The wrinkled, graying man narrowed his bushy eyebrows while squeezing his nicotine-stained fingers until they were white. Squinting through smudged eyeglasses at the hunched-over figures dressed in blue fatigues, he scanned the room while barely moving his head. His taut muscles flexed to “ready alert,” waiting for any hint of sudden surprises. Satisfied that no imminent threat lurked in the Montana VA Day Room, he let his rigid body sink deeper into the cracked cushion of a plastic chair.
My name’s Leonard Lundeen—little-known vet and psychiatric patient. I’ve had my days in the sun, but lately there’s been a lot of shade.
Readjusting the smudged glasses that had slipped down his nose, he stared from his seat at nothing in particular.
I’ve had my share of titles, but most people call me Lumpy. All they see is a lump sitting with his mouth shut.
Stiffly shifting his body to find a more comfortable posture, he flirted with forming a wry smile.
But for your information, appearances can be quite deceiving.
Sizing up his surroundings, his eyes flickered as two patients across the room cheered at a television quiz program. He looked bored but felt disgusted.
What some idiots won’t do for entertainment.
Scooting further down into his chair, he wondered about how he ever ended up on a psych ward . . . again. Massaging his forehead with his calloused fingers, he thought how tired he was reviewing his “symptoms” and “diagnoses” over and over again. The sounds of his psychiatric labels did make interesting tunes, but they didn’t help him dance through life any better. Not by a long shot. Leonard Lundeen saw himself as a tragedy, and knowing his diagnoses and symptoms didn’t change that one damn bit. He knew his head wasn’t right, but doing something about it was another matter.
Don’t get me wrong. My “behavioral symptoms” fit the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Some doctors call me catatonic because in my darker moments I stiffen up like a corpse. Others think I have “anger management issues” and “paranoid delusions.” Well, they’re right. I believe there are people out to get me, some with good reason. I hate Big Brother, have my serious doubts about Holy Mother, and I’m not sure I’d go golfing with Uncle Sam. I’m still pissed at those hairy hippie bastards who called me a baby killer and I’m not pleased with the cowards who stayed home making money while I ate MRIs in the rain and mud with leeches crawling down my neck.
Lundeen closed his eyes, trying to shut off his thoughts. No luck.
When I even think about talking this way, some nurse wants to give me more medication. Medication— the “magic” pills. This psychiatric crap could give witchcraft a bad name. And it’s not just medicine. The world outside is a shark-infested cesspool, where money and power pollute the water and the Military Industrial Complex creates test tube babies who now serve in Congress.
He snickered at these rumblings in his brain—Weird, mixed-up “opinions” that are laced with my own brand of twisted humor. His smiling stopped as he brought himself up short.
But I’m not “The Fool,” wandering around the pages of some Shakespearian tragedy. My thoughts cut deeper than sarcastic jokes, and deeper is where the pain is.
Wringing his hands, Lundeen squeezed his fingers into gnarled balls, and then released them, folding his hands into a prayerful gesture. Over and over again, in a pulsing rhythm of agony, he squeezed, holding the tension until it felt like a death grip, and then straightened out his fingers like a priest at Mass. Throughout these cycles, his face seemed etched in ice. Apart from his stiff hand and arm gestures, the rest of his body looked frozen, like vulnerable pieces of a larger iceberg, preparing to calf and drop into the sea. His cobalt eyes moved little but sparked around the edges, betraying more vision than was obvious to a casual observer.
I might strike you as strange . . . or some kind of pariah . . . but don’t slam the door on me yet. I have something to say. The VA knows me as 295.30. That’s the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic code for Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type—a label that scares the hell out of people, particularly the ones who wear it.
Lundeen was not a stranger to mental hospitals. His psychiatric baptism occurred during the latter years of the Vietnam War, after he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, freed as the war concluded and flown to the States where he was treated for Post Traumatic Stress and “other psychiatric conditions.” The war chewed him up, and then treatment began. He started reading about “schizophrenia” and “paranoia” and “things that go bump in the night.” Although a well educated man, Lundeen quickly slipped from doing library searches about what ailed him to shaking in despair about what ogres crawled around inside him. A bright mind that once served him now turned on him, twisting his logical thoughts into fractured pieces of glass that formed a kaleidoscope of fear.
