The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (34 page)

Leon had reacted to my remark about his manliness with transparent
eagerness and gratitude, and as the interview ends he does something he has never done before. He spontaneously offers his hand to me to shake. As I take it, I feel a warmth between us—a warmth I have never experienced before.

October 19. As the group meeting opens, Leon hands Miss Anderson a long letter, and after its adjournment, he asks: “Do you have a moment, G. M. Anderson?” She stays on and Leon talks to her privately from notes he has prepared in advance. He does not really say anything new. It is clear that he just wants to be alone with her.

This post-meeting pattern will be repeated for several months. Leon becomes increasingly uncommunicative during the daily group sessions and saves up whatever he wants to say for his private sessions with Miss Anderson. At first I am included in these post-meeting conferences, but soon I am left out at Leon's explicit request.

In a private interview with Leon I try to follow up and reinforce my previous attempt to reassure him about his manliness. Leon claims that he is only male, in contrast to what he says about all the women in his life, and in contrast to what he had said about himself in
Cause and Evolution
. I mention that we had recently interviewed a Catholic priest who talked of his mother, Mary Gabor. Leon looks interested, and asks what he had said about her—referring to his mother as
God Gabor
.

—
He said that Mary Gabor was a very sick woman, that she didn't take good care of you, not because she didn't want to but because she was mentally sick, that the house was disorderly
…—

“That's true. I can see why he'd say that.”

—
In real life you were raised as a young boy in a home where the lady of the house was, as the Father said, sick in the head
.—

“Because of negativism. That's true, sir.”

At this point Leon changes the subject to “morphies” and I interrupt him. I tell him that he knows, somewhere inside him, that “morphies” don't exist, just as Madame Yeti Woman doesn't
exist, and that Madame Yeti Woman could not help him because she doesn't exist. I also mention that there had indeed been an aide at Ypsilanti a few years back by the name of George Bernard Brown, but that he was not a god, or the reincarnation of the Archangel Michael, as Leon claimed. He was simply a decent man who cared about the welfare of the patients.

“He was an instrumental god,” Leon insisted. “I respect you as an instrumental god.”

—
I don't respect you as an instrumental god. I have a much bigger respect for you. I respect you as a man
.—

“I still have to consider myself an instrumental god.”

—
It's only when a man doesn't feel that he's a man that he has to be a god
.—

“Sir, if I don't respect you as an instrumental god, I'm taking away something that belongs to you.”

—
All you have to do is respect me as a man
.—

“Sir, to me a man is an instrumental god. I have to see the relationship to infinity. If I can see that, I'm satisfied.”

October 24. Apparently Leon has been brooding all weekend over the idea that we are trying to get him to commit adultery with Miss Anderson. At the meeting he uses the word “fuck” several times in her presence. This is unusual.

It is a reasonable guess that he is trying deliberately to alienate her and arouse her hostility so that she will reject him, thereby justifying
his
need to reject
her
. This is the classical projection mechanism. He has sexual impulses toward her; he denies that they arise from within himself and instead sees them as coming from her; he is angry with her for having put these ideas into his head.

October 25. Leon approaches an aide to complain of “improper advances” by a patient recently transferred to Ward D-16. A nurse confirms that a very aggressive homosexual patient did indeed approach Leon. Leon says: “I don't care for his musty body. I
mean, he is trying to seduce me and I don't like it.” He adds that if the aides do not do something to prevent future recurrences he will drop the Ten Commandments on the patient tonight and the patient will be carried out dead in the morning.

Afterward, at the post-meeting conference with Miss Anderson, he discusses at some length the morality of various kinds of sexual behavior. The way he terminates this discussion suggests that Miss Anderson is becoming, increasingly, a real, external, positive reference person for him. “I approached you,” he concludes, “because I do respect the authority in you, but the answers you gave me—I haven't thoroughly made up my mind what I want to tell myself—the answers you gave me are not sufficient.”

