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Indra1000Eyes -> Skinny Leviathan: A True Story (3/18/2005 9:51:21 AM)
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I had a dream the night before they institutionalized me, and what a dream it was. Even now, despite my growing confusion, it still remains vivid in my memory. I was walking the deserted streets of my old alma mater with a female friend mine. The nocturnal firmament stretching above glittered with silvery stars painting the alien constellations that can only be seen in Dreamland. Despite the splendor of the heavens, my attention was focused on my friend. The t-shirt she wore was tight, forcing her full breasts to stand out in relief against the fabric. The longer I studied her body, the stronger the feelings became. All the symptoms I experienced in the waking world came over me. A wave of nausea and sickly heat swept through my body. The pressure at the back of my head became unbearable and the world spun around. Then came the inevitable feelings of resentment and wrath.
In the real world, these hot feelings always freeze and give way to a leaden melancholy. But things work differently in the Land of Nod, don’t they? I let my rage take over and I pushed my friend to the ground. After tearing her shirt up, I began to roughly kiss her breasts. I didn’t feel anything, but that’s no surprise. As the modern philosophers so accurately observed, we can feel in dreams only what we experience in the waking world…and the feeling of soft skin against my lips was an experience I’ve never had.
It didn’t take long for my kisses to become bites. I tore into her flesh with my teeth, reveling in the taste of blood. Not satisfied with that act of sadism, I removed my belt and began to scourge her, rejoicing in the welts my abuse raised on her skin. The blood continued to flow until it was a river beneath me. The flood carried my dreaming mind into wakefulness. When I awoke, I felt sick and dizzy. My underpants were soaked with what I knew to be semen. Rushing to the bathroom, I vomited until the nausea passed. It was only then that I was able to weep.
I needed help.
The thing of it was, I thought I was going to receive that help. After two years of struggling with feelings of sexual violence, I finally decided to seek some sort of therapy. Employed in a job that didn’t offer any health care insurance, I had no choice but to go the local medical college. The college offered outpatient therapy, which is what I wanted. The idea of seeing someone on a weekly basis appealed to me. I’m not sure why. Maybe I just needed someone to confess to.
My first call to the office resulted in an interview with one of the resident psychiatrists. He inquired as to why I was seeking help, and I explained I was plagued by feelings of depression and anger. When he asked me to elaborate on the anger, it took me a while to answer. I was ashamed, I suppose, and scared. But I finally confessed.
“What’s so troubling about it is that it’s kind of sexual in nature,” I told him. There was a pregnant pause before the doctor replied.
“And how does this manifest itself?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t want to rape or molest anyone,” I quickly explained. “I’m not capable of that. I’m just filled with the need to lash out…to hurt women I’m attracted to. I feel nauseous, get dizzy…”
“Are you in a relationship right now?” he asked.
“No.” I could almost hear his sigh of relief.
“How long has it been since you’ve been in one?” was the next question.
“I’ve never had a sexual relationship.” It was an embarrassing admission for a twenty-five year old man, but the words came regardless. I was surprised at how easily it was to admit.
After the phone call, I had two consultations with the doctor. The first was nothing more than a quick interview. The next involved the infamous Rorschach test, what’s better known as the “ink-blot test,” during which I was shown a series of inkblots and asked to tell the doctor what I saw. The inkblots appeared as a host of leering faces, devils with broken horns and demons screaming wildly. I saw a masked priest with blue fire sparking from his hands. I saw two hermaphrodites facing each other, each endowed with large breasts and even larger erections. Maybe I should have been more prudent with my answers, but I wanted help and I thought honesty was the only way to get it.
When I heard from the doctor a week later, I was told a new doctor was going to be taking over my case. I can’t describe the relief and optimism I felt. I was finally going to receive the help I so desperately wanted. I went to the next meeting with a sense of elation, firmly convinced I wasn’t going to be sick forever.
I sat down with the head of the clinic, a woman by the name of Hayes. She was middle-aged and had an almost matronly look about her. She was accompanied by Dr. Ebrems, the doctor who was supposed to take my case, and the young woman who had administered my Rorschach test. Dr. Hayes did the majority of the talking.
“We consulted with each other and have decided we really aren’t equipped to help you on an outpatient basis. We’re asking that you allow us to place you in the hospital for a bit so that we can observe you.”
“But that’s not what I wanted,” I said petulantly. “I told you people that. I don’t see what the big deal is, really. I told you I wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
“But we think you might,” Hayes explained. “The inkblot test revealed a great deal of paranoia. It also showed us you’re ready to explode.”
