The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [10]
—Joseph, why do you think we are all here together?—
“Well, it’s just a matter to assemble and a discussion about my being God, and then to laugh it off, to laugh the opposition off.”
—Is that why you think you were brought together?—
“This is a hospital,” Joseph answered. “This is a visiting strong-hold, and it’s for the purpose of what I just said, that I’m God and the opposition is being laughed off.”
—Clyde, why do you think you were brought here together?—
After mumbling about ranches, kingdoms, riches, Clyde answered: “I own the hospital—the whole thing.”
Meanwhile, Leon had been holding his head as if in pain. —Do you have a headache, Rex?—
“No, I don’t, sir, I was ‘shaking it off,’ sir. Cosmic energy, refreshing my brain. When I grab cosmic energy from the bottom of my feet to my brain, it refreshes my brain. The doctor told me that’s the way I’m feeling, and that is the proper attitude. Oh! Pertaining to the question that you asked these two gentlemen, each one is a little institution and a house—a little world in which some stand in a clockwise direction and some in a counterclockwise, and I believe in a clockwise rotation.”
—Do you all believe in the same things or in different things?—
“I stated my belief, sir, and we all disagreed accordingly.”
The discussion then turned to the question of resurrection. It was pointed out that they all believe they had been resurrected. How many Christs had been resurrected?
“Only one. Just myself,” Joseph said.
—Are we all in agreement that there was just one Christ who was resurrected?—
“By God Almighty, that is correct,” Leon answered.
“I’m one—not you,” said Clyde. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” Leon said. “My birth certificate says so; my habeas corpus says so.”
—Is it possible that there is more than one reincarnation of Jesus Christ?—
“There is only one that I know of,” Leon stated, “and I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I was baptized as such, sir, and I have my baptismic certificate, sir, and it’s also in Dr. Yoder’s office if you care to look at it. I believe the others are instrumental gods, the hollowed-out person who became a Jesus Christ through being hollowed out as such.”
“He is a rerise, he is a hick,” Clyde said. “He is next to me.”
“I do not approve of duping to get prestige or material or popular gains in all directions,” Leon went on, “and it is also possible that some instrumental false ideas and false instrumental gods got struck dead by my uncle, or they will kill through heart attacks or through duping.”
“No!” Clyde said. “There is no false one in my body that has been raised. I got the spirit, the head.”
“Here I am now and if there are any oppositions the only thing I can say is that I’m going to laugh it off,” Joseph put in.
“Joseph, I want to give you some information,” Leon said. “The fourth of July is coming, Joseph, and there will be a big fireworks, and there’s going to be a lot of dung carried out of this place. It’s a lot of bodies—disfigured bodies—that are going to be carried out of this place.”
“Well, I’m going to get out of here,” Joseph said. “I’m going to be dismissed from here and go back to England, and I’ll be awfully glad, because I know I belong to England. I’m from England originally. I want to go back there. I’ve done enough work here. I came here the twentieth of March, 1940, and now it’s 1959. I’ve been here nineteen years. I certainly deserve to be dismissed from this here hospital. I want to go back to England. You can deport me to England to a hospital. They have a hospital in London, don’t they? I worked for England right along. Darn right!”
And Leon added: “I do not care to discuss any further on the merits that, pertaining to personality, I have cited my side of the story and I do not care to repeat and repeat, but pertaining to truth it pays to repeat. You are a dupe person against me.”
—Nobody is against you.—
“Sir, the indirect psychology—with that I agree,” Leon