The Thanatos Syndrome

equable.
    â€œHow do you get over there to the toilet? Does Milton help you?”
    A deprecatory pursing of lips, almost a shrug: no big deal.
    â€œMilton also said you had some sort of spell.”
    Another near-shrug: You know Milton.
    I set Lucy’s medical bag on the table. His eyes follow it.
    â€œDo you mind if I have a look at you?”
    He doesn’t mind.
    â€œGive me your right hand. All right, squeeze. Your left. All right.”
    Milton is right. When I move his arm, there is a waxiness in the motion, like a stiff doll. But when I let go of his hand, it doesn’t stay in the air like a catatonic but comes slowly back to the table.
    â€œCan you stand?” He looks at me but doesn’t move. Am I mistaken or are his eyes slightly rounded, even risible? I give him my hands. He stands. “Right leg. Okay. Left leg. Okay.”
    â€œI want to have a look.” I open Lucy’s bag, fish around, find her ophthalmoscope and reflex hammer. I look at his eyegrounds, tap a few tendons.
    We sit in silence, the azimuth between us, like two diners at a lazy Susan.
    I am beginning to get on to him. He knows it. He watches me with a lively expression, eyes rounded.
    â€œI see that you are not moving around or talking or eating because you don’t choose to.”
    He shrugs.
    â€œI imagine that you feel depressed, that it doesn’t seem worthwhile to talk, eat, get up.”
    A half-shrug, a downpull of lip.
    â€œI’m half right? There’s more to it?”
    A nod.
    â€œYou chose to do this for other reasons?”
    A nod.
    â€œAll right. Examination over. You don’t need any help from me. I believe you are depressed. But if you have undertaken a fast for religious reasons, that is your affair. I don’t have to tell you about the medical consequences. I need help from you, however, a bit of advice. But if you wish me to leave, tell me or otherwise signify. I do not wish to disturb you. Milton called me.”
    Long ago I discovered that the best way to get in touch with withdrawn patients is to ask their help. It is even better if you actually need their help. They can tell. They may be dumb but they are not stupid. Once, in trouble myself, I fell down in front of a catatonic patient who had not uttered a word for seven years. “You shouldn’t be down there,” he said in an ordinary voice. “Let me help you up.” He helped me up.
    â€œAll right, Tom,” says Father Smith in his ordinary voice.
    â€œI’m not disturbing you?”
    â€œNo. What’s the trouble? Would you get rid of those?” He nods toward the soup and the Jell-O.
    â€œSure. How?”
    â€œOpen the trapdoor and set them on the top step.”
    I do so.
    I talk to him as if we were having an ordinary conversation, two fellows sitting at the lazy Susan in the Dinner Bell restaurant in Magnolia, as if there were nothing unusual about him perched on a stool like a wax doll atop a hundred-foot tower, not stirring for a day and a half. I tell him about my latest discoveries about Dr. Comeaux’s and Dr. Van Dorn’s Blue Boy project, about their offer of a job, about their threats if I don’t take it to send me back to Alabama for parole violation. I mention the incidents of sexual molestation at Belle Ame Academy, but also tell him of Bob Comeaux’s impressive evidence of social betterment through the action of the additive heavy sodium. “I’m not sure what I should do,” I tell him, frowning, troubled, but keeping an eye on him. As a matter of fact, I do not know what to do. So I am doing my best therapy, killing two birds with one stone, asking for help and helping by asking. He may be depressed, but I’m in a fix too.
    The priest listens attentively, his temple propped on three fingers. At first I fear he has lapsed into silence again. Finally he says in a low voice, as if musing to himself, “Social betterment”; then to me, “What kind of social betterment?”
    â€œWell, for example, the effect on the catastrophic problem of social decay in the inner city, in the black areas of Baton Rouge and the poor rural whites of St. Helena Parish.” I give him Bob Comeaux’s figures on the dramatic reduction of street crime, teen pregnancies, suicides, drug abuse. “You must admit there is something to be said for his results, even if he’s treating symptoms, not causes. And for his