Roger Checks into the VA
Michael
For Miley Military Reservation.
Bill
At the entrance to the VA, a bored night attendant sees a white hippie drop off a Black man, and puts down his magazine and preps a clipboard. But after the man waves off his friend with a smile, his face falls serious, and he sits down on a bench, and puts his head in his hands. The attendant lets out a sigh. He watches the man closely for a minute, but then he turns back to his magazine when the man doesn’t seem in serious trouble, but doesn’t come in. Finally, after ten minutes, the Black man gets up, and strides in. And just by his rigid posture and locked stride, the attendant who’s seen them all can tell: not ordinary Army. He preps his clipboard again.
Looking right into his eyes with a steady gaze, the Black man comes to attention. “Martin, Roger. Engineer Sergeant. I’m checking myself in: combat shakes, depression, some suicidal thoughts. Not my first time. My commander should have called ahead; my usual handler… err, you know, shrink, should have been notified.”
Roger then precisely walks through every bureaucratic hoop, form, examination, evaluation, further forms, and a cloud of witness to his self-admitted psychological breakdown. He doesn’t fake any emotional breakdown or outburst — he lets the rigid self-control create a shell the various personnel can imagine a void underneath.
He plays the slightly-unwilling, surely-I’m-fine, classic masculine patient. And to be sure, it’s not all just playing a part: building a cover and treating this all as an op — it all feeds into the denial that’s also going on. But a bit of Truth (maybe a large dollop, really), sells the whole thing, right?
While he waits for a real handler, he gets some real sleep. He worries a little on waking that he hasn’t dreamed, that everything seems more empty somehow. There were plenty of times in his life he didn’t have contact come from the saints, but it was more easily explained, they were giving him rest. In these empty waiting times, he finds himself really missing them. The facade does crack a little, and he almost feels tears, his face flushed and hot, his throat tight in a lump. But then he thinks about being watched, should he use this, and he gets his face back together again.
Some interminable time after that, Roger's idle mind starts looking around at the V.A., actually looking, at the others around him going through the same waits. There's a couple of real old timers who won't meet his eye when he nods — racist old bastards — but there's plenty who do. And he can't help mistaking some of them for soldiers he knew. And some whose number came up. I guess I know what that feels like, your number being up, he thinks to himself, and suddenly the lump is back full force. In a split second, he is honestly staring at the abyss — no play — his face goes numb. He sees his old company going down in fire around him, pushing Marshall down to the deck behind him, a bullet wizzing by his head. Then it's three bullets hitting his chest, a tough woman staring him down from her car seat. He feels again the impact, the tearing, the involuntary movement from side to side as the bullets penetrate and push back and in...
Then every hair on his body stands up as he hears his own voice in his head, with a perfectly cultured, perfectly cool Mayfair accent, chiding: "Tut tut, stiff upper lip there. You're still on mission." Roger freezes, every image, every thought banished from his head. "'Swounds, you Yanks really haven't learned what to do with silence. Probably your lack of practice observing moments of it. Sit down. Breathe. Yes, like that. Brave heart. The fight's still going." The voice doesn't speak again, but now the silence is pregnant again, with the potential that it could be filled at any time by sound.
Roger sits back, breathes out, and realizes he's dying for a cigarette. He gets up, walks to an entrance, chats up a fellow vet, and bums a cigarette. As he takes his second drag, and looks the rough state of the guy who lent him it, he thinks, There but for.... He crosses himself, throws his palms up to heaven — careful to keep his cigarette clenched between two fingers — looks up, and says, "Here I am." He then turns back and chats up the guy, trading stories, making the old worn jokes, and after a bit, patting him on the back like an old comrade. Then he goes back to do the first and oldest task he learned in the Army: hurry up and wait. But now the feeling of anticipation is back, and he doesn't hear the gunfire in his memories. Or when he does, he doesn't flinch.
