ALL OF OUR LIPS
“I feel very fortunate today. We invited here today the people who were important to us. And the people who came, they think us important. These people did not include the bride - well, who I thought - we all thought would be the bride. But let’s not let that ruin the entire night. There’s plenty of food, plenty of space for everyone to sit, to dance, to talk and catch-up, to celebrate the occasion. I know, we came here to celebrate one thing and we can’t celebrate that thing now, but that’s fine. That is fine. We are still here to celebrate - each other. So raise your glass to toast - each other - and let the party begin!” Dann eyeballed the crowd. The speech, he thinks, went well. People would celebrate. A wedding celebrates love and the people in front of him loved him and he loved them. The bride didn’t matter; this moment was for them and him, not for an unnecessary runaway bride. Dann raised his glass and toasted, put down the mic and went to his table to celebrate.
Jeffrey, from across the room, watched Dann sit down. Eyebrows wrinkled; he was worried. He turned to his friend Paulus: “Paulus, I’m not sure this is working. Judge Dann is obviously unhappy. The jury’s not buying it. This is a shitshow. We’re going to lose this case.”
Paulus: “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Don’t be pessimistic. I’ve climbed many mountains, many cliffs and this is just another rock. I don’t care who’s died trying to climb this rock. It’s slick. It’s steep. I’m not scared. This rock will be conquered.” Paulus had taken up climbing seven years ago and had not yet stepped toe to rock with any mountain or cliff and blinked. He had stared each and every one of them right in its mineralized sedimented eyes (it’s metaphorical sediment eyes) and it crumbled (again, metaphorical) under his shoes. Jeffrey looked anxious, or scared. Paulus looked up at the blue sky and the hot sun. This rock was not different.
Jeffrey just shook his head. “I can’t work like this. I’m going to quit, Paulus, withdraw from the case.” He’d been practicing law for twenty-three years and this case was as bad as it got. Dann was the Judge and the Judge did not like him and if the Judge didn’t like you, it was not good. The jury - Michael, Carol, Womington, Massey, Clindell, Marcus, and Nandy - were not on his side and he didn’t need to do this to himself. He had taken his lumps along the way and defended more clunkers than he remembered. But he was too old for this now. His back hurt sitting in his chair; his tailbone hurt, too. He didn’t have an ethical conflict. The Judge didn’t need to know that; he’d say he’s withdrawn out of a moral conflict - he couldn’t represent this client anymore in light of information that has come to light. No, I can’t say Judge, he’d say to Dann, but he couldn’t - in good conscious - represent his client through no fault of his own - that is, of the client, that is.
* * *
In the Social Room on the top floor of the Cherry Green Psychiatric Care Center, seven semi-catatonic old-timers stared at a broken TV. They stared at everything. They stared, at this moment, at some pixelated splat of blocks on the TV’s screen. They were the permanent guests here at Cherry Green - no cure for them, their brain zapped, they sat and they shat. Cherry Green usually stored them on the 2nd floor, but a nurse’s assistant - an ex-nurse’s assistant - had jacked the 2nd floor TV. Now the other, not druggie nurses parked the old-timers here on the top floor - with the broken TV - while the usual resident loonies of the top floor of the Cherry Green Psychiatric Care Center fucked around in their own heads.
The top floor loonies don’t stay loony for long. The hope - for the doctors, the families, the friends, a neighbor who gives a shit because he has nothing else to give a shit about - is that someone will figure out the magic combination of pills to get this guy or that girl out of their loon state. Then, the loonie moves, under doctor supervision of course, to the sort-of-loonie wing and then, after some more supervision and medicinal adjustment, the monitoring floor and then, after some careful and scrupulous monitoring, to the ground floor, out the back door, back to the normal world.
Eleven people in this room - the top floor loonies each in their own world - the visiting old-timers in none at all. And the mess of pixels on the TV screen.
I’m the janitor.
I mop; I wipe; sometimes I fix a broken pipe or something. Mostly I mop spilled juice, piss, whatever falls on the floor and splatters.
In the Social Room, there had been a pisser. An old-timer, watching the wall; the clock ticked 2:37 and the old-timer started pissing through his pants and on the floor. The nurses carted him off and I got called. A normal day’s work; maybe I was the only normal person in the room. Jeffrey and Paulus sat on a couch across from the window; Dann stood in front of everyone talking some nonsense and then he sat down a few feet away from Jeffrey and Paulus. That’s the set-up: then, the damnedest thing happened.
