The Incurables Read online

  Freeman placed his glasses back on his face, grabbed his briefcase from the passenger-side seat, and stepped out of the car. Another gust of cold wind, and Freeman pulled at his overcoat. Wheezing softly, he pushed his walking cane into the damp grass and moved slowly toward the house.

  On the front porch the lonesome sound of wind chimes and a muted train whistle. Walter pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside, hit the light. The living room, as usual, was a mess. Shoes scattered across the floor. Dirty dishes on the coffee table. Gossip magazines on the couch. She hardly ever left the house. And she cleaned it even less than that. Freeman removed his overcoat and placed it on the coatrack. Then he got to work straightening up the living room. When he was done, he went into the kitchen and searched the refrigerator for something to eat. Not much there. He made scrambled eggs and toast, drank a glass of milk. Then he sat at the table and lit another cigar. He didn’t take but a few puffs, instead just sitting there watching the cigar burn.

  Eventually he rose to his feet and got to work on his dishes as well as the tower that had built up over the day. Finally finished, he loosened his tie and limped toward the staircase, the hardwood floor echoing beneath his dress shoes and wooden cane. He stood at the bottom of the staircase for an extra moment. He sighed and shook his head. Then he started up the stairs.

  Upstairs the hallway walls were covered with photos. None of them recent. Most of them of the boy. How long had it been? Almost two decades? But Stella couldn’t forget. Stella couldn’t make peace. That would never change. And she would always blame him. As if he’d murdered his own son…

  He stepped into their darkened bedroom and nearly fell to the floor. He’d tripped on some clutter. Cursing, he reached for the lamp. When he flicked it on, his heart palpitated. Stella was awake, sitting on the rocking chair, drifting back and forth, back and forth. She wore a gray nightgown, which nearly matched her hair, her face. On her lap was a Bible, just for show. On the nightstand were a bottle of vodka and a vial of pills. The bottle, newly purchased, was half-empty. The vial was further along than that.

  “What are you doing sitting in the dark?” he said. “You should be in bed. It’s late.”

  Now her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t tell me to do a goddamn thing. You hear me?”

  Freeman pulled his tie over his head. He unbuttoned and removed his shirt, folded it and placed it on the chair. He did the same with his pants. His wife watched him the whole time, seething as usual.

  “And what were you doing that you’re home so late?” she said, her voice a shattered mess. “Were you playing Dr. Frankenstein again? Slicing and dicing brains? Or were you off fucking one of your whores? That’s it, one of those hideous nurses. Well, go on and fuck them. See if I care.”

  “Stella, please…”

  But Stella went for the jugular. “If Luke were alive, he would be ashamed to have a father like you. But he’s not alive, is he? No, he’s not.”

  There was no point in engaging with her. She was irrational, a bitter old hag. He was a world-renown doctor, an innovator, the pioneer of the transorbital lobotomy. If Luke were still alive, he’d be ashamed of her, not him.

  Freeman got into bed, pulled the covers up to his neck, lay on his back. And while Stella kept after him, trying to incite him, trying to make him lose his temper, Freeman simply closed his eyes and went to sleep.

  He slept the sleep of a dead man; he didn’t dream.

  The morning came quickly, orange-red light filling the bedroom, dust motes floating aimlessly. Freeman sat up in bed and stretched his body, yawned. He glanced around the room. No sign of Stella. It wasn’t until he got out of bed that he saw that she had collapsed to the floor and now lay crumpled against the wall, snoring, a pathetic mess of a woman.

  He walked through the hallway, the eyes of the boy in the photographs following him with every step, and made his way to the bathroom. There he showered, brushed, and shaved before returning to the bedroom to get dressed.

  He’d barely set foot downstairs when he heard the phone ringing, jarring this early in the morning. He limped toward the phone—he’d left his cane upstairs—and placed the receiver to his ear.

  “Yes?”

  “Walter. This is Thomas.”

  “Yes. Thomas. What is it? Your voice sounds panicked.”