October 27. Several significant changes have appeared in Leon's delusional system. First of all, he now tells us that he has a father—and further, he tells us that his father's name is
Rex Rexarum et Domino Dominorum
—the name Leon had previously given himself. Moreover, he introduces a new concept— Grand God Morphy—G. G. M. for short—and announces that Rex and Ruth are both G. G. M.'s and that they are also one and the same person—Rex being the male and Ruth the female side.

October 31. At a post-meeting conference Leon expresses more openly and dramatically his positive feelings toward Miss Anderson. “All I know, ma'am, is that the beaming smile of your face, ma'am, was something I hadn't experienced before in my life, and later on I realized that arousing a person unintentionally isn't correct. I was a victim of circumstances. I didn't have that in mind. I didn't want to commit adultery with another body. My uncle tells me it isn't adultery but as far as I'm concerned it is.” As he talks, Leon voice betrays growing agitation. “Last week I had, as I was sitting here and you were standing there—and the look on your face—and I wanted to do, unintentionally didn't do,” loudly, “I'll do right now.”

Leon drops suddenly to his knees before Miss Anderson. “I
do thank God Almighty for all that he's done for me. How's that, ma'am?”

“That's fine,” she says gently. Leon rises. “I'm afraid to ask G. M.'s for favors because of the fact that I feel that they want to do something in return for something, whereas in my case I believe in giving in a spirit of charity with no attachments. Now on those grounds, if I could ask you, ma'am, to take me to a place where there is an old-fashioned pipe organ. The vibrations would assist me in shaking off imposition.”

Miss Anderson replies that offhand she does not know where there is an old-fashioned organ. Leon seems disappointed, almost angry, and says that he will have to work at it himself.

November 4. At a post-meeting session, Miss Anderson leaves momentarily to let Clyde and Joseph outdoors. I ask Leon if he has anything to discuss, and he replies that if I don't mind he'll wait until Miss Anderson comes back. When she returns, he says: “There is just one unit of imposition left. I have to keep my guard up so it won't pile up.” Whereupon he tells her he doesn't need to find the pipe organ he had asked her about, after all.

He then launches into a tirade against G. M. Ruth—he has demoted her from G. G. M. Ruth—relating a conversation with her in which he spoke about the correct use of the palms of his hands. He says he called her “Witch” but she told him that he had to obey her. “We'll see,” he had replied. “Truth is the boss.”

When the meeting is over, we wish Leon a pleasant weekend. Leon replies: “Considering that so much imposition has been shaken off—has been taken off—I feel like dancing. However, I won't admit it. I have no intention of arousing Miss Anderson. I mean, I feel relieved.”

“S
O MUCH
imposition has been shaken off … I feel like dancing.”

This exuberant exclamation, so unlike Leon, marked the beginning of a bitter struggle which was to rage within him for many months. The struggle centered around the question of how he was to relate himself to Miss Anderson, whom, we have seen, Leon had endowed with god-like properties. To allow himself to trust her or not? to need her or not? to love her or not? Before long he began to link these issues with a broader one: to return to reality or not to return?

On November 8, four days later, he asked Miss Anderson to stay after the meeting to discuss a “personal problem”—his wife and his sexual needs.

“Normal sex release,” he told her, “is twice a month for me, so for two years I requested 1,344 comes. I did get a positive response from my wife. Ma'am, when you come in here, do you think you're having a lecture or something?”

“I listen to you as if it were a lecture sometimes.”

“I try to make it as interesting as possible,” Leon went on. “I can sense it to a degree when you're listening, and if you're not— is there anything you didn't understand?”

“Well, if I didn't I can't even ask you about it.”

