The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [53]
Joseph agrees. “You can’t put your mind in a test tube.”
—Do you mean a man can recover from schizophrenia by improving his ego?—
“You need a combination of therapy,” Leon answers. “Some cases need more or less of physical, mental, or spiritual.”
I ask them if they think they need psychological therapy.
“No, I just need a dismissal,” Joseph replies.
“When all the imposition is shaken off,” says Leon, “I’ll be myself as I’m supposed to be.”
Group meeting. Joseph brings a Mother Goose book and remarks that it might be of interest to Leon. Leon leafs through it and says: “I’ll read the one about Humpty Dumpty.” After he reads it: “Now, there’s some worthwhile psychology. The truth in it is the fact that an egg can break.”
Group meeting. I suggest that their meeting room needs some furnishings, and offer to allot some money so that we can all go over to Ann Arbor to shop. Joseph remarks that he doesn’t care for pictures, that the room as it is is reminiscent of England, spick and span cleanliness. “You start putting pictures on the wall,” he adds, “and everybody will come over here to look at them, and there’ll be somebody in here all the time.” Leon agrees.
The meeting room has a very small table and I replace it with a larger, more attractive table. Leon complains that this table has “greater polarity” than the other one. He examines it very carefully, bending down to look underneath. He finds cobwebs. “You’d be surprised how much cosmics cobwebs give off,” he says. He cleans the table very carefully, then claims that the polarity has diminished.
I remark that I can’t tell for sure whether Leon wants the table or not. He suggests they vote on it. Joseph says he wants it, and so does Clyde.
“I’m outvoted, sir,” Leon says, very, very cheerfully. “The table stays.”
Late at night. All fifteen patients in the dorm are in their beds, but there is a great deal of restlessness because one of the patients is snoring loudly. Finally one of the patients, exasperated, yells: “Jesus Christ! Quit that snoring.” Whereupon Clyde, rearing up in his bed, replies: “That wasn’t me who was snoring. It was him!”
Joseph goes to the Social Service Department. “Can I help you?” the secretary inquires. Joseph answers: “Yes, I am God. I’ve come to see about a release from the hospital.”
Leon is in the dayroom, watching TV. When asked if he enjoys Western movies, he replies: “Yes, I enjoy them very much. They all have a plot and in the end the good or righteous people always win out.”
Breakfast. Clyde comes back to the kitchen to get three more pieces of toast, to make a total of nine pieces. He’s been doing this for some time now. It must be nine and no less.
Joseph seems apprehensive about the impending departure of the research assistants. He says to one: “So pretty soon you won’t be here anymore. I’m going to miss you. I imagine after a while that the group meetings will stop too, huh?” When asked why he thinks this, Joseph replies: “Oh, I don’t know. Before this they only used to meet once in awhile, maybe every year or so, and then they’d go away.”
The research assistants leave today, to be replaced by a new assistant. It is evening and time to say goodbye. Clyde is sitting on his bed, chortling gleefully. The assistant on duty decides against interrupting Clyde’s euphoria. He goes to Leon, who is in the recreation room, to bid him goodbye. Leon leaps up with a broad friendly grin, gives the assistant a firm handshake, saying: “I enjoyed knowing you. Yes, sir, pertaining to the conversations—it’s been interesting.” He declines the invitation to write, explaining that if anything important comes up the assistant will get a copy by “dove” mail. Joseph, too, says he’ll miss the assistant, but doesn’t get up from his chair as he bids him goodbye. He lacks Leon’s forceful firmness, and seems somewhat uncomfortable in