Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy [133]
“Except for not getting exercise and lousy food and those meds that knock me out, I’m fine. I walked twenty miles, didn’t I?”
“And came back with abscesses on your feet. You can see those. But you can’t see abscesses in your brain, so to speak. Connie, you’re going to thank us. Because thanks to modern medical science, you’re not condemned to spend your life in a psychiatric unit.”
“Look, I guess it’s cheaper to keep me on welfare than in here. But I’ll go home tomorrow. I’ll kill myself trying to get work. I promise! I’ll scrub floors. I don’t care anymore. I’d rather do housework for white ladies than be in here!”
“Of course. And we want you to be able to return to useful work, to return to society safely—safely for you and for others. But there’s the rub, Connie. No one can trust you. If you had typhoid fever, you wouldn’t expect us to let you march out the door untreated and go walking through the streets of Manhattan freely infecting others. Now would you?” Acker waited, beaming, his hands on his slightly spread knees. Behind him, Tina was miming a gruesome death.
“I don’t think I got TB or typhoid fever—”
“I was speaking by comparison.”
“I understand that!” How stupid he thought she was! “But I don’t believe I’m sick. Like you, I’ve done things I regret and things I don’t regret. Since I’m poor, I can’t hire lawyers to make things come out right for me when I get across the law.”
“Always bad luck. Always a hard-luck story. You haven’t learned a thing, to listen to you. But I think you know better, Connie, and you’re simply resisting. When you look at your situation clearly, instead of through the eyes of irrational fear, you’ll see we’re your only real friends … . Look at Skip. I think he’s on the road to recovery. His attitude has changed since his operation. He’s trying, Connie. And that trying is going to pay off, you wait and see. He’ll be back in society soon, a productive individual, healed of his illnesses, ready to make a life for himself.”
Tina was playing a violin and dropped her hands quickly as he turned to leave.
Connie brooded over what he had said about Skip. It was true, Skip had changed. He parroted back whatever they said to him; he told them he was grateful. When they took him out and tested him with homosexual photographs, he had no what they called negative reactions. Meaning he didn’t get a hard-on. He told her he felt dead inside. They were pleased with him; they were going to write him up for a medical journal.
Skip wanted to get out. They promised he would. She wondered. Would they really let him out of their clutches? His bandages were off now and his hair was beginning to grow back. He walked around the ward, helping the attendants. He was playing the game. It was still a game, she sensed that; there was a remnant of strong will gone cold at the core pushing him. She had tried to escape in her way, he was trying in his way, with something gutted in him. Something beautiful and quick was burned out. It hurt her to watch him. Because he was too beautiful and tempted them, they had fixed him. He moved differently: clumsily. It was as if he had finally agreed to imitate the doctors’ coarse, clumsy masculinity for a time, but it was mastery with them and humility with him. He moved like a robot not expertly welded. Yet he was no robot, whatever they thought they had done. She could feel the will burning in him,