The Animal Hour (24 page)

“Careful now, she's got a knife!” That was the nurse, Mrs. Anderson.

“Hold it!” The cop behind her.

The cop ahead of her, behind the glass, was the same black policewoman who had held the door open for her when she had come in. She pulled the door open now.

I may have to kill her
, Nancy thought.

But the woman just nodded her head at her. She even smiled a little. And Nancy realized: She was holding the door open for her again!

Nancy plunged toward the opening.

“Grab her!” came the shout from the corridor.

“She's got a knife. Watch out.”

Nancy saw a flicker of comprehension in the policewoman's eyes. But it was too late. Before the cop could sort it out, Nancy was through. Steaming around the corner, down the length of the car bay. The concrete columns blurring at her sides. The East River out there somewhere. And the end of the bay ahead, the asphalt of the parking lot through the links of a fence.

“Hold it!”

“Stop!”

The cool air was on her cheeks, on her throat. The shouts behind her seemed to fall away. The end of the bay was just ahead. She felt that she was almost free—and yet she had to force herself on. She felt logy, like she was running under water. Churning the air with her arms, clutching the letter opener. She was gasping, slowing down, almost as if there was a force inside her urging her to stop. Urging her back the other way. She could feel it: She didn't want to go through with this. She wanted to give herself up. To go back. To lie on a bed with white sheets and see Dr. Schoenfeld's kindly face above her. To feel Mrs. Anderson's strong black hand upon her brow. What had she done to them? What kind of person does those things?

Who was she? Who the hell was she?

She broke out from under the bay, thinking,
No. Go back, go back.
The parking lot was wide. The sky was wide above it. The glum brick piles of Bellevue surrounded the near horizon. The Empire State Building speared up from behind them into the blue. It was a strange blue, she thought as she squinted in the sudden brightness. Strange light everywhere.

Then she understood: It was afternoon. She had been in the hospital for hours. The morning was gone. It was getting late …

She stumbled forward. Coughing, dizzy. She glanced back over her shoulder. Saw two cops standing back there at the hospital door, under the roof of the bay. One—the man—was talking into his walkie-talkie. But they weren't following her. They were holding their posts. They were letting her go.

A road ran around the edge of the parking lot fence. She took this, trying to keep up her speed. She was afraid if she slowed down she would be drawn backward. That she would give in to her urge to surrender …

But the road sloped upward. She just couldn't keep running. She fell to a walk, her head heavy, her shoulders heaving as she sucked in air. Below her, by the river, cars were racing by on the FDR Highway. She thought she could hear the distant keen of sirens under the noise. She wasn't sure. She just didn't care.

She raised her eyes. She saw the narrow lane ahead, the end of Twenty-ninth Street. Hemmed in by the old hospital's glowering brick walls. The row of solemn urns on one side perched atop their columns.

She had no idea where she was going, she just headed on. All that urgency, those voices inside her: Eight o'clock. The Animal Hour. Someone is going to die. Where the hell were they now when she needed them? It was all quiet in the old cranium. Nancy laughed bitterly at that, still panting. She dragged herself into the alley, into the shadow of a column, under the blank face of a concrete urn.

She leaned against the pillar and slid to the ground. She sat there slumped at the foot of the rising lane. She shook her head, trying to fight off the full understanding of what she'd done. But the images, the words—even the physical sensations—came back to her, crowded in on her. Dr. Schoenfeld's gentle, furry smile and the way his eyes widened when the pain hit him. The way the soft tissue between his legs flattened with the force of her driving knee.
(What you're experiencing is an episode of schizophrenia.)
The feel of Mrs. Anderson's hair in her grip. Her scared face yanked back. (
I can kill you with this.
) She let the letter opener slip out of her hand now. She let it fall with a clink to the sidewalk.

And she sat slumped on the pavement there beneath the brick walls, the dark, arched windows of the hospital complex. She leaned her forehead against the cold pillar, her legs bent under her. The urn stood stolid above her head like an indifferent owl.

Those sirens, though—getting nearer. A lot of them too, it sounded like. She tried to laugh again, but it came out like crying.
I'm nice!
she thought.
I'm really a nice person!

“
Oh,
” her mother used to say, “
you look so nice.
”

(It's a general term for a series of mental disorders characterized by auditory-command hallucinations, fixed delusions, memory lapses …)

When she was little, her mother would tie a ribbon in her hair and tell her she was beautiful. And that was all she needed. She believed she was beautiful then. She felt beautiful.

I go in and twist and you're dead before you hit the floor.

Oh, had she really said that? In her own little voice? She could still hear her own little nice voice saying that.
I go in and twist …
What kind of monster, for Christ's sake, was she?
Who
was she? How on earth could she begin to find out? What do you have to know in order to know who you are? Your past? Your face in the mirror? What you believe in? Your name? What did she start with?

The Animal Hour.

Oh, the Animal Hour. Swell. Nancy groaned. She lifted her head, her eyes closed. She clenched her teeth as if she were holding herself together by will alone. All this—this breaking out of a mental institution—this kneeing doctors in their nasties—this threatening nurses with letter opener blades—had she done all this for a voice in her head, for words she didn't even understand: the Animal Hour?

