I-Thou: Twenty-four Hour Lament
Late one night, I dreamt that there were a hundred Daryls waiting in the clinic lobby–each wearing a fluorescent green baseball cap covering long, white hair; a grungy, navy blue, hooded sweatshirt; and old dirty jeans. All of them wear headphones, rock in place, and look at the ground. The hallway and the stairwell to the street are lined with Daryls. It’s cold and damp outside. Daryls crowd the streets, each oblivious to the other, staring at the ground.
I walk to the curb and pull my cell phone from my pocket as the Daryls crowd around. This Daryl is diabetic and has gone without insulin for a week. I tell him that he has been on my mind. We call the doctor to schedule an appointment. I give him a bus pass and a pat on the shoulder. This Daryl has forgotten to eat for days. I tell him there is some warm soup down the road waiting for him and ask another Daryl to accompany him and make sure he gets some food. This Daryl thinks that engineers from Lockheed Martin are under his building and are making his room too hot. He has not slept in days and believes he is burned all over. He is terrified. I say, “Daryl, you must be so frightened. Sit here on the curb, where it’s cool. There are no engineers on this curb, sweetie. I double-checked this morning. No one will burn you. Just breathe in the cool, damp air.” He smiles. I call the psychiatrist to get him some Risperdal. This Daryl has foot pain and a swollen, bruised ankle. He can’t remember what happened. He’s totally lost. I speak gently, “Daryl, my name is Annie. I know you. We’ve spoken before. You’ve hurt your ankle and it’s painful. It’s okay that you don’t remember how it happened. We can get it fixed just the same. You just rest now.” I take his hand and invite him to join me on the curb while I call the doctor.
The crowd grows larger as the morning passes.
The dream releases me onto my bed in the barely blue of the early morning and beneath a ceilingless sky. I cry without resistance against my pillow. I feel relaxed as this wordless ache moves me. When it passes, I feel innocent—yet far from naïve.
Tim
That morning I meet with Tim. He is well dressed, neat, and clean. He won’t risk eye contact with me. If there are pauses in our conversation, he fills them instantly, usually with a seemingly inconsequential question, as though any space between us would open feelings in him that he can’t stand. He supported his wife and daughter before he had an accident on the job that crushed both his arms. He lost his job and suffered debilitating pain. Depression set in and grew steadily worse. His wife left him, and he lost his house.
I read his file this morning—it’s disturbing. I imagine him on one of those car bench seats made of old vinyl, the slight smell of oil, a blue dashboard, his plaid, flannel shirt, the silent darkness surrounding him, and the gun. It’s on the seat next to him, then the dash, then the seat, then his lap—that blackened, slightly shiny relief just lying there. I feel its cold, dense weight in my own hand. That he wasn’t able to shoot himself and instead drove to the hospital probably makes him feel all the more impotent.
I speak kindly to him, hoping to lift him out of his nothingness for a moment, but he hardly notices me. This is not the life he wanted. He wants to be that other Tim, wants me to see that other Tim—the man who worked and supported a family—not the Tim that sits here now. He had another, better life before, but so many days have passed since then that it’s hard to remember what he was like, and the contrast is too painful.
I breathe in his defensiveness, exhale, lean forward, and say, “You’re really lonely, huh.” He looks down, bites his lower lip, looks at me briefly with great sadness in his eyes, and then looks away and nods. “I’m lonely too, Tim,” and I reach for his hand. We hold hands without looking at one another. He runs his thumb along the inside of my palm, almost instinctually, tightening the intensity of his grip. Then, unable to totally accept my kindness, he cracks a joke, nervously retracts his hand, and walks toward the door, saying that he will see me when he sees me. His face expresses thanks as he leaves.
Leonard
After lunch a fellow caseworker, Deborah, and I drive to visit Leonard. Leonard and I have never met. Deborah reports that Leonard is in his mid-thirties and is schizophrenic. A number of months ago he decided to stop taking his medication. He was interested in Scientology and to become involved he could not be on any meds. She didn’t understand all the details. She says that since Leonard stopped taking his medication, he reports some auditory hallucinations but says he can ignore them. He rarely leaves his apartment.
She tells me that Leonard does not talk. He never says more than, “Fine, just fine.”
Leonard’s tiny room is heavy with smoke. All the windows are closed. There is a small single bed and a table buried in papers and trinkets. The trash can sits nearly in the middle of the room and is stuffed past the brim with garbage. With a quiet gesture, Leonard turns off the TV, places his lunch to the side, and sits before us on the edge of his bed, almost formally.
