I said to myself: When I get to Baldpate, I shall meet a new group of people: doctors, nurses, attendants, male and female patients. I know that I shall encounter things that may upset me. I shall remain calm. I shall cooperate. I shall make no attempt to escape. I shall prove that I have made a complete recovery.
CHAPTER TEN
(photograph credit 10.1)
Baldpate was a small private sanitarium located in Georgetown, Massachusetts, about two hours’ drive from Westborough. Once a popular inn, the main building—a Victorian clapboard with gables and porches—sat on a small hill, overlooking a lake and farmland. At the time of my father’s arrival, the sanitarium had only recently been established under the guidance of a gentle Austrian psychiatrist named Dr. George Schlomer. (Dr. Schlomer became a favorite doctor of the poet Robert Lowell, who stayed here in the 1960s.) Baldpate was known as one of the more progressive institutions in Massachusetts. Dr. Schlomer believed that patients should be given their freedom within hospital grounds, and patients were allowed to go to the lake and even into the nearby town, as long as they obtained permission. In order to stay there, my father was required to prove he was peaceful enough to enjoy Baldpate’s many privileges. The understanding was that if he became too disturbed or violent, he would be moved elsewhere.
The day of his arrival, a psychiatrist named Dr. Buck Rose came out to welcome my father. Dr. Rose had treated my father in the past and knew his case well. He wrote the following notes in the Baldpate records:
Baldpate Hospital, 1944
On admission, Dr. Baird seemed tense and somewhat restless being anxious to talk but in particular reference to his experiences at the State Hospital during the past 95 days. During his time at Westborough, he was threatening, restive and extremely destructive, destroying several iron hospital beds and various other parts of the hospital structure. Four months later, however, he seemed much quieter. He was admitted to room 19 where he was served his supper. After supper he fitted in well with the routine of the hospital and entered in social activities at the house.
When seen this morning he stated that he had a comfortable night without medication and has an entirely different feeling about life. He is confident that we will find him completely normal and will be willing to discharge him soon. He states that he wishes to cooperate in every way and promises repeatedly that we will not be sorry that we have taken him and that he will cause no trouble.
I have personally known this man, both as a friend and as a fellow physician, for eight to ten years and it has fallen to my lot to have seen him in several of his psychiatric episodes. On several occasions I saw him at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and on one occasion at the McLean Hospital. It is of interest to me that I saw him in December at the Harvard Club and anticipated at that time a manic break, warned him of it, and suggested that he see his private psychiatrist, Dr. Fleming. As I talked with him today, I am impressed with two things:
1. He is not as depressed as I had expected.
2. He is suggestively hypo-manic and is a little flighty in his conversation and manner.
Knowing the patient, I wonder if he is not in a period in which he is able to control himself at times, but distinctly not well. I do not anticipate any serious trouble however.
AFTER being greeted by Dr. Rose and unpacking, I sat by the window for a while, and then walked around to see the grounds and to enjoy the feeling of having a little greater freedom. At about 4:30 p.m. I was sitting in a chair beneath a tall, majestic tree. As I looked down through the woods, I saw a section of Baldpate Lake glistening in the afternoon sun. I heard footsteps on the grass and stood up as a doctor came forward and introduced me to the hostess; young, blond and attractive. He left us together and we talked and walked along. Suddenly she had the inspiration to drive me into Georgetown so that we could pick up her Victrola and records for dancing that evening. The doctor gave his permission for me to go along. The trip was not a long one but it breathed of added freedom. The blood coursed more gladly in my veins.
We returned to the hospital and played some records. I met a great many patients. They must have been about twenty-two in the main building, another group of ten or twelve confined to the more active unit.
Soon after my arrival an attractive, blond youngster came up to me.
“You are our guest,” she said. “We are happy to have you here.”
