Drake's Garden

See this place?  It’s known as Drake’s Garden and I’m Drake.  Drake Drisdroll, Patient number 67511 to be exact.  Welcome to Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital. I’m not big on introductions as my social skills are at times lacking according to my case manager.  I have reasons for my lack of proper social etiquette. I have been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. In my humble estimation, I am not the loony one.  The zookeepers in this place are nuts and they want to keep the normal ones like me locked up so that no one discovers their dirty dark secret. Look at these roses, could a crazy person grow such beautiful blossoms?  I know a lot of blokes who’d kill to grow these beauties and then who’d be the crazy one, eh? 

Come walk with me through my garden, a personal tour.  Me mum passed away last year and set off another of my episodes and after six months on my own, I wound up right here again and let me tell you, my poor babies missed me so.  Me mum taught me the fine art of gardening when I was a wee lad. Get your hands dirty, Drake. Let the soil speak to you. Most of her neighbors thought she was a bit touched, too, but she never seemed to harm anyone.  A few neighbors’ cats did come up missing from time to time, because cats are hell on gardens, right? 

Get your hands dirty.  Good things come up out of the ground, she would say.  She always wore her scarf over her head, because this part of the Isle never really dries out no matter what the season is at the time.  She would get up before the rooster crowed. Then at noon, she’d take her tea and crumpets. Made them herself, she did. Put honey on them until they drip and ooze from the sticky stuff. 

Another pig-weed growing near the roots of my rose bush.  Roots run deep in them weeds. You’ve got to be able to get the whole thing, because if you leave just a hint, the whole weed will grow back.  There’s a trick to pulling them out of the ground without leaving any of the weed behind.  

Mum told me that her garden shows the struggle of good and evil in the world and I know she was right.  

It was wrong for them Bobbies to bring me in for questioning.  Assuming I am guilty, because I am diagnosed as a loony. They spent hours searching the house.  One of them kept his eye on me as they ransacked the place.

This is why I come out here after breakfast.  Other blokes are sitting there staring at the walls after their morning medications.  Thorazine shuffle they call it. Drooling and breathing through their mouths, I can’t take it no more.  

Vincent Van Gogh painted Starry, Starry Night from the window of his cell while he was in the hospital.  Wonder what they thought of him when he cut off his ear and sent it to this girl he was sweet on. It makes me laugh out loud when I think of her opening the bloody envelope.  Still his masterpiece would never have existed if he wasn’t one of us.  

Me marigolds are filling in quite nicely, all full and flush with that sweetness hovering all about them.  Heavenly, if I do say so myself.

I didn’t mean it you know.  It was an accident. Anyone that knows me would have known that.

I do love Snapdragons.  The long stems filled with colorful buds, adding such color and depth to me garden.  

I blame the bloke who first put his hands down me trousers. I was just a wee lad at the time.  He locked me in the closet. He was mum’s man. Tough old geezer from Soho who used to run numbers in the streets.  You got to be tough, he told me after knuckling me a couple of times. First time I let me bad self out.

Irises are hard to raise here they told me, but look at them.  Pedals brilliant blue, the color of me mum’s eyes...when she was alive.  I really pay attention to these and make sure to clip some of the buds so the rest of them will fill in just so.  I’m so proud of them. One of the ward nurses told me I should enter them into the fair. She said they would most likely win a ribbon.  Now wouldn’t that be grand? Imagine me, Drake Drisdroll with a big old ribbon to hang on me board in my room. I’d put it right next to he clipping about them taking me in for questioning when they found her body.  Or part of her body. Seems that’s all they need nowadays with all that DNA evidence. Mum taught me how to raise Irises.  

In the shade I have my Chrysanthemums.  Direct sunlight can damage the mums. Funny, mum loved them the most.  Mum’s mums is what I would call them. Funny, that, eh? They were imported from Asia during the Opium War according to what mum told me and at first mums were too delicate for the climate out here, but one thing about us is we don’t give up.  Just like Churchill, we all have the temperament of a bulldog.   

When I got sent off to boarding school, mum hooked up with Kieth.  Quick flash temper he had and his fists were as hard as iron. I came home for holiday break and he was beating her.  Her face was bloody from where he had broken her nose. I jumped on him, but he threw me off like a sack of potatoes. I have never been substantial in size, scrawny is what they called me in school.  So Kieth beat me until I lost consciousness. Doctor said it was a concussion.  

I used to keep a straight razor tucked away in my drawer underneath my skivvies.  And I’m a patient bloke. I am not one to give into being compulsive or rash. And I can hide my feelings well.  It’s all part of the disassociative something or other I’ve got. Keith favored his pints at the pub and never suspected what was going to happen to him.  

Mum never told anyone.  It was our little secret after all.  One of her sweethearts suspected that our relationship was on the queer side of the tracks, but he never had the chance to tell anyone of his suspicions.

Geraniums are always a delicate bud.  Even their aromas are delicate especially after a gentle spring sprinkle.  The heavy damp air scented with their delicate fragrance is heavenly, if I do say so myself.  I will cut some of the buds to put in a vase in my room to help with the heavy redolence of bleach and disinfectant.  Mum used to dry the cutting and mix it in a special potpourri to drive out the mold from the high damp.

Men, as a rule, like mum.  She had this smile that would warm your heart.  But she had awful luck with them as she would always find the ones who would bring in trouble with them.  Martin was a gentleman. He was upper class compared to the ones she usually came home with. I would go to my room after dinner while they sat on the couch watching tellie.  He liked Dr. Who. I did not care for it much and I did not care for how his hands used to travel along the edges of mum’s blouse, his fingers underneath the material as she would smile and sigh deeply.  He did favor our Geraniums and would say they were almost as beautiful as she was. She would blush and sing his name. Then they would duck behind some of the shrubbery where I could both of them groan.  

