Behind the gray By Jerome McGoire Arby's and McDonald's and Dawn Donuts are the last of the real world of Detroit sprawl that spills north into Pontiac. Just off Elizabeth Lake Road begins the rolling green grounds of Clinton Valley Cen¬ ter, previously known as Ponti¬ ac State Mental Hospital. The grounds are dotted with a few withered old trees like dying hairs on a bumpy green head. On the other side of the road stands a solid row of houses, formed as if in a wall against the hospital. The hospital buildings lie a few hundred yards back. The most prominent is a very old, red brick building. It looks like a medieval fortress with round¬ ed parapets and tiny windows. It looks cold and damp, even in the sun. All of the Clinton Valley grounds look colder and grayer than the surrounding area. On sunny days Clinton Valley seems not to absorb any of the rays. It looks drugged. A few bent bodies in ill-fit- ting clothes file past the cars that enter the grounds. Their stares are all hollow. Life in slow motion without any grace. The patients certainly do not look dangerous. Yet their usual silence, sometimes broken by a shattered sentence, is ominous. They look drugged and color¬ less. An uneasy feeling creeps into my viscera. It is a terror of madness and madmen nurtured by years of prejudice. It is a fear born of my own mad moments. The entire scene testifies that this is death on earth. This is loserville. These are your tired and forgotten. These are your poor and hungry. But there is no statue of liberty to Places like this welcome newcomers, only a fat were once called madhouses. Their patients were locked old Pinkerton guard and a up and forgotten. Now they are called hospitals. Their patients are still caustic receptionist. locked up and forgotten. Society's attitude toward the I have come here mentally illis one of as part of fear and repulsion. The victims of madness are shunned as my course work for a psycholo¬ soul. But they are lepers of the gy class. I am a student Undeniably ... so very much like ourselves. volunteer on a chronic schizo¬ phrenic ward. The class in¬ structor only meets his stu¬ dents on Tuesday nights. The real instructors are the pa¬ tients. The first day went something like this: The hospital liason, Mrs. (continued on page 4) "The whole scene says this is death on earth. This is loserville. These are the tired and forgotten. These are the poor and hungry. But there is no statue of liberty to welcome newcomers, only a fat old Pinkerton guard and a caustic receptionist." SS QUpDUUfO OL/iS/JDAA "After awhile the drugged expression of the patients becomes usual. Dull and lifeless, they have what psychology textbooks call "a blunted affect." They ore in a fog and the drugs assure that they never reach the rocky shores of self - confrontation or awareness. The hospital is a boring place — no raving, no straitjackets — and the patients' stupor is reflected in the weary ■ looking staff members. Watching patients on the "chronic" ward progress is like watching an iceberg and you don't know if it is melting or growing harder and colder. It is fust there ..." caiJed out a patient who was "Three. I was McVash (not her real name), good this holding a clipboard. week," Bill responded. had us sign in and gave us what "I don't have to listen to "Oh, but you didn't go to two cigarets on the way. passed for a welcome. you."responded the piano play¬ "You each have a red tag work on Tuesday." It was a strange feeling for er. with your name on it," she said. "But I had a dentist appoint¬ me to realize our sameness, Mrs. McVash introduced us "They staff tags. ment," Bill shot back. "Ask though he was a prisoner and are You can to the group as "the MSU Mrs. Laner...Oh, you're just social outcast in a mental go off the grounds with these. students." All the patients The patients have different kidding me, aren't you?" hospital. Emotional barriers gathered around. "OK, Bill, here's your dimes." colored tags." "Can I have run deep. a student?" one The staff member We returned to the ward. A "That's a nice thought," a asked. began to fellow student laughed. give Bill the dimes but took chronic-ward psychiatrist, — a "I want a student," another Mrs. McVash then escorted them back and taunted Bill nattily-dressed Indian (Asian) cried. before finally stopped Steve and badgered us around the relinquishing — hospital. A young patient • eyed me "Pontiac handles most of the them. him in halting English. with interest. surgery and research on brain "Can I have you?" he asked. Tiring of this game, the "Why do you act like this? staffer departed for a distant Why don't you clean yourself damage and organic difficul¬ "I need someone with some ties," she said. ward. up? Why do you act so crazy? brains to talk to." "That is Mrs. Laner, a registered The doctor importuned. why there are so He stood over six-feet tall many retarded and seriously nurse, took over and brought Steve recoiled, his face a and he was dressed in a handicapped patients here." my companion into the room mask of fear. The doctor gave too-small boy-scout uniform. The patients gave us a tho¬ with her. She was much more me an accusing glance and Hearing his remark, a patient adult and straightforward with returned to the ward office to rough