That first night, I had supper alone in my room. The rest of the patients ate in the main dining room. In the course of the evening, a very Jewish Dr. Cohen came to my room where he took a brief history, asked several apparently irrelevant questions about dermatologists around Boston, examined my many scars and carried out a cursory physical examination. After he had finished his investigations, he looked at me.
“You are as completely normal as anyone I’ve ever met,” he said. He paused before adding: “But your record is bad.”
Dr. Cohen went on his way. I stayed in my room a little while and then joined the other patients for dancing. The first evening passed on by with faint memories of dancing, pool, and bridge. I remember leading a group of youngsters in a few songs. Though I was entirely inexperienced at this sort of thing, I got through the job fairly well. I danced with several of the women patients and had a good time.
I shall never forget any of the patients I met that night, though I do not recall their names: a very attractive woman from Houston, Texas; a girl of twenty-one from Texas; two physicians; Harry, of M.I.T., mustache, athletic, highly intelligent; several elderly women; Emma; a young woman divorced, from France; Betty Winn.
At 10 p.m. we all went to bed. A nurse knocked at my room and asked me whether I needed sedatives or hot milk for sleep. I had no such need. I slept well.
The attractive youngster who had greeted me upon my arrival came to me the next day.
“You were wonderful last night, Doctor,” she said. “You are a great man.”
FOR the next ten days, life was easier for me. There was more diversion and more recreation, more freedom. Here and there were flower gardens, hedges, a tennis court, a barn converted into a recreation and occupational therapy unit, an old-fashioned swing and facilities for croquet. I enjoyed the almost daily trips to the auditorium. Several times there was bowling, participated in by several mixed teams selected from both male and female wards. Trips to the canteen—to buy candy, ice cream, Coca Cola, cigarettes and newspapers—provided brief periods of relaxation.
Having been schooled at Westborough to rise every morning at 5:30 a.m., I awoke automatically at this hour, or earlier. The other patients were not usually awake until 7:30 a.m. I made a special effort to be quiet, sometimes stayed in my room and read, or walked around the grounds. There was an attractive divorcee who sometimes woke early and joined me in my early walks. The very first morning, she took me to the basement and showed me a mother cat and her kittens.
Each morning, except Sunday, was spent in the occupational therapy unit, a remodeled part of the barn. Here were available the usual activities: weaving, sewing, carpentry, etc. There was a piano and a book of sheet music very familiar to me: Piano Pieces the Whole World Plays. The occupational therapist was blond and middle-aged—a high-strung and quick-tempered but attractive woman. We played the piano in duet a great many times.
One morning, I was sitting at the piano alone, thumbing through the pages and playing all the easy pieces as I came to them. Perhaps a little thoughtlessly, I came upon “Home Sweet Home” and played it. The Houston, Texas woman, of whom I was very fond, raised her voice in protest.
“Don’t you know better than to play pieces like that when you are in the presence of people who are depressed?” she asked.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “The comment which you just made interests me a great deal. I’d like to talk to you about it sometime.”
“You’re only a dermatologist!” she retorted, sarcastically.
I made no reply to this, but went on playing a few pieces and then quietly slipped
out the door, wandering over to the main building. I wanted to be alone. I walked into the large front room where the patients played pool and ping-pong and danced.
I stood there for a few minutes, and then into the room walked the attractive Houston woman who had made the cutting remark about my being “only a dermatologist.” Apparently she had followed me over.
“Do you want to play some ping-pong?” she asked.
“Surely,” I replied.
We played for a half hour or so and then several of us went swimming.
ONE beautiful morning a large crowd of us went to the lake to have lunch there and spend the afternoon. It had been implied to me that I would be expected to read a new book, The White Cliffs of Dover.
Soon after we had finished a lunch of hot dogs and coffee, we all sat down beneath some shade trees and the therapist in charge handed me that lovely book, The White Cliffs of Dover.
“We’d like to have you read this to us,” she said.
I took the book.
“If anybody would like to do the reading in my place,” I said, “I’d be delighted to arrange it.”
