Light at the End of a Dark Night

Jan 3^RD, 2023

The birds chirping outside woke Lars Bregman around 6am. The first thing he noticed was the steel mesh covering the windows, a ray of bright morning sun reflected a dusty white trapezoid on the yellowing tile floor. He could remember the Christmas party he had attended with the employees of Buddy’s Grocery in Jersey City. 

Two Beers, he thought. All it takes now is two beers and I’m in trouble.

He looked at the bedside table and saw his black snowboarding helmet. The uneventful room did seem familiar, and after getting up to pee in a small bathroom in front of his steel framed bed, he checked the mirror. Grey scruff blanketed his face, indicating that about a week had passed. He slowly began to remember what had happened. 

Instead of crying out for someone or seeking assistance, he dressed in his freshly laundered Christmas party clothes that lay on the bedside table next to his snowboarding helmet, approached the door, peered out, and instinctively walked down the bright hallway. Static buzzing could be heard coming from the fluorescent light rods as he walked to the cafeteria. He didn’t know how, but he knew where he was going, and his stomach growled. 

Fifty paces, he recalled the number of steps from previously wandering around the hospital. A few of people sat at a table staring at him in wonder as he glanced at them, nodded, and said, “good morning”.

He sat at a table by a side wall and tried to remember where he was, why everything seemed familiar, and why the black man mopping the floor on the other side of the room had stopped abruptly and dialed a number into his cell phone while glancing repeatedly at him in amazement. His mind, heart, and body felt released from an undefinable pressure he had become accustomed to: he had arrived to his destination and felt free.

Washington did several jobs at the hospital. He cleaned when cleaning was needed and ran errands for Dr. Cooper, the head psychiatrist. Most importantly, he was only one of four remaining orderlies for over forty non-aggressive patients due to a stringent state budget that was about to have most of its patients released into society for lack of funding. 

“John Doe just walked in and took a seat. Without his helmet on. He looks coherent,” he spoke discretely into the phone. “I think he even said, ‘good morning’ to other patients sitting at a table.”

“Are you serious?” Dr. Cooper had fallen asleep at this desk. He rubbed his eyes and put on his glasses on. “What’s he doing?”

“He sat down at a table like he wants to order something,” Washington replied. Dr. Cooper pushed his chair back quickly and hurried to his office door.

“Go ask him if he wants coffee. Try to converse with him mildly to keep him on the surface. I’m on my way,” he pushed his loosened tie in place and trotted toward the cafeteria.

Washington put away his phone, set the mop handle against a wall, and walked to John Doe casually.

“Would you like some coffee, sir?”

“Yes, please, that would be nice. Hey, can you tell me what sort of place this is?” his half English accent had bled into an interesting version of New Jersey’s northeastern dialect from years of living in the United States.

“Someone will explain that to you shortly,” he responded casually, “till then, do you take cream? Sugar?”

“Black, please.”

Washington returned with a cup of hot coffee and set it in front of John Doe.

“What’s your name?” he asked in a friendly, inconspicuous tone. 

“Lars Bregman. They used to call me Swede.” He held out his hand and shook Washington’s firmly. 

“People around here call me Washington,” he pointed at his name tag, “but my name is Rick McDaniel.”

Dr. Cooper slowed and peered around the corner of the entryway to the cafeteria to observe his patient momentarily and calm his breathing, then slowly advanced and gave Washington a upward nod to indicate he would take the conversation from there, pointing at the mop to hint that he wanted him to stay close.

“Nice to meet you, Swede, I gotta get back to work. This here is Dr. Cooper. Most trusted man here,” he said, trying to instill a sense of trust, and went to get the doctor a cup of coffee to make the conversation seem commonplace.

“Hi,” Lars said extending his meaty hand. “I’m Lars. Lars Bregman. Washington there said you might be able to fill me in as to my whereabouts?” His accent amused Dr. Cooper in a pleasant sort of way.

“Dr. William Cooper,” he shook Lars’ hand. “I have been waiting to talk for you for about a week.”

“Why did you have to wait?” Lars asked.

“Well, let’s just say you weren’t very receptive to anyone, and you haven’t said a word, though you did walk around a lot with your snowboarding helmet on. Can you tell me what you were thinking during that time?”

Lars rubbed his eyes and took a sip of his coffee that had cooled some. His mind pieced events together slowly, like pieces to a puzzle where the satisfying sound of its cardboard edges rub together when pushed into place.