looking over as we next to him scowled. turned down a decayed the patients. take up a discussion about the hallway "I think we have been as¬ "I'm sorry, but you know in the oldest low pay of his job with one of part of the signed someone already," I hospital, which was built in what you need to stay on level the non-professional staff. Such 1856. It smelled like explained. But later, Jim, the three," she told Bill. "It is up to is the progress of modern slightly young man in the scout rancid food. you if you would like visits psychiatry. uniform, did become my pa¬ home or not." The hall was made of bare tient. Many of the doctors in state cement and old Mrs. Laner was sensitive to institutions are foreign. Most brick, and Mrs. McVash left us. The water had collected around a the patients as individuals — a American doctors shun the patients began their meeting to treatment that is often lacking drain where the floor slanted discuss things concerning the relatively low pay and terrible down. Small windows in the sterile hospital atmos¬ working conditions < coupled near the ward and to recommend each ceiling provided a gray pall that phere.. Unlike other with the unmanageably other for some large privilege level chang¬ members of the staff, she did case loads. The Asian doctors competed with the fluorescent es. the patients to go to their not repress sexual references readily take the jobs because it lights. All along the left side of mid-day "meds." the wall were scooped out "Anything to discuss?" asked or mannerisms. is very difficult for them to Meds is arches that looked like altar one patient. Most patients have deep establish a private practice. hospital slang for anti-psychotic "Of course not," said "Buffalo and sedative drugs, which flow shrines in very old cathedrals. sexual conflicts but sexual ex¬ Many may not even desire to Bob," a short dark man in a like milk and honey in the Rusted old beds were stuffed pression is deeply repressed by be psychiatrists. into the recesses which had a cowboy outfit. "Let's get on their own defenses and Victori¬ psychiatric wasteland of Ameri¬ with this. Hey, look! "They have a hard time can mental health lower There an staff reactions that care. ceiling than the hall. comes Tiny Tim." only understanding American pa¬ After awhile the "It looks like a set for reinforce the problems. Mental tients and their problems," drugged He was referring to a large expressions of the 'Marat/Sade,' " I said. hospitals are quite untitillating. Mrs. McVash told me. "But patients man with a baby become usual. Dull and lifeless, Mrs. McVash laughed face who The foreboding coldness of the some of the thinly carried his blanket with him. foreign doctors who the patients endure what psy¬ and without humor. architecture matches the re¬ have lived in America for Another patient sneered at chology textbooks call "a blunt¬ 'This is the oldest part of the pression of the staff and pa¬ awhile and who are really Tiny Tim. tients. ed affect." They are in a fog hospital and some of the beds "He better get level zero if interested in psychiatry are and the drugs assure that have just been left there. But After the meeting I met good. But there are just too they I'm stuck on two again," the never reach the rocky shores of this used to be a ward," she Steve, my patient-companion. many patients and no money." patient grumbled at Tim. "He's He had self-confrontation or aware¬ said. cigaret stains all over The Indiaa psychiatrist was crazy and he got to go home." his ness. At the end of a few more "You're a student, huh?" fingers — a common sight replaced on the ward a month The hospital is a boring place dingy corridors we climbed asked a patient sarcastically. among the patients. They later. The staff requested the three flights of ancient, smoke like chimneys and save change. But his replacement — no raving, no straitjackets — grimy "Where is your notebook? Are and the patients' stairs. Mrs. McVash offered a money by buying "Bugler" to¬ was a woman who weighed well stupor is note of you going to study us?" bacco and papers to roll their over 200 reflected in the weary-looking caution as we ap¬ A staff member pounds. She was came to the own. staff members. proached a door marked "Ward rarely on the ward and was 7." meeting with the staff evalua¬ "Do you have Watching patients on the tions. He looked like a cross a cigaret? Do usually to be found in her first chronic ward "The patients will be with¬ between Santa Claus and a you have a cigaret?" another floor office. The third floor "progress" is like drawn and will relate mostly to patient interrupted. Steve location of the ward watching an iceberg and you used car salesman. He said — unser- don't know if it is themselves," she warned. hello like the host of glanced at him harshly. viced by elevator — may have melting or The locked door opened Howdy "Can we go down to the store been much of the reason for her growing harder and colder. It upon Doody. He jingled dimes in his is just there. The routine, the a long hall with open rooms so I can get absence. pocket. some papers?" along both sides. Pale green Steve asked. He was barely audible life hum turns Dimes are given to patients clutching Later in the term I was the hours into days, the walls