Michael
The nurse/receptionist at the desk picks up the waiting room phone on the first ring, hitting a button on the telephone to connect the call. "Mental Health/Psychiatric Services waiting room." She speaks in a low voice, nodding and assenting, and after an "All right," hangs up. She stands up with a file on a clipboard and approaches Roger. "Mr. Martin? Come with me, please. We're just going to go across the quad to the doctor's office." The other soldiers look at Roger with something approaching envy; it's clear that they usually don't get seen to this quickly on their visits. For a moment, all these VA waiting rooms and rough-looking vets remind Roger of six months ago, taking out Frank after the high-speed chase through the city. It passes, but Roger wonders if Frank was sitting in these very same plastic seats himself a year ago, begging for some kind of help, and finding it in conspiratorial literature... and the voice of the êkimmu in his head. The lush green quad is soothing; the air off the Bay and the view of the Golden Gate Bridge is, admittedly, pretty amazing. Into one of the older buildings, the ones that have been here since before World War II, are the senior shrinks' nice offices. Something in that mess of paperwork, some secret Green Beret or SANDMAN signal, must have gotten tripped to get him an appointment same-day. The nurse escorts Roger to the front desk of the shrinks' offices and leaves him there with another receptionist, this one dressed in civvies (no nurse's uniform). She looks vaguely Chicana, young, maybe in her mid-20s, and takes the file and clipboard from the nurse escort. "Sergeant Martin, welcome. I'm Beatriz." She speaks compassionately but with a conscious effort to keep some clinical distance between herself and the patient. Roger's no expert, but he'd guess she's a civilian grad student type of some kind, ambitious to get into a psychiatrist's practice and not choosy about what roles she'd use to do it. "Dr. Claire will be with you shortly. In the meantime, feel free to relax. We're sorry for the wait this morning. Can I get you a cup of coffee, or a glass of water?" Claire, Roger thinks to himself. Isn't that the name of Jo's SANDMAN shrink? Roger realizes they're ready for him specifically after the multiple-hour wait. The flags on Roger's file must have sent the entire intel/secret side of the VA facility into a spasm to find and get Dr. Claire on the case... at least for now.
Bill
Now, if the Agent was walking around here, he'd be flirting. 'Specially with that chica. But maybe not good to break character, at least not yet. Although a shame. He gives Beatriz a listless response: "If you think it's good, I guess a glass of water." He sits rigidly, mostly staring off and ignoring Beatriz, and awaits the call, trying to remember anything Jo might have said about her shrink. She's been doing better, so maybe this guy is on the side of the angels? But could be Ozzy? Goddamn wheels within wheels shit. Well, at least I know he's up on the vocab. God please spare me from hours of explaining the loa.
Michael
"Mr. Martin?" Dr. Claire pops out from behind the door to the therapists' offices. "I'm Simon Claire, I'm glad to meet you." He extends his hand. "Come, we'll head to my office. Bee, would you mind bringing Mr. Martin's water through?" Dr. Claire's office is very warm, color temperature wise: wood accents, plush tapestries maybe about 3 or 4 years past the mode, some stark black-and-white photos of tribal masks, and maybe even a wooden carving here and there. Neo-primitivist but in a calculated, West Coast sort of way. Dripping with Jungian associations. There is an office chair for Dr. Claire near his roll-top desk (which doesn't really fit well in the environs) and a high window behind his chair which neither of you can see out of at this angle (good for preventing attention drift), and there's a plush armchair or a sturdy velvet green divan for the patient or patients. After Beatriz drops off the water and a coffee for Dr. Claire, he invites Roger to sit anywhere he likes, couch or chair. "Your intake was brought to my attention, as I'm assigned to handle folks with your particular security designation," he says purposefully enigmatically. "So you also probably know my reputation. I won't talk about any acquaintances we have in common, of course, but know that before we begin a professional relationship, your utterances here are kept confidential and private. I won't say that superiors don't review my impressions of these sessions—I think you and I are mature enough to know the stakes here, especially with the Enemy—but I want you to know that I go to bat for my patients. And that I invite you to invest some of your trust in me for as long as we need to work together. The organization wants its valuable agents to be healthy, and capable of contributing their best to the cause."
Bill
"Uh, thanks, Doctor. Please, Mr. Martin is wrong on a couple of levels — just call me Roger. So... you're into tribal masks? Or is that just to 'inspire' your white patients to bring out their 'bestial' side?"
Michael
Claire laughs at that, raises an eyebrow. "You're no bullshit, Roger." He goes to his corduroy blazer and shakes out a pack of Chesterfields. "Smoke?" as he offers one to Roger. Roger has to say that Dr. Claire does not look like a two pack a day man or anything. "Well, 'bestial side'? Maybe. Mostly the decor is here to give people a chance to look inside themselves, to the archetypes they might faintly sense beating away inside their hearts. Warriors especially, of course, like the ones I see here at Fort Miley. Throughout history and in myth, there have been all kinds of warrior archetypes. The warrior-poet. The trickster: Odysseus. The patriarch. The priest-king. The amazon." A smirk at that. "The holy hermit, called forth for one last battle. The young ambitious courtier. The holy son: Henry the Fifth."
"Forget the hokey masks for a minute, Roger. Which kind of warrior are you?"