  A pause, then: “Well, yes. Perhaps a bit. You see, I’ve been hearing some rumors. You know how it is.”

  “Rumors?”

  “About you. About the lobotomy.”

  “Come on, Thomas. Tell me what you’re hearing.”

  “They want to meet with you this morning. McCloud and the rest of them. I have my fears…”

  “What time?”

  “Nine-thirty. Walter—”

  “What is it?”

  “I think you’re a great man, a great doctor. What you’ve done for the mentally ill…”

  “I’ll be in soon,” Freeman said. “I won’t go down without a fight.”

  Two hours later, Freeman sat at the end of a long wooden table inside a large and sterile room. He wore his best suit, his prized pocket watch dangling from a gold chain. He felt strangely relaxed, strangely confident. There was nothing these men could take from him, not really.

  Dr. McCloud was a tall, lanky man with coal-black hair, slicked straight back with far too much pomade. He looked more like a Hollywood star than a doctor. He was thirty years Freeman’s junior. How he’d ended up the head physician of the hospital, Freeman didn’t know. Despite his impressive length, he was a mental midget. Uncreative and unwilling to take risks. He believed in cognitive therapy. And he believed in medication. Freeman knew that McCloud disliked him, distrusted him. Freeman knew that McCloud viewed him as a pariah, a black eye to the institution. He viewed lobotomies as primitive, a vestige of psychiatry’s dark ages. If given the opportunity, Freeman would have gladly taken his Uline ice pick to those beautiful brown eyes of his.

  Now as Freeman sat in that sterile boardroom, his legs crossed, his hands folded on the table, McCloud and the rest of the doctors and psychiatrists and board members watched him, haughty expressions on their faces.

  “You should know,” McCloud began, “that we owe you a great deal of gratitude. Your…passion…helped put our institution on the map. Nobody doubts your commitment to helping these patients.”

  Freeman nodded his head and smiled. “Nobody but you.”

  “It is true that we’ve had our disagreements over methods, Walter. But I always believed you to be sincere in your convictions. I always believed you to be…a true believer.”

  A true believer! McCloud spoke about him as if he were some wild-eyed preacher. Freeman knew where this was going and he knew that his faith wasn’t going to save him. Not this time.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Freeman said. “You brought me here for a reason. To give me my walking papers?”

  “Absolutely not,” McCloud said. “You are a fine physician. A fine psychiatrist.”

  “He wants us to cut to the chase,” came another voice. This from Frank Dietz, a suit without substance. He was a board member, although Freeman didn’t know his position. But he certainly held sway because he spoke with confidence, and all eyes fixated on his leathery face. “These are the facts. Over the past five years, more than twenty patients have died as a direct result from your so-called transorbital lobotomy. Twenty deaths by your hand.”

  “An improvement for many of them…”

  “What a callous thing to say! And those that have survived, what percentage are vegetables, nothing more? Eyes as empty as a mannequin. I’ve spoken with them. It’s like you removed their very souls.”

  “Respectfully, Mr. Dietz, that is unfair. You have no idea what they were like before the surgery. Ask them. Ask the patients. They’ll tell you that they are happier now, more at peace. I’ve tracked each and every patient. I have detailed notes and photographs. If you’d like, I could—”

  Dietz slamme
d his fist down on the table, but it was just a show. “Ten years ago your argument might have had some validity. Asylums overrun with madness. Patients left to rot. We were desperate. And your medical…contribution…expressed this desperation. But things have changed. We’re not in the Dark Ages anymore. There have been innovations. Medications. Thorazine, for example.”

  “Thorazine? Please. Thorazine has been a failure. Much less effective than the lobotomy at treating the symptoms. And, of course, a higher overall cost.”

  “But not a hole in the brain.”

  And now McCloud spoke again. “What we have decided, Walter, is that you will no longer be able to perform lobotomies, not at our hospital. If you think another hospital would welcome you, you’re free to—”

  “A lifetime of work,” Freeman said. “And you want me to throw it all away.”

