The Gift of Flight

When they found him shivering and huddled in a dark corner of St. Thomas’ Asylum for the Mentally Insane, Roddy McLain was perched in the only windowsill in the room. The window did not have a single shard of glass left in the rusted corroded window frame where he was perched with a loose-fitting beltless robe, staring at wide-eyed as the two policemen. They immediately grabbed him by the arms in case he decided to escape through the glassless window.

“God Almighty, Roddy.” Dr. Tammell spoke as the police officers held him in place. Dr. Tammell still not believing that Roddy had escaped from the Municipal Psychiatric Hospital and managed to get on the fourth floor of St. Thomas Asylum which had been scheduled for demolition that very afternoon. One of the men from the demolition crew spotted the runaway huddled in the fourth story windowsill.

“How on earth did you get here?” Dr. Tammell shook his head.

“Rrrgggghhhh.” Roddy answered as spital came streaming out of his mouth.

“I’ve come to take you back to the hospital.” Dr. Tammell said. Wearing his whitecoat, Dr. Tammell was a middle-aged psychiatrist from the Municipality Hospital who was quite familiar with Roddy. His style was direct and firm, but he was also empathetic and understood their unique diagnosis. Roddy had distinctive dysmorphic disorder which was attributed to his combat experience in Vietnam over fifty years ago in which he believed he was becoming a bird.

“Nnnnaaaaa.” He shook his head violently and dug his heels into the dusty tiles of the room as the police officer escorted him from the room.

“No, you won’t fight. You will go back.” Dr. Tammell insisted as the officers pulled harder on Roddy’s arms. With a simple twist, Roddy broke free of the grip of the policemen. He began to run down the dark hallway that hadn’t had working lighting fixtures for over thirty years.

“AWK! AWK!” Roddy screeched as he ran, flapp9ing his arms as if he was going to take off and fly.

“He knows these hallways quite well.” Dr. Tammell told the officers as they continued to pursue Roddy down the hallway. He was still flapping his arms like wings vainly hoping to leave the ground. “He came here as a patient in 1966. I would let him run until he exhausts himself.”

As the three of them turned the corner, they nearly collided with Mr. Peete, the foreman of the demolition crew who informed them, “There are a lot of dangerous equipment lying around.”

“He knows how to take care of himself, I assure you.” Dr. Tammell responded, allowing himself a quick smirk. “I have a sedative just in case.”

The foreman and his three crew members gawked as the man held out a large syringe. Dr. Tammell hid in a dark corner of the hallway. When Roddy came running by flapping his arms, Dr. Tammell plunged the hypodermic into Roddy’s arm. Roddy stopped and looked at the doctor holding the syringe as if he as Julius Caesar and Dr. Tammell was Brutus.

“Time to go back, Roddy.” He smiled pocketing the syringe in his white lab coat.

When Roddy’s knees began to buckle, the police officers each grabbed an arm. From there, they led him toward the exit.

“Good work.” Dr. Tammell nodded with a hint of arrogance to the police officers who were escorting Roddy down the stairs.

By the time the pair got Roddy down to the first floor of the condemned building, he was under the influence of the antiesthetic as his head lolled from side to side with each step the men took. Once outside two orderlies met Dr. Tammell and the police officers accompanying the very unsteady patient.

“Mr. Sumantu and Rucker just put him in the backseat of my car.” He pointed to an ominous black sedan.

“Yes, Dr. Tammell.” The two orderlies said in unison. Mr. Rucker opened the car door and Mr. Sumantu

“So, are we clear to complete the demolition?” Mr. Peete asked as Dr. Tammell opened the driver’s side door of his car.

“You are clear.” He nodded,

“And tomorrow we will no longer have St. Thomas Asylum.” He coughed and glanced at the crewmen surrounding him, “No, doc there will just be a black hole in the ground.” Mr. Peete chuckled and patted his crew on the shoulder.

“So, what’s with him?” One of the crew dared to ask Dr. Tammell.

“When he came back from Vietnam, he was heavily traumatized. He was admitted to St. Thomas, but when they closed it ten years later, he refused to leave. They had to have the authorities drag him bodily out of asylum.” Dr. Tammell leaned against the open car door, “Tonight, I believe he was in the room he occupied back when he was first admitted.”

“Dang.” The man whistled.

“We have had some deeply disturbed patients over the years.” He smiled, “And Roddy McLain was one of our legends, for lack of a better word.”

“I do not envy you, doctor.” The man walked away shaking his head under his orange hard hat.

“So, you got him, hey?” Dr. Wisecoff greeted Dr. Tammell as he and his orderlies helped Roddy out of the car and safely to the sidewalk. Still coming out of the effects of his anesthetic, Roddy was now held by a wrap-around straight jacket.

“He ran back to St. Thomas.” Dr. Tammell answered trying to suppress a smile.

