Chapter Three

The Tunnels

The Northern Michigan Insane Asylum features a great expanse of tunnels connecting the separate wards, Building 50 and many of the doctors’ residences. This allows for the seamless transportation of goods necessary to the running of the facility, ensuring that your family member will not be aggravated by anything unsightly. Additionally, the Northern Michigan Insane Asylum has separate wards for men, women, and those from higher paying members of our society. There are separate wards for those patients of lower classes who are supported by the estate. The segregation of wards and the underlying tunnel systems ensures that your family member will never be exposed to someone of a different class level or mix with those of more dangerous afflictions.

–Promotional Material for The Northern Michigan Insane Asylum, 1915

We have been notified that there has been a breakdown of the tunneling system. Several patients have gone missing from locked wards and have been located in the caverns of the facility. We assure the board that this matter has been dealt with efficiently and promptly. All escaped inmates have been found and reassigned. The rumors currently circulating in the Traverse City community are without validity. As you know, with the recent influx of patients, we are experiencing a shortage of beds and materials. We graciously request additional support in both remedial staff and in two to four more physicians so that we can ensure all patients are accounted for at all times. The issue of the tunnels has been addressed and is currently being mended.

–A letter to the Board of Trustees dated 1931

The next morning Kinney was up before Mallie Lyn Peters could knock on the door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” she began and then “Why! You’re an early riser, aren’t you? I stopped by the kitchen for some bread for you sir, if you want, and this time I remembered. I told that rascal Charlie—I mean—Mister Young to not disturb me and I had a purpose. Mr. Young said I, I’ve got…” Mallie’s hand went to her mouth again, a look of horror spreading its wings over her face. “Oh, sir. I clean forgot the bread. I went on so much about Mr. Young disturbing me from my purpose that I clean forgot that I meant to get you some bread! Would you like me to go back?”

“What I would like, Miss Peters,” he said, using her formal name to slow her down and draw her attention,

“What I would like is to be taken into the tunnels.”

Mallie did not breathe and the natural rose of her cheeks withered. “I’m not sure I understand, sir. Today you’re to be meeting with the board again.”

“I’ve had enough meetings. It is time for me to get to work. It is time for me to do the job that they brought me here to do and that is to tend to the distorted minds that are brought into this facility. Now if you would kindly take me to the tunnels, please.” He issued the ‘please’ as a command and Mallie Lyn understood it as such.

“The Tunnels,” she said softly. She said the phrase as if it were a name and Kinney understood that here it was. “They’re meant only to take us between buildings sir, when the weather is rough, or someone is very…ill…and needs to be taken swiftly to the infirmary, or of course when… There isn’t anyone down there for you. Your patients are housed in a separate facility and I can walk you across the courtyard if you would like to get there sooner.” Kinney studied Mallie’s face. So there were depths to her too, he thought. She appeared innocent and girlish and yet there was an element of steel to her. He wondered if, like a knife, she also had blade.

“You may take me to my office, but I should like to go via The Tunnels.” This time he called it by its name instead of saying the words as a descriptor.

“Very well,” Mallie said and curtsied, but the way she said the words made it very clear to Kinney that it was not at all very well. “But if you don’t mind, sir, it won’t be me taking you down there. It’s not…it’s not a place for someone like me.”

Kinney did not hear Harvey Biggart approach, but rather felt his shadow in the doorway. “If you’ll come with me, Doctor Kinney. I will show you the way.” Harvey stretched out his hand, as large (it seemed to Kinney) as a paddle, and Kinney took the first step out of his room and into the sunlight.

*

Leading to the Tunnels

Elliott, I love you. I love you. I love you. Don’t look at me! Don’t! Take a step back, Elliott or I swear I’ll…

He did not hear Rose’s words as much as feel them radiating throughout his body as he stepped into The Tunnels. The system was accessed through a rather secret door in the lower levels of Building 50. Harvey explained that there were several such entrances (or exits) throughout the property, mostly camouflaged so that they blended in with the environment. He took a rusted key from his shirt pocket and opened the gate.

Kinney stepped into the darkness. It smelled, as he expected, of damp earth. But there was something else too. Something foul. Something beyond the remnants of refuse that they transported through the tunnels. And with that, Kinney thought, again of Rose. How near the end of her illness she had a similar scent. It was the scent of caged animals. A zoo. “I’ll lead the way,” Harvey said and Kinney nodded, following him.

The tunnel was wide and tall, as if a gigantic earthworm burrowed beneath and left a cavern in its wake. The walls were lined with brick and dripped with condensation. With each step Kinney took into the underbelly of the facility, he felt as if he were taking a step back in time, somehow impossibly taking a step closer to Rose. Love me again, she’d cried that final day, pleading, on her knees. And he had said no. Just one word. Just one word and it was as if he had unlocked the final door of her madness.