* * *
Jeffrey: “‘Your honor, with that said what I have said, I cannot, in good conscience, under my ethical obligations to this court and to the great state in which I currently attend (being a member of its bar), represent my client. And with that said, I resign as counsel to my client. Thank you, your honor, for your gracious time.’ How does that sound, Paulie?”
Paulus stared at the rock. “Your word is your honor, my friend.” The rock glimmered orange; the sun hitting it from the east. Paulus wiped his brow. He had not expected this delay. Jeffrey had no intention of climbing today. He was biding his time in the hopes that when the sun went down, there’d be no light to climb. Time to get rid of deadweight and go up this rock shitalone. “Get out of the way, Jeffrey. You’re done. We’re done.” He spit on his hands, kicked up some dust, ready to move.
Weddings are like autumn trees, a concoction of colors and periodic chaos that embraces the breezy moment. The guests are the leaves, and oftentimes like the leaves, they wear similar colors (or color schemes) and stick together, sweating, and dancing, close together like wet leaves after the rain in the autumn. Dann thought the whole thing was something great, and beautiful. Maybe one can’t have a wedding if the bride has gone away, but one can have a celebration any time. And this celebration had family, friends, music, dance, even food - everything anyone’d need to celebrate - life, each other, anything. Paulus and Jeffrey on the dance floor, his good old lifelong friends. Music was great, Jeffie and Paulie were great. More people should dance. This day started off rough, but there’s only one thing you can do! “Celebrate, friends!” Friends, family, everyone, let’s dance together, one big party! More people should dance.
* * *
I didn’t know what that mother fucker was doing. I’m mopping and Dann here, staring with a dumb smile on his face, he turns his head right and left, makes like he’s getting up and then: “Celebrate, friends!” Happy birthday, buddy. I should have known something was up then, but I didn’t think much of it. In a looney bin, everyone’s doing crazy shit, so crazy doesn’t stick out. Tomorrow the doctors would adjust his meds and he could be catatonic or, if they got his doses right, he’ll be wondering why he’s in a mental institution. After a while, someone will figure out he’s okay and he’ll make his trip to the sort-of-loonie wing, monitoring, etc., then the normal world. It’s funny that it takes the staff - well, every one of us - half a day, sometimes a few days, to figure out a guy is normal, that he’s not crazy that the meds are working. Meanwhile, the guy sits in a swirling world of loons trying to make some sense of what’s going on around him. It’s probably like waking into a weird dream, the type of dream you tell someone about if, after you get out of bed, you remember anything about the dream other than that it was a weird dream.
* * *
Paulus can dance, Jeffrey can dance, everyone can dance. Everyone will dance; get up off their chairs, kick off their shoes, slide away a little ways away and DANCE. Dann couldn’t control himself. The world can be a lonely place if we sit in our chairs and wait for the world to dance at or around our table. Sometimes we have to get off the chair and dance on the hardwood floor the venue’s laid on its real floor, and if his best of friends and the most loyal of his family were still here, they too should dance and he would make them. “Carol! Michael! Massey! Marcus! Dance! Come on dance with me! Look at Paulie, Jeffie. I love you all and thank you - from the uttermost bottom of my heart - through thick and through thin - for being here, as we celebrate - us - yes, us. A celebration of friendship, family, our lives together. Come, cut a rug.” Dann turned around and sauntered - sauntered! - to the dance floor. He didn’t need to look back. They would follow.
The Judge was ready for him and Jeffrey knew what he had to do. The Judge was standing now. He didn’t know why. It seemed like the Judge had been standing up for a long time. He was nervous; it must just seem like a long time. He wasn’t going to wait for Dann to sit down. “Your honor, I’ve handled many cases; and, as you know, as I can assure you, I am held at a very high regard by my colleagues and myself. I have an utmost respect for the profession, for my colleagues, for you of course, and even for my client. I take my profession as a trusted private counsel to my clients, my public duties to this court, my professional and personal relationships generally, with the greatest and most convincing seriousness. Your honor, with said what I have said, I cannot, in good conscience, with my obligations to this court as they are and in the great state I’m in, represent my client. I resign.” Jeffrey bowed his head down, a reflexive gesture of humility and, he thought maybe, contrition. “Thank you, your honor, for your gracious time.” Jeffrey looked up again to see the Judge’s reaction. Dann was still standing; grinning. Maybe this is how he processes information. Or expresses disappointment. Jeffrey wasn’t sure if he already regretted what he had done; maybe this was worse than continuing on the case. The moment of silence between the Judge and himself stretched into an awkwardness Jeffrey had not expected. “And, so Judge, I abdicate.” “And I Set My Client Free.” He quickly nodded and looked back at Paulus.