The sirens were louder now. By the sound of them, the cop cars were coming from all directions. From behind her on the FDR down by the river. From north and south up and down First Avenue. They would converge, she imagined, above at the mouth of the lane. They would come speeding up the curving road around the parking lot below. They would race between the brick walls from either direction and pin her between their grinning grilles.

Good
, she thought.
Let them. I'm armed, I'm dangerous, I'm out of my mind. I belong behind bars. Let them come and get me.

But even now, she was gathering her legs in under her. She was surveying the road ahead for the first sign of the cops. Her fingers, meanwhile, were trailing over the sidewalk—touching on the letter opener—wrapping around the handle.

Don't do it, Nancy
, she wanted to scream at herself. But she knew she would do it. She knew she had to.

She looked down at her wrist. Her watch was gone. They had taken it away from her in the hospital. The fact sent a little bolt of panic through her, a little white lightning bolt through the torpid zone. She didn't know what time it was. And it was getting late. It was afternoon. Late afternoon by the look of it.

How much time left before it happens?

She didn't know. That made it urgent. She had to get going again. She braced her hand against the pillar. Grunted as she worked her way to her feet. The sirens were loud enough to send another current of electricity through her. She was being jolted out of her groggy dream. Her head was clearing.

She had to be there. She was sure of it. She didn't know how, but she was sure it was real. Someone was going to be killed tonight. Someone somewhere. At eight o'clock …

What you're experiencing is an episode of schizophrenia. Auditory-command hallucinations. Fixed delusions.

Leave me alone, she thought wearily. And she saw the doctor's face again. The doctor's warm eyes widening in agony just after she had driven her knee up.

What kind of maniac …?

She started up toward First Avenue. The sirens whooped like Indians. Closing in. They would be here in a minute. She walked faster, keeping her head down, keeping the letter opener hidden against her arm …

What kind of monster …? You were going to kill that woman.

She thought of Nurse Anderson. Her head jerked back. Her wide frightened eyes.

Is that any way to behave? Why, I've never heard of such a thing.

I have to be there, Mother, she thought pettishly. She went by the long iron fence that fronted the brick building. Up toward First Avenue. Glancing back over her shoulders as the sirens screamed. She could see one now. The spinning red flashers coming around the bend, up the road behind her by the parking lot.

And she thought of Nurse Anderson's soft breasts, the blade against her ribs.

Dead before you hit the floor.

The images, the thoughts, swarmed around her like crows, picked at her like crows. Under the heavy shadow of the building, she came to the corner of First. She could see them here too. Just as she'd imagined. One car racing down from the north, flashing red, weaving through the swift traffic. Another under the broad blue sky to the south, bearing straight up as cabs and cars jumped out of its way.

It's for me! Really for me!
Something screamed it in her suddenly.
They're coming for me! Because I'm like this! Because I
do
these things! This is really who I am.

And all the images—all the crows—seemed to sweep down on her at once. All at once, it made terrible sense to her. The Animal Hour. The blood flying as the doctor's nose shattered on the desk. The blade at Mrs. Anderson's throat. These oncoming sirens …

She ran. The light was hers, the traffic idling uncertainly as it waited for the cop cars to come on. She ran across the street. Ran to get away from those swooping crows, those images. Those police cars bearing down on her from either side because this was who she was, this was what she was really like. This was the kind of monster that she was.

She reached the far sidewalk. The traffic started to cough forward. Pull sharply to the side to make way for the cops. She ran wildly. Because she had to be there. The Animal Hour. Eight o'clock. Someone was going to die tonight and, of course, of course, she had to be there.

Because she was the one who was going to kill him.

“I don't want harmony … I want harmony.”

—Dutch Shultz on his deathbed

“S
o then I had to take a shit.”

Oliver had the beer bottle tipped to his lips. It just stopped there, hovering. He stared across it at his kid brother. “What?”

“I had to take a dump. I had diarrhea.”

“Zachie. You had every cop in the city after you. You were dressed like a girl, for Christ's sake.”

“Well, that was the thing. And, you know, they're getting ready for the parade out there so there are all these policemen around the square and around Sixth Avenue. They're everywhere.”

Oliver could only marvel at him. Sitting all gangly on the mattress, his knees up around his ears. His eyes wide and dark and goofy. His smile like a goofy child's. He was not wearing Tiffany's clothes anymore. He was in faded jeans, torn at the knees, and some sort of bulky, patchwork shirt. Each square a different color and design; looked like it had been made at a quilting bee for psychopaths.

“So you know, I went into that place—Mom's or Mama's—it's that ice cream parlor …”

Oliver, sitting on the desk chair, still holding the beer bottle up around his mouth, shook his head in wonder. “Papa's something …”

“Right. And I ask the cashier, you know, can I use the bathroom. And he can see I'm dying, I'm all doubled over. And he says sure. So I run to the back and I slam myself into this little room and I'm wrestling—you know, you have to sort of get your skirt all bunched up around your waist with one hand and then pull down your underwear with the other and I feel like some sort of contortionist or something and then all of a sudden there's this pounding on the door—bang, bang, bang, you know—and I'm desperate and I shout: ‘What?' And it's the cashier. He's yelling, ‘Miss! Miss! You've got the wrong room! You're in the men's room! Miss!' ”