“I thought that place had been demolished.” Dr. Wisecoff put his hand to his dimpled chin.

“It would have been, but one of the workers saw him in the window on the fourth floor.” Dr. Tammell tossed his car keys on his desk.

“So, what’s the plan?” Wisecoff asked as he watched the orderlies walked a drugged Roddy back to his room.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to have a talk with him.” Dr. Tammell sighed as he melted into his chair.

“There are some patients, I have given up hope on.” Wisecoff leaned on the door frame to Dr. Tammell’s office, “Larry, he’s almost seventy years old. After a patient passes sixty years old, treatment become almost pointless.”

“I know but what do you think we ought to do with him?” Dr. Tammell put his head in his hands. While he had just turned forty years old, he was feeling much older and past his prime.

“Keep him comfortable until he passes.” Dr. Wisecoff shrugged.

“Seems like we are throwing in the towel.” He put his intertwined fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair.

“What else do you want to do?” Dr. Wisecoff asked.

“I don’t know, but there’s something I want to find out.”

“What?”

“He’s always talking about the gift of flight.” Dr. Tammell answered from the side of his mouth. “I just wish I knew what he meant by that.”

According to his chart, Roddy stopped verbal communication ten years before when he was admitted to Municipality. No one could give a valid reason for this outcome, but there was mention of Roddy making bird-like sounds from time to time. One attendant even freaked out when he saw Roddy was building a nest in his room.

Five years ago, when Dr. Tammell came to Municipality, he was assigned to the Falcon Unit where Roddy McLain was a patient. While observing Roddy’s odd behavior, he concluded that he was suffering from a physical dimorphous disorder of an undetermined origin.

Since he began the probe into this new development, he wanted to find out what Roddy’s motivation was. He leafed through old processing notes from Municipality and St. Thomas that spoke of combat trauma he developed from Vietnam in 1967 when his unit was ambushed by the enemy.

With a scant detail about the incident, Roddy McLain suffered non-life-threatening shrapnel wounds, but the man next to him was suffered mortal wounds after his jugular was severed. Under heavy enemy fire, Roddy carried his dying comrade over a mile back to the medical unit. When arrived at the unit, Private Bulter had already expired.

“Tough break, kid.” One of the surgeons patted him on his back that was covered with his buddy’s blood stains. He watched a couple of the medics put his buddy’s body on a litter and cover his body with a thick canvas blanket. Roddy watched them put the litter into the back of an ambulance. His last view as watching as the ambulance pulled away with the tires digging deep into the thick mud.

Dr. Tammell’s Uncle Adam was in Vietnam, and he remembered the gruesome stories his uncle told him as their Christmas tree glittered in the background. He was in high school when his mother told him her brother, Uncle Adam, committed suicide. The news of his uncle’s suicide left a sick feeling in his gut.

He found a note which read that the last comprehensible words Roddy uttered were, “Fly away bird. Fly away.”

He sat looking at this for several minutes, he saw a scribbled note in the margin.

What did the strange words?

Some of the soldiers saw the medical helicopters as Valkyries come to take them off the battlefield and lift them up to banquet hall in Valhalla.

What if Roddy believed this to be true? What if he felt as if the Valkyries missed taking his buddy? Or him?

The next morning, Dr. Tammell sauntered into Roddy’s room at the end of the hall. The overwhelming behemoth size of the hospital was planned to make individual patients feel small in the presence of massive hallways and giant vaulted ceilings.

By comparison, St. Thomas was small and much more accessible. On the other hand, the Municipality was an overwhelming example of modern architecture.

Larry took issue with how modern architecture size to present an indomitable structure while St. Thomas more inviting interior to create intimacy and empathy with portraits of suffering saints peering woefully down on those who wandered the hallways. The Municipality was a static place there were no such saints, no such hope for those who had come here in search of peace of mind. There were no safe spaces here. There were no designated areas for comfort. The gigantic size of the hospital seemed quite hostile at times.

Walking into Roddy’s room, Larry was nearly blinded by the early morning sun that came screaming in like an angry eagle. Roddy was sitting in the windowsill, his head on a swivel looking at all the pedestrian and automobile traffic.

“Good morning, Roddy.” He held Roddy’s chart in his hands as he walked in squinting.

Roddy turned his head to see Dr. Tammell.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, knowing there would be no answer. “Why don’t you come down from the windowsill?”

Roddy shook his head furiously.

“Alright, then we shall conduct our business accordingly.” He coughed as he sat in the empty chair near the bed. “First up, why did you run to St. Thomas?”

Roddy did not reply and instead turned his head to continue his surveying the world outside his window. He made a couple of chirping sounds like a pigeon walking on the sidewalk begging for crumbs.

He needed a shave since Dr. Tammell studied his face. His hair was a stuck out like a bird’s nest and his pale blue eyes reflected the terror he was experiencing.

The mind can be a lonely place when you are left to wander the empty hallways alone.

