He Wanted the Moon (8 page)

Mr. Sullivan was a frequent companion to Mr. Clark, also senile and mischievous. They often sat on the bench outside my window, talking and growling, Mr. Sullivan smoking and drooling from the mouth and Mr. Clark performing constant pranks. One day I saw Mr. Clark blow a red balloon out of his right nostril like a clown in a circus. Where he got the balloon and how he learned to blow it, I do not know. He and Sullivan often wrestled on the concrete floor, foolishly and clumsily. It afforded much amusement to many of the patients. I could never get much kick out of the exhibition, however.

The age range of patients was from about eight years old to eighty. There were two youngsters, one very young and attractive, around eight, and the other about ten or eleven. They were both profane and mischievous. These youngsters wrestled on the concrete floor and amused us in many ways. One of them, the redhead, made it a specialty to steal up to my window and spit in my face. One day I
called him to my window and threw a glass of cold water in his face. This was the only revenge I took, except to spank him and give him a little gentle jiu-jitsu.

One day the attractive Italian lad, Angelo Cephalo, whom I had met the year before, arrived on our ward. I was in the office as he was brought in to surrender his clothing and go through the usual routine. I observed that he seemed about the same except that his shoes, in contrast to last year, were quite shapely and stylish. They were small and fit him well, whereas the preceding year, he had worn large shoes that gave his feet a whole appearance of bourgeois effect. He was now good looking from head to foot, neatly built and well proportioned, very athletic. When I was allowed out of my room, we competed in every respect: wrestling, boxing with open hands, tumbling. I got the best of him in every competition.

One of my special tricks was climbing the steel posts on the porch. I could jump from the floor, grasp the steel post with one hand and knee, and climb like a monkey, quickly touching the ceiling and sliding quickly back down. I could do this easily while manic but with great difficulty while normal. Another patient, Clare Johnson, would be the coach in some of our competitions. He’d give the signal and we would both leap to a steel pole (there were two of them). I could usually touch the ceiling before Angelo had left the floor. We did it again and again. Both Angelo and Clare seemed amused at the speed with which I could get to the ceiling.

Peter F. Perry was the most colorful character on the ward. He had been a favorite patient of mine when he was working regularly and had a little money. I treated him for syphilis. I remember doing a spinal fluid exam and finding
it normal. Evidently he developed central nervous system syphilis of the paretic type and was sent to Grafton State Hospital, another psychiatric institution. After seeing him at Westborough, I could recall his letters from Grafton. He owed me some money and could not pay. He had asked me to wait. He never admitted he was at the hospital in Grafton. I had finally cancelled his debt, never knowing why he couldn’t pay.

Pedro was a nice-looking, middle-aged man, a Portuguese. He had handsome well-chiseled features and a full head of hair. His skin was swarthy, his figure trim and powerful. Evidently he had boxed professionally and wrestled. His hands were exceptionally powerful. He could bend steel bars with his teeth. After extracting a steel bar from a bed, he would wrap a piece of cloth around it, put it between his teeth and pull on each end with his hand, bending the bar slowly, to a sharp angle. I tried the trick. With my limited experience, I could make no progress. Pedro also had his own shorthand, a peculiar variety of the Morse code, and he had mathematical tricks for adding and otherwise dealing with large sets of figures. His voice was fairly good, he sang fairly well. One night I heard him give an informal oration on the porch. His elocution was surprisingly effective. Every morning he would be kept quiet in a straightjacket or tub bath and before lunch he would be released. He then would take a shower, if he’d been in a straightjacket, and dress. He came regularly to the porch, singing and tap dancing for us, often dancing with some other patients. He seemed to sleep very little. Pedro usually spent every night, most all nights, in the bathroom, writing and smoking and
composing music, and probably living in some dreamlike imaginary world.