Back in the VA Dayroom, Lundeen heard the speaker at the nurses’ station announce that it was time for medications. He leaned forward to begin the process of getting out of his chair. Sitting up had become a chore, a far cry from when he trained as a Marine with lightening reflexes and laser focus.
Damn these drugs. Damn the doctors who write the prescriptions for them. They’re actually proscriptions. Prescription proscriptions . . . that cloud my mind, trip up my feet, and turn me into a zombie poster boy. Maybe the VA will write on my tombstone: “Here lies Lieutenant Leonard Lundeen, totally screwed . . . but he took his medication.”
Frustrated by his bungled attempt to get up, Lundeen fell back into his chair.
Probably wondering how an old man like me can raise so much hell in an emergency room and then barely get out of a chair a day later.
Lundeen settled himself into the well-worn cushions.
I wondered that myself. Maybe one of the medical gurus can answer that question for us. Maybe they could perform some kind of “differential diagnosis” between Hebephrenic Schizophrenia and Bipolar Affective Disorder or some other damn thing. That would please the hospital staff and insurance companies.
Lundeen shifted slightly in his chair and passed some gas. Thoughts like these upset my digestion. I bet you didn’t think I knew such grand psychiatric labels. Well, I do. I read ‘em somewhere on an outhouse wall.
Reaching for an ashtray on the coffee table next to his chair, he raised it to the orderly who was passing by. Although hospital policy technically forbade smoking, the Patient Council on the ward had voted to permit it “temporarily” in designated areas. The Council had reasoned that most of them had already been exposed to worse toxins than cigarette smoke, that substantial stress would be caused by their being forced to stop smoking—and that they “had to die from something.” The hospital administration had taken the Patient Council’s vote “under advisement” and agreed to permit “restricted smoking” for patients already addicted until a thorough study could be done to “further clarify the issues.” The aide, dressed in an almost-white uniform, smudged shoes and wearing a nametag labeled “Sonny” pinned on his wrinkled jacket, grinned at Leonard through crooked teeth. “Hey, Lumpy, you know I can’t give you no cigarettes before you get your medications. So hang on, my man. I’ll fix you up after that.”
I bet you will.
The aide took the ashtray from Lundeen’s hand and placed it back on the table. Lundeen stared right through him, acknowledging nothing. Inside his mind, however, it was a different story.
I’m careful whom I talk to. “Magna res est vocis at silentii temperamentum.” (You wonder why I think in Latin? Well, where I came from, you used a lot of it). Anyway, Seneca said it well: “It’s best to know when to speak and when to keep quiet.” Saying too much has gotten me into trouble, so I solve that by shutting up. Not that I’ve got a whole lot of say-so over what goes on in my head anymore. Behind my confusion, though, there’s torture. Scars that I don’t share with anybody. Not God. Nobody. Not even myself. It’s a lot simpler being three-years-old. Not as many memories. The fewer the memories, the less the pain.
Lundeen touched the edge of his frayed shirtsleeve, toying with several loose threads, twisting them between his finger and thumb. He gently rubbed the fabric like it was a stuffed animal, letting the cotton cloth’s smoothness caress his trembling hand. His shoulders sagged as his eyes closed and his breathing became shallow. At the sound of a metal chair grating against the cement floor across the room, Lundeen raised his eyelids. He had not been sleeping, just escaping. For a moment, he sank into a wordless, imageless state of numbness that knew nothing, only peace. Then the sounds of the psych ward intruded again—scrambled voices of staff chattering with each other, the squawking of a television hanging helplessly on the wall, and the screaming silence of broken men dressed in gray, having nothing to say that mattered. It was enough to drive one crazy.
After lunch we’ll be going to the group room. It’s quite a place. There’s no naked light bulb dangling from its ceiling, but there should be. There should be blood on the floor too. Lots of it. Mixed with jungle rot, blood-sucking leeches, and screams of men blown to shit. And scars. The goddamned scars. Made by a thousand daggers.