“It’s an inkblot test!” I protested. “How could it possibly--”
“Once again, we’re asking that you hospitalize yourself,” Hayes interjected.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have bills to pay, work to go to, I just can’t. I’m sorry, but if that’s all you can offer me, I’ll have to go elsewhere. I don’t need to be locked up. I’m not the next Jeffrey Dahmer or anything like that.”
“We’re afraid you might be heading down that path,” Hayes told me. “We’re going to ask you one last time to admit yourself.”
“Sorry, no.” Hayes nodded and left for a brief while. When she returned, she was accompanied by a host of guards in blue shirts who were armed with tasers. A feeling of unreality came over me and, for a brief moment, I wondered whether I was back in Dreamland.
“We’re asking that you go peacefully,” Hayes said. For some reason, there were tears in her eyes. Whatever the cause of her distress, I wasn’t moved to pity.
“I trusted you people!” I shouted. The guards tensed up and I lowered my tone. “This is how you treat people who come to you for help?”
“I’m sorry, but it has to be this way,” Hayes said.
“So be it,” I murmured, and allowed the guards to escort me from the room.
I was too surprised, too shocked, to feel any significant emotion. I was bewildered and a bit fearful, but that was all. It would take a while for the feelings of betrayal and anger to set in.
“How long can they keep me?” I asked one of the guards as they brought me down the hall from the clinic into a series of rooms called the “Crisis Center.”
“It’s usually three days. It depends on how you act in there. If you keep cool, they’ll let you out.” I nodded, satisfied I had a chance of escaping long-term institutionalization. I’d lie like hell to get out if I had to, say all the things I knew they wanted to hear. The time for honesty had come to an end.
The Crisis Center was equipped with a lobby, a couple of bedrooms, and a small doctor’s office. Cameras were everywhere. For some reason, I was surprised to find I wasn’t alone. Sitting in the lobby was a young woman in a bathrobe, a sleeping man who looked like a derelict, and a heavy-set fellow with a shaved head. His bald pate was adorned with a tattoo depicting the Grim Reaper brandishing the inevitable sickle. After the guards had departed, I was told by one of the many nurses to wait for my physical examination.
The bald guy studied me for a bit before speaking. His voice was surprisingly gentle.
“You don’t look so happy to be here,” he observed.
“No, I’m not.”
“You ever been in a place like this before?”
“No.”
“So what did you do?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve just never seen someone accompanied by so many blueshirts before. Whatever you did, this is the best place you could end up. A hell of a lot better than prison.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. As far as I was concerned, the institutionalization was only a more benign form of incarceration. I still couldn’t believe I was going to be locked up.
My gaze wandered from Mr. Reaper to the woman in the bathrobe. I later learned her name was Terry. She was young, pretty…the usual feelings began to stir. She took off her bathrobe and I noticed her shirt was conspicuously tight. Stretching her arms restlessly, she revealed the smooth skin of her belly. (God, anything to nibble at the navel of hers.) For a split second, my desires weren’t tinged with violence. I just wanted to touch her. But that was impossible…it was always impossible. The hospital was no different in that respect. A chasm existed between these pretty objects of desire and myself. I knew this on a visceral level, deep down where consciousness sheds only a dim glow. It was in this deep place that innocuous lust was replaced by wrath.
My head began to swim gently before I remembered where I was and why I was there. I gritted my teeth in frustration and pulled my eyes away from her body toward one of the cameras affixed to the ceiling. Could they see that I was looking at her? Could they tell what I was thinking? I smiled ruefully at my own misgivings. Maybe I really was paranoid.
The doctor who examined me oozed with exaggerated cheerfulness. As he poked and prodded at me, testing my reflexes and obtaining my vitals, I began to feel faint. Telling him so, he asked whether I had ever been sexually molested. As I had told Hayes and the others, I informed him that I’d never been.
“Well, not that you can remember, right?” he asked. I shrugged my shoulders and sighed. What was the point of trying to tell these people the truth? They’d form their own opinions regardless.
