The sky was clear as Randy and Mike worked in the garden of the North Carolina State Mental Hospital in Morganton, hoeing and weeding, laughing and poking at each other in mindless prattle. They did not see a tall, gaunt, sallow-faced man little by little move closer to them with his garbage bag of cuttings and trash.
“Have you ever heard of Moses?”
The boys flashed their ready and infectious smiles, learned from years of panhandling and hitchhiking.
“No,” Mike replied, “we ain’t never heard of—what did you call him?”
“Have you heard of Jesus?”
Again they shook their heads.
“Have you heard of Yahweh?”
“Who are them?” Randy said. “Where do they come from? Do they live around here?”
“Have you heard of the Bible?”
“The widder, she had a big black book,” Mike offered. “Think she called it the Bible.”
“Lotta folks talk about it.” Randy nodded in recollection. “I remember it now. What was those names again?”
“Yahweh is one of the many names of God.” John smiled, looked around to see if attendants noticed that he was idling too long in the garden. “Another name is Jehovah.”
“What does God do?” Mike said.
“We’ll have lots of talks about God and the Bible.” Patting them on their backs he continued, “But we better get back to work right now or else we’ll get in trouble.”
“I don’t want to get into any more trouble,” Randy said. “We done got into enough trouble already.”
“Tonight, at supper, we’ll talk,” John told them.
In the cafeteria that evening John carried his tray, look around for the brothers. He smiled when he saw the boys stuffing potatoes into their mouths. The indoctrination began now. He settled into a chair, put down his tray and folded his hands in front of his mouth so no attendant could see what he said.
“Hello, my friends.”
“Huh?” Mike replied.
“What do you want?” Randy asked, suspicion tingeing his voice.
“Remember? I was going to tell you about God and the Bible.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mike said.
“Now, what do you want to know?”
“I don’t care.” Randy looked off.
“What does God do?” Mike choked on a mouthful of mashed potatoes as he began his questions.
“God created everything,” John began, as though preaching a sermon, “the earth, the moon, the stars, people, and animals.”
“Well,” Randy said, as his eyes lit up with as much intelligence as he could must, and he wagged a finger at John, “God gotta be mean if He makes rattlesnakes to bite us, mamas who run away and the hot sun to make us sweat.”
“But He also made the flowers, birds and friends,” he replied.
“Hey,” Mike said, hitting his brother on the arm, “everybody got a off day, even God.” He looked to John for approval of his joke. “Those other guys you talked about. Who was they?”
“Jesus is the son of God.”
“He’s lucky to know who His daddy was.” Randy stuffed a forkful of meat loaf down his throat.
“And that other guy?” Mike took a large gulp of milk which dribbled down his chin.
“Moses,” John said. “He led his people, held against their will…”
“Hey, like us,” Randy said.
“Yes, like we are. Moses led his people to the Promised Land, where they were never unhappy again.”
“Hey, great.” Mike wrinkled his brow. “What happened to this Moses?”
“He’s still alive.”
“Oh yeah,” Randy said, his eyes narrowing. “Where is he?”
John looked around the cafeteria and then whispered, “I am Moses.”
For several days as they did their chores, watched television and ate their meals, Mike and Randy listened to John’s marvelous stories.
“Pharaoh was afraid of all male children and ordered them killed. This was before you were born. You wouldn’t know anything about it.” He paused. “Did you go to school?”
“Oh yeah,” Mike said with a smile. “A lot.”
“We got kicked out a lot too,” Randy said in bitterness.
“But we still went to school a lot.” Mike frowned.
“I was wrapped in a blanket and placed me in a basket and sent me down the big river,” John said, continuing his story. “I was raised by a princess as her own child. But later when her father, who was Pharaoh, found out I was Cherokee, he banished me to the wilderness.”
John’s eyes wandered as he remembered the day he felt as though he had been banished. It was about the tree branch growing through the steps. That was why looking at the branch, now big and strong, made him so angry. John had just returned from the hospital, and his head still hurt. His father took a knife and was going to cut a supple small twig that was peeking through the wooden slats. He could not remember exactly why cutting the twig made tears come to his eyes…it was a living thing and deserved to live…his father wanted to cut it and everything his father did was wrong so cutting the twig was wrong…it was everything…it was nothing…it did not matter anymore. All John remembered was trying to hold back tears as his father berated him for crying over something so insignificant.