There was no one between Paulus and the rock now. The sun, higher up almost at the top of the sky, the rock a reddish brown, no more shimmer, a dark and red rock. Paulus lived a vital life, a life of adventure, a life of meaning through accomplishment. Jeffrey’s back faced the rock, and Paulus knew he must go up alone, without any burden upon him - the burdens to be tossed off as he climbed - Jeffrey down below. He took the next step up, his hand on the gritty dust. Nothing was standing between him and the rock - but the dull ache of a friendship lost. Paulus could not - would not - take the first step up. He would not leave his friend. He turned around: “This way, you stupid fuck! Turn around and get your ugly face up this rock with me.” A light tease, a little rough rousing talk between two buddies. “You bastard. Move your ass. You fucking ass!”
* * *
I was a little ways away by this point. There is a square pillar on the corner of the nurse’s station and the Social Room is on one side of the pillar and I’m on the other side. I’ve cleaned up the old man piss and am about to clean out the mop and dump out the pisswater. Paulus is out of my view, behind the pillar. I can see Jeffrey. He’s talking to Daniel there. I’m holding the mop limply now, keeping it in the bucket: Dann is talking to Jeffrey and Jeffrey to Dann, I think. I didn’t know what they were saying to each other and they didn’t know what they were saying to each other. I had the feeling that something was going to happen, something I’d tell someone someday.
Well, here I am telling you this story. I can’t help but think that Dann and Jeffrey and Paulus had their own stories running in their heads. But, mine, I guess, mine fits into everyone else’s story, each nurse’s story, the orderlies’, whoever else was on the floor. We all saw things a bit differently (me while mopping, a nurse while doing what she did), but our stories are different angles of a sane and normal world. We’re all on the same page. Dann and Jeffrey and Paulus, they’re each seeing their own thing in their own head, their own world. They’re still looneys on the looney floor. Dann and Jeffrey they were talking to each other and didn’t know what they were saying to each other; I didn’t know what they were saying to each other.
* * *
Jeffrey stared at Paulus; the Judge was not happy and was saying something, maybe yelling something, at him. But he did not hear what he said; he only heard Paulus: “You stupid fuck! Turn around and get your ugly face to the Judge dummy.” A harsh way to tease at this moment. “You bastard. You’re an ass. You’re a fucking ass.” He was mouthing the words; the Judge did not notice the interruption. Jeffrey could hear those silent words in his head - like a club beating him from inside his skull over and over again, taunts crude enough for a locker room. He turned around: “A man requires encouragement. When he is down, when he is alone, he can turn to the voices of doubt within him or the voice of support around and about him. Paulus, you were my voice.” He turned around again. “Excuse me, your Honor, I am sorry. I regret having to do this in your court.” The Judge said something, he stood up, angry, hands shaking in the air. Almost, Jeffrey thought, like he was dancing or something. He turned around again. “Paulus, this is too much. I am no coward. Sometimes you… me… I, we all have to realize what’s wrong with what we do and move on, start over, turn the corner and take a new path. I thought my path was with you.” He paused and tried to furrow his brow. “Now I know, good friend, it is without you.”
A reaction was the first start and Paulus saw his friend’s eyes widen, the brow furrow, the mind think. If one prevails on a friend (even if with harsh words), grab his courage and climb, a life of adventure has been realized. And here was Jeffrey, after a few words worthy of a teenager in a locker room, ready to face the rock, man to rock, friend and friend to rock. A wisp of wind cooled the rough sweat on his forehead. “Attaboy, Jeffie-boy. Come on let’s go you motherfucker!” Jeffrey was walking towards him. He was walking quickly, swiftly. Jeffrey was rushing towards him to climb up the rock, together.
Jeffrey is always the life of the party - the center of attention! “It was great catching up, buddy, great catching up and we should keep catching up. Right now, I have to get this party going.” He turned around to other guests. He waived his arms to the rest of the crowd, half dancing half - exhorting. He didn’t care why he was supposed to be here, why anyone had been invited here. He only knew they were here and were happy and they celebrated each other together. Womington! Carol, Michael, Clindell, Marcus, Massey! Nandy! “How are you? Isn’t this great? Yeah, it’s a shame that she did what she did, no it’s NOT a shame, because you are here; I am here, we are here!” “How are you? Isn’t this great?” Everyone ought to feel welcomed. Clindell, I know you don’t dance, but today, let’s dance.”