Bill
Roger gladly takes another cigarette, points to the doctor he thinks. Well, shit, probably no point in playing too many games in front of him, who knows what he knows?. "Hmm, well, doc, hard question for me to answer. Because, see, I can be a lot of kinds of warrior. I just have to put on the right mask." He points at a mask with the end of his cigarette. "My people actually know how to use those, you see."
"And, up until very recently, I could, too — use the masks. But now I find I can't. What kind of warrior you got for one who was many kinds, but doesn't know what kind he is now?"
Michael
Claire nods. "Yeeees, well, I am passingly familiar with, um, these talents you've exhibited, Roger. They're of great interest to those of us in the Project who have long believed in the power of human-generated archetypes as a weapon against the Enemy. You say you've lost the ability to wear the masks... does this have to do with the recent trauma you detailed on your intake forms?"
Bill
Roger sighs. “Yes, doc. Some of them. You know, when you speak a lot of languages, you appreciate their strangeness. English, or really, this science-y English, it wants to be so precise. Adding more and more words, when sometimes it is just better to let one have many meanings. I suppose I should be glad you didn’t start with ‘personality constructs’. They are spirits. Spirits. And they talk to me no more. And trauma? I died. I was dead. The simple words, the old words— they get meaning, feeling, across easier, no?”
Michael
"A journey into the lands of the dead is the prerequisite for any great hero, of course," Claire begins ruminating, almost not even concerned with the personal or therapeutic value of said ruminations for a moment. "In death, through death, comes transfiguration, transformation, and rebirth. And yet, you returned from this liminal space with less than what you entered with. A profound loss, one that has left you with residual trauma beyond the physical, and a lingering fear and dread and uncertainty. The spirits have, apparently, abandoned you. For what reason? Because you came back? For your hubris? Do you believe you should have died?" Claire takes a puff off his cigarette. "Maybe your trial is still going on—here, among the living—and the journey into the lands of the dead was the initiation, not the transfiguration."
Bill
“Well, doc, you surprise me. Maybe we speak a language in common after all. I could actually follow that. No, I didn’t think I should have died: nobody does, in the moment. But should is one of those big words: sometimes you find out there was a bigger should than you knew. I’m a warrior, as you say. I’ve had to push past a lot of boundaries in fighting this war. I’ve offended Death, so I shouldn’t be surprised when he comes gunning for me. And then, what happened to me. To live? That was more offensive still. Only the spirit that understands the means of this war, the necessities, is still with me. I don’t know that I deserve even his presence.”
Michael
"We may, if we please, put the word 'deserve' in the same basket as 'should,' so I suppose we're even there." Claire smiles. "Well then, the goal of our therapeutic relationship seems fairly straightforward. We discuss your spirits, examine them, their history with you and with the world at large, probe their absence—the circumstances of their fleeing from your grasp—and work on how you can perform the penance you seek to make amends for your 'offense.' It doesn't matter if the penance and the need for penance is in 'all in your head.' It seems to me that your access to these spirits is deeply intertwined with your senses of duty, and honor, and morality. We'll need to work within these guardrails, not against them. These types of superego structures are extremely important for our day-to-day navigation of the quotidian demands of the everyday mundane world... but when they meet our deeper, more primal instincts, they can throw up blocks between our psyches and our access to the numinous. Hence the need that shamans traditionally have for dance and music, for drink and drug, for violating taboos."
"But the spirit that remains with you... there is a persona who didn't abandon you for your violating the boundaries of life and death? This may be a way in, to investigate how we can go about unlocking the others."
Bill
“One question, first, doc, before we start. Just to help with, uh, operational parameters, as we grunts say. Do you believe in God?”
Michael
Claire goggles his eyes a bit at the profundity of that question. "That's a complicated question, Roger. The implications of how I answer that extend through both my civilian life and my life inside the Project. Because I've seen what faith can do, true faith. It can be an armor against the Enemy. It can also... introduce concepts into our internal narratives that weaken us against Them. If you're asking if I personally believe, if I still go to church like I did when I was a kid, whether I think that the works I perform here on earth will be accounted for and against me when I die... I'm probably going to say no." Dr. Claire stubs out his Chesterfield. "But if you ask me if I can conceive of a God, within the ontology I've learned to internalize since I came onboard with SANDMAN... well, perhaps surprisingly, yes. I can. I think that God ultimately runs through each of us. God is the part of us that They finally couldn't turn. It's our spirit of free will, the ability to choose between good and evil. Can I have a personal relationship with that abstract concept, that resembles something like faith? Well, I like to think you can gain that personal relationship by the works you do. I became a therapist, after all. I have faith in humanity. Even after everything I've seen... I think we can do good."