I spent the rest of that day in the Crisis Center. My feelings of shock faded away, only to be replaced by a deep exhaustion. Every two hours, a nurse took Mr. Reaper, Terry and myself out to a special smoking porch that was separated from the outside world with chainlink fence. My lighter had been confiscated, and I had to use a special electric lighter encased in a metal box. There was something inexplicably humiliating about using the little device. Mr. Reaper began to pace as we smoked, explaining he heard voices. For the first time, I felt afraid in the Center. It was then that it dawned on me that I was fenced in with bona fide lunatics who heard voices and had delusions. In time, even that fear grew stale as I lounged about the Center and waited to be transferred the hospital. It was only after the sun had fallen beneath the horizon and the stars took their place in the sky that my ride finally arrived. A police car pulled up and I was placed in the back seat. A large wooden club hung from one of the seats, and I idly wondered what it would feel like to be beaten with it. It took no more than a minute to reach the hospital.
The moment I reached the ward, I was taken into a special room where an orderly demanded I strip. I was confused, exhausted and, seeing their gloved hands, I was frightened I was in for a full-body search. The idea of some large orderly sticking his fingers up my ass was not terribly appealing, and I backed away in terror.
“Please, don’t make me strip,” I begged. I sounded pathetic to myself, but no longer cared. “Please, let me have a little dignity. Don’t make me do this.”
The orderly assured me he was just going to check for bruises. I suppose they wanted to insure that I couldn’t display mysterious bruises later and claim one of the staff had beaten me. In other words, abuse on the wards was not unheard of. It was not a comforting notion. Too exhausted to struggle, I stripped and surrendered what was left of my dignity. Satisfied, the orderly confiscated my wallet and brought me to my room.
And what a dismal room it was. The windows were sealed off with fencing. My bed was equipped with a thin mattress and an even thinner blanket. There was no pillow. The bathroom had a door that could not be closed entirely. The mirrors were all fashioned with beaten metal. I suppose the staff feared glass could be shattered to manufacture weapons. The metal was warped and provided an almost nightmarish reflection of myself, twisted and bent beyond recognition. (Is that how these doctors see me? Is that how I look in Dreamland?)
It was not long before I was joined by two resident doctors, one of whom had a less than ideal grasp on the English language. They asked me if I was thinking about hurting anyone at the moment. Looking at them with fatigue-stung eyes, I answered.
“No,” I said quietly. It was the truth. “I just feel scared. I don’t want to be here. Please let me go.” My plea was ignored.
“Will you tell anyone if you have thoughts of hurting someone?” the doctor asked. There was no sign of sympathy on her face or in her heavily accented voice. Why should there be? I was a monster to these people, an aberration waiting to be born. I sighed and nodded my head. Placated, the doctors left me to my own devices. I lay down and tried to rest, but sleep wouldn’t come for me. Instead of dreaming, I decided to explore the ward.
Crazy people, I soon found, tend to be very friendly. Maybe it’s because life on the ward (no more than two intersecting hallways) is so limited. A new face is the closest the long-term patients can come to adventure and a glimpse of the world beyond fenced in windows. I had taken no more than a couple of steps from my room when I was accosted by Dan.
Dan was an ungainly kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty. His face acne-ridden face was friendly enough, but I wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. I muttered “hello” and went on my way. He ran to catch up with me.
“I like how you said hello,” he told me and proffered a hand. I reluctantly shook it, drawing upon what little reserves of patience I had left and trying to appear friendly. “It’s good to see you here,” he continued. “Kind of like seeing my guardian angel.”
The strange thing was that it wasn’t the first time I had been called a guardian angel. Back when I still lived in Pennsylvania, before moving to New York, I befriended a poverty-stricken man who was struggling to support his infant son. I made it a habit to drive the man around and buy his kid medicine. When he learned my name, he compared me to the archangel who serves as my namesake. I guess I fit some people’s conception of an angel. Slender, with blonde hair and cobalt eyes, I suppose I share a passing resemblance to how artists have depicted the archangel Michael. Never mind that I have a penchant for wearing black and have skin adorned with Haitian tattoos. Sighing to myself, I decided to give Dan a chance.
Dan led me to one of the activity rooms where they serve lunatics snacks before bedtime. He began to tell me about life on the ward when a nurse walked up to him, rolling her medication cart. I asked Dan what the meds were for.
“I’m all bound up,” he cheerfully announced. “It’s the hospital food, you know?” I soon learned that constipation was the least of Dan’s problems. Not missing a beat, he began to chant gibberish about snakes and toadstools and god alone knows what else. In retrospect, I highly doubt the nurse was bringing him laxatives. I decided it was time for bed. Fortunately, my sleep was dreamless.