Agnes was a nice-looking redheaded girl, living across the court. She often sat in the window. We exchanged a few letters by way of an attendant. She wrote me a poem or two. Someone said she was a manic depressive at only nineteen, and had been at Westborough for ten years. When I finally met her at close range, I found that although she was dressed in a very youthful garment, her face with its lines betrayed an age of thirty or more. I have often wondered who she really was. One day in the auditorium, where we had music, singing and dancing in small groups, I was dancing with her on the stage. There were only a few others around. She coaxed me into singing “Rose Marie.” I sang a few bars, felt greatly embarrassed, and quit.

There was a man with a badly mangled hand. He had only a finger and thumb left on each hand. He was a middle-aged blond, very good looking, friendly, evidently paranoid; a patient who’ll be here a year or two. He’d been an engineer, seemed very sick when one tried to talk with him at any length, but for a brief conversation, was quite rational. He had told me that his hobby was constructing various types of engines. We talked about engines, drew diagrams and then tried to figure out a new and more efficient diesel motor. He developed a contact dermatitis of the front of the neck. This was treated in a rather unorthodox manner, and became abscessed. He had to go to the surgical ward for incision and drainage. Frequently his wife, son, sister and other relatives came to see him. He sat for long hours talking with them. He had a work assignment somewhere in
the place. I never knew just what he did. I considered him a good friend.

There was a dark-complexioned young Italian, thin and delicate, black hair, deep brown eyes, and small of stature. Once I shook his hand and found his palm hot and moist. He ate very little and what he did eat, he ate hurriedly, getting in and out of the dining room very quickly. He sat all day, in a corner alone, or at the window, talking to himself quite constantly. Perhaps he was conversing with some imaginary person. I never saw him speak with any other patient. No one ever paid any attention to him. He seemed to be beneath notice by any of the doctors. He was a pitiful figure. I imagined that he would go on for years, talking to himself, too poor to afford expensive therapy of the “total push” type. Perhaps “shock therapy” will reach Westborough someday and pull him out.

One patient, a tall, good-looking blond, about twenty-five years of age, came up to see me a few times when I was extremely manic. We talked at great length. We played an imaginary game of chess, using a drawing of a chessboard, and relying upon our memory of the plays. He conceded me the game.

“That’s the easiest game I’ve ever won,” I commented.

Later we played a real game of chess on a real checkerboard with good chess pieces. He defeated me in the one game we played.

On the ward was a pitiful old man, of average height and trim, his hair silvery gray, his eyes blue. He always stood by himself in some corner away from the rest of us, dressed in underwear and a white bathrobe. He talked incessantly,
repeating some monotonous succession of words, over and over again, literally for hours without end.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he would say.

Or, “Take it easy, Mister. Take it easy, Mister. Take it easy, Mister.”

Obviously he was lonely, in great distress, but he talked rapidly and in a tone that had astonishing powers of annoyance. I never saw him have a visitor. He aroused my deepest sympathies, but, after weeks of hearing his loud and rasping murmurings, I too could understand why so many patients could not endure his, “Oh, God, what’ll I do? What’ll I do? What’ll I do,” by the hour. Often the poor old fellow would be put in a straightjacket and placed in a room by himself, behind closed doors, to shut out his voice. Almost daily, patients and attendants would drag him out of his corner, throw him on the bed, scold him and even beat him. He always showed fresh bruises and scratches. One morning his right ear was greatly swollen with subcutaneous hemorrhage, a typical boxer ear injury; the kind that frequently goes on to a cauliflower ear. Evidently someone struck him a vicious blow on the ear. So far as I could determine, the staff never paid any attention to the poor old man’s injuries, and they made no attempt to stop the beatings that he received.

A young man, about thirty-eight, with soft, delicate skin and a heavy beard, spent some days with me on the violent ward. He never said much, but often he would look at me and remark: “What’s the story?” (pronounced “storree”). I used to show him how I could whistle to the robins and get them to hop up to the window on the south exposure of
the porch. Several did what they could for me. Sometimes I whistled and brought robins up in pairs. They would hop around until they got near the porch, and then, as I continued to whistle, they would fly straight up into the air, heart-to-heart and beak-to-beak, in a mating flight. Soon after this, the young man was discharged and left the hospital.