“You don’t have any sense anymore, boy,” his father lectured. “Ever since you got hit in the head you’re worthless.”
His mother wrapped her arms around him, John recalled, and spit at Mr. Ross.
“Don’t you dare talk to Johnny like that!” she said in a hiss, watching tourists walking down the street. She pushed John into their living room and grabbed her husband by his elbow and pulled him indoors. “Johnny has plenty of sense! It’s you that don’t have no sense! Why did you let that white boy get away with hitting Johnny?”
“What could I do?” His father dropped his head.
“You could be a man! You could be a Cherokee!” she yelled at him. “You let white people get away with everything!” She slapped him across his face and stooped to hug John. Taking in deep breaths Mrs. Ross composed herself. “Wait here while I get my purse, Johnny, and we’ll go have an ice cream.”
John felt unprotected when she left the room, and his father leaned into his face to glare at him.
“Mama’s boy,” his father said in a whisper. “I wish you’d died from that wallop. You ain’t nothing like you used to be.”
“I’m ready,” she said coming back into the room.
His father stood straight and forced a smile on his face.
“I guess you’re right, John. I guess we can let that limb grow a little. It won’t hurt anything to let it grow awhile.”
“You better leave it alone,” his mother admonished. She took John’s hand. “Come along, Johnny. Let’s get ice cream.”
As they went out the door John watched the glare on his father’s face and felt banished from his love and approval. No one should be banished from his father’s love and approval, John thought, tightening his jaw.
“What’s the matter, man?” Mike asked. “You look like you want to hit somebody.”
“I want to hit Pharaoh.” John glowered. “Pharaoh banished me.” He sighed. “And when I was old enough I went to Knoxville. There Yahweh appeared to me in a neon light and told me to return to lead my people to the Promised Land. So I have come back to tell Pharaoh, let my people go.”
“Is doc, the bald one, is he Pharaoh?” Randy’s face darkened.
“Oh, no, the white man doctor, he isn’t Pharaoh.”
“Then who is this Pharaoh?” Randy said. “I want to hit him too.”
John began to tell them his father was Pharaoh but stopped short. His father was too weak to be Pharaoh. Pharaoh would have never let his son be hit in the head and do nothing. His father did not deserve to die as Pharaoh. Besides, he had already tried to kill him. As far as John was concerned, he was already dead.
“Pharaoh’s dead. A new Pharaoh hasn’t appeared. When he does, I’ll tell you.” John laughed and shook his head. “But no, the white man doctor, he isn’t Pharaoh.”
“But he asks too many questions.” Randy pursed his lips in a pout. “And he don’t tell us what he’s thinking. We’re afraid he talked to the cops.”
“Why should that scare you?” John asked.
“Well,” Randy replied faltering, “they’re always saying we killed people, but I don’t remember doing nothing wrong.”
“Yeah,” Mike said in agreement. “All we do is drink a little beer, and cops come pick us up and say all these bad things about us.”
“Sometimes, killing is not a bad thing.” John’s eyes narrowed and his lips formed a small grin.
“Tell us more about the things you done, Moses,” Mike said.
“One day Pharaoh became very angry with me and chased me.”
John remembered sitting in his living room with his father while his mother worked washing dishes in a restaurant. He was a teen-ager now, and his father had come to a truce with him, no affection or respect, just a truce. Looking at his father, he could not help but ask a question.
“Do you ever think about early Cherokee?”
“What?”
“Early Cherokee. How they lived. Yo He Wa, their god.”
“I told you not to talk about such foolishness,” his father said.
“It’s not foolishness. Other people talk about Yo He Wa, the seven clans, Sequoyah, Trail of Tears…”
“That’s the past!” he snapped.
“But it’s our past,” John said in earnest.
“John, the past means nothing. All that counts is getting along with people right now.”
“Mother doesn’t think the past means nothing.”
“Shut up.”
“Why do you get so mad at me?”
“Shut up.”
“Why don’t you love me?”
“If you say one more word I’m going to give you a walloping.”
“It’s not my fault I got hit in the head.”
“That’s it.” John’s father stood and charged toward him.
