Breakfast. Leon, who never drinks milk, pours water on his cold cereal and dilutes his coffee at least fifty per cent with water. His breakfasts always look singularly unappealing.
11:45 a.m. Lunch over, Joseph wends his way slowly out of the dining room. Leon is right behind him. Patients line the walls of the corridors and sit outside in the sun. Joseph, like a town crier, calls out rhythmically as he passes the others: “Well, everything’s all right! For the British! I’ve saved the world!” He raises both arms high above his head and clasps his hands in the victory salute of a prize-fighter. “I’m God!” “Everything’s all right for the British!” No one pays the slightest attention to him.
4:00 p.m. On his way to the dining room, Joseph picks up magazines from the rack and tosses them out the window.
6:00 p.m. The three men are at a dance held for the patients. Earlier, Leon had announced that he was not planning to go. But when the time arrived, he went first to the washroom to comb his hair and then to the recreation room where the dance was held. Although he sits near the dance area, he spends his time looking at a magazine or discussing fossils, religion, and cosmic phenomena with one of the observers. Joseph sits nearby, staring at the dancing couples. Clyde, who had combed his hair and begun singing before the dance got under way, is the first on the dance floor; he goes over to a young girl and asks her to dance. He dances most of the numbers, including the Pennsylvania and Beer Barrel polkas.
Supper. A young female patient, rather seductive in appearance, joins the three men at the table. Joseph tells her she would make a good wife, but that he wouldn’t touch anything unless it were his own. She asks him if he has ever been to Mexico, and he replies that he is the mayor of Mexico. Suddenly she turns to Leon and asks him if he would like to go outside and make love. “I don’t believe in such, sir—or madam,” Leon replies, and pulling his chair away turns his back on her.
11:00 a.m. The men are at work in the laundry room. Clyde leaps on an empty laundry truck and, using the rails as parallel bars, vaults to the top of the truck. He drops down and looks around at those watching him, saying with a huge toothless grin: “How’s that for a man over seventy?” With a little encouragement he repeats the performance.
3:30 p.m. Daily meeting. Leon reads Requiescat, by Matthew Arnold, from a book of poems Joseph brought to the meeting. He interprets it as referring to death, the body covered by the falling rose petals of the funeral flowers. He then reads O Captain, My Captain, by Walt Whitman, which he finds “exhilarating” and sees as the story of a son taking the place of his father. Then a poem by Robert Browning, which he interprets as involving adventure, desire, and not attaining one’s desire. “I wonder if he’s a bachelor?” Leon asks. “No,” says Joseph, “he married Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Leon comments that he thought Browning was a bachelor because he didn’t get what he wanted. He then reads Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat, which he interprets as an example of “cosmic eye fertilization,” the offspring being a marmoset.
Joseph then reads from The Insolent Chariots, an attack on the automobile industry. Joseph sees it as an advertisement for cars. Leon prophesies that automobile manufacturers will finally be forced to obey the Ten Commandments because more and more people are traveling by translocation—he prefers traveling with the speed of light, breaking through the cosmic barrier. Joseph says translocation would be too expensive.
2:00 p.m. Waiting for elevator to return to the laundry, Leon asks another patient: “What time d’you have?” “Two, Rex.” “Thank you, sir—it’s TIME TO SHAKE OFF.” His voice has the ring of a World War II fighter pilot preparing to peel off from formation to dive-bomb a battleship.
Breakfast. Clyde sits down at the table and, upon seeing a patient he had scuffled with a couple of days earlier, becomes highly agitated: “He’s got no business here! I’ll fight him! This is a private table!” Joseph seats himself, saying: “Well, here I am again.” Leon brings his tray to the table, crosses himself, and sits down. As they eat, Leon salutes every employee, male and female, who passes by.
1:40 p.m. A messenger comes with a note addressed to Leon Gabor, announcing that his mother is here for a visit. Leon hands the note back, saying that his name is not Leon Gabor, that the woman is not his mother, that he does not want to see her, and that she is not to come again.