What was it about being here that brought her so very close to him? Her illness had begun simply enough. She’d always had a dreamy quality to her, but it was that very distance to her, as if she was seeing into another world just beyond his reach, that he had found so desperately attractive. She’d seemed to belong both of his world and a place where everything was brighter and more beautiful. She used to joke that she could hear music playing wherever she went and he had laughed at her, thinking she was talking with poetry. And then she’d begun to hear voices talking to her. Telling her to do things. He’d thought that by studying dementia praecox he’d easily be able to cure her. He had been wrong. There was the day he’d returned from the infirmary to find her standing at the kitchen sink, her hands bloodied and still holding the clumps of brown hair she’d ripped from her own scalp. “It’s the music, Elliott,” she’d said. “I’ve been trying to get it out.” At that moment he knew that she had slipped away from him and he had shut his heart to her. He thought he’d chosen a beauty to love for all eternity; she had transformed into a beast and had to be hidden away.

In this way, the tunnels reminded Kinney of his late wife. Not that they were twisted and dark and scary, though they were that, but he imagined if his wife now existed in another plane, it was not someplace magical, but rather someplace evil like these tunnels.

Harvey Biggart walked briskly in front of him, at first just a pace or two ahead, but soon stretching the space between them that if it were a rope, it could snap in two. Harvey walked deftly around puddles and cracked bricks, while Kinney’s ankle twisted and his feet seemed ill-prepared for this kind of footing. “Watch your step now, Doctor Kinney,” Harvey called to him, his words echoing. “We’re almost to your place.”

“Biggart, slow down!” Kinney called and Harvey paused, allowing him to catch up. He found that he was gulping for air, a waterless fish. “Could you. Explain about. The Tunnels. A bit please. Of the truth.” Kinney looked to him, expecting the man to give another version of the tour he’d already received, but this time he’d tell the truth. Truth that already Kinney suspected. He’d been given the sanitized tour of the facility. They were keeping things from him. Hiding patients from him. They’d cleaned thoroughly anticipating his arrival. Later, after he’d signed away his life to be employed by them, only then would he see the reality of the place. But Harvey did not give him a tour. He moved his head ever so slightly which Kinney deciphered as a ‘no’. And they resumed their walk through the belly of the asylum, Harvey steadily increasing speed until he was a bent shadow just out of reach.

At what point did Kinney begin to hear his name breathed to him from the walls? Surely there was a moment when there was silence, and then his name, but he did not realize when that moment happened. He was nearly running to keep up with the stooped figure ahead of him, listening to water drip, and the echo of their footsteps through the corridor. He was trying to place where exactly they were under the facility. Surely they’d passed Building 50 and the men’s ward. Perhaps they were inching under the women’s ward now. But at what point did the sound of his own desperate breathing change to the awareness that the walls were calling to him. Daahhhhkkkterrrrrrr Kinnnnnnnneeeeeey it breathed, soft, barely audible, as if the earth herself were sighing. And not just once, but his name became a loop upon itself, one syllable followed by its twin by its twin and its twin until his name became a horrible twisted sound of an echo turned against itself. He stopped in the tunnel, his heart beating so hard it seemed to want to careen from his chest. He tried to call out to Harvey, to make him stop, but he found he had no voice. He reached out to steady himself against the wall and touched not the wet, cold surface of stone, but the thick damp mass of a tangle of hair.

Okay. Yes. I know I’m posting a blovel on Wednesdays….and shouldn’t that be enough? Shouldn’t writing about an asylum in the 1930’s assuage my need to blog to the universe because I’m already churning out material? You’d think that would be true, but it’s not. (Say in Captain Kirk’s voice) I. Must. Blog!

*Currently looking around my living room because now that I’m blogging I realize I don’t actually have anything to blog about*

Random things then.

1.         Things with Biff Turlington are going quite well. So well, I’ve almost stopped wanting to break up with him every day. This has nothing to do with him, mind you, but with my own mind and that crazy control freak who lives inside my brain pulling random levers. There’s one lever she likes to pull called PANIC. Any time something is going well, she wraps her perfectly manicured hand (if I’m inventing someone to control my emotions, she’s going to be more put-together than I am) around the lever and braces for pulling. It’s like my whole body tenses every time things are going well, preparing for when they’re going to take a sharp turn into chaos. So far, I’m still braced for it.

2. Hanging out with my family for my nephew’s graduation party, my sister looked at me. “I like your cleavage,” she said. I nodded. “You should show it more often.”

“I know, I’m trying, but I have certain body issues.”

She looked at me and blinked. “That’s stupid. You’re beautiful…but I have to tell you…” she reached for my arm and knocked her finger on my sports watch. “THAT fucking thing is hideous. Take it off.”

“I can’t take it off.”

“Why?”

I didn’t know how to answer her. Because by NOT wearing the watch, I couldn’t randomly time things like how long I walk, how long in-between thinking about sandwiches and panic, or set several alarms to remind me of random things throughout the day. “I’ll have a white line from the sun,” I said, knowing surely this would end it.

She looked at me and blinked again. Damn her infernal blinking!! “Take the fucking thing off. You are not allowed to wear that hideous watch unless you are running or at band camp.”

