There were thirty-eight patients on the bus the morning I left for Hanover, most of them disturbed and hallucinating. An interne, a nurse and two attendants were in charge of us. I felt lonely and depressed as I stared out the bus window at Chicago's grim, dirty West Side. It seemed incredible, as I listened to the monotonous drone of voices and smelled the fetid odors coming from the patients, that technically I was a ward of the state of Illinois, going to a hospital for the mentally ill. I suddenly thought of Mary Jane Brennan, the way her pretty eyes could flash with anger, her quiet competence, the gentleness and sweetness that lay just beneath the surface of her defenses. We had become good friends during my stay at Cook County Hospital. I had told her enough about myself to offset somewhat the damaging stories that had appeared in local newspapers after my little adventure in Marshall Field & Co. She knew that I lived at a good address on the Gold Coast, that I had once been a medical student and was thinking of returning to the university to finish my medical studies. She knew also that I was unmarried and without a single known relative. She wasn't quite sure that I felt enough remorse about my drinking, or that I would not return to it once I was out and on my own again. This had worried her. "I read those newspaper stories about you", she had said. "You must have loved that girl very much, but you couldn't have meant it when you said that you wanted to kill her". "Why do you say that"? I asked. "I was full of booze and, well, a drunk is apt to do anything he says he'll do". Nonsense! I grew up in an Irish neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. Don't tell me about drunks. You're not the kind to go violent. Were you in love with that girl"? "Would it make any difference to you if I were, Mary Jane"? She met my eyes, suddenly angry. "I wouldn't have gone into nursing if I didn't care about people. I'm interested in every patient I've helped take care of. When I think of people like you, well, I" -- "You what, Mary Jane"? "You are young, intelligent, have a whole lifetime before you to make something worth while of yourself, but you mess it up with whiskey, indifference, self-destructive attitudes. I don't blame that girl for breaking her engagement with you. Was she pretty"? "Oh, yes", I said, feeling annoyed, "she was very pretty. You don't believe that I'm going back to medical school and finish, do you"? "Why should I? I've worked this ward for three months now. We keep getting the same ones back again and again. They all mean well, have great promises to make when they are about to go home, but drinking is their sickness. You've not seemed like them, but maybe you are. You've treated your stay here like a big joke. It's not a joke to be sent to a place like this or to Hanover. I wanted to go to college, too" -- "Why didn't you"? I asked. "Chicago has some of the best" -- Her eyes flashed angrily. "That's what I mean about you, Anderson", she said. "You don't seem to know much about reality. I'll tell you why I didn't go to college; I'm the oldest of six children. My father's a policeman and makes less than seven thousand dollars a year. There was no money for tuition, for clothes, for all the things you apparently take for granted. Nurses' training here doesn't cost anything. They even pay me six dollars a month. I think it's a good deal. I'm going to become a good nurse, and I've got two baby brothers that are going to have college if I have to work at my profession until I'm an old maid to give it to them". "Do you have a boy friend"? I asked. "That's none of your business", she said, then changed the subject. "What about your father and mother, don't you think of them when you're in a place like this"? "My father and mother died when I was two years old", I said. "My aunt raised me. Aunt Mary died when I was doing my military service. I have no one but myself to worry about". Something in my voice must have touched her deeply because her anger passed quickly, and she turned away to keep me from seeing her face. "I'm sorry", she said. "I don't know what I'd do without my family. We've always been so close". "Tell me more about them". Her eyes became bright as she talked about her father and mother, aunts and uncles, cousins. Listening, I felt cheated and lonely as only an orphan can. When she had finished I said: "Your dad sounds like a good father and a good policeman. I'll bet he wouldn't be pleased if a rumdum like me were to ask his daughter for a date -- I mean, after I'm out of the hospital, a month or so from now". "My father is a sergeant of detectives and has been attached to Homicide for five years. He's a pretty good judge of character, Anderson. I don't think he'd mind too much if he were sure you'd decided not to be a rumdum in the future". "What about you? How would you feel about it if I were to ask you for a date when I get through at Hanover"? "If I thought you were serious about going back to school, that you'd learned something from your experiences here and at Hanover -- well, I might consider such an offer. What about your that girl you were going to kill"? It suddenly seemed very important to me that Mary Jane Brennan should know the truth about me -- that I was not the