The Third Personality: A Novel (25)

ELMIRA, New York - Pushing her way through the entrance to St. Joseph's Hospital, Lainie Katz left the last of the winter's slush behind her in the dark, and enjoyed the heat of St. Jo's bottom floor. Soon it would be spring (at least in warm-weather locales like Florida) but for now - 10:50 p.m. - it was still freezing in Elmira. Nevertheless, even coming to work at this hour was an improvement to doing anything outside.

At least it hadn't snowed as much this year as in the past.

She entered an elevator and rode her way up to the third floor, organizing her thoughts before beginning her nightly shift as a New York State-certified nurse's aide. Vacation was over.

It wasn't horrible work - at least most of the time, Lainie told herself - and there was something honorable about helping others, even when they didn't ask you to do it. Even when you were walking into their room to clean up their urine (and feces) or perform an occupied bed change. "Roll �n wipe" was a popular (if somewhat sarcastic) pet description for her professional gig.

The elevator stopped, and Lainie stepped off. Turning right toward the nurse's station (she could see it was unoccupied, as usual - it was going to be another one of those nights!), she began to climb out of her ski jacket while she angled around the bend of the nurse's station counter. Immediately she saw three call lights flashing - no, two; one just went off: either the duty nurse was now in that room, or her fellow CNA and compadre, Dorothy, had just turned off the light switch next to the bed in question. And as usual, a familiar, pained, old woman's voice (she was now well into her third week in the hospital) could be heard crying out from just down the hall.

"Nu-rse!" the voice whined. "Nu-u-rse!!"

Lainie hung up her jacket and groaned. Decked out in her white scrubs, she dropped her head momentarily to psyche herself up. Dorothy then rounded the corner and scanned the call lights.

"Hiya," Dorothy smiled. "You're back. You okay?"

Lainie looked up. "Sure," she nodded. "Anything going on?"

"Nah," said Dorothy, who then pushed a button next to one of the flashing call lights. One of the buzzers then ceased its grating Noise. "Yes, ma'am. What can I do for you."

"I need a pain pill," came the voice of the whining woman over the intercom.

"I'll tell the nurse," said Dorothy to the speaker. "But I'm pretty sure your next medication isn't due until midnight."

"Well, please go get the nurse!" returned the voice. "I need a pain pill, right away! I'm in pain!"

"I'll tell her," Dorothy said affably enough, as she flipped off that connection and moved on to the one remaining call light. "Yes, ma'am," she repeated over the speaker to the next room.

Another older woman's voice, far less agitated, replied, "I believe I'm going to need a bed pan."

"We'll be right there, Mrs. Butts," Dorothy said, flipping off the switch and speaker. The call light box was now dark and silent. Dorothy then looked up at Lainie. "You want to go?"

"I guess," shrugged Lainie, spotting a clean bedpan through an open closet door. "Who was that? She's new. What's she in here for?"

"A bunch of shit, none of it real serious I guess, according to her chart," said Dorothy. "Her thyroid's shut down, and she's on medication for that; her eardrums are clogged, so her hearing is real bad; but beyond that, she's got temporary double vision, some rheumatoid arthritis and anemia; and what we've got to watch are some pressure points, which she had before she checked in - could become bedsores. Her legs are contracted, too. She's been sitting a lot at home. You'll never guess doing what. She's famous, actually."

Lainie was listening while she walked to the closet and back with the bedpan. "Famous - really? For what?"

Dorothy didn't answer. She waited for Lainie to look her way, as a devilish grin began to form on her lips.

Lainie turned and gazed at her friend. "What?" she said.

Bedpan in hand, Lainie stood outside room 3B9 and knocked. "Mrs. Butts?" she called inside. She then tentatively entered.

"Hi!" responded the thin, gaunt 82-pound woman from the bed. Her knees were locked under the covers, which notably inhibited her efforts to push herself up even slightly on her pillow.

Only the weak overhead wall light above her head was on.

"Come on in!" said Jane Roberts Butts brightly, with a slight tremor in her voice.