Take in a deep breath and suck in the stale air and cigarette smoke that’s hidden in the curtains. That poison eats your lungs. The smoking guns have stopped but the cancer inside hasn’t. All kinds of cancer. The worst kind gnaws away at your mind. What the Viet Cong didn’t blow away, I did. What a hell. Jungle rot of the spirit. No drugs work for that, at least not for long.
When the bell rings for group therapy, you’ll see cripples like me, huddled around a conference table, hunched over, hopeless and terrified of fear. It’s all about fear. When fear paralyzes your brain, you’ll believe anything.
The wrinkled skin on Leonard Lundeen’s face draped over his jawbones like a wet curtain, clinging to his expressionless stare. Without a sound, a wisp of air slipped from his mouth, leaving speech behind.
The VA Hospital is my home now—a mental ward with locks and Plexiglas windows. A gray house. The only color the government knows.
Gray ceilings,
Gray floors,
Gray tables and
Gray doors.
Martha Stewart must have toured here briefly after being sprung from prison, because the chairs do have a little pizzazz—green and brown cushions. A woman’s touch to break up the monotony. Women break up more than monotony. Take my word on that one.
Lundeen began humming inside his head,
Hanoi Jane was such a pain.
While I was fighting in the rain.
This wicked witch stirred up a stew
That poisoned troops with Judas brew.
Lundeen knew that it was more than a Hollywood actress that fueled his feelings. She was the tip of an iceberg of hurt, hurt built upon the insults of those he had sworn to serve. Decades ago, he had completed his final tour of duty in Nam. Dressed in his officer’s uniform, he entered the airport terminal, and was jeered and spit at by a riled-up group wearing love beads and flowers. One cute little girl about his daughter’s age, dressed in a frilly red blouse and blue skirt, ran from beside her mother over to him and stuck out her tongue, shriveling up her pretty face into a monstrous mask of disgust. The hurt, distrust and anger stemming from such rejection, coupled with more affronts he would later encounter from protestors, festered within him, as painful now as they were then.
Lundeen’s eyes barely moved as they swept the room, his ruminating continuing non-stop as he looked at a one-way mirror on the wall. There was yet another woman Lundeen struggled to deal with, and he often saw her presence reflected and intruding in his life.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall.
Who’s the fairest of them all?
Holy Mother,
In case you wonder.
That’s the Catholic Church. She knows everything that goes on around here. She can read my thoughts and monitor my sins. Why, she can even detect a silent burst of flatulence. That’s a real gas . . . like me . . . a man with broken thoughts . . . ready to explode.
Pictures on the wall? There are none. Carpet? No. Just floors painted Gut-Shot Gray, Serial Number 3-7-77. You can buy a gallon of it at an Army surplus store.
Feel that warmth, that tender tingling that comes from being touched? Yeah, right. I’m being sarcastic now. You’ll have trouble following me, but after all, I’m schizophrenic. I bounce around inside my head. But you know what? The main difference between you and me is not my crazy thoughts; you have them too. You just don’t talk about them.
Lundeen reached for the ashtray again, placed it in his lap, and began rubbing it with his fingers. Poking his finger at a cigarette butt that had seen better days, he smeared some of the ash around the edges of the black plastic container.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
Is there meaning out there
Beyond all the fuss?
I wouldn’t know. I’ve been in an emotional ash heap since Moses bowled the Ten Commandments down Mount Sinai. Strike! Well, those Commandments didn’t get me “spared.” I’ve been a damn long time in a vacuum. Nobody to kiss my ash. Nobody for me. Not that I need anybody. Haven’t sent out Christmas cards lately. Haven’t gotten many back either.
A hint of a twinkle sparkled in Lundeen’s eyes.
That was kind of clever, if I say so myself, but let’s get back to me and this place.
After Nam, this hospital is where I ended up. For a human recycle center, it has its compensations. Take group therapy—a mixed bag of upset and opportunity. Here I sit, surrounded by the casualties of war who lost more than they won. The “glories of war.” You’ll see their wounds shortly. The official diagnoses of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury make the ugly seem elegant. Listen to how those labels sound. Roll them around on your tongue and taste their respectability. Pathetic words trying to justify brave men being shot to hell. Young lives blown apart beyond recognition. Wounded men who don’t even recognize themselves.
