The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (20 page)

November 24. Leon says that he will marry the Blessed Virgin Mary if her husband dies.

November 27. More changes. Leon fertilizes “without direct contact.” This is called “quasi-spirit sexual intercourse.” Leon's main foster father is still a white dove and the jerboa rat is an assistant foster father, thereby accounting for the fact that Leon has many of the characteristics of the jerboa rat.

December 2. Leon explains how he came to look like a rat: “The Old Witch asked me when I was nine-and-a-half years old, ‘Do you want to become like me?' I said, ‘Yes, I want to be like you.' She said, ‘Go up on the second landing of the stairs.' I was pushed off the stairs and shaken up the first time. The second time my head was dented in. I did that out of love for the Old Witch. It shows what I was willing to go through, how much love I had for her, that I was willing to disfigure my body.”

December 8. Leon elaborates further on his Yeti delusion. Yeti people are cave-dwelling hermits who do not use fire, utensils, furniture or money; they have no anxiety about money, food, clothing or shelter.

December 17. Leon announces that he is almost ready to die the death. He is probably referring to the fact that he is about to come forth with a new identity.

December 28. Leon says, though at the time he says it we do not realize its full significance: “As for as I'm concerned, I consider myself a big pile of truthful shit, and I face the fact and admit it.”

He also announces his marriage to a woman who is his foster mother: “My mother is my wife. I call her Madame Yeti, first lady of the Universe.” When told that the records show that Mary Gabor was his mother, Leon replies: “The Old Witch isn't
my mother. She came three weeks ago. [Actually her visit had occurred almost four months before.] I told her to go back where she came from.”

January 11, 1960. At the meeting, Joseph asks if he can speak into the tape recorder. He then makes a speech about having saved the world. Leon decides that he wants to make a speech too. He talks to the machine, mouth close to microphone, and asks: “What do you think of this name, Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung?” Clyde laughs, and Leon responds: “I think it's comical to a certain degree. The psychology is when you say ‘Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung' they say ‘What kind of a doctor is he? Is he a Doctor of Shit? Why doesn't he go on a farm and work?”'

When Leon is asked what he wants to be called, he replies: “It's all included. You can call me Rex, R. I. Shit or Dung.”

Clyde is still laughing. Joseph, who hasn't said anything, asks Leon to go find the song sheets.

“Dr. Righteous Idealed Shit at your service, sir,” Leon replies.

January 14. The meeting opens with the three men arguing over who is to be chairman. We ask what happened to the Chairman List.

“I gave it to Rex,” Joseph complains.

“I don't have it,” says Leon. “It was done away with because of the negative insinuendo.”

—
Insinuendo?
—

“Insinuendo is insinuation toward innuendo. The implication of reincarnation through negativism. According to the particular day, Joseph, Mr. Cassel here, through indirect impression implied he was reincarnated. I tore it up to counteract the negative ideal.”

—
Does this mean you and Joseph are not getting along?
—

“As I said, it was the negative insinuendo. The fact that he came back from the grave in another body. He gave the impression of over-all superiority and I didn't care for that.”

A few moments later, Leon interrupts me as I am speaking.
He waves a card in my face. “I have an announcement to make!” he proclaims. “When I was a child of nine or ten I went to court and I wanted to sign my name Dr. Rex Rexarum and I couldn't. Positive infusion was telling me to sign Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung, Sir, and I didn't. So if I go to court again that's the name I gotta sign right there, sir.” He shows me his new calling card:

—
Does this mean your name isn't Rex?
—

It's included in this.”

—
What do you want us to call you?
—

“If you want to say Dr. Dung, sir, that's your privilege.”

—
Is Rex incorrect?
—

“If you care to say ‘Rex,' I'll say ‘Dung salutes Rex'; that's manliness, sir.”

—
What did you do with your other calling card?
—

“I've done away with them, sir. It's embodied in that, sir, Dr. R. I. Dung for short.”

“There is only one God,” says Joseph, “and nobody seems to know where He is.”

“He's right here,” Leon replies. “Nobody else seems to know it.”

“I'm the One! I'm the big One!” yells Clyde.

—
If I were to call you Leon, would you still object?
—

“It's not my name, sir. My name is Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung, sir. Dung for short. It sounds comical, but that is the finale of what I have experienced.”

[
1
]There are innumerable references to light in the Bible. E.g., Psalms 97:11, “Light is sown for the righteous…”; John 8:12. “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”; John 12:36, “… Believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” See also footnote, Chapter VIII, p. 149.

[
2
] It may be well to point out that this Joseph, who is about to marry Mary, has no connection with “Joseph Cassel”—his name, the reader will remember, is a pseudonym—also, that Leon's mother is named Mary.

A
T ABOUT THE SAME TIME
that Leon announced his change of name, a plan I had made long before was put into effect, and the three Christs were transferred from Ward D-23 to Ward D-16. This made it possible for them to spend more time alone together. Their new quarters provided them with a private sitting-dining room, which they all liked very much; Leon described it as “more peaceful,” and Joseph as “better, more private.” During the first few weeks, Leon and Joseph cleaned the room daily,
Joseph wiping the table and Leon sweeping up. These two spent most of the day in their private sitting room, on occasion conversing with each other, but more often saying little. Joseph and Leon were to sit here together for the next six months, for the most part segregating themselves from the other patients on the ward. Only infrequently did they visit the large adjoining day room to watch television or just to sit. Clyde, on the other hand, used the private room only for meals and the meetings. The rest of the time he was generally to be found wandering around or sitting somewhere in the day room.