* * *
I could see all three of them.
Dann wore a red sweatshirt with navy blue sweatpants, his brown hair was parted on the left and combed across the front of his scalp, circling towards the back of his head and hugging the bald patch at the top. He had thin lips and large cheeks. When he smiled wide, his cheeks scurried up to his eyes like they were ready to bore into them. He stuck out his arms and moved them back and forth, like he was punching the air on each side of him. He took small steps and his neck bobbed up and down and then he suddenly stopped. He turned to look behind him at Jeffrey and Paulus. He stood like that, smiling, his arms lowering to his side as he turned, looking at Jeffrey and Paulus, smiling.
Jeffrey, his gray and black hair, stiff and disheveled, permanently uncontrollable. His back was to Paulus. The wrinkles on his face made dark lines like from a marker, his rubbery skin occupying the space around it. He had big and clear blue eyes, that would be hypnotic on a woman. These eyes, set down deep in his marked face, stared at Paulus. Jeffrey wore a large, wrinkled shirt, it looked like a nightgown, his left shoulder was half-exposed. He was wearing pajama pants, too. Brown freckles on his shoulder.
The wrinkles on Paulus’s bald head were like shallow valleys, or rolling hills, across the top of his head. His squinted eyes opened up and curled on the corners like they - the eyes - were smiling. He had a smile of expectation, I think. Like something was about to happen. He had thick full lips. His cheeks seemed to drag down his face, not lift it up when he smiled. They pushed back towards his ears and rippled to wrinkles on his temples. Maybe it was the angle from which I saw him. His skin was shiny, red or orange like he’d spent an hour in the desert. He looked like he was about to turn his body away from Jeffrey.
I remember him half turned, frozen like that in my head, as Jeffrey, a moment or two later, rushed at him, his face angry and red.
* * *
“Sometimes life is made in a moment and sometimes the moment is foisted upon you, Paulus.” Jeffrey was not sure if he was making this moment or the moment was foisted upon him. And in the bigger picture, in the grand scheme, when all things are said and done, his moment was nothing. A end to a career; an end to a friendship. “Your honor, a thing that must be done I must now do.” Paulus’s back was to him. Walking away. Jeffrey was no longer a lawyer and he was, he probably was, under contempt too. But he must grab his friend by the shoulder, turn him around and face to face, punch him, give him a shot to the head, show Paulus that justice is not just beyond the bar, that friendship is lost without sympathy without empathy and a comforting shoulder.
“Jeffrey, my friend. Always pay attention. Center yourself on the rock, but never be comfortable, always pay attention. And we will climb this together.” His boot on a foothold, his left hand gripped a groove in the rock above, his nails scraping into it. He lifted himself up. Left foot and right hand his muscles flexed, his chest burning on the hot rock, his stomach sliding across it as he climbed. “This is nothing, Jeffrey. We got this.” And in this moment of confidence, his moment of reckoning. Even the proficient are humbled - he lifted his left leg and his right foot slipped off the foothold, his left hand pulled off, his body dangling from his right hand. And he fell backwards, fell into Jeffrey. “I’m sorry, my friend,” as they both fell backward and downward, off the rock, defeated. It was the loneliest moment he’d ever felt.
The night was young; it’s always young. But the DJ would leave soon, so let those who want to dance dance and those who want to sit sit and we will all celebrate because the important thing is to celebrate and to know that a moment together is worth a lifetime of memories and our moments of happiness are experienced together without the burden of our solitary moments - so DANCE! Dann skipped across the floor, past the tables, some empty some full, to the dance floor, half empty half full. He looked around, the DJ lights pulsing back and forth and there, revealed through the light, like the light was a curtain revealing as it’s pulled away - Paulie and Jeffrey - dancing, the momentum of the moment pulling them together in a celebration of dance as ancient as the moon. And Dann could not help himself. His left leg and right leg keeping the beat with his hips following a half step behind and his hands the melodic point and his head the counterpoint. As he strutted, he gyrated, he danced to Paulie and Jeffrey and around and around. All three of them. This was a party. Friends and celebration. His bride on some road to hell and he on the dance floor.
