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It is said that the Jew is doomed to wander. But in this case, the wanderer was not a Jew, but rather an Italian.
His name was Vitale, but everyone called him Vito. Some people called him "the Roamin' Roman" due to his propensity to wander. Of course, like everyone else there at the Institution, Vito was confined to a wheelchair. He did his wandering in his power chair.
There were long, straight halls there at the Institution. These halls were immaculately clean, and they were buffed every day. Perhaps there was something in the brilliant shine of the tiles that attracted, even mesmerized, Vito.
Or perhaps he was attracted by the eternal search - for what, only he knew.
Then again, perhaps it was the absurdity of the whole thing that attracted him so much. (Absurdity: knowing that you will never find what you're looking for; or looking without interest.)
Perhaps, then, it was the wandering itself that was important. He was looking for nothing, just wandering, because it was something to do. And so there was a languidness, a listlessness about his demeanor in his wanderings.
Whatever the reason, Vito could be seen wandering about in his wheelchair up and down the corridors throughout the day. And there are three things to note about Vito's wanderings:
First, he wandered very slowly. He was in no hurry, for he was not trying to get anywhere to do anything. The wandering was the be-all and the end-all of his labors.
Second, he wove continuously as he rode slowly down the hall, moving from one side of the hall to the other. It was as if he sought a type of thoroughness to his activities, vowing to cover as much ground as he could by means of this sinusoidal pattern. It would seem, in fact, as if he were searching for something under the tiles. But as this activity was meaningless beyond the need to move, it couldn't have been such a search.
Third, as his right hand feebly engaged the joystick, his left hand was in a sort of half-fist planted under his chin. In this way did Vito, whether in conscious or unconscious mimicry of Rodin's "The Thinker", take upon himself a look of the utmost profundity.
And so did Vito ply the long halls of the Institution over the course of each long day, day in and day out. And in doing so, he covered every square foot of every hall at least once each day, intuitively utilizing random statistical methods. Had there been a land mine buried beneath one of the square foot tiles in one of the halls, Vito would have found it (not to the enhancement of his own health, I would imagine.)
Because of this seeming randomness as well as the thoroughness of his wandering, I dubbed Vito 'Human Brownian Motion', after the name for random molecular movement.
Vito's slow random movements down the halls of the Institution did not in themselves bother other people. After all, this was his way of keeping himself occupied - and keeping oneself occupied was something that every resident had to face. No - the times his excruciatingly slow movements bothered people was when he was ahead of them in the hall, and they needed to pass him.
You see, those people were going somewhere, doing something! Their lives weren't aimless, unlike Vito's. They were leading purposeful existences! (However, if you were to ask me for the ways in which those others' lives were more purposeful than Vitale's, I would frankly be at a loss. The important thing, I guess, was that they thought their lives were more purposeful.)
So imagine their rage when, just when they were ready to pass Vito on the left in order to get to their Important Place, he would veer left in front of them, effectively cutting them off. Did they yell at him? Of course! "Move Vito! Get out of my way!" But did that change his behavior? Of course not! In fact, if anything he seemed to go even slower than he had been going before. It was as if he deliberately wanted to be, and enjoyed being, a thorn in people's sides.
After enduring a bit of this myself, I found that the best solution to the problem of getting past Vito was to say to him, "Coming around on the left!" - and that, when he veered left, quickly pass him on the right.
Did Vito know what he was doing in wandering the halls in this manner? That is, did he have consciousness of his surroundings? Did he, in fact, have self-consciousness?
There was always a big argument in the Institution about these things. “Does Vito really know what he's doing?” was a question frequently heard there.
2. It was always hard to get Vito into the lunch room. For one thing, it was often difficult to find him, as he was usually up one long corridor or down another.
At last, however, he would begin to make his way into the lunch room - at his own excruciatingly slow pace, of course. Yes, slow and seemingly random. (Why do I say 'seemingly'? Because, as I've explained before, no one knew for sure whether Vito's actions were premeditated or not.)
Anyway, Vito would enter the dining room and would begin wandering about (or was it exploring?) in all his maddening slowness. Vito was assigned to one particular round table about halfway into the dining hall; but he gave the impression that this table was absolutely the last thing on his mind.
And so he would wonder about, hither and thither, entering within the orbit of most of the tables in the room.
Eventually, various residents would see him meandering about. And what would they do? Why, they would tell him where to go of course! I found in my experience there, that people in wheelchairs loved telling other people in wheelchairs what to do and where to go. Apparently, that was one of the few types of situations in which they felt they had some power. And so they would yell, 'Your table is over there, Vito!', even going so far as to raise their palsied arms and feebly point in that general direction. And so did they mercilessly pester poor Vito.
But Vito would pointedly (or was it unpointedly?) ignore them, as he continued blithely on his meandering way. Indeed, he infuriated his fellow residents even more by acting as if his own table was absolutely the last place in the world to which he wanted to go.