He is about 6’2” and thick down the middle. He wears friendly, old black jeans, a faded black t-shirt, and has long, light brown hair. His eyes are blue and clear. For me, these details reveal aspects of Leonard that could easily go unnoticed. His shirt is well worn, comforting, and familiar. I doubt it is a giveaway item from a shelter. The way it is broken in and the comfort and familiarity I imagine he feels when wearing it suggest that he has kept it for many years. I imagine that he picked this shirt out, not that it was given to him. Similarly his jeans fit him well, which is not usually the case with hand-me-downs. These details suggest that perhaps Leonard is not oblivious to his environment. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man that says, “just fine,” because that is his experience. These details, real or imagined, suggest that he says, “just fine,” because he does not like these people and does not want them to intrude in his private, difficult life, so he is “just fine” when he talks to them. Besides, there are only a handful of uninteresting questions to which one could respond, “just fine.”
I suspect there isn’t a bathroom in this room, but I don’t ask. I usually don’t ask a lot of questions. I am a guest here and probably an unwelcome one. Asking a lot of questions seems intrusive, and I sense that the more questions I ask, the more I will lose Leonard’s interest. Deborah introduces me.
“I’ve heard that you’re into Scientology.” He looks at me and nods. “I don’t know anything about Scientology, other than John Travolta is into it. Could you tell me about it?”
He looks at me, walks around to the other side of his bed, and hands me a large hardcover book on Scientology. I thank him. And then Leonard talks—for about fifteen minutes. The book is illustrated and I admire the pictures, or read a quote out loud that strikes me whenever Leonard pauses. This reassures him and he talks more.
“When you become involved in Scientology you talk to a trained ‘auditor’ and tell them about all the painful stuff you’ve been through. You’re suppose to feel it, you know, the pain, the old stuff, so that it doesn’t block your spiritual development. When you are going through the auditing process, they want you to be in a clear mental state. That’s why I stopped taking meds.”
“This means a lot to you.”
“Yeah, it’s hard, but worth it.”
“I think I can understand that because I’m a Buddhist, and when I meditate really painful feelings come up. I pause for a moment, tracking for a reaction, but I can’t read him. “Is it okay with you, Leonard, that I’m a Buddhist?”
“Yeah, Scientology embraces all religions. It’s non-sectarian.” I smile. He smiles in return.
“It seems like Scientology has treated you really well. What draws you to it, Leonard?”
He tilts his head slightly to the side, takes a deep breath, and sits thinking. “Well, Scientology believes that we are all basically good and that we can better ourselves spiritually in this life.”
My mind falls open. I stare at this man through the winding trail of his cigarette smoke. The room is still. We look at each other, half smiling. Then the sun catches the windshield of a parked car across the street, and the light flashes in my face, making it difficult to see. I breathe in the beauty—the silence, the light illuminating Leonard from behind, the hammock of cigarette smoke swirling in the space above him. I feel as though I might cry but worry that Deborah would judge me unfit.
“That’s beautiful, Leonard. I believe that too. Maybe sometime I can go to a meeting with you.” He nods his head
It’s not that I believe that Leonard is enlightened, but he is kind, despite the hard blows that life has dealt him. Given that it is unlikely that Leonard will ever transcend his condition, I see his kindness as healthy, and it seems that his connection to Scientology encourages this kindness. It seems that his choice to not medicate satisfies him, and he is not a danger to himself or others. His kindness in the face of being pressured by social services and having to deal with auditory hallucinations is a powerful teaching. We have another client to visit, and it is time for us to leave. I stand, thank him for his teachings, and bow. Outside, it is sunny and cold.
Tamara
Deborah and I drive to visit Tamara at Fort Logan psychiatric state hospital. Fort Logan is a transient home to only the most intractable cases, although they occasionally admit people for a 72-hour suicide watch. Tamara belongs to the intractables. She is the most delusional person I have ever known. The first time we met, she told me that Bosnia was going to cut my head off, put it in a blender, make a smoothie out of it, and give it to me to drink.
Fort Logan is an old style psychiatric hospital. It has the feel of a former military outpost. The military is gone, having ceded the land to the state in the 60s, but its sensibilities remain. Today it is cold. The grass throughout the grounds has turned a burnt, barren wheat, and the dark gray tree branches stand leafless and twisted.
