Demon Box

Joe Go was a young Irish-Italian, wearing a hopeful expression and a St. Jude the Obscure pin for a tie clasp. He was very soft-spoken. After he accepted a chair and a cup of coffee, he shyly asked about the picture-covered book in front of me.

“It’s just an I Ching,” I explained, “with its cover collaged with photographs. I was about to ask it whether to go or not to go. Then you showed up. I better pack my suit.”

“Better pack the book too,” he said with a grin. “In case we need to ask about coming back.”

Betsy was completely taken by his altar boy innocence. While I packed she kept bringing him coffee with blueberry muffins and big smiles. The kids on the other hand had nothing but frowns for Doctor Joe. After all, they had never been to Disney World—not to Disneyland in Anaheim, even. If innocent young company was what was needed in Florida, couldn’t I take one of them along? They each made their bid a few times, then moped off in protest, all except for little Caleb. The ten-year-old remained at the table in his long Grateful Dead nightshirt and his longing face. He yearned to go as much as his brother or sisters, but it wasn’t Caleb’s style to mope off and maybe miss something else. He was the only one that came outside to wish us farewell, too.

“Remember to bring us something back from Disney World, Dad,” he called from the porch, his voice brave. “Something neat, aw-right?”

“Aw-right,” I called back as I climbed into the car. I waved but he didn’t wave back—he couldn’t see me through the Lincoln’s tinted safety glass. The thing was big as a barge. I told Doctor Joe he’d better back it out instead of trying to turn around between our blueberries. “They’re hard enough to keep alive.”

He started down our drive in reverse, twisting out his door to try to miss the deepest holes. I buckled my seatbelt and rolled with the bouncing. After a night of getting nowhere on my own, I found I liked the idea of being picked up and carried away. I was leaning back to try the cushy headrest when, from out of nowhere, something yanked me straight up and wide-eyed, something deeper than any of our chuckholes.

It was that same tugging sensation again, to the tenth power—still as enigmatic and even more familiar, like a dream so meaningful that it jolts you awake, then you can’t remember what it was about. It only lasted a second or two before it faded, leaving me dumbfounded. What the hell was it? Simply the thought of going back up to that hospital and having to face that face again? Some kind of hangfire out of the past bounced loose?

“What’s the best way back from here?”

It took a moment to realize the young doctor was asking me the best way back to Portland. He’d come to the end of our driveway.

“Well, I go that way if I’m in a hurry.” I pointed up the hill. “Or down through Nebo and Brownsville if I’ve got time for a peaceful cruise.”

He backed around headed downhill. “We’ve got plenty of time,” he said, and reached over to open a leather case that was waiting on the seat between us. It looked like an old-fashioned sample case for patent medicines. Neatly arranged between the dividers was an extensive selection of those miniature bottles of brand liquors, dozens of them.

“It looks like things have changed since I was connected with the mental health business,” I observed.

“Some ways yes, some ways no,” he said, choosing a tiny Johnny Walker. “Less restrictions, more medications. Still no cures. Help yourself.”

Conversation was sparse. The young man was more of a one-liner than a talker, and I would have been content to keep quiet and go over the mystery of that thing that had hit me back in the blueberries, or go to sleep. But with the help of the long drive and the medicine kit we gradually got to know each other. Doctor Joe had rebounded into psychology after flunking out of the field of his true interest: genetics. Both the Latin and the Gaelic sides of his family had histories of mental disease, not to mention a lot of crazy poets and painters and priests. Joe said he had inherited a lot of bad art, blind faith, and troubling questions. Also, he said he was going to the convention for the same reason I was—to see Dr. Klaus Woofner. He said he had been a fan since his undergrad days at Queens.

“I’ve read every little thing written by him, plus that huge pile of shit about him. They called him everything from the Big Bad Wolf to Old Sanity Klaus.”

He gave me a look of hopeful curiosity. We were on a stretch of empty two-lane through the gentle pasturelands above Salem, the cruise control set at a drowsy forty-five.

“The old goat must have been some sort of hero, yeah? to get so much shit started?”

Yeah, I nodded. Some sort of hero. I closed my eyes. Could the old goat get it finished was what I was curious about.