“I remember now,” he said, noticing a cottony presence in his body that accompanied his revelation, “St. Peter in a black robe,” he chuckled, noting the blank expression on the doctor’s face. Having gathered his bearings some he said, “But you probably need a little context.” He leaned back in the worn, grey cushioned chair that no longer expelled trapped air when one sat. 

“I am not busy. I would be delighted if you would tell me.” The doctor sat up and set down his pen. 

Lars took a deep breath, then sipped his coffee, hoping to explain his first sixty-two years quickly before telling him about the Christmas party and the following eight days.

“I wasted my body and acted like a fool my first thirty-eight years. I used to live an odd life. Funny. They used to call me Swede, but that was back in the day. I was a roadie for punk bands like The Violent Femmes and The Sex Pistols. Of course, that was back before punk turned into whiny, baby music they call alternative. We never considered ourselves a movement. We just wanted to get drunk and high and play rowdy music to a lost portion of our generation. So, that’s what we were. Punks,” he drank more of his coffee. “That’s how I made a living through the eighties, and then I married my girlfriend Nancy in 1990. I was 31 and she was 25. Nancy got pregnant and we moved to Jersey in ’97 to be close to her family. She and my daughter died during birth.” He paused and observed the doctor with distant eyes that indicated a seasoned wisdom when coupled with such coherence.

“Nancy was the greatest. I remember a time we took the subway into the city and spent the entire day in Central Park walking and laughing. She had a blue sharpie and wrote little messages on big dead leaves on the ground, like “I love you” and “Don’t give up”, and tossed them into the wind,” he grinned, his hazel eyes shining as the few wrinkles on his face deepened. “Since their death I’ve held a respectable job in Jersey City.”

“You live in Jersey City? Why did you show up in East Orange?”

“I’ll get to that,” Lars said patiently. “I met her high school boyfriend at their funeral. Great guy. Buddy. I think Nancy wanted a wilder lifestyle and left him behind. He didn’t deserve that, but she and I hit it off in London,” he said, sipping the last of his now tepid coffee. “That’s who I worked for shortly thereafter. Buddy. I could tell he loved Nancy, and I guess he somehow found out I needed a job. Buddy’s Groceries,” he smiled contently.

“What kind of job?”

“I do most of the odd jobs at a Buddy’s store. I like bagging groceries best, though. I learned to do it quickly and efficiently. Everything has a specific order, and to complete a bag perfectly always leaves me with an extraordinary feeling of satisfaction. I think experiencing that satisfaction saved my life, and I never quit working there. Anyway, that’s pretty much where I came from. What happened on Christmas Eve is what brought me here,” he said, now conscious of the pine scent coming from the freshly mopped floor.

Dr. Cooper relaxed more and crossed his hands, leaning over the table in sincere interest, and Lars continued.

“I drank a couple of beers, you know, those European beers that have eight percent alcohol. I used to slam a case of those during shows back in the seventies and eighties, so I thought ‘what the heck?’ Anyway, my point is that I was at our Christmas party at a pub near the store. I drank the first two beers I’d had since my wife got pregnant, and I began to feel very happy. Unusually happy, like I’d been waiting for that moment to shine on me.” 

“What were you saying about St. Peter in a black robe?” The doctor asked. Washington appeared with a plate that had biscuits and gravy on it with scrambled eggs. 

“This is what you pointed at to order most days, Swede, so I took the liberty of getting it for you.”

“Thank you, Washington,” Lars picked up a fork and swirled his gravy over the eggs and took a bite. “It’s not exactly clear who St. Peter was. I take it he wasn’t really St. Peter, but I wanted to say that….well, we passed out our secret Santa gifts. I got one of the college students who works there an electric razor. I felt so good about being there. The connection I felt with every person in that room, my friends, my coworkers, everyone happy and content to be there with the people they spent every day with. It was like a web of hearts that warmed the room, as if the very electricity of the lighting depended on the love we generated. And cotton. I could feel my body being absorbed by a shroud of cotton,” he ate a forkful of biscuit with gravy and egg dripping off it and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I’m not a religious person. When I was young, we used to talk about God and the universe, it was fun, but I never gained any faith from it, much less any belief in an afterlife. But that night an epiphany descended upon me like a waterfall, and I realized that not only was I looking into a window of heaven itself, but I felt the pang of conscience that comes with that understanding, and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t have that realization in front of all my friends, so I made my way to the bathroom and cried. For the first time I really understood what heaven was like, that there was a heaven, and I started to wonder….where do I go when I die? Was Nancy there with me, showing me how happy she was? I used to live a life of inert hatred that never withered into harming anyone but myself, but it’s been a long time since those dark days. I’ve grown and learned to be happy with what I have, and I’ve lived a balanced life since.”