Squeezing the cigarette ash, paper and tobacco between his thumb and index finger until his fingers cramped from the pressure, he stared at the gray mess and rubbed it into the back of his other hand. I’ve got to stop smoking, or smoke something that erases memories. Too much in my head.
The twinkle drained out of Leonard Lundeen’s eyes and was replaced by a chilling emptiness that lingered. Staring again at his hands, he grabbed the ashtray and slapped it back on the end table. The noise attracted several glances from patients seated around him, but he didn’t appear to care. Instead, he leaned back again in his chair, folded his hands in his lap, and cleared his throat with a cough.
We were talking about group psychotherapy. A high-sounding word—“therapy.” It can be a three-syllable joke, depending on who’s doing what to whom. Sometimes there is nothing in this place that remotely resembles therapy. Just sterile florescent lights glaring overhead, showering moonbeams on quietly desperate men. The “Therapy Room”—where fractured personalities come for repair, terrified that what’s left of them will be ground into dust like cigarette butts in an ashtray. It’s here we do the Hokey Pokey to “turn ourselves around.”
A plump, grandmotherly nurse with a tray full of plastic cups touched Lundeen on the shoulder. “Time for your medication, Mr. Lumpy. We missed you at the nurses’ station, so I’m bringing it to you.” Perfumed with a combination of Midnight Taboo and Essence of Gauze Bandages, she bent over to offer him his drug cocktail. Her blouse, blossoming with a red, white and blue floral pattern, rustled over her past-its-prime bosom, brushing against his cheek as she reached across his lap to place a plastic water glass in his other hand. “Bottoms up, sweetie.” Leaning back and waiting for him to put the pills in his mouth, she tugged at the seat of her white pants to give her ample bottom some relief. “The doctor says this new medication should start working soon and make you less psychotic. You need to get perked up and socialize more.” Patting his hand with her pudgy fingers, she jiggled her jowls in a surge of excitement. “Doctor might assign two young interns to work with you in your own little private group. Isn’t that wonderful? Maybe we’ll have Lumpy back talking and joking before we know it.”
Who’s ‘we’? Do you have a cow turd in your pocket?
Lundeen stiffened, one hand holding the medicine cup and the other the water glass, both suspended in space. The nurse took a gentle but firm grip on Lumpy’s hand that held the medication, moved his hand to his lips, and tipped the cup so that the pills rolled into his mouth. Then grasping his other hand, she moved the cup of water to his mouth, tilting it slightly until the water brushed against his lips. His mouth opened wider, accepted the liquid, and remained open until she pushed up his jaw to close it. Waiting until he swallowed, she patted him on his head, and said, “That’s a good boy.” As an afterthought, she added, “Next time I’ll be sure and have you wash your hands before taking your medications. You know what the Good Book says: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Leonard stared through her, muting any sign of overt communication with her, but having plenty of thoughts on his own.
Angel with the magic “dope.”
Down my throat to help “us” cope.
Angel of the Holy Mother,
Treats me like I’m dense as rubber.
“Good boy,” are “we”? Hee, hee, hee.
She must think “we’re” only three.
Let her quote the Good Book once,
Let her think I’m just a dunce.
Strange talk? Strange is the way I think—24/7. My thoughts don’t have an “off” switch. I need more than a “good book.” I need a book with a happy ending. I need redemption, but . . . where in this Hell is redemption?
The VA keeps dipping into its “therapeutic treasury”: individual therapy, cognitive therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy, recreational therapy, psychodrama therapy, pill therapy, and more pill therapy. My God, my God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?
Therapy, therapy, therapy. Old staff leave . . . new staff get on board before discouragement grinds them down. The new ones pity me crouched in a corner, being ignored, so they figure their brand of treatment will succeed where all others have failed.
Lundeen’s eyelids sagged, if ever so slightly, betraying a burned-out man. Caught between a history of agony and a glimmer of hope, he reluctantly considered the possibility of light at the end of his tunnel. Two new doctors assigned to his care, fresh from the Halls of Ivy where academics play shell games with no peas. Greenhorns armed with therapeutic weapons that shoot blanks. For so long, hope had been his fickle mistress. She finally ran out on him and left him with his .45 automatic and an idea, and not a good idea at that. So he admitted himself to the Montana VA psych ward in hopes of regaining hope from somebody hopeful. Perhaps the new docs would qualify. Maybe not.