The next morning, I met with a team of doctors who insisted that I take a drug called Giadin. I should probably mention here that I have a fear and abhorrence of psychotropic drugs. The idea of some pill tampering with my thinking scares the living hell out of me. I explained this to them and begged them not to put me on anything. They slyly hinted that they would let me out sooner if I tried the meds. Heartbroken and defeated, I capitulated and allowed them to drug me.
It didn’t take Dan long to find me again, but he proved far less friendly than he had been the night before. He demanded to know why I was in the hospital. I wasn’t about to tell him, and he got agitated. The young man asked if I had ever heard the song “Tom Sawyee.” When I told him I hadn’t, he exploded. He ranted and began to sing at the top of his lungs. When the orderlies chided him, he went to the nearest pay phone and tried to call a lawyer. I’m not sure whom he actually spoke to, but whoever it was received one hell of a sermon. Dan screamed about the rights of Mexican immigrants and a host of other things that concerned him about the state of our fair union before he angrily hung up.
The next three days alternated between tedium and sickness as my body tried to adapt to the tranquilizers they gave me. I met a fat woman who had delusions about an old sitcom and was on the run from the law, waiting to be extradited to her home state. I met a young mother who had been in and out of group homes her entire lives. It didn’t escape me that these lunatics had lovers and families, a fact that bewildered and angered me. These wildly dysfunctional people had been given the opportunity to experience sex and relationships, to have mates and children. I found myself jealous of nut-jobs who were delusional as hell and who regularly received shock therapy. Oh, I know. Given my thoughts and feelings, the nature of my symptoms, thank the gods I’ve never been given a chance. But it’s not like that…I’ve not always been sick. My libido was normal once. It’s taken years of frustration and virtual isolation to twist it, to repress it and make it ill. If you beat and restrain a dog long enough, it will become vicious and it will strain at its collar with the desire to lash out and harm. My fellow crazies weren’t collared and restrained. In some strange sense, they were more normal than I.
Which isn’t to say that sex was an entirely pleasant experience for these people. To kill the boredom of life on the ward, I attended group therapy sessions led by people who didn’t seem wholly equipped to deal with a room full of maniacs. Almost all the women who attended these meetings offered story after story of being molested and sexually abused. I quickly decided not to share what had brought me to the hospital. I’d have been lucky to make it out of those meetings alive.
After four days of this, the doctors brought me in for my second and last meeting to evaluate me for my discharge. I assured them I wasn’t dangerous, that I could control my feelings and that, the moment I felt like I was in danger of losing control, I’d voluntarily return to the loony-bin. What was strange was that I was neither lying nor telling the truth. I said what I said, not knowing the validity of the statement. All I knew is that I wanted my freedom back. Much to my relief, they gave it to me.
For a little while, I felt elation over the freedom I had regained. The elation quickly faded as my symptoms returned. That’s where I stand now.
I know it’s easy and fashionable to demonize people who feel the way I do. I know that sympathy for the devil is only a fantasy cooked up in Mick Jagger’s drug-addled brain. Maybe I should be demonized. I don’t know.
I haven’t given into my feelings. Every day is a struggle between my good angel and my satanic one, and the former is still in control. To quote Jeffrey Dahmer, I don’t know whether I believe in God or Satan but, lately, I’ve been giving plenty of thought to both.
If you look in the Book of Job, you’ll find God boasting about his creations. What’s so unsettling is that he doesn’t bother to brag about the creation of his angels. Rather, he revels in his capacity to create monsters. The Lord lovingly describes the ferocious Behemoth and the terrible Leviathan, two creatures that Catholic demonology regards as devils. I’ve spent my life trying to become normal, trying to be human. I want that more than my poor words could ever hope to describe. But my attempts have been consistently frustrated, and I find myself growing sicker, turning into a devil. When all is said and done, will God look upon me and be proud of what he’s created?
David Berkowitz, better known as the Son of Sam, once described himself as the Chubby Behemoth. Perhaps that would make me the Skinny Leviathan. The bottom of the sea is cold and dark, and the waters are bitter with brine. It’s hard to see your way down there because not even a spark of light can reach so far below. It’s so deep that your prayers are never heard…they’re just swallowed up by the crash of the sea and the sound of your own frantic pulse.
That’s all right, I suppose. I have no one to pray to anyway. God is so far away, and Man lacks the insight to understand. I found that all too well in the hospital. The men and women responsible for my care wanted nothing more than the drug me, pull my fangs, and congratulate themselves for killing another monster while it slept in the womb.
That womb is very, very cold.
Why does it have to be so cold in the Land of Dreams?
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