Mr.
Schiller and the Triple-L
"Do
you need help with going to the bathroom?" he asked. "No," I answered. This was the first of a series of questions that I didn't feel like replying to, as it was cold and austere in his office.
"Do you have any dietary restrictions?"
I didn't like the word "restrictions" and so I said "No." The snow was drifting down outside the window. I had lugged my suitcase from the road to this compound because the taxi couldn't drive in the uncovered snow. It was a bad year in Seattle. The worst snow in 20 years. But the hospital paid for the cab.
"You know," Mr. Schiller peered over his steel-rimmed glasses, "Mr. Woon, I think you are a smart man. You can think your way through troubles, and so I don't think you will be here too long."
The space heaters made a clicking sound. The heater was trying to come on, but it rather sounded like Morse or military codes. And Mr. Schiller was not a literary figure but a former colonel in the Air Force.
"Do you have a will?"
I did not answer. Such a question is not culturally-sensitive.
"Do you have a will?"
He asked again. His head had suddenly looked very large.
"I am very tired," I feigned in a weak voice. Can we do this interview at a later time? Now I do need to go to the bathroom.
"You will do just fine here. I am thinking of putting you to work here. Being part of the scheme of things will make you feel more at home here." He then "volunteered" me to help the breakfast cook to wash dishes.
"You won't be here very long," he repeated. He picked up the phone, and a few minutes later Andy came and led me to my cottage.
I saw three beds in my room, one of the three rooms in the cottage. I peered into another room where the television sound bites were coming from. I saw three motley men sitting at the edge of their beds, each watching to a separate TV. I thought, "Oh shit, here is where I am going to be, waiting for Godot."
But then I remember what the Colonel had said, "You won't be here very long."
I saw that in the alcove there was a little table with a jigsaw puzzle in progress.
I sat there for a moment. I looked out the window. I was in my winter jacket and the cottage was unheated. The snow was drifting down. It was 4 pm or so, but it was already getting dark and the white snowflakes drifts and drifts down, and some of them landed in the crotch of a birch tree.
I realized finally I was at the Triple L. I was not in a hurry to meet my fellow residents. I took out my journal. This was going to be a serious writers' retreat.