The noble stupidity of youth. The wonderfully enthusiastic and idealistic young, who have yet to attend the School of Common Sense. They dig into their black bags for wise words or new drugs, and retrieve Greek labels describing the same ageless agonies. American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Diagnosis 295.30. They stop there. They mistake diagnosis for treatment. They think description is the same as understanding. But they never seem to give up. I’ll give them credit for that. Two new docs, huh? Probably 20-somethings who’ll be clumsily poking around in my psyche, seeing what hurts.
Wish they could have been here when Busty Birdie roamed the halls and greeted the “newbies” with her special “Welcome Wagon” gift.
Lundeen laughed inside as he thought of this buxom patient from long ago, a well-endowed matron with straight, unwashed hair, lightening reflexes, and impeccable timing. Just as a new doctor would arrive on the ward, she would shoot up next to him, “quick draw” an apple hidden inside her bra, and push the fruit next to his lips. As the new doctor jolted back with surprise, Busty Bertie would chirp, “An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay.”
Ah, the good old days, Lundeen mused. Tired of my monologue? Well pinch yourself and keep awake. I’m not here to entertain you; I’m telling you how it is. Want to hear something scary? Deep down, my reality may not be a lot different than yours, so listen up. You want me to talk louder? Don’t be a wise-ass. I’m mute.
A three-year-old mute
Who doesn’t give a hoot.
Estranged from the bunch,
Looking forward to lunch
Speaking of lunch, it’s time. Then we have group. Oh, I almost forgot. I “earned” the privilege of eating with civilians today. Dr. Vic McGinnis, my psychologist, made a “behavioral contract” with me wherein I agreed not to talk about my paranoid delusions or act peculiar. Ol’ Vic has developed this behavioral management plan that he calls a “Token Economy Program.” It rewards “good” behavior and discourages “inappropriate” behavior. Patients in the program can earn points for “adaptive” behaviors, which we can cash in for rewards. For me, “mums the word” for screaming curses or freezing up like a statue. If I keep quiet about what’s going on inside my brain, I can earn more “points” to trade for the right to eat lunch with real people in the VA canteen. What a deal: Stifle what brought me here so I can eat in a canteen. Whoopee.
Does this strike you as simplistic, superficial and demeaning? At first it did to me. But for now, I’ll reserve judgment and see what’s for lunch. I’ve played games like this before. There are plenty of therapy fads to keep us patients entertained. The docs can get so excited about some of the strangest ideas. I mean, think about it—Oedipus conflict? Penis envy? Castration anxiety? Honest politicians? Has the world gone mad? What do they expect us to believe? I know “crazy” when it slaps me across the face, and there’s been a lot of slapping lately.
I’ve put on my “dumb Lumpy” look, appearing like a doddering simpleton that needs advice from his learned doctors. One teenage shrink “ordered” me to call in my “support group” and do “comprehensive family therapy.” Ordered me, like some wet-behind-the-ears prima donna. The foolish little shit. No family therapy for me. Not after what happened to Ol’ Lumpy. That pushy little punk in a white coat can stuff that “order” into whatever orifice he finds handy. “Deal with your issues,” he said. “Reconcile your feelings and family,” he said. “Go fornicate in your hair follicles,” I said.
Well, what do you think by now of Catatonic, Hebephrenic, Bipolar, Post Traumatically Stressed, Traumatic Brain Injured, Paranoid Schizophrenic Leonard Lundeen? Thought I’d toss in a few extra labels to keep you from ignoring the seriousness of my symptoms. However, just because I’m a psych patient doesn’t mean my neural cortex is atrophied. My symptoms help me survive. Don’t knock ‘em until you can give me something better to work with. I still have problems. Plenty of them: I can’t hold a job. I’ve lost my family. And God is redesigning the darkest place in Hell just for me.
Enough of that. It’s time to redeem those tokens for lunch.