I took the watch off.

3.         Random things I’ve said or almost said and then realized taken out of context, they sound ridiculous.

“I want to eat your pickle. I must eat your pickle! Can I have it? Your pickle? Just a little bit? Pleeeeaaase?”

“I like having a little man inside me every now and again.”

“That’s dawkward.” (I was trying to say either dorky or awkward, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate.)

4.         Tomorrow’s my birthday. I turn 29.

Only part of that is true.

Okay…I turn 37. 37!! I remember when I worked at the Beverley Hills Café in Miami, there were these brothers Cristian (pronounced “cris-tee-in”) and Felipe. They were well-muscled and seductive and had Spanish accents to die for. One was 35 and the other was 37. I thought they were absolutely ancient. (I was 24 at the time.) But one night Cristian kissed me. It was a kiss that changed my life. And ancient or not, it was an incredible kiss, in a car, under palm trees, in the heat so thick you could run your fingers through it. So. I guess if he was ancient at 37 and could kiss like that, and now I’m ancient…uh…Forgot where I was going with that. Now I just want to kiss. Where’s Biff?

5.         Biff tells me not to freak out and relax. I think this is good advice. I’m trying.

Chapter Two–Exploring

Petoskey Stone

1952

Traverse City, Michigan

I am seven months along now and there is little I can do. My neighbor Katy Peck says I am expecting twin boys, but I just shake my head at her. It’s a girl. I know it is. I know it without even having to ask how.

Until now, my days have been filled with cleaning the house and cooking meals for us. In the summer months I can fresh preserves and pickles. I do not can cherries, of course, not when Ray works at the Traverse City Canning Factory. The palms of his hands are stained red, though we never mention it. He says he’ll never eat another cherry; that you’d have to kill him to get him to eat one. Sometimes in June when the cherries are ripening, I will cut them into little pieces and bake them into a chocolate cake. Ray eats two or more slices in a sitting.

Lately though I find that doing even the simple things is hard. My daughter is heavy. She pulls on the muscles of my stomach. Sometimes she flips around and jabs me. It’s the strangest thing to feel her flutter around, and something that only she and I share. During these times, I go for a walk to the beach. It’s just two blocks away and it seems to calm her. Or maybe it just calms me. At any rate, she quiets and we listen to the waves lap against the shore. I gently pull my dress up to my knees (if no one is looking) and wade in to the cool water.

It’s on the day that I find a Petoskey stone as big as my hand that I think of my mother. If you ask me, I will tell you my mother is Mallie Lyn Young and my father is Charlie Young and that I am the oldest of three, Irish girls. My sisters are as red headed as my parents. My hair is dark as a secret.

A Petoskey stone has a story to tell. It’s made of hundreds of tiny hexagons side by side, of coral long dead. Somehow, over the years, it transformed. It started as coral and became something else, something millions of years later I can hold in the palm of my hand. I am like a Petoskey stone: I started as someone else’s child and became Mallie and Charlie Young’s.

My mother did not want me to know, but she gave me the box anyway. You should know this, she said, and I could tell her how much it pained her to tell me the truth. She was afraid I would not love her. It only made me love her more.

Inside I found the papers that haunt me to this day, and it’s this I think of while trying to calm my own growing child.

I was born to parents Rose and Elliott Kinney in September, 1933. This would be enough for me to wonder, but it’s the second piece of paper that troubles me, and I have not been able to say a word of it to Ray. How do I tell him what I know? It is hard enough to say that I was adopted. Somehow it’s a shame on me. So how I could I tell him about the yellowed slip of paper? It’s a death certificate for Rose Margaret Kinney dated December 1930; and yet I hold my birth certificate dated September 1933 and Rose Margaret Kinney is listed as my mother. My real mother died three years before I was born. How is this possible? What does it mean?

Of course it isn’t possible…it isn’t. Who then was my mother?

I smooth my thumb over the surface of the stone and toss it as far as I can. I hope the bay swallows it whole and won’t release it again for another thousand years.

*

Dining Hall in Building 50

1932

Northern Michigan Insane Asylum

My Dearest Elliott,

You loved me once. Love me again. That’s all I ask of you.

Just try and do that and I promise, I promise, a hundred

times I promise that I will do better. I will be a better wife to you.

–A letter to Elliott Kinney, signed Rose

He dreamed of walking through a cherry orchard when in bloom. White blossoms laced with pink clung to the trees. Miles and miles all around him of green hills and cloudlike blossoms. The lake stretching out in front of him just a blue strip across the horizon. He could feel her reaching to him and he went to her, slowly, as if she would disappear like smoke if he approached too quickly. She did not. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled him close to his chest. He could feel her. He could honestly feel her. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of her dress, at the nape of her neck, tilted her head forward and lifted her dark hair so that her spine rose before him. Then, slowly, he lowered his lips and then he kissed the skin that lay exposed and vulnerable before him. “Love me again, Elliott,” she said and before he could stop himself, he said “No” nd let go of her hair.

