Haywire, Brooke Hayward [the best ebook reader for android TXT] 📗

who go to public school and drive their own cars and go on dates and live at home, and I never have seen why I couldn’t do that.”

“Didn’t you ever ask?”

“No. I guess not. We’re programmed to the idea that boarding school is the only way to get into a good college, and that’s what you have to do to survive.” He smiled at me ruefully.

“When are they going to let you out of here? What do you want me to say to Father? Tell me what to do.” Terrible, I thought; this place was enough to drive anyone crazy. Even if the idea of running away had never occurred to Bill before, this experience would take care of that. Run! I wanted to yell.

“Tell him—” Bill looked away. “Tell him to set me free. Tell him to call off Kubie. Tell him I’d understand it if I’d tried to kill someone or—No, it’s useless. Don’t tell him anything.”

When I left Regent Hospital, I called Father and told him that I was very angry. I said that whatever Bill’s problem was, it didn’t warrant the extremes that were being taken to correct it, that just because he was going through his own brand of nonconformity didn’t mean he should be locked up like a lunatic.

“He’s acting like one,” replied Father. “He’s got a behavior problem neither Nan nor I is equipped to deal with. He’s broken every rule at Lawrenceville: drinking, smoking, television sets under the sheets at night, Christ knows what else. They can’t keep him. What am I supposed to do with him? He won’t speak to your mother, he refuses to speak to me. His attitude is just awful.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling ill equipped myself to deal with the situation. “He thinks you’re displeased with him—at the very least, unfriendly. He’s discovered the most effective way to return hostility is by ignoring you.”

“What do you mean?” snapped Father. “That just makes me angrier.”

“That’s the point. It’s a good attention-getter. Why don’t you just ignore him, too? If you stop trying to bend him to your own vision of what he should be doing with his life—”

“Brooke,” responded Father impatiently. “Don’t be a buttinsky. I have to tell you something. I’ve lived a lot longer than you and I’m a lot smarter. And you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A week later, Dr. Kubie told Bill they had finally found the perfect place for him: a clinic in Topeka, Kansas, named Menninger’s, founded in 1920 by the illustrious psychiatrist Karl Menninger. Kubie showed Bill some fancy architectural drawings of the place that made it look very posh and luxurious, and told him there were no bars on the windows, that he could leave if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t want to because it was really nice. Nan borrowed Bill Paley’s DC-3, an executive plane with comfortable seats and a bar, hired two male nurses, and flew Bill out to Topeka. That’s how my brother came to be at Menninger’s.

Truman Capote:

“I had been with Slim and Leland at the feria in Spain and we came back to Paris.…

“Bridget had come down from school to visit them. They had to leave for New York one day before she was due back, and Leland said, well, why didn’t Bridget just stay with me? And I was delighted. I thought she was so beautiful, like some extraordinary Eastern enamel I had just met her, and immediately responded to her more than I ever have to any girl that age. I loved her looks, I loved the way her mind worked, I loved her humor. She was a very straightforward person, a little shy, but not really. She had a wonderful directness once you made contact with her; then she trusted you. I did feel there was some kind of permanent sadness about her, which was curious because she was so radiant-looking. I often wondered if she knew how good-looking she was.…

“In Paris, she hadn’t really been around too much, so that first night I said, ‘I’m going to take you to Maxim’s.’ She had never been to Maxim’s, and the whole idea flattered and flustered and pleased her all at the same time. She went through all kinds of little-girl antics like ‘I haven’t anything to wear,’ and she wasn’t really a little girl, she was sixteen, but no ordinary sixteen-year-old girl by any means—not that I mean she was sophisticated—way beyond anything like that; I just think she was intelligent. We went into Maxim’s and we had a very, very grand dinner. She loved the whole thing. We talked a lot about diaries. Curiously enough, she had read a lot of diaries. And she asked me if I had ever read any of the diaries of Anaïs Nin, which was odd because at that time nobody had heard of Anaïs Nin. She said she’d heard of these extraordinary diaries, had I read them? And I remember being quite startled, especially since they hadn’t been published. I knew Anaïs Nin, had known her for about ten years, and I said, ‘No, they haven’t any of them been published yet; how do you know about them?’ And she said, ‘Well, I read a book of hers called A Spy in the House of Love.’ I was quite startled by that, too.…

“And then, one day, I went over to Gstaad. I wrote her a note and told her I was coming. It was February, wintry, a dreary day. We had lunch at a nice little place in town near the Palace Hotel and went for a long walk. There was a school there, Le Rosay, and all these boys were out playing hockey. We stood and watched them and discussed which ones were attractive and which ones weren’t, and why. And she was very expert. ‘Oh, no, no,’ she said, ‘he looks attractive—wait until he runs; you’ll see it’s all very odd, the way he runs.’ She had a good time that day.