Scared, he ran for the door, tripping over the branch growing in the stairs, rising to his feet to scramble off their bottom stoop. John darted across the road clogged with tourist traffic toward the Ocunaluftee River. Mr. Ross followed him with determination. As John waded across the shallow mountain river, a car stopped, and a man stuck his head out his window.
“Mr. Ross,” he yelled.
John’s father stopped and turned to smile.
“I just wanted to thank you for teaching Sunday school,” he said. “My son says you know more about the Bible than anyone he knows.”
“Thank you.” Mr. Ross smiled. “I’m just doing the Lord’s will.”
The man glanced at John standing in the middle of the river.
“You and your son wading?”
“Yes. Sure,” he replied with embarrassment.
“Feels good on your feet, doesn’t it, John?” the man yelled at him.
“Yes, sir,” John replied. “Feels good.”
The man looked back at Mr. Ross.
“How’s the boy doing?”
“Fine.”
“I know that was terrible,” the man said, his eyes darting to John. “My boy says he can tell he’s not the same, you know, since then.”
John felt humiliated the man was talking about him. His son was a school bully who liked to ridicule him because he made bad grades. He knew he could not remember his school work like he had but that was not his fault. He could not help it if he had been hit in his head.
“We all have our crosses to bear,” Mr. Ross said with a sigh. “My wife and I pray every night for strength to guide the boy the best way we can. He can be a handful. Of course, the boy can’t help it.”
John turned and ran the rest of the way across the Ocunaluftee, wanting to get as far away from his father as he could, just like Moses wanted to get as far away from Pharaoh as he could.
“So I split water and walked across dry land.”
“You split water and walked on dry land?” Mike gasped in awe.
“Hmm,” Randy said, still skeptical. “If you can do that, why don’t you just walk outta here?”
“I must bide my time. These are more years in the wilderness until Yo He Wa speaks to me again.”
“Yo He Wa?” Mike frowned. “Who’s Yo He Wa?”
“That’s another name of God.”
“Why can’t God just have one name?” Randy said, grousing.
“You wouldn’t understand,” John replied. “You have to trust Moses and not ask too many questions.”
***
“Who do I see next?” Harold asked the nurse standing by his desk.
“Mike and Randy.” She looked at her clipboard. “Do you want me to bring them in now?”
He nodded. After she left, Harold took out his folder on the brothers and read. They were in their late teens; no one knew their ages exactly, but by their own account Randy was older, though shorter by a head. They suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, which was evident from their appearance. Their eyes were small in proportion and appeared narrow. Their noses were smaller and turned up a little at the end with a flatter than usual bridge. Their ears were somewhat deformed, and their hands had abnormal creases in the palms. The brothers’ intelligence quotients were measured to be sixty-five, which made them high-grade mental defectives. Harold turned a page in the file. Mike and Randy were found on State Highway 336 four miles south of Boone, North Carolina, last month. Their clothing was soiled, their bodies caked with mud and blood, and their teeth discolored from lacking of brushing. When examined by a physician, the brothers did not know where they were from, why they were in such a condition or where they were going. They only knew their names, and that they were brothers. A local judge without delay declared them mentally incompetent and committed them to the state hospital.
“Mike and Randy are here to see you, Dr. Lippincott,” the nurse announced as the brothers loped through the door and plopped in the chairs opposite Harold’s desk. Randy hunched over and stared at the floor while Mike right away stuck a beefy finger up one nostril.
“How are you today, boys?”
Randy shrugged.
“Great,” Mike replied with his finger still entrenched up his nose.
“Hey,” Randy said as he glanced over at his brother and punched him hard in the arm, “don’t pick snot in front of doc, okay?”
Mike whined as he wiped his finger on his pants leg.
“I want to talk to you today about your mother.”
“She was bad,” Randy said.
“Hey, don’t say that.” Mike punched him in the arm.
“Well, she was.” Randy looked hurt as he rubbed his arm.
“I know.” Mike waved his hand and grinned. “But it ain’t nice to say it.”
“Did you love your mother, Randy?”
“No.”
“I did.” Mike leaned forward and laughed. “She was pretty.”
“Why didn’t you love her?” Harold focused on Randy who was staring at the floor again.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it because she drank too much?”
