The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [38]
“If I may say something about you, sir. My uncle talked about your case and I sincerely believe you are the reincarnation of the Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas. It’s very befitting to you, with that Jewish nose, and you have admitted that you’re of Jewish nationality. I do believe you’re the reincarnation of Reverend Caiaphas. Your foster father is a donkey. However, I believe you have a human soul. May I be personal, sir? My uncle said to me about you: ‘Doesn’t he have a large head on his penis?’ My other uncle said: ‘Yeah, that’s true,’ and it’s also true that a donkey has a large-headed penis. In the Philippine Islands I was a soldier. I was walking on a cobblestoned street, and a man with a cart and a donkey came along and that donkey, due to the fact that it didn’t have sexual release, it had a hard on. Oh, man! It had a piece as long as my arm. His penis was hitting up against his stomach and I just couldn’t help but admire the fact that the donkey prayed in a cold physical fashion.”
Leon’s vivid portrait reveals not only the hostile attitude he harbored toward me but also the strong sexual basis for his hostility. It also reveals how Leon justified his aggressive and sexual feelings toward me by reinterpreting them within the framework of his neatly worked out delusional religious system.
Positive Interactions
It may be difficult to imagine the three Christs showing any positive feelings toward one another but, paradoxically, they did so from time to time. My research assistants and I often saw the three of them sitting near one another in the spacious recreation room, which was large enough to seat a hundred men around its periphery. The men were free to wander aimlessly about or to sit wherever they wished. They could watch television, play ping-pong, listen to the radio, read, play cards, or just sit and do nothing. There was a large table against a wall, with one chair at the end, its back against the wall. Joseph would always sit in this chair. There was a second chair immediately around the corner of the table, facing in the same direction as Joseph’s chair. Leon sat in this chair, next to Joseph but with his back to him.
Clyde more often wandered about the room, but when he settled down he would pick a chair near Joseph’s and Leon’s, often the chair next to Leon, which faced in the same direction. The three men rarely spoke to one another at these times, but they borrowed and loaned state-issued tobacco, cigarette papers, and lights more frequently among themselves than with anyone else. Leon would say: “Mr. Benson, could I beg a cigarette from you? I’m out of cigarette paper—unless you could help me out with that…. Thank you, sir.” Once when Clyde broke his pipe Leon gave him his.
In addition to sharing tobacco supplies with one another at these times, the three men also shared at mealtime. Once Joseph’s wife brought him a bag of fruit. At suppertime Joseph emptied the bag on a tray. He offered Leon first a banana, then a peach, then an apricot, each of which Leon declined in turn. Joseph then rose from his seat, approached Clyde, and offered him the fruit. Clyde mumbled favorably and Joseph placed some of the fruit on his tray. A few moments later Joseph offered Leon the food on his own tray, which was almost untouched. Leon at first refused; then he accepted the cabbage salad.
I would often walk into the recreation room to call the men together for their daily meeting. I rarely had to search for them among the hundred men—there they would be, physically close, Joseph at the end of the table, then Leon, and then Clyde, as if they needed one another’s companionship, as if they needed to cling to someone familiar. Often they would emerge from a meeting where they had been going at each other hammer and tongs, and return to the recreation room and sit in their usual places, together. This behavior pattern began during the first week of the meetings and persisted for six months, until they were moved to another ward, where they had their own private sitting room. One day we deliberately