"Does that answer your question, Roger?" Dr. Claire says this last bit with a fair bit more icy-ness, consciously removing the emotional quavering with which he conveyed his thoughts on humanity's goodness.
Bill
Roger looks a little abashed. "Pretty boss, doc! Yeah, definitely. Definitely answered."
"OK. Yes, there's a spirit, a saint, still with me. Our compact is new: GP’s little Einsteins never heard of him."
“And he’s not a spirit of my traditions. Any of them. Although I do share a kinship with him, I guess. As a patron saint, saint of my profession.”
Michael
Dr. Claire gives Roger his full attention. "So this new persona resides outside of traditional cheval practice, as well as outside other shamanic world traditions? I would like to know more about it, whatever you might know, but I have to ask: do you think this persona might have... shouldered aside your... ancestral traditions?"
Bill
“Oh, no! A spirit push aside Papa Legba? The Opener of the Way is not so weak! “ Roger shakes his head. “No, they have left me, or I have lost my way to them, and only this Spy, the Agent, sneaks through, finds his way, as is his nature. I mean, maybe, yes, he may be ascendant in this time, on the lips of many people, but I doubt he is so very powerful against the ancient ones.” Roger pauses, looks to be thinking about something. “Or maybe it is his love of our organization, one of his temples, and he rides this broken mount so to keep his eyes on the ground, however bad the means.”
“Maybe he blesses me so as to meet others.”
Michael
"So let me get this straight," Dr. Claire says, actually leaning in to speak more intimately with Roger. "You've developed—or 'met,' at the proverbial crossroads—a new persona that exemplifies the Spy archetype currently abroad in contemporary media and popular culture? And you can access him by the means of a method similar to how you ritually invite the loa into you? Do you have any thoughts on why this archetype found you?" Dr. Claire leans back. "If you are right, and it was looking for the Project itself... I suppose that's enough reason. After all, there aren't many of... well, 'you' in SANDMAN at the moment." Dr. Claire seems intrigued by this idea of a new loa, so much so that he's given away a little of the game: that there are other chevals in SANDMAN... but not many more at all.
Bill
“I don’t know about all that. Yes, the Agent, he is like the Saint of Spies. He found me because I am alike, I am his kind. He is a Patron; to love his children is his gift. He is like the other loa in this: he is a spirit of freedom from the Enemy, not of them, like a sliver of the God you believe. Of course he would aid the agents of the resistance to the Enemy. And why me, now? When the others have left? Perhaps he has not abandoned me, so I don’t fall prey to the other side. Or because he alone sees I am faithful. Or to help me prove my faithfulness to the others. That I pray for, that I can help, and prove faithful to the loa, so they will come to me once more.”
“I don’t share his thoughts. If you want to know, or the brass want to know, I will ask him to ride me, and you will have to ask him yourself. Do you think that will help me?”
Michael
"Here's the thing, Roger: if you're asking me my professional and therapeutic opinion about whether it would help to converse with a brand-new persona being manifested by you, a persona manifested with the express raison d'être of being an aid to the Project or at least to opposing the Opposition... yes, of course I want to speak with this Agent. I think it would be the first step in helping you heal into renewed contact with all your personae. But here's the problem." Dr. Claire clears his throat, tentatively, pauses, and says, plainly but with no lack of compassion and sympathy in his voice—for him own predicament or for Roger's, Roger's not quite sure, "I just might not be cleared for that."
"So unfortunately, as I mentioned at the beginning of our meeting, I may need to kick this up a level or two, you understand. You were right: the brass will want to hear about it." Claire goes to his dossier on Martin, Roger B. "I noticed you were working with Ambrose O'Connor when you were in country? I imagine it's been a couple of years since you've had the chance to chew the fat with him. Given his role in... initiating you into the organization, I'd like you to consult with him on this. Maybe the three of us have a session or two together. His position in the Project can also afford to bring some big guns to bear on your issue. GP, I'm sure, will spare no expense to help you work this through. With your approval, of course. No one wants you to think you're being made into a lab rat here."
"In the meantime, on the, er, combat fatigue side of things, I'd like to invite you to take some medical leave-slash-R&R here at Miley. We can set you up with a private room in the officers' ward—VIP treatment, you understand. You'll even have a private outside line. And we can work on a daily basis, even if we don't get to delve deep into... the Agent until we get word from GP. We have some group therapy groups that might be useful for you; not with Project members, you understand, but fellas who have been involved in some... similarly tricky business overseas and needed some time to rest and recover among fellows with... simpatico security clearances. We heal all kinds and all minds here."