* * * * *

As the young rheumatologist and orthopedist stood next to her bed the next day and casually discussed the medical future of their bedridden (and for now, all but deaf) patient, Jane attempted to listen in - not that either of the coifed, dashing (and preposterously fashion-conscious) dandies hovering nearby much noticed, even though they were talking about her. For even with her hearing impaired as it was, Jane could pick up snatches of conversation, and could otherwise clearly discern the clinical distancing of her doctors from honest concern for her well-being.

For the new medical professionals in America, Jane realized, specialization, as with these two, was just a job. A well-paid job, in an empirically grounded, biomechanical, so-called objective (and, of course, highly respected) field of endeavor.

Their respective mothers, both likely retirees in Boca Raton or some such palm-fronded locale, were sure to be bursting at the seams boasting to consorts about their sons - their sons, the doctors, Jane mused darkly.

If these two knew what Jane did for a living (only a handful of staffrs at St. Joseph's probably knew about her connection to Seth, or even cared), they'd both probably shit.

(And, oh man - would she love to see a staff CNA get their hands on these two should one, or both, ever become bedridden.)

"Okay. If she's having a hard time with the bedpan, she'll have to be carried into the toilet by the orderlies," one of them surmised. "So, that's the name of that tune." The other nodded.

"…And until such a time as we can finish up some of these preliminaries - she's going to remain predominantly bedridden," the first specialist added. He was the orthopedic surgeon.

"Agreed," said the second, an arthritis specialist, nodding.

"Let's square away her chart, then. The rheumatoid's showing little active inflammation, so I think we can march forward on the synthetic thyroid hormone and therapy - unless she's willing to undergo my procedure. I believe she's a proper candidate."

"It can't hurt to ask," said the rheumatologist, shrugging. "Anyway. It looks like I'm out of here."

"Yeh - I'd say so," agreed the orthopedist.

The rheumatologist (rheumatoid arthriticist?) then turned and faced Jane, as if he'd just entered her hospital room.

"Mrs. Butts," he smiled aspartamely, delicately touching her shoulder as he carefully enunciated his words. "It looks to me as if your arthritis is about burned out - and that's very good news medically." He then paused to communicate one notch better. "How are you feel-ing. To-day?"

Jane smiled back as she enunciated her exaggerated response. "I'm fine. But I'd feel much bet-ter with a beer and a cig-a-rette," she said.

The rheumatologist laughed - sort of - and turned and left the room, waving behind him as he walked out.

In his wake he left the smiling orthopedic surgeon. Alone.

"So, Jane," began the orthopedist, at last acknowledging her. "What about my operation. As I say, you're a proper candidate."

"Proper, maybe," Jane frowned. "But will I ever run again?"

The youthful surgeon wasn't sure if she was kidding or not.

"Well, maybe not run, per se," he said. "There is still the matter of one of your legs being shorter than the other. Right?"

By the time Jane's husband Rob stopped by to visit, all of her afternoon tests and proddings (and toilet junkets) were complete.

"Hooray," Jane greeted him, as she watched Rob walk into the room carrying a medium-sized cardboard box. "More mail."

"More mail," Rob nodded, as he took his seat in the chair next to Jane's bed.

His wife had that satisfied look on her face - as if she'd successfully antagonized her doctors once again. At least she wasn't in a rage over them today.

"Couldn't you find that carrying case?" Jane asked, nodding disapprovingly toward the unsightly box.

"No," Rob said, sitting back, as he began to forage through the box's contents of mostly standard-sized letters - most of them from fans of Jane and Seth. He then glanced back up at her. "I think we can say it's officially missing."

"I liked that case," Jane sighed.

She then gazed at Rob fondly, and motioned vaguely toward the mail with her still poorly-coordinated right hand. "I still can't write - at all," she said, looking away briefly.

"I know," Rob nodded. "I'll read. You talk. I'll write."

Jane then unhappily noticed that Rob looked drained himself.

Her hospitalization was already taking its toll on him, too.

So she rolled slightly toward her husband, and smiled at him tenderly. "You read, I'll listen," Jane agreed.

There had been an unspoken issue between them for some time now, however, that would soon demand a meaningful resolution.

