On weekends he left the spartan furnishings and stayed with his parents in the more modest part of Manhasset. He could have lived there during the week, too, because it was an easy commute to the city on the Port Washington line, but riding the subway to his own apartment in Ridgewood not only saved money, it gave him that sense of independence so valuable to young men.

In a way it was a relief to leave the office, slide down into the bowels of the earth and speed to a pad that he called home. There were a few drawbacks. Ridgewood, once a German and Irish neighborhood, had turned into a more multicultural arena, and following a nationwide trend, crime had increased. Bill was sensitive to the fact that he might be a target, and the resulting anxiety wore on his nerves.

But he liked his apartment. In the language of the realtors, it was a studio. However, there was no skylight or wide, ceiling-high window. There was just a bathroom and a big room with one small window. The room served as sleeping quarters, living room, and kitchen. Against the wall formed by the bathroom was a table that Bill had made by taking a wooden, flat door and adding ready-made legs. It was a bit shaky, but it served, at least enough for Bill to keep a toaster on top.

The one, lone chair in the apartment, a symbol of the asceticism of the whole interior, was pushed under the table. It was a colonial style wooden chair, the clear varnish worn down to the brown stain in parts.

While the apartment represented independence to Bill, it was no longer the fresh-minted coin of freedom. But Bill persevered with courage, and though his parents in Manhasset were mystified by his ascetic persistence, they said little about it, happy that he usually came to see them on weekends. He recently came in late on those weekends, for he was spending time with Verna Edge- worth.

He called Verna once or twice a week on the telephone.

What’s up for the weekend? Verna would ask. She led a carefree life, working in a doctor’s office as a receptionist and living with her parents. She could talk endlessly about clothing and good restaurants. Music, at least popular music, was one of her specialties.

We’re going to the East End to do some wine tasting, Bill would reply.

Again?

"O.K. Then maybe you’d like to see The Fugitive."

We’d have to stand on line, but that’s O.K.

No, I know a small theater in Bethpage that few people know about; it doesn’t draw the crowds, even when it has a big hit.

Really, Bill, I didn’t think you were so with it.

Bill didn’t know how to handle such repartee. Was she being sarcastic or playful? He concluded her intent was friendly.

Sometimes when he was alone he wondered if the universe was friendly, if there was a plan to fire him at work. Verna listened as Bill described Marsha.

I tell you, she absolutely drives me crazy with that cough.

Bill, you ride the subway. How do you put up with coughing there?

You don’t understand. It’s the place, the time…Do you know Marsha?

No, Bill, how could I?

Well, you’re defending her.

We women have to stick together. It’s common sense.

What we need is some exceptional sense. Whatever.

Look, the woman annoys me so I can’t do my job. Maybe I better quit.

C Η A Ρ Τ Ε R 2

As Verna and Bill left the theater, there was a slight drizzle, so they sprinted through the shopping center parking lot to Bill’s Monte Carlo, bought at a police car auction with the help of Stu Levin, a mechanic who lived down the block from the Wullmans in Manhasset.

Bill opened the door on the passenger side after unlocking it, and Verna hopped in. Then he went around to the driver’s side. Not all Verna’s dates treated her like this, and she was conscious in a vague sort of way that Bill was quality. One thing she had learned growing up in Manhasset, and that was that some people represented quality. Don’t ask her to probe into what made up an outstanding quality. She used intuition, and so quality was never defined, whether it was material possessions or character or both.

Bill, I feel like having an ice cream sundae. How about you?

Bill was getting in on the driver’s side. He looked at Verna. She was slightly on the plump side, but pleasingly so. The weight was all in the right places.

Sure, that’s O.K. with me. I know just the place on Polestar Boulevard.

They drove along the Wantagh Parkway, that fairly straight parkway as Long Island’s parkways go, and Verna chattered on about shopping at Blomvale’s. As she talked on, she gave a sharp look at Bill.

You haven’t said a thing since the movie.

I’m a fugitive, and fugitives don’t talk.

A fugitive from what?

From women who talk about shopping at Blomvale’s.

Very funny.

Bill said nothing more.

Bill?

Uh-huh.

What are you thinking?

Oh, I’m just going over the movie in my mind. It had some funny scenes, like when Harrison Ford is being chased by the marshall in the courthouse, and he tells the security guards there’s a madman following him.

Yes, that was funny.. Why don’t you share your thoughts?

I just did.

No, you were sort of daydreaming.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to.

* * *

Ernest and Emma Wullman sat at the kitchen table of their small brick home and discussed Bill. He was the second oldest of their four children; the younger ones were