arched up to a 14-foot his dimes days according to the level they have tightly. The level assigned the young patient in into years ceiling. The furnishings con¬ meeting had been timely. the scout uniform, Jim, who as many as 10 to attained, at the rate of a dime a 30 years for most of the sisted of a smattering of chairs "Where do you go to col¬ had approached me at the first level. The rating determines chronics. and a table plus a smashed up what privileges they will have lege?" he asked. "What are you meeting. Upon leaving the hospital, a piano which was occupied by a for the next two weeks. studying? How old are you?" Steve had since run to Chica¬ The Steve feeling of relief came over me. single patient who repeatedly dimes are a part of the was quite interested and go. hospital The talk became more ani¬ banged out a single note. "Behavior Modification Pro¬ aware, contrary to Mrs. Mc- "Why do you think Jim is so Vash's warning. mated and less nervous as _ Some of the patients were gram." We were both very nervous. sick?" I asked the new psychia¬ chains seemed to fall off. But sitting in a group dressed in The staff member asked BUI, trist. various states of I asked him where he was from exhaustion hit about half-way disarray. a large man in work clothes, "Well, for example, we gave back to East Lansing. We could "Ward meeting, ward meet¬ and how long he had lived in the what level he should him a weekend home last get this hospital. no longer fight the drowsy ing. Right now, ward meeting," week. week," she explained. "His "My family used to live spell that is woven about the mother had arranged a whole around Flint but they left a hospital. The land of Oz long camping trip with a student without joy. time ago. My brother is the group at Oakland University. I recalled the only one around but I never see When the boy from the group disturbing feel¬ him. He never comes around or ing that hit me as I first entered came to get him, Jim hid in his the hospital grounds. anything," he said. room and would not open the Again I "I've been here about saw the dead look in the seven door." or eight years. I guess I leave patients' eyes as they walked a "When his mother came lot. I can't remember the last through a fog clutching to the home, Jim was in his room with addiction of institutionalization. time." the radio on loud. He said he The real By "leave" he meant problems are light walking hadn't heard the boy," she off the grounds without years away, back to when they permis continued. were John Q. Somebodies and sion and hitch-hiking away. "Now I wouldn't let my not "He has been to just about orphans of the ! State, daughter do something like shelved away in cold storage. every institution around, I that. That's not normal. But there is little money for think," Mrs. McVash told i me. "If my mother "He goes along fine until his arranged a treatment and little concern. medicine runs out and then he camping trip with kids I didn't Lock 'em up. Dope 'em up. know I wouldn't becomes disoriented and he go either," I They are a danger to self and replied. "Especially if I had others, a nuisance, a bad exam¬ gets picked up by the police. been here for three The last time was Bellvue in years. ple, non-productive, nuts. That's crazy!" New York." They are forgotten and re¬ She was not impressed. After we purchased the moved, even as the cities they cig¬ It was noon back at the ward. left, or from which they were aret papers and played a game Time for me to go home and for removed, grow around them. "I recalled the disturbing feel¬ ing that hit me when I first entered the hospital grounds. I again saw the dead look in the patients eyes as they walked through a fog clutching to the addiction of institutionalization. The real problems are light years away, back to the time when they were John Q. Somebodies and not orphans of the state shelved away in cold storage. "There is no money for treat¬ ment and little concern. Lock 'em up. Dope 'em up. They are a danger to self and others. A nuisance. A bad example. Non¬ productive, nuts. "They are forgotten and re¬ moved even as the cities they left, or from which they were re¬ moved, grow around them." The cobweb mind of Jimmy Whoo By STEVE ORR He said his name was Jimmy Whoo, and he really does exist. He is 35 years old. is from Michigan and his real name is unimportant. • • • He came into the State News offices this summer, asked to use a typewriter and did so. He typed up three pages of autobiographical (If you were to walk past him on a sidewalk in the night — and that material, gave it to me and then sat down to begin talking. He talked is when you would be most likely to, at night — you would laugh, and for about three hours and then left, to indulge in his nightly task of maybe feel sorry, and you would feel scared, at least a bit...you walking the streets between the hours of eleven p.m. and four a.m. I would laugh because his clothes probably would not fit, would be too met him later, and walked with him for several hours. short at the ankles and too short at the wrists and too old. You might The next day I expected him to come by the State News offices, feel sorry because he didn't fit and looked lonely, and for the same because he is that kind of person, but he