Flying Crows by Jim Lehrer Read Free Book Online

being naked in front of him and the bushwhackers—all men. He was walking pigeon-toed, with his hands covering his genitals. That reaction, in his pre-Somerset life many years ago, would have seemed completely normal to Josh. But forcing patients to be naked was an accepted way of life here at Somerset. It was another of those routine tools of control and discipline that so upset Dr. Will Mitchell.
    They took Birdie to the hydrotherapy room, which was a steamy, soapy, all-white room with a tile floor that was only big enough for two large bathtubs and an open stall of four shower nozzles. As Josh saw it, hydrotherapy was a fancy word for a long bath or shower. Sometimes the water was hot, sometimes cold. Sometimes it calmed down agitated or energized patients, sometimes it didn’t. Mostly, it seemed to Josh, it just made them wet.
    Within minutes, Birdie was lying in a tub of hot water. Birdie didn’t seem to mind. He was still holding his privates underwater but his face was not twisted and contorted as it had been when he was screaming.
    â€œTalk to him, Josh, do your thing on this guy—if you can,” said Amos, ignoring the fact that Birdie was as quiet as a mouse now. “I’ve got to check on some guy who’s crapped in his bed over in Five Ward.”
    Josh would indeed try his thing on Birdie. To be helpful, to work with new patients, was part of the deal he had made with Dr. Mitchell, who said—and convinced the superintendents and the bushwhackers—it might be good treatment for Josh as well as the other patients. Josh took seriously his mission to try to provide help to some of his fellow lunatics. He could not claim any cures, but that didn’t seem to matter because that was not what this asylum was in business to do. Will Mitchell was probably right when he had said over and over that care and feeding was really the main purpose of the Sunset at Somerset. But Josh had had some triumphs, his most notable being Streamliner. And it was the story of Streamliner that Josh always used on newly arrived patients.
    Josh pulled a wooden stool up to the side of Birdie’s bathtub.
    â€œYou know the man we all call Streamliner, Birdie? I have no idea what his real name is. Bob? Bill? Jack? Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John—who knows? He’s Streamliner.”
    Birdie moved one hand off his genitals. That was a good sign. He was relaxing, he was listening.
    â€œI want to tell you about him, Birdie. Maybe you could learn from what happened to him. I think it could be an inspiration to you. OK?”
    Birdie, not looking at Josh, made no response. But Josh didn’t mind. He kept talking.
    â€œWell, you can sure tell that name doesn’t have anything to do with his appearance, right? He’s lumpy and plumpy and cuts his hair short. He’s twenty-two years old. Would you have guessed that? I didn’t. He seems much older, doesn’t he? He sure does. That’s because of what happened to him. It not only touched him in his mind, like your and my experiences did—”
    â€œThat’s right.” Birdie interrupted Josh. “We had experiences that made us nuts. We can’t sleep. That’s what’s wrong with you, and that’s what’s wrong with me. That’s my disease. That’s why . . . yeah, that’s why they sent me here. Yeah, that’s it. That’s why I’m here. If anybody asks you, you tell ’em I’m really nuts. You tell ’em, OK? Why else would I put up with getting whacked and drowned? You tell ’em, Josh.”
    Josh nodded, as if understanding and sympathizing, agreeing to tell everybody Birdie was a lunatic.
    Then he went back to talking about Streamliner. “I was just saying that, as you could see, he looks nothing like a streamliner train, not that I have seen one of those except in magazines myself.”
    Birdie smiled. “I’ve seen ’em many times, up close. I love