* * *
It was weird. Paulus had lifted his right leg about a foot and his right arm was up in the air with his wrist bent outward and his fingers curled. It looked like a hook at the end of his arm. Jeffrey’s face was red as he rushed towards Paulus. His mouth was open like he was screaming in rage or maybe yelling at Paulus, but no noise came out.
He grabbed him. Jeffrey grabbed Paulus around the shoulders like he was effectively massaging his friend or ineffectively choking him. Paulus stumbled forward and backward and somehow stepped forward and around so they faced each other as if in a clumsy waltz. Jeffrey shook Paulus. Paulus’s head whipped back and forth and I thought I saw sweat fly off his forehead. They shifted together to the left and the right, their legs swung together in a crooked arc and into catatonic Nandy’s knees.
“Whoop!” The first word Nandy had said in years maybe. Whoop!
At this point, the situation was unruly, but it wasn’t something different for this floor. Just crazies being crazy. But then things got different. Jeffrey and Paulus bumped into Nandy. Whoop! And then, “Yeah WHOOP” Dann belts out like he just won the lottery. Paulus and Jeffrey have sashayed themselves away from Nandy and Dann skips up to them and starts gyrating, starts dancing. His elbows are in the air and pointed to the left and right of this face, his hands are loose fists and his pelvis is rocking forward and backwards. If he weren’t where he was, he’d be arrested and taken right there.
The nurses look up from their phones, annoyed at the interruption. But as they see what’s going on they jump from their chairs. Two orderlies grab Jeffrey and Paulus and pull them apart.
And Nandy falls silently to the floor. I guess the energy of that Whoop was enough to take her out for the day. The nurses kneel down and put her back in her chair.
Dann’s been jostled a few feet from where he started. But he’s still dancing, his mouth alternating between a smile and a pucker like he was sipping from a straw. The nurses on the floor tending to Nandy, orderlies pulling apart Jeffrey and Paulus, all the other loonies, nurses and me looking on and Dann’s dancing.
* * *
And in the end all good things must come to an end and this night is at its end. It took a little doing, a little cajoling, but by the end everyone was having a great time. Dancing, laughing, there was some shoving but all in good fun! Even Nandy got on the floor in her own way! “We can’t have it all, but we can have this night and we can have each other, right guys?” But everyone was leaving. It had been a good night. Was it a good night? They were humoring him and it wasn’t right. His bride’s leaving was not right and Dann had to admit it to himself. In the throes of the reception he had forgotten - or let himself forget - that he was sad. This was a joke, a farce. A farcical parade of gestures. He sat down. It’s over.
Well, Jeffrey’s career was over. He recused himself (and the judge wasn’t happy) and then he turned around and punched his best friend. And the officers came and he had punched Paulus or had grabbed him and almost punched him; he couldn’t remember exactly. The law was no more for him and he was no more for the law. Yes, it could have been more graceful, more dignified, but it didn’t matter now. No Paulus by his side, no career to be proud of; he was happy to end it and go to bed.
He was on the ground with Jeffrey. Paulus defeated by the rock and lifted up by his fellow man. Defeated, hurt physically and mentally by the ground beneath him and carried up and away by rescue patrol to a bed where he could rest and recover. And prepare for another day. With old challenges left to conquer and with new challenges to discover. But for now some rest. Paulus lay down on the stretcher; he needn’t be strong. The doctors would take care of him for now. We all need the help of our friends… and of our doctors. .
* * *
Then, it happened. Dann, dancing like a monkey, and then nothing. No more dancing, his bent legs get straight, his jiving elbows stop jiving and he looks up, his back erect. Staring with no look at all on his face and then in that same face, the look of normal, the eyes aware of reality - real reality - his lips sag down a little like what all of our lips look like when we’re normal and not crazy. And then he realizes where he is and he looks around and he sits down on the gray industrial couch while lifting his hand to his head hiding his face just as it distorts in disgust, despair or something like that. I can’t get in his head so I don’t know for sure.
Jeffrey and Paulus are still in crazyland and being taken back to their crazy bed. The old timers are being placed back in front of the pixelated TV, the furniture rearranged, nurses back at their station. Dann on the couch, no one but me knowing he’s okay now and no one but him knowing what the hell he’s really thinking. At some point the nurses will realize they have to move Dann down two floors to the sort-of-loonie wing and they’ll be annoyed they have to fill out paperwork for his sort-of-loonie ass. But I’m just guessing about that; I don’t know what the nurses are really thinking. Welcome to normal, Dann.
