Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,17
Dr...?”
“Dr Marlowe. Dr Chris Marlowe.”
Carnell struggled to recall. “I remember seeing you, of course. When I was... upset. And when they brought me here from the hospital.”
“Do you remember coming here from the hospital?”
“I must have been completely irrational.” Carnell smiled sheepishly at the memory. “I seemed to believe I had come here as a voluntary patient. I had a cassette recorder, and I was going to take firsthand notes for my dissertation on the inadequacies of our state mental hospitals. I’m a journalism student at State, but then you know all that.”
“I’m sure there’s more than sufficient material there for a number of dissertations,” Marlowe agreed. “And was that actually your topic?”
“One of them,” Carnell confessed. “I had plenty of ideas, just never followed up on them. Guess that was just another of the things that helped my life slide downhill, until...”
He struggled to control his voice. “Well, until I finally pulled out all the pills I had on hand and gobbled them down like M&M’s. I remember getting sick and passing out, and then I guess I woke up there in the emergency room.”
“You guess?”
Carnell frowned, trying to recall. “To tell the truth, my memory is pretty hazy for the last day or so—all those pills, plus whatever medications you’ve been giving me. There must have been a time there in the emergency room when they were bringing me around after I took all those pills...”
Marlowe waited patiently while he tried to remember.
Carnell's face began to twist with fear. “Dr Marlowe, I can’t remember anything from the time I blacked out until when I was sitting there in your reception room and...Wait a minute, I was never brought here! I came voluntarily!”
“Indeed, you did,” Marlowe’s smile was almost sympathetic. “And voluntarily, I’m afraid, is unforgivable.”
Carnell started to rush for the door, but it was blocked by Macafee and Sawyer, and he was too weak to put up much of a struggle.
“Don’t worry, Mr Carnell,” said Marlowe soothingly, as the needle plunged home. “It does take time at first to understand, and you have plenty of time.”
It was past 5 am when Marlowe made rounds through South Unit. The sun would be creeping out soon, signaling the dawn of what Marlowe knew would be another Friday, and he would be on call.
“Dr Marlowe,” suggested Wygul, the ward attendant on South, “maybe when you finish signing those ECT orders, could you take a look in on Mr Stallings? He’s been a lot calmer tonight, and we haven’t had to restrain him since Saturday afternoon. I think he’s ready to be let out of seclusion now so we can see how he does on the ward.”
“Mr Wygul,” Marlowe finished his coffee, “I’ve never known your judgment to fail yet. Is the patient awake yet?”
“Yes, Doctor. He was sitting up in bed half an hour ago, and we’ll be waking everybody up in just a minute.”
“All right then, I’ll talk to him.”
Stallings gazed at Marlowe expectantly when he entered the seclusion room. He made no hostile moves.
“Good morning, Mr Stallings. I’m Dr Marlowe.”
“How do you do, Dr Marlowe.” Stallings’ manner was courteous, but in a friendly way, rather than cautious.
“Do you remember me from the night you came here, Mr Stallings?”
“Yes sir, I sure do.” Stallings laughed and shook his head. His hand seemed to want a cigarette to complete the gesture. “Man, I sure was out of my skull on something that night!”
“What do you remember?”
“Well, I remember being carried in here by the deputies, and being tied down and all, and I was cussing and telling the whole world that I was Satan.”
“And did you believe that?”
Stallings nodded in embarrassment, then looked earnestly into Marlowe’s eyes. “Yes sir, I sure did. And then you came into the room, and I looked into your face, and I knew that I was wrong, because I knew that you were Satan.”
“Mr Stallings,” Marlowe smiled sadly, “you appear to have made a rapid recovery”
More Sinned Against
Theirs was a story so commonplace that it balanced uneasily between the maudlin and the sordid—a cliche dipped in filth.
Her real name was Katharina Oglethorpe and she changed that to Candace Thornton when she moved to Los Angeles, but she was known as Candi Thorne in the few films she ever made the ones that troubled to list credits. She came from some little Baptist church and textile mill town in eastern North Carolina, although later she said she came from Charlotte. She always insisted that her occasional and