The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [31]
August 4, at the group meeting
Leon and Joseph had been quarreling. Joseph said: “I don’t want to be insane like you.”
Leon, highly agitated, countered: “My uncle’s ball of lightning is going to put an end to your warped psychology. You’re on his dung list.”
“Pure insanity, that’s what it is!” Joseph exclaimed.
“Do you remember you flushed a towel down the toilet and I reprimanded you?” Leon asked. “Now that toilet is stopped up, and it’s inconsiderate of other men who might want to go to the toilet.”
“I can’t see it,” Joseph said.
“Why do you throw books out the window?” Leon asked. “Why did you tear down the notice of church services? Because you didn’t want other people to read it? The Ten Commandments say, Do not steal. You’re for stealing, cheating, falsehood.”
“Crazy! Crazy stuff!” Joseph yelled.
As this incident demonstrates, Joseph and Leon each paid attention to what the other was doing, and expressed their awareness openly. Such behavior, representing as it does an enlargement of the sphere of involvement with others, is uncommon in paranoid schizophrenics, who are generally concerned only with themselves. In the very process of defending their delusional systems against attack, these two men became realistically oriented toward each other in order to obtain information to use as weapons of attack and defense.
Outbreaks of Violence
The first show of physical violence took place three weeks after the initial encounter. At the time, the three men had been having a discussion about the pre-Christian era.
July 22, group meeting
“Adam was a colored man,” Leon said, “because his body was taken from the rich brown mud. Did you know that? Woman Eve was a mulatto because she was taken from his rib, and rib meat is a little bit lighter.”
“Adam was a white,” Clyde said. “I made the passing of that at one year old.”
“I wish to mention while we are talking about Adam that he is reincarnated,” Leon said, “and he happens to be my foster brother, and he’s a colored boy.”
“You son of a bitch!” Clyde shouted. “There isn’t any such thing!”
“Watch your language!” Leon shouted back, and Clyde said: “He’s an educated doggone fool.”
“I’m not a bastard,” Leon asserted. “I have a foster father. He’s with me.”
“Adam is a white man, the first child of God,” Clyde said.
“I’ve got news for you,” Leon answered. “He happens to be my foster brother pertaining to his reincarnation, and whether you like it or not, it’s that way.”
Clyde, now livid and standing menacingly over Leon, shouted: “No! It’s not that way!”
“Will you kindly sit down,” Leon said, in a calm tone. “I said, will you kindly sit down and behave yourself!”
“You dirty dog!” Clyde shouted, and Leon countered: “You are a first-class ignoramus. Sit down before you are knocked down—and I’m not the one who’s going to do it, either. The righteous-idealed robot governor has more power than you or I. Will you kindly sit down!”
“I’ll call you anything!” Clyde said.
“I believe in truthful bullshit but I don’t care for your bullshit,” Leon said.
Clyde’s response was to hit him hard on the right cheek. Leon sat immobile, his hands folded in his lap, making not the slightest move to defend himself or to fight back. My assistant and I pulled Clyde away from Leon, and finally the two men calmed down and the discussion about Adam continued in much the same vein as before.
Several days later, we interviewed Leon alone and he stated accurately the issue over which Clyde had struck him. But in the meantime he had had some second thoughts. He now stated that although Adam had dark skin, he was not a Negro, and that he, Leon, therefore deserved what he got from Clyde. This was the first time we witnessed a change in one of Leon’s beliefs, and it is interesting to note the context within which it occurred. It followed from an act of physical aggression which apparently aroused enormous anxieties within Leon, and against which he was totally incapable of defending himself. I asked Leon how he felt when Clyde struck him and whether he had thought of striking