“Well, Dung,” he addressed himself, “the next best thing is
to tell it to the palms of your hands. The way you're looking at me, ma'am, incites. How can I express it? ‘What is that creature trying to tell me? Is it truthful?' ”

But, apparently frightened of the feelings he had expressed to Miss Anderson, Leon began three days later to work on a blindfold, which, when completed, turned out to be a neat rectangular affair made of dark-green cellophane that fastened at the back of the head with rubber bands. Although he could barely see through it, he wore it all day long—at work in the vegetable room, during meals, at the group meetings, and even when he was in bed at night. Reading and watching television were now out of the question, and when he needed to look at the food he was eating or to see where he was going he had to look down from beneath the blindfold.

The day I first saw Leon's blindfold, I asked him why he was wearing it. “If you studied metaphysics,” he replied, “you'd understand, sir. You wouldn't have to ask.”

“He made it and put it on and he's wearing it,” Clyde interposed. “That's all I know.”

“For his eyes, I guess,” added Joseph.

—
Is that right, Mr. Dung?
—

“G. G. M. Ruth told me to wear it, or hinted at it against imposition,” Leon explained.

During this time he refused to see Miss Anderson after the meetings, and during the meetings he alternated among withdrawal, anger at both of us, and sulking. When Miss Anderson asked if he was uncomfortable, he replied that he didn't care for lamebrain treatment. In contrast to his earlier behavior, he now refused to accept a light from her but would accept it from me. At the end of the meeting he would loiter about with his back to us, refusing to speak but responding to
my
goodbye with: “A pleasant afternoon to you, sir.”

Leon continued to wear his blindfold for the next week, but now it was bigger than before and included—to use Leon's word— blinders: pieces of white cardboard at his temples which cut down
his vision even further. On one occasion when he asked an aide for a light, the aide commented: “That sort of limits what you can see, doesn't it?”

Leon laughed. “Yes, sir, it's sort of like living alone, behind a shield.”

“Is that why you wear them?” a nurse asked

“No, ma'am, it's for metaphysical reasons, and I don't care for the inquisition.”

But Leon apparently was dissatisfied with his shield. The imposition, he said, had continued to build up since the previous week. He told me that he now needed some red cellophane to make another mask. “I wasn't asking,” he informed me. “I'll find some. This doesn't seem to filter out good enough. The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow, but I'm not asking.”

—
I hope you're not wearing that too tight
.—

“No, I'm not, sir. It's just right, sir.”

—
It looks very nice
.—

“I'm not wearing it to be funny, I assure you.”

After getting hold of some red cellophane, Leon started to work on his new blindfold. At the same time he hinted he was toying with the idea of stuffing his ears with earplugs—and sure enough, a day or so later Leon appeared at the group meeting wearing not only a mask but earplugs, too.

The blindfold episode began on November 11. On November 28, I came upon Leon alone in the sitting room, staring out the window, his mask pushed up on his forehead. As soon as he saw me, he lowered the mask into place.

But two days later the blindfold and earplugs were gone. I thought it best not to ask for an explanation, and Leon did not volunteer one. I was therefore left to speculate about the meaning of this behavior as best I could. My guess is that Leon needed to defend himself against his own guilt-ridden and anxiety-ridden sexual impulses toward Miss Anderson. Denying these feelings within himself, he attributed them instead to Miss Anderson. It was
she
who had these sexual feelings, and
she
who was trying
to tempt
him
. Leon magically defended himself against the continual stimulation of her daily presence by blotting her out with eyemask and earplugs. But it would be too crude an admission if he used these devices only when Miss Anderson was present, and took them off when she was not around. He was therefore compelled to wear the mask and plugs all the time, in order to disguise the real object of his affections and disaffections. After three weeks, however, Leon apparently revolted against this selfimposed discomfort. He was psychotic, but his psychosis required at most social isolation, not sensory deprivation. Leon had overextended himself and did not know how to back down without losing face. He therefore did the only thing he could. He began to cheat when no one was around and then, when I refrained from pressing him for an explanation, seized the opportunity to divest himself altogether of these uncomfortable appurtenances. It was as if we had struck a silent agreement to resolve the issue by not discussing it.