Editor’s note: Second of two parts. Read part one by CLICKING HERE.

WE WALKED OVER THE DARK BROWN LINE on the brown floor that separated the spent from the strong, the damaged from the whole, to a large conference room around the corner. There were six people in the room: two female Air Force captains in green fatigues sat in front of a desktop computer on a cart. A white-haired man sat in the far left corner in front of another desktop on a cart. Halfway down the table I sat at was a younger man with dark hair and across from him a young East Indian woman. All were dressed in business casual and all met my eyes with the expected professional smiles of the enlightened.

The young man on my left made introductions and explained gently why we were there — to try to find out a way to help.

He read from my intake paperwork and asked why I was there. I replied that I understood that they had a good deal on new minds and I needed one. I smiled, they smiled. Silence. I told them that I wanted to die, but was too much of coward to end my life myself so I needed help either to end my life or to stop the voices that demanded my death.

He asked me if I heard voices. Only the X’s screaming for the child support, I joked. Again silence; tough crowd, I thought. No, literally, no, I said — with the appropriate contrition — metaphorically, yes. He asked me how I slept and I mentioned dreaming of the Marx Brothers doing mess duty on the Ranger. This cracked up the old white-haired guy, the doc, but no one else. Again, with proper tone, I told him I didn’t sleep well and I have apnea and didn’t use a CPAP. Doc looked up from his keyboard and said he had just made an appointment for a sleep study.

They young man — the psychologist — mentioned the meds I was on and the amount prescribed and was I taking them? Yes, I replied. Doc said he was upping my dosage. Wasn’t I at the max? I asked. Usually, yes, but he wanted to experiment and I should be OK. I asked about my heart and he said it should be fine. I made a sarcastic remark about the words that came before and after “should” in the dictionary.

Doc laughed. The rest smiled serenely.

* * *

AFTER THE AFTERNOON MEDS I found two chairs looking out a window in the hall outside the lounge. Sitting in one I began to read Davies. After about five minutes a young woman with long black hair lowered herself into the other chair and began to read a Bible. We sat in silence for the next hour, not acknowledging the other’s existence.

It had been overcast all day and suddenly it rained. I raised my eyes from Davies and watched drops hitting the window and running down to form puddles on the outside windowsill. Looking through the rain down at the ground I saw a jackrabbit drinking from a newly formed puddle. “Look, there is a jackrabbit!” I exclaimed.

The woman lifted her eyes and we watched the rabbit drinking in silence. After he got his fill he hopped off toward the flight line.

The rain eased and we introduced ourselves. I asked why she was there and she said she had attempted suicide. I asked why and she said she was a pharmacist and was worried about making mistakes. This worry grew until she couldn’t stand it any longer and decided to stop it. The only way she knew how to stop it was to go to sleep and never wake up. She thought she had taken the right dosage, but she had made a mistake. She never made a mistake before with anybody else’s meds, just hers. She looked at me and weakly smiled.

“Good,” I said and smiled.

“I thought I was making the right choice,” she said. “I applied to one college with a six-year undergrad-to-Ph.D program. After school I went right into the Air Force because it would be a good career choice for a pharmacist and a woman. Now, look at what I have done after six months in my first duty station! They will probably discharge me for being medically unfit!” Tears hugged her nose before falling to make tiny splash marks on the thin pages of her Bible.

I gave her my handkerchief. She thanked me and wiped her eyes.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

I went into my story. Her eyes grew large and she seemed really in shock by what had happened to me.

“You are quite resilient.”

I smiled back weakly and said, “Yeah, that and $2 gets you a cup of coffee.”

* * *

“RESILIENT? I HEARD THAT YESTERDAY.”

“Well whoever said that had insight. You are resilient, Mike, you do bounce back,” the psychologist said. It was the next morning and I was back in my staff meeting.

“Like a frozen Spalding.”

“Run it under tepid water for 10 minutes and it will thaw,” said Doc, glancing up from his keyboard.

“Mike, what is your plan?”

“I don’t have one. That’s why I am here.”

“We are not here to make one for you. We are here to help you to make one. So think of something that would help.”

“More meetings?”

“That’s good,” he said, writing it down. “What else? Maybe an appointment with your therapist and med manager?”

“Yeah,” I said, stunned. Looking up from the table I stared at him with the intensity of a woman checking Facebook on her phone. “You mean I don’t need anything more that more meetings and a couple of doctor visits? I don’t know if I made myself clear — my life sucks and I want to end it.”

“Yes, you did. And you are capable of dealing with your life, just as you are. The adjustment to your meds will help to carry you through this rough patch.”

“But the voices, my failure at getting a better job, destitution, abandonment of my children?”

“All that you survived with your present support structure. Mike, you haven’t drunk during all of it. That must tell you something about your capability.”

“Or God’s.”

“Yes, or God’s. But God won’t act unless sought.”

The Davies quote popped into my mind. “I am reading a collection of talks given by Robertson Davies. In it he mentioned that the values that are proper in the first part of a man’s life will not sustain him in the second. Maybe the last 10 years is me losing, or being ripped from the values that have formed me, and the feeling of being ‘mad’ is my way of dealing with the search for new values that serve me for the rest of my life.”

“That could be. And if you feel overwhelmed or confused or ‘mad’ you can always come back.”

“Sounds like you are getting ready to discharge me.”

“Yeah, I am. How does tomorrow at 3 sound?”

“It sounds like a knife-and-fork tea to me. I also like milk and two sugars.”

The psych smiled and shook his head, “Anything else?”

The young woman came to mind. I told them of my encounter with her. All their faces, again, registered the same thoughtful stare and again, silence. It finally occurred to me they couldn’t or wouldn’t discuss her with me.

“Why her and not me? Why do I bounce back and she can’t?”

“Some Spaldings freeze and some don’t,” Doc offered from the corner.

“So it all comes down to a childhood game in the street.”

“It usually does.”

M.R. Merris is a Benicia resident, writer and poet. This is the fifth installment in his memoir series.