Hidden Lore (Project SANDMAN Legends)-14, please.
Bill
>>>> SUCCESS by 9
(It’s the Village. I’m going to the Village.)
Michael
(sadly, just shy of a crit, but anyway...)
Wow. This is a lot of special treatment. Jo never got into the weeds per se on Dr. Claire except to intimate that he was about as useless as you could hope for as a SANDMAN therapist. That's not Roger's impression of Claire after this initial meeting at all. He seems canny, political, well-versed in the esoteric, an earnest healer... and mostly in awe of the Project. And Roger is realizing that someone like Sophie, when she's ready for the booby hatch, gets sent to a gulag cheerfully called THROWAWAY while he gets a private room in the tower of an old armory overlooking one of the best views of the Bay in the entire city. Roger really up to this point hadn't had a true sense of how much the Project values him, or perhaps more accurately his cheval nature, some combination of his deeds, thoughts, powers, and actions. But this right here has given Roger that sense. For the Project, this is coddling.
And this is what the Devil and the Agent had been hoping for, like they'd both esmologically seen it coming: tantalizing the curious, power-hungry members of the Project's cheval research program (which Claire has tacitly confirmed exists at this point) and getting them right where the Agent wants them.
Ambrose was always a mysterious eminence grise back in 'Nam but underneath it all was a flinty, Jesuit-educated Irish-Catholic pragmatism crossed with true, abiding faith in "the church." Whether the church was the capital-C one in Rome, the Company at Langley, or the congregation at Granite Peak, Ambrose believed in hierarchy, in history, in order. Like Claire, Ambrose is a company man. And if Claire's read on Roger's file is any indication, Ambrose is even higher up in the Project than he was when he was doing informal recruiting back in the late '60s in South Vietnam. Spare no expense, my ass, Roger thinks, wondering how truly deep in the Project all this interest in the loa goes. All that Roger does know right now, is that suddenly he's the Golden Child.
Bill
Roger takes this in, then realizes he has to respond. He uses the relief he’s feeling at the plan working, the gates opening, into relief at treatment. “Ambrose? God above, I really could use his council. To speak to my old friend! It would be such relief. He knows me— and the faith— so well. My approval? Gladly! I didn’t think to hope so much.”
Roger relaxes, and lets his natural love of fine things take over. “VIP, huh? Does that come with a minibar? Or is the Officers’ Club bar welcoming in grunts now?”
No harm in a little taste of the Golden Child life, right? he thinks. Surely the Agent would play it the same.
Sell the story: rube gets wined and dined into complacency and compliance.
Michael
"He knows the most about your case, your career, your experiences out of anyone bar your teammates," Claire says, "so I think it would be a good ideato bring him in. As for the mini-bar, well, no such amenities here; we're still a hospital," Claire says with a smile. "But I think you'll be pleased with the accommodations. Even the 'grunts' who are residents here at Miley get a modicum of privacy for their recovery. I'll get an orderly to escort you over to the old armory building, call ahead now to make sure your room is ready. Relax for the rest of the afternoon. There will probably be more intake, a physical, and so forth, to follow tomorrow but for tonight, get some rest."
Dr. Claire stands up, "Roger, it has been a pleasure to get to know you a little better. I'm pleased we'll be working together on this." He reaches out his hand.
Bill
He smiles in return, and shakes his hand vigorously. “Thanks for the break before the tests. I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t expect this kind of reception. Thanks, doc.”
Michael
Roger's room is pretty nice. Simple, but nice. Antique dresser with mirror, beautiful views out of the narrow windows in the stone armory walls (slim, stylized, arrow-slit-style), with a more modern bed/side table combo which looks so no-frills it could even be Army issue. Private bathroom with a shower, no bath, one closet with a curtain not a door. Clean towels and a Navy ditty bag in the bathroom closer. It's cool in here, despite the August heat outside; that stone does a great job of insulating.
There is indeed a dun-green-grey Western Model 500 phone on the bed's side table, with an extension number printed in red ink on the dial hub.
I think it makes the most sense to have our next in-character RP be on Friday August 24 after a day of rest, light one-on-one and group therapy, etc. on Thursday. If Roger does want to use the very conspicuous and most likely bugged room phone to call Livermore (or members of URIEL at home) over Wednesday or Thursday, just let me know and we can set up a quick scene before I bring Claire and/or Ambrose on-screen.
Bill
He’d already checked out to go deep undercover. There’s no gain in calling in, and he’s in no shape to play a misinformation game with the phone. He’ll make one boring call to Livermore answering service to report in as having checked in for psych eval, and little else.