A. W. I. A. 17: The sort of game it was

I'd asked the man who claimed to be a doctor what game we were playing, and he asked me what made me think it was a game.

It was all getting to be too much. I had been his guest for hours and he'd offered me nothing to eat; I'd only gotten a cup of coffee by practically demanding it, and at no time was I given a tour of the facilities.
It was all too much.

"I need to use the restroom," I told him.

"By all means," said the man who claimed to be a doctor. "Go ahead."

This was an outrage. "Well, where? Here?"

"I beg your pardon," said the man who claimed to be a doctor; and he did seem embarrassed. "I didn't realize you didn't know where it was." He pointed to some destination past the door and to the right. "It's the next door on the right."

"Well, how am I supposed to get out of this room? Don't you need to ring for someone? Or escort me?"

The man who claimed to be a doctor looked like he was pretending to be puzzled. "The door is unlocked. And I'll just wait here."

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A. W. I. A. 16: Another stop

The man who claimed to be a doctor was making notes. He wrote down 'tiger lilies' after I mentioned them, but claimed he only wrote that because he was starting a garden.

I was disinnocented of him already; he'd shown he could not be trusted. I stared down at the coffee he'd brought me, and the little pile of coffee additives--creamer, sweetener--and I looked back at him.

"What is this?"

"What is what?" he asked me. "The coffee you asked for?"

"What is this place, this room, this game?"

"What makes you think it's a game?"

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A. W. I. A. 15: Squaring off in circles

All right, now back to business. I was starting to describe the tiger lilies I saw on my walk that morning, but I sensed that if I told the man who claimed to be a doctor that they looked to me like mourners at a funeral, he would somehow use that to prove certain things about me, which, as I said, I've already demonstrated to be untrue.

Instead, I told him they looked like golf spectators, thinking that would be good, with all that 'golf spectators' implied: cheery, sunny people gathered to watch something they found exciting, for reasons I could not even begin to guess at. But a hitch before I finished the sentence told the man I had changed course.

"Why did you pause there?" he asked me.

"Where?" I asked. I knew, of course. But consistency was going to be important here, and the kind of person who might think tiger lilies looked like golf spectators would not be the kind of person who looked too deeply into her own motives.

"Before you said 'golf spectators.' You paused as if you might be about to describe them in a different way."

"I did?"

"Yes."

I shook my head--not in a contrary way, but the way I might if I were mystified. "I'm not sure."

The man nodded. "All right, then." He wrote a note on his pad.

I tried to read it, but his handwriting was small and jagged, like shards of glass.
"What was that?" I asked him.

I could see he was appraising me. Looking for the canniest course. Would he feign ignorance or--now that he knew I had him trapped--would he come clean?

"I just wrote myself a note," he said.

This was non-responsive in the extreme. "What does it say?"

"Tiger lilies."

"Why?"

"I am starting a garden."

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Another quick interruption, a visitor

Sergeant Tanner spotted this guy when we came back from supper. I wish I could feel confident that things were being run the right way around here, but a thing like this, even if it wasn't deliberate, makes you wonder. They know he is not equipped to deal with this sort of break in routine. I was able to take care of it this time, but what if I'm not around next time? I'm not sure who else here can help. These concerns will probably make this take even longer.

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A. W. I. A. 14: The subject changed

The man who claimed to be a doctor had ceded immediately to my demand that we change the subject. I was back in control, and felt that nothing was lost by giving him something in return: he wanted to know about my walk that morning, and so I would tell him.

"I saw trees. I mean, I looked at them and really saw them. Several were blooming. One had light green blossoms that smelled like fermenting honey." I thought but didn't say, more corruption, more rot. If he noticed I hadn't said that, he gave no sign.

The man nodded. It seemed all it entailed these days to claim to be a doctor was the ability to ask questions you know the answers to; nod and breathe in a theatrical way; and occasionally doodle on a pad or fetch coffee.

If I had asked for a pad before, I might have written this idea down when I had it. As it was, I'd foregone asking for a pad to avoid letting the man know I was on to him. I continued: "On one lawn I saw a stand of tiger lilies, tall and straight, standing massed like--"

I stopped. I had thought they looked like mourners at a funeral, but of course, that wouldn't do. "They looked like golf spectators."

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A. W. I. A. 13: Changing the subject

I'd told the man who claimed to be a doctor that I didn't want to talk about telephone wires anymore. He could pretend not to understand or act normal, it was up to him, but I would not play along.

He asked, "Why is this making you uncomfortable?"

But I wouldn't play along with that, either. "It's not," I said. "I just don't want to talk about it. I am very comfortable. Here. With you. So comfortable, in fact, that I'd like to insist that we change the subject."

He knew he'd won that round. How could he not? I'd practically handed it to him. But I still held some cards. For instance,

I had not yet tasted the coffee he'd brought me. But I had restored some kind of balance by insisting we change the subject.

I could tell he was trying to prove things about me to himself, and to any others in league with him, but I had only told him the truth, and answered his questions honestly. I could see, now, however, that in the long run that approach would get us nowhere. I would be more careful.

He sat back in his chair. "Tell me about the rest of your walk, why don't you?"

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A. W. I. A. 12: More telephone wires he pretended not to understand

The man who claimed to be a doctor was asking me to elaborate on the horrors of telephone wires, as if they weren't perfectly obvious.

"Look, they cut stigmata through the trees to make way for them. And there are stray things in them, things that can't have anything to do with the voices they carry."

"Like what?"

"Like a spoked steel thing that's some crazy cross between a bicycle wheel and a snowshoe."

The man appeared to think. He looked at his pad, where nothing was written. "Why did you describe the black boxes as horrible?"

"They are dark chambers where secret couplings happen. What's not horrible about that?"

He shrugged and nodded, a vacillation and an affirmation at the same time. "And why would you use the word 'stigmata'?"

"Look, why ask me these questions? Why not run out and look for yourself? Those things are ugly and crazy. The poles are bound with steel wires because they are trying to fall apart out of shame. I don't want to talk about it."

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