Lancelot

1
    COME INTO MY CELL. Make yourself at home. Take the chair; I’ll sit on the cot. No? You prefer to stand by the window? I understand. You like my little view. Have you noticed that the narrower the view the more you can see? For the first time I understand how old ladies can sit on their porches for years.
    Don’t I know you? You look very familiar. I’ve been feeling rather depressed and I don’t remember things very well. I think I am here because of that or because I committed a crime. Perhaps both. Is this a prison or a hospital or a prison hospital? A Center for Aberrant Behavior? So that’s it. I have behaved aberrantly. In short, I’m in the nuthouse.
    I feel certain that I know you and know you well. It’s not that I’m crazy and can’t remember things but rather that the past doesn’t seem worth remembering. It takes such an effort. Everything takes a tremendous effort and it’s hardly worth the trouble—everything except staying in my little cell and looking at my little view.
    A cell like this, whether prison or not, is not a bad place to spend a year, believe it or not. I think I have been here a year. Perhaps two. Perhaps six months. I am not sure. A clean cell, a high ceiling, a cot, a chair, and a desk. It’s not too cold or hot or damp and the food’s edible. A remarkable prison! Or a remarkable hospital as the case may be. And a view, even if the view is nothing more than a patch of sky, a corner of Lafayette Cemetery, a slice of levee, and a short stretch of Annunciation Street.
    Isn’t that all you can see? No, look again. There’s a great deal more. I know that narrow world by heart and I can tell you from here a few things you may not have noticed. For example, if you lean into the embrasure and crane to the left as far as possible, you can see part of a sign around the corner. By the utmost effort and if you press your temple against the bricks, you can make out the following letters:
    Free &
Ma
B
    Notice that it is impossible to see more than that. I have looked at that sign for a year. What does the sign say? Free & Easy Mac’s Bowling? Free & Accepted Masons’ Bar? Do Masons have bars?
    My memory is coming back. I think you have something to do with it. When I saw you in the hall yesterday, I knew that we had known each other and closely. Haven’t we? It’s been years and you’ve changed a great deal, but I know you all right.
    When our eyes met, there was the sense of our having gone through a great deal together, wasn’t there? There was also the sense of your knowing a great deal more than I. You opened your mouth as if you were going to say something, then thought better of it. I feel like an alcoholic who knows certain people only when he is drunk. You are like a tactful “drunk” friend who is willing not be acknowledged at certain times.
    Yes, I asked you to come. Are you a psychiatrist or a priest or a priest-psychiatrist? Frankly, you remind me of something in between, one of those failed priests who go into social work or “counseling.” or one of those doctors who suddenly decides to go to the seminary. Neither fish nor fowl. If you’re a priest, why don’t you wear priest clothes instead of those phony casuals? You’re as bad as the nuns. What nuns don’t realize is that they look better in nun clothes than in J. C. Penney pantsuits.
    You’re the first person I’ve wanted to see. I’ve refused all psychiatrists, ministers, priests, group therapy, and whatnot. After all, what is there to talk about? I’ve nothing to say and am certainly not interested in what they say.
    No, what first struck me about you was that you’re the only person around here who doesn’t want to talk. That and an abstracted look in which I recognize a certain kinship of spirit. That plus the fact that I knew you and saw that you knew me even better.
    What? Yes, of course I remember Belle Isle and the night it burned and the tragedy, the death, the deaths of … But I think that was because I’ve been told about it and have even been shown the newspapers.
    But you … I actually remember you. We were close, weren’t we? You see. I’ve been rather depressed and “in the dark” and only lately have managed to be happy just living in this room and enjoying the view. But when I saw you yesterday, it was like seeing myself. I had the sense of