Far, Far

Attitude. Mettle, spirit, resolution. The attitude of Lucia, mayor of Tilling! E. F. Benson and Tom Holt! If only she could have that attitude!

Far, far from the Lucia she loved, Dorrie had no attitude. Where was her attitude? Dorrie sat in her room, reading about Winston Churchill. She had never read biographies. She knew too much about how famous men threw out their letters and changed their stories. They lied in interviews. So who could stand history? She read only poetry. But there was something going on in the world...Wars or something. Since her hospitalization, she had not been able to read poetry.

Donne wrote:

Then as the earths inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea waters fretfule salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my paines
Through rimes vexation, I should them allay.

But if you couldn't find the damned inward narrow crooked lanes, you couldn't go anywhere. You were dunned!

Her doctor wasn’t especially concerned. Is she able to walk, talk, take care of herself? She was better. He was glad she was better. He found her a place to live again. He said she would get better.

Everything will be well.

Dorrie knew, knew, knew all about it. She wasn’t the first one. Lauren Slater, the beautiful psychologist and writer, mentioned that she could not write poetry after she began to take Prozac. it saved her life. Seven hospitalizations, an unclean house. Prozac allowed her to travel--she needed a good airport connection, though--but she had to write memoirs Instead of poetry.

Lauren Slater, the clasp in her hair, a lovely woman in her thirties joking about how fat she was. She was pregnant, hardly fat. She didn’t want to sign Dorrie’s book. She was bored by Dorrie. Dorrie was ill. Slater sat with Dorrie and her friends in a restaurant. She had given a reading.

Just take the drugs, she said. She thought therapy was useless.

Who couldn’t agree more?

But Rose worried because she wanted Dorrie to marry Ben.

In Dorrie’s room she had a book by Patricia Chao inscribed to Lauren Slater. She had forgotten to give it to her.

What Dorrie liked most she wasn’t allowed to do. That’s what happened in mental illness. People wanted to kill off the mentally ill of the world. Drive them. Hospitalize them. Change their genes. There they all were. William Styron, John Berryman, Delmore Schwartz, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell--all dead--and Lauren Slater, still alive.

There was nothing to do but...be quiet. People kept coming up to Dorrie at the library. They were looking for someone...something to steal...someone to be their beard. She glared. She knew she looked vulnerable. She couldn’t be tough after a hospitalization. She couldn’t stride and look them in the eye, or avoid their eyes...whatever was necessary. Walk tough. She sank into her chair. One of the librarians made her move closer to her.

You don’t want to be around them.

Dorrie burst into tears.

Oh my God, crying again.

The librarian said, It doesn’t matter.

Some librarians were nice, others awful. The Patriot Act. The computer thing. Dorrie could no longer use the computers at the library. She didn’t want to sign in and be tracked when she used her Yahoo account. The mentally ill were used in experiments. Where did they go? What did they do? She tried to keep away from that. She used Rose’s computer when Rose was out. She checked out all the controversial books she could think of: poetry, plays, anti-war books, careless, crabbed books about Bush.

Oh my God. Her paper was spilling all over the floor. She had been writing, making notes, and now the pages were everywhere. Somebody had tried to help her and Dorrie had said, No. The woman was trying to see what she had written. Dorrie knew that you had to be careful in libraries. People sat with their laptops, peering around. Usually they weren’t doing anything on their laptops. They just had a menu up. This woman, who had reddish brown hair , grabbed a piece of paper and took off with it.

That’s mine, Dorrie said grimly.

The librarian ran after the brown-haired woman and got the paper back. She can’t come in here anymore. She’s banned, she told Dorrie.

Dorrie wasn’t sure that the librarian could do that. Ban her? But maybe.

She’s stealing other things as well, the librarian said. We can’t prove it.

Dorrie usually took care of herself. Now she was a little upset about the criminals at the library. But she went anyway, riding the bus downtown, appreciating the spring, looking at the greenery coming up. Sometimes she would sit on the lawn (which was wet) and try to read poetry. But not today.

The war. You could never win a war with suicide bombers. When would they learn?

Dorrie kept seeing Ben. By accident. Accidentally on purpose. He was running into her at the library. He was blond, emaciated, wasted. Not the Ben with Rose. Ben and Rose had belonged together.

He kept saying he wasn’t thinner and claimed he wanted to marry Dorrie.

Dorrie didn’t believe it. What the hell...?

I’ve thought about it. We should get back together. You could sleep in the spare room or the basement or wherever you want.

Dorrie sighed. She wasn’t afraid of Ben. But there had been an incident. He had tried to drown her in the river. He had been in a rage because she had argued with him and had held her down until someone came along and found them. The whole incident had been reported to the police by the man and she had not charged him. She had said, He was drunk, even though it wasn’t so. It was after that she took off. Seattle, a brief stint working at a coffeehouse, but then they had fired her because she mixed up the drinks. Skinny latte? Half and half? Who cared? Sorry, sorry, sorry. The streets. She would be cold but so tired that she would lie down and fall asleep. No blankets, just a coat. it was as if her body got warmer. She was mad, they said. They picked her up off the streets and put her in a hospital. Just like that. That was the end.

And she had never told anyone about Ben but it seemed Rose knew about it. Rose asked if Dorrie was afraid of Ben. No. Did she realize she needed a place to live? Yes. Did she realize Ben could take care of her better than Rose could because she would probably have to charge high rent for the rooms soon? Okay.

Dorrie didn’t know what was going on. But it looked as though there would be a wedding.