He Wanted the Moon (11 page)

During the days when I was reading
The Robe,
Mrs. La Point would come every day to the porch.

“Dr. Baird, come and get your robe!” she cried out. A
great deal of this teasing and hazing went on constantly. My bathrobe, slippers and pajamas were kept in a locker room that was only opened as necessary for a patient to get what he needed. At the end of each day, the room was opened so that all of us could get what we needed for the night. I don’t know why Mrs. La Point so often came and made that loud announcement, “Dr Baird, come and get your robe!”

During my return sojourn on the lower ward, I was assigned to a ten-bed dormitory and slept second from the window. One day, a Negro appeared on the ward. It so happens that this Negro was assigned to a bed opposite mine in the dormitory. I knew that being thrown in company with him would not bother me. He was a quiet, well-educated Negro with a light-chocolate color. During the first few days he always seemed to stay at a distance from me as he wandered around on the recreation porch. Gradually I made his acquaintance. We talked about poetry and religion. He read my book
In the Steps of St. Francis.

Clare Johnson sat in the toilet for hours every day and worked with a file and a knife handle, making a key for the door. One morning he had a strong odor of liquor on his breath. I have often wondered where he got the liquor.

The gray-haired middle-aged man who had always wept when I beat him at checkers was still on the lower ward when I came back there. Soon after my arrival, I walked up to him.

“Would you like to play a game of checkers?” I asked. “Do you suppose you could play without weeping?”

We played several games; he wept no more.

ABOUT ten weeks from the date of admission, after ten weeks of constant confinement, I was allowed to go outside with a group of other patients to enjoy the fresh air, walking and basking in the sunshine.

My first day out was an occasion to walk ceaselessly in a circle of concrete walks in front of the auditorium. Dr. Boyd came along and watched me a moment.

“It’s the greatest thing in the world,” he said.

“What is?” I asked.

“The open air,” he stated.

One afternoon, after walking a great deal alone and with Dick Condon, I sat for a few minutes on the auditorium steps to listen to the orchestra play some pieces I liked. This orchestra was composed of a pianist, a drummer, and a violinist. They did very well together. Miss Francis, a nurse and Director of Entertainment, as well as occupational therapist, came out and asked permission of the attendant to bring me in. I was coaxed to play the piano and did play a few pieces I remembered. The members of the orchestra praised me, perhaps excessively, but they made me feel a touch of happiness.

MY private psychiatrist, Bob Fleming, came out to see me, bringing with him my brown Palm Beach suit. As he walked along slowly in the morning sunshine, all his clothing—from hat to shoes—was dark and grayish in color, rather drab. He was a little stooped as usual, and he cast about himself
a somber, lugubrious shadow. His face was dark, his eyes dark, his features expressionless. He looked strongly Northern, taciturn, fathomless, like some wicked perpetrator of an evil plot. My heart did not beat in gladness as I saw him coming. He had never answered any of my letters.

It was his third visit in eleven weeks. He sat and talked, seemed very nervous, acted as if he’d rehearsed his speech and faltered here and there, as if he’d forgotten some of his lines.

I began describing to him the extreme torment of treatments by means of straightjackets and packs.

“The only way I could tolerate these measures was by working out a game to get out of them as quickly as possible,” I said.

“They were a relief, weren’t they?” Bob asked, as if to imply that these harsh and brutal methods had relieved some nervous tension.

I made no answer to this comment. It proved to me how little insight into the barbarities of state hospital methods could be exhibited by anyone who hasn’t been through them.

“I’d like to see you go back to your practice,” he remarked. “When you’re on the job, you are one of the best-adjusted doctors in Boston. Dr. Lang won’t let you leave now, but we can get you transferred to Baldpate. He can’t prevent that. Once we get you to Baldpate, I believe we can get you back to your practice very soon.”

“How long will it take to arrange the transfer?” I asked.

“Only a few days.”

This conversation took place in my room.

“You can bet your bottom dollar that every word we said was overheard,” I said as we walked out.

“How do you know?” asked Bob in an obviously nervous pitch.

“Oh, in various ways,” I replied. “I have opened the door several times unexpectedly and found patients and attendants standing around and listening. This has only been when I had visitors.”

EARLY one afternoon soon after Bob’s visit, the attendant came to my room.

“I don’t know whether it’s good or bad news,” he said, “but you are to be transferred to Baldpate in an hour or two.”

It was six weeks after Charlie Johnson and Harry Solomon had come to me and said they’d arrange it in ten days. A suitcase was brought over and I packed my things. Later an attendant took me to the office where I obtained my watch, wallet, driver’s license, draft card and a check made out to Baldpate for the $97 I had.

