The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [48]
3:00 p.m. Leon writes something on a piece of paper, holding his ball-point pen in his fist and writing slowly and clumsily. Asked why he writes with the pen in his fist, he replies: “I was taught in Europe that this is the positive way because of the cosmic organics.” He then asks if “they teach the proper use of the palm of the hand in respect to organics in college.”
3:15 p.m. Clyde, smoking a pipe, is writing on a scrap of paper, adding up columns of astronomical figures, incorrectly. He states he has four hundred girls and women to care for, and that he “can’t hardly understand why I can’t buy anything when I have forty cars of money.”
3:30 p.m. Daily group session. The three men take turns reading from the Bible. Then Clyde takes a copy of the Reader’s Digest from his pocket and each of the men in turn reads one item from “Increase Your Word Power,” a game designed to test the player’s knowledge of word meanings. Whenever Leon guesses which of a series of alternative words is correct, he exuberantly shouts: “Yay!” Although he does not know many of the words, he takes the game very seriously. Clyde mumbles throughout about various and sundry topics, but when he is asked which word is correct he frequently makes the right choice, offering it almost as a non sequitur among his mutterings. Joseph, although he grasps the idea of choosing an alternative, gives his own definitions when his turn comes. Leon is polite and helpful to Clyde, who visibly enjoys listening to Leon read.
Supper. Clyde, passing a table of women patients, stops for small talk. The women offer little response. When the meal is finished, a woman stands beside Joseph, as she does every day, without saying anything. Joseph, also wordlessly, rolls a cigarette, lights it, and gives it to her—whereupon she goes away. Another woman patient, picking up food trays, accidentally brushes against Leon. “Madame, I don’t like the idea of strange women brushing me suggestively,” Leon says, “I’m married, I have a wife, and even if I didn’t I don’t advocate hurtful behavior in hospitals.” The woman smirks and walks away.
6:12 p.m. Back in the recreation room. Leon walks the length of the room to get a light for Clyde. After Leon has given him the light and walked away, Clyde claps his hands loudly several times, with no visible emotion. He sits with his legs drawn up on the chair.
8:00 p.m. Leon is kneeling at his bed. I stand there for a while watching him and as I start to leave he says: “Good evening, sir, and thank you for your trouble.”
7:30 a.m. At work in the laundry room, Joseph hangs back quite frequently, and has to be called to participate. Clyde takes many rests. Leon is a steady, intelligent, and good worker. He rests only when there is nothing to do. When he rests he stands straight, with his hands in front of him, palms up. He seems to have a compulsion to keep his hands in sight, as if to keep track of them.
3:15 p.m. Leon is in the recreation room, watching TV. Another patient changes the channel in the middle of the program. Leon says nothing and continues watching. Brassiere ad comes on; Leon averts his eyes. Another ad begins; Leon again watches.
3:42 p.m. Girl in TV movie asks: “Do you ever go out with girls?” Leon goes through ritual of “shaking off.”
Supper. A patient, seeing Leon in the dining room, says: “Hi, Rex, do you still think you’re Jesus Christ?”
“Sir,” Leon replies, “I most certainly am Jesus Christ.”
The patient, turning to Joseph, says: “This guy thinks he’s Christ. He’s nuts, isn’t he?” Joseph, agitated, says: “He’s not Jesus Christ. I am!”
Clyde enters the fray, shouting: “No, he’s not! I am!”
The patient, somewhat bewildered, steps back and says to Leon: “I think you’re faking.”
Leon explains later that the patient is one of his arch enemies, that even though the man is a Jesus Christ, too, in the sense that he has a vine and a rock, he has an evil ideal which Leon hates because he misuses his vine by placing it in the wrong hole.
7:30 p.m. Leon is engrossed in a TV movie, Nazi