didn't. I was curious about reasons you would laugh: emotions seem like that — the same him, very curious, and I began making phone calls to various persons stimuli evoke different reactions in different people. And you and offices listed on his would be scared, at least bit, because, well, look at the eyes in the autobiographical sketch, to get information a for a story. picture. It really is an accurate drawing, and if you look you can see Though he never did come back and I haven't seen him since, I did something of his intensity, the kind of intensity that scares you find out this about him: when he was 21 because it's unchannelled, undirected, loose on the streets...there is years old and studying for the priesthood in an Ohio seminary, he had a vision in which he saw one other thing you might do if you were to see him on the sidewalk Jesus Christ. According to a family member with whom I in the night: you might ignore him, because some people react that spoke on the phone, that incident was the start of 15 to stimuli... years of mental way problems. Simili modo postquam coenatum est, accipiens et hunc Since that time, Jimmy Whoo (he says his name is an Indian one) praeclarum calicem in sanctus ac venerabiles manus silos: from light has been in and out of half a dozen mental institutions, and in and out into dark, sometimes it's so dark I can't even see my hands in front of many more self-induced predicaments. Many of them are comical of me. it's always from light into dark, the candles, no light coming - like his purchase of a chain of 30 motels in California with bad through the windows, the reds and purples of the windows are checks and some aren't. Within the last almost blacks., niggers, always remind me of cats slithering around a year his family tried to — have him committed for a corner in the shadows, of cats screeching — sudden long-term stay in a hospital, but a judge, explosions following the guidelines of the new state mental health code, would watts, detroit, newark, I knew those explosions. I saw them coming, not inter him. could have but didn't want to tell anybody anybody they were Jimmy Whoo — who was, last I heard, voluntarily confined in St. coming..down the aisle, with the hard wooden benches on my sides Lawrence's community mental health clinic — claims to know and to dark but I know there's no one in the way....item tibi gratias agens have done many things, bene dixit, deditque discipulis suis, dicens: this is good coffee, many things he actually did not do. But that, any as I found, is part of his charm, coffee is good coffee (he sits outside the K-P store, back part of his what makes him so against the interesting. And he is quite interesting... building, waiting for me, a mere youngster, me; why is he waiting for me, any way?what did I do to deserve him? In cordoroy pants and blue work shirt and old beaten shoes he said he took from the body of a policeman — "He was divorced. Three kids. He's dead"—with blue eyes, blue and innocent as those of a Siamese kitten I own, but possessive of a cognitive intensity no animal but Man has), wanta get going, there's things to do tonight, always things to do. on my feet (he says his right foot is bloody raw from hard pavement and stolen shoes) five hours a night, that's my job. they need me, people do -Accipite, et bibite ex eo omnes: (the houses and Halsteads slip by in the dark, he uses a cane but still outwalks me, and I can walk plenty fast, he knows where he's going) you have to know where you're going, yessir. one thing I learned in the service — the service, service, that chopper, that missle, those flames, the flames and the burning feeling, the pain that hardly is pain at the moment, when — know where you're going. If you don't know, make it seem like you do. confidence, they can smell you a block away if you're not confident, and from a block away they can blow a hole in you big enough to stick my fuckin' cane through ("got poison in the tip of my cane," he tells me. says his brother got it from the CIA. also tells me why he has such a thick, heavy cane, of wood: it doesn't bend when he hits somebody over the head with it, and it's strong enough to use as a hook to pull himself up over a wall, for not the first time tonight he scares me, but he is fascinating, too. talks like a charmer) •i *■' I was there when Bobby got it. I was there when John ...ex eo omnes: they always have deep voices, it's in the robes, got it. a minute late, 30 seconds late, won't belate this time. ("If I ever see put on a robe — that time I did, when Father left one in his room with the door open, didn't fill it, it filled me—and it fills you up so. takes Nixon, he's dead," he says to me. Oh? "He'll have 17 minutes to live. Fifteen to meet his Maker and two to meet me. Seventeen seconds your cock and shrinks it until it's gone—never so scared, no more later he's dead.") that fucker's got no right to be alive—that fucking, still had three years left for fucking until God started doing chopper eaten out inside by fire, smoke, more choppers it for me—and it fills up the rest of you until you're bursting, until coming in overhead to take them away and me away too—(..."to be alive, that damn your head and you lungs are so fuU, like your bladder— blad-blas- tema