Dr. Rickless came by.

“Are you really going to write that book?” he asked.

“Why, yes, certainly,” I replied.

“Well, be as easy on us as you can,” he commented as he went through the door.

“Goodbye,” I said softly.

Outside a limousine was waiting with a driver and one assistant. We drove away. After about ninety-five days at
Westborough, ninety-five days of mingling pain, discomfort, suffering, loneliness, ninety-five days that I shall never fully understand, it was a relief to sit there in a comfortable limousine, a pleasure in itself just to move along the Worcester Turnpike and rest my eyes on the countryside with its vastness and its springtime loveliness after being confined for such a long time.

It was a pretty day. As we drove through Chestnut Hill, I wanted to ask the driver to stop at my house so that I could see my children, but I did not make the request. I felt sure it would be against the rules and I did not want to ask special favors. We drove through Boston to the Newburyport Turnpike, and on to Baldpate.

I said to myself: When I get to Baldpate, I shall meet a new group of people: doctors, nurses, attendants, male and female patients. I know that I shall encounter things that may upset me. I shall remain calm. I shall cooperate. I shall make no attempt to escape. I shall prove that I have made a complete recovery.

CHAPTER TEN

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photograph credit 10.1
)

Baldpate was a small private sanitarium located in Georgetown, Massachusetts, about two hours’ drive from Westborough. Once a popular inn, the main building—a Victorian clapboard with gables and porches—sat on a small hill, overlooking a lake and farmland. At the time of my father’s arrival, the sanitarium had only recently been established under the guidance of a gentle Austrian psychiatrist named Dr. George Schlomer. (Dr. Schlomer became a favorite doctor of the poet Robert Lowell, who stayed here in the 1960s.) Baldpate was known as one of the more progressive institutions in Massachusetts. Dr. Schlomer believed that patients should be given their freedom within hospital grounds, and patients were allowed to go to the lake and even into the nearby town, as long as they obtained permission. In order to stay there, my father was required to prove he was peaceful enough to enjoy Baldpate’s many privileges. The understanding was that if he became too disturbed or violent, he would be moved elsewhere.

The day of his arrival, a psychiatrist named Dr. Buck Rose came out to welcome my father. Dr. Rose had treated my father in the past and knew his case well. He wrote the following notes in the Baldpate records:

Baldpate Hospital, 1944

On admission, Dr. Baird seemed tense and somewhat restless being anxious to talk but in particular reference to his experiences at the State Hospital during the past 95 days. During his time at Westborough, he was threatening, restive and extremely destructive, destroying several iron hospital beds and various other parts of the hospital structure. Four months later, however, he seemed much quieter. He was admitted to room 19 where he was served his supper. After supper he fitted in well with the routine of the hospital and entered in social activities at the house.

When seen this morning he stated that he had a comfortable night without medication and has an entirely different feeling about life. He is confident that we will find him completely normal and will be willing to discharge him soon. He states that he wishes to cooperate in every way and promises repeatedly that we will not be sorry that we have taken him and that he will cause no trouble.

I have personally known this man, both as a friend and as a fellow physician, for eight to ten years and it has fallen to my lot to have seen him in several of his psychiatric episodes. On several occasions I saw him at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and on one occasion at the McLean Hospital. It is of interest to me that I saw him in December at the Harvard Club and anticipated at that time a manic break, warned him of it, and suggested that he see his private psychiatrist, Dr. Fleming. As I talked with him today, I am impressed with two things:

1.  He is not as depressed as I had expected.

2.  He is suggestively hypo-manic and is a little flighty in his conversation and manner.

Knowing the patient, I wonder if he is not in a period in which he is able to control himself at times, but distinctly not well. I do not anticipate any serious trouble however.

AFTER being greeted by Dr. Rose and unpacking, I sat by the window for a while, and then walked around to see the grounds and to enjoy the feeling of having a little greater freedom. At about 4:30 p.m. I was sitting in a chair beneath a tall, majestic tree. As I looked down through the woods, I saw a section of Baldpate Lake glistening in the afternoon sun. I heard footsteps on the grass and stood up as a doctor came forward and introduced me to the hostess; young,
blond and attractive. He left us together and we talked and walked along. Suddenly she had the inspiration to drive me into Georgetown so that we could pick up her Victrola and records for dancing that evening. The doctor gave his permission for me to go along. The trip was not a long one but it breathed of added freedom. The blood coursed more gladly in my veins.