(Un) Sound Mind Read online

  (Un) Sound Mind

  A Novel By Richard Amico

  Published by 57th Street Press

  Copyright © 2014 Authored By Richard Amico

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publisher.

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  Thank you for your support of author’s rights.

  ISBN: 0692255052

  ISBN 13: 9780692255056

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948446

  57th Street Press, New York, NY and White Haven, PA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part 2

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part 3

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part 4

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Part 1

  All men whilst they are awake are in one common world,

  but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

  ‒Plutarch

  1

  Red, orange, and yellow leaves ripped from their branches by the cold October wind cascaded onto the churning waters of the Lehigh River in northeastern Pennsylvania. The old railroad tracks passing through Lehigh Gorge showed their age. It had been over one hundred years since the road crew hammered the last spike into the creosote-soaked ties. The ties, under the weight of thousands of passing freight cars over the years, had sunk deep into the shale-and-gravel beds. The heavy rails and steel spikes were overgrown with a scaly coat of thick rust. Except, that is, for the very top surface of the rails, now worn smooth and shiny by the wheels of a single freight train that passed this way each night traveling west. Like clockwork, at eleven thirty, the diesel engine reached Tunnel Road and blew its whistle before entering the railroad crossing. Everyone in the area knew that the two-mile-long train would be rumbling and clattering through for the next seven loud minutes.

  Not more than one mile from those tracks, in a brick-and-frame house on a suburban cul-de-sac, Franklin Jameson sat in his bedroom waiting for the echoing chorus of freight cars to pass before getting into bed. “Three, four, five…No,” he whispered, trying to resist the temptation to count them, each rumble and clack representing a single car. He had lived in this house for more than two years, yet he could not bring himself to retire until the train had passed and peace and quiet were once again restored to the neighborhood.

  When the whistle blew at the next crossing, the final one within his hearing, and the din of the last few cars faded into the distance, Franklin began to prepare for bed. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” he murmured. He believed it so strongly that failure to observe even the smallest part of his nighttime routine would result in worry that would keep him awake for hours.

  First, Franklin adjusted the thermostat, cool but not cold. Sleep did not come to one who shivered or sweated. The shades were pulled down and the shutters closed so that the moon in its travels from window to window wouldn’t distract him. He lined up his emergency crackers and his bottle of spring water on his nightstand. Hunger was one of the enemies of insomniacs. Then he arranged his nasal spray, tissue box, flashlight, antacid tablets, and current reading material into straight rows, all within easy reach. He nodded.

  Next Franklin placed his cane in the old umbrella stand alongside his bed. He removed his glasses and placed them on the nightstand near his half-empty cup of chamomile tea. He reached out and turned off his brass reading lamp and inhaled deeply, savoring the slightly floral scent of newly laundered bed linens. It was Monday. He always made up his bed with clean linens on Monday. He loved the fresh, cool feel of crisp sheets against his skin as he slipped into bed. Then it was time to close his eyes and begin his attempt to drift off to sleep.

  On some nights, it was deep breathing that accomplished the task. Long, slow breaths helped him relax. Franklin filled his lungs with air and gently exhaled—in and out, in and out. The rhythmic breathing was hypnotic. It usually cleared his mind, but not tonight. In a few days, he would be traveling to New York to meet Myra, and the anticipation of seeing her again after so long was making him nervous. He rolled onto his back and then on his side again and gently punched his pillow a few times. He reached out for the switch to turn on his reading lamp, changed his mind, and pulled his hand back. The more he feared not sleeping, the longer sleep eluded him. Some nights, no matter how tired he was, no matter how comfortable his surroundings were, no matter how long he waited, sleep just did not come.

  Franklin remembered better times, before his divorce, when sleep was a comfort, a time to rejuvenate his body and clear away the echoes of the day. Preparing for sleep was different then. He would listen to Myra’s chatter about her day and even occasionally interject events from his own. Franklin often thought about those nights together. Not that their relationship had been close and loving—maybe in the beginning it was, but it soon eroded into a pairing of convenience. Well, convenient to him maybe. Myra obviously hadn’t found it so.

  Wednesday should be an interesting day. He hadn’t seen Myra in more than three years, and he had to admit that he was both excited and apprehensive. Myra had moved to Colorado after their not-so-amicable divorce and had lived in Boulder ever since. No word for three years, and then a call saying she would be in town visiting a friend in New York and wanted to meet for coffee somewhere nearby to catch up on each other’s lives. What did she really want? he wondered. He began to picture her as she was when they last saw each other. Was she still the talkative young woman he’d married sixteen, no, almost seventeen years ago? Was she still slender and shapely? She was quite a knockout back then. The last three years had to have changed some of that. Did she still dress impeccably? She did like nice things. Maybe that was it. Maybe she’s gone through all the money from the divorce settlement, and she’s come back for more. Well, that’s not going to happen. Was she still as exasperating to deal with as she was back then? That was probably a given.

