The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [81]
On June 21 I instigated a further discussion on identity, this time bringing up the subject by saying that Leon had four names. Leon was irritated. “I have three names. I’ve already discussed this. It’s getting monotonous and you know it.” He mentioned his three names—Dung, Rex rexarum, and Christ.
Joseph, without emotion, interposed: “How can there be two Jesus Christs?”
Leon, responding, directed his wrath, not to Joseph, but to me. “I believe you’re wasting your time, coming here to agitate! As far as I’m concerned, you can get out and stay out!”
When it was suggested that Leon put this up to the others as a motion, he did. “I make a motion that these two sirs do not come to agitate us henceforth. What is your verdict, sirs? It’s up to you.”
“I look forward to quietness,” said Joseph. “We can win over negativism. By ‘we’ I mean the five of us having the meeting. It’s not going to do us any good. Then the meetings might be dissolved.”
“I don’t care for meetings with agitation,” Leon persisted.
—What is the state of the motion?—
At this point Leon left to get a drink of water. He was gone a long time, and when he returned, he was still angry.
“You are trying to change him and change me,” he said. “If this is going to continue, I want out, and out completely!”
—Joseph, do you accept what R. I. said?—
“No. He said he was Jesus Christ a while ago.”
“He’s jealous,” Leon retorted.
“He wants to be the only one.”
—Who is the only Jesus Christ?—
Joseph replied: “I am.”
“No, I am!” yelled Clyde. “You never was, you never will be!”
Joseph suggested to Clyde, who was chairman, that he adjourn the meeting, adding: “I need to keep my identity. I can’t give up my identity.”
“I repeat,” Leon said to me, “since you’re hard of hearing, or intentionally so. You’re trying to deplore my intelligence when you ask questions, and you know the answers and know what my belief is and will be forever.”
On June 30 we held a private interview with Joseph, and on July 18, a similar one with Leon. At both times we showed the man an article that had appeared in Newsweek which said in essence what the newspaper had said. Leon’s reaction was like his earlier one. He became angry and brought the session to an end by saying he had to go to the toilet.
Joseph’s reaction differed somewhat from his earlier one. He now recognized that the article was about himself. He read aloud the title, “Three Men Named Jesus,” and said: “It borders on the comical. People with that in their head belong in a mental hospital. There can be only one Jesus Christ or Napoleon, or any celebrity.”
After reading on, he continued: “If Dung says the Ten Commandments must be kept, then when he says he’s God he has a feeling of guiltiness. It’s about us—Dung, Clyde Benson, and myself. Right? But it’s not exctly like it is in the article. Big recreation rooms and sharing cigarettes—there hasn’t been anything of the sort. I don’t share my cigarettes and I didn’t sing songs with them, did I? Where is that room? If you don’t have the power to knock the shit out of—to kill a few authorities to get out of here, that’s too bad for me. Maybe my wife is in love with somebody else. She’d rather keep me in here.”
—Why are you in a mental hospital, Joseph?—
“I was crazy, I guess. I wasn’t crazy, but if I say I wasn’t crazy it’s not believable.”
—Have you ever read an article like this before?—
“Yes. I believe I read the same article. I laughed at it and disregarded it, forgot about it.”
This was the last time we confronted the three men with the direct question of their identity. Such confrontations, while informative, were too upsetting, and as we got to know the men better, we became increasingly reluctant to subject them to so much stress.
Additional Effects of Confrontation
Shortly after Joseph was confronted with the first of the news articles, three changes took place in his behavior. On the following Sunday, three days later, he attended Roman Catholic services at the chapel. As far as we could ascertain, this was