The issue was Jane's intentions as to her ongoing survival.

Did she want to keep on living - or didn't she?

The couple had only recently completed another book by Seth prior to Jane entering the hospital - this one entitled "Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment," the seventh in the Seth series (or the eighth, if you included the separately-published volumes of "The Unknown Reality," in 1977 and 1979.) Jane had entertained the notion that this might be her final Seth book. She was growing weary of her role as mystical author and teacher.

But there was more going on with her lately than just that.

Jane had a "sinful self," as she put it. She'd grown up in a very strict religious atmosphere and, because of that, had felt "guilty" the last few years for having successfully reaped the rewards of being a notable highly-regarded author (and authority; you had to include that) in matters contrary to church doctrines.

In any event - her "sinful self," as much a Jungian shadow-like identity as a deadly psychological manifestation, was openly trying to kill her! And even though Jane consciously knew better than to buy into such dysfunction, a buried part of her did not.

What was heartbreaking, especially to Rob, was that Jane's mystical self felt ambivalent. That side was willing to move on.

Complicating the scenario further was the recent "epidemic," as Jane had put it, of other trance mediums now popping up around the country claiming that they were receiving and transmitting information from Seth, too. Jane and Rob knew this wasn't so.

Some of these women, in fact, had been fans of the Seth-Jane material, it turned out, and were charging substantial fees while purportedly speaking for Seth - in public. Jane felt betrayed.

Seth didn't have much to say about this phenomenon either, other than to make a comment during Session 876, about two-and-a-half years earlier: "…Now, I did not communicate with these women - but their belief in me helped each of them use certain abilities." And that, as far as Seth was concerned, was that.

By the time Rob finished reading the third of the day's fan letters, Jane was exhausted, even weepy, from laughing out loud.

The mail often proved to be uplifting psychological therapy.

This one was really funny - from some seminary student in Bangor, Maine. Jane and Rob, who were no strangers to the southern part of that state - particularly coastal York County - had passed through Bangor from time to time, mostly enroute to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, both on Mount Desert Island.

Pronounced "de-zert" - as in, once upon a time, "deserted."

The student, Tom Mendelson, said he was originally a native of Fort Lauderdale, and told Jane he'd been planning on returning home during his spring break from Bangor Theological Seminary. He then launched into this two-page dissertation about his enthusiasm for the Seth material, his comical take on the Apostle Paul, his addicted past, and some recent metaphysical experiences in Maine.

It wasn't so much what he'd written but how he'd written it. The 35-year-old Navy veteran and recovering alcoholic had talent.

While awaiting Jane's dictation, Rob often doodled on (or near) the blank 3-1/2-X-5-1/2-inch postcards the couple used for Jane's responses to fan mail. He did that now, in Jane's salutation.

"'Dear Tom,'" Jane then began dictating - and Rob, writing:

DEAR TOM,
YOU WRITE A GREAT LETTER! HAVE A TERRIFIC VACATION - AND MANY THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH US.
PEACE, ETC. -
JANE ROBERTS

At the conclusion of writing his wife's professional name on the postcard - he always made it a point to simply print, "Jane Roberts," in her responses, never presuming to fake her signature which would have been a deception - Rob then looked back up at Jane. Her laughter had already passed too quickly - there were too few things they could find simple joys in together, of late - but some of that old sparkle was back in her eyes.

Rob loved to see that aliveness in her.

Even when it was only there temporarily.

God bless Tom Mendelson, whoever he was.

"More?" Rob asked, holding up a few more unopened envelopes.

"Sure," nodded Jane.

And for two hours more, Rob read some bright and supportive letters aloud, most of them directed to his incapacitated wife.

Jane's readers were highly supportive of the Seth material, certainly, and Rob suspected most would have been thrilled to get a personalized reply from Seth - via Jane.

But, in fact, the readers seemed to Rob to want to reach out and touch her specifically, as if they somehow recognized Jane as the unique bestowal to late 20th Century humanity that she was.

Without Jane Roberts, for starters, there would be no Seth.

One letter writer, in fact, told her just that.

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