A research assistant goes to talk to Leon’s mother. She is wearing a long black dress, and carries a huge black purse crammed with rosary beads, crucifixes, and religious pictures. She speaks with an accent and throughout the interview weeps and fingers her beads. All she wants, she says, is to talk to Leon and find out why he is angry with her. When asked what Leon was like before he became sick, she says that he “burned up everything, pictures, paper”; that he took down all the crucifixes, all the religious pictures; that he broke the statues of Jesus and threw them in the garbage can; and that he did all this on Good Friday while she was at church. She goes on to say she was afraid of him because he had choked the pigeons, the nice white pigeons; he had broken the necks of all the white birds and had left the others alone. (Apparently there had been a pigeon colony on the roof of the building, although it is not clear who kept the colony.) She goes on to describe Leon before he went into the army, and to tell how much he had changed when he returned. She gives the impression of a defeated woman approaching the end of life, who realizes that all she has valued most highly has turned out badly, but who has not the faintest idea why. Least of all does she show any awareness of the part she herself played in her own bitter defeat. She repeats over and over that she is alone now, that she has lost both her grown sons and that she has no place in their lives. “Why it has turned out this way?” she cries brokenly. “Why is Leon mad at me? What have I done?”
3:10 p.m. The three men, along with several others, have finished their work in the laundry room and are ambling back to their ward in D building. Leon’s mother is leaving the hospital grounds and walks wearily toward the moving cluster of men. As they approach, she sees her son. Her anguished expression suddenly changes to one of happy anticipation: he has changed his mind and is now coming to greet her. As Leon comes nearer, the two are, for a moment, face to face. But Leon, as if unseeing, passes her by. Her smile disappears; she utters a prolonged wail. The research assistant tries to console her, but to no avail. Leon reaches the entrance to D building, looks back fleetingly, and quickly goes in.
6:00 p.m. Today is Saturday. Clyde keeps looking at the clock. “I thought the folks was going to come by now,” he says. “I guess they’re not going to come.” Joseph rounds up Clyde and Leon for a group discussion.
11:47 a.m. Leon overhears two aides discussing paranoid schizophrenia. One says that it is a reaction to homosexuality and, furthermore, that everyone has some degree of paranoia. As soon as they leave, Leon says to me: “I disagree, sir. There are people who aren’t insane, and I’m one of them. People who generalize are mentally ill.”
7:00 p.m. Joseph, Clyde, and Leon are seated in their usual places in the recreation room. Characteristic of each is the way they stare. Joseph stares vacantly, as if daydreaming, or bored. Clyde appears to be looking around at something he sees, either real or fancied. Leon looks straight ahead with an expression of intense concentration and asceticism, much like a holy man in deep meditation.
Supper. A woman patient comes over to Leon to get a light from his cigarette. She holds his hand to steady it. “Please, madam, no suggestive touching with the hand.” “I’m sorry,” she replies, “I didn’t intend anything.”
Group meeting. Joseph puts a book out on the window sill “to give it some air.” This, he says, will make the book healthier for him to read. Leon reads aloud from an article in the Reader’s Digest about voting to select a national flower. Leon votes for dandelions, Joseph and Clyde vote for grass.
Group meeting. Leon describes an amusing episode involving himself and a former girl friend. He had known the girl only a few weeks. A married couple were in the fr
ont seat of the car, and Leon and his girl were in the back. “I had the sensation of cosmic infusion directed toward me,” Leon said, “and I knew definitely it was female and that that part-Belgian girl could sure pour it on because I grabbed hold of her and kissed her so tight that her bridge cracked. She told me about it later on. She told me: ‘Don’t do that; it cost me seventy dollars to have my teeth fixed.’ And I thought to myself: ‘You started it,’ and I gave her another one.”