“Good morning, sir, I do apologize for waking you and coming into your chambers and all, sir.” It was a young girl with curly red hair tucked haphazardly into a white bonnet, nineteen or so, and her hand rested against his shoulder, her bare hand touching the fabric of his shirt, burning with heat to his very skin. “I’m Mallie Lyn Peters, sir,” she continued in her pronounced Irish accent. “I help with cleaning and such sir.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “For the doctors, sir, not for the others. There’s nurses and specialists who tend to them and I ain’t…”

Kinney lifted himself in bed, temporarily interrupting the girl. Her face blushed crimson. “Continue,” he said.

“I shouldn’t of woke you up sir, but Doctor Grooms is here and he’s ready to get you started and he said I mustn’t hesitate but to wake you up directly and I did too, only first I stopped in the kitchen to grab you a bit of bread and then I got to talking to one of the attendants and then well, I ate that piece of bread sir what with Charlie…I mean Mr. Young talking on and on and so and then I remembered that I needed to…”

Kinney yawned, none too discreetly. “Thank you, Mallie. If you could…”

“You want something to eat? I could go back to the kitchen.”

“I’d like to get dressed,” he said pointedly. The pink flush to her skin soon deepened to a positive burn.

“Course sir, excuse me sir. I’ll wait outside and then show you the way. It’s awful easy to get lost in here. Why I’ve heard about a woman once who…”

“Thank you, Mallie. That will be all.”

Mallie swallowed hard, curtsied, and then retreated out of his room.

Kinney stepped out of his bed gingerly, as if expecting there to be pain when he walked, the way, he was sure, a mermaid new to legs would expect and anticipate pain. There was none. He walked to the window, drew open the curtains and for the first time he could see the ground of the Northern Michigan Insane Asylum before him. It was beautiful. Simply beautiful. Like a dream itself. He wondered, briefly, what price they paid to keep up such beauty. In Doctor Kinney’s experience beauty was never without its opposite for long.

*

Mallie led Dr. Kinney through a vast network of winding corridors until he arrived, breathless, into a great open room with twenty or so wooden tables.  “We’re in one of the dining rooms, sir,” Mallie said.

Kinney looked around. Each table was set for four or more. There were tall, thin windows that reached from floor to ceiling. Sun didn’t so much as pour through the windows but somehow managed to illuminate the space from within. The floor was tiled and scrubbed clean. The effect was of an efficient hospital-like cafeteria, but it still managed to be somewhat homey. “Is there anything else I can get for you, Dr. Kinney?” Mallie asked, her Irish accent lilting. “If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to be on my way and back to my other duties before Doctor Grooms gets here. He doesn’t like to deal so much with the lesser support staff and I’d just as well like to get about my day, if you don’t mind.”

He studied her face for a moment. He’d begun his career as a medical doctor but had switched to psychiatry when his wife fell ill. He had trained himself to be sensitive to what the body said as well as how a person spoke. So much meaning clung not to what was said but to how it was voiced and sometimes, more importantly, the words held back. Mallie’s cheeks were flushed, which might have been a natural state for her. There was, however, something in the tautness of her smile and her eyes did not shine with humor but were, perhaps, dulled from a lack of it. This was a girl who, for whatever reason, was afraid.

“Certainly, Mallie. You are excused.”

She curtsied and said with relief, “Thank you, sir, kindly. If you need anything else, sir, do not hesitate to call for me. You may not always see me about, but I am sir, or someone is who knows where to find me. You have only to call my name.”

And then with a swishing of he skirts, she was gone.

Kinney walked to the window. The curtains were already tied back to allow for the sunlight and so all he had to do was to simply look outside. Funny, he thought, one would never guess that this was the home of the mentally deranged. One would guess, looking at the couples strolling arm in arm that this was some place of respite or a grand park, if it weren’t for the fact that many of the people walking were clothed in striped pajamas, their partners clothed in the white of the medical profession. And the couples, of course, were all of the same gender. There was no mixing of the sexes at the Northern Michigan Insane Asylum. Kinney knew from his research that men and women were housed in entirely separate complexes. There were also several cottages on the premises where doctors could reside if they chose. And except for the communal walking areas, the place was effectively segregated.

He wondered if the criminally insane were as effectively segregated. Surely there must be some place that they resided. It was, after all, for their care the he had been summoned, not for the care of simple depressives and drug addicts. No. Dr. Kinney’s specialty was for psychoses of a higher sort, and which he had dedicated his life and his scientific method into curing by any means possible.

“Good morning to you, Doctor Kinney,” said a deep, melodic voice. “Welcome to your new life.” The man, surely Dr. Grooms, spread his arms open wide and smiled. Kinney noted the smile, here too, did not reach his eyes.