“Yeah, she was good.” Mike nodded with a broad smile. “She gave us all the beer we wanted.”
“Did you like that, Randy, getting beer from your mother?”
“I guess.” Licking his lips, he stole a glance toward his brother.
“You can never have too much beer.” Mike leaned back and scratched his lean, flat belly.
“God says different,” Randy said.
“Do you believe in God, Randy?” Harold asked.
“I guess.”
“Where did you learn about God?” Harold smiled.
“The widder said.” Mike sat forward, grinning.
Randy swung around and slapped his brother on the arm.
“Ouch! What did you do that for?”
“Who’s the widow?” Harold frowned.
“The widder Scoggins,” Mike replied in innocence.
“Shut up.” Randy hit him again.
Harold took out his pen and began to make notes.
“What are you writing down?” Randy asked.
“I always write in patients’ folders as we talk,” Harold replied not looking up. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You gonna call the cops?” Randy began to tighten his fists.
“Randy, as long as you’re in this hospital, you’ll always be safe,” Harold said. Continuing to write, he asked without looking up, “Where did the widow live?”
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “Somewhere around here.”
“You talk too much.” Randy slapped his brother on the face this time.
“Doc, he’s picking on me.” Mike put his hand to his cheek and appeared ready to cry. “Make him stop.”
“Why are you hitting your brother?”
“He talks too much.” Randy stared at the floor.
“He does?”
“He needs to shut up.”
The telephone rang, and Harold answered it.
“Yes?”
“It’s long distance from a Long Island hospital,” the secretary said. “I wouldn’t have interrupted your session, but I knew your father was from Long Island.”
“Tell the nurse to come in for the boys.” Harold squinted. “I’ll take the call.” He hung up and smiled at Mike and Randy. “You two sleeping all right at night?”
“I guess.” Randy looked away.
“I sleep good,” Mike said with a beam.
“Okay.” Harold wrote in their file. “Medications to remain the same.”
“But you didn’t tell him to stop picking on me,” Mike said.
“You tell him not to talk so much,” Randy answered with spite.
“Now, Randy, Mike has the right to say anything he wants.”
“Not when it’ll get us in trouble.”
“You won’t get into trouble” Harold assured him. He looked up to see the nurse enter. “It’s time to go. And, Randy, stop hitting your brother.”
Randy grumbled as he and Mike followed the nurse out. Harold closed their folders and waited for the phone. It rang, and he answered.
“This is Dr. Stephen Voss. Your father was admitted this morning with a stroke. According to our information, you’re his closest relative.”
“Yes,” Harold replied. “My mother died ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry to inform you that the stroke your father suffered was massive,” Dr. Voss continued. “The prognosis is not good, considering his advanced age.”
“I understand.” Harold paused. “Did he request that I join him at the hospital?”
“I asked him.” Dr. Voss hesitated. “He declined.”
“If that is his wish.” Harold sighed.
“There’s not much you could do here at this point,” Dr. Voss said, trying to sound sympathetic.
“Of course.”
“We’ll keep you updated.”
“Thank you. Good-bye.”
After he hung up, Harold thought back to the night at his father’s mansion on Long Island and again on his recent trip and his father’s insistence to remind him of his inadequacies. The prick of the crystal shard of the champagne glass still stung in his memory and kept him from mourning his father’s decline toward death. The phone rang again, and he picked it up.
“Yes?”
“It’s Bob Meade,” the secretary said.
“Put him through.” Harold waited until he heard the click. “Hello, Mr. Meade.”
“Sorry to bother you, Dr. Lippincott,” Bob said, “but I wanted to thank you for your cooperation on the story about John Ross. We’ve received a good response on its airing.”
“I was pleased when I saw it,” Harold said. “John Ross watched it too. I was observing him during the broadcast, but I couldn’t detect much of a reaction.”
“Oh?” Apprehension colored Bob’s voice.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. I have a session with John today. I’ll ask him what he thought about being on television.”
“Okay.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks again for the help. Good-bye.”
After Bob hung up, Harold called the secretary.
“When do I see John Ross?”
“He’s next.”
The nurse escorted John into the doctor’s office and left. John sat across from Harold, stiffly erect and puffing on a cigarette.
“So.” Harold smiled. “How did you like being on television, John?”