One time some doctor asked me if I ever got excited.  Excited? Sexually, he added. Oh that! I do get aroused, just there is no lust involved.  It comes with fear. Sometimes when I’m in my garden, I do feel a certain arousal from knowing that what I have planted is coming to fruition and then I feel like a proud father.  Or I imagine what a proud father would feel since I have never had the experience myself. Look at these Dahlias, the pleasing geometric shape of the pedals, the rich lavish colors bursting from the center such a rich contrast from the peonies in the next section.  Takes my breath away sometimes. I come out here after my evening meal and sit admiring the explosion of colors and the richness of the texture of the various flowers. Bees buzz happily about the pedals, collecting nectar and spreading the possibilities with the distribution of pollen.  I wonder whose garden the pollen is fertilizing and what blossoms are yet to come.  

I miss mum.

She taught me the delicate art of gardening and how when you are out in the garden, you can feel the breath of the Creator.  She was big on that stuff. I, however, never really put much stock in it. She would get excited talking about the Garden of Eden and how the grace of God fed the plants in this magical garden.  She talked about the healing powers of some of the plants. She would bottle some of her elixirs. Then the revenue man would come and tell her what she was doing was against the law and all. She would take her wares to open markets and sell her potions.

She told me that if you mix crushed rose petals with some other more sedate petals, you would create a very powerful love potion.  She took some to market, but a week or so later, the revenue man told her one of her customers drank some and got deathly ill. Mum said that she did not follow the directions.  This potion was supposed to be consumed during a full moon to achieve its full potential. He wrote a citation as she served him rose bud tea. We never saw him again. By that time, I knew better than to ask too many questions.

I keep some vials in my secret drawer in my room.  I don’t understand the magic, but then that isn’t the purpose.  

I shall snip some of these Touch-me-nots and add them to a potion from me mum’s recipes.  

Rainbow, rainbow,

Hanging in the sky,

Dripping rain that falls

Adds the color to thee,

Come shine down on my garden,

That brings me much delight,

For the pot of gold

That lies at the rainbow’s end

Is now glowing in my garden.  

I hear that song she used to sing when she was out digging in the dirt. Some of the passersby would call out to her and she would wave a gloved hand at them.  They would compliment her on her beautiful garden and she would smile and thank them for their kind words.  

It took me many years to track my father down.  He was weed in my garden to say the least and he was none too happy to see me when I showed up in Leeds where he was the caretaker at grounds of one of the public parks.  Imagine being over sixty and still pushing a mower over a four acre park. Shameful it was. He said a lot of unkind things about me mum, saying that she was a common strumpet like Mary Magdalene.  I learned later that I inherited my mental illness from him. Hell of a gift he gave to me.

Inspector came calling when he came up missing a week or so later, but I played dumb.  Get good at it after a while.  

With a hoe, I rake up the bits and pieces scattered around the plants and place them into a bag.  Bits and pieces. Reminds me of moonless nights with the fragrance in the air heavy with the sweetness of the flowers in their neat rows, swaying in the evening breeze.  When I would haul me heavy load into the center of the garden. Moonless nights where the darkness was all inclusive. Evil hides in the darkness. What I did I do not consider evil, however, like pulling stubborn weeds that strangle and rob my precious flowers of vitality and sustenance.  It is they who are the evil ones. It is their stain that must be eliminated from my garden in order for plants to thrive.  

My teas are special to that end.  I learned from a true practitioner who understood the power of what was brought forth by the naked soil.  Soil is the start of everything both good and evil, weeds and flowers fed by the same substances, Once harvested, leaf, stem, and petals become part of the never ending cycle, life and death.  Once blended, the interactions of the various parts become a whole. You must make sure to keep the measurements true, the proportions constant, and the procedure never varies. 

The expression on their faces when they realize what is about to take place, is thrilling to me.  Once they are unable to draw another breath and are perched on the narrow ledge of the abyss between life and death, stepping off on their own volition.  It is at this juncture, I experience the rapture and cathartic release of my entire being, far beyond any possible release I would feel with physical contact of another person.

They dug up the yard.  They destroyed her garden, searching, always searching until they began to collect all the earth had to offer them.  The long faced detective kept glaring at me as I sat in the back of the patrol car in handcuffs. 

Man thou are dust and unto dust you shall return. 

I closed my eyes the sweet scent of the dying flowers made me smile.

I was silent during the questioning of the doctor.

I owed him nothing.

Over thirty sheets hiding the remains, human remains.

Papers called for my execution, saying crazy was not an excuse.

I sat in silence.  I refused to say anything.  

In the end it was determined I was not sane enough to defend myself in a trial.

How about these zinnias?  Such a delicate aroma from such a hardy stout flower.  I am glad the sun was able to finally break through the dense clouds this morning and give my children some healthy light.   Mum would be so proud of how these flowers have blossomed in the past few weeks. You have to be a bit light handed with the watering.  These flowers do not require a lot of water in order to thrive.  

One of the orderlies is walking this way.  It must be time to move to the afternoon process group.  Process groups are part of the three prong treatment regimen that is supposed to cure us of our mental illness.   Did anyone think to ask if perhaps I am quite comfortable with my illness as it has given me the opportunity to tend to this garden.  When I got here, no one was tending this garden and it was nothing but weeds.  

I hate process groups.  Boring as Shakespeare being misquoted. The facilitator is always on about something and how we have to seek harmony and peace.  There is all the peace I could hope for in my garden. I would much rather sit on my bench and soak in the sun along with my children.  Perhaps I should offer him some tea.