*

In life, as things happen, they happen in a linear fashion. One thing follows the next. One foot goes in front of the other and then is followed again. And so the tour of the facilities and grounds did occur in a linear way. Kinney followed Dr. Grooms and listened to him and nodded, and noticed the way their shoes echoed on the spotless floors, and how sunlight was fierce in its intensity. He nodded to inmates and did his best not to immediately notice they were damaged. He saw the men’s wing and the women’s. The dining hall. The medical ward. He was brought to an office and given a coat to wear and shown how to fill out forms. Everything was precise and orderly.

Why then, when at dinner, did he remember the day not as in one moment after the next, or one thing happening after another, but as an impression? As a whole? It was as if the day and all the moments in between had melded together and formed some kind of painting in his mind. There were the cows the patients milked. And there were the rows of beds they slept in. And there was the sunlight. The unforgiving sunlight and then…there were the shadows and the eyes, and the pale skin and taut faces looking at him, hiding from him. And there was the laughter and the screams in the distance, although he only saw patients who walked and smiled happily. And at dinner time as he sat with the board and tried to cut his steak, it was not the rooms or the grounds or even the patients of the Northern Michigan Insane Asylum that he thought of at all. No. He thought of the tunnels that connected everything and inched beneath the surface.

“No need to tour that area, Dr. Kinney,” Dr. Grooms had said with a hint of ice in his voice. “That is for the unseemly things, as we like to say. The transportation of refuse and occasionally of those patients who finally surrender their lives to an illness we cannot cure.”

“But where are the others?” Kinney asked. “Where are the ones I was brought her to treat? Surely they are not strolling the grounds, whistling or milking cows of all things.”

“It is as I said,” Dr. Grooms said evenly. “The tunnels are for refuse. You will see it in good time, but today, today let us focus on all the pleasantries our facility offers.”

Kinney chewed his beef and thought how he too was guilty of hiding something that had once been beautiful and had become so unseemly.

COMING NEXT WEEK: Dr. Kinney in The Tunnels and a strange vision.

Northern Michigan Insane Asylum, Building 50

Chapter One Contiued

Dr. Kinney Arrives–Building 50

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected upon his arrival. Perhaps to enter the great facility alone and in solitude. He imagined he would call out for assistance, hear his words echo along the corridors. At after 9PM in the evening on a Tuesday he certainly did not expect to be greeted by two rows of nurses and orderlies, dressed in bright white, men in pants and collared shirts, the women in white dresses with white aprons and white hats. He did not expect to walk through the aisle they made for him and certainly had not anticipated the applause. Two men stood at the end of the line, one dressed in a dark suit, the other in dark working clothes. He expected the gentleman would be one of the board members who had hired him to assist Doctor Christopher Grooms, and Kinney was not disappointed. This, at least, fit with his expectations.

The thin gentleman with spectacles reached out to grab his hand and the applause abruptly quieted. “Doctor Kinney, a pleasure! A pleasure! Do come in.” His handshake was warm, firm, and sustained. “I am Mr. Harrison, Edward Harrison, and this is Mr. Biggart.” Mr. Harrison dropped his hand and it was promptly captured in the meaty embrace of Mr. Biggart.

“Name’s Harvey,” Mr. Biggart said. His palm was cool and moist and once the handshake was over, Kinney discreetly wiped his palm against the fabric of his coat. “I’m in charge of the facility management.”

“And I’m the president of the board,” added Mr. Harrison. “I do apologize that the rest of the board is not here to meet you but that will change in due time. In due time. Come along now. I’ll have someone carry your bags to your room.” He motioned and the precise white lines of nurses and orderlies dispersed, as silently as snow falling.  “We have you stationed in Building Fifty for the time being and then will move you to one of the cottages on our site. Of course, should you choose, you may want to purchase a home near the waters. Traverse City is beautiful. That is, of course, if you stay.” Mr. Harrison looked at Kinney as if expecting a response.

“Ah,” he said.

“Very good then, very good. To your room and then we shall reconvene for dinner and a tour if that is all right with you.”

Kinney hesitated to pull his pocket watch out. The weight of his travelling from Detroit played heavily on him. Mr. Harrison adjusted his spectacles and then winked. “Of course, perhaps you prefer a little solitude tonight. I will show you to your room and we can reconvene for breakfast and a tour. At that point, I can turn you over to Doctor Grooms and the support team. Will that be too your liking?”

Kinney offered a smile thinned by fatigue but heavy with gratitude.

“To your room then!”

Kinney followed Edward Harrison up the ornate staircase and down three or more corridors. “You’ll learn all this in time,” Mr. Harrison said over his shoulder as he quickly navigated the labyrinth. “Ah. And here we are.” He stopped in front of a door labeled DR. E. KINNEY, withdrew a skeleton key and opened the door. The room was expansive, with an ornate bed and his bags already waiting with him, dripping slightly with rain.

“How on earth…” Kinney started.

“Magic,” Mr. Harrison said soberly. “In other words, Harvey Biggart. He’s a master at coming and going as is most of the support staff. They move around like whispers. It’s really quite astounding. All so that we do not disturb the graceful minds of our patients. And on that note, I will leave you to your solitude.” He adjusted his spectacles one more time, turned and was gone.