  “No. We want you to evolve with the rest of us. We’d like you to stick around at the hospital. We’re sure that you could continue to be innovative. But in a different field. Not the field of lobotomy.”

  For a long time, Freeman just sat there while the men, shameless, stared at him. And for some reason, Freeman’s thoughts drifted to his first lobotomy patient. Lucille Handler. That was before he’d started using the ice pick. At that point, he relied on an auger to drill holes in the skull. Relied on a leucotome to slice the brain. Relied on a hose to suck away the surging blood. And Lucille, sweet Lucille, had been willing to go through with the risky operation because of the unbridled misery she dealt with day after day. Before the operation, she would obsess about her husband’s infidelity, worry about her thinning hair, fixate on imagined sicknesses. She was depressed and anxious and suicidal. Sometimes she would pull off all her clothing and urinate on the floor. Other times she would throw temper tantrums like a three-year-old. But after the operation, that all changed. After the operation, she couldn’t remember all of the stresses that had filled her days. “Nothing seems to matter anymore,” she’d said. She lived for another twelve years, content, more or less. What would have become of her without the lobotomy? What would have become of any of them?

  “…so you see, Walter, we find it in the best interest of all parties if you would…”

  Had they been talking to him this whole time? If they had, he hadn’t been listening. And he was done listening. Without further comment, Freeman rose from the chair, grabbed a hold of his cane, and walked toward the door.

  They kept after him, even after he’d left the room. “There are only a few matters to discuss, such as the care for all of your patients and…”

  Through the hospital corridors he walked and his thoughts turned violent, bullets to each of their brains. But he quickly shoved those thoughts aside. Then he thought about the prophets of old and how they preached the words of the Lord and how they were persecuted and stoned for revealing the truth, how they were beaten and humiliated for warning the wicked. And soon the tears rolled down his cheeks. Tears of regret. For the lost souls still to come.

  Chapter 3

  It had been a father-son weekend. A rarity to be sure, but something Dr. Freeman cherished. Time by himself with Luke. Time away from the constant nagging, from the constant neurosis. 1943, so Luke had been thirteen at the time. They’d flown into Denver, rented a car, and driven deep into the mountains, west of Estes Park. It was one of the few times Luke had been outside the city, and his whole being was seemingly transformed. No longer was he the bundle of nerves Freeman had become accustomed to. Instead, he seemed relaxed, at ease with the world. It was the fresh air and the quiet. The smell of pines and the sight of the stars.

  Freeman, too, felt at ease. But that had always been the case when he was out in nature. He knew that he had a calling, he knew the lobotomy would save those who most needed saving, but there were times when he longed for a life outside of medicine, a life in the solitude of the mountains, away from everything and everybody.

  The first night they just sat around the campsite, talking and roasting marshmallows. Luke told his father about his dreams. Wanting to get accepted to the Art Institute of Chicago. Wanting to become a painter. Like Picasso. And while these dreams seemed silly to Dr. Freeman—his father and his father’s father had both been doctors—he listened with patience and told his son that his dreams would come true, no doubt about it.

  The next day was rainy. Not terrible rain, more of a mist. They could have stayed around the campsite, used the tent for shelter, but Freeman was adamant about exploring the area, about hiking the mountain. And so that’s what they did.

  The hike, deep in Rocky Mountain National Park, started out easy enough. At the beginning, the trail went downhill before straightening out into a wide path surrounded by meadows and open fields populated with mule deer and elk. Before too long they came to an old abandoned cabin and at this point the path narrowed and steepened up the mountain. The meadow turned to forest, lodgepoles towering above the floor, shielding Freeman and Luke from most of the rain. They passed by North Inlet Creek, and Luke tried, unsuccessfully, to grab a trout with his hands. It was a good day. They were both happy.