blastoderm, blas-to-mere, hummmh, paper-hanging son of a bitch is worse than Hitler") worse than urinary system the Hitler, not like kidneys, the bladder, the ureters the urethera hmph, hummh—like, ferency (..."on June 21,19691 got to ask a question of like your bladder is fuU of bavarian. beer, boy. beautiful..hie est Ferency. And I get to ask another on June 21, 1975. He has never talked to me that he knew it.") if ferency goes I go three minutes enim..and they speak, I could talk like that, and their voices whoosh later, go?...haec quotiescumque feceritis, in memoriam they do, around the room and fill it up with quiet roaring roaring in facietis...3i church? (we walk the other way, up grand river, past the Halsteads my ears, in my calix sanguinis mei, noviet ears and always too in my throat, chokes it. aeterni makes me feel—beautiful boy. I could have again, past K-P. we've been walking for hours.) that church again, haven't been in a real church for...years. done that, I could do it still yessir testameni... always so quiet, so quiet, until the noise starts up. ("ever go to church?" he asks, not these days, I say. "Ever been in a hospital?" I'm not sure what kind of hospital, want to ask but don't, and since I haven't been in any hospital longer than it takes to say hello. I'm sorry or to have a cast wrapped around my foot, I just say No. "Good," he says. "Both aren't worth shit. Both'll kill you." How? "You know how close you are to death? Look there." he points to his (he's been quiet, walking faster down Harrison, tapping his cane feet. "That close," he says. But how do they kill you? "I already told now and then on the sidewalk, he says something I can't quite hear, you one thing. You find out the other for yourself. I ain't your daddy that sounds like "in nominay pat"...pat, something, it sounds like and I ain't your teacher. Nobody pays me $50,000 a year to tell you Latin, that I studied four years in high school) things." my ears, whole head sting and burn)—you find out, you'll mysterium fidei: mysterium fidei, mysterium fidei—qui pro— find out if you ain't lucky church..mirot'6o ad altere Dei Father, I mysterium fidei. the mystery of faith, genetive singular, of faith. have to tell you some- someth-something—Yes? yes, memento O nominative singular singular, pluralplurality. prefer singularity. Domine, famulorum et famularumque tuorum...memento, etiam O no women for longer than one night, or two. shemales. they're not Domine, insanorum tuorum to be trusted, neither are males, like the girl on the bus from (we're standing by the bank, with the stoplight charging Traverse City — motherfucking pigs—she didn't tell me to change regularly, talking. I say: what are you going to do tonight, because I buses, neither did that busdriver. no matter, it doesn't, and this have to go and...I manufacture some excuse to leave him and make kid, can he be? no matter, jimmy whoo goes where he goes, does sure he doesn't come with me. I am fascinated still, but scared even what he wants, with who. trust nobody, fuck it. fuck em. qui more, and I want to go home to bed. Instead he says "you know, if pro-no-vobis et-no-pro multis effundetur in remissionem—noo there's a God, there's you and me. And when you're dead you're peccatorum fuck him and his pecker. himHim he forgives no, Je-he dead. I ain't going to die to meet Him." What, I think, but won't don't save no one. sign, that mission downtown where they sent me ask "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he calls from across the when the bus left me, it read Jesus Saves. He must save money, street he leaves. I won't, I as yell back) qui nos praecesserunt cum must save time. I don't have either. ("I don't got either," he says. signo fidei, et dormiunt in somno pads...church??..black, that's my What, I ask him. "Money or time," he says, he chuckles, and makes association, black like-black red and black me scared purple and black blue; again. I ask him why he's out here walking around, and he because it's nighttime. I wasn't says "You can dream it, you can imagine it. crying, not at first, but the only And somehow, light—the candles —began to blur like I was crying, and then they somewhere, we'll make it. If you need us, there we are." Who? dimmed, because He did it when He sent Him into the place to talk to "EGS," he says. "Educational Guidance Service." What? me. I could have seen my hands then, in the light of the flames that Fascinating fascination: "Seventeen people. I started it back in surrounded Him while he talked to me, right over the head of the 1958. Unofficially it started in 1795. Anaheim California." Why? father, who couldn't see it; and though I didn't take my eyes off of "You need us. We're there. We got people all over the world." But Him because He wouldn't let me, I knew my hands had holes in you said only 17. "We're everywhere.") them. i i : di yl mi nv eki di de gn yeh ro yl nel lla tohs no gnidloh litnu thguob[ deg la" htiw ',ytid yl aer revnh' nehw sah eht elbati' sknar rof insamybek sag do g ,htuom tornads," seitruc ti ti ,rebmos .PdiaeshS evah eht pain.' ta nemow r«na retsi you'v" ^ * !esuaceb eht 11 |nahc Ntow reh it ®gnihtya 1ha ip 1 ®w ]irf s op i jmitemac klat tey jnut eot ^OO,31 Wm j'sels ah fo eht d it»wJg)Ma6 * sPV