And with that, Doctor Elliott Kinney entered his room and was alone. Of course, he had been entirely alone for two years now, and though he appreciated the quiet he found no comfort that night in his solitude—not when the presence of Rose was almost so palpable that he could smell the hint of her perfume lingering in the air.

Kinney sat on the bed. He tried not to breathe too deeply. When sleep finally took him, it did not soothe him. Even though this was a new place, a new start, it seemed his wife had followed him again, even into the deepest of shadows; and she was with him still.

Northern Michigan Insane Asylum features sprawling green hills and landscaping as relaxing as it is beautiful. Your loved one will be as well tended as our gardens. The asylum follows the Kirkbride Plan in which patients are treated with kindness, comfort and pleasure. Indeed, restraints are considered barbaric. A chaotic mind must have peace and beauty in which to flourish, and a place of safety to do work. Patients at the Northern Michigan Insane Asylum will be comforted by music, gardening, and the great gentle beauty of Nature herself.

–Promotional Material for The Northern Michigan Insane Asylum, 1915

The Board of Directors at the Northern Michigan Insane Asylum request additional funding to support not only its current residents, but also to expand the program. While we follow the Kirkbride Plan of treating all patients with kindness, comfort and pleasure, there are certain minds that are so badly fractured they need additional care. The Northern Michigan Insane Asylum features a system of tunnels connecting the more than 4 acres of facilities. This allows for the transfer of unsightly goods such as refuse, as well as maintenance issues to the facility. Additionally, there is ample space located in the basement of the facility for those members of our society who are too disturbed to participate in the outside world. They receive kindness, understanding and the best scientific practices possible. Please consider our request for additional support…

–Grant request for funding to the State of Michigan, 1920

The Gates Leading to the Hospital

CHAPTER ONE

THE DOCTOR ARRIVES

1932

Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane

“Course it’s raining, now,” Bill Pepperidge said, nodding to the windshield as the wiper dragged across it. Little good the wiper did in the rain, and Dr. Elliott Kinney hoped the old grounds man knew the way without benefit of being able to actually see through the downpour. The rain came in heavy sheets, bowing maple trees forward. He tried to get a sense of the grounds and the much-heralded flower and vegetable gardens, but everything was rain and dark and shadows. He felt the truck twist and turn on the road and silently assured himself that he would not let his stomach react.

“Sorry about that, Doctor,” Bill said after the truck splashed through a large pothole. Kinney tried to calm his mind. If he didn’t fall through one of the rust holes in the floor, surely the bumping of the Model A pickup would rattle his brain, perhaps so much they he would have to be admitted as a patient instead of its newest doctor. Bill continued, “Now I know you can’t see it now so you’ll have to take my word for it, but when the sun is shining and it’s coming through those maples, you’d swear the trees were on fire or something. In a good way, of course. Like a beautiful kind of…” He paused here and tugged on the brim of his hat. “Magic,” he said with a firm nod, as if he’d decided that were just the word.

He made a sharp turn, the muscles in his thin arms flexing.

The truck shifted and bounced and Dr. Elliott Kinney leaned against the window certain he was going to fall out.  If he had been a praying man, he would have whispered one then. He did not whisper.

“Beauty is important here, you know,” the grounds man continued.

Dr. Kinney nodded though he doubted the old man could see him, and he was not surprised when the old man continued talking. “Course you probably know of Kirkbride’s ideas that insane people need beauty and music and all that sort. You wouldn’t believe how much time I spend pruning bushes and planting blubs. Not complaining of course. Glad to have a job, especially with things they way they are. Beauty though, I don’t know. You one of them kind of doctors? You believe that they can be healed?”

“It’s not a matter of belief,” Kinney said.

“Exactly! I say toss ‘em in the place and lock the doors. Course they let them walk the grounds and pick flowers and such and I guess they do all right. That’s mostly for show though. The real crazy ones are kept elsewheres.” With that, Bill Pepperidge slammed the truck into park. “We’re here,” he said with a grin. “Building Fifty.” He nodded at the expansive building they were parked in front of which had, it seemed, been born from the rain and shadows and would surely fade when morning came. “Hope you’re ready for this.”

Dr. Elliott Kinney nodded once, opened the truck door and then braced himself for the onslaught. There was a hint of ice in the drops and the rain was fierce and cold and cut at his skin and made him feel, briefly, as if somehow he were still alive.

He ran to the doors and though he could hear the grounds man calling after him, the meaning of the words was lost in the rain.

PROLOGUE

1952

630 2nd Street

Traverse City, Michigan

Sometimes when Ray is busy working on the car, or pushing the mower across the long blades of grass in our front lawn, I step silently into the bathroom and close the door. I turn on the shower and I sit on the edge of the bath and I cry. It is not only the changes that are happening in me because of the baby, or that I’m hysterical or something. It’s because I have a sense of the way things should be and it’s a kind of ache because my life is not the way I imagined. I imagined my parents coming over with casseroles and Jello molds, and Mother would crochet blankets and booties for the baby, and Dad would try to fix things with Ray only he’d fumble things up, and I would watch from the kitchen, and run my hands along the slope of my abdomen, and sometimes I would laugh at our simple happiness.

