The Thirty Jesuses (and Other Bedlam Stories)
Chapter One
Every year around Christmas time, the Jesuses would begin to
arrive. On Ward E-what we called the Asshole to Hell-at New Mexico State
Mental Institution, we'd have about thirty Jesuses by Christmas Eve. I worked
there at NMSMI for 27 years as a registered nurse and let me tell you I saw and
heard some crazy shit. That's not a word I use lightly.
I was the batty nurse, the patients would call
me Crazy Colleen. I always told my staff that the only thing separating them
from the patients were their key rings. I was the only nurse who lasted any
length of time on E Ward; most of them were afraid of the patients they were
charged to care for. I found a sort of beauty in their madnesses, the way they
lived in their own worlds and made it work or not work, according to their own
designs. Don't get me wrong. They suffered, oh how they suffered. Every one of
them was locked away in prisons of the own minds, their rebellions as pathetic
as they were lovely in their grand illusions, tragic and flawed. I did what I
could to make their lives easier.
The District is what we called the higher ups
in hospital administration. At that time, for example, young women could be
lobotomized for sneaking out at night, if their parents wished it so, and the
District would authorize the surgery. They'd have the poor unfortunate wretch
transferred, scared and shaking, to one of the other wards. A doctor would show
up with his ice picks and mallets, and a few moments later, Ward E would have a
new patient. We were not huge fans of the district on Ward E, let me tell you.
The District would hand down notice, often merely hours in advance, that they
would be touring the facility with some bleeding heart types. These were the
cash cows, the ones whose rich donations salved their consciences for several
months before guilt crept back in. They would tour the facility, clucking their
tongues, thinking how fortunate they were that such craziness had not touched
their lives, yet quick to come up with stories of a mad aunt or uncle way back
in the genealogy. To make the patients feel that they had something in common,
you see.
I was often in trouble with the swells, because
I treated the patients as if they were humans rather than animals, people who
needed help rather than inmates. The District didn't dare get rid of me though;
E Ward was where they sent the worst of the worst and I was the only one who
could handle them and the staff. Plus, I was stubborn, you see. I liked to
stick it out.
Disruptions, like the bleeding heart tours,
often upset some of the patients and they'd have to be buckled down to beds in
the restraint rooms. The District people and their lackeys would despair the
poor things, lashed down and foaming with their madnesses, and beseech me to
let them free. My response that their presence was to inform them that they
were the reason these people were locked down in the first place was
met with stony silences and the cold shoulder. I didn't care. I didn't want
these people here upsetting my patients and I made no bones about it.
So, back to the Jesuses. As soon as December
began, and the snow flakes would swirl on the wind to be swept away by the cold
winter desert, I would begin to prepare for the arrival of numerous
messiahs. They would emerge from
sandstorms with the lower half of their faces covered, long wild hair and
beards matted with debris. They would come stamping and rubbing their arms,
cluttering up my receiving area and tracking mud and god knows what else in
with them. Without fail, they would each claim, in some form or another that
they were Jesus, son of God, and they required asylum from the Philistines who
persecuted them. Some of them were very good, quoting Bible verses that
supposedly hadn't been written in Jesus' time yet but well versed in the good
book anyway.
The day after Christmas, I would gather these
Jesuses together in the common room and line them up along the back wall. Then
I would drag a couple of my more damaged patients into the room, and demand a
healing. The reactions to my prayer were invariably humorous.
"MaryMotherFullofGrace,Hallowedbythyname,thyKingdomcomethywillbedoneAMEN!"
one particularly scruffy specimen intoned in a voice that was surprisingly deep
and resonant. Other Jesuses followed suit, invoking the Holy Spirit and the
Father and the Son-forgetting for the moment that they were supposed to be the
Son.
Several Jesuses just grinned sheepishly at me,
and slunk away to gather their things. We called these the modern day hoboes.
These guys would travel the country, bouncing from institution to institution
with a well-worn patter of crazy to see them through. In the winter months,
they headed for warm climates like Texas and the South. In summer months, they
sought balmy weather like Wyoming and Montana, where the food was good and the
people were sparse. But for some reason, rain, sun, snow, or shine, a large
population of hobo Jesuses would come to me, knowing I wouldn't kick them out
in the cold. They could count on three hots and a cot, and company during
lonely holidays. And always, there would be entertainment.
On this day, when the false Jesuses were
weeded out and the hobo Jesuses had departed, I turned to my regular patients
and thanked them for their help in getting rid of the imposters. See, the truly
mentally ill don't like people who play games at being mentally ill. It's like
an insult or something. I divided the group into two sections, and placed half
of them on the left of the common room, and half on the right. With the help of
Vincent, a very large black man with schizophrenia and a penchant for crushing
skulls, and Marge, the supposed mobster's moll with the severe OCD and the voice of an angel, we took all the chairs and turned them over so that their legs stuck
up in the air and formed a long double line down the center of the room.
Positioning my troops on either side of these makeshift barracks, I handed
out several bags of marshmallows down the ranks and ordered my soldiers to
arm themselves.
Grinning like fools, even the most disturbed
and dangerous patients grabbed handfuls of the fluffy white treats. Several
troops ate their ammunition but that was ok. Fun was what I was after, to
lighten the mood after the false messiahs had turned the day sour.
"ON MY COUNT!" I screamed at the top
of my lungs, a little unhinged myself. "ONE...TWO...THREE!
FIRE!!!!!!"
They let loose with a volley of marshmallows
back and forth across the upturned chairs. Drifts of sugary confections
gathered in the legs and crannies of the chairs, and several patients got down
on their bellies, crawling commando-style across the floor, to retrieve these fallen
treats only to pop back up with several in their mouths and several more to
fling at the "enemy" on the other side. Curtis Eldridge, a young man
who was there for killing his parents after they'd kept him tied to his bed
until the day they forgot, was singing jingles to commercials at the top of his
lungs in a surprisingly wonderful alto voice. Vinnie and Marge were feeding
each other marshmallows and then spitting them back at each other, using their
hands to clap distended cheeks and force the sugary projectiles out at top
speed.
I watched with a sense of satisfaction. These
damaged people, who came to me broken and unable in many cases to communicate
with any "normal" people always seemed to do best when under my care.
I loved them all, the crazy bastards, and many years after they came, stayed or
went, and even died under my watch, I can still hear them laughing and
singing and waltzing around the room, slipping on marshmallows and crawling on
the floor like children, without a care in the world or a Jesus in sight.
