I had the key and the key. Why was I given two? I hoped they would open secrets of the mind along with the heavy metal door.
I came to Manhattan State Hospital in the winter of 1974 to fulfill a field requirement for the Westchester Institute. I was beginning my psychotherapy studies.
I was assigned to Jim. “He's the best,” the woman in charge of volunteers said. She was right. He works on the tenth floor, in the Dunlap building. That's where the elderly patients, and the so-called ‘odds and ends' are. Every morning he leads a group. He gets folks awake and moving. They're like delicate flowers opening to the sun with him around. He takes them from the ward, where they're sitting, like bumps on a log, to a smaller room. While they sit in a circle, he guides them through gentle physical exercises. He gives them a mirror to have a look at themselves. He finishes the session with singing and holding hands.
Jim wanted to be an opera singer. Once he reached his thirties, he put that dream aside and became an occupational therapist. The patients on the tenth floor were vegetables, until Jim got a hold of them. They become alive…for a couple of hours a day, anyway.
Jim never displays his authority but he's totally in charge. He has an office but prefers to sit on a chair in the hallway. We'd sit there, and discuss what took place that day. A young Jewish man of about eighteen passes by. He shuffles close to the wall, drawing an invisible line with his forefinger; dividing the wall into two parts. Which part is kosher, and which part is off-limits, remains his secret. “Hi David,” Jim greets him warmly. David doesn't talk. Before Jim was in his life, David didn't move. He stood in rigid catatonia.
After six months, I'm offered a part-time as a recreational therapist. It's on the fourth floor, in the Murray Hill section.
This was my first morning. I put the key in the lock, and enter the ward as an employee. The place is vast and emptiness reverberates in the air. Morning light streams through the windows that are protected with heavy steel mesh. I step into the room. The door slams shut. There's an eerie tinny hollow sound. My footsteps echo as I walk to one of the tables in the back of the room and wait.
Before long, the heavy door opens and the nurse's aide ushers the patients into the ward. About 20 men and women shuffle and scatter themselves around the room. Most everyone is smoking or begging for cigarettes. I wait a bit. Then I try to coax people into a circle for an exercise group, like Jim had taught me. I gather five of the men. They're like docile children who drink coffee, and smoke cigarettes. They follow the movements and seem glad for the attention.
I take out a red, white and blue polka dot beach ball from my recreational bag. I toss it back and forth with a couple of women seated in the back of the room. That's good for about five minutes. I wait a bit.
I try to engage a young woman in conversation. It's going fine. I maneuver the subject matter. It's a manipulative moment. She bursts into flame – raising her voice screaming. I move away. I miss Jim.
The head of the ward, Dr. Mavorvik, has a pleasant we're-all-in-this-human-thing-together attitude like Jim. One day in July, sitting under a tree, I'm doing a female patient's nails. Dr. Mavorvik's seated amongst other patients on a bench. A scruffy fellow with a tobacco-stained demeanor thrusts his face into Dr. Mavorvik's and demands a cigarette. “Sure,” Dr. Mavorvik says. “If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have a job.”
One day I came to work and found the heavy wire covering completely indented and unhinged on one of the windows. The window was all-over cracked. Fresh gashes shouted from the rim. “What's this here?”'
“One of the male patients had a rage attack.”
“What happened to him?”
“They put him in a straight jacket. It took four men. He's on the violent ward now.”
I was glad I missed that one.
#
We're to have a staff meeting. Dr. Talbot, the new head of the hospital, is to be introduced. Dr. Talbot is a tall, nice looking young lanky fellow with red hair. He says all the right things; about the hospital making improvements, about looking forward to working with everybody. A short stocky psychiatrist gives a report. Then it's Jim's turn to report about the tenth floor. Maybe Jim would clue them in on how patients had hearts and souls? How the healthy part, that human part could be nourished and grow?
But Jim doesn't speak after all. He sends David, as his representative. David draws a line at this meeting and all of us are off-limits. The kosher communicative part he keeps secret. It sounds absurd but the person giving the report must be David. It isn't Jim or if it is, for some reason he's acting like David. Jim is stammering and stuttering. I can hardly follow what's being said. No one here would ever believe listening to this presentation what healthy work Jim is doing.
Perhaps Jim took a look at all those “real” doctors and therapists and felt the slot was taken. Jim seemed to flip into patient mode instead. I've come to learn that one role implies the other. Everyone has a little bit of patient in them. Most just keep it to themselves. Jim let it all hang out, being a former opera singer and all – he was more expressive. Although catatonia is not expressive – it's dramatic. Stammering and stuttering and looking totally inept, he did a rather good impersonation of one of Manhattan States many patients.
I begin to understand why I was given two keys when I started to work. They're for the same door and the same lock. One key was for going into the ward. The other key was for going out . Just in case I flipped into patient-mode, I had the other key to get out of it.
Jim moved to Arizona with his lover not long after that meeting. He wanted to go where it was warmer, he said. I left the hospital a couple of months later. I handed back the key and the key and signed for my last paycheck. I had worked at Manhattan State Hospital a year and a half.
I'll always remember Jim. He brought something to that tenth floor that was beautiful and rare. He wasn't afraid to be on the inside of the ward with his heart, along with his therapeutic skills, which were exceptional. There were at least two: Jim and Jim. This got me wondering if there weren't in fact, two or more of me.