  They had arranged to meet at a small coffee shop in Manhattan. Obviously when she said “n
earby,” she meant nearby her location, but that was a concession he was happy to make. He hadn’t been in Manhattan for several years. It could be fun, he thought, browsing through book stores and shops once the reunion was over. He might even find time to visit a museum.

  Now there seemed to be no way he would get any sleep tonight.

  He sighed and scratched his head as he stared at the far wall, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the hall night-light. As they adjusted, he began to make out shadows on the walls and floor, each shadow begging his imagination to give it purpose. It was a welcome distraction. He tried to recognize familiar shapes of objects as he would with cloud formations in a summer sky. If he couldn’t sleep, he could at least amuse himself. A shadow on the bedroom wall from the Parsons table in the hallway looked like a steamship sailing into the room. The two piles of books on the table gave the shadow of the ship smokestacks and an upper deck.

  Now, he pretended that his bed was Manhattan Island, and his tall chest of drawers was the New Jersey Palisades rising high above the Hudson River. The ship was now steaming down the river into New York Harbor, and then out to sea. He was beginning to enjoy this. Maybe the ship’s destination was Bermuda. Franklin could almost smell the ocean and hear the slapping of the waves against the ship’s prow as he began to drift off. His eyes began to close, and he entered into that twilight state of mildly altered consciousness, the predecessor of restful sleep.

  Then there was a creaking sound that roused and disturbed him. He tried to ignore it, only half opening his eyes, not wanting to lose the progress he had made toward sleep. Then another sound. It was probably just the furnace kicking on, he thought, but what if it wasn’t? He fought hard not to give in to paranoia. In the last three years, since he had begun sleeping alone, every unexpected noise unnerved him. This time, as usual, his fears won out, and he turned his head, ever so slowly, toward the open doorway to the bedroom. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he sensed some movement. Franklin felt a chill even through the covers, and his body stiffened. His fingers tightened, squeezing the end of the comforter. He listened, not daring to move.

  First, he noticed a new shadow inching its way along the wall. The vague shadow haltingly advanced and grew until it appeared to reach from floor to ceiling. His glasses were on his nightstand, but he didn’t dare reach for them. He tried to focus his eyes to give form to this shadow as he had the ship, and it began to take shape. It looked like the shadow of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, standing in the water towering over the steamship. He shifted his eyes to the hall doorway to try to determine what was casting the shadow. Then he trembled as it became clear. The shadow was made by a man—a man standing in his bedroom doorway.

  He was dressed in a loose-fitting dark-blue shirt buttoned to the neck, and he wore baggy gray pants. His old ragged gym shoes made no sound as he walked into the room. Franklin put his hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp when he saw the man’s face. It appeared distorted with grotesquely deformed features. His nose was bent, his ears were flattened against his head, and his lips were pulled back in a sneer. He walked toward Franklin through the doorway and crossed to his dresser. He came closer with each step. Now that he was close, Franklin saw his face much more clearly. It was a stocking; the man was wearing a nylon stocking pulled over his head. At first Franklin felt some relief that this wasn’t some sort of monster, but that was little consolation. He still quaked at the realization that there actually was a burglar in his room.

  Franklin lay very still in his bed, barely breathing. The man opened each dresser drawer in turn and then closed it after he examined its contents. He took something from one of the drawers, a small rectangular object, and placed it in his pocket.

  Franklin stared at the nightstand out of the corner of his eye. The bottom drawer held his handgun. He had never wanted to own a gun of any kind, but his dentist—and friend—Dr. Hyrum Green, had convinced him to buy the small .38-caliber stainless-steel Taurus revolver. There had been several burglaries reported in the newspapers over the last year, but never in this neighborhood. Not until now, at least. Franklin hadn’t opened that drawer since he’d placed the gun in it almost a year ago. He didn’t even like to touch it. The gun was loaded, of course. Hyrum had said, “What good would a handgun be if it wasn’t loaded? It’s here to keep you safe.” Franklin would have felt a lot safer now if he knew it was empty. The burglar couldn’t know that the gun was in the drawer, but if he inadvertently found it…

  Franklin believed that his only chance to survive this home invasion unscathed was to stop the intruder before he reached the nightstand and thus the gun. His heart began to race, pounding in his chest; the arteries in his neck pulsed.

  The burglar opened drawer after drawer until it was only a matter of seconds before he reached the nightstand.

