The first of his privileges to be restored after two weeks with visits by the writer.

The Teacher had not reappeared since the beginning of the Dispatch attacks. Unable to provide memories or details o what had been happening to him, Billy was embarrassed. Tc avoid confusion, he and the writer decided to refer to that unfused Billy as “Billy-U” when the writer asked who he want: talking to.

“I’ll be all right,” Billy-U said to the writer. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. But I’ll be all right when my Arthur and Ragen come back.”

(3)

When the winter arrived the following Friday, May 22, he was still facing the unfused Billy. The halting speech, the distracted gaze, the general air of depression, saddened the writer.

“For the record,” he asked, “who am I talking to?”

“Its me, Billy-U. Still unfused. I’m sorry, but Arthur and Ragen are still gone.”

“No need to apologize, Billy.”

“I won’t be much help.”

“That’s okay. We can talk.”

Billy nodded, but he looked listless and drained.

After a while the writer suggested they ask if he would be permitted to take Billy out for a walk. They found Norma Dishong, who agreed, as long as they stayed on hospital grounds.

It was a bright afternoon, and as they strolled along, the writer urged Billy to walk the route Danny had taken the day he went to the cliff.

Uncertain of the path, but with a general sense of the direction, Billy tried to reenact what had happened that day, but it was no use. His memory was vague.

“There’s a place I like to go when I want to be alone,” he said. “Let’s go over there.”

As they walked, the writer asked, “What’s happening to the other people in your head when you’re only partially fused? Whats it like?”, “I think it’s changing,” Billy said. “What they call ‘co-jconsciousness.’ Its like I’m piercing co-consciousness with some of the other people. I think it’s happening gradually. I don’t think everybody has co-consciousness with everybody else, but things are opening up. Every so often, So-and-so ,,knows what’s going on with So-and-so, and I don’t know why or how, “Like last week there was a big argument in one of the .meetings upstairs with Dr. Caul, another psychiatrist, and that .clients’ rights advocate. Allen was there, arguing with them. But then he got up and said, ‘The hell with ya. I’ll see ya inLima,’ and walked out. I was out in the lobby sitting in a chair and all of a sudden I heard exactly what he’d just said.

“And I shouted, ‘What? Hey, wait a minute here! Whaddys mean “Lima?”’ I’m sittin’ on the edge of my chair, getting scared, because I’m hearing the conversation that just happened seconds ago, like an instant replay, and it was somebody else saying that. I saw the other psychiatrist, who came out of the room, standing there, and I said, ‘Look, you guys, you gotta help me.’