It is now over two months since Leon’s mother made her unhappy visit. Leon mentions the incident in a letter addressed to “Respected Sirs; and Madam,” which reads: “In September the Old Witch visited me, and the first thing I sensed as I came into her vision was duping pressure and her facial color was turning from yellow to green, and her-and-other-persons duping aroused me and I raised my voice and told her ‘Madam, I do not care for your ideal (negative), I told you prior to this visit to get out, and stay out, you are an Old Witch.’ That attendant tried to deny this, and I got angrier at the evil ideal and I firmly indicated gradually with the back of my arm as I told him to ‘keep out of my personal life, he does not know my past experience’ (with her sentimental duping ideal), and he shielded her, whereas I had no intention whatsoever of doing her physical harm, as I repeated my positive idealed verbal statements, he behind me and pushing me marched me toward the ward—as I said ‘let me explain’—but he didn’t, so I am explaining now, and before I entered I thanked her for her visit; but did not agree to the duping ideal from her and those others, arousing me such. I now realize my eyes were held (at that time), and because of my anger against the evil ideal of duping I did not see the Court Correction Acknowledgment against the dupe name, and I did not refuse that Correction Acknowledgment, I refused the evil idealed intentioned attachment it was tried to be presented with.”
Thanksgiving Day. Joseph submits a written report on the group meeting.
Meeting began at 5:00 p.m., and ended at 5:45 p.m.
Discussion: On a poem by Edgar A. Guest, titled: A Thanksgiving Prayer! It is a prose poem however.
It is a thankfulness for the blessings one gets out of life! For one’s health; for one’s strength! for burdening the supportings of Day! for one’s prosperity, for glad experiences; for gratitudes from others; from services rendered; for endless others.
We’ve also discussed our Thanksgiving Day dinner! We’ve enjoyed our Turkey dinner: It consisted of Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, giblets-gravy—of bread, fritter, pumpkin pie, not to forget cranberries in the meat place rather plate and of course coffee—real coffee. There was also dressing. It was a very enjoyable dinner.
December 14. Leon tells us that he had a birthday yesterday. His only celebration, he remarks, was to say “Happy Birthday” to himself in the mirror. Then he adds: “December 25 is not the date of Jesus’ birth. This date was set for business reasons. December 25 is business Christmas.”
Mid-morning. The ward psychiatrist calls Leon into his office to inform him that his mother has just passed away. “I have no mother,” Leon responds. “She disowned me a long time ago, and I have disowned her.” He goes on to say that he didn’t hate her, he just hated the “evil ideal” for which she stood and may her remains rest in peace and her works follow after her. He shows no visible reaction to the news. Asked if he thought it was appropriate for us to tell him of it, he says: “If you mean by that, sir, do I want to go to her funeral, the answer is no.” Asked if he felt unhappy about his mother’s death, he replies: “No, sir, why should I feel bad? She wasn’t my mother.” Asked if he would like to take the rest of the day off from work, he replies: “No, why should I?” And he continues, without emotion, to say that he would rather go back to work in the laundry.
Early evening. Joseph informs Leon and Clyde it is time for the group meeting. Leon, seeing a research assistant, approaches him and says: “Sir, I have been misinformed again.” When asked what it was he had been misinformed about, he states he had been informed that Joseph had passed away. Who had informed him of this? Clyde. During the group meeting Leon insists, in Joseph’s presence, that Joseph has died, and that the body attending the meeting is a living body, which is not Joseph, although it is in the same shape as Joseph. He states further that Joseph’s reincarnation is not a true reincarnation such as that of Jesus Christ, but some kind of Frankenstein monster. Joseph, on hearing this, laughs loudly and says: “Well, there are some people who wished I had passed away, but I have not passed away.” Leon, asked if he isn’t getting two different people confused, denies this. In contrast to his outer calm earlier in the day upon hearing of his mother’s death, he is now obviously anguished. He seems to have aged ten years since this morning.
Two days later, Leon is interviewed alone to ascertain in more detail his attitude toward his mother’s death. He expresses much the same attitudes as those already elicited, but adds that he feels sorry for her if she didn’t repent before she died. “Considering her attitude, I sincerely believe she didn’t repent.” While he is speaking he gazes intently at the palms of his hands, not once looking up. When asked about this he says: “It’s advisable to have them in view. I know what I’m doing with them.”
Leon reports that he heard a resident psychiatrist and a nurse discussing an article on schizophrenia which showed that a certain drug treatment had been a failure. “My analysis,” Leon goes on, “is that you build up the body first and then use positive suggestion. You can only put so much in a test tube. The rest has to be done through the ego. Those particular physicians that get it into their heads that a drug can erase an emotional factor, I got news for them. The ego is above all vibrations.”