The doctor smiled and lifted his foot to rest it on his left knee.

“Anyway, I was at the party crying in the bathroom. I washed my face, stepped out into the pub and said goodbye to everyone, let Buddy know that I would be taking a short leave from work, which he okayed - probably not understanding fully. I went to my apartment all dizzy, and put on my old skateboarding helmet, in case I fell, you know. Then I suppose I checked out of my mind.”

Washington listened to the whole conversation as he went about tasks nearby and came to give Lars a refill of his coffee, which he declined thankfully.

“I don’t know what made me come to East Orange, except maybe it’s where Nancy was born. I assume that’s where I am now,” he said. 

Dr. Cooper bit on his pen, moving his head back and forth, confirming that they were in East Orange, New Jersey. St. Peter in a black robe, he thought.

“I think I understand,” he said to Lars. “Did you know you went to court, and were sent here by a judge for observation? A judge in a black robe. With no I.D., no one knew who you were, so we called you John Doe.”

“That makes sense. I can remember now. He had this face, like a cartoonist’s version of St. Peter,” he laughed. “St. Peter in a black robe.”

“So, you’ve pieced that together. Do you know what you were thinking the entire time you’ve been here?”

“Absolutely. It’s crystal clear. I thought I was in heaven. At least at first. It’s very bright, and the people were very cordial, very nice, but I couldn’t speak, like I was in shock, but after spending a bit of time here I began to think that it had to be a farce.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything was the same everywhere I went, and I often felt like I was trying to keep walls from crushing me. I didn’t know where I was, but I snapped out of it because of a dream.”

“Really? What was it about?”

“The question I asked myself that night at the Christmas party. Where do I go when I die?” His eyebrows had lifted to the middle of his forehead. “In my dream I saw St. Peter in a white robe. I’ve never had a vision before, but that word fits that to a tee. I had a vision.”

“What did St. Peter do?”

“He gave me an application form and told me to fill it out. I was filling it out, and a section had me define, by checking a box, if I was a human being, or something else, I couldn’t make out what the other words were. And it dawned on me.”   

“What did?” the doctor asked, captivated.

“The answer was human. Human. I am human.”

“What do you draw from that?” the doctor asked.

“I am my judge. And the best way for me to understand my life and how I’ve lived it isn’t to feel bad about it, but to understand that I am human. I checked the box, handed it to him, and woke up.”

“Wow. You woke up, and you pieced this all together,” he said, impressed. “That’s like working an expert Sudoku puzzle in five minutes.”

“Yes.” He looked around and saw that the windows in the cafeteria had the same steel meshing as in his room. “I’m in a loony bin, aren’t I?”

“I treat nonviolent people with mental difficulties. You were only sent here for observation, like I said. In fact, that is timing out, and I’m glad you snapped out of it. I really didn’t want to give you medication.”

“How long am I going to be here?”

“Patients are being released before they should be. We have no sustainable budget. I was going to give you a medication that would hopefully wake you up.”

“And now?” he rubbed the grey scruff on his face curiously.

“Well, you’ve had a tough time, but you have become very conscious at an exponential rate. Given the revolving door psychology I am forced to use right now, I’d have to say you should spend a few more days here. You can probably go home Friday. What are you going to do if I let you go?” 

“I just wanna go back to work for Buddy. I belong there. A place where people need me, and I feel like life means something.”

“Given that, I wouldn’t keep you here even if I had the budget to do so. I’m not going to commit you just because you had a dark night of the soul. You can go back to work at Buddy’s. You can call him and tell him you will be back this weekend.”

Washington, now leaning against a wall and blatantly listening, tilted his head and spoke wholeheartedly. 

“Hey, Swede.”

“Yeah?”

“What did your secret Santa get you?” 

With admiration in his distant eyes, Lars Bregman looked at Washington, glad he had asked.

“A 5,000-piece puzzle of Victoria Falls.”