The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [51]
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 front 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