And when after what seemed like an excruciatingly long time he did at length approach his own table, you could hear all the residents breathe an audible (since wheezing) sigh of relief. But these releases were cruelly dashed when, at the very last moment, Vito would veer away from the table and stray back off into the seemingly endless space of the dining hall.
In observing that, I surmised a second law of physics with regard to Vito, namely: that he and the table had the same charge, and thus repelled one another.
3. It was in the bingo incident that Vito came out of his shell.
One afternoon, the activities department ran a bingo game. After a few numbers were read, a hearty voice yelled out "bingo!" It was Vito, and he was congratulated. But when they checked his numbers, they found out he didn't really have bingo at all. The rules of the game were explained to him, and they commenced reading more numbers. After a bit, Vito yelled "bingo!" again. But once more they found out he did not really have bingo. This time, he was gently admonished, the rules were explained to him once again, and play was resumed. But after another couple of numbers were read, Vito yelled out "bingo!" again. Once again, he was found to have a false bingo. So at that point Vito was asked to leave the room.
Well! That was easier said than done! For Vito began what seemed like a very slow exit. And then just when he got near the door, he would behave exactly as he did in the lunch room: he would veer away from the exit and start coming back into the room. At the same time, every few seconds he would yell "bingo!" in great hearty tones. He was undermining and destroying the whole bingo game!
Finally someone from the activities department had to lead Vito out of the room, put him on the elevator, and take him up to the floor on which he lived. But that did not stop him: for the rest of the day and on into the evening, he could be heard yelling "bingo!" every few seconds. Indeed, it became his trademark. And so at random times in the days and weeks and even months after that, he could be heard yelling "bingo!" wherever he might be -- and that included the lunch table (not to the joy of his table mates, I assure you!)
One of the great ironies with regard to Vito yelling "bingo!" was the fact that he was one of the very few residents at the Institution who had lung power strong enough to carry his outbursts long distances. Another irony, of course, was that normally Vito did not speak at all.
The worry of an activities director in such an institution is that when they propose a game, the residents might not get into the spirit of the game the director was wanting them to play. But here, it could be said that the resident got into the spirit of bingo rather too much!
Vito, as I said, had an incredibly hardy - and unusual - "bingo!" If you listen to a normal 'bingo', the emphasis is placed on the first syllable. The pitch of the voice then drops a third or more to the second syllable. The word is also said relatively quickly with pert finality.
Vito, on the other hand, stretched out his "bingo!" as if it were something delicious that he didn't want to let go of. He would yell out and sustain the first syllable in his hearty voice, then explode the second syllable at the same pitch level or even perhaps a bit higher than the first. That second syllable would then gradually trail off, falling in pitch. It was the exact acoustical equivalent of a fine firework shot up into the night sky: the first syllable was the shot itself; the next was the explosion into a myriad of colors, which would then proceed to fall languidly to earth.
Vito had discovered something: that the word 'bingo' is, like his own name, an essentially Italian word (since it ends in a vowel.) And vowels are what sustain the tone.
Vito's "bingo!"s caused all sorts of reactions throughout the Institution. Of course there were some who thought it was funny--at least the first twenty times he yelled it. There were others who, concluding that he was simply seeking attention, pointedly ignored him. But the majority tried to get him to stop by severe admonishment ("Will you stop that? It's bothering everyone around you!") But none of these worked. Even cunning cajolery ("you're a better man than this!") turned out to be as utterly futile as any other method we tried.
Amazingly, though, there were residents there who were not aware of Vito's "bingo!"s booming down the corridors for several days after they began. One such woman exclaimed as she drove by me in the hall, "What jackass is yelling 'bingo!'?!"
4. The question still remains as to whether Vito knew what he was doing with all his shenanigans. Certainly there were plenty of residents at the Institution who thought and assumed that he didn't know what he was doing; otherwise, why would they try to tell him what to do so incessantly?
As for myself, I am convinced that Vito knew perfectly well what he was doing at any given moment. When, on his meanderings down the hall, he would pull in front of you at the very moment you were trying to pass him -- that seemed very deliberate to me. When, in the dining room, he would go everywhere but to his own table, that too seemed contrived. In fact, in both those types of situations I thought I could detect a subtle mischievous gleam in his eye!
And when he was yelling "bingo!", I would claim that, there too, he knew what he was doing. For I once rode by him just after he had yelled one of his "bingo!"s and admonishments were raining down on him; and as I passed him, I heard him mutter in a low growl under his breath, "They'll never stop me from yelling 'bingo!'!"
I think Vito was possessed of a very human desire: to be noticed. To be talked about. (Oscar Wilde: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.") To be paid attention to. And that he got (and assumedly still gets) in spades. He clearly didn't care what people were saying about him; rather, he cared that people were paying attention to him.
In fact, I would like to suggest that Vito was one to be envied. For, in his wanderings he inserted purpose into his life. And, thanks to his "bingo!"s, in a perverse way he was noticed and recognized by all around him. Who could ask for anything more?
(15 December 2007)
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