“It was nice.” His face didn’t crack.
“You didn’t answer some of the questions. Didn’t you like the reporter?”
“The man was nice.” He hesitated. “He had sad eyes.”
“Then why didn’t you answer his questions?”
They stared at each other a long time. John unsettled Harold, who could figure out most patients on the first visit. John was different. Harold blinked.
“Tell me, John, how do you feel about your mother and father?”
“They’re my parents. I love them.” He smiled. “My mother is like a princess to me.”
The doctor did not blink this time.
“Isn’t that a good answer?” John asked.
“Oh yes, it’s a very good answer. It’s the answer of a man who doesn’t want to say anything that will keep him in the mental hospital any longer than he has to be here.”
“I’m a good person.”
“Yes, you are. I believe you really are. I believe you want to be good very much. But there’s something in you that keeps you from being as good as you want to be.” Harold looked down at John’s folder. “You have to take your medication to help you be good. The nurses tell me they have trouble with you about taking your pills.”
Again a long silence as Harold waited for a response from John, but none was coming.
“You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Mike and Randy. That’s very nice of you.”
“They’re frightened children.” John smiled and relaxed, slipping back in the chair. “Their eyes yearn for a father.”
“So you decided to fill that need.” Harold took a calculated chance at nettling John to see his response.
“I thought it would help.” John lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he just finished. His eyes fluttered and he repeated, “I thought it would help.”
“And has it?”
“It’s not up to me to decide that, is it, doctor?” John smiled.
“And you, John, has it helped you?”
“What do you mean?” His smile faded.
“Being a father to them, does that fulfill a need in you? I never knew you missed that. You’ve never said anything about missing a relationship with a woman that would lead to being a father.”
“What does that mean?” John sat up, his eyes narrowing. “What does a relationship with a woman have to do with anything?”
“All I meant was that I didn’t realize you had feelings of caring—of parenting, if you will—for anyone.”
“Of course I care.” John rubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “What’s the meaning of all this? I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Tell me what makes you so angry.”
“Oh, I’m not angry.” John laughed and shrugged. “Sometimes, well, you get on my nerves.”
“No, John, I don’t mean being angry at this very moment.” Harold leaned forward, hoping to induce more emotion from his patient. “I mean the anger that shows in the way you walk, sit, talk and eat. You can deny that it exists, but it does and it has separated you from society.”
“I’m sorry.” John shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean. I wish I did.”
“Is that why you don’t want to take your pills?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think you should be here?”
“My parents do, and the courts do.”
“The only person whose opinion really counts is you. Do you think you belong here? Not your parents, not the courts, not even me. Tell me what you really think.”
John paused, his eyes lit with defiance, and he was about to speak when he fell back, squinted a moment and then stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why yes?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you say yes because you think that’s what I wanted you to say?”
“Why should I care what you want me to say?”
“You shouldn’t. So do you really think you should be here?”
“I’ve already answered that.”
“But you haven’t told me why.”
“Must I have a reason for every answer I give you?”
“You don’t have to have a reason for anything.” Harold decided not to push him any further and looked at the folder. “Are you sleeping well at night?”
“I suppose.”
“Are you having nightmares?”
“If I do I don’t remember them.”
“Are you tired when you awaken?”
“No.”
“Very well. Do the other pills help you?”
“In what way?”
“Do they help you think more clearly, act more calmly?”
“I’m always calm.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are.” Harold smiled and looked at his folder again, deciding to provoke him one last time. “John, why do you think you’re Moses?”
“Who said that?” John turned away and pulled out another cigarette. Patting his pocket for a match, he frowned.
“You did.” Harold put on his glasses and peered at the file.
“Why can’t I keep matches for my cigarettes?”
“It’s a fire hazard. You don’t want to endanger the lives of the other patients here, do you?”
“I don’t like asking the attendants for a light.” He paused and then said with irritation, “Well, aren’t you going to give me a light?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t smoke. I don’t have any matches.” He paused, hoping he was on the verge of a breakthrough. “You haven’t told me why you think you’re Moses.”
“I said that in the past.” His hand tightened into a fist, crushing the cigarette. “I’m better now.”
“So you no longer think you’re Moses?”
“You’d think I was crazy if I said I was Moses.”