“I’m making all the arrangements around here,” said the therapist, that quick-tempered, blond woman. Most of the patients stayed around to hear the reading, but some strolled down to the lake beach to bask in the sunshine. After the reading of this story of the glory of England there were a few compliments and in the next two or three hours others drifted in.
I sat talking with the therapist and two or three patients at the ledge above the road going down to the beach. We talked about St. Francis. I spoke of how he gave up all his worldly goods. The therapist raised her voice in disagreement with so insane a gesture.
“Whether you agree with his teaching or not, here was a man of courage,” I pointed out. “Can you imagine having the spiritual fortitude to do as he did? He tried an experiment: he tried to follow exactly the teachings of Christ and he followed them as best he could, living out the full length of his life by his teachings.”
A pause in the conversation followed, I arose and wandered down to the beach and went into the water, swimming around. Miss Emma was out in a rowboat, having trouble. I swam over and caught hold of her boat, towed her back to the shore.
“Lady in distress!” I cried.
Emma and I reached the opposite shore. She played around in the water.
“Let’s go into the woods,” she said. “I’m curious about you.”
Emma was not good-looking, but she did have an alluring figure.
“You go into the woods at this point,” I replied. “I’ll swim down a little ways and go in there. I’ll find you later.”
I swam down the lake. Emma obligingly followed. I walked into the woods. Emma followed me. I lay down in the grass. Emma lay near me. I couldn’t make love to her. She was a patient at Baldpate. She wasn’t good-looking. She wasn’t alluring.
Emma and I left the woods after a short stay and swam back across the lake. The afternoon grew long. In a lengthy, bedraggled line, in twos and threes, we wandered back along the road. Dr. Rose passed in his car. He didn’t offer to pick us up.
After my walk in the woods with Emma, I made some joking remarks about the episode in the course of dining room conversation. Everyone had seen us go into the woods. It seemed wise to make light of the venture.
Someone said that therapist was going to give up her job.
POOL balls.
Piano playing.
Bridge game.
A bridge game: “I sometimes think that guessing is tantamount to actually knowing what is in the partner’s hand.”
Bridge game: “Let’s come out of this trance.” A grand slam in no trumps, we could have bid.
An epileptic fit, Jackson man, clonic. Patients herded outside together. Led back to the pool and ping-pong room.
Trip to beach. A flirtation. French girl lies on beach and image is carved. Too much sunshine. I am deeply burned. Landing barges float around. I think about the invasion and talk it over with another patient.
Golden safety pin.
The Russians.
Back home.
Baldpate.
A morning of occupational therapy, peaceful, a swim.
An afternoon nap, the usual.
The movies. Lady in the Dark. Tears.
A dog at the corner (Maya’s memory).
Lady in the Dark: so many parallels, the song she whistled, the childhood memory, courtroom, caged black beauty, the Christian girl, small and childish, gilded horse, so many parallels.
Dog at the corner.
The men weigh, standing with their backs to the scales, odor of paraldehyde.
We talk til late.
How to treat a depression.
“Kick in tail.”
“Sexual stimulation.”
“Dr. Schlomer would agree.” How to instruct youngsters about sex til 3 a.m.
“Don’t talk about your symptoms.”
I leave the tennis game without comment, go and take my bath.
(The drip, drip, drip and drop, drop, drop, all night, Saturday).
(Homophiliac complex!)
Harry excited, why?
Dinnertime I am quiet.
After dinner.
Bridge.
Early a.m. After breakfast, walk to edge of estate and back.
Betty: “I’m only to trying to save your life.” Night before.
Mrs. Houston.
ON my second Sunday at Baldpate, nine days after my arrival, I was sitting on the lawn with several patients. It was late in the morning. A patient walked up and said something to me. This remark led me to get up and go to my room on some errand. As I walked along the driveway, I saw Vivian Tillotson and her little daughter, getting out of their car. Vivian was the wife of my friend, the psychiatrist Dr. Kenneth Tillotson, who had presided over my care at McLean hospital. I walked up to her.
