PARANOIA

Unable to refuse gross or subtle demands, yet failing always his every execution, he huddled in the chair, made himself small, and waited for the sound of his name which would activate him like an automaton... pushing him toward another failure.

If fear, hate, confusion, dread and desperation ~~ if all of these ~~ were given a singular body, and that body, movement, you would see it hovering over him now. More furious than a composite monster dredged from the midnight imagination of history's every witch and child, you would see this fiend, this ogre with black and veiny wings bearing down of him at that moment, pushing down his fragile shoulders, beating against his bewildered face.

Still, with the sound of his name another creature, an indefatigable creature within would rush through him, and invading him, blood, fiber and brain, would send him staggering to his feet; and the ogre would be lifted from his back, only to soar all the while over him, nipping at his hair and shoulders, until another failure was realized ~~ until the laughter.

Then... then it would fall again over the frail body, pushing him down, down. Those wings! that dreadful left wing an impenetrable blanket over the past, that horrid right wing flapping, an opaque skin flung across the future.
* * *


The above prose-poem was written in 1963. The subject was Chuck Barnes.

Which of us did not approach him with confused ambivalence? There was pity, certainly, for he was a pitiable boy. His bird-like frailty, his slouched shoulders, his bony hands always thrust in his pockets as he wandered about, forever alone, and darkly, darkly sad. But the pity felt for him was not balanced by a truly human sympathy, for in return for any warmth or light given him, the donor seemed to find himself imbued with the only thing that the boy could give: that black despondency and dejection of which he seemed to be composed. It was an unstructured, spontaneous, almost alchemical transference-in-reverse.

Yet strangely, there were a number of occesions in which he would make sporadic and inept attempts at gravitating toward one group or another. It inevitably ended in failure.

It was in response to watching him struggling to lift a heavy barbell overhead amidst the jeering and hooting of his peers that I wrote the prose-poem, which I offer as a kind of preamble to this paper. The lack of professional polish notwithstanding, this piece conveys to me the sense of desolation that surrounded him.

The therapists had Chuck Barnes labeled "paranoid schizophrenic." As far as I know few therapists had any hope for his "recovery." He had been there several years prior to my coming and was still there when I left. His sole and steady emotional diet were solitude and defeat.

At the time the prose-poem was written I was a counselor for a dormitory of boys varying in age between fourteen and twenty-one. All were labeled either emotionally disturbed, mentally defective or "demonstrating delinquent behavior." The labeling procedure was, by and large, a misnomer, however. Some inmates would, by non-institutinal standards (that is, on the outside), have been considered entirely normal. Others, to be sure, were "normal" only upon arrival. Moreover, only a few left that institution exhibiting less delinguent behavior than when they came.


~ TO BE CONTINUED ~


I hope you enjoyed the first installment of what will become four or five chapters of a very important period in my life. While you wait for the next one won't you visit my web-site on Authorsden.com? I plan on adding to my poetry and short stories there.

Until next time ... ALWAYS UPWARDS

Jay Squires