The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy

“That doesn’t change the past,” she answered. “What do you do about the past? Why hasn’t it harmed you like it’s harmed me?” “I don’t think about it, Savannah,” I said. “I pretend it never happened.” “It’s over, sweetheart. We survived it. Anyway, we’re adults now and we’ve got the rest of our lives to think about,” Luke added. “Until I figure out the past, I can’t bear to think about the rest of my life. It fucked me up, Luke and Tom. I see things. I hear things. All the time. I don’t just write that in the poems. I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist ever since I came to New York.” “What kind of things do you see and hear?” I asked. “I’ll tell you before you go back. I promise I will. I don’t want to tell you now.” “It’s from eating this kind of shit,” Luke said, directing his scorn for the city toward the wilting croissant. “Your constitution just isn’t used to it. I had diarrhea the whole time I was in Vietnam from eating all that gook food.” “Please shut up, Luke,” I said. “She’s talking about mental illness, not diarrhea.” “How do you know mental illness is not some kind of diarrhea of the brain, big man? Something goes haywire and the body has a thousand different ways of letting you know something’s wrong. The body’s got integrity and you’ve got to listen to it.”