Almost immediately after changing his identity, Leon informed everyone in the hospital—doctors, nurses, aides, and patients—of this fact. Not only did he insist on being addressed as Dung; he refused to respond to or co-operate with anyone who did not call him by that name. His behavior also showed changes whose meaning was self-evident. He began to go to the toilet frequently and to stay there for long periods. We generally had to call him from there to get him to the daily meetings; during the meeting he would leave several times, claiming that he had cramps, and when the meeting was adjourned he usually went back to the toilet. He continued to write weekend reports—but now on toilet paper. He found a new method of shaking off interferences: he would stick his head in the toilet bowl, as if symbolically flushing himself down.

And how did Clyde and Joseph react to Leon's change of name? Immediately after Leon presented his new calling card on January 14, I asked them.

Clyde laughed. “He's gotten hold of something. I don't know.”

“I think it's a bit too strong,” Joseph said. “I'm God, Christ, Holy Ghost—everything.”

This enraged Clyde. “You aren't anything!” he shouted.

For a time they yelled at each other, until finally Joseph said: “I think it's a waste of time to argue about it.”

Leon had observed the brief exchange without any apparent feeling, but when it was over, he said: “I know I'm a creature.”

Later, after their initial responses to the change of name had
had time to become firm, we interviewed Clyde and Joseph separately to learn their reactions in somewhat more detail.

Clyde said: “I don't like it. His name is Rex, and all of a sudden Joseph goes to the hospital and Rex gets that notion and won't change it. Dung is a dirty word.”

—
Does Rex still say he is Jesus Christ?
—

“I don't know; but he couldn't be that, anyway, There can't be more than one.”

—
Where is the one?
—

“Right here.”

—
Are you glad or sorry that Rex isn't saying he's Jesus Christ anymore?
—

“Doesn't matter to me. I don't call him anything now because I don't like to say that word. Why should he change from Rex?”

Joseph, on the contrary, liked the change. “I think it's a good idea because when you call him Rex he gets all the values in the world, and when you call him Dung—well, there's no value there. That other name was too effective against the other fellow, the psychology of it.” He added that he was glad Leon had changed his name because “this has made me more restful”; it had bothered him, he said, when Leon called himself King. “He claimed to be the reincarnation of everything. Now he's nice. You ask him for a light, ‘Dr. Dung, may I have a light?' and he's very nice. I know what dung means; it means shit.” Joseph laughed.

—
What do you think of a man calling himself ‘Shit'?
—

Joseph replied that he didn't think much of it, but that Leon couldn't help it. It was my presence, he said, that had persuaded Leon not to call himself Rex any longer, and he added that he felt sure Leon was happier now that he was Dung. When I asked him which of the two he thought was Leon's
real
name, he replied: “R. I. Dung.”

Leon Negotiates With the Head Nurse

No human being finds it easy to call another Dung, even if that person insists on it. The female nurses especially balked at it and
persisted in calling Leon by his real name. Leon's reaction was to become generally negativistic and unco-operative. He complained bitterly that the ward personnel were mistreating him and calling him by his “dupe name.”

On January 21, a week after Leon's formal announcement of his change of name, we invited the head nurse, Mrs. Parker, to attend the group meeting to see if we could come to some agreement as to the name by which the ward personnel would address him.

Leon, as chairman, first signed the Chairman List with his new name—Dr. R. I. Dung, Sir. Then he began the meeting by suggesting they sing the second verse of
America
. Joseph wanted the first verse. Leon gave in. Following the song, Leon said robustly: “And what's on your chest this evening, gentlemen? You can get it off if you want to.”

—
Do you all know Mrs. Parker?
—

“I've seen her in the office,” Leon said. “I do not know her by name.”

Mrs. Parker turned first to Joseph, then to Clyde, then to Leon: “I know him—Mr. Cassel, Mr. Benson, Mr.—”

“And this is Dr. R. I. Dung, ma'am!” Leon interrupted.

“Well, on the records your name is Mr. Gabor,” Mrs. Parker said.

“I disagree with you, ma'am, My name is Dr. R. I. Dung.”

“Well, this is a name I don't approve of and a word that I don't approve of,” Mrs. Parker said, “so I'll call you Mr. Gabor.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” Leon insisted. “My name is still Dung! It's in the Bible, and I think it's polite!”

(To Mrs. Parker)—
Is it because it's somewhat embarrassing to you?
—

“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Parker said.

“If you want me to, ma'am,” Leon said, “I can show you it's in the Bible. D-u-n-g, Dung! … By denying my name it's mental torture and I do not approve of it, and the psychology is warped, and I apologize if I have hurt somebody's feelings, but I think I
have not, on the merits—I do know it is in the Bible. Dung is a polite term and therefore I believe it's acceptable, ma'am. You're not hurting my feelings when you call me that, believe me!”

—
Some of the ladies seem to feel somewhat embarrassed about using your name
.—

“If I may ask this question?” Leon put in. “Did you ever hear of the word, Mr. Skunk?”

—
Sure
.—

“And people don't feel embarrassed, and yet it's a stenchy name as far as that goes. I mean considering the content of the name.”

—
Since Mrs. Parker is head nurse, I asked her to come in and see if we could come to some kind of an agreement
.—

“Ma'am, I still say that's my name, R. I. Dung, and if you want to call me R. I., it's your privilege, ma'am, to deviate from your dislike of the word ‘dung.' I'll give you that preference, ma'am.”

“That would be much more acceptable to me,” Mrs. Parker said.

But Clyde objected: “He's already Rex. Why's he changing? He's changed since Joseph went to the hospital.”

“Mr. Benson, sir, my wife changed it for me,” Leon said. “She's my wife so she has the same name. She has my name, Madame R. I. Dung, so the truthful joke is on her, too, but I don't think it's a joke personally. I'm serious about it.”

—
As I said last week, I don't think there's anything funny about it
.—

“Thank you, sir,” Leon said.

And Mrs. Parker added: “I feel much more comfortable with this.” Then she said goodbye all around, and left.