In that moment, Big Black finally reached Lanky's side, and roughly grabbed the tall man by the arms, pinning them back. "What the hell are you doing!" he demanded angrily. Little Black was only a stride behind, and he stepped into the space between the patient and the nurse-trainee. "Step back!" he insisted, a command that was obeyed instantly, because his immense brother jerked Lanky rearward.

"I could be wrong," Lanky said, shaking his head. "It seemed so clear, at first. Then it changed. Just all of a sudden, it changed. I'm just not sure."

The tall man turned his head to Big Black, craning his ostrich like neck. Doubt and sadness filled his voice. "I thought it had to be her, you see. It had to be. She's the newest. She hasn't been here at all long. A newcomer, to be sure. And we have to be so careful not to let evil inside the walls. We have to be vigilant at all times. I'm sorry," he said, turning as Short Blond rose to her feet, trying to regain her own composure. "I was so sure." He looked at her hard again, and his eyes narrowed.

"I'm just still not sure," he said stiffly. "It could be. She could be lying to me. Satan's assistants are expert liars. They are deceivers, each and every one of them. It's easy for them to make someone seem innocent, when they're really not."

Now his voice lacked rage and doubt.

Short Blond stepped away from the group, keeping her eyes warily on where Lanky was being held by Big Black. Evans had finally managed to cross the room and join the tangle of people, and he was speaking directly to Little Black. "See that he gets a sedative tonight. Fifty milligrams of Nembutal, IV, at medication time. Maybe we should put him in isolation for the night, as well."

Lanky was still eyeing Short Blond, when he heard the word isolation. He spun toward Mister Evil and shook his head vehemently. "No, no, I'm okay, really, I am, I was just doing my job, really. I won't be a problem, I promise…" His voice trailed off.

"We'll see," said Evans. "See how he responds to the sedative."

"I'll be fine," Lanky insisted. "Really. I won't be a problem. Not at all. Please don't put me into isolation."

Evans turned to Short Blond. "You can take a break," he said. But the slender nurse-trainee shook her head.

"I'm okay," she replied, mustering some bravery in her words, and went back to feeding the elderly woman in the wheelchair. Francis noted that Lanky was still staring in Short Blond's direction, his unwavering gaze marked with what he took for uncertainty, but, later, realized could be many different emotions.

The usual evening crowd pushed and complained at medication time that night. Short Blond was behind the wire mesh of the nurses' station, helping to distribute the pills, but the other, older and more experienced nurses took the lead in handing out the evening concoctions. A few voices were raised in complaint, and one man started crying when another pushed him aside, but it seemed to Francis that the outburst at dinner had rendered most of the Amherst residents if not exactly speechless, at least subdued. He thought to himself that the hospital was all about balances. Medications balanced out the madness; age and confinement balanced out energy and ideas. Everyone in the hospital accepted a certain routine, he thought, where space and action were limited and defined and regimented. Even the occasional jostling and arguing, like nightly at medication time, was all part of an elaborate insane minuet, as codified as a Renaissance dance step.

He saw Lanky enter the area in front of the nurses' station, accompanied by Big Black. The tall man was shaking his head, and Francis heard him complain, "I'm okay, I'm okay. I don't need anything extra to calm me down…"

But Big Black's face had lost the easygoing edge it usually wore, and Francis overheard him say calmly, "Lanky, you gotta do this nice and easy-like, because otherwise we're gonna have to put you in a jacket and lock you up in isolation for the night, and I know you don't want that. So take yourself a deep breath and roll up your sleeve and don't fight something that shouldn't be fought."

Lanky nodded, complacent in that moment, although Francis saw that he eyed Short Blond, working at the rear of the station, warily. Whatever doubts Lanky had about Short Blond's capacity to be a child of Satan, it was clear to Francis that they had not been resolved by medication or persuasion. The tall man seemed to quiver from head to toe with anxiety. But he did not fight Nurse Bones, who approached him with a hypodermic dripping with medication, and who swiped his arm with alcohol and stiffly plunged the needle into Lanky's skin. Francis thought it must have hurt, but Lanky showed no signs of discomfort. He stole a final long look at Short Blond, before allowing Big Black to lead him away, back to the dormitory room.

Chapter 5

Outside my apartment the evening traffic had increased. I could hear diesel sounds from heavy trucks, the occasional blare of a car's horn and the constant hum of wheels against pavement. Night comes slowly in the summertime, insinuating itself like a mean thought on a happy occasion. Streaky shadows find the alleys first, then start creeping through yards and across sidewalks, up the sides of buildings, and slithering snakelike through windows, or taking purchase in the branches of shade trees until finally darkness seizes hold. Madness, I often thought, was a little like the night, because of the different ways in different years it spread itself over my heart and my imagination, sometimes harshly and quickly, other times slowly, subtly, so that I barely knew it was taking over.

I tried to think: Had I ever known a darker night, than that one at the Western State Hospital? Or a night filled with more madness?

I went to the sink, filled a glass with water, took a gulp, and thought: I've left out the stench. It was a combination of human waste battling against undiluted cleansers. The stink of urine versus the smell of disinfectant. Like babies, so many old and senile patients had no control over their bowels, so the hospital reeked of accidents. To combat this, every corridor had at least two storage rooms equipped with rags, mops, and buckets filled with the harshest of chemical cleaning agents. It sometimes seemed as if there was someone constantly swabbing down a floor somewhere or another. The lye-based cleaners were fiercely powerful, they burned your eyes when they hit the linoleum floor, and made breathing hard, as if something was clawing at your lungs.

It was hard to anticipate when these accidents would happen. In a normal world, I suppose, one could more or less regularly identify the stresses or fears that might prompt a loss of control by some ancient person, and take steps to reduce those occurrences. It would take a little logic, a little sensitivity, and some planning and foresight. Not a big deal. But in the hospital, where all the stresses and fears that ricocheted around the hallways were so unplanned, and stemmed from so many haphazard thoughts, the idea of anticipation and avoidance was pretty much impossible.

So, instead, we had buckets and powerful cleaners.

And, because of the frequency that nurses and attendants were called upon to use these items, the storage rooms were rarely locked up. They were supposed to be, of course, but like so many things at the Western State Hospital, the reality of the rules gave way to a madness-defined practicality.

What else did I remember about that night? Did it rain? Did the wind blow?

What I recalled, instead, were the sounds.

In the Amherst Building there were nearly three hundred patients crowded into a facility originally designed for about one third that number. On any given night a few people might have been moved into one of the isolation cells up on the fourth floor that Lanky had been threatened with. The beds were jammed up next to each other, so that there was only a few inches of space between each sleeping patient. Along one side of the dorm room, there were some grimy windows. These were barred, and provided a little ventilation, although the men in the bunks beneath them frequently closed them up tight, because they were scared of what might be on the other side.