After about a month, my behavior had become exemplary in all respects. I said little and confined my activities to eating, sleeping, walking in the corridors when permitted, washing the corridor floor, dignified conversation with nurses and attendants, and courtesy to everyone.

Up to this time, I had seen nothing of the hospital superintendent, Dr. Lang, but as favorable reports filtered through to him, he came over to pay me a visit.

“All manics are the same,” Dr. Lang explained. “There was no use in my coming over until you had improved …”

In other words, when I got sick he turned me over to his assistants and stayed away from me, but when I was well, he delegated himself as my physician and advisor.

“It occurred to me that you had been treated too gently by your psychiatrist friends in the past,” Dr. Lang went on to say. “When you were admitted this time, I gave directions for you to be treated just like anybody else.”

“Well, they sure laid it on heavy,” I replied. “I would never have believed that psychiatric care could be so rough.”

Dr. Lang’s manner tended to indicate that he was pleased with my rapid recovery and thought that treatments had made this recovery possible. I wanted to tell him my recovery was in spite of these barbaric methods, not because of them, and that I believed that the brutal treatments had
much to do with the unfavorable course of my illness. As the course of events proved, my illness became the longest and most disastrous in the history of my case. Dr. Lang’s ignorance, his old age, his total lack of any humanitarian viewpoint totaled up to the most unfortunate influences that have ever come into my life. I am sure that he has wrecked many lives that might have been salvaged.

“I shall try to cooperate with you and Dr. Boyd during my present stay with you,” I said to Dr. Lang.

“We don’t expect you to make any promises.”

“Well, anyway, I’ll play ball with you.”

“That’s all we ask. Perhaps you may not agree with my views but maybe we can work together anyway.”

After his thirty-minute visit, Dr. Lang got ready to leave.

“Thank you very much for coming to see me,” I said. “I’m glad to have had a chance to know you. Your visit has been very pleasant.”

After another week or ten days, comments were made to me to the effect that I might be transferred downstairs, out of the violent ward.

Mr. Burns took me down. Before we left he said, “Look out for Mrs. La Point downstairs. She may cause you some trouble.”

MRS. La Point was a small, broad, strong-looking woman with dark skin, deep brown eyes, graying black hair and large protruding teeth which flashed as she talked and stood out prominently when she laughed. She was needlessly matter-of-fact and cold in her reception. Her voice
was loud, coarse and capable of rising into a high-pitched resonant quality. She herself was nervous and irritable, easily angered and often spontaneously angry without evident cause.

When Mr. Burns introduced me, Mrs. La Point ignored this formality.

“Your box will go into the hall closet,” she said, “and when you need anything we’ll unlock the door for you. I’ll assign you a bed later. You may now go on the porch.”

As I stepped up on the porch, I stopped and looked about me. Here was a collection of about thirty patients sitting around in chairs, ranging in age from six to sixty. Few patients seemed to be looking at me, but the dead silence suggested that everyone was completely aware of the event of a newcomer. I went around and greeted the patients whom I recognized, chiefly those who had been with me upstairs and had moved down ahead of me. Among them were Angelo Cephalo and Clare Johnson.

The porch was essentially a recreation room furnished with four tables, four benches, straight chairs and rocking chairs, and a pool table. The floor was cement. Large sliding windows with glass panes began at the waistline and rose almost to the ceiling, providing an almost-solid glass enclosure to permit an excellent three-sided view of the hospital grounds and distant fields and hills.

Soon after, I sat down to get my bearings and to read some letters. Some of the younger patients came and suggested games. I played with them then, and on succeeding days: bridge, poker, checkers, and after six p.m., pool.

I’ll never know exactly how it happened, but one or
more patients were constantly intruding upon my thoughts and actions. Many of them acted very strangely. One man, gray-haired and intelligent, about fifty years old, played checkers a great deal with me. He played well. When I defeated him, he wept openly, not loudly, but with tears streaming down his cheeks. The way he wept upset me. It didn’t seem that losing the game made him weep. It seemed that he wept because I was so greedy and cruel in beating him so badly.