Memoirs From the Asylum by Kenneth Weene

I wasn’t getting into trouble with people.

In the bigger picture, my life went from bad to worse. Then, bologna, bread, soda, cheese - and mustard, mustn’t forget the mustard: all in fridge, back to bed I’d go. Eventually, I’d hit Sloame’s for some groceries. Usually it was the need for new supplies - the realization that what remained of my grazing space had slowly grown the green beard of time - that got me up for a couple of days. There was a period, back in the early sixties, when I often stayed in bed for days on end just getting up to shit and to graze out of my refrigerator. With my face turned to the wall and my knees hugged securely to my breast, I journey inward - to the safety of my within. If there is a bunch of too difficult things on the roster, well, screw the whole day I stay in my bed - my safe, unchallenging bed. If something seems too difficult, screw it. I go through the sequence: what I’m going to wear, which tasks I’m going to complete, even what I’m going to think about. I’m one of those people who rehearse for getting up in the morning. Then, too, I was scared of trying things that I couldn’t do. I don’t do pain - never did and never will. I didn’t want to die, but more - I didn’t want to hurt. I didn’t think it was a good war, but that was only the secondary reason for avoiding the service. Hell, some even left school and volunteered. Other guys went to Vietnam after college. Life had too many potential pitfalls, and I have always wanted to play it safe. There were lots of people who told me it would be a stupid decision - that there was much of life for me to explore, possibly even to conquer but I chose to not listen.

I wish that I could blame someone else for my mistake. As the plot unwinds, the reader learns a great deal about the nature of futility, frustration, and freedom. This is the interwoven story of their lives, a story that includes love, sexuality, violence, deaths, celebrations, circuses, and surprising twists.

What is it like to work inside a state hospital or to be a patient in such a hospital? What is it like to live inside the mind of such a patient? This tragi-comic novel takes the reader inside the asylum, inside the worlds of three central characters: a narrator who has taken refuge from his fears of the world, a psychiatrist whose own life has been damaged by his father’s depression, and a catatonic schizophrenic whose world is trapped inside a crack in the wall opposite her bed.

Memoirs From the Asylum by Kenneth Weene