Our weekends, though, are much quieter. We live in a two-bedroom house in Traverse City, just blocks away from the bay. It’s a small house, brown, part of a city project of housing for veterans. The houses are close together, so close I can hear the neighbors fighting, and I can hear their gentle moans as they make up. I can also hear the water calling at night, and the wind sometimes smells of rain. Days like this, when it is dark and cloudy, when there is a stillness in the air of something about to happen, that is the time I sneak quietly away.

I cry because crying helps. And then later, I cry some more. I do not want to hold the tears because I do not want them to change my baby. Surely what a mother thinks and feels affects her child? My daughter is kicking now and I imagine that she is happy. I intend to keep her that way for as long as possible.

*

“Do you think a person is fully formed at birth?” I asked Ray one night over dinner.

“Of course he’s formed. Otherwise it’d be like a monster or something.” He scooped mashed potatoes into his mouth. I tried not to think of monster children, of babies misshapen.

“No, I mean the personality. Are you born who you are or do you become who you are? I mean, do your parents matter in the grand scheme of things?”

He chewed awhile, dipped the meatloaf in ketchup, took a chug of milk. “How do I know, Beth? I turned out okay. You turned out okay. Our kid will turn out okay. That’s all that matters.”

I nodded and tried to eat a little. What I did not voice was, “What, exactly, is okay?” There is the surface of things and then there is the truth beneath the surface. There is the city that is beautiful and ornate, and underneath are the tunnels and machines that make it operate.

Of course, all of this is just me, thinking of my mother. And my father of course. Am I who I am because of them, or in spite of them?

It’s my mother I think about the most. Still, all these years later, I haven’t been able to piece together who she was. She was my mother and a stranger. She was beautiful and a monster. She was, I guess, who my father created her to be. So maybe it isn’t our parents who shape us. It’s our spouses.

This, I guess, is why I sit in the bathroom sometimes and let the water run. It’s so that I can cry without being afraid.

Thanks to everyone who voted on what I should write for my Summer Blovel. It’s the 1930′s moody gothic suspense, and I’ve just started writing it. I’m going to post a few pages starting today. You may decide to hold off reading for a bit until there’s more, or maybe you want to try it bit by bit. I’m not sure where the piece is going, but I have a couple of guesses. Try to give me a few posts to get it going.

I’ll ask for more input later on. You can help me title it, name characters, decide what happens next. Like I said, it’ll be like Choose Your Own Adventure…only the adult version.

And, yeah, there’s a good chance it’ll suck. But I’m going to give it a decent try, and already the characters are starting to form. This week, you’ll find the Prologue and then meet Dr. Kinney, a new doctor at the Norethern Michigan Insane Asylum (its original name before becoming the Traverse City State Mental Hospital). Hope you like what’s coming. I hope I do too.

Best,

Tanya

Wow. I didn’t realize that so many of you would actually give me suggestions on what to write for a blovel. I feel very puffed up right now. Not in a way a hot dog puffs up on the grille, because that’s gross…but how a peacock puffs out its chest and is all “Look at my feathers”. Yeah. Like that.

So reading through the suggestions, I’ve come up with two different pitches. I wish I were smart enough to incorporate every single suggestion, but I’m just not. You get two choices. Cast your vote and I’ll start writing…hopefully post something this week. I’ll write a page a day and post a couple of times a week. This is the plan anyway. Oh, and both stories are set in Michigan. I’ve got to Represent, you know. It’s sort of a big deal for me that all my books be set in Michigan.

#1 1986—Backstage Romantic Comedy

When you're backstage, you're a part of everything, but also separate.

Imagine a group of awkward punks hanging out in Monroe Mall by the waterfalls. They’re depressed. Desperate. And just aching to have an artistic outlet. One girl, 21, joins a local theater company. She’s strictly backstage, working on lights and sets. She feels invisible. And when she’s dressed in black and hiding in the shadows, she really is invisible…which is just great, because she can watch the love of her life onstage. He’s a local star, destined for Broadway, and he’s Not Gay. When the leading actress gets mono, our heroine is the only one obsessed enough to have learned all the lines. She’ll have to trade in her Sex Pistols shirt and comb out her dreadlocks and become a leading lady. But it’s not going to be easy. Or smooth. And maybe being a star and onstage isn’t quite what she imagined. Funny. Quirky. Beach read.

#2 Historical Gothic—Suspense/Mystery

The opening setting for the Gothic story. Imagine it dark & creepy.