  They’d been walking for nearly two hours when they came to the rocky cliff overlooking Cascade Falls. The rain had made everything slick, and Freeman reminded his son to watch his step. Luke was hungry, so Freeman stopped to find a snack in his bag. His back was turned to his son as he shuffled through clothes and maps before locating some fruit. When he straightened up and turned around, his son was gone. Not a sound. He spun around, looked in all directions. Nothing. For a while, he thought Luke was playing a joke on him, hiding behind a tree, ready to startle him. But as he called out his name, as he searched for him, there was still no sign. His chest tightened, his head became dizzy. He didn’t want to look over the cliff. He didn’t want to see the jagged rocks below leading to the powerful river…

  Freeman didn’t call his wife that night. And even when the forest rangers contacted him and told him Luke’s body had been recovered, he still didn’t call her. He camped out another night, staring for hours into a campfire, unable to move, unable to speak.

  He’d saved hundreds of strangers, but he couldn’t save his own son.

  And now, a decade later, he stood in the living room of his house, having lost his job, staring at the last photograph of his son. He thought he should cry, but no tears would come. He limped into the kitchen and found a bottle of Scotch and a wineglass and began drinking. He wasn’t a big drinker, so it didn’t take much. Thirty minutes and four stiff drinks, and he was good and loose.

  As he sat there, sipping on the poison, staring out the window at a gunmetal sky, he heard the floor creak behind him. He didn’t look up.

  “What are you doing?” she said in that nasty and nasally voice. “Drinking? Trying to gain sympathy?”

  He remained staring straight ahead and shook his head. “No. I don’t need sympathy.”

  Stella took a few more steps forward until she was standing directly in front of him. She looked terrible with her filthy gray nightgown, her wild gray hair, and her enraged green eyes.

  “You,” she said, “are pathetic. I should have listened to my father. I should have never married you.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Do you know the things they say about you? Edna told me. You’re a laughingstock in the medical profession. You take sick people and make them sicker.”

  Freeman shook his head. “No. That’s not true.”

  “Pathetic,” she said again. “Dr. Frankenstein.”

  And now Freeman took a healthy swallow and grimaced as the Scotch slid down his throat. He was feeling all wrong, and he knew that anything could happen. “I lost my job today,” he said. “They don’t want me performing lobotomies at the hospital again.”

  Stella had been drinking more than Freeman had, that was quickly obvious. She stood there, wobbling back and forth, staring down at her husband with disdain in her eyes. Then, without warning, she reached back and swung her frail fist at t
he back of Freeman’s head. She connected, but it was a glancing blow, and he didn’t react.

  “Goddamn bastard,” she said and then started pounding on Freeman’s head again and again. He shielded his face with his arms, but she kept after him. “Bastard, bastard, bastard.”

  Later, he’d blame it on the booze. The sudden infusion of rage. As the crazy old woman pounded on him, he rose to a standing position. The room was spinning, and her face was hideous. He shoved her away. Another “bastard” spat from her lips, and then Freeman backhanded her across the face. Stella was stunned and took a couple of steps backward. Freeman grabbed his cane and followed after her, his body no longer his.

  “What are you going to do, Walter?” she sneered. “Are you going to hurt me? Are you finally going to act like a man? Because I don’t think you’ve got it in you.”

  Another step forward and she was cornered. With his free hand, he hit her again, this time closed-fisted. Blood flowed from her nose, and a little grin appeared on her face. He reached back and gave her another one. This time, she collapsed like a marionette, her head jerking back and slamming against the floor. Freeman stood over her, breathing heavily, hands trembling. Stella was moaning, the blood from her nose coloring the floorboards.

  He limped out of the kitchen, his hair badly disheveled, perspiration bubbling on his forehead, and made his way slowly toward the study. He shouldered open the door and stood there for a moment, the street lamps outside creating strange and terrible shadows against the wall. He reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Then he stared at the half dozen bookshelves stuffed full of medical reference books, books on psychosurgery. The model brain on his desk. The skeleton in the corner of the room.