confused, sick, irresponsible person she believed me to be. "There are things about me that I can't tell you now, Mary Jane", I said, "but if you'll go out to dinner with me when I get out of Hanover, I'd like to tell you the whole story. I can say this: I'm dead serious about going back to school. As for that other girl, let's just say that I never want to see her again. You will get to come home on long weekends from Hanover, won't you"? "Yes, I'll get one overnight a month". "We'll go up to the Edgewater Beach Hotel for dinner", I said. "Do you like to dance? They always have a good orchestra". "I like to dance", she said, then turned and walked away. There hadn't been anything really personal in her interest in me. I knew that. It was just that she felt deeply about every patient on the ward and wanted to believe that they might benefit from their treatment there. Now, riding this hospital bus, feeling isolated and utterly alone, I knew that she was genuine and unique, quite unlike any girl I had known before. It seemed the most important thing in my life at this moment that she should know the real truth about me. It was a fantastic story. Only two people in the state of Illinois knew that I was entering Hanover State Hospital under an assumed name, or why. It was unlikely that any girl as sharp as Mary Jane Brennan would believe it without proof. But I had the proof, all documented in a legal agreement which I would show her the moment I was free to do so. As the bus turned into the main highway and headed toward Hanover I settled back in my seat and closed my eyes, thinking over the events of the past two weeks, trying to put the pieces in order. I wondered suddenly as I listened to the disconnected jabberings coming from the patient behind me, if I had not perhaps imagined it all. Perhaps this was reality and Dale Nelson, the actor, was delusion; a figment of Carl Anderson's imagination. Four I had come to Chicago from New York early in September with a dramatic production called Ask Tony. It was a bad play, real grade-A turkey, which only a prevalence of angels with grandiose dreams of capital gain and tax money to burn could have put into rehearsal. No one, not even the producer, had any real hope of getting it back to Broadway. But because it was a suspense gangster story of the Capone era, many of us felt that it might catch on for a run in Chicago, continue as a road company, and eventually become a movie. Such optimism was completely unjustified. The critics literally screamed their indignation. Ask Tony was doomed from the moment Kupcinet leveled on it in his Sun-Times column. We opened on Friday and closed the following Monday. Out of the entire cast I alone received good notices for my portrayal of a psychopathic killer. This let me in for a lot of kidding from the rest of the company, two members of which were native Chicagoans. We were paid off Tuesday morning and given tickets back to New York. I felt lonely and depressed as I packed my bags at the Croydon Hotel. It seemed to me that my life was destined to be one brilliant failure after another. I had been among the top third in my class at N.Y.U., had wanted desperately to go to medical school, but I'd run out of money and energy at the same time. Then later I had quit my safe, secure five-a-week spot on a network soap opera to take a part in this play. It seemed to me that I was not only unlucky but quite stupid as well. I knew that I'd soon be back working as an orderly at the hospital or as a counterman at Union News or Schraffts while waiting for another acting job to open. It suddenly occurred to me that I did not particularly like acting, that I was at some sort of crossroads and would have to decide soon what I was going to do with my life. I closed the last bag and stood all three at the door for the bellboy to pick up, then went to the bathroom for a drink of water. The telephone rang. When I answered it a voice too dignified and British to be real said, "Is this Mr. Dale Nelson, the actor"? "All right", I said. "Why don't you bastards lay off for a while"? "I beg your pardon, sir"? "All right. This is Dale Nelson the actor". "Good. I'm calling you, Mr. Nelson, at the request of Mr. Phillip Wycoff. Could you possibly have lunch with him today? His car could pick you up at your hotel at twelve". I smiled. "You'll send the Rolls-Royce, of course"? "Yes, of course, Mr. Nelson". I started to say something else appropriate, but the man had hung up. I finally went downstairs to the bar off the main lobby where most of the cast were drowning their sorrows over the untimely passing of Ask Tony. They all bowed low as I approached them. "All right, you bastards", I said, "the great actor is about to buy a drink". I laid a tenspot on the bar and motioned to the bartender to serve a round. He had just returned my change when the doorman came in off the street to page me. I walked over to him. "You Mr. Nelson"? He asked. "That's right". "Mr. Wycoff's car is waiting for you at the east entrance". I followed him out through the lobby to the street. An ancient Rolls-Royce, as shiningly impressive as the day it came off the ship, was parked at the curb. The elderly chauffeur, immaculate in a dark uniform, stood stiffly at attention holding open the door of the town car.