“Is there something I can get you?” Larry asked.

“Oh doctor, you are wasting your time with him.” A nurse walked into the room, “He ain’t said a word in all the time I’ve been here.”

Roddy appeared terrified at the sudden appearance of the nurse.

“I know.” He shook his head.

“C’mon sugar, I need to take your tem-ra-sure.” She stuck a thermometer into his mouth, but Roddy spit it out to shatter into tiny shards over the tiled floor. “Now doncha be like that.”

“Don’t scold him.” Dr. Tammell snapped. She glanced at him in surprise.

“I didn’t mean nothing by it.” She defended herself.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be short with you.” He put his head in his hands, “I haven’t had much sleep.”

“I get it.” It would be the closest thing to an apology he would get from her. “I’ll come back later when you’re alone, hon.”

“Caaaacaaaaa.” He flailed his arms as he cried out upon her exiting the room. He lost his balance on the windowsill and fell to the hard floor.

Dr. Tammell was quick to his side. He lifted Roddy into his bed noting how light he was. When he laid Roddy down in his bed, Dr. Tammell noticed that his ankles were frail and thin, His feet were turned inward with his toes directly opposite each other.

He made a note of Roddy’s deteriorating physical condition. Scribbling his observation notes, he used the words “bird-like to describe his patient’s current physiological condition.

The next morning in weekly patient review with Dr. Wisecoff, Dr. Tammell mentioned his concerns about Roddy McLain.

“Yes, Doctor, I read your notes.” He replied, opening Roddy’s chart, “Nurse Myers also made some notes.”

“She tried to take his temperature, but Roddy spit out the thermometer.” Dr. Wisecoff held the Post-it note she had written between his fingers.

“So, what next?”

“I think my original assessment is correct.” He leaned back in his chair with his fingers interlocked behind his head. “We just care for him until he passes away. We’ve done it before. I know it’s not what you want to hear- “

“There is something going on in his mind we don’t know about.”

“Sure, we have a lot of patients on this ward who we will never really know what’s going on under three inches of skull. But that’s okay. We can’t save every patient, so we must settle for what we can.”

Straggling back to his office, Dr. Tammell was left to chew on what Dr. Wisecoff had told him in their weekly review. He sat at his desk to ponder. There were so many unsolved mysteries of the human mind.

After reading all the studies, Dr. Tammell was convinced that Roddy McLain was suffering from dysmorphia disorder because of the trauma he suffered in combat.

Dr. Tammell concluded that Roddy believed he was a bird. Perception was the key. Using the sense available, people formed a perception of their place in the world. Because Roddy was no longer able to communicate through spoken language, the only option was to develop as a bird.

He sat in the windowsill after lights out. He was staring down at the streetlights that lined the empty parking lot. His room was confining him like a birdcage as he sat chirping and cooing softly.

He remembered that day when the mortar hit near their foxhole. Kendall began screaming. Roddy could see blood spurting out of his neck.

“I’m a goner.” Kendall whispered. “If I be a bird. I’d fly away. You know I would.”

Roddy saw a couple of birds in the jungle trees take wing once the heavy stuff began to rain down on them. There was heavy ordinance falling all around their dug-in position.

The world went black as a shell hit a few feet from their foxhole. Roddy felt his shoulder where the shrapnel had torn into his skin. He heard Private Kendall groan. When he saw Kendall bleeding heavily from his neck, Roddy did not panic.

“I’m gonna getcha to a medical unit.” He told Kendall.

“Maybe I can fly there on my own.” His eyes fluttered and then rolled to the back of his head as Roddy lifted him out of the soft mud. He could hear bullets pinging overhead, but he grabbed Kendall and began to run toward where he knew the medical unit was located.

He ran for over a mile with a man on his back that weighed as much as he did. Once he got there, he was exhausted.

“Sorry, your buddy didn’t make it.” The medic with the red cross on his helmet told him.

“If I could fly away I would.” He told the medic.

“What?”

“I will ask God for the gift of flight.” He muttered.

“Do you need to see someone?” The medic asked Roddy.

“No, no.” Roddy shook his head.

When Roddy forced his window from its frame, there was nothing between him and a sixty foot drop, An alarm sounded as a cool night breeze blew against his face.

“Stop! You stop right there!” The Nurse Myers shouted, “No! Oh my God!”

But she was too late as Roddy leapt from the window ledge.

“Need help!” She screamed.

Dr. Tammell rushed into the room.

“He done left!” She pointed to the empty windowsill.

“He jumped?” Dr. Tammell shook his head.

“Reckon so.” She began to sob.

“Oh my God.” Dr. Tammell uttered. He rushed to the open window and looked down, but there was nobody on the pavement.

“He was there and then he jumped.” She sobbed into his shoulder.

It was then he saw it. Something so indistinguishable that almost escaped his notice. He reached down and retrieved a single feather lying on the carpet.