The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [135]
By now final exams had begun. Leonard’s stream of visitors tapered to one or two a day. He began to live for smoking breaks. In the afternoon and evening, the head nurse handed out cigarettes and other tobacco products. Chewing tobacco wasn’t allowed, so Leonard took what the other guys his age, James and Maurice, were into, these thin little moist cigars called Backwoods that came in a foil pouch. They descended in a group, accompanied by either Wendy Neuman or a security guard, to the ground floor of the hospital. On a blacktopped area surrounded by a high fence, they passed a single lighter around and torched up their smokes. The Backwoods were sweet-tasting and delivered a nice kick. Leonard puffed away, pacing back and forth and staring up at the sky. He felt like the Birdman of Alcatraz, only without any birds. As the days passed, he began to feel measurably better. Dr. Shieu attributed this improvement to the lithium kicking in. But Leonard thought it had a lot to do with good old nicotine, with going outside and watching a single cloud sail across the sky. Sometimes he heard cars honking, or kids shouting, or, once, what sounded like a fastball being cleanly clobbered on a nearby baseball diamond, a sound that soothed him instantly, the solid plonk of wood against rawhide. Leonard remembered what it felt like to be a Little Leaguer and hit a perfect pitch. That was the beginning of his recovery. Just to be able to remember that, once upon a time, happiness had been as simple as that.
And then Madeleine appeared in the dayroom, missing graduation, and all Leonard had to do was look at her to know that he wanted to be alive again.
There was only one problem. They wouldn’t let him out. Dr. Shieu kept playing it safe, putting off the day of Leonard’s departure. And so Leonard continued to go to group, and to draw pictures during the craft periods, and to play badminton or basketball during gym.
In the group sessions, there was one patient who impressed Leonard deeply. Her name was Darlene Withers. She was a fireplug of a person and sat with her feet up on the folding chair, hugging her knees, always the first patient to speak up. “Hi, I’m Darlene. I’m an addict and an alcoholic and I suffer from depression. This is my third time being hospitalized for depression. Been here three weeks now, and Ms. Neuman?—I’m ready to leave anytime you say.”
She smiled broadly. When she did, her upper lip curled back, pushing out a glistening band of its pink underside. Her family’s nickname for her was “Triple-lip.” Leonard spent a fair amount of time in group waiting to see Darlene smile.
“I can relate to this story because the writer she say her depression come from low self-esteem,” Darlene began. “And that something I’m dealing with on a daily basis. Like lately I been feeling bad about myself because of my present relationship. I was in a committed relationship when I come into the hospital. But since I been in here? I ain’t heard from my boyfriend once. He didn’t come to visiting hours or nothing. I woke up this morning feeling real sorry for myself. ‘You too fat, Darlene. You not good-looking enough. That why he don’t come.’ But then I start thinking about my boyfriend—and you know what? His bref stink. It do! Every time that man come near me I have to smell his stanky old bref. Why I be in a relationship with someone like that, never brushes his teeth, bad oral hygiene? And the answer come back to me was: That how you feeling about yourself, Darlene. Like you worth so little you got to be with anybody take you.”
Darlene was an inspiration in the ward. Often she sat in a corner of the dayroom singing to herself.
“Why you singing, Triple-lip?”
“Singing to keep from crying. You should try it too, instead of moping like you do.”
“Who says I’m moping?”
“Moping doesn’t cover your sorry ass! They need to come up with a whole new diagnosis for you. Prune-face disorder. That what you got.”
According to the stories she told in group, Darlene had dropped out of high school after the