This one is set in Traverse City in 1932 (or late 1800′s), but it’s an imagined Traverse City. There may be elements of the supernatural. The story begins in the State Mental Hospital where a new doctor on his rounds sees a woman in the tunnels cleaning. There’s something about her. Something familiar. He examines her and after closer inspection is startled to see that she looks just like his dear wife, who died two years earlier. The doctor tries to rescue the patient by bringing him to his home: a gothic, Victorian era mansion. But he has ulterior motives. He’s so desperately in love with the spitting image of his wife that he tries to brainwash the woman into believing she IS his dead wife. And eventually, she is just confused enough to believe him, even confused enough to hear her ghost child calling out to her. Literary-ish. Moody. A little scary.

Cast your vote!

Tell others to cast theirs.

You can tweet me, FB me, or leave me a comment here. Hope you like the ideas, and thanks for playing along.

You know, I’ve been searching for blog topics. I could keep blogging about my life, but I’m a little tired of me and I need a break. So I posted on FaceBook that I was thinking of what to write and Dana H. gave me a great idea.

Two years ago, I posted “Blunder Woman” as a blovel. A blog novel, if you will. I wrote tiny snippets and posted them online…and now that blovel is a honest to god book—or will be on July 11^th. And since it’s summer and I don’t want to blog about myself entirely, I thought, why don’t I blovel again?

Only this time, I’d like a little help from you.

Here’s my idea. I want to create a story written with readers in mind. I don’t know if I can do it, but I’d like to try. I’ll ask questions, you give me input, and I’ll write. Whatever it ends up being, it will probably be funny, or at least have funny elements to it. There will be quirky characters, and maybe a saucy scene every now and then.

So here’s my first question:

What kind of serial book would keep you coming back?

Do you want another romantic comedy, suspense, sci-fi? Do you want a murder mystery? Vampires? Zombies? Quirky every day women? Divorced? Singles? Do you want to read the further misadventures of Blunder Woman, or would you like to meet some new characters? Just, you know, no Westerns. By god, no westerns.

It'll be like an adult Choose Your Own Adventure

Tell me what you want. The first step is the genre, or type of blovel. Then I’ll come up with some basic ideas and let you choose.

So. Let’s get started. Tell me what you want to read, and I’ll write it.

And tell your friends. The more input, the more possibilities.

Yeah?

Yes. It’s official. I’m addicted to blogging. I’m trying to make it take the place of chocolate because if my hips get much bigger, I’m going to feel like I should start birthin’ again.

I honestly don’t know how to transition from that sentence. The only way to do it is awkwardly…

Sooooo….I’ve been thinking about bodies. Yep. Bodies. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about my own body. I’m turning 37 this month (turning, the way that milk curdles) and I’m trying to be okay with that. For the most part I am. I’ve been struggling with my weight though. I can blame my broken foot and that running hurts now, but I also have to blame ice cream, and chips, and delicious sandwiches. But then I wonder, okay, at almost 37, I’m still in pretty good shape. I’m a size 10 and that’s respectable. I have curves. Lots of curves. But they’re in the right places. So what am I complaining about?

This lady...she's beautiful.

Then the next question is “When am I going to let myself be happy with who I am?” How many books do I write? How many accolades do I need before I allow myself to say, look, you’re who you are, curves and all, and it’s okay.

So I’ve been staring at bodies. Young bodies. Old. Chubby ones. Lean ones. Hard ones. Soft ones. And it occurs to me that not one person has a perfect body. And if you see a picture of a perfect body, it’s been airbrushed. We are not perfect, people. Perfection is creepy.

I’ll tell you a secret about my body. Very possibly this will fall under the TMI heading. If you’re a chick, you’ll probably get it. You might even get it if you’re a dude. But my body has changed. A lot. I used to have these tiny little perky breasts. Breasts so firm you could bounce quarters from them. And I did. Breasts so pert, you couldn’t tuck a pencil under them. I can now hold a stapler. My nipples have expanded. That’s right. NIPPLES. I have a soft tummy. I have tiny stretch marks on my thighs. I have a recurring hair on my chin that if I don’t pluck, threatens to look like the root of an orchid. I dye my hair. If I don’t suck in, I could pass for being sorta pregnant.

This is the truth. While I’m not entirely okay with this, I’m trying. I’ve been looking at myself a lot lately. Sometimes, I even like what I see. If I stare long enough, I’ll also see that I look womanly. I look sexy. I have eyes so blue I can sometimes feel them flash. And even though my body is changing, my spirit isn’t. Actually, it is. But it’s getting better. I’m more passionate with age. I’m more understanding. I have good legs. By god, I’m a bottle of wine!

Bad metaphor, because it might sound like an invitation for someone to drink me.

On second thought, that’s a good metaphor.

What I’m saying here, people, is that I’m flawed. Deeply flawed. And you know…no one else is flawed in exactly the way I am. And there’s something beautiful about that.

And you, whoever you are reading this, I bet you’re all kind of beautiful too in your own delicious weirdness.

This is what age does to a woman. It makes her love herself. Let me rephrase that. It makes me love who I am, curves, hair, healing foot and all.