pleased to hear you speaking again, Orville. If you continue to talk to people, take an interest in your surroundings, write home, you'll be out of here very shortly."

"He choked me," Potts said, pointing a thumb at Joe. "He choked me with a towel, and the other one, that Wilhart, hit me in the stomach."

Dr. Bean's spectacles jumped from his nose and dangled by the ribbon. He focused a pair of bleary eyes on Potts and said, "You know they didn't, Orville. The attendants are here for your benefit. They would never subject a patient to physical violence."

Potts laughed for the first time since he was hospitalized. He said, "Why don't you ask me what I did with the key?"

"What did you do with the key, Orville?"

"Talk about monomaniacs!" Potts snickered. "You all have one-track minds. You can't think of any way I could have escaped without stealing a key. Is any key actually missing? Did anyone see me crossing the grass or coming through the halls? I'll tell you how I did it. Exactly how. You already think I'm nuts, so it won't matter."

Again, Potts pointed at Joe. "Laughing boy here can bear me out. He was about to whip me with his ice water, and I vanished. I vanished from the shower and materialized in the dayroom."

Dr. Bean replaced his glasses and grabbed a pad and pencil.

"That's right, Doc," Potts approved. "Write it down. I'm giving you a better break than you ever gave me. I've been in this hospital four times, and no doctor ever sat down and explained what was wrong with me, or tried to learn why. There was something about combat fatigue, whatever that is, over in Italy. Otherwise, I don't know anything. If I so much as raise my voice or break a dish at home, my wife has me shipped back here as dangerously psychotic, or psycho-neurotic, or something. Which makes it nice for her.

"And what do you do when I come back? You give me electric shock treatments and have your sadists whip me with P. T. baths, as if torture could cure a sick mind! Maybe there's nothing wrong with my brain. Maybe it's just different from yours, or this jerk's, if he has a brain."

"Never mind, Joe," Dr. Bean cautioned in a theatrical aside. "Just stand by."

Potts smiled and said, "Take it all down. Then you can check your notes and decide if it's schizophrenia, 

 Prev. P 9/12 next