Measures Taken

Unlike the tear-swamped rest of us, John did not break down and cry after Dad died. He stopped speaking altogether. His body went rigid. He blinked very little.

“It’s like he’s catatonic,” we thought. We kept thinking it was only a matter of time before he released his grief.

There were so many details to attend to—Mom to care for, and our own shock and grief, to say nothing of distributing those dozen carrot cakes brought by thoughtful neighbors.

I moved back in to be with the family, but John stayed at his commune.

“When I went to visit,” Tom remembers, “I took John by the hand to pull him out of his chair. When I let go, his arm just stood out in midair. I couldn’t believe this, so I lifted John’s arm above his head. It stayed. Just stayed sticking straight up in the air.”

In those wound-fresh days, John came home to Tangletown from time to time, sometimes to hang out with us silently, sometimes to play a song or two.

I was not at home in January when John finally broke down, so I don’t know how it happened, what he said, or what brought him to the moment he agreed to get outpatient mental help at Minneapolis’ General Hospital.

The day before he started treatment, Mom left for California to visit Tom, Linda, and their young sons: three-year-old Don and infant David. (The Army had rejected Tom’s resubmit, promoted him again, and sent them to the most beautiful Army base in the country, in Monterey.)

Another mother might have waited. But another mother wasn’t ours.

By March, I move back to my apartment and get a job in food service at the U of M Hospital. Starting at 5 a.m., I load up a stainless steel hot cart and serve meals to psychiatric patients. After cleanup, I get back to my basement apartment around 12:30, in time for later classes and rehearsal. When I am cast on the Centennial Showboat, the University’s floating summer theatre, I begin socking away enough money so that I can quit the hospital when rehearsals begin.

One hot afternoon, just before I need to leave for rehearsal, I’m startled by a banging on my front door.

I open it. John barges in.

“Hi, John—um—I was just on my way—”

He’s always unpredictable, but today he is excited and somewhat scary. His eyes are flicky and buggy.

“I can brainwave my thoughts to you!” he cries, without even saying hello. He vigorously shoves his forehead into mine, pressing my skull to his with his strong guitarist’s hands.

“Well, that’s great, John,” I blink and try to draw back. “I believe thoughts can move without speech—”

“Quiet! Quiet! Receive these thoughts!”

For a moment I try to receive his thoughts, but I’m afraid. His invasion of my space and the force he shows obscure whatever he’s trying to accomplish.

“John, look, back off a second.”

“Stop talking! We don’t need to talk! We can communicate without words!”

I pull back. “I believe you, but how can you hear my thoughts if you won’t even hear my voice?”

“Quiet!” Again he fiercely presses his head to mine.

“Sorry, John—I have rehearsal! You have to go now!” He does not respond, just continues straining his head against mine. I don’t like this, I want to have a spiritual belief about it, but I am afraid, afraid, and now I’m going to be late.

“Stop it! John, if you’re reading my thoughts you know I have to leave.”

I pull away again.

“Why do foreheads even have to press together to read thoughts anyway? Can’t it be done from a distance?”

He says nothing, nor does he budge.

I hate this. I have to get him out and I don’t want him here when I get back.

“Just stop! You have to go! I have to leave!”

Still no response, just intense flicky eyes. Now I am screaming.

“Get out! Get Out! GET OUT!”

I scream at him again and again. After an eternity, he moves to and then out the door, dulled, like a large beast slowly leaving a watering hole.

I’m shaking. A rotten stew of horrible feelings—yelling at him, being afraid of him, afraid for him, guilty for feeling threatened by my own brother, shock that it took him so long to get the message.

What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with him?

The theatre is a great place to channel emotional confusion, and get congratulated for it. I go to rehearsal.

A few months later, Mom gets a call. The police have delivered John to the state asylum in Fergus Falls, a small town 180 miles northwest of Minneapolis, after finding him on a park bench there shouting, “I renounce Satan! I renounce Satan!”

Somehow I am able to get away to visit him in this icky sad green-walled institution. He looks awful. Green walls look bad on everybody.

“It was bad dope. Must have been laced with angel dust.”

I want to believe him, but I have had my own recent scare with him. Still, I’ve read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; I’m torn between wanting to spring him and seeing if there’s a medical way to help. Do people get better in these places?

Soon afterwards, Pogo convinces Mom we have to commit John to a mental institution, not just this temporary business in Fergus Falls. He initiates legal proceedings.

The hearing takes place that October. Having to testify is excruciating. What a betrayal. It’s not like John’s looney-looney. He’s brilliant. He may be spiritually advanced in some way—ahead of his time.

But I never want a replay of his enforced telepathy.

“Is your brother’s behavior normal?” the lawyer asks me.

“Well, not all of it might be considered normal.”

If only John weren’t here in the courtroom. He’ll know I betrayed him.

“Do you think he’d benefit from treatment? Remember you are under oath.”

“I guess I think I hope treatment might be helpful for him. He isn’t all that happy. He did scare me. But I don’t think it’s permanent. I don’t think he’s a real danger to people or to himself. If you do decide to commit him, I hope you will reevaluate him after a few months, because he’s really smart and that may be all that’s going on.”

I’m sick to my stomach with conflict.

John is admitted to Anoka Asylum, which in those days fit the classic profile of gothic, terrifying nuthouse. (Even today, now defunct as a medical facility, it’s used as a Halloween haunted house.) Thorazine and other drugs are administered against his will. Only Mom and Ro visit him. Neither drives so they must take several busses to do so. I am working, going to classes, and performing. I do not visit.

He is released after a few months, for “good behavior.” He tells Ro he played the game of the good patient.

John never spoke to me of this experience at length, except to spit fury.

“How could you do this to me?”

“We were worried about you.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to be restrained against your will! And no one came to visit but Mom and Ro!”

“We didn’t have a car! And I was working, taking classes, and performing every night!”

I am not fully conscious of how I fear him.