The story centers on the protagonist's coming to terms with his life. It's a bit of a mid-life crisis, if you will. He recalls a little boy with whom he had a "friendship" in his childhood (the boy was a patient in the violent ward, now Quimby). The dismantling of the asylum following the fire (real event, 1991) triggers the incident (moving the files to the state archive) that enables the protagonist to learn the truth -- that the boy was sane and subjected to experiments. It's essentially an indictment of the psychiatric profession.
Here's an excerpt of why the grounds matter so much:
He climbed Hospital Drive, glancing but not seeing the sights left and right. He drove past the cottages and massive trees, past Hale and the remnants of the archway that had once been the entrance to the great asylum. Cars lined the road from Belmont to the Clocktower and he wondered why troublemakers were accommodated in this manner. The next thing you knew the city would be supplying busses to bring them in en masse. He really had to wonder about the goals of democratic society at times like these. He sighed. But his thoughts were interrupted by the presence of orange and white barriers on Clocktower Drive, blocking his entrance.
and
On a whim he turned to travel northeast towards the lake. He skirted the commotion on the other side, taking the overgrown path past the maintenance buildings that were tucked behind Sargent Hall, connected to the greater structure only by a series of tunnels used for heating and transport. He meant to travel across to Innovation Drive, down to where the old cottages stood. From there it was an easy skip to Belmont. Then he would be home again, safe and sound on that terrible terrible day. Again his thoughts flickered between past and present. Even the names of the streets would change in the new order. Innovation Drive. How very novel it must all have seemed back then. How excited they must have been to be on the brink of discovery. They were like gods, standing in judgment over the lesser members of society. Too well did he understand the importance of that position, had known it from his earliest childhood years. He had felt it in the way he was addressed as a child, as if he were a little lord, had seen it in the creases on his father’s brow, deepening with strain over the decades as the asylums came under fire for their practices.
and
The room was exactly as he remembered – wood paneled walls with pencil marks still visible. They used to laugh about it, shining their flashlights up onto the arcane numbers – marks the carpenters had forgotten to erase before they applied the varnish. Honestly the workers were so hopeless. But no one expected much of the laboring class. They had no education back then. His father’s predecessor had spoken of educating the attendants to improve the quality of care but once again economic reality buried that ideal. Willie’s was the first generation that attended school alongside “proper folks” and actually stood a chance of bettering itself. That was innovative – the concept of bringing the poor up to a better standard. Everything done then was done for the greater good. Noblesse oblige in America. He wondered fleetingly when those ideals had perished. Sometime around Viet Nam probably. The leveling of America.
In short, for him to walk the grounds being demolished and have it trigger memories of childhood, I need to know the grounds COLD.
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Here's an excerpt of why the grounds matter so much:
He climbed Hospital Drive, glancing but not seeing the sights left and right. He drove past the cottages and massive trees, past Hale and the remnants of the archway that had once been the entrance to the great asylum. Cars lined the road from Belmont to the Clocktower and he wondered why troublemakers were accommodated in this manner. The next thing you knew the city would be supplying busses to bring them in en masse. He really had to wonder about the goals of democratic society at times like these. He sighed. But his thoughts were interrupted by the presence of orange and white barriers on Clocktower Drive, blocking his entrance.
and
On a whim he turned to travel northeast towards the lake. He skirted the commotion on the other side, taking the overgrown path past the maintenance buildings that were tucked behind Sargent Hall, connected to the greater structure only by a series of tunnels used for heating and transport. He meant to travel across to Innovation Drive, down to where the old cottages stood. From there it was an easy skip to Belmont. Then he would be home again, safe and sound on that terrible terrible day.
Again his thoughts flickered between past and present. Even the names of the streets would change in the new order. Innovation Drive. How very novel it must all have seemed back then. How excited they must have been to be on the brink of discovery. They were like gods, standing in judgment over the lesser members of society. Too well did he understand the importance of that position, had known it from his earliest childhood years. He had felt it in the way he was addressed as a child, as if he were a little lord, had seen it in the creases on his father’s brow, deepening with strain over the decades as the asylums came under fire for their practices.
and
The room was exactly as he remembered – wood paneled walls with pencil marks still visible. They used to laugh about it, shining their flashlights up onto the arcane numbers – marks the carpenters had forgotten to erase before they applied the varnish. Honestly the workers were so hopeless. But no one expected much of the laboring class. They had no education back then. His father’s predecessor had spoken of educating the attendants to improve the quality of care but once again economic reality buried that ideal. Willie’s was the first generation that attended school alongside “proper folks” and actually stood a chance of bettering itself. That was innovative – the concept of bringing the poor up to a better standard. Everything done then was done for the greater good. Noblesse oblige in America. He wondered fleetingly when those ideals had perished. Sometime around Viet Nam probably. The leveling of America.
In short, for him to walk the grounds being demolished and have it trigger memories of childhood, I need to know the grounds COLD.