Joseph agrees. “You can’t put your mind in a test tube.”
—Do you mean a man can recover from schizophrenia by improving his ego?—
“You need a combination of therapy,” Leon answers. “Some cases need more or less of physical, mental, or spiritual.”
I ask them if they think they need psychological therapy.
“No, I just need a dismissal,” Joseph replies.
“When all the imposition is shaken off,” says Leon, “I’ll be myself as I’m supposed to be.”
Group meeting. Joseph brings a Mother Goose book and remarks that it might be of interest to Leon. Leon leafs through it and says: “I’ll read the one about Humpty Dumpty.” After he reads it: “Now, there’s some worthwhile psychology. The truth in it is the fact that an egg can break.”
Group meeting. I suggest that their meeting room needs some furnishings, and offer to allot some money so that we can all go over to Ann Arbor to shop. Joseph remarks that he doesn’t care for pictures, that the room as it is is reminiscent of England, spick and span cleanliness. “You start putting pictures on the wall,” he adds, “and everybody will come over here to look at them, and there’ll be somebody in here all the time.” Leon agrees.
The meeting room has a very small table and I replace it with a larger, more attractive table. Leon complains that this table has “greater polarity” than the other one. He examines it very carefully, bending down to look underneath. He finds cobwebs. “You’d be surprised how much cosmics cobwebs give off,” he says. He cleans the table very carefully, then claims that the polarity has diminished.
I remark that I can’t tell for sure whether Leon wants the table or not. He suggests they vote on it. Joseph says he wants it, and so does Clyde.
“I’m outvoted, sir,” Leon says, very, very cheerfully. “The table stays.”
Late at night. All fifteen patients in the dorm are in their beds, but there is a great deal of restlessness because one of the patients is snoring loudly. Finally one of the patients, exasperated, yells: “Jesus Christ! Quit that snoring.” Whereupon Clyde, rearing up in his bed, replies: “That wasn’t me who was snoring. It was him!”
Joseph goes to the Social Service Department. “Can I help you?” the secretary inquires. Joseph answers: “Yes, I am God. I’ve come to see about a release from the
hospital.”
Leon is in the dayroom, watching TV. When asked if he enjoys Western movies, he replies: “Yes, I enjoy them very much. They all have a plot and in the end the good or righteous people always win out.”
Breakfast. Clyde comes back to the kitchen to get three more pieces of toast, to make a total of nine pieces. He’s been doing this for some time now. It must be nine and no less.
Joseph seems apprehensive about the impending departure of the research assistants. He says to one: “So pretty soon you won’t be here anymore. I’m going to miss you. I imagine after a while that the group meetings will stop too, huh?” When asked why he thinks this, Joseph replies: “Oh, I don’t know. Before this they only used to meet once in awhile, maybe every year or so, and then they’d go away.”
The research assistants leave today, to be replaced by a new assistant. It is evening and time to say goodbye. Clyde is sitting on his bed, chortling gleefully. The assistant on duty decides against interrupting Clyde’s euphoria. He goes to Leon, who is in the recreation room, to bid him goodbye. Leon leaps up with a broad friendly grin, gives the assistant a firm handshake, saying: “I enjoyed knowing you. Yes, sir, pertaining to the conversations—it’s been interesting.” He declines the invitation to write, explaining that if anything important comes up the assistant will get a copy by “dove” mail. Joseph, too, says he’ll miss the assistant, but doesn’t get up from his chair as he bids him goodbye. He lacks Leon’s forceful firmness, and seems somewhat uncomfortable in contrast to Leon’s composure and savoir-faire.
Meeting. The three men are introduced to Miss Miller, one of the Friend’s volunteer workers who is here for the summer. The talk is mostly between Miss Miller and Joseph and centers on literature. Joseph reads from Whitman and seems to be enjoying her company. He is unusually relaxed. Miss Miller suggests that she and Joseph meet tomorrow to read in the park. They meet for several days and read literature and poetry to each other.
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti Page 12