  Franklin kept his head. He waited, motionless, pretending to be asleep until the burglar either tired of his fruitless search and left—the most desirable outcome—or moved close enough for Franklin to reach. He’d never been a violent man, or even very athletic. His disability, a weakness in his left leg and arm, put him at a disadvantage, but this was a drastic situation, and every now and then a man must summon his courage and rise to the occasion.

  Franklin mustered all his daring and leaped to his feet with a yell. He closed his eyes, clenching his fists, and swung his right arm as hard as he could at the prowler. He braced for the impact, but his fist just swished through the air. On the verge of panic, Franklin cocked his arm again to deliver a better-aimed punch, but before he could strike, the burglar picked up a chair and held it over his head. Franklin fell to one knee, raising his arms in front of his face to protect himself from the blow he knew was imminent. The burglar, however, didn’t hit him. Instead he threw the chair, with great force, at a window and then leaped out through the splintered frame and falling glass.

  Franklin was stunned. Something was very wrong. Although he’d seen the chair fly through the window and heard the crash of the glass, he knew it couldn’t be. There were no windows on that wall of his bedroom.

  He switched on the light and put on his glasses. Franklin took his cane from the umbrella stand, planted it in the carpet between his bare feet, and pulled himself erect. The room echoed the sound of his heavy breathing. The chill of cold perspiration stuck his drenched T-shirt to his chest and made him shiver. All else was normal and quiet.

  With the light on, he saw that there was no broken window, no smashed chair, and he now knew that there had been no burglar.

  It all seemed so palpable and so convincing in every way. He could almost smell the day-old sweat from the man’s stained shirt and feel the heat that radiated from his body. He sat back down on the side of his bed and lifted his teacup to his lips; the tea was cold, but he drank it down anyway.

  An hour later, Franklin was lying in bed, still staring at the ceiling. Normally a dream fades after just a few minutes, but this dream was still vivid. Every detail was as real now as when it had happened, or at least when he dreamed it had happened. Franklin was too tired to think about this now. He would think about it tomorrow when he was better rested. But as he again prepared for sleep, one thought kept nagging at him. At the end of the dream, he was standing in his bedroom, awake, but try as he might, he couldn’t remember the point at which he had awakened. Was he awake when he jumped out of bed? No, he couldn’t have been awake then, because he still saw the intruder at that time. Did he wake after the window was broken and the intruder jumped out? Maybe, but why had he been standing at all? Had he begun to walk in his sleep? And how did he jump up from bed without his cane? It was a mystery.

  ***

  Over the next few nights, Franklin’s nightmares became even more disturbing. He dreamed of wolves chasing him and awoke in the corner of his room panting, his heart pounding. On other nights people would appear in his room as he tried to fall asleep. On one occasion he opened his eyes and saw an odd silhouette begin to take form on top of his d
resser. As he fine-tuned the image, a small figure of a man took shape, sitting cross-legged and wearing a three-pointed yellow, orange, and gold hat. Franklin blinked several times, but the image remained. It was a dwarf wearing a jester’s costume. The little man sat playing a flute, yet Franklin couldn’t hear the music. He was captivated by the apparition. He wondered what tune the little guy was playing as he puffed his cheeks and fingered the instrument. The tune seemed blithe and the jester frolicsome as he bobbed his head from side to side. But soon the jester turned toward Franklin, looked directly into his eyes, and stopped playing. Mirth and revelry gave way to a look of indignation and malevolence.

  “Go away!” he shouted, and the jester vanished. Franklin was sitting up in bed waving his arm in the direction of the now-departed specter. He touched the cool sheets of the bed, then touched his face. I’m awake, he thought, but how long have I been awake?

  He pinched his arm to be sure. Was he losing control of his mind? Tomorrow he would have to find someone to talk to. Someone who could help him understand what all this meant. But tonight he’d sit with the lights on, hoping that morning would come quickly.

  2

  How does one judge success as a clinical psychologist? Dr. Ruth Klein must have asked herself that question at least once a month. Ruth, now forty-two years of age, had been in practice for almost eight years. Clients came and clients went. Some stayed in treatment for years while others moved on within months. But was she really helping any of them? Were they truly better off for having spent their time and their money pouring out their thoughts and emotions to her, a person who felt that her own personal problems may be as considerable as theirs?

  Ruth sat alone hunched over her antique Queen Anne desk, leafing through notes from recent patient sessions. She reached up and tilted the shade from her desk lamp to deflect some of the glare bouncing back from the pages. Her neck throbbed, and she could hear a crackling noise as she twisted her head from side to side. She had been reviewing notes for what seemed like hours. Time always stood still when a crisis of confidence dominated her thoughts.