“Hello, Vivian,” I said.
“Hello, Perry,” she replied as she came forward. “Kenneth came out here on consultation and we drove out with him. We thought that we would just wander around the place.”
“I have to go inside for a few minutes but I’ll join you later if I may.”
I went inside and attended to some minor matter in my room. I must have been standing at the wall mirror combing my hair when Dr. Kenneth Tillotson came down the corridor following one of the Baldpate doctors. The door was opened and I could see him clearly as he walked along. He looked serious, nervous and tense, perhaps because of the consultation he had ahead of him. When he looked at me, he did not smile.
“Hello, Kenneth,” I said.
“Oh hello, Perry,” came Kenneth’s reply. He walked on hurriedly, not stopping to shake hands.
“I hope I’ll have a chance to see you later before you go.”
He disappeared out the back door.
Outside, I found Vivian and her little daughter and we sat in some chairs beneath a tall tree looking toward the lake. We talked about minor subjects as they rippled into our rather light conversation. After a while we went out back and sat in the swing. The Tillotson child sang some new songs that had become popular, such as “Don’t Sweetheart Me.”
Kenneth came up and greeted me in a friendly way.
“May I talk with you for just a minute or two?” I asked.
“Surely, Perry,” he replied. “Take more time than that.”
We moved away from his wife and daughter and sat on the grass beneath a tree. I told him about some of the experiences that led up to my attack. I expressed appreciation for some of the features of his previous care of my case, complimented him upon his advice about getting an adequate sexual outlet, a subject neglected by other psychiatrists.
“If I have ever said anything about you that may have been a source of misunderstanding between us,” I said, “please give me a chance to explain before you bear judgment against me.”
Kenneth rose suddenly. After a friendly farewell between us all, he dep
arted with his family.
“Don’t be in any hurry to leave here,” Vivian said.
“Come along Vivian,” Kenneth interjected. He spoke a little sharply, as if to imply, “Perry needs to get back to a normal life.” If Kenneth meant this, he was quite correct, because a return to the normal walks of life would have saved me calamities and many months of suffering.
As they drove away, I went in to dinner. There was only one seat left and this was next to Emma. An especially good steak meal was being served.
“We are very glad to have you here,” said an elderly woman on my right.
ONE morning, I was sitting in front of the cottage with four or five women patients; included were Emma, the Houston woman, the French woman, and Betty Winn. It was a beautiful spring day with the sun shining down with a beautiful flood of sunbeams.
“Dr. Baird, we are sun worshippers too,” the Houston woman said to me.
Dr. Cohen came along and went inside with one of the women patients. He came out after about twenty minutes.
“It’s warm in there,” he said to us.
It was a warm day inside and out. What did he mean? The statement didn’t really make much sense.
As we all sat there talking, all the women were acting a little strangely. Each of them was playing with her jewelry as she talked and there seemed to be some definite association between the type of comment and some gesture such as rotating a ring or adjusting a bracelet. Here they may have been trying to teach me a sign language, or it may have just meant nothing.
ONE night dancing, I was with the hostess. The pool table was empty of balls. Harry and the young Texas girl were dancing on one side of the table. Three balls appeared: red, green and blue. The pool balls had been laid out and were in some special order. I forget the details. Mr. Denis sat on the pool table, swinging one leg. The man with the hearing aid was sitting facing the corner of table next to Mr. Denis. He had some old magazines, including an ancient copy of The New Yorker. There was an illustration: a vast estate; a marble staircase; a wealthy man, fat and sad, sitting at the bottom; a vast green lawn; a lawn mower. Mr. Denis began shifting the blue, green and red balls around, in a peculiar suggestive manner. I tried very hard to figure out the meaning of this peculiar puzzle. Could the green pool ball mean the wealthy class, the blue ball the aristocrats and the red ball, communistic? I didn’t know. My imagination ran wild.
He Wanted the Moon Page 8