Tamara has been placed at Fort Logan against her will because she is a danger to herself. The last time I saw Tamara, over two months ago, she was being released from another psychiatric care unit, Denver General, because they could not hold her any longer against her will. At the time of her release, she told me that the staff would kidnap the patients each night and take them to the basement and torture them. She escaped the torture by not drinking the milk they gave her with dinner. She tried to warn the other patients not to drink the milk, but they ignored her. She didn’t want to draw the staff’s attention, “but after the knight was raped with a broomstick, I felt things had really gotten out of control.” Clearly, she was not fit to live on her own.
Now, within the confines of Fort Logan, in a breathless rant Tamara recounts the plot against her life and takes out her pad of yellow legal paper on which she has noted the evidence. “Two men are trying to kill me because I inherited Wendy’s restaurants, Las Vegas, and Mel Torme, and one was outside the window last night with a glow stick, but I hid behind the bed, because I know better. I’m not stupid, I don’t drink the milk.” She talks so fast, spinning one plot after the other until they all become confused.
In the midst of Tamara’s rant, my attention wanders to a woman is sitting on the couch to the side of us. She is young—about 22. The afternoon sun falls through the window and lights her dark, richly brown hair. Her face is beautiful. She rocks intensely, but slowly, and enjoys a conversation with a hallucination, as though she were having coffee with an old friend. They are catching up, I imagine, sharing all the funny and embarrassing details of their lives. She laughs, occasionally shooting me a sidelong glance. She is the first person I’ve heard laugh all day. I smile. She smiles in return.
Then the man on duty tells her to go to her room because it’s naptime. She ignores him and continues enjoying her conversation. He calls out again, telling her to return to her room. She ignores him. He rises from behind the desk, walks across the hall to the couch, and holds out his hand. She stops laughing, drops her head just slightly, does not look at him, and passively allows him to escort her away. I feel conflicted because I appreciate the way this man is kindly enforcing the rules, and yet it seems sad that she must go to her room, as she is the only person I’ve heard laugh all day. Moments later, she sneaks around the corner on the tips of her feet, quietly, like a child, and settles back down on the couch and begins to laugh, but muffled now, guarding her small patch of happiness from the man behind the desk.
I try to listen to Tamara, who still reads aloud without pause from her notepad, citing her inheritance and describing the perpetrators. Deborah finally asks, “Who are these men?” For the first time, Tamara lifts her head, looks at Deborah as though she’s stupid, and says, “Donald Trump and Genghis Khan, who else?” I burst out laughing, feeling completely unprofessional, but I can’t contain myself. If Tamara notices, I can’t tell, she’s busy reading. The woman on the couch sees me laugh and laughs harder, rolling onto her back in a fit of delight, silently squeezing her knees while Tamara drones down the list of her inheritance: “Palm Springs, alcohol, Barbie dolls, Burger King, Kosovo, Prince Charles, Kaiser Permanente…”
Shortly, it’s time to leave. Tamara tells us that we haven’t heard the worst of it yet and asks me to take her evidence to the judge. He will know what to do with it because he does not drink the milk. She reaches her hand out to me. I look at her forearm and wrist. Suddenly, I see her as a young girl holding out her hand to me on the playground. I want to pick her up and toss her in the air and tell her that I love her and that everything is going to turn out all right. I want that small Tamara, the child that her mother gave birth to, before the milk and Genghis Khan, before Fort Logan. But this is an adult’s wrist, and everything has turned out wrong.
I look at her, take a deep breath, and collect her scraps of yellow legal paper. “I will guard this evidence with my life, Tamara, until I can hand it directly to the judge.” She relaxes, nods knowingly, as though we share a secret, and thanks me.i
I wave goodbye to the young woman on the couch. She waves, smiles, and silently laughs.
Deborah and I drive to 7-11 to get some coffee. The evening is coming on softly, and the wind starts up. I stand in the parking lot next to the highway and watch the line of cars with their headlights all in a row pour out of the city. I zip up my jacket and think of Tamara as that young child on a playground and of that young woman sneaking around the corner like a child with her muffled laugh and the sun in her hair. I sense that these women are telling me something but I can’t pin it down: it is open and fleeting, like a dream that you wake from but can’t recall.
i This is a classic no-no in most social services context as it would be seen as reinforcing Tamara’s delusions. As far as I can tell, Tamara needs no help reinforcing her delusions. Social Services has been telling Tamara that she is delusional for quite some time and somehow she is just not getting it (I wonder why that is?). At the time of this interaction, Tamara was on an extremely high dose of an anti-psychotic. Clearly, it was not abating her delusions. So I chose to soothe Tamara, even if only for a moment.
Written and contributed by Annie McQuade. The full article is available in the vol 1, No.4 (Winter 2006) issue